The Hermit
Page 52
– Who are you? I can’t figure out why you’re doing all this.
– I’m just an old man with nothing better to do.
She puts on the ring, but it’s much too large and she shifts it to her index finger; it glides on like something that belongs there. – Thank you, she says again. Almost in relief. She returns to the restaurant.
He drives home. He has forgotten how much he loves Alejandro’s Trail, and the curve that makes his stomach lurch. He doesn’t enter his house, but sits on a rock and turns his face up towards the sun. He notices the goats running about. Hardy’s back again, though he hasn’t approached the house. Soon Laurel joins him and they stare down the hill at Erhard. Today, Erhard’s the one who walks towards them.
Acknowledgments
One must be disciplined and a little crazy to write a book, and one must have patience and energy in surplus to live with a writer. I love my family for giving me the space I need. To my beloved P., who has helped me mature and challenged me more than anyone else. Thank you to good friends who always believed in my novel. Thank you to everyone who, with their interest and knowledge, has helped bring The Hermit to life: My editor K.; my agents; Nicole Callaghan in Fuerteventura; various sailors, taxi drivers, and piano tuners; and the cafe staff at the fantastic Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, who’ve poured my black coffee for five years and counting, because I don’t have an office space, and simply love the view of the sea.
A Oneworld book
First published in North America, Great Britain and Australia by Oneworld Publications, 2016
This ebook published by Oneworld Publications, 2016
Originally published in Danish as Eremitten by Forlaget Bindslev, 2014
Copyright © Thomas Rydahl, 2014
Translation copyright © K. E. Semmel, 2016
Published by agreement with the Nordin Agency, Sweden
The moral right of Thomas Rydahl to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78074-889-4
ISBN 978-1-78074-890-0 (eBook)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Typesetting and ebook by Tetragon, London
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