“What about your sketches?” I asked glumly.
“I’ll draw new ones.” He put his arm around my waist. “Cheer up, I found us a new place.”
On the street, we encountered Mme. Simon. “Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.
Still distraught from losing the apartment, I tried to swallow.
“Mademoiselle Souchet has a right to take lunch,” Paul answered.
“Just so you’re back at one,” Madame told me.
“Mademoiselle doesn’t answer to you,” he said, his grasp tightening as he steered me down the sidewalk.
“You didn’t need to be abrupt,” I told him. “She’s like crotchety Aunt March in Little Women. Gruff on the outside, but kind deep down.”
“Not everyone has a deep down.”
“And not everyone is a criminal,” I said lightly.
“Some people are exactly what they present to the world.” We stopped in front of a grand Haussmannian building. “This is the place.”
In the foyer, our footfall was muted by a plush crimson carpet. Gazing at the golden chandelier, I had the tingly feeling of déjà vu. Perhaps I’d delivered books here.
Upstairs in the apartment, the brocade curtains were drawn. I didn’t care about the view, I only cared about Paul. I wanted an hour when we could forget everything. As he kissed my breasts, my belly, my bottom, my whole body crackled.
Afterward, still naked, we visited the apartment as if it were a museum, admiring the Chinese vases on the mantel, the Old Masters on the wall. But the best was the kitchen: chocolate in the cupboard. The new place wasn’t so bad—exploring was exciting.
But we were running late, so I tossed the dress shirt and trousers to Paul. He slipped them on but didn’t fasten them; instead, he helped do up the back of my blouse. Behind me, almost reverently, he kissed my nape as he fastened the mother-of-pearl buttons. It was in these tender moments that I loved him the most.
Caught up in my feelings, I barely registered the click of the lock, the squeak of the hinges.
“Who the hell are you?” a barrel-chested man demanded.
Barefoot and disheveled, Paul and I jumped apart.
“This is my place now.”
I inched toward the door. Paul grasped my hand and pulled me to him. “We thought—”
“Get out! And stay the hell away.”
Heads hung low, we slunk back to the Library, embarrassed to have been caught. Where would we meet now? Another question was forming, too. Whose apartment was it? “We didn’t do anything wrong,” Paul said. He gave me a peck on the cheek and continued on to the police station. Whose apartment? Flustered, I entered the periodical section before recalling I worked in the reference room. With no current newspapers, few people spent time here, so it was surprising to see someone digging through old magazines.
“May I assist you?”
“I notice some subscribers are foreigners.” He looked familiar. Ah, yes, the man in tweed who’d tried to abscond with a journal.
“One of our many points of pride. Everyone feels at home here.”
“I’d like to contact them.”
“We destroyed our records. We didn’t want them to fall into the wrong hands,” I said tartly, and strode to the circulation desk, where Boris and Bitsi chatted, heads tilted together.
“He asked where I’m from,” Boris whispered. “I told him I’m Parisian.”
“He comes here more and more,” Bitsi said. “When he’s behind me, I can feel his sour breath on my neck.”
I slipped my foot over hers.
“What did he want?” Boris said.
“He asked about our foreign subscribers.”
“Speaking of foreigners,” Bitsi said, “where’s Margaret?”
She should have arrived by now.
“Phone her,” Boris said.
I called her throughout the afternoon but no one answered. What if she’d been arrested like Miss Wedd? No, there was a reason she hadn’t come, a perfectly reasonable reason. I looked at my watch. Its face remained impassive, its hands refused to move. Holding my wrist to my ear, I listened for the watch’s faint pulse. Panic rose in my chest, making it hard to breathe.
“Go,” Boris urged. “We can take care of things here.”
I made one more call, then rushed to Margaret’s.
CHAPTER 31
Odile
THE BUTLER ANSWERED the door. “Is Margaret in?” I asked, anxiously looking past him into the flat. Imperturbable as ever, he led me to her room, where she lay in bed, surrounded by crumpled handkerchiefs. I embraced her.
“Thank God you’re here. We feared you’d been arrested!”
“I’m ill,” she rasped. “I tried to ring, but couldn’t get through. The phone’s been down all week.”
I perched beside her. “I even asked Paul to come in case we had to file a missing-persons report.”
“You needn’t worry.” There was a sureness in her tone.
“Of course, I worry! The city’s overrun with Nazis.”
“I’m telling you, you needn’t worry.” She peered toward the hall to make sure no servants milled about, before whispering, “I met someone.”
“We meet new someones every day.”
“No, I met someone.”
Was she trying to say she had a beau? “At the Library?”
“No. I didn’t want to frighten you… but I was arrested.”
“Arrested?” I shouted.
“Shh! This is exactly why I didn’t tell you.”
Grasping the blue silk of the bedspread, I wondered how she could keep such a thing from me. Of course, it didn’t occur to me that I hadn’t told her that Paul and I were engaged.
“After I was released, Felix gave me a document that allows freedom of movement.”
She called him by his first name? Did that mean he was her beau? It was too much to take in. She’d kept a secret. She kept company with the enemy. My whole body tightened in anger.
“Did you say Paul is coming?” She moved to the vanity and powdered her pink nose.
