CHAPTER 22 
Odile
PARIS, AUGUST 1940
PERHAPS I SHOULDN’T have called you home,” Papa said, “but I assumed you’d want to know as soon as possible…”
“Monsieur?” Bitsi prompted.
“Rémy’s alive,” Papa said.
I exhaled sharply.
“Where is he?” Bitsi asked. “Is he on his way home?”
“He’s been taken prisoner,” Papa replied.
“Prisoner?” Bitsi repeated.
“He’s in what they call a Stalag,” Papa said, “a prisoner of war camp.”
Maman wept, and I put my arm around her.
“He’s alive,” I told her.
“We know where he is,” Papa said. “Try to let that be a comfort.”
He was right. Poor Bitsi hadn’t had a letter from her brother in months.
“I wish we had news of Julien,” Papa told her, his voice tender.
She bit her lip, and I could see that she was trying not to burst into tears.
Papa drew a card from his blazer. I pried the paper from his hand and read the faint type, Je suis prisonnier. I’m a prisoner. Below, there were two lines:
- I’m in perfect health.
- I’m injured.
The second had been circled. Rémy was alone and hurting.
Blanching when she read the card, Bitsi said she should let her mother know. Papa and I saw her to the door. She kissed his cheek, which brought a shadow of a smile to his face.
We returned to Maman. Papa knelt beside her and gently wiped her tears. He and I tucked our arms around her waist and helped her to bed. In their room, Papa paced, and Maman continued to weep.
“Shall I call Dr. Thomas?” I asked.
“All the medicine in the world won’t help,” Papa said. “I’ll stay with her. You should rest.”
For once, I didn’t argue. I felt guilty about leaving Maman in her grief, yet relieved to contend with my own. Stalag. A new word in the vocabulary of loss. Until today, we’d been able to tell ourselves that Rémy was making his way back to us. What would we tell ourselves now?
At my desk, with his fountain pen, I wrote:
Dear Rémy,
We hate that you’re a prisoner, hate that you’re hurt and far from home. We’re so worried.
Pouring out my feelings brought relief, but the letter would offer Rémy no comfort. I opened the pen and let the ink drip over the page. I began again.
Dear Rémy,
Dear Rémy was as far as I got.
In the morning, I dressed and went to my parents’ room. Maman was tucked under the duvet. Eyes closed, she whimpered as if she were unable to wake from a nightmare. In front of the armoire, Papa buttoned his shirt.
“I’ll stay with her,” I said.
“Maman wouldn’t want you to see her like this.” He escorted me to the front door. “I know of someone who can look after her.”
Outside, there were few people on the pavement, and no cars on the cobbles. The Library was strangely calm, too. I missed Margaret. I missed Paul. I even missed the sound of stern Mrs. Turnbull shushing students.
“I heard about Rémy. I’m so sorry.” Professor Cohen proffered a novel by Laura Ingalls Wilder called The Long Winter. “I’ve marked a particularly memorable passage. During a snowstorm, a pioneer family huddles together in their shack, unable to get warm. Pa begins to play the fiddle and tells his three daughters to dance. They giggle and prance, and this keeps them from freezing to death. Later, Pa must tend the livestock, or the animals will die. When he steps outside, he can’t see six centimeters in front of him. He holds on to the clothesline to make it to the barn. Inside, Ma holds her breath, waiting.” When I took the novel, Professor Cohen covered my hands with her own. “We can’t see what’s coming. All we can do is hold the line.”
BEFORE DINNER, I peeked into my parents’ room, where Maman was sleeping. A nurse was seated near the bed. Thinning brown hair framed a ruddy face. She looked familiar. A subscriber? A volunteer at the hospital?
“I’m Odile.”
“Eugénie,” she said.
“How is she?”
“Your mother hasn’t stirred. I’m afraid she’s in shock.”
Days went by. After work, Bitsi and I tramped around the Tuileries.
“How’s your mother?” I asked.
“She waits at the door like my brother will come home any minute.”
PARISIANS GOT USED to the Occupiers. Some did business with them, selling film for their cameras or beer to quench their thirst. Others refused to acknowledge them, pretending they weren’t there. Some women accepted compliments and invitations to dinner. Others pursed their lips in distaste. In the metro, I scowled at a skinny German soldier until he lowered his gaze.
IT WAS REASSURING to know that Eugénie was at home, one eye on Maman, the other on her knitting. Still, I wondered how I knew her. Someone who’d helped with the Soldiers’ Service? The mother of a school friend?
