The Paris Library(71)
I pointed to the ribbon. “It’s so old, the lettering is fainter and fainter.”
“I thought you might be working out your anger. What Margaret said about the French army wasn’t kind.”
“I know she didn’t mean it, but it hurts.” I covered the r, e, m, y keys with my fingers. “I miss my brother so much, and I know he fought hard.”
“Margaret knows it, too. She sometimes speaks without thinking.”
“We all do.” I needed an interviewee for this month’s newsletter. “What kind of reader are you? What are your prized books?”
“The truth?”
I leaned closer. Would he confess to reading scandalous novels?
“Just last week, I discarded my entire collection.”
“What?” Giving away books was like giving up air.
“I’d had my share of Sophocles and Aristotle, of Melville and Hawthorne, books assigned at university or offered to me by colleagues. I’ve spent enough time in the past. I want today, now. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nancy Mitford, Langston Hughes.”
“What did you do with your books?”
“When I heard Professor Cohen’s collection had been pillaged, I boxed up my books and took them to her. Stealing books is like desecrating graves.”
Though Mr. Pryce-Jones made it seem like he was content to give away a collection built over a lifetime, I sensed the truth. He parted with his books because the professor had been forced to part with hers. I reminded myself there were people with bigger problems, bigger hurts.
But I was still miffed with Margaret.
KRIEGSGEFANGENENPOST
12 December 1941
Dear Odile,
Do you know how I can tell that you are holding back in your letters? You haven’t complained about Papa in ages, and you rarely mention Paul. Perhaps you feel you can’t write about him because I can’t hold Bitsi close. You’re wrong. I want to hear Papa bluster and Maman chin-wag. I want to know you in love. Tell me what you truly feel, not what you feel I can bear to hear—I need your honesty as much as your love. Having only a little of you, sensing you censor each sentence is killing me. We’re not together, but we needn’t be distant. Bitsi hesitates when she writes. I do, too. I want to shield you. I don’t want you to know. I want you to know.
Things are hard here. We’re hungry, we’re tired. Our heads are bowed, our clothing threadbare. We long for home. We worry our fiancées will forget us. We weep when we think no one can hear. What bothers us most is the word “prisoner,” associated with criminals. All we did was fight for our beliefs and our country. Barbed wire is always in our peripheral vision.
Love,
Rémy
20 December 1941
Dear Rémy,
I’ll try not to hold back. Paul and I escaped Maman’s spying. He found us an abandoned apartment for afternoon trysts. We’ve decorated our boudoir with my books and his sketches of Brittany. There’s no heat, and we’ve both come down with colds, but it’s worth it! I never expected to find a pursuit more thrilling than reading.
Now that Germany has declared war on the U.S., and Americans in France are enemy aliens, I fear the Nazis will close the Library for good. Though staff tries to put on a good face, we’re tired and frightened. We move like toys winding down. Sometimes I get angry for no reason. Sometimes I find it hard to think. Sometimes I don’t know what to think.
At any rate, we have the Christmas party to look forward to. The Countess said we may bring family if they are of “superior quality,” so I’ve invited Maman and “Aunt” Eugénie. Papa can’t come, he has meetings. That’s why I don’t complain about him—he’s never home.
Love,
Odile
The scent of Boris’s hot spiced wine wafted through the Library. Chestnuts crackled in the fireplace. Bitsi helped children cut up old catalogs to make ornaments for the fir tree. Margaret and I fetched the festive red ribbons from the closet and decorated the reading room.
“It’s cold in my flat,” she said. “I could use a few of these fusty books as firewood.”
Instinctively, I grabbed a novel and held it to my chest. I’d die of hypothermia before destroying a single one. Many of these books had been sent from America to soldiers of the Great War. Read in trenches and makeshift hospitals, their stories brought comfort and escape.
“I was joking,” Margaret said. “You do know that?”
“Of course…” Still, it was a horrible thing to say. I moved to a secluded corner, cradling The Picture of Dorian Gray. 823. I inhaled the novel’s slightly musty odor, imagining it was a mélange of gunpowder and mud from the trenches. Whenever I opened a worn book, I liked to believe I released a soldier’s spirit. “Here you go, old friend,” I whispered. “You’re safe now, you’re home.”
“Talking to yourself?” Bitsi teased, Maman and Eugénie in tow.
“So this is where you work,” Maman said. “It’s not as grim as I expected.”
Eugénie giggled. “Did you think she worked in a coal mine?”
Maman tapped her playfully on the arm.
Each attendee brought a delicacy that was scarce and dreadfully expensive, obtained either from the black market or country cousins. A creamy Camembert. A basket of oranges. Eugénie passed the plate of foie gras she and Maman had prepared with the goose liver that Paul had brought from Brittany.