The Paris Library

by Janet Skeslien Charles

  Glancing at Rémy, I saw that Bitsi had another fan—his eyes never left her face. When she finished, he clapped, and others joined in.

  “So that’s your ‘bookmate,’ ” he said. “Is she really as well-read as you?”

  “Probably even more.”

  “She’s talented,” he said.

  “She made the characters come alive.”

  “No, she became the characters.” He strode to Bitsi’s side.

  I followed.

  “Vous êtes magnifique,” he said.

  “Merci,” she whispered, gaze now glued to the floor.

  Wanting to introduce him to Mr. Pryce-Jones and M. de Nerciat, I tugged on his sleeve. He didn’t notice.

  “You must be parched,” he told her. “Would you like to go for a citron pressé?”

  It was the first time I’d seen him intent on a woman. At least six classmates had befriended me in order to meet him. Whenever I introduced him to a girl, he was polite, he listened, but never initiated a conversation.

  I hoped Bitsi would accept his invitation. It wouldn’t hurt if she left work early, this once.

  Bitsi placed her hand in the crook of his arm. He closed his eyes for a fraction longer than a blink, a silent Merci, before he escorted her out. Feeling forgotten, I tried to tell myself it was natural that Rémy was taken with her. They didn’t mean to leave me behind.

  Boris tapped me on the back. “The good news,” he said, “is that we’re donating books.”

  “What’s the bad?”

  “There are over three hundred, and your job is sorting them.”

  He handed me a list, and as I read the titles, I returned from the land of feeling sorry for myself. So Rémy’s visit hadn’t ended up as I’d expected. There would be another time.

  “When I learned that the Library distributed thousands of books to universities, I found it admirable. Of course, that was before I was the one who packed them!” I joked.

  Boris laughed. “Better you than me.”

  The back room was bursting with empty crates and jumbles of books. “Safe journey,” I said to a hardcover as I placed it in the crate for the American College of Tehran, Persia; another went to the Seaman’s Institute in Italy; a third, fourth, and fifth would travel together to Turkey. I kept on for what seemed like hours, but when I consulted the clock, only ten minutes had gone by. It would be an endless, lonely afternoon.

  There was a rap at the door. “I asked the man at the front desk where you’d disappeared to, and he sent me up here,” Margaret said.

  “I’d love some company. Would you mind lending a hand?” I said, then noticed her pink silk dress. It would be covered in dust if she stayed, and anyway, women in couture didn’t work.

  “Why not? I’ve nothing better to do.”

  I offered to fetch her daughter, but she said Christina had seemed happy to make friends with Hélène and her father. I showed Margaret how to find the destination for each volume. She weaved between the crates gracefully, packing the books with care. “Bon voyage,” she whispered to each one.

  I stared at her.

  “You must think I’m crazy for talking to books,” she said.

  “Not at all.”

  “ ‘Bon voyage’ is the only French I remember from school. My mother was right; I should have worked harder.”

  “It’s not too late! I’ll teach you a few phrases. Bon vent means ‘fair wind.’ We say it to wish someone Godspeed or good luck. We say bon courage to give someone courage.”

  “Bon courage!” she told a chemistry manual.

  “Bon vent!” I said to a math primer.

  We giggled as we wished the books well.

  “What brought you to Paris?”

  “My husband is an attaché at the British embassy.”

  “A nice circle to be in.”

  “It’s rather a vicious circle.” She winced. “Oh, please don’t tell anyone I said that. You can see why I’m not the diplomat.”

  Suddenly shy, Margaret went back to sorting books.

  “You must attend glamorous events,” I said, hoping she’d tell me about the parties.

  “Yesterday, there was tea at the residence of the Dutch ambassador, but I’m having more fun now.”

  “How can that be? You must encounter people from all over the world.”

  “They’re interested in my husband, not me.” Tears fell down her rouged cheeks. “I miss my mum, miss meeting my friends for tea.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. Miss Reeder said foreigners often felt homesick in Paris and that staff could ease feelings of loneliness.

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Margaret dabbed her tears. “My mum calls me ‘the teapot with a leaky spout.’ ”

  “She’ll soon call you la Parisienne.” I put the lid on the last crate. “You were a big help.”

  “Truly?”

  “You should volunteer here.”

  “I haven’t any training. What if I make a mistake?”

  “It’s a library, not a surgery! No one will die if you put a book in the wrong place.”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “You’ll make new friends, and I’ll teach you French.”

  I accompanied Margaret to the courtyard, where her daughter was playing with Hélène. A shadowy dusk fell over the city and crept over the wall, onto the lawn, past the ivy in the urn, toward the Library. Darkness could come only so close—the lamps in the reading room shone brightly. Through the window, Margaret and I saw Madame Simon glance about furtively before taking a poodle from her purse. Placing him on her lap, she and Professor Cohen rubbed his belly. Engrossed in their own happiness, they didn’t notice Boris and his wife, Anna, in the corner, dark heads tilted together. The two never touched, but a tender love radiated from them. Bony finger at her mouth, stern Mrs. Turnbull shushed some students. Poor Peter-the-shelver dove into the stacks to avoid the matron who tracked him like prey. Observing him, our bookkeeper covered her mouth to muffle her laughter.

  There was a longing in Margaret’s gaze as she watched the unfolding scenes. Something told me she needed the Library. Something told me the Library needed her. Over dusty books, our conversation had flowed like the Seine. I hoped more than anything that Margaret would join our cast.

  CHAPTER 9

  Odile

  PARIS, JUNE–JULY 1939

  IT WAS EXAM WEEK, and the tables were full, all but one spot taken. Monsieur Grosjean, in his tangerine earmuffs, planted himself in the middle of the reading room. Observing him, Boris and I braced ourselves. “What’s our irregular regular going to do?” he asked me.

  “ ‘Call me Ishmael,’ ” Monsieur began to read aloud. “ ‘Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.…’ ” When Boris pointed to the empty chair and invited him to read quietly to himself, Monsieur replied, “I’ll be damned before I sit by those perfumed Jews.”

  Miss Reeder approached, lips pinched in a frown. It was the first time I’d seen her angry. Monsieur took a step back. “I’ll get to you in a moment,” she said tersely. The Directress gathered the young women—students of the Sorbonne—and apologized, promising they’d be able to study in peace. She admonished M. Grosjean, telling him, “There’s no place in this library for that kind of talk.”

  “I’m saying what others are thinking,” he muttered.

  “Think again,” she said.

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” Monsieur waved his hand, nearly hitting her.

  Boris gripped M. Grosjean’s arm and escorted him to the door. In his sweater vest and tie, Boris was surprisingly proficient in the role of bouncer.

  “I wanted to read out the passage about the ‘damp, drizzly November in my soul’!”

  “What soul?” Boris said.

  “Unhand me—”

  “You’re not a victim,”
Boris said as he forced Monsieur outside. “You’re an unpleasant man who’s offended a great many people. Say another syllable, and I’ll make sure you never return.”

  Miss Reeder soothed the subscribers upset by the outburst; I decided to check on Boris. I found him at the far end of the courtyard, near the crimson roses that the caretaker spoke to as though they were his children. Boris leaned against the wall, a Gitane clenched between his fingers.

  “Ça va?”

  He didn’t answer; I leaned against the wall, too, and we watched the smoke unfurl and rise.

  “After the Revolution, I was forced to say goodbye to my country,” he said. “It was painful to leave, but my brother and I believed that in coming here, we’d be in a better, smarter place. Isn’t France the country of the Enlightenment? In Russia, many people were killed in pogroms. Our neighbor was killed, just for being a Jew. So when I hear talk like that…”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I guess hatred is everywhere.” He took a drag on his cigarette; when he blew out the smoke, it seemed like a sigh. “Even in our Library.”

