The Paris Library(26)

“It’s what I always wanted to do,” he said. “To help people, to keep them safe.”

“How rewarding!” she said.

“Why on earth would you want to be a librarian?” he asked, an étincelle, a sparkle, in his eye.

“Sometimes I like books more than people.”

“Books don’t lie or steal,” he said. “We can depend on them.”

I was surprised, and heartened, to hear an echo of my own feelings.

“What kind of reader are you?” I asked.

“Is this for you, or the Library newsletter?”

I felt my face flush with pride. “You read my newsletter?”

“I loved Miss Wedd’s answer, and looked up old Heraclitus.”

“?‘We never step into the same river twice,’?” he and I said together.

“I’m asking for me,” I said shyly.

“I like nonfiction, mainly. Especially geography. I’ve enjoyed studying English grammar again, something with rules. Something I can point to and say, yes, exactly like that. I suppose it’s because I need things to be true.”

I was ready to argue that novels could be truer than life, but he continued, “Probably because I spend time with criminals who ignore rules. Felons don’t care who they hurt. They tell good stories, and you want to believe they had a reason for doing what they did. It’s hard when you learn that someone you’d trusted lied to your face.”

“It is painful,” I said, thinking of Papa and his harlot.

The waiter cleared his throat. I’d forgotten we were in a busy restaurant, forgotten dear Margaret at my side. After le serveur took our order, Paul told her in halting English, “I’m not sure I could live so far from home. I admire you.”

“That’s kind of you,” she said. “I was terribly homesick, but then I met Odile.”

“Margaret has been an amazing help at the Library.”

Blushing, she said, “Do you have holiday plans?”

“Each summer, I help my aunt on the farm,” he said.

“Near Paris?” Margaret asked.

“In Brittany.”

“You’re going away?” I said glumly. The waiter brought our steak frites, but I was no longer hungry and picked at my fries.

After dinner, Margaret thanked Paul and climbed into a taxi. Under the soft glow of the streetlights, he walked me home. I didn’t know if I should hurry like I usually did or match his pace. I didn’t know if I should shove my hand in my pocket or let it dangle at my side so he could hold it, if he wanted to. Ascending the stairs, I wondered if he would lean down until his lips were on mine, until I could breathe him in like air. On the landing, he didn’t come closer. I hid my disappointment by bowing my head to search for the key, lost in the bottom of my clutch.

As I tried to fit it into the lock, Paul touched my wrist. I froze.

“I was going to ask you out,” he said.

“You were?”

“Then your father offered me a job.”

I dropped the key.

Paul liked me because of Papa. What a fool I’d made of myself, hunting him down at the station. I felt queasy. I needed to move to the other side of the threshold and close the door between us. Bending down, my fingers swiped at the key, but Paul was faster, grasping it in one hand, my elbow in the other.

“I’m qualified,” he said, righting me, “and frankly, need the raise to afford somewhere decent to live.”

I stared at the small blue button of his shirt. “Congratulations. When do you start?”

“I turned him down.”

“You did?”

“I never want you to doubt my feelings.”

My heart began to bloom. He covered my mouth with his. At first, my lips pursed like a starlet’s in the movies, then my mouth opened, and his tongue caressed mine. When Paul raised his head, I gazed at him in wonder, feeling that in the space of a languorous kiss I’d plummeted into Wuthering Heights.



* * *




ON BASTILLE DAY, when I arrived at Margaret’s flat, a butler led me to the sitting room, where portraits of snooty men looked down on me. Intimidated, I moved from them to the grand piano parked in the corner. It was as big as Papa’s car. My fidgety fingers hit a few notes. No one I knew had a butler or a grand piano—elements of novels, not real life. At the window, I could see the golden-domed chapel where Napoleon was buried. Indeed, the neighbors here were high-ranking. At home, we rarely opened the windows because of the coal dust that wafted over from the train station. The low ceilings made our dim apartment feel cozy on good days, claustrophobic on bad. The view from my bedroom was into the building opposite ours—ten feet away—where a line of limp girdles dried above Madame Feldman’s tub. Sunlight and splendid views were a luxury. Margaret wasn’t exactly the waif I’d pictured.

“Did we keep you waiting? Christina didn’t want to get out of the tub,” Margaret said, her daughter in her arms. The little girl hid her face in the collar of Margaret’s blouse, and all I could see were damp ringlets.

“We met at Story Hour,” I reminded Christina. “It’s my favorite time of the week.”

She perked up. “Mine too.”

A nanny came for Christina, and I trailed Margaret through her powder-blue bedroom to the dressing room, which was the size of Miss Reeder’s office. One wall was lined with couture day dresses, another with evening gowns, each worth more than a year’s salary. It was hard to believe that one woman had so much, and impossible not to gawk. The colors! Candy-apple red, toffee, peppermint, licorice! I couldn’t stop touching the gowns.