The Paris Library(40)
“People read,” the Directress said. “War or no war.”
She launched an appeal for donations, penning letters to loyal patrons like the Countess Clara de Chambrun. Calling me into her office, Miss Reeder explained that she’d invited journalists to the Library and wanted me to inform them about the program. They were waiting in the reading room.
“Me?” I said. “Newspapermen are… unruly.” When I’d delivered first my ALP News column to the Herald, one of them noticed a typo—“pubic” relations instead of public relations. Each time I dropped off a new column, one of them asked about my “special” relations.
“They can be rash,” Miss Reeder admitted. “They’re rushing all over France to describe war efforts. But if one is rude, whack him over the head.”
Remembering the interview where I’d threatened to do exactly that, I felt my face flush. “Oh, no, I…”
“I know. You’re not that girl any longer. You’ve grown up and are doing a marvelous job. Everyone loves your column in the Herald, and your newsletter is delightful, especially your ‘What kind of reader are you?’ interviews. It’s wonderful to get to know someone by the books they love.”
On my way to the reading room, I allowed myself to bask in Miss Reeder’s praise. At the hearth, I rubbed one foot over the other, working up the courage to talk to the blasé newspapermen in rumpled trench coats. But before I could address them, they addressed me.
“Are the French so interested in American books?” a journalist with thinning gray hair demanded. His mien was tired, no, jaded. “And do soldiers have time to read?”
“One general sent trucks from the Maginot Line to collect reading material,” I said briskly. “The soldiers do have time, and our aim is to support those who are ill, wounded, or lonely. We must serve in the field of morale.”
“Morale? Then why books? Why not wine?” a redhead quipped. “That’s what I’d want.”
“Who says it’s either-or?” I asked.
They laughed.
“But seriously, why books. Because no other thing possesses that mystical faculty to make people see with other people’s eyes. The Library is a bridge of books between cultures.”
One by one, they shrugged out of their coats and settled into their chairs as I explained how people could get their donations to us. Some journalists jotted down information, others seemed to reminisce about books they’d read. The jaded one contemplated the stacks, perhaps remembering a novel that had brought solace after a difficult day.
“We all have a book that’s changed us forever,” I said. “One that let us know that we’re not alone. What’s yours?”
“All Quiet on the Western Front,” he said.
833. “Help spread the word. Help get the books that you’ve loved to our soldiers.”
* * *
AS INFORMATION GOT out, donations poured in. Staff assembled libraries of fifty magazines and one hundred books for each regiment. At 9:00 p.m., Margaret, Miss Reeder, and I finished up for the day. The Directress wrote out address labels, Margaret typed up the catalogs of each collection, and I placed books in the crates.
Bitsi burst into the room, waving a letter. “It was there when I got home.”
Rémy wrote to her first?
“Oh, how wonderful to hear from him,” Margaret said.
“And wasn’t it kind of Bitsi to come back to share the news?” Miss Reeder gave me a pointed look.
She was right. It wasn’t a competition to see who got a letter first. And yet…
“He’s stationed near Lille,” Bitsi said. “He’s far from the danger.”
“For now,” I said sharply.
“He wanted to enlist.”
“You encouraged him.”
“To follow his beliefs.”
“What if they get him killed?” I heaved hefty unabridged Victor Hugo into a crate, where he landed with an indignant thump.
“Please.” Her alabaster hands, so delicate, grasped mine, smudged with blue ink. “I need to be with someone else who loves him.”
“I should tell my parents.” I untangled my fingers from hers. “They’ll be relieved.”
“Odile, dear…” Miss Reeder’s head tilted in sympathy.
Kindness would only make me cry, so I gasped a quick “See you tomorrow” and hurtled down the stairs. When I told my parents about the letter, there must have been a bitter twinge in my tone because Maman said it wasn’t Bitsi’s fault that he’d enlisted. With all the political tracts he’d written, his choice should have been no surprise. Papa said I’d better be nice to Bitsi, for Rémy’s sake.
Two days later, a letter arrived. My regiment is stationed on a farm. A barn cat tags along with us like a dog, even during field exercises. We haven’t seen fighting of any kind, except over which of us is going to do the washing up.
Breathing was easier.
* * *
REQUESTS POURED IN from all over France, as well as Algeria, Syria, and British headquarters in London. Staff and volunteers from the Red Cross, YMCA, and Quakers crammed into our back room to help get books to soldiers. Carefully noting book preferences (nonfiction or fiction, mysteries or memoirs) and languages (English, French, or both), we made sure each serviceman who’d requested one received a care package twice a month.