Then one evening, as Papa and I saw her off, he helped her don her jacket and proposed seeing her home, an offer he’d never made to the charwoman. Eugénie gave a rabbity huff and scurried down the stairs. Suddenly I knew—this “nurse” was the harlot with him at the hotel.
“How could you bring her here?” I hissed.
For a second, he appeared taken aback. Then with a calculating glint in his eye, he added up what I might know, subtracted his own guilt, and hypothesized how he could divide the attention between his mistress and my mother. After considering the elements of this chaotic equation, he chose his argument as well as Rémy did at one of his law school debates.
“What choice is there? Ask your aunt Janine to come back from the Free Zone? Bring in some stranger?”
“Maybe we could try to find Aunt Caro. She would want to know. Would want to help.”
“Your mother would have a conniption if we talked to Caroline behind her back.”
“But, Papa—”
“Perhaps you’d like to tend Maman?”
I was afraid of drowning in the bottomless depth of her grief. “Can’t we hire a nurse?”
“The ones who didn’t have the good sense to flee are working ten-hour shifts in hospitals. Eugénie’s doing a fine job.”
I snorted. “I’m sure you’ve enjoyed her bedside manner.”
“Don’t discuss matters you know nothing about! Besides, Eugénie’s practically a nurse.”
“Working in a library doesn’t make me practically a book. Maman needs a real nurse.”
I stomped down to my bedroom. Bringing his mistress into his house. If only Paul were here, he’d talk sense into Papa. I wrapped my arms around my ribs, wishing it were Paul holding me. When my father disappointed me, when I had a trying time with a snippy subscriber, when I missed Rémy so much I ached, Paul was the balm I rubbed into my bruised soul.
At 8:00 p.m., my father knocked on my door. “Dinnertime.”
“I’ve lost my appetite!”
All night, I lay awake and pictured myself cornering the harlot. Face red with shame, she would apologize for daring to breathe the same air as my mother. She would promise to never darken our doorstep again. She would never again speak to Papa.
Before I left for work, I looked in on Maman. Tender as a lover, Eugénie stroked Maman’s hair; tender as a mother, she wiped her nose. I hadn’t once changed Maman’s nightgown, hadn’t emptied the bedpan. This stranger had stepped in and done all that I couldn’t. Slowly my outrage dissipated.
I kissed Maman’s cheek. She didn’t stir.
“No improvement?” Still, I found it hard to meet Eugénie’s gaze.
“Eight handkerchiefs yesterday. Better than the day before, when she used a dozen.”
“Oh, Maman…”
“I know how she feels.”
“Your son, too?”
“In the Great War. He was a toddler when they bombarded our village. I hope your mother never learns how I feel.” Eugénie stroked Maman’s arm. “Hard, so hard this life, Hortense. But your children need you. We could write your son. Your daughter’s here, wouldn’t you like to see her?”
Maman lifted her head and stared at me with helpless eyes.
25 August 1940
Dear Rémy,
We miss you and hope you’ll be able to come home. If you’ve written, I’m afraid the letters haven’t yet arrived. Maman and Papa are well. Paul’s away, helping with harvest. I miss him so and can’t imagine how much you must miss Bitsi.
More and more people are coming to the Library, for community, for respite. Though many subscribers fled (with our books!), we’re at capacity. Miss Reeder refuses to turn anyone away.
I haven’t heard from Margaret, but Bitsi finally received a card from her brother, so that’s reassuring. She’s well, though she pines for you.
Will this letter find you? There’s so much I want to tell you.
Love,
Odile
25 August 1940
Dearest Paul,
Please thank your aunt for her kind invitation. I’d love to meet her and long to see you, but must stay in Paris in case we hear from Rémy.
Yesterday, Bitsi received a card from her brother. He, too, is a prisoner of war. I wanted to weep when I heard. As much as I love the Library, sometimes work is unbearable.
Coming face-to-face with Bitsi is like looking in the mirror—I see my own worry in her puckered brow, my misery in her chalky complexion. It’s twice as hard for her, since both her sweetheart and her brother have been imprisoned. I put a teacup full of posies on her desk. I wish I could do more. I wish I had better news, fewer maudlin thoughts. When will you return?
