Excerpt from Melmoth by Sarah Perry, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Helen said, 'So they tell me.'

'Well, then.' Thea put down her fork. 'How long have you lived in Prague?'

'Twenty years.'

'And what do you do?'

'I work as a translator, though my German is better than my Czech.'

'How wonderful! What are you working on at the moment – Schiller? Peter Stamm? A new edition of Sebald?'

'An instruction manual for operating Bosch power tools.' (Helen smiled then; and she smiles now, remembering.)

'I can't pretend I'm not disappointed! And tell me: was I right – are you from London, or from Essex?'

'Essex, I'm afraid.'

'Ah. Well, that can't be helped. And you came to Prague because –?'

Helen flushed. How could she explain her exile, her self-punishment, to these smiling strangers? Thea saw it: 'Forgive me! I never quite lost the habit of cross-examination.'

'If our guest were in the dock,' said Karel, 'I wonder what the indictment could be?' He peered at Helen over a glass of wine, then drank it. There was a flash of dislike in Helen then – for the pair of them, with their good clothes, their warm apartment, their ease; for their unlooked-for hospitality, their charm, their way of wheedling out confidences. But it was swiftly extinguished, because Thea said, with a repressing pat on Karel's hand, and a mollifying smile, 'Did either of you see that old man in the library the day we met, crying over a manuscript? What do you think he was writing – love letters, perhaps, to some man or woman long dead?' And later, helping Helen into her coat, 'I have so loved having you here – won't you come back, and we can talk about England, and all the things we hate about it, and how much we would like to go home.'


All this Helen recalls with a kind of disbelieving fondness, because they are gone now, those easy evenings; have seemed, in the few months since Thea's stroke, to have actually been erased. And now she is at this small table, with this glass of water – with this new Karel: stooping, uneasy, a little frantic. If whatever was concealed in that file, wrapped three times in leather cords, has had such malignant power, might it also disrupt her peace of mind? But – no! – it is impossible. That peace of mind, so hard won, is buttressed with stone. She draws the sheet of paper towards her, and reads: My dear Dr Pražan - how deeply I regret that I must put this document in your hands and make you the witness to what I have done...


Helen Franklin, having read the letter, feels no chill – no lifting of the fine fair hairs at the nape of her neck. She greets it with interest, no more. An old man, confessing some long-forgotten sin (my fault, she murmurs: my fault, my most grievous fault), which doubtless could not, these days, tweak the eyebrow of the most ascetic priest. Nonetheless (she draws the paper towards her; reads: my pen is out of ink, the door is open), something curious in its fear and longing that is something very like the half-shamed anxious glances of her friend (she is coming!).

Karel returns with food: slabs of beef, thick gravy seeping into porous dumplings. 'Well?' he says, with a not quite pleasant grin. Helen takes the offered plate; eats deliberately, in small bites, and without pleasure.

'Poor chap,' she says. 'Old, I suppose? Only a very old man or a very affected one would use a typewriter.'

'Ninety-four. He looked as if he'd been pickled in vinegar, put in a jar. 'You will outlive me,' I said. 'Bring vodka to my funeral.' He laughed at that.'

Helen notes the tense. 'He has died, then? No beer for me, thank you.' She sets down her fork, and gives him a quick kind look. 'You know, it would be simpler if you just told me about it. If you told me all about it – the old man, and the woman you think you see. I don't like mysteries or surprises. How many times have I told you? I don't like them at all.'

Excerpted from Melmoth by Sarah Perry. Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Perry. Excerpted by permission of Custom House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.