The Library of Shadows

by Mikkel Birkegaard

  Katherina shifted position uneasily. This description of the man whom she had considered her foster father for so long was light-years from her own experience. It sounded like two totally different people.

  'I can't understand that at all,' she said, shaking her head.

  'Me neither. It made me stubborn and I wanted to know why. After all, he couldn't deny that he was my father, since Marianne was my mother. I suppose I said a number of stupid things and hurled a lot of accusations at him, but he remained utterly calm and just let me vent my rage before he played his trump card.'

  They had reached the bookshop. Jon parked the car at the kerb and turned off the engine. He sat there with his eyes fixed on the shop.

  'What did he do?' asked Katherina.

  Jon grimaced.

  'He said he couldn't stand the sight of me. I reminded him too much of my mother. Every time he looked at me, he was reminded of how she died, and that he hadn't been able to prevent it.'

  Katherina had heard about Marianne's suicide from Iversen, but Luca himself had never said a word about it.

  'Whew,' she exclaimed. 'What can you say to that?'

  'As an eighteen-year-old, nothing,' said Jon, taking a deep breath. 'I shut up and walked out of the shop – and out of his life.'

  They sat there for a moment, listening to Pau's snoring. As if on cue, it became erratic and he woke up, uttering a grunt, followed by a loud yawn.

  'So, are we there yet?' he asked, stretching as best he could in the cramped space.

  'We're back,' Jon confirmed.

  Pau leaned forward between the seats and looked first at Jon, then at Katherina.

  'So aren't we going to get out?'

  Katherina opened the door and climbed out, followed by Pau.

  'I'll drop by tomorrow,' said Jon before they said goodbye and slammed the doors shut.

  Pau shivered in the cold, while Katherina watched Jon's car drive away.

  'Are we going the same way?' asked Pau, heading for his bicycle.

  'No, I'm staying here tonight.'

  'Is that a good idea?' he asked. 'They might come back.'

  'Exactly,' she replied.

  Pau shook his head.

  'Go ahead and play the hero, if you want. But I've really got to get some sleep,' he said, sounding apologetic. 'Will you be okay on your own?'

  Katherina nodded in reply.

  When she woke the next morning, it was dark all around her, and it took several minutes for her to figure out where she was. The boards over the windows of Libri di Luca kept out the morning light. The folding camp bed under her creaked at the slightest move, but that hadn't stopped her from sleeping. She recalled wrestling with the bed the night before, but she didn't remember taking off her shoes or climbing in.

  The sound of traffic outside penetrated the darkness, and she lay listening to it for a while before she untangled herself from the blanket and sat up. After putting on her shoes and woollen sweater, she went over to switch on the light in the ceiling lamp.

  The shop was a sorry sight. The missing piece of carpet was like an open wound, and the barricaded windows and bed made the room look like an improvised hiding place for antiquities during a bombing raid rather than a bookshop.

  She unlocked the door and went outside. Not a cloud in the sky, but the shop was still in the shadows of the other buildings, so it was bitterly cold. For the first time since spring she could see her own breath, and for a moment she jumped about on the pavement in front of the shop to stay warm. It was past eleven, and Libri di Luca should have opened two hours ago, but the pitiful state of the facade had no doubt kept any potential customers far away.

  Katherina left the door ajar and began cleaning up inside. The books that were normally displayed on tables just inside the entrance had been tossed on the floor further back in the shop, so she started by setting up a table where she could put them. Unable to sort them by author or title, she indiscriminately piled them into stacks.

  She spent the rest of the day cleaning and waiting for customers, with a lunch break at a nearby pizzeria. Only two braved the barricades to have a look inside, but it was clear to see that the devastation bothered them, and they left the shop without buying anything.

  Jon turned up late in the day. He had dark circles under his eyes and it didn't look as if he had shaved. His clothes, on the other hand, were impeccable, up until he took off his tie and opened the top button of his blue shirt.

  'Hard day?' asked Katherina after they exchanged greetings and Jon plopped down in the leather chair, heaving a big sigh.

  'I suppose you could call it that,' he said and closed his eyes. 'What about here? Any problems?'

  Katherina gave him a summary of her day, which took less than a minute.

  'All right,' said Jon, opening his eyes. 'We have to see about having the windows replaced. I'll try to get hold of a glass company tomorrow.'

  'Have you heard from Kortmann?' asked Katherina.

  'He rang just as I was leaving. There's a meeting in…' He glanced at his watch. 'Half an hour.'

  'Here?'

  'No, some place in Шsterbro. A library,' replied Jon, adding with a smile: 'Where else?'

  The library was on Dag Hammarskjцlds Allй across from the American Embassy. Big picture windows faced the street, and passers-by could freely look in at the rows of shelves holding books and boxes of comics. Even from outside they could see that there were still quite a few people in the library, despite the fact that the official business hours would end in ten minutes.