All my love,
your prickly librarian
25 August 1940
Dear Margaret,
I write to you often, but haven’t yet received a letter from you. I hope that you are well. It’s been difficult here. Rémy’s in a Stalag. Maman had a breakdown, and Papa brought in his mistress to care for her. Bet she didn’t realize emptying bedpans would be the kind of favor she’d be granting! Ah, well, every position has its drawbacks. Maman’s recovered enough, but not too much. She likes to be waited on. Or she knows who the “nurse” is and wants to make her suffer. Knowing Maman, a bit of both.
Nazis have swarmed Paris, and even the national library. At the ALP, we receive requests from prisoners of war, but Nazi authorities won’t allow us to send books to Allied soldiers imprisoned in Germany. It’s heartbreaking.
Look at me, as dour as Madame Simon. I’ll include some pleasant news. Peter-the-shelver and Helen-in-reference have been spending so much time together—picnicking in the courtyard on their lunch hour, holding hands when they think no one sees—that they have become Helen-and-Peter. They are in love, and it’s lovely to see.
Come home! The Library’s not the same without you.
Love,
Odile
COME SEPTEMBER, Miss Reeder tore off the brown paper that shrouded the windows. When I looked out, I no longer saw the pebbled path or the urn filled with ivy. All I saw were lost letters and faraway friends. I saw Margaret, crunching along the path!
“Rémy?” was the first word out of her mouth, which made me love her even more. “Have you had more news of him?”
“Not since that one card.”
“My dear friend.” She hugged me. “I worried about you and Rémy, about the Library…”
“Raconte!” we said at the same time. Tell! I want to know everything.
She recounted the flight from Paris. “The roads were flooded with cars. German pilots fired on civilians, so anytime a plane flew overhead, cars screeched to a stop and people dove into the ditch. We ran out of gas rations and had to walk the last ten miles to Quimper. Christina howled the entire time. How to explain war to a child?”
Lawrence had wanted to send them back to London, but Margaret refused. “For the first time, I feel important, as if my work, well, my volunteer work, matters.”
“You are important,” I insisted. “We need you here.”
“Sincèrement, I’m thrilled to be back to repairing books!”
“Is Lawrence happy to have returned?”
Margaret picked at her pearls. “He’s in the Free Zone.”
France had been slashed in two, with the North under German control and the South governed by the hero of the Great War, Marshal Philippe Pétain.
“A pity Lawrence is so far away,” I said. “Is he working there?”
“He’s with a… friend.”
“How long will he be gone?”
Margaret searched for words the way I did after a long day spent swerving between French and English. “Oh, who cares about him!” she finally said. “Let me tell you about the trip back. To ensure we had enough petrol, I filled old teapots.”
“Not leaky ones, I hope!”
A WEEK LATER, when Paul arrived at my door—his hair sun bleached the color of hay, his cheeks ruddy, I simply stared. In bed at night, I’d imagined our reunion many times. Throwing myself at his chest, covering him with kisses. His hands on my bottom, making my body thrum. Yet when he took me in his arms, I remained stiff. Tense for so many months, I couldn’t unwind. “Je t’aime,” he said. Feeling his lips on my temple, my body softened, and I wept. Cradling me, he brought me onto the landing, knowing I didn’t want to worry my parents. I’d put up a good front for them, for Bitsi, for subscribers, but with Paul, I didn’t have to pretend.
“We’ll get through this together,” he said.
My sobs subsided and I nuzzled closer. I could stay in Paul’s embrace forever. Well, until Maman joined us. Noting the baskets of potatoes, butter, and cured ham that he’d brought, she told him, “The way to Odile’s heart is through her stomach.”
“A good provider,” Papa said.
At the table, in the sitting room, my parents hovered. A few of Maman’s worry lines faded, and Papa laughed for the first time in a month.
“I’ve missed you,” Paul whispered to me. “I wish we could have five minutes alone.”
“Let’s meet at your place tomorrow.”
“Four colleagues have rooms on my floor. If they saw you, your reputation would be ruined.”
KRIEGSGEFANGENENPOST
15 August 1940
Dear Maman and Papa,
All is well. My health is improving. In the barrack, a doctor from Bordeaux has a bunk near mine. He snores, but his presence is reassuring. Thank you for your cards. Could you send a few things? A warm shirt, underwear, handkerchiefs, and a towel. Some thread. Shaving soap and a razor. If it’s not too much trouble, food that conserves well, perhaps some pâté.
Please don’t worry. We’re treated fairly and have no complaints under the circumstances.
