The Paris Library

by Janet Skeslien Charles

  “Does Fuchs know about our special deliveries?” Boris asked.

  “I don’t believe so,” she said. “But after such a close call, I’ve decided that instead of waiting until August for the annual closure, it would be best to close the Library to the public tomorrow.”

  Bastille Day. Another holiday with no reason to celebrate.

  CHAPTER 32

  Boris

  BORIS AND ANNA always played cards at the neighbors’ on Tuesday evenings. War or no war, Occupation or no Occupation. They went to the Ivanovs’ for a glass of wine and a light dinner that got lighter each week. Hélène played with Nadia in the bedroom. Behind closed doors, Bach on the phonograph, the shutters drawn, the couples unwound over slices of salo. At the table, able to confide, the way one may, with old friends, Vladimir spoke of the pupil he and Marina hid in the attic of their school. His parents had vanished, and he’d hidden at home for three days before telling anyone. Though he was only thirteen, Francis ate like a workhorse, and it was hard to acquire extra rations.

  Talk turned to their own children. Boris loved listening to Anna speak about Hélène. Her tone became tender. Her eyes, too. Though she was exhausted from queuing for bread, for butter, for everything, Anna hadn’t let the war write anything on her face. No worry lines, no anger. At times, his shoulders slumped, defeated, and yes, bitter about this life—after all, they’d fled the Revolution only to be confronted with a war. But Anna sat straight as ever, until her strength became his.

  After the plates were cleared away, Boris shuffled and dealt the cards. Anna beamed when she saw her hand, and he was glad.

  A knock on the door. Startled, they looked at one another. Maybe it’s something, maybe nothing. The person will go away. We’ll wait.

  Bam! Bam! Bam! on the door. Though their eyes met, the friends said nothing. Vladimir, Marina, and Anna put down their cards. Boris kept his. Vladimir went to the door and squinted through le judas. His back stiffened, confirming what Boris knew. Gestapo.

  Ah, they’ve caught us—playing cards and listening to Bach, while our children play make-believe in the bedroom. Vladimir opened the door slowly. Four Nazis pushed past. One pointed a gun at Vladimir. Two tore into the books on the shelves; another ripped the cushions from the divan. Damn snoops, they were never satisfied. Perhaps they’d found out about the boy. Vladimir and Marina were teachers, not revolutionaries, yet here they were, in trouble for helping a child. Why else would the Nazis be here? Not that Nazis needed a reason.

  Boris was no longer surprised to see such men. Parisians had seen the Nazis at their best, boots polished, buying trinkets for their mothers back home. And at their worst. Too much to drink, stumbling down the streets. Red-faced after a blunt rejection by a Parisienne. Of course, Nazis had seen Parisians at their worst. Hungry and resentful, snapping at one another in line at the butcher’s. No, they were intimate enemies. On top of one another, beside one another, beside themselves.

  The Nazi with the pistol snarled something in German. Anna, Marina, and Boris had remained seated at the table. This enraged him, why were they sitting there so calmly?

  “Get up!” he shouted in French.

  Anna rose with the grace of a czarina rising from a throne. She would not show she was scared. It would prove that they’d won.

  “You, by the door,” the Nazi told Vladimir. “Stand with the others. Hands up!”

  They raised their hands, and Boris realized he still held his cards.

  The gun aimed at Boris. Would they arrest him? Russia and America were both at war with Germany, and he was a Franco-Russian working at an American institution. Yes, now he recognized the man brandishing the pistol, though the weasel had worn a tweed suit when he’d rifled through the collection, searching for evidence of betrayal. The snoop had been in the reading room so often that Odile said, “Someone needs to tell the bastard that the decent thing for him to do would be to pay for a Library subscription.”

  That Odile! He’d laughed. He laughed.

  The Luger went off. Pain bounded through Boris’s body. Blood soaked through his whitish shirt. He let go of his cards. They fluttered and fell to his feet. The pain was too much. He swayed. And in that last dance, he thought, Tell the children I love them. Anna, oh, Anna. You know all that I feel.

