The Giver of Stars(47)

Alice stood shoulder to shoulder with Margery, Beth and Izzy, in a corner at the back, while Mrs Brady addressed the assembled gathering. Bennett sat two rows back beside his father. ‘You going to sit down, girl?’ Mr Van Cleve had said, looking her up and down as he entered.

‘I’m fine right here, thank you,’ she had answered, and watched as his expression turned disapprovingly towards his son.

‘We have always prided ourselves on being a pleasant, orderly town,’ Mrs Brady was saying. ‘We do not want to become the kind of place where thuggish behaviour becomes the norm. I have spoken to the parents of the young men concerned and made it clear that this will not be tolerated. A library is a sacred place – a sacred place of learning. It should not be considered fair game just because it is staffed by women.’

‘I’d like to add to that, Mrs Brady.’ Fred stepped forward. Alice recalled the way he had looked at her on the night of Tex Lafayette’s show, the strange intimacy of his bathroom, and felt her skin prickle with colour, as if she had done something to be ashamed of. She had told Annie the green dress belonged to Beth. Annie’s left eyebrow had lifted halfway to the heavens.

‘That library is in my old shed,’ said Fred. ‘That means, in case anyone here is in any doubt, that it is on my property. I cannot be responsible for what happens to trespassers.’ He looked slowly around the hall. ‘Anyone who thinks they have business heading into that building without my permission, or that of any of these ladies, will have me to answer to.’

He caught Alice’s eye as he stood down, and she felt her cheeks colour again.

‘I understand you have strong feelings about your property, Fred.’ Henry Porteous stood. ‘But there are larger issues to discuss here. I, and a good number of our neighbours, am concerned about the impact this library is having on our little town. There are reports of wives no longer keeping house because they are too busy reading fancy magazines or cheap romances. There are children picking up disruptive ideas from comic books. We’re struggling to control what influences are coming into our homes.’

‘They’re just books, Henry Porteous! How do you think the great scholars of old learned?’ Mrs Brady’s arms folded across her chest, forming a solid, unbridgeable shelf.

‘I’d put a dollar to a dime the great scholars were not reading The Amorous Sheik of Araby, or whatever it was my daughter was wasting her time with the other day. Do we really want their minds polluted with this stuff? I don’t want my daughter thinking she can run off with some Egyptian.’

‘Your daughter has about as much chance of having her head turned by a Sheik of Araby as I do of becoming Cleopatra.’

‘But you can’t be sure.’

‘You want me to go through every book in this library to check for things that you might find fanciful, Henry Porteous? There are more challenging stories in the Bible than there are in the Pictorial Review and you know it.’

‘Well, now you sound as sacrilegious as they do.’

Mrs Beidecker stood. ‘May I speak? I would like to thank the book ladies. Our pupils have very much enjoyed the new books and learning materials, and the textbooks have proven very useful in helping them progress. I go through all the comic books before we hand them out, just to check what is inside, and I have found absolutely nothing to concern even the most sensitive of minds.’

‘But you’re foreign!’ Mr Porteous interjected.

‘Mrs Beidecker came to our school with the highest of credentials,’ Mrs Brady exclaimed. ‘And you know it, Henry Porteous. Why, doesn’t your own niece attend her classes?’

‘Well, maybe she shouldn’t.’

‘Settle down! Settle down!’ Pastor McIntosh climbed to his feet. ‘Now I understand feelings are running high. And yes, Mrs Brady, there are some of us who do have reservations about the impact of this library on formative minds but –’

‘But what?’

‘There is clearly another issue here … the employment of a coloured.’

‘What issue would that be, Pastor?’

‘You may favour the progressive ways, Mrs Brady, but many in this town do not believe that coloured folks should be in our libraries.’

‘That’s right,’ said Mr Van Cleve. He stood, and surveyed the sea of white faces. ‘The 1933 Public Accommodations Law authorizes – and I quote here – “the establishment of segregated libraries for different races”. The coloured girl should not be in our library. You believe you’re above the law now, Margery O’Hare?’

Alice’s heart had lodged somewhere in her throat, but Margery, stepping forward, appeared supremely untroubled. ‘Nope.’

‘Nope?’

‘No. Because Miss Sophia isn’t using the library. She’s just working there.’ She smiled at him sweetly. ‘We’ve told her very firmly she is under no circumstances to open any of our books and read them.’

There was a low ripple of laughter.

Mr Van Cleve’s face darkened. ‘You can’t employ a coloured in a white library. It’s against the law, and the laws of nature.’

‘You don’t believe in employing them, huh?’

‘It’s not about me. It’s about the law.’

‘I’m most surprised to hear you complaining, Mr Van Cleve,’ she said.