Iris and the Secret Library

by Shu Daizi

  “Hold up there, Iris. Take a seat, first. We need to go over what exactly your role is here first.”

  With an effort, Iris turned her face from the bookshelves and back toward the librarian, who pulled out a chair and sat at the desk.

  Iris silently followed suit, suddenly very aware at the heavy atmosphere of the room.

  “Iris, we brought you here to catalogue this collection. First, let me give you a brief overview. Bright Hall was built by logging tycoons who not only ran the logging towns, but also a massive shipping empire across the Pacific. For reasons we have not discovered, they seem to have collected every piece of erotic or pornographic art they could get their hands on from everywhere their ships visited.”

  By now, her voice was practically vibrating with energy. She was struggling mightily to hold back her fundamental librarian’s joy of a unique collection, but there was something else too.

  “There are erotic novels, pamphlets, woodcuts, massive bound volumes of hand-painted images... there’s just... everything. And almost all of it is old, and some of it is ancient, especially some of the Chinese stuff... I can’t even say how old it is. That’s why we need you. Some of the stuff that’s in European languages I can work my way though, and most of it all seems utterly unique. They simply don’t exist in any collections anywhere.”

  Iris was still listening, taking in the import of what Ms Rai was saying, but more of her attention was focused on watching the transformation of the librarian. She was still stunningly gorgeous, and still terrifying, but her eyes glittered, and her body shifted and leaned forward as if she was bursting with energy. He features didn’t soften at all, but in their animation, she became more human, and maybe even more pretty, rather than stunning. There was a childlike thrill in her voice that was infectious, and Iris had a flash of insight that Ms Rai was a geek. She had to be just about as big as a geek as she was. This was a massive nerd geeking out on her favorite obsession.

  Iris didn’t fully grasp the enormity of what the collection meant, but it was impossible not to join her in her excitement, if only for the hope of another of those fleeting smiles that made her face even more lovely.

  “And then, again, we don’t know why, but whoever was in charge of the collection stopped collecting, we think around World War II. They stopped collecting, and they sealed off the collection. Then, and here’s the wild part, they made a false catalogue. They made this huge list of maritime history and maritime law books, stuff that most libraries had already started getting rid of. It was just about the least interesting collection possible. So, they were trying to hide the collection, I assume, but they knew how important it was, so they didn’t actually get rid of it.”

  Now Ms Rai was nearly hopping out of her chair, and Iris was nearly there herself. But then Iris saw her place her hands palm down on the desk. She took a couple of deep steadying breaths and continued in an emotionless tone.

  “I have built a database framework that you will fill in, one entry for each text or artifact. You will need to be more thorough that simply noting the Library of Congress data. I want full details, and for the texts that you judge particularly important, I want summaries. I understand that there will be alterations that we will need to make to the database, based on the material you find and perhaps with the challenges of language, and I expect you to keep me up to date on your progress and any changes in procedure you wish to make. You will work regular hours here, but I also expect you will want time to work on your own research, so please do let me know what your schedule will be. Again, we take security very seriously here, so we’ll want to know where you will be, in case we need you. What questions do you have?”

  Iris was struck dumb. It seemed simple enough in general terms, but impossible in scope.

  “It’s... It’s beautiful...” Iris kicked herself again. Ms Rai had to think she was an idiot.

  Ms Rai’s expression didn’t change though. The thrill that inhabited her entire body when talking about the collection was almost gone, and the cold precise mask was back in place.

  “I, uh... Ms Rai...” Iris cleared her throat. “Ms Rai, to do this right will take much more than a year.”

  “Yes, of course. I understand, but in a year, I think we should have a good idea of the general scope of the collection.”

  Iris nodded in a way she hoped looked thoughtful.

  “Can... I get started today?”

  Ms Rai blew out a lungful of air and nearly smiled.

  “Yes. You may start immediately. Let me go get your laptop.”

