The Librarian Spy

by Madeline Martin

“There is an art to these,” he explained after handing her a small stack to tuck into her handbag at a soiree at the Estoril bar one night. “It is resistance among oppression, words rivaling heavy artillery, seemingly insignificant and yet still efficacious. This is strength in its rawest form. It is beautiful.” Lamant was a rare soul who saw some element of magnificence in most things. She smiled at his assessment. “That’s poetic.” “You must look beyond the page.” He lifted his drink but paused before taking a sip. A sliver of lemon bobbed in the clear liquid. “To the men and women who worked so seamlessly together. Not only the author who wrote it, but the typographer who meticulously assembled it, to the person manning the complexities of the printing machines, to the courier who delivered it and the citizen who smuggled it from French soil to end up here in Portugal.” This was one of the things she enjoyed about the rare moments she spent with Lamant. Never had she considered more than the authors or the piece itself. But he was correct in his appraisal, at the string of involvement to bring these clandestine papers to her hand. “Even you.” Lamant gestured to her with his glass, his cheeks slightly reddened from spending too much time by the ocean. “Those papers would die here in Lisbon. They would become rubbish over time, tossed out with the rest of the trash. History discarded. But you are sending them on to America. You are preserving these moments in time so all w...