  * * *

  PAPA HAD BEEN right—working with the public could be demoralizing. On the bus ride home, I plunged into the pages of my faithful friend, 813, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and turned toward the window to capture the faint light. She knew things that nobody had ever told her. For instance, the words of the trees and the wind. She often spoke to falling seeds and said, “Ah hope you fall on soft ground,” because she had heard seeds saying that to each other as they passed. She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether. She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making. The familiar things and people had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. When the bus screeched to a stop at a red light, I fell out of my book.

  Where were we? I searched for a familiar landmark and found my father’s commissariat, an immense, brooding building. I was far from home, but maybe I could get a ride with Papa if he was still at work. I scanned the street for his car; instead, I found him, fedora low on his brow, some woman on his arm. Perhaps he was consoling the victim of a crime, a shopkeeper who’d been robbed. I noticed the name of the building behind them, the Normandy Hotel. No, she was a receptionist or a maid. Papa grinned at something she said, and kissed her, not on each cheek, but full on the mouth.

  How could he do that to Maman? The harlot wasn’t even pretty with her thinning hair and door-knobby cheeks. Mercifully, the light turned green, and the bus lumbered over the cobbles, taking me away.

  Feeling ill, I alighted at the next stop. On the walk home, I tried to make sense of what I’d seen. How long had this been going on? What had Maman done to deserve this? What hadn’t she done? I flipped through the pages of my memory. One evening at dinner, Maman had said that Papa preferred to “dine out.” Was an affair what she meant?

  In the foyer, I dropped my book bag and bellowed Rémy’s name. He was reading Of Mice and Men. “Steinbeck can wait,” I said. We went to our secret place, away from our parents, away from the world, under my bed where the light didn’t quite reach. Rémy, then I, scooted along the parquet. It felt good to slip back into childhood, to the last place anyone would search for us.

  Having trouble catching my breath, I sputtered, “Papa. With a woman. Not Maman.”

  “Why are you surprised?”

  His nonchalance hurt as much as seeing Papa with the harlot. “You knew? Why didn’t you say?”

  “We don’t have to tell each other everything.”

  Since when?

  “Important men have mistresses,” he continued. “It’s a status symbol, like a gold watch.”

  Did Rémy really believe that? Did Paul? Papa’s affair felt like a betrayal, not just of Maman, but of our family. How could Rémy not see that? I glanced over, but I couldn’t make out his expression. I didn’t know what he was thinking. I didn’t know what to think. My fingers clung to the mattress coils.

  “Bitsi said part of growing up is realizing parents have their own lives, their own desires,” he finished.

  Bitsi said.

  I remembered the other time Rémy and I had not seen eye to eye. The summer we turned nine, because of a lung ailment, he stayed in bed, and Maman coated his gaunt chest with mustard plasters to ease the congestion. I stayed with him—reading aloud or watching him doze—every day except Sunday, when Maman and I went to Mass with Uncle Lionel and Aunt Caro. I liked Uncle Lionel because he always said he wished he had a daughter like me. That made Aunt Caro weepy, and Maman insisted that they’d soon be blessed with a child. But Maman—who said she was always right—would find that this time she was only half-right.

  When my uncle stopped attending Mass, Aunt Caro explained it so glibly—he had the flu, or he needed to take clients to Calais—that no one realized anything was wrong. That last time, as we exited the church, Maman even said, “I’m glad it’s just us girls.”

  I skipped ahead, dreaming of dessert.

  “I’m relieved you feel that way,” Aunt Caro said. “I have some news.”

  It was the thorn in her tone that made me stop. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want Maman to accuse me of eavesdropping.

  “Lionel has been distant,” Aunt Caro continued.

  “Distant?”

  “I had a feeling there was someone else. When I asked, he admitted he had a mistress.”

  “It’s the way of our world,” Maman said. “I’m surprised he told you the truth.”

  She sounded so bitter that I turned around. Neither noticed me.