Your loving son,
Rémy
KRIEGSGEFANGENENPOST
15 August 1940
Dear Odile,
How are you? And Bitsi and Maman and Papa and Paul? My shoulder is healing. Near Dunkirk, I was hit by enemy fire. Hurt like hell! Of course, when you used to kick me under the table, I complained that hurt like hell, too. Several men in my unit were captured. We felt resentful about our fate until we learned how many had been killed.
We—French soldiers and some British, too—were marched through what felt like most of Germany with very little food or rest. You know me, I’ve never been athletic. After weeks of walking, many of us were relieved to arrive here and sleep on a bed—even if it’s just wooden planks—instead of the cold, soggy ground.
Thank you for your letters. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to write before now.
Love,
Rémy
30 September 1940
Dear Rémy,
Thank goodness you told us what you need—Maman wanted to send rosaries, so you and the others could “pray properly.” Today, for the first time in ages, she attended Mass. She hadn’t been well, so Papa found a nurse for her.
At first, I wasn’t sure about having a stranger care for Maman, but then I saw how well they get on. Eugénie wears a cardigan with a white blouse, an ordinary woman with rounded shoulders and melancholy eyes. Every so often, a wistful smile touches her lips. Kind of like Maman. In the evening before Papa arrives, we three take tea.
He arrives later and later. His car was requisitioned, so he takes the bus. Unfortunately, few circulate because there is almost no fuel available.
With you gone, Papa picks on me twice as much. And he’s become overprotective—he doesn’t like me going out, not even to see a matinee. The Nazis have their own cinemas and whorehouses, so surely Bitsi, Margaret, and I are safe. The lights dim, and we express our true feelings—when the newsreels show Hitler, everyone hisses.
With the “Soldaten” telling us what is “verboten,” German seeps into our skulls. And their soldiers are learning French. A cross-eyed Kommandant attempted to converse with our bookkeeper—remember her, the intrepid scone baker with a love of dead Greek mathematicians? “Bonjour, Mademoiselle. Vous êtes belle,” the officer said, to which Miss Wedd replied, “Heave, ho!” When he didn’t understand, she added, “Auf Wiedersehen!”
Love,
Odile
IT WASN’T EASY to keep letters light, especially when the Nazis were all over Paris. At a staff meeting, Boris informed us that they’d seized more than one hundred thousand books from the Russian library near Notre-Dame.
“More than one hundred thousand books,” Margaret repeated weakly.
Once, when I was little, Aunt Caro and I had gone there. After Mass at Quasimodo’s cathedral on the island in the river Seine, we crossed over to the Left Bank and meandered down the rue de la Bûcherie to a hôtel particulier. The doors of the mansion were open, so we peered inside. “Welcome, welcome,” we were told. The librarian, who wore reading glasses on a silver chain around her neck, handed me a picture book. Aunt Caro and I marveled at the words, not just in a foreign language, but in a foreign alphabet.
The walls were covered by bookshelves from the floor to the ceiling—so high that one needed a ladder to reach the highest shelves. Aunt Caro let me climb it all the way to the top. That day, like any day with my aunt, was heaven.
Now, I imagined those shelves bare. Imagined the librarian with tears in her eyes. Imagined a subscriber coming to return a book, only to learn that it was the only one left.
“Why are they looting libraries?” Bitsi asked.
Boris explained that the Nazis wanted to eradicate the cultures of certain countries, in a methodical confiscation of their works of science, literature, and philosophy. He added that the Nazis had also pillaged the personal collections of prominent Jewish families.
“Jewish subscribers,” I said, “including Professor Cohen.”
Yesterday in the reading room, at the table in the corner, I’d spied piles of books. Behind them, I could make out white hair and a peacock feather. It was almost as if the professor had created a barricade of library books—works by Chaucer, Milton, and Austen, to name a few.
The professor didn’t seem to notice when I drew near.
“Revisiting the classics?” I asked.
“The Nazis seized my books. They stormed in and shoved my entire collection—my first editions, even my article about Beowulf whose last page was still in the typewriter—into crates.”
“No…” I wrapped my arm around her shoulder. “I’m so sorry…”
“I am, too.” She gestured helplessly to the piles. “I wanted to sit with my favorites again.”
At the staff meeting, Margaret said, “Forty years of research gone.”
“We know her favorites,” Bitsi said. “I can scour the booksellers to replace some.”
“What about our other subscribers?” Miss Reeder asked.
“And the Russian library?” Boris added.
“What about our Library?” I said.
“She’s right,” Miss Reeder said. “The Nazis will be here soon enough.”
