‘Have the planners established that people don’t want to do those things in the presence of the books?’
‘Of course not. Anyway, the main bone of contention is the Reading Room. At the moment it’s only for researchers. It houses Australian books, maps, manuscripts, newspapers and magazines. They want to clear all that out and send it off-site and use the space as a kind of corporate shopfront, with the lovely architecture and furniture and the scholars sitting around like movie extras. Sending the materials off-site will mean that one newspaper or book won’t send a researcher straight off to consult another. They’ll have to put in an order. Fill out a form.’
‘This is the other great conflagration of libraries,’ Taryn said. ‘Public libraries being closed or run down because the people with the purse strings don’t understand that today doesn’t always know what tomorrow will need.’ Then, ‘If there’s a petition I’ll sign it.’
He said he’d send her a link. He went on to say that he found he’d quite liked her book. He hadn’t expected to. ‘I thought it might be a little academic.’
‘I think I prefer the word “scholarly” to “academic”.’
‘Yes. You would.’ He went on to tell her that he’d liked her book’s anecdotes rather than its arguments.
They talked about the bear who broke into a priory in Jura, in the very cold winter of 1500, attracted by the aroma of fresh vellum, and ate a copy of the letters of St Jerome. They talked about the pope who ordered copies of Livy and Cicero burned because young Romans preferred them to reading scripture. They discussed the Mongol commander Hulagu Khan who used books from the great library of Baghdad to build a road for his army through the swamps of the Tigris. Books in bellies, books burned, books trodden underfoot. The journalist then quoted Heine. People who read Taryn’s book often quoted Heine: “Where they have burned books at the end they will burn people.” That’s what your book is about,’ he said. ‘That’s where its whole argument leads.’
Taryn reflected that it was where he wanted her argument to lead—the ultimate talking point in her publisher’s Ten Talking Points for Book Clubs.
She said, ‘Hulagu and the bear in Jura aren’t just a preface to Nazi book burning.’
‘No?’
‘Let us think for a moment about Hulagu Khan. His sack of Baghdad’s libraries wasn’t just a gesture of hatred against Islamic culture and Syrian scholarship. He also destroyed the city’s bridges. Hulagu understood the relationship between knowledge and communication, communication and commerce, commerce and power. It is as if he took Baghdad and knocked the teeth out of its head. Not just the teeth that bite, but the teeth that facilitate eating and speech. He crippled the city. Hulagu took treasure and slaves, but he wasn’t a covetous conqueror, he didn’t want to stay and enjoy anything. He just wanted to beat the city down and make sure it stayed down.’
‘But the destruction of books is a gesture and a threat. It’s like saying to the people of those books: You’re next.’
Taryn was relieved that he’d finally decided to conduct his author interview at the level of her book. But she had no energy, and she could smell the dinner trolley coming along the corridor—mashed carrots and unsalted soup in warm food-grade plastic containers. She would like to eat her food while it still had some heat in it. And, after the meal, a nurse would deliver the medication which would bring a fog rolling in on an evening with no phone calls after 9pm.
The journalist said, ‘Now we have our libraries and bridges in the same place. Or the same no-place. The internet.’
If she said yes, his idea might appear in the article, without quote marks, but everyone would still think it was hers. Did she mind?
The journalist was running with it. ‘The internet is pretty much indestructible, but its library is full of questionable documents, and its bridges are like Florence’s Ponte Vecchio, lined with shops hawking all the same stuff and obstructing the view of the river.’
Taryn laughed. Her teeth analogy had encouraged him and it turned out he had a flair for metaphor. But there was something she should add. What was it? Something relevant. Taryn tried to pull herself together. She wanted to tell this Australian stranger that she enjoyed his Ponte Vecchio analogy. She wanted to please him enough to get a little warmth from their encounter.
But he’d already gone on to noticing the parallels between her account of the botched efforts of manuscript preservation following the 1731 Cotton Library fire in the unfortunately named Ashburnham House, and the 2004 fire in the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, after which damaged books were freeze-dried to spare them from rotting.