  She stood up and left Iris alone in the massive room. Iris walked over to the nearest shelf and started looking at the spines of the huge leather manuscripts. She reached out and touched one tall black book, and then recoiled slightly as if she had been shocked.

  The door opened again and Ms Rai came in with a laptop. She put it on the desk and started to boot it up.

  “Here’s a card with your login information, please shred it before you leave for lunch. The laptop only has the database software and a browser installed, and the browser is locked down pretty tight to other library databases. It’s not that I don’t trust you, not that I think you’ll be down here all day watching cat videos, just a matter of... focus. And of course, this laptop cannot be taken out of the room.”

  Iris heard her, but hadn’t left the bookshelf.

  “Is there any shelving system now?”

  “Not that we can tell. It seems to be roughly shelved by geographic point of origin, but there are enough outliers that I’m not even sure that’s the case in any meaningful way. And to be honest, we haven’t even opened up all of the boxes, so there’s no telling what you might find down here. I suggest that you start over there, that’s where most of the Chinese texts seem to be, but that’s all up to you. And of course, as you catalogue them, you’ll be marking and reshelving them too. If you need help moving a lot of them, just let me know and we’ll get you some help.”

  Iris nodded absent-mindedly, but didn’t reply.

  “Right then. The database is up. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but if you have any questions, come knock on my door. I’ll be in all day.”

  Ms Rai noticed that Iris wasn’t responding. She smiled slightly, then left the room without a sound.

  Iris was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed in the best possible way. Just the first shelf was filled with titles she had never heard of, but the way they were bound made it clear that they were old, and some looked quite delicate. The smell of the books was thick in the air, that smell that could only come from old books, books written not just on paper, but on parchment, and there was even what looked to be silk rolls there too.

  She moved quickly back to the table and opened up a box of archivist’s gloves and put a pair on. She moved almost at whim to one of the closer shelves and slowly, gently, lovingly slid a box off the bottom shelf. She placed it on the desk, then sat down in front of it. For a moment she waited, glancing at the open laptop, then at the box. This was another moment, like seeing the mountains and crossing in the boat over to the island. This would change things.

  She opened the box and pulled out a small book, placing it on the padded little reading alter. There was no title on the cover, so she opened it.

  The first book was in pretty good condition, and she didn’t think it was too old. She thought it was in Latin, and it seemed like it was a collection of short stories or articles. There weren’t any illustrations, but it was still a beautiful book. She wasn’t overly impressed until she tried to find the title in the library databases. It turned out that it was from the 1800s. It was indeed a collection of naughty stories that was banned and burned in Europe. There seemed to be only three copies left in the world.

  The next item in the box was in Chinese, and Iris could tell right away that it was going to be great. It was an erotic novel with woodblock images for each chapter. The images were hilarious, incredibly detailed and filthy as all hell.
The weird thing was that when she looked at the first chapter, just to get an idea of what kind of book it was, it read super cleanly. It was far more understandable than it should have been.

  See, there are many different kinds of Chinese. Most old books were written in a traditional literary Chinese, which is as different from modern Chinese as Latin is from modern Italian, maybe even more different. You have to learn the literary Chinese like you learn another language. Now Iris was a native speaker, but written Chinese, to say nothing of literary Chinese, was hard for anyone. And growing up in the US made it even harder for her. Fortunately, her parents were damned sure she wasn’t going to be like those other American born Chinese kids who couldn’t read or write Chinese. So, they sent her to Chinese school on the weekend, and her stubbornness meant that she was fairly competent.

  All that said, this book was in literary Chinese, which she could read, but only slowly and with the help of a dictionary for the archaic words. But she was reading this smoothly, not as smoothly as she read modern Chinese, but much easier than she would have expected. She thought maybe it was a newer novel that just looked old, but when she searched the title, she found it on a book list from the mid-Qing dynasty.

  In any case, it was fun and she thought she might go back and read it, but for now, she wanted to go through a few to get used to the database system.