  He didn’t remember falling, didn’t feel his head hit the floor. He sensed Anna beside him, saw the red run down his shirt over her ashen hands. He heard the Nazis shout. It was all too much. Boris longed to slip up the spiral staircase, to walk along secluded rows of books, to lose himself in the sweet quiet of the Afterlife.

  CHAPTER 33

  Lily

  FROID, MONTANA, AUGUST 1987

  MARY LOUISE’S SISTER, Angel, reigned from the front page of the Froid Promoter. Homecoming queen. Bikini-clad car-wash diva raising money for orphans or cheerleading camp. Her gaze could turn a grown man’s brain to manure. Mary Louise and I spent hours wondering how we could be like her. To get some conclusive answers, we snuck into Angel’s room, ears pricked for trouble, like any sign of Sue Bob coming down the hall. A whiff of danger blended with the sickeningly sweet scent of Giorgio perfume.

  Mary Louise pawed through the dresser drawers. On her finger dangled a black bra with cups so big they could hold softballs. We caressed Angel’s angora sweaters, softer than skin, and held them up to our flat chests. What would it be like to feel Robby’s hand creep under the sweater, wanting to get at me? Delicious. Under the bed, I found a shoebox filled with corsages of proms past and a pink plastic container. Inside, pills wound around like a snail shell. The birth control in my palm was like a gun—both had the power to stop the human body. I plucked a pill from the foil, but Mary Louise told me to put it back.

  On the vanity, makeup was laid out on a tray like a surgeon’s instruments. The blue liner made Angel’s eyes seem like endless oceans. When we tried, it looked like someone had gone crazy with a Bic. Finally, we lost ourselves in the closet, full of silky Gunne Sax dresses. Feeling them was like holding hands with the heavens.

  When I got home, Odile and Eleanor were on the couch, waiting.

  “Sue Bob called,” Eleanor said grimly as she rose.

  I couldn’t believe the intelligence report made it home before I did.

  “You know it’s wrong to snoop.” Eleanor wasn’t mad. She seemed… concerned. “How would you like it if I went through your things?”

  “Go ahead!” I said bitterly. “I don’t have any secrets.”

  “Ma grande,” Odile said, standing as well, “everyone has secrets, and private feelings. Your dad, Eleanor, me. Be grateful for what people tell you, when they’re ready to talk. Try to accept their limits, and understand that their limits usually have nothing to do with you.”

  Seeing I didn’t know what to make of Odile’s advice, Eleanor simplified, “Don’t snoop. You’ll get yourself into trouble.”

  “Why am I the one getting lectured when Angel’s the one with the birth control pills?”

  Eleanor gasped, filling me with satisfaction.

  Odile’s fingers dug into my arms. “Listen carefully: there is nothing worse than divulging someone’s secrets. Why would you tell us—or anyone—Angel’s private concerns? Are you trying to get her into trouble? Ruin her reputation? Hurt her?”

  “I guess I didn’t think.”

  Odile scowled at me. “Well, next time, think! And keep your mouth shut.”

  “No one likes a tattletale,” Eleanor added. She and Odile settled back on the couch, back into their conversation.

  “So you think I should go?” Odile asked. For once, she was the one who sounded unsure.

  “Go where?” I asked.

  “Chicago!” Eleanor squealed.

  “Chicago,” I sighed, wishing I could get away from people watching my every move, could go to a city full of skyscrapers and fancy restaurants. “You have to go!”

  “I haven’t taken the train since I came here forty years ago. And that’s how long it’
s been since I’ve seen my friend Lucienne.”

  “Why didn’t you go before?” I asked.

  “She invited us, but Buck never wanted to. After he died, I was in the habit of saying no.”

  “Think of the stores and theaters!” Eleanor said. “Why, if I had the chance… And wouldn’t it be wonderful to see your friend?”

  “She wants me to come for a whole month.”

  “Lily and I could drive you to the train station,” Eleanor said.

  “I’ll think about it,” Odile said, which in my experience meant no.

  In bed that night, as I dozed while reading Homecoming, the sounds of an argument slid under the door into my room. “Sue Bob can’t control her daughters and thinks she can tell me how to raise mine?” Dad said. “Angel’s a lost cause, and Mary Louise is following in her footsteps.”

