Excerpt from The Café with No Name by Robert Seethaler, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Before the market closed, he went back to the butcher's. He'd picked up a jar of grease at the ironmonger's to lubricate the awning's joints. He dipped a finger in the grease and spread it on the hinges and the threads of the adjusting screw. He took his time over the job, rubbing and dabbing at the screw until his fingertips hurt.

"You keep on like that and you'll rub right through the metal," the butcher said. He took a wallet out of the knife drawer and pulled out a note, his fingers clumsy.

"Forget it," said Simon.

The butcher shrugged and put his money away again. "You can come back any time," he said. "There's always work for a man like you."

"Thanks."

"I wish you luck. But I'll be seeing you anyway."

"Oh, yes," said Simon. "You'll be seeing me."

That evening, he didn't walk home his usual way. He took the narrow Leopoldstadt streets via Praterstrasse and Vorgartenstrasse up to the Danube, where freight ships and barges dipped out of the shadow of Reich Bridge, gliding up¬stream in the glistening evening sunlight. As he reached the old machine shop, he broke into a run. He ran along the towpath, past enormous hunks of concrete, past dump sites, scrap heaps and rusty iron fences. Driftwood and swollen cardboard boxes slopped against the riverbank. Gulls screeched high above him, and over the grassy strip on the north bank of the Danube, suburban children's kites painted tiny bright dabs on the sky. He ran panting, his mouth open and his arms flailing. Sweat ran down his face and his heart thudded hard in his throat. He squinted towards the sun and saw the café with its dusty seating area before him, the tables and chairs in the failing light, the faces on the wallpapered brickwork, and as he ran on, stum¬bling, a stabbing in his lungs—under Augarten Bridge, up a washed-out embankment, over hot, crunching gravel and past black rushes and scrub with scraps of paper fluttering on its thorns—he felt he could run that way forever.

Excerpted from The Café with No Name by Robert Seethaler. Copyright © 2025 by Robert Seethaler. Excerpted by permission of Europa Editions. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.