  Katherina followed Jon inside through a five-metre-long foyer to the actual front doors. It had been a long time since she was last inside a library. Her powers made it a taxing experience. Even though she was good at blocking out all the input, she could still sense a roaring background noise that refused to go away. The books gave her no joy. The bindings were often merely glued, and the quality of the covers was standardized and impersonal.

  Right inside the doors was a counter where a lone female librarian was helping the last borrowers. She was about fifty with long blonde hair and a pair of round glasses that were too big for her narrow, pale face. Katherina thought she looked familiar, and when their eyes met, the librarian broke out in a smile and gave her a brief nod. They continued on past the counter to the stacks.

  To the right of the counter was the periodicals department, a glass enclosure where newspapers and magazines were displayed along the walls. In the middle of the glass enclosure were chairs and tables where readers could leaf through the daily papers or selected periodicals.

  'Kortmann,' whispered Jon, staring at a man who was sitting at one of the tables with his back turned to them. Upon closer inspection, Katherina discovered that the man was sitting in a wheelchair.

  'What now?' she whispered back.

  'I think it starts after the library closes,' said Jon in a low voice. 'Let's split up.'

  Katherina nodded and began moving slowly past the room with the periodicals and towards the children's section. Jon headed in the opposite direction. It had grown dark outside, and the reflection from the fluorescent lights on the ceiling made the big picture windows look like surfaces of opaque black glass. Katherina had a feeling that someone was watching her from outside in the dark as she strolled past the boxes of comic books. She passed the time by leafing through a few of the comics while out of the corner of her eye she observed the other library patrons. In the fiction section a man in his forties stood with his nose in a thick book -The Name of the Rose, judging by the small snippets she was receiving. Katherina cautiously focused her powers on him and had a clear sense that he was also just killing time. When she turned her head to study him, he immediately looked up and she thought she caught a spark of recognition in his eyes. He quickly lowered his gaze, put the book back and continued along the shelves.

  In this way Katherina reconnoitred the library and found several more people strolling about among the books with a purpose other than borrow
ing reading material. In addition to the man in his forties, there was a couple in their thirties immersed in a discreet conversation at the end of one of the corridors in the stacks, a teenage girl in the comic book area and an Asian-looking man wandering around in the non-fiction section. All of them were directing their attention at something other than what they were reading, and they kept sending searching glances at everyone else.

  At closing time the librarian walked around to announce the last call for checking out books. None of the individuals Katherina had noticed responded, but the last library patrons who had actually come to borrow books headed for the check-out counter. Slowly Katherina made her way back to the periodicals room, and she noted that the other remaining people did the same.

  Jon was already inside the glass enclosure. He was moving along the far wall, apparently very interested in magazines about fishing. Katherina suppressed the temptation to find out what he was really thinking about.

  The librarian had let the last borrower out and locked the front door.

  'Now we can get started,' she declared loudly and turned off the lights in the rooms facing the street.

  The rest of the participants gradually emerged from the rows of stacks and the reading areas. They nodded to each other with small smiles of acknowledgement and headed for the glass enclosure. One by one they sat down at the tables in the middle, and conversations quickly started up about all sorts of things. The librarian was the last to arrive, but just as she was about to close the door, they heard a loud banging at the front entrance.

  'Just a minute,' she said and disappeared again. The conversations stopped and everyone listened to the librarian's footsteps and the rattling of the door. There was a brief exchange of words before they heard the door close again and footsteps approaching.

  'Whew, I just made it, didn't I?' said Pau, gasping for breath as he came into the room, his face red.

  The librarian carefully shut the door behind her and the last two arrivals sat down. Everyone turned their attention to the man in the wheelchair.

  'Welcome,' said Kortmann. The others murmured a greeting in return. 'I'm glad that so many could participate at such short notice. It can be risky to meet in times like these, but recent events have unfortunately made it necessary.' Solemn expressions marked the faces of those around the table.

  'Last night Libri di Luca was attacked. Molotov cocktails were thrown at the bookshop, which has suffered significant damage. Iversen is in hospital due to burns and shock. We have Jon to thank that the shop didn't burn to the ground.'

  Everyone expressed their approval with subdued whispers and nods towards Jon. Katherina clenched her teeth hard and fixed her eyes on the tabletop in front of her. She had never expected a hero's reception from Kortmann, but he could have at least mentioned that she'd taken part in putting out the fire. Surely the very fact that he was willing to be in the same room with her must mean that he trusted her, so why was he downplaying her role? Maybe he was unaware of how it had all happened. Kortmann had only heard the story from Jon and Pau, and it was impossible to say what version they had told him. She looked over at Jon, who didn't bat an eye.

  'As you've presumably heard, Jon is Luca's son,' Kortmann went on. 'It's only recently that we've learned about him, or perhaps I should say that it wasn't until he turned up that we remembered that Luca even had a son. For that reason, it's only now that he has been made aware of the Society's existence, and he is not yet an active Lector.'

  Everybody in the room looked at Jon as Kortmann spoke, but his expression didn't change, even when the discussion touched on his relations with his father.

