The Paris Library

by Janet Skeslien Charles

I read: He had two lives: one, open, seen and known by all who cared to know,… and another life running its course in secret. We could never know our loved ones, and they would never know us. It was heartbreaking, it was true. Yet there was solace: in reading other people’s stories, I knew that I wasn’t alone.

Over tea in the kitchen, we talked until the wee hours. We knew each other’s secrets. Rémy was my refuge. Yet everything was changing. I was with Paul; he with Bitsi. I had a job; soon, he’d graduate. This might be the last year we’d live under the same roof. We’d been together since before we were born, but eventually we would live separate lives. I wondered how long we had left together.

The Little Prince began with a boy who made simple drawings. When he showed them to adults, they didn’t understand. I knew how he felt; no one understood how much I missed Mom. “Jesus needs her in heaven, hon,” the ladies said, as if I didn’t need her down here. I continued reading. “It is such a mysterious place, the land of tears”—the words from a dead aviator comforted me more than trite phrases from folks I knew. “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” The book carried me to another world, to a place that let me forget.

I wanted to be eloquent like the Prince, elegant like Odile. I told her I wanted to learn French. “I’d love to teach you!” she said.

GRIEF IS A sea made of your own tears. Salty swells cover the dark depths you must swim at your own pace. It takes time to build stamina. Some days, my arms sliced through the water, and I felt things would be okay, the shore wasn’t so far off. Then one memory, one moment would nearly drown me, and I’d be back to the beginning, fighting to stay above the waves, exhausted, sinking in my own sorrow.

Paul kissed my hands, my cheeks, my lips. I wanted more. His skin on mine, our bodies entwined. Kissing was the prologue of a marvelous book, one I wanted to read until the end.

I herded my habitués from the periodical room. Snatching Good Morning, Midnight from the shelf as if she were saving her best friend from a burning building, Professor Cohen proclaimed, “I’ll not leave Jean Rhys.”

“But seriously, why books. Because no other thing possesses that mystical faculty to make people see with other people’s eyes. The Library is a bridge of books between cultures.”

Feeling uncertain about the future, I often checked the last page of a novel, hoping for a happy ending. In Villette, 823. “Here pause: pause at once. There is enough said. Trouble no quiet, kind heart; leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to conceive the delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the rapture of rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread, the fruition of return.”

Margaret’s right—Paul volunteers to be close to you. It shouldn’t hurt to hope. It should give you thrills, like a plateful of stars set before you, shimmering with possibility.

“I wish you could meet my habitués at the Library. There’s an Englishman—imagine a crane wearing a paisley bow tie. And his French friend—a walrus with a bushy mustache. Each day, they light a stinky cheroot and debate. Today’s topic: Proust’s madeleine, should it have been a croissant? Yesterday’s: Who’s the greatest athlete with a J in his name? Johnny Weissmuller or Jesse Owens.” I was rewarded with a small smile. “They’re both wrong—it’s the rower Jack Beresford. I want to hear more.”

I glanced at the clock. Nearly eleven. “Don’t go,” he said. His voice had become hoarse, so I lifted his head and gave him a sip of water. “You’ll never be alone,” I promised. “Shall I tell you more? You’d recognize the professor from a distance because she always wears purple. She talks about books like they’re her best friends…” “I want to meet her.” Through the night, I stayed, telling tales, calming his fevered dreams, holding his hand until he died.

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.”

Staff filed in, one by one. Bitsi bit her lip. Boris frowned. Miss Wedd had twelve pencils in her bun. I pulled The Dreamers from Miss Reeder’s shelf. I needed something to hold on to. I didn’t have to turn the pages to know what was written: “This book is a map, each chapter a journey. Sometimes the way is dark, sometimes it leads us to the light. I’m afraid of where we’re going.” “Well?” Bitsi said. “What did ‘the Library Protector’ say?” “We must take forty works from our shelves,” Margaret replied. On the list: Ernest Hemingway, who’d written for our newsletter, and William Shirer, who researched articles in our reading room.

Love is accepting someone, all parts of them, even the ones you don’t like or understand.

