The Paris Library

by Janet Skeslien Charles

My favorite part of library school had been the Dewey Decimal system. Conceived in 1873 by the American librarian Melvil Dewey, it used ten classes to organize library books on shelves based on subject. There was a number for everything, allowing any reader to find any book in any library. For

I loved Paris, a city with secrets. Like book covers, some leather, some cloth, each Parisian door led to an unexpected world. A courtyard could contain a knot of bicycles or a plump concierge armed with a broom. In the case of the Library, the massive wooden door opened to a secret garden. Bordered by petunias on one side, lawn on the other, the white pebbled path led to the brick-and-stone mansion.

A few minutes early for the interview, I skirted the circulation desk, where the always debonair librarian listened to subscribers (“Where can a fella find a decent steak in Paris?” asked a newcomer in cowboy boots. “Why should I pay the fine when I didn’t even finish the book?” demanded cantankerous Madame Simon), and entered the quiet of the cozy reading room.

I thought I might check out a novel for my brother. More and more now, at all hours of the night, I would wake to the sound of him typing his tracts. If Rémy wasn’t writing articles about how France should aid the refugees driven out of Spain by the civil war, he was insisting that Hitler would take over Europe the way he’d taken a chunk of Czechoslovakia. The only thing that made Rémy forget his worries—which was to say the worries of others—was a good book.

I opened to a random passage. I never judged a book by its beginning. It felt like the first and last date I’d once had, both of us smiling too brightly. No, I opened to a page in the middle, where the author wasn’t trying to impress me. “There are darknesses in life and there are lights,” I read. “You are one of the lights, the light of all light.” Oui. Merci, Mr. Stoker. This is what I would say to Rémy if I could.

The Directress was waiting. As always, her chestnut hair was swept up in a bun, a silver pen poised in her hand. Everyone knew of Miss Reeder. She wrote articles for newspapers and dazzled on the radio, inviting all to the Library—students, teachers, soldiers, foreigners, and French. She was adamant that there be a place here for everyone. “I’m Odile Souchet. Sorry to be late. I was early, and I opened a book…” “Reading is dangerous,” Miss Reeder said with a knowing smile. “Let’s go to my office.”

What kind of reader was Miss Reeder? Unlike me, she’d never leave books open-faced for a lack of a marque-page. She’d never leave them piled under her bed. She would have four or five going at once. A book tucked in her purse for bus rides across the city. One that a dear friend had asked her opinion about. Another that no one would ever know about, a secret pleasure for a rainy Sunday afternoon—

“Who’s your favorite author?” Miss Reeder asked. Who’s your favorite author? An impossible question. How could a person choose only one? In fact, my aunt Caro and I had created categories—dead authors, alive ones, foreign, French, etc.—to avoid having to decide.

I admired Ralph Waldo Emerson’s way of thinking: I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me, as well as Jane Austen’s. Though the authoress wrote in the nineteenth century, the situation for many of today’s women remained the same: futures determined by whom they married.

I responded to Miss Reeder’s first question. “My favorite dead author is Dostoevsky, because I like his character Raskolnikov. He’s not the only one who wants to hit someone over the head.”

As my fingers reached for the porcelain knob, I heard Miss Reeder say, “ ‘Fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don’t be afraid—the flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again.’ ” My favorite line from Crime and Punishment. 891.73. I turned around.

Did you tell Miss Reeder that you don’t miss a single one of my lectures? I wish my students were as faithful!” “I didn’t think to mention it.” “Include everything you want to tell her in a thank-you note.” “She won’t choose me.” “Life’s a brawl. You must fight for what you want.” “I’m not sure…” “Well, I am,” Professor Cohen said.

It never mattered how low I felt, someone at the ALP always managed to scoop me up and put me on an even keel. The Library was more than bricks and books; its mortar was people who cared. I’d spent time in other libraries, with their hard wooden chairs and their polite “Bonjour, Mademoiselle. Au revoir, Mademoiselle.” There was nothing wrong with these bibliothèques, they simply lacked the camaraderie of real community. The Library felt like home.

I realized that home was a place where there were no secrets.

When I was little, my aunt Caroline took me to Story Hour. It’s thanks to her that I studied English and fell in love with the Library. Though my aunt is no longer with us, I continue to seek her at the ALP. I open books and turn to their pockets in the back, hoping to see her name on the card. Reading the same novels as she did makes me feel like we’re still close.

The Library is my haven. I can always find a corner of the stacks to call my own, to read and dream. I want to make sure everyone has that chance, most especially the people who feel different and need a place to call home.

FROID, MONTANA, 1983 HER NAME WAS Mrs. Gustafson, and she lived next door. Behind her back, folks called her the War Bride, but she didn’t look like a bride to me. First of all, she never wore white. And she was old. Way older than my parents. Everyone knows a bride needs a groom, but her husband was long dead. Though she spoke two languages fluently, for the most part, she didn’t talk to anyone. She’d lived here since 1945, but would always be considered the woman who came from somewhere else.

Folks said she came from France. Wanting to know more about her, I studied the encyclopedia entries on Paris.

Yet nothing I read could answer my question—what made Mrs. Gustafson so different? She wasn’t like the other ladies in Froid. They were plump like wrens, and their lumpy sweaters and boring shoes came in downy grays. The other ladies wore curlers to the grocery store, but Mrs. Gustafson donned her Sunday best—a pleated skirt and high heels—just to take out the trash. A red belt showed off her waist. Always. She wore bright lipstick, even in church. “That one certainly thinks highly of herself,” the other ladies said as she strode to her pew near the front, eyes hidden by her cloche hat.

“When Kennedy was president, defense spending was seventy percent more than it is today.” “We’re sitting ducks.” I listened without listening—in the endless wariness of the Cold War, these grim conversations were the soundtrack of our Sundays.

“President Reagan said a congressman was killed.” “One less freeloader.” Mrs. Murdoch shoved the last of her doughnut between her brown teeth. “That’s a rotten thing to say. Folks have a right to take a plane without getting shot down,” I said. Mrs. Gustafson’s eyes met mine. She nodded, like what I thought mattered. Though I’d made a hobby of observing her, this was the first time she’d noticed me. “It’s brave of you to take a stand,” she said. I shrugged. “People shouldn’t be mean.”

“The Cold War’s gone on for nearly forty years. We’ll never win.” Heads bobbed in agreement. “They’re cold-blooded killers,” he continued. “Have you ever met a Russian?” Mrs. Gustafson asked him. “Worked with one? Well, I have, and can tell you they’re no different than you or me.” The whole hall went quiet. Where had she met the enemy, and how had she “worked” with one?

I tried the front door. It creaked open. “Hello?” I said, and walked in. Silence. “Anyone home?” I asked. In the stillness of the living room, books covered the walls. Ferns lined a stand under the picture window. The stereo, the size of a deep freezer, could fit a body. I flipped through her record collection: Tchaikovsky, Bach, more Tchaikovsky. Mrs. Gustafson shuffled down the hall as if she’d awoken from a nap. Even alone at home, she wore a dress with her red belt. In her stockinged feet, she seemed vulnerable.

She was the definition of solitude.

“Do you always barge into people’s homes?” she asked as we crossed the lawn. I shrugged. “They usually answer the door.”

Mom served the tea; I broke the silence. “What’s the best thing about Paris? Is it really the most beautiful city in the world? What was it like growing up there?”

“The last time I was interviewed like this was for a job back in France.” “Were you nervous?” I asked. “Yes, but I’d memorized entire books to prepare.” “Did it help?” She smiled ruefully. “There are always questions one is unprepared to answer.”

“The best thing about Paris? It’s a city of readers,” our neighbor said. She said that in friends’ homes, books were as important as the furniture. She spent her summers reading in the city’s lush parks, then like the potted palmettos in the Tuileries Garden, sent to the greenhouse at the first sign of frost, she spent winters at the library, curled up near the window with a book in her lap.

“I live to read,” she replied. “Mostly books on history and current events.” That sounded about as fun as watching snow melt. “What about when you were my age?” “I loved novels like The Secret Garden. My twin brother was the one interested in the news.”

Parisians revel in food almost as much as in literature, she said. It had been more than forty years, but she still remembered the pastry that her father brought her after her first day of work, a cake called a financier. Closing her eyes, she said the buttery almond powder made her mouth feel like heaven.

“Paris is a place that talks to you,” she continued. “A city that hums along to its own song. In the summer Parisians keep their windows open, and one hears the tinkling of a neighbor’s piano, the snap of playing cards being shuffled, static as someone fiddles with the radio knob. There’s always a child laughing, someone arguing, a clarinetist playing in the square.”

Imagining our kiss, my heart beat faster, like it did the first time I read A Room with a View. I tore through scenes, waiting for George and Lucy—who were so right for each other—to confess their unbridled love and embrace in a deserted piazza. I wished I could flip the pages of my life faster, to know if I’d see Paul again.

“We’re lucky today.” She gestured toward the window. “Plenty of hawks.” Sometimes they glided high over the pasture across the street. Sometimes they flew low, searching for mice. Mom said bird-watching was better than TV.

“People are awkward, they don’t always know what to do or say. Don’t hold it against them. You never know what’s in their hearts.”

“Oh, honey, what a pity that babies don’t have memories of how they were cherished. Your dad held you all night long.” He was an eagle, she said, calm and brave. I’d learned about eagles—both the male and female take turns sitting on the eggs.

“We say a gaggle of geese.” “How about sparrows?” “A host of sparrows.” “Hawks?” “A cast.” Like a bird TV show. I giggled. “Do you know what they call a group of ravens? An unkindness of ravens.” It sounded too silly to be true. I scoured her face for the truth, but she seemed serious. “What about crows?” “A murder of crows.”

“It takes just a few ingredients to make a healthy meal, yet industrial food companies have Americans convinced there’s no time to cook. You eat bland soup from a can, even though leeks browned with butter taste like heaven.

Boris was famous for his bibliotherapy. He knew which books would mend a broken heart, what to read on a summer day, and which novel to choose for an adventurous escape. The first time I’d returned to the Library without Aunt Caro, ten years ago now, the tall stacks seemed to close in on me. The titles embossed on the spines of stories didn’t speak to me like they usually did. I found myself with tears in my eyes, staring at a blur of books. Looking concerned, Boris drew near. “Your aunt didn’t bring you?” he said. “We haven’t seen her in a while.” “She won’t be coming back.” He selected a book from the shelf. “It’s about family, and loss.

The Directress steered me toward the periodical room, which was to be my post. On the way, she introduced her secretary Mademoiselle Frikart (French-Swiss), the bookkeeper Miss Wedd (British), and the shelver Peter Oustinoff (American).

In the last week alone, she beat me to My Ántonia, Belinda, and The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano.

She proffered The Brothers Karamazov. “I wept when I finished.” Her voice swelled with emotion. “First because I was happy to have read it. Second because the story was so moving. Third because I’ll never again experience the discovery of it.”

“Zora Neale Hurston. The first time I checked out Their Eyes Were Watching God, I gorged on the chapters, wolfing down the words. I needed to find out what happened next—Would Janie marry the wrong man?

Boris found me three other books by Miss Hurston. “I gorged on those, too, like chocolate cake, like love. I cared so deeply about the characters that they became real. I felt I knew Janie, that one day she might enter the Library and invite me for coffee.” “I feel that way about my favorite characters, too,” Bitsi said.

I helped Boris tally how many subscribers had come in today (287), how many books had gone out (936), and details of library life (Another pregnant woman fainted—she read page 43 of Prospective Mother).

I joined the cheerful bookkeeper at her desk. Only two pencils in her bun tonight. “You were right about that Greek philosopher Heraclitus. I loved what he said about how ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice.’ ”

On my way there, I peeked into the reference room, hoping to see Paul. He wasn’t there. The Death of the Heart, 823. I told myself that he couldn’t visit the Library every day.

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.

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?

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. My passion for reading grew—books wouldn’t betray.

“You’ve been blue today.” He handed me 891.73. “Go to the Afterlife. No one will bother you there.” Holding Chekhov to my chest, I slid up the stairs, past the scholars on the second floor who hadn’t noticed it was spring, to the serene third floor, where we kept the books that were rarely checked out, the Afterlife.