Now I was the one eyeing the hall. “You’re not well enough for company,” I said stiffly. “I should go.”
“Don’t do what Parisians do, when they conceal their true feelings behind a stiff veil of politeness.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“If you want to go, go. But don’t pretend it’s because I have a cold.” Our gazes met in the mirror. Mine was troubled, hers resolute. “If Felix hadn’t freed me and three elderly ladies from that dank cell, we’d be moldering in an internment camp. And what would my daughter have done then? Think about that.”
Her words sank in. She could have disappeared like our Miss Wedd. I had to stop jumping to conclusions, stop judging. I was as bad as Madame Simon.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “The most important thing is that you’re safe. Are you certain you’re up to having company?”
“I’m only dizzy when I stand. Ask Isa to ready a tea tray. I’ll join you shortly.”
In the sitting room, the gouty men in gilded frames were still here. Each time Margaret had proffered a package for Rémy, 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.
When Paul arrived, I pulled him close.
“What’s wrong?” He kissed the top of my head.
“Nothing. I’m glad to see you, glad you’re you.”
“I can’t believe these portraits. It’s like the Louvre in here.”
“All that glitters isn’t integrity,” I said.
“Huh?”
Margaret swept in. She did
love to make an entrance. Paul and I stepped apart.
“Sorry to have taken you away from work, Paul. It was kind of you to come. Odile is lucky to have you.”
His ears went red, and he grinned bashfully. “Always a pleasure to see you.”
I elbowed him to remind him that we weren’t here to make small talk. He needed to warn her about the danger—I wasn’t convinced that a flimsy piece of paper from her beau could protect her.
“They say the Krauts have interned over two thousand foreign women,” he said firmly in English.
“I know,” she said.
“You’re in danger here,” he said. “You should leave.”
“You could have fled to the Free Zone in the South,” Margaret argued. “You’ve stayed.”
“I need to stay where Rémy can find me.”
“I want to be with Odile,” Paul said. “Think about your daughter.”
“London isn’t safe, either.” Margaret coughed into her handkerchief.
“Be careful,” he said. “If you see Germans coming, cross the street.”
No one could avoid Nazis, not even at the Library, and I knew Margaret didn’t particularly want to.
* * *
A WEEK LATER, Margaret cornered me in the cloakroom and thrust a box with a silver ribbon at me. I opened it and smelled the chocolate—black-market gold. My stomach gurgled. I didn’t want her ill-gotten goods but couldn’t stop myself from taking a piece. As the milky chocolate melted in my mouth, I wondered what she’d done to get such luxuries, I wondered what else she’d received. Silk? Steak? What were their Dewey numbers? The closest I got was 629 for silkworms and 636.2 for cattle. I couldn’t find the right numbers. I couldn’t believe all she had while the rest of us went without.
“During the Library’s annual closure, Felix and I will go on holiday. Deauville is supposed to be delightful. Nanny will watch Christina, and if anyone asks, I’ll say I stayed with you.…” Still on her cloud of happiness, Margaret floated out to the reading room.
The chocolates were delicious. I’d send the rest to Rémy. I would. After one more piece.
* * *
THAT EVENING, while Boris and the Countess went over the budget in her office, I manned the circulation desk. When the phone rang, I expected to be asked to deliver books. “I demand to see Clara de Chambrun.” The caller spoke in French with a slight German accent. “Let us say nine thirty tomorrow. Tell her to enter directly, and express my regrets at not being able to call at the Library.” He didn’t give me a chance to reply before hanging up. What did Dr. Fuchs want with the Countess? Would we lose another friend?
Upstairs, I peeked into the Countess’s office. When Boris noticed me, his brows rose in concern. Of course, he knew something was wrong, he was a librarian—part psychologist, bartender, bouncer, and detective.
“I have a message,” I said.
The Countess peered over her reading glasses. “Well, what is it?”
“I’m afraid Dr. Fuchs insists on seeing you at his office tomorrow,” I said.
“Oh, does he?”
“You and the general should leave town,” Boris said.
“So they can arrest you in my place?” she replied. “What exactly did he say?”
I repeated his message.
“I’ll accompany you,” Boris said.
I didn’t want him to go—he had a wife and little girl who depended on him. I tried to find a convincing argument. He had the keys, so he had to be here to open in the morning? No, he would simply hand them to me.
“From what I’ve seen,” I said slowly, “Dr. Fuchs has a soft spot for women. It’s better if I accompany the Countess.”
“I’m not taking you to pay a call on a Nazi!” she said. “What would your parents say?”
“Honestly, my father didn’t want me to work with the capitalist foreigners here, either. Papa’s a commissaire, so my family has already had dealings with Nazis.” I said this only to win the argument. I never thought about how my father spent his days, or with whom.
“Are you certain about accompanying me?” she asked.
I was afraid to go to Nazi headquarters, but as I considered the leather-bound books on the Countess’s shelves, the novels I delivered to subscribers, and Professor Cohen’s manuscript hidden in the safe, I decided that words were worth fighting for, that they were worth the risk.
“Absolutely.”
There was no time to dwell on what might or might not happen—we were too busy running the Library. I returned to the circulation desk, where Mme. Simon demanded, “Where the devil have you been? I could have walked right out with these books!”
When the last subscriber had left for the day, I shoved Professor Cohen’s books into my satchel and hurried up the boulevard. It was just past seven, but the murky silhouettes of buildings loomed. I’d grown up in the city and felt as safe on the avenues as I did in Maman’s arms. But tonight, each time I glanced behind me, the man in the tweed suit was there. When I crossed the street, he did, too. I looked back; he stopped and leafed through a magazine at the kiosk. I walked briskly. He continued, as if on an evening stroll, a scowl on his sinister face. In the shadows, I saw his briefcase in one hand, and in the other… the glint of a gun, its barrel staring at me.
Taking a sharp right, I leaned against the grimy building. My legs twitched, urging me to break into a run. I peeked around the corner. As he drew closer, I saw that what I’d thought was a barrel of a gun was a rolled-up magazine, probably purchased at the kiosk.
I went out of my way to lose him, and scurried along posh Faubourg Saint-Honoré, past Hermès, then the presidential palace, looking for a place to hide. I wasn’t far from Le Bristol, where Miss Reeder had stayed at the beginning of the Occupation. I’d delivered books to infirm guests there. I broke into a run, and before the doorman could reach his post, I threw open the door and dove toward the front desk, where I begged the concierge to let me out the back way. He whisked me across the sumptuous oval salon, through a trompe l’oeil door, into the cacophonous kitchen, and onto a side street.
As I caught my breath, I wondered if I should deliver the books or go straight home. I decided that I had a right to see whomever I liked.
“I wasn’t sure you were coming,” Professor Cohen said.
“I took the long way.”
She ran a hand over the book cover as lovingly as Maman caressed my face. The professor had checked Good Morning, Midnight out at least ten times. When I asked why she liked it so much, she replied, “Jean Rhys is fearless. She tells the truth, and writes for the forlorn and the vulnerable.”
I opened to a random page, the way I usually did to get to know a book. Paris is looking very nice tonight.… You are looking very nice tonight, my beautiful, my darling, and oh what a bitch you can be! I cringed. That wasn’t how I thought of my city, not at all.
Seeing my reaction, the professor said, “Remember, Rhys is describing Paris as a foreigner with little money and no one to help her.”
I loved Professor Cohen, and wanted to love what she loved. “Promise you’ll let me read it when you’ve finished. Do you think I’ll like it?”
She drew her shawl tighter around her. “I’m not sure. There’s no happy ending.”
* * *
AT 9:00 THE NEXT morning, the Countess and her husband waited in their car in front of my building. The general’s bowler covered most of his white hair. Like many Parisians, he had bags under his eyes. When he bore down on the gas pedal, the Peugeot ambled over the cobbles like an old nag who didn’t want to be ridden. From the back seat, I noted that he spent more time watching his wife than he did the road. We putted up the Champs-Élysées, past the Arc de Triomphe, and arrived at the Majestic Hotel, Dr. Fuchs’s office.
“Shall I go with you?” the general asked.
“We’re perfectly capable of answering a few questions.”
“Then I’ll wait,” he said, gripping the wheel.
The lobby was empty. A dowdy
blonde—Parisians called these German women “gray mice” because of their drab uniforms—led us to Dr. Fuchs’s sparse office. Seated stiffly at his desk, the Bibliotheksschutz appeared as perturbed as we felt. When he didn’t stand to greet us, as was proper, I knew something was very wrong. In French, he warned, “You must speak the truth.”
The Countess drew herself up. “There’s no question about the Library that we will not answer fully.”
“We received an anonymous letter accusing the Library of circulating anti-Hitler tracts.”
We’d been denounced?
“These caricatures were discovered in your collection.” He thrust a file at the Countess.
She flipped through the pages. “The drawings date from before the war, and periodicals like these never go beyond the reading room.” She placed the file on his desk. “I assure you that I would never betray the institution I promised to safeguard.”
“If they’ve been circulated,” I said tartly, “it’s because one of your compatriots carried them off. I saw one try to steal a journal.”
“Hush,” the Countess whispered. “Think before you speak.”
“I know that you also circulate banned books,” he said.
“You told Miss Reeder that we didn’t have to destroy them,” I argued.
At the mention of the Directress, his stance softened. “That’s true. But from now on, you must keep them under lock and key.” He drew a long breath. “Mesdames, it appears we have found a solution.” Switching to English, perhaps so the gray mouse eavesdropping in the corridor wouldn’t understand, he added, “I am most happy for you. I will not conceal that I am also very happy for myself.”
He rose, and we knew the meeting was over. Noting that even Dr. Fuchs was cautious around the gray mouse, the Countess and I remained silent until we returned to the car.
On the way back to the Library, I wondered about Dr. Fuchs’s odd declaration. Perhaps if we’d been found guilty of wrongdoing, so would he, as the administrator of libraries in the Occupied Zone.
When the Countess and I crossed the threshold, Boris drew a flask from the drawer and poured some bourbon into three teacups. The Countess eased onto a chair and took a sip. Quickly, I explained the allegations.
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