IN OCTOBER, SCHOOL began, proof that life went on, no matter what. Mothers ironed shirts and made sure their children had notebooks and pencils. Certain foods were becoming scarce, and housewives waited in long lines at butcher shops. Fashion magazines churned out tips on how women should wear their hats (tipped to the back). Margaret and I boxed books to send to internment camps in the French countryside, where Communists, Gypsies, and enemy aliens—civilians whose country happened to be at war with Germany—were imprisoned.
The Propagandastaffel worked overtime, trying to stir up resentment. Posters plastered on buildings, metro stations, and theater lobbies showed a French sailor flailing in a red sea of blood. Clutching the tattered tricolor, he implored, “Don’t forget Oran!” where the British navy had scuttled our ships. How could we forget? They’d killed more than a thousand French sailors. M. de Nerciat still wouldn’t speak to Mr. Pryce-Jones.
Refusing to be swayed by Nazi propaganda, Parisians had defaced the posters, covering “Oran” and scribbling other words so the line read, “Don’t forget your bathing suit.”
At lunchtime today, Paul and I went to Parc Monceau. Rigid with anger, he strode over the sandy pathway, and I had a hard time keeping up.
“I’ve been ordered to repair the posters,” he said. “It’s worse than directing traffic in those damn white gloves. When people see me mopping up graffiti, they snicker.”
“That’s not true.” I tucked my arm through his, but his stance didn’t soften.
“It’s humiliating. Cops used to have weapons. Now we have sponges. I used to keep people safe. Now I erase scribbles.”
“At least you’re here.”
“I’d rather be with Rémy.”
“Don’t say that,” I said.
“At least he fought. At least he’s still a man.”
“You’re doing your part.”
“By keeping their propaganda pristine?” He kicked a twig out of our way. “It’s humiliating.”
KRIEGSGEFANGENENPOST
20 October 1940
Dear Odile,
Thanks for the pâté. Everyone enjoyed it. Though most who receive food from home share, there are a few hoarders. How disappointing that even in such conditions, we can’t pull together.
Paul sent news clippings and a sketch he did of Story Hour. Bitsi’s holding an open book over her head, like it’s a roof. I can practically hear her tell the children that books are a sanctuary. I was glad to have some news from Paris. Don’t be afraid to tell me what’s going on. I want to know what’s happening there. It takes my mind from what’s happening here. We’re all going stir crazy, wondering how long we’ll be prisoners. One of the fellows has taught me to play bridge. It seems that all we have here is time.
Love,
Rémy
12 November 1940
Dear Rémy,
I’m glad you liked the sketch. Paul’s talented, isn’t he? Maman invites him and Bitsi over often. At dinner last week, Papa showed her your baby pictures. With her, he’s not gruff. I wish you could see how she’s won him over. I wish you could come home, period. Yesterday, nearly 2000 lycée and university students protested against the Occupiers. Old men like Marshal Pétain may run the country, but the young people will lead the way.
Love,
Odile
I didn’t tell Rémy that the pâté we’d sent was our family’s meat ration for the week. I didn’t tell him that the demonstration didn’t last long because the authorities broke it up. I didn’t tell him that the Nazis had seized the Czechoslovakian library. I didn’t tell him that the Kommandantur wrote to inform us that in a week’s time, the Bibliotheksschutz would “inspect” our library.
Miss Reeder, Boris, Bitsi, and I gaped at the diktat.
“What’s a Bibliotheksschutz?” Bitsi asked.
“Literally translated, it means ‘Library Protector,’ ” the Directress said.
“That’s a good thing, right?” I said.
Miss Reeder shook her head sadly. “It’s quite an ironic term. I imagine they’re going to seize our collection.”
“It’s the Book-Gestapo,” Boris explained.
ON THE DAY of the “inspection,” Boris smoked a pack of Gitanes before noon. Miss Reeder threw herself into paperwork, wanting to be sure there could be no technical reason to close the Library. I gathered books to be reshelved. The Great Gatsby, Greenbanks, Their Eyes Were Watching God, these novels were dear friends. Glancing at Margaret, I knew we were thinking the same thing: How can we go on without the Library?
“Let’s take tea to Miss Reeder,” she said. “We must do something or we’ll go mad!”
I felt jittery, so Margaret carried the tray. As she placed it on a table near Miss Reeder’s desk, I asked, “How are you?”
“Sick to my stomach, and shattered to the core,” the Directress replied. “Waiting for his majesty, the Bibliotheksschutz. Praying that somehow we’ll stay open.”
Margaret poured the chamomile tea. The hot porcelain warmed my clammy hands. I was about to take a sip when I heard heavy heels hit the hardwood floor and echo through the stacks.
In her chair, the Directress squared her shoulders. Three men in Nazi uniforms entered. No one said anything. Not hello, not bonjour, not guten Tag, not you’re under arrest, not Heil Hitler. Two of them—no older than me—were brawny soldiers. The third was a slim officer wearing gold-rimmed glasses. He carried a leather briefcase.
The trio sized up items in the office: the papers on the desk; the empty shelves, where rare manuscripts and first editions had been held until they’d been sent into exile, in anticipation of this moment; the Directress, her alabaster skin, her glossy chignon, her pursed lips.
If Miss Reeder was scared, no one in the room knew it. I’d never seen her sit with such straight posture, never seen her face devoid of warmth. She always rose to welcome visitors, ignoring the gender protocol, which allowed her to remain seated and merely extend her arm to shake hands. But these uninvited guests did not deserve her usual attentions.
The “Library Protector” must have expected a director, not a directress. Staring at her, the Bibliotheksschutz spoke in German, his tone dark, his orders quick. The younger men left, quietly closing the door behind them like parlor maids. When the Directress remained taciturn, he said in flawless French, “What a fine library. I am most impressed, Mademoiselle Reeder. Nothing in Europe can compare with it!”
Upon hearing her name, she focused her gaze on his face. “Dr. Fuchs? You’re here in Paris? I had no idea.” She clapped her hands together as if happy to see an old friend. “I confess, I remarked the uniform, not the man.”
“I was assigned this post just last week, and am now in charge of intellectual activity in Holland, Belgium, and French-occupied territory,” he boasted, almost boyishly hoping for her praise. His shiny cheeks and fine sandy hair gave him the appearance of a Sunday-school teacher.
“You must be missing your library.” Her head tilted in sympathy.
“Indeed. The Staatsbibliothek can undoubtedly do without me. Whether I am able to do without it is another question.”
I’d assumed the Nazi would be an illiterate brute. Instead, he worked at the most prestigious library in Berlin. Margaret and I waited for a directive from the Directress, but she and the Bibliotheksschutz were completely absorbed by each other.
“You are now the Directress?” he continued. “My warmest congratulations.”
“We’re lucky to have a dedicated staff and volunteers.” She frowned. “Well, we had… Things have changed. Colleagues have had to leave.”
“It must be difficult on your own.” He jotted down his phone number on a scrap of paper and put it on her desk. “In case you need to contact me.”
“It’s been ages,” she prevaricated.
“Since the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation colloquium,” he murmured. “Simpler times.”
“If they’d told me the name of the Bibliotheksschutz, I could have saved myself a week of worry. I’ve been perfecting my tirade since we learned of the ‘inspection.’ ”
“What were you going to say?” he asked, still standing at attention.
“Stay for tea.” She gestured to a chair.
Margaret went to get another cup. I knew I should have gone but was too fascinated by this turn of events.
“I was going to tell the Bibliotheksschutz that a library without members is a cemetery of books,” Miss Reeder said. “Books are like people; without contact, they cease to exist.”
“Beautifully said,” he replied.
“I was ready to humbly beg to keep the Library open. How could I have guessed that it would be you?”
“You must know I would never allow the Library to be closed. However…”
“Yes?” she prompted.
“You’ll be bound by the rules imposed on the Bibliothèque Nationale. Certain books may no longer circulate.” He pulled a list from his briefcase.
“Are we required to destroy them?” Miss Reeder asked.
He looked at her, appalled. “My dear young lady, I said that they must not circulate. What a question between professional librarians! People like us don’t destroy books.”
Margaret returned with a cup of Earl Grey. The citrusy smell of bergamot infused the room with hope. People like us. A fellow librarian, a kindred spirit. Yes, this war had divided us, but a love of literature would reunite us. We could meet over tea and talk like civilized people. Miss Reeder let out a shaky sigh, perhaps feeling the worst was over. She and the Bibliotheksschutz reminisced about conferences they’d attended and people they knew—oh my, the ALA event in Chicago was so interesting; ah yes, she’s retired now; he transferred to another branch and just isn’t the same.
With a start, Dr. Fuchs consulted his watch and said he was late for his next appointment. “It was a pleasure to see you,” he told the Directress as he rose. At the door, beaming about a meeting that had gone well, he turned to us. I expected a comment about the collection or a bland farewell. “Of course,” he said, “certain people may no longer enter.”