Chasing Sylvia Beach

by Cynthia Morris

  When she had wrapped the final book, Lily announced that she was done. Sylvia mumbled “Uh-huh” but did not turn around. She was bent over the desk, writing. Lily stood and stretched. After a few minutes, Sylvia spoke without looking up.

  “You can go to the post office now. My bicycle is out back.” Lily retrieved the bike from the courtyard. Lily looked around the shop for a basket or bag to carry the parcels in. Sylvia held up a leather strap.

  “Surely you still use these in the States,” Sylvia said.

  Lily shrugged. “Mine isn’t like that.”

  Sylvia harrumphed and showed her how to gather the books with a frayed leather strap, cinching the ends together and fastening the buckle. She gave a sharp tug and handed the bundle to Lily. At her desk, she pulled a metal lock box out of the bottom drawer, handed Lily a ten-franc note, and gave her directions to the post office near Les Halles. Then she walked Lily out to the front sidewalk where she helped strap the books to the bike’s rack. The bike was a black one-speed, the kind that braked by reversing the pedals. Lily climbed on while Sylvia watched.

  “You’ll be okay?”

  “I hope so,” Lily said. They both laughed. Lily shifted the bike back and forth between her legs, the skirt of her dress draped over the bