The Paris Library(37)

Margaret’s eyes were so earnest that I found myself telling her a truth that I just now understood. “He did try to tell me.” My teacup trembled in my hand. “I wish I’d listened. He’s always been there for me, yet the one time he needed me…”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I could have talked him out of enlisting.”

“Perhaps this is something he felt he had to do.”

“Perhaps.…”

Margaret gestured to the scene before us. Peter-the-shelver was orienting Helen, the newest member of staff, a reference librarian from Rhode Island with a frizzy bob and dreamy eyes. Gliding along the stacks, the two of them reminisced about New England, 917.4, the most magical place on earth; I’d read enough love stories to know the beginning of one when I saw it.

Boris approached with a long roll of paper and said we needed to cover the windowpanes to protect against the shattering of glass in case of a bombing.

“How’s your brother?” he asked as he laid the roll over the table.

I cut a large swathe. “He still hasn’t written.”

“How long has it been?”

“Two weeks.”

“When I joined the army,” Boris said, spreading glue onto the paper with an old paint brush, “we cadets trained so hard that at night we fell into our bunks dead tired. There was no time for correspondence. The sergeant wanted it that way, wanted us to leave our former lives behind.”

“You’re probably right.…”

“But it’s hard to be the one left behind.”

Boris understood. We said little, but much, as we enveloped the Library in darkness. With so many windows, it took two days.

Then on September 1, the army called up men aged eighteen through thirty-five. Boris, the neighbor boys I’d grown up with, the pasty doctoral students who practically lived in the reference room, the baker who burned the baguettes—all mobilized. Papa asked to keep his police officers in Paris; Paul received a dispensation to keep working on his aunt’s farm—for now.

Everywhere, I saw evidence that war was imminent: in the army, which had swelled its ranks; in the Herald with its ominous headlines; and on the Library bulletin board, alongside the bestseller list, a newly posted paper embossed with the US embassy seal declared, “In view of the situation prevailing in Europe, it is advisable that American citizens return to the United States.”

Would Miss Reeder follow the embassy’s directive? What if the British ambassador issued a similar statement and I lost Margaret?

I ran past the card catalog, where Aunt Caro had introduced me to Dewey and a whole constellation; past the stacks where Paul and I had first kissed; past the back room where Margaret and I had become friends, to Miss Reeder’s office.

The Directress swiveled slightly in her chair, pen in hand, her attention on the documents spread over her desk. The aroma of her coffee filled the air. There were no boxes, no sign of packing. She was here. As long as she was here, everything would be all right. My panic receded, and I took a slow, deep breath.

“You’re not going home?” I asked.

“Home?”

“You’re not leaving?”

Her brows came together, and she regarded me quizzically, as if the thought had never occurred to her. Miss Reeder replied, “I am home.”


1 September 1939

Dearest Paul,

I miss you so, I want to feel your arms around my waist, your whisper of reassurance at my temple. My chest has ached since Rémy enlisted. I hate how I left things with him. When you return, things will be better.

Since most local men have been mobilized, your aunt surely needs you now more than ever, but I need you, too, and count the days until you come back.

All my love,

your prickly librarian





* * *




I COULDN’T ESCAPE THE fact that Rémy had a new confidante, but I could escape her by remaining in the periodical room as much as possible. Today as always, I was buoyed by seeing my habitués. Swathed in a purple shawl, Professor Cohen sighed over a beautiful passage of Voyage in the Dark. Beside her, Madame Simon’s dentures clicked as she swooned over the fashion in Harper’s Bazaar. Across from them, M. de Nerciat and Mr. Pryce-Jones bantered.

“The best whisky’s made in Scotland,” the Englishman said. “I’m half Scotch myself.”

“Yes, I know,” the Frenchman murmured. “And the other half is soda.”

“Glendronach is the best!”

Never willing to admit that Great Britain produced anything of value, the Frenchman argued, “George Dickel out of Tennessee is the finest.”

“A taste test is the way to find out who’s right,” I told them.

“Odile, you’re ingenious!”

Bitsi sidled up to me. “My brother was called up,” she said. “He left yesterday.”

“Mine left weeks ago,” I said. “But then you knew all about it, didn’t you?”

“Rémy would have been called up anyway.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I snarled.

Subscribers gaped in surprise. “We’re all worried,” Professor Cohen soothed.

Turning away from Bitsi, I opened the Herald and read the editorial: “For all the present anxiety, a great war may never come. Certainly no one, with the possibility of Herr Hitler, can say that it will.” I didn’t realize I’d said the words aloud until I saw Mme. Simon grimace.