During the war, we librarians delivered books to Jewish friends. The Gestapo even shot one of my colleagues.” Shooting a librarian? Wasn’t that like killing a doctor? “They killed Miss Reeder?” “She’d left by then. The Nazis arrested several librarians, including the director of the National Library. We feared Miss Reeder might be next. I was brokenhearted when she left. But saying goodbye is a fact of life. Loss is inevitable.” I was sorry I’d dug out the photos; they’d only made her sad. But then she cupped my cheek gently and said, “Sometimes, though, good things come from change.”

“What kind of reader are you? What are your prized books?” “The truth?” I leaned closer. Would he confess to reading scandalous novels? “Just last week, I discarded my entire collection.”

“I’d had my share of Sophocles and Aristotle, of Melville and Hawthorne, books assigned at university or offered to me by colleagues. I’ve spent enough time in the past. I want today, now. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nancy Mitford, Langston Hughes.” “What did you do with your books?” “When I heard Professor Cohen’s collection had been pillaged, I boxed up my books and took them to her.

Though Mr. Pryce-Jones made it seem like he was content to give away a collection built over a lifetime, I sensed the truth. He parted with his books because the professor had been forced to part with hers.

‘Accept people for who they are, not for who you want them to be.’ ” “What does that mean?” “Your father’s old, he won’t change. And dogs don’t have kittens, so you’re as stubborn as he. The only thing you can change is the way you see him.”

Barreling down rue Blanche, I noticed a brunette in an elegant blue jacket, a yellow star on her lapel. I froze, hurt pride suddenly the farthest thing from my mind. Jewish people could no longer teach, enter parks, or even cross the Champs-Élysées. They couldn’t use phone booths. They had to sit in the last car of the metro. Continuing in my direction, the brunette raised her chin, but her mouth quivered. I’d heard about the yellow stars, but this was the first one I’d seen.

I’d felt guilty, imagining these paintings ripped from the wall, sold in order to purchase supplies. But if the portraits were here, how had she procured the food? She’d asked her Nazi. Margaret and a Nazi. How odd to put the two together. They belonged in separate books, on separate shelves. But as the war went on, people became entangled. Things that were black and white—like print on the page—mingled to form a murky gray.

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.

Once in the room, I made a beeline for Boris. Fussing like Maman would, I tucked the blanket over his chest. His green eyes were soggy with painkillers, but the corner of his mouth lifted like it did when he was about to say something silly. “Our country has truly become France Kafka.” “It’s been a Metamorphosis.” I tried to keep my tone light.

I remembered another line from As You Like It, “these trees shall be my books, / And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character.”

I needed to believe that she was safe, needed her to have a happy ending. I thought of a line from Good Morning, Midnight. “I want a long, calm book about people with large incomes—a book like a flat green meadow and the sheep feeding in it.… I read most of the time and I am happy.”

IN THE COUNTESS’S office, I eyed the makeshift mattress where she slept each night in order to keep watch over the Library—she was seventy years old, yet ready to confront Nazi soldiers. A few books rested near her pillow. I leaned forward to see the titles, but Bitsi tugged at my sleeve, urging me toward the others who’d gathered at the desk. Meetings that had once teemed with staff had dwindled to the secretary, the caretaker, Bitsi, Boris, Margaret, me, and Clara de Chambrun.

‘Try to accept people for who they are, not who you want them to be.’ ”

Perhaps I lived too much in the past. It was easy, when many memories were sweet. I savored my wedding night with Buck, somewhat surprised to have found pleasure again. “Love is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.” 813, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Don’t listen when someone tells you not to bother a person—reach out to make a friend. People don’t always know what to do or say. Try not to hold that against them; you never know what’s in their heart. Don’t be afraid to be different. Stand your ground. During bad times, remember that nothing lasts forever. Accept people for who they are, not for who you want them to be. Try to put yourself in their shoes.

My goal in writing the book was to share this little-known chapter of World War II history and to capture the voices of the courageous librarians who defied the Nazis in order to help subscribers and to share a love of literature. I wanted to explore the relationships that make us who we are, as well as how we help and hinder one another. Language is a gate that we can open and close on people. The words we use shape perception, as do the books we read, the stories we tell one another, and the stories we tell ourselves.