  'I'm personally very happy he has returned, especially now when we have need for reinforcements to defend ourselves, and I'd like to ask all of you to give him your unconditional support regarding the task he has agreed to resolve.'

  'What task is that?' asked the man that Katherina had seen in the fiction section.

  'I'll come back to that in a moment,' replied Kortmann. 'First I think you should all introduce yourselves and explain what sort of work you do, both within the Society and outside of it. We all know Pau, so we can skip over him.' Kortmann turned to his left and nodded at the librarian. She immediately sat up straighter and cleared her throat. Her glasses with the big frames now hung round her neck and a pair of blue eyes stared intently at Jon.

  'Well, my name is Birthe,' she began, suppressing a giggle. 'As you've seen, I'm the librarian here. Usually I work at the check-out counter or in the children's section. I love being surrounded by children, and I'm so happy whenever I'm allowed to read to the kids – to sense how they become totally absorbed by the story, letting themselves just-'

  Kortmann cleared his throat.

  'Er, yes,' said Birthe apologetically and giggled again. 'We can always talk about that later. In the Bibliophile Society I'm the historian, which means that I try to map out the history of the Lectors and their expansion through the ages. I worked very closely with your father, such a lovely man. So full of life and humour.' She giggled with delight. 'Always friendly and helpful and-'

  'Thank you, Birthe,' said Kortmann. 'Henning?'

  The man from the fiction section leaned forward with his elbows on the table. The light from the fluorescent lamps revealed that his greying hair was very thin on top of his head, and little beads of sweat were visible on his scalp. His eyes kept blinking erratically like defective windscreen wipers, making him appear unnecessarily nervous.

  'My name is Henning Petersen. I'm forty-two years old, and I work in a bookshop on Kultorvet.' His dark eyes flickered from Jon to Katherina. 'I'm single, as we say nowadays, and I'm fond of cooking and going to the theatre – in addition to books, of course.' He smiled self-consciously. 'I've been active for over thirty years, and I'm the Bibliophile Society's treasurer.'

  He leaned back in his chair and nodded to the next person in line, a woman of about thirty who was holding hands with a man of the same age. Both were a bit stout. They radiated great joy, maybe because they were together.

  'My name is Sonja,' she began in a bright, somewhat piercing voice. 'And this is my husband Thor.' She lifted his hand in triumph. 'I met him through the Society almost three years ago. We're both teachers. Thor works at a school in Roskilde, while I'm at Sortedam School right over there.' She gestured with her hand past Katherina. 'We don't have any specific tasks within the Society, but we always show up at the reading sessions, when it's necessary.' She turned to look at her husband. 'Your turn, Thor.'

  Thor cleared his throat behind his big, full beard.

  'I don't think I have anything to add – after that,' he said and gave a brief chuckle, while his wife chimed in with a shrill squeal.

  The next person in line was a teenage girl who blushed bright red and looked down at her hands.

  'My name is Line,' she said in a low voice. 'I only became a member a month ago, so…' She shifted her gaze to the next person, the man with the Asian features whom Katherina had seen in the non-fiction section. Narrow, rectangular glasses framed his dark eyes, which were turned towards Katherina. His Asian features made it hard to guess how old he was, but she thought he had to be in his mid-twenties.

  'The name is Lee,' he said with no trace of an accent. 'I'll spare you my first name, since most people can't pronounce it correctly anyway. For my day job I work in the IT field as a software engineer, if that means anything to you. I try as much as possible to help the Society on that front, but it's not as if we're expanding via the Internet or using IT in that way,' he remarked, with regret in his voice. 'So I don't do much other than collecting data. Well, I guess that's all,' he concluded and nodded at Katherina.

  She cleared her throat and was about to introduce herself when Kortmann cut her off.

  'Thank you for the introductions. Unfortunately, not everyone was able to be here today. You all know Iversen, but we have three additional members in the Copenhagen area who were unable to make it. But they've all been told that Jo
n and Katherina will be paying them a visit in the near future as part of the investigation.'

  'Could we now hear what this is all about, Kortmann?' asked Henning Petersen, clearly annoyed.

  'Yes, you can,' said Kortmann, looking at Katherina for the first time that evening before he continued. 'The receivers feel thatwe are the source of what's been happening lately, that in thebest case scenario we may have a traitor among us.'

  12

  From his seat next to Kortmann, Jon had an excellent view of the reactions of everyone present. Lee's expression didn't change and he kept his eyes fixed on Kortmann, as if he were waiting to hear more. The teenage girl, Line, looked as if she didn't know how to react, and her flitting eyes sought help from the faces of the others. But there wasn't much help to be found there. The married couple stared at each other in shock, for the first time without smiles or romantic sentiment, while the librarian looked down at her hands, which were shaking slightly. Only Pau looked unconcerned. The whole situation actually seemed to amuse him.

  'What do you mean, "In thebest case scenario, we may have a traitor among us"?' Henning Petersen wanted to know. He spoke the words slowly and with his eyes narrowed, as if it were taking all his concentration, but not for a moment did he take his gaze off Kortmann.