  “Nonsense,” Eleanor said. “Mary Louise is just high-spirited.”

  Gratitude engulfed my sleepy heart. The door creaked open, and Eleanor’s Isotoner slippers whispered along the carpet. She turned off my lamp.

  “Thanks,” I whispered.

  “For what?”

  For not getting mad about my snooping. For encouraging Odile. For seeing the best in Mary Louise. For understanding. I didn’t say any of this but only snuggled under the comforter, feeling happier than I had in a long time.

  * * *

  TEN DAYS LATER, Eleanor and I drove Odile to the station in Wolf Point. From the back seat, I watched the barren land pass by and wished I were the one leaving.

  As we waited on the platform, Odile asked, “What if she’s changed? What if we don’t get along? I’ll be stuck.”

  “You can come home early,” Eleanor said. “Froid will still be here.”

  “It’s not Froid I’ll miss,” Odile replied.

  My foot slid over hers. “I’ll miss you, too.”

  The Empire Builder chugged to a stop, and she boarded. On the empty platform, Eleanor and I waved as Odile slipped away.

  * * *

  TWO WEEKS LATER, at dinner, as I cut Joe’s chicken, I asked Dad about taking driver’s ed again. “Mary Louise already has her license.”

  “Why compare yourself to others? You’re a beautiful, unique girl.”

  I dabbed at the ketchup that covered Joe’s face. “I’m unique all right, the last one in my class to get a learner’s permit.” I wanted to tell him he couldn’t keep me hermetically sealed in this house forever. Mary Louise had taught me to drive on the dirt road that led to the dump. It wasn’t that hard.

  “After what happened to the Flynn girl, I’d be worried sick,” he said. “I don’t want you taking any chances.”

  Jess Flynn had been in a pickup with boys who were drinking and driving. When the Ford flipped off the road, she was killed instantly. Our town had mourned her death for five years.

  “Teens don’t drink and drive to and from school,” Eleanor argued. “Nothing wrong with a young woman having a little independence, and isn’t it best that she gets some practice under her belt before she goes off to college?”

  Dad accused her of being on my side so that I would like her. She started clearing the table, throwing the silverware onto the plates. Now I was stuck in the middle of their fight, one I’d accidentally started.

  After dinner, Mary Louise came over. Cross-legged on the floor, backs against my bed, we listened to the Cure.

  “Dad and Eleanor are at it again,” I said. “Wish I could escape to Chicago.”

  “It’d take forever to save up. You’ll be able to when you’re thirty.”

  “When I’m too old to enjoy it.”

  “Lily,” Eleanor squawked from down the hall. “Turn down that music, it’s scaring Benjy! Why don’t you two go water Odile’s plants? They’re probably half-dead by now.”

  Odile’s living room seemed the same—a basket of yarn near the chair, the coffee table that displayed my crafts: a lavender sachet, a leather bookmark—but no Bach played, no one asked about our day. The house didn’t smell like freshly baked cookies; the musty odor made the place feel empty. With the curtains drawn, with Odile gone, the room felt like a body without a soul.

  The whole house was open to us. We could do anything we liked. And we’d never have this chance again. I opened a drawer, but there was nothing but old newspaper clippings.

  “What are you looking for, anyway?” Mary Louise asked as she drizzled water on the crispy ferns.

  “Clues.” I wanted to discover the things Odile would never tell. I grabbed books from the shelves, hoping to find another photo, a love letter, a diary. The forbidden was exciting. And how else do you find things out? Don’t snoop. You’ll get yourself into trouble. I felt a soupçon of guilt, but continued to flick through the pages.

  “You might not know Odile as well as you think. What if she was in love with a Nazi?”

  I remembered the photo of the “Library Protector.” He hadn’t been bad looking, for a Nazi. I shook my head. “No way! She was in the Resistance, cracking codes hidden in books. I bet she was in love with one of the resisters, oh, and maybe he was killed on a secret mission.”

  “She didn’t laugh for a whole year,” Mary Louise added on to the story. “But then she saw Mr. Gustafson, and he helped her smile again. How’d they meet, anyway?”

