The Paris Library(39)
“I’ll man the circulation desk,” Bitsi said.
“I want to stay,” our bookkeeper Miss Wedd said.
“Me too.” I mentally put my clothes back in the armoire. My place was here. I wanted to do everything I could to make sure that our Library would remain open.
“I can’t return to Rhode Island so soon,” Helen-in-reference said.
Peter-the-shelver gazed at her. “I don’t want to leave.”
Miss Reeder regarded us gratefully. “Nonetheless, we must do what we can to keep subscribers safe.”
Peter-the-shelver lugged pails of sand to the top floor in case air raids caused fires. Miss Wedd pasted directions to the closest shelter—the metro station—on the wall. During the safety drill, Miss Reeder cleared the reading room, tucking her arms around scared students. I herded my habitués from the periodical room. Snatching Good Morning, Midnight from the shelf as if she were saving her best friend from a burning building, Professor Cohen proclaimed, “I’ll not leave Jean Rhys.” Helen-in-reference carried bottles of drinking water; the caretaker cut the electricity. At the door, Bitsi waved the lantern. And a cortege of dazed book lovers trudged two blocks to the safety of the station. In the dim metro tunnel, we wondered what would happen, and when.
CHAPTER 14
Odile
BORIS STROLLED INTO the reading room as if he’d gone for a long lunch, not six days with the army. Subscribers swarmed, vying to welcome him back. Monsieur de Nerciat and Mr. Pryce-Jones were the first to pump Boris’s hand in vigorous handshakes. Professor Cohen was next. “We’re glad you’re home safe. Your wife and daughter must be relieved.” I tried to reach him, but a scrum of bookworms surrounded him. I withdrew to the caddy and grabbed a book to reshelf. The call number on the spine was 223. Was that religion or philosophy? The things I knew for sure grew muddled. Since Rémy had left, I often found myself in the middle of a room, unable to figure out where I belonged.
Boris found me deep in 200. “How are you?” he asked.
“Scared for Rémy.”
He tucked my book onto the shelf. “I know the feeling. My brother Oleg enlisted in the Foreign Legion.”
“I hope he’ll be safe. At least you were able to return.”
“Thanks to Miss Reeder, who wrote to the army. Apparently, I’m indispensable.”
“Indispensable. That has a nice ring to it.”
She’d also managed to keep the caretaker. Thankfully, Papa received permission to keep his police officers in Paris. He wanted to shield his men, even if he wasn’t able to protect his own son. I was worried sick about Rémy, but grateful, so grateful that I wouldn’t lose Paul.
Boris tucked another book into place. “I’d have done my duty in the French army. After all, I’ve already fought one war.”
“You have?”
“I was in cadet training when the Russian Revolution broke out. Some of us were barely fifteen years old, but we sneaked away to join the army.”
“Fifteen…”
He explained that he and his comrades thought that shooting a strawberry to smithereens at ten paces made them men, and that when he and his best friend planned to steal away, their biggest concern was which uniform would make them appear more dashing. “We wondered if we should go on foot or take a horse. Go hungry, or raid the pantry and risk waking the surly cook. It was easy to enlist,” he concluded. “Like most children, we could envision no more than a week ahead.”
That was the way Rémy had left home, eager for an adventure, anxious to prove to Papa that he was a man.
“My captain wasn’t much older than me. He ordered us to shoot to kill, but it’s hard to kill your fellow countrymen.” Boris swallowed. “Hard to kill anyone.”
The stacks were tall, as hallowed as a confessional. He stared at the row of books lined up like soldiers. “Across the river from us, there was a lookout, one of theirs,” he continued. “A fellow Russian, the enemy. I pulled the trigger and grazed his earlobe.”
“His earlobe?”
Boris shrugged. “I was a decent shot. I didn’t want to kill the chap. Merely warn him away.”
“You did the right thing.”
He took another book and ran his hand over the cover somberly. “Later, my regiment came face-to-face with his, and that soldier killed my best friend.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was shot twice.” His finger followed a scar along his cheek. The mark was so faint that I’d thought it a laugh line. “But typhus almost did me in. The infirmary was worse than the front. I grew up in a boisterous family and went from military school to the army. I’d never had a second of solitude, never had to face my own thoughts. Being alone in the hospital was the lowest point in my life. One thing got me through—thoughts of my sisters together.”
He gestured to the children’s room, where Bitsi paced.
“She and I are not sisters,” I said.
He regarded me with such sorrow. “Back to the circ desk,” he said in a resigned tone, and left me alone with my regret and resentment.
CHAPTER 15
Odile
THREE DAYS AFTER war was declared, Miss Reeder created the Soldiers’ Service. Wanting to comfort French and British troops, to offer escape, and to let them know that their friends at the Library cared, we prepared collections of books for canteens and field hospitals. Paul and I delivered the crates to La Poste. Paris was strangely calm, like a grand hotel with very few guests, yet the Library bustled with subscribers who took it for granted that we would remain open. They continued to scour the paper for news and to check out books.