  “He had to.” Aunt Caro’s eyes welled with tears. “He got her pregnant. I’ve begun divorce proceedings.”

  “Divorce.” Maman blanched. “What will we tell people?”

  My mother’s mind always went straight to What will people think? She glanced nervously at Monsignor Clement on the church steps.

  “That’s all you have to say?” Aunt Caro said.

  “You won’t be able to attend Mass.”

  “It’s a pity, but I can read scripture on my own. Let’s go.”

  Maman didn’t move. “You need to go to your own home, tend to things there.”

  “I was hoping to stay with you.”

  “You need to go to your own apartment.”

  “I can’t. Lionel’s moving her into our place.”

  “That isn’t my affair.”

  How shocking to see Maman, who hated confrontation, arguing in front of the church, before God and everyone. How could she be so cruel to her own flesh and bones?

  “Please,” Aunt Caro said. “I can’t bear to be on my own.”

  Maman’s gaze skittered to mine. I expected her to embrace her sister like she did me when I fell and scraped my knee, but Maman merely said, “I don’t want the children to be influenced.”

  A divorcée was beneath a fallen woman. My mother believed what the church told her to believe, but surely she’d make an exception for her own sister.

  “I don’t have anywhere to go,” Aunt Caro said. “I don’t have any money.”

  “Please, Maman,” I said. But her expression only hardened.

  “Divorce is a sin.”

  “We can ask forgiveness for a sin at confession,” I replied.

  When Maman couldn’t win with logic, she used force. She grabbed my arm and dragged me down the street, toward home. I looked back at Aunt Caroline, who watched us go, hand trembling at her breast.

  When we arrived, I went straight to Rémy’s room, but as I twisted the knob, Maman propped herself against the door. “Don’t upset your brother.”

  Over the next days, I asked about Aunt Caro, certain Maman would relent. She said, “Mention her one more time, and I’ll send you away.” I believed her.

  For two weeks, I held my silence, or my silence held me. Unable to keep a secret from Rémy any longer,
I perched beside him on the bed. His complexion was ashen, and I knew that he was exhausted from the incessant coughs that racked his body. “That mustard plaster makes you smell like a Sunday roast,” I teased.

  “Very funny.”

  “Sorry.” I moved to tousle his hair. If he let me, he forgave my joke. If he didn’t, he was still angry.

  He let me.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Not really.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t dare tell—Maman had warned me not to upset him. My parents and I lived in fear of a relapse. We whispered when we believed Rémy might be sleeping, we tiptoed past his room.

  What is it? I felt him ask.

  Nothing, I replied.

  Tell, he insisted.

  Sometimes we communicated like that.

  He listened as my pain poured out: I’d believed our mother’s love flowed unconditionally, yet she’d flicked it off like a faucet. And what would become of our aunt?

  “Maman told me that Aunt Caro wanted to move back to Mâcon,” he said slowly.

  My head reared back. Wanted to?

  “Then why didn’t Aunt Caro say goodbye?” I argued. “Why hasn’t she written?”

  For once, my chatty brother didn’t have an answer.

  “You’d rather believe what’s convenient than what’s true,” I accused.

  “You must have misunderstood. Maman could never be so cruel.”

  His refusal to believe me was as devastating as our mother forsaking her own sister.

  “You weren’t there,” I said. “Playing sick, as usual.”

  His face flushed. He sat up and opened his mouth. I braced myself, expecting him to let me have it. Instead, he hacked and hacked, a deep cough that brought black blood. Helpless, I handed him my handkerchief and stroked his back, all thoughts of winning the argument gone.

  Two months later, Rémy was back to attending Mass. Like Maman, he knelt lovingly before the crucifix, convinced his faith had brought him through. I let him believe what he needed to. I had learned that love was not patient, love was not kind. Love was conditional. The people closest to you could turn their backs on you, saying goodbye for something that seemed like nothing. You could only depend on yourself.