  I took a guess. “He parachuted into France and was shot down by the enemy. He was taken to the hospital, where she volunteered once a week.”

  “But when she met him, she volunteered every day.”

  We studied Odile’s wedding photo. Mouth tight, she looked at the camera. Buck stared down at her, his eyes dumb with love.

  “Can’t you see him lying in the hospital bed, gazing up at her in adoration?” I asked.

  “And she liked him, too, but she couldn’t say, because back then, women had to pretend to be shy.”

  “Definitely.” I imagined Odile in a beret, defying the Gestapo the same way she stood up to Dad. I bet she hid Jews in her apartment.

  “If Odile had hidden Anne Frank, she’d be alive today.”

  “Totally,” Mary Louise said. “Let’s see what else she has!”

  We left the books in a heap and headed to the bedroom. Mary Louise disappeared into the closet. “A jewelry box! Bet it’s full of rubies from an old lover!”

  I followed her inside. Both of us barely fit. My cheek brushed against the sleeves of Odile’s blouses. On a peg, a black lace nightie—something so sensual that just seeing it made us blush—shimmered. Buck’s gun was propped up in the corner. We shouldn’t have been in Odile’s bedroom, in her closet, in her things. I knew that. But I couldn’t stop caressing her cashmere cardigans, folded like they were still in the store.

  Mary Louise pointed to a white box on the second-highest shelf. I grabbed it, and she opened the gold clasp.

  “It’s not locked,” I marveled.

  “Bummer.” She held up a bunch of paper.

  “Maybe they’re love letters!”

  This was what I’d hoped for, a piece of Odile’s past, penned by a beau. Buck or someone else, someone dashing and foreign. The paper was crisp as bacon and yellowed with age. I grabbed the first page. Its feminine, flowing handwriting resembled Odile’s. Not from a lover, then. The French wasn’t easy to understand. The letter was full of words like “cavort” that I’d seen once and long since abandoned in the back of my brain.

  Paris

  12 May 1941

  Monsieur l’Inspecteur:

  Why aren’t you looking for undeclared Jews in hiding? Here is the address of Professor Cohen at 35 rue Blanche. She used to teach so-called literature at the Sorbonne. Now she invites students to her home for lectures so she can cavort with colleagues and students, mostly male—at her age!

  When she ventures out, you see her coming a kilometer away in that swishy purple cape, a peacock feather askew in her hair. Ask the Jewess for her baptism certificate and passport, you’ll see her religion noted there. While good Frenchmen and women work, Mad
ame le Professeur sits around and reads books.

  My indications are exact, now it’s up to you.

  Signed,

  One who knows

  Hatred from forty-five years ago rose from the page. Was this why Odile wouldn’t talk about her past, because the words were so ugly?

  I felt as if I were standing in a snow globe that someone had shaken, only the pieces inside weren’t glued down, and everything swirled around—the brick house, the lamppost, the stray cat, the police car. We all went careening with the snow that was not snow, just jaundiced scraps of paper, decaying confetti that I’d made from the letter.

  Mary Louise smacked me. “Why’d you rip it up?”

  “What?” I said, still dazed.

  She pointed to the scraps at our feet. “She’ll find out for sure. We’re in trouble.”

  Nothing made sense anymore. “I don’t care.”

  The photo of the “Library Protector” flashed into my mind. Odile kept it with pictures of loved ones. Maybe she’d dated the Nazi, and maybe she’d helped him in his work. After all, she’d never returned to France, and her family never visited. Maybe they’d disowned her.

  “What did the letter say?”

  I didn’t want her to know how horrible people were. I didn’t want to share my suspicions about what Odile had done. If she wasn’t the one who wrote that letter, why did she have it?

  “What’d it say?” she repeated.

  “I didn’t understand.”

  “That’s okay.” She patted my back. “Maybe you don’t speak French as well as you think you do.”

  We’d found the clue I’d wanted. And now… I felt cold. And sick to my stomach.

  “If you didn’t understand that one, read another.” She pointed to the letters in the box.

  “There’s nothing to understand. They’re trash. Old trash.” I tried to rip them up, but Mary Louise snatched the letters and folded them exactly the way we’d found them.