  And so, the morning flew by. She only got a through a few books, realizing very quickly that distraction was going to be a real problem. If she just mechanically looked at the books and put them in the system, she would be able to get through a lot more, but Ms Rai said she wanted her to look over the content, and even do summaries for some. That would take time.

  But she hadn’t even realized that it was lunchtime when the door opened and Ms Rai walked in. She seemed pleased by the way Iris had organized the books, and the evident care that she was using in handling them.

  “So, what do you think, Iris?”

  “I know I keep saying it, but it’s just wonderful. The books are just beautiful, and they are artifacts, too. Just imagining the hands that must have held them through the years... It’s overwhelming.”

  “And what of the content?” Ms Rai’s voice was utterly uninflected.

  “The filth?” Iris twisted around in her chair, and despite herself, she spoke with energy. “So far it’s pretty much what you might expect. I can’t speak to the Latin book there, I can only kind of read it, but the Chinese books... Well, here’s this first one. It’s an erotic novel, very much in the mold of earlier works. It’s a romance in the old sense of the word, kind of an epic, but it’s really about the rise and fall of a great family.”

  “So it’s not exactly erotic?”

  Iris laughed with a snort. “Oh, god, yes. It’s absolutely filthy. I just skimmed it, but the first main scene I read was about this guy and his wives. He was fuc... he was having sex with them all, but only one by one, and they were actually more into each other than him, so they kind of tricked him. One of the wives would take one for the team and sleep with the husband, so that the other wives could all get together with each other in peace. The descriptions are really super... ah... vivid...”

  Iris realized she was getting a little too excited for the professional researcher image she was trying to present, and so she ran out of steam and trailed off.

  “That sounds excellent. I’m so glad we found someone who can handle the language so well. When I try to plough through that old Latin... Well, it’s certainly not the Latin I learned in school, I’ll say that much.”

  Iris tried to master the embarrassed blush that was rising to her face. She expected praise from Ms Rai would be a rare thing.

  “Ah... but I will say, Ms Rai, that if I do this carefully, and look through each manuscript in any detail, this will go quite slow indeed. I still think it’s the right thing to do, especially if these are all as rare as the first few.”

  “Well, let’s see how the first week or so goes, and then we and gauge if we need to speed up or not. Right now, I value the content summaries a great deal.”

  There was a knock on the heavy door. Ms Rai stepped back to open it, revealing Principal Lee in the hallway.

  “Hello Iris, Ms Rai. I realized that you might not know where the cafe was, so I figured I could walk you over there.”

  Iris caught a flash of an exasperated grin on Ms Rai’s face.

  “You don’t think she could figure that out? She’s a big girl, Principal Lee. She rode a big bus all on her own to get here. I’m confident she even ties her own shoes.”

  “Ok, ok, fine. I was trying to be a good host. Is that so bad?”

  “Bad. Yes, you are bad. Now bring my Iris back here undamaged and ready to get back to work. I need her functional.”

  Principal Lee turned to Iris. “You see how she treats me? They say I’m the Principal, but I swear I don’t have any authority here at all. Are you hungry?”

  Iris was trying to parse the banter going back and forth, but she was never good at reading those kinds of things. That was a skill that must come with having a lot of friends, so it wasn’t her strong suit. But that probably meant that Principal Lee and Ms Rai were friends. She wasn’t so sure to begin with, but that did seem like friendly teasing.

  “I am actually a little hungry. Just give me two minutes to get this stuff organized.”

  While Iris arranged the books and her notes, Ms Rai stepped closer to the principal and was whispering something, but she couldn’t make it out.

  And in a moment, they were out of the door and walking up the stairs to the main library room.

  “Are you sure you won’t join us, Veronica?”

  “No, no, I brought my lunch and I’m got a dozen urgent things that need to be done. Enjoy. Iris, come knock on my door when you get back.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Iris didn’t know why she said that, but it caused Ms Rai’s eyebrow to arc up in a very interesting way.

  There was so much Ms Rai wasn’t letting on.

  How could Iris get her to trust her?