The dinner trolley arrived at Taryn’s door, wheels squeaking, steaming at all its seams. The woman pushing it carried Taryn’s tray to her bedside table and checked the diet sheet. She mouthed at Taryn, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ And Taryn covered the mouthpiece to answer, ‘That would be lovely.’
Her attention wasn’t substantial enough to be divisible. She got that sensation again, the one she’d had in Carol’s hotel room, of something scraping its yellow nails on the inside of her skull. She wanted to end the conversation and didn’t seem to be able to summon the right polite words. But, suddenly, he was asking his fluffy final questions. Would this be Taryn’s first trip south of the equator? Then, angling, ‘Your father spent a lot of time in New Zealand a few years back. You must have visited him.’ Perhaps he hoped to work his way around to asking whether she had any insights on what would happen next in the mega hit TV series her father was working on now.
‘I planned to visit Dad in Wellington, but then my sister was killed.’
‘Oh,’ said the journalist. After that the interview came to an awkward close.
Taryn swung her bedside table over her legs, uncovered her meal and let its steam wash her face. She ate as much as she could until overcome by tiredness. Then she reclined her bed, closed her eyes and wished there wasn’t a nurse coming soon, who would wake her up only to give her something to help her sleep.
Much to her surprise, Taryn’s work of musing non-fiction had found its way onto the bestseller lists. The Feverish Library was about the threats to libraries, from silverfish to austerity measures. And it was about what libraries choose to keep. Books made to be treasured, and books made for use. And the things never intended for preservation—like letters. A letter once read might be twisted into a spill to carry flame from hearth to candle, or torn into strips for curl-papers to make ringlets in a child’s hair. But such are the vagaries of value that a thing meant for the eyes of only one person, like a letter of apology or a declaration of love, is stashed and cared for, along with public documents, peace treaties, royal proclamations and papal bulls. A note scribbled on a table napkin by a famous jazz pianist, or an alphabet book made by a mother for her child, gathered together in the democracy of a library, might keep company with a papyrus scroll chronicling all that remained of the story of Gilgamesh and his visit to the underworld, or Ibn Hawqal’s map of the world. All kept, and safe. Safe from the light that fades, speckling paper, ageing it as skin ages, with freckles and liver spots; from the insects that burrow, punctuating the middles of words, making merry hell of sentences and dust of reason; from the damp that brings mildew and makes books secretive, gluing their pages together and causing even gilded titles to fade into its grey-green mist. Light, insects, damp are the enemies of books. Light, insects, damp—and fire.
The Feverish Library concluded with library fires, a subject which intersected with that of book-burning and censorship. It was Taryn’s take on these matters that drew noisy notice to a work that might otherwise have had only a few thoughtful reviews.
Of library fires there was no end of stories. And that was the charm Taryn found in the history of burned libraries—no end of stories, and their sudden, accomplished end.
Light came rosy through Taryn’s eyelids. She was drifting, a thing neither sunk nor floating. Someone was talking to her. Taryn identified her father’s cons
idering manner, his usual boisterous bonhomie turned down a notch.
Nowadays Taryn heard her father’s hail-well-met mode as his most famous film character, a fun-loving, salt-of-the-earth fellow who tries to jolly the fate-bedevilled leads out of their grimness. A man always laughing, knitting his brow, and starting every sentence ‘Surely . . .’, ‘Surely we have time to . . .’ To rest. To eat. To blow foam from the top of the tankard. The character whose rosy face, pale and fallen, let the audience know what they were supposed to feel when the worst calamity finally arrived. The face of a man looking on corpses whose gaze is made for the contemplation of cakes and ale. Between the release of the second and third films in the trilogy Beatrice was killed. One review of the final instalment even went so far as to refer to ‘the terrible gift of Basil Cornick’s recent history’.
Taryn had never known what to think about her father’s feelings, or his expression of them. He was such a good actor.
But who was her father talking to? She had come awake in the middle of the exchange. She tried to open her eyes. Her back was glued to the bed by sweat, her head to the pillow. Her mouth was dry, and the linings of her cheeks clung to her teeth.
Her father was looking at her keenly. There was blue sky visible in the window behind him. It was daytime, maybe afternoon. ‘That’s an interesting question,’ he said, as if continuing a conversation.
Taryn hadn’t heard a question. Her jaw ached. Her nostrils felt stripped inside as if she’d been snorting baking soda.
Her father went on, ‘Well—your mother’s family were all rather fine. I always had the sense that the son-in-law didn’t quite cut it. It wasn’t an attitude enforced by anyone in particular. Your grandad was an easy-going fellow. But Princes Gate wasn’t welcoming. It was dilapidated. On its way down. So perhaps the general stiffness of the Northovers was just the shame of genteel poverty. Shame and prickly pride. But I always felt that the house itself was standing guard and trying to see me off. I swear your grandma’s long hours weren’t all about her love of horses, pigs and cows, but also about escaping the clammy gloom of Princes Gate. Getting out to someone’s nice cosy stable. So—I wasn’t often there, and my memories of the place are sparse.’
He ran out of talk. Taryn looked around, saw they were alone, and tried to ask him who he was talking to. What had brought all this on. But she couldn’t even grunt. Her eyes were open and her face turned his way, but she couldn’t communicate. She began to panic. Then she heard the other person. A sly, dry, insinuating voice. ‘There was a fire in the library,’ it said. ‘Do you remember?’
‘Ninety-five, wasn’t it? Your mother and I were on holiday in France. Beatrice received some slight burns. All sign of the fire had gone by the time we got back. Of course Addy wanted to rush home—but your grandma had everything well in hand.’
‘Do you remember what was damaged in the fire? What was undamaged?’
‘The library lost a rug. The big rug with the blood stain. You girls used to call it “Colonel Mustard in the library with a revolver”. There was a good tale attached to it. Do you remember? You girls were always asking for the story. Let’s see. It goes like this.
‘One night when your mother was away at school, your grandma Ruth, coming back late from her clinic, ran down a dog. A slender longhaired cross-breed, of saluki and Irish setter, she thought. The most beautiful animal she ever saw. She wrapped it in her coat and brought it home and into the only warm room, the library. She put it on the floor, on the threadbare Turkestan—because the library tables were never clear. She planned to check it over, give it a painkiller, then drive back to her surgery again. She got it dosed up and calmed down, then she and your grandad heard someone calling. Ruth went out onto the terrace and tinkled the little silver bell the dog had been wearing on its collar. It was a frosty night, with a waxing moon. A light came around the lake shore. A person holding a lantern. A hippy girl, with pale caramel-coloured hair, who came glimmering over the lawn. “The most beautiful animal I ever saw” is what your grandfather would always interject at this point in the story.’
Taryn’s father paused. ‘How does the rest of the story go? Since you must know it as well as I do. You and Bea used to clamour: “Grandma, tell the one about the fairy hound.”’
‘You tell,’ said the voice, tight and high, like the voices of Taryn’s stoner friends from her first stint at university.
‘The girl pulled off her coat and wrapped the dog in it. And the animal came back to life—your grandma had mistaken canine stoicism for more serious trauma. The girl thanked your grandmother—who protested that she really should take the dog to have X-rays, no doubt frowning thunderously as she did whenever she thought a pet owner was failing to do for their animal companion what they’d do for themselves. The girl said that there was someone nearby who would be able to see to the dog, and your grandma lost her temper. “What? Hit it on the head and put it in the stew pot?” Though the girl had, as your grandfather put it, the flourishing clear pallor of a vegetarian. The girl just thanked your grandmother again, gracious and formal, and carried the dog out of the house—leaving Ruth with its collar and bell.’
Taryn glared at her father—or, at least, she hoped she was glaring. He was looking right at her, and seemed relaxed. His legs were crossed and he was jiggling his ankle—something he did when he was in good spirits.
‘A fine fairytale,’ the voice said. ‘For those who can tolerate fairies. But, tell me, apart from the bloodstained rug, do you recall whether anything else was damaged in the library fire?’
‘A map of the estate and surrounding country. Linen paper, nineteenth-century. Your grandfather felt its loss.’
‘And what was undamaged?’ said the voice, persistent and strained. A little bit robotic now.
‘It was only a small fire, Taryn,’ said her father, who seemed to think he was talking to her. ‘You were there. Though I always thought we didn’t get the full story. I know it started due to carelessness on the part of the man who was helping James with his papers. Jason Battle. Your grandfather sacked him.’
Taryn stopped trying to make herself heard and instead tried to stop speaking. She clenched her teeth until she felt her mandible muscles might shatter her jaw.
Her father half rose from his chair. ‘Taryn? Are you all right?’
He didn’t get an answer, and hurried out of the room. Taryn could hear him calling for a nurse. She looked at the call button on the bed control, fumbled for it, suddenly free, but stiff and clumsy. She had it in her hand when the nurse came in, followed by her father. ‘What’s the matter, Ms Cornick?’
‘Is this a seizure?’ asked Taryn’s father.
The nurse put a firm hand on Taryn’s shoulder and pressed her onto the bed. ‘I’ve paged Neuro. If you’re going to seize that’s what they want to see. I know it’s alarming, but we’ve been waiting for this. The doctor can get a much better idea of what’s going on with you. Taryn? Can you hear me?’
The EEG Taryn had the day before hadn’t yielded any useful information. The neurologist said the seizures were a mystery. ‘They’re hiding,’ he said.
The nurse released Taryn and hauled the monitors closer to her bed. She checked the sensor clipped to Taryn’s finger, and all the other connections. She slipped her hand under Taryn’s backside to see whether Taryn had wet the bed.
‘No,’ Taryn said. ‘I’m with you now. I couldn’t wake up properly. I could hear—talking’—she paused, then pressed on—‘but Dad wasn’t speaking to me.’
‘I was,’ he protested. ‘You certainly spoke to me.’
‘Do you think that maybe your daughter was talking in her sleep, Mr Cornick?’
Basil Cornick’s frown was too expressive for normal use. ‘She seemed relaxed and friendly.’ Then, helpful, ‘My other daughter had night terrors, when she was five or so. Bea would sit up in bed and point past her mother and me at the doorway as if she could see something we couldn’t. She’d keep trying to look around us
at whatever it was she could see. Something that scared her silly.’
‘We have Taryn down for a sleep-related eating disorder,’ the nurse said. ‘Self-reported. Sleep-related eating disorders do have some connection to night terrors.’
Taryn had told the doctors that, for the last week or so, she would wake up to a trilling, like the last cicada of summer. It was her refrigerator. She’d go to shut its door and would find bloody crumbs of steak mince scattered on the fridge shelf next to an empty polystyrene meat tray. It was only when Taryn saw the empty tray that she’d feel the cold fat coating the roof of her mouth.
‘I felt as if I couldn’t move at all, but I was talking. And it wasn’t me,’ Taryn now insisted. This was the real problem—the heart of the whole thing.
‘But we were talking about things you knew. Things that had happened to you, like the fire in the library,’ her father said. ‘So I can’t see how it wasn’t you. And—sorry—what is a sleep-related eating disorder?’ He looked beseechingly at the nurse.
‘It’s where the patient experiences episodes of getting up in the night—still asleep—and bingeing, often on uncooked food.’
‘But Taryn has always been so careful about her figure,’ he said. Whenever matters of weight and appearance came up, Taryn’s father immediately lost all tact and judgement.
Taryn groaned.
The nurse leaned over her and shot her a quick confiding look.
‘Don’t worry about him,’ Taryn said.
Taryn’s father realised he was out of line and tried to make amends, but all his panic buttons had been pushed—his daughter was going to make herself fat and unattractive—so he dug himself in deeper. ‘You mustn’t be guilty about it,’ he said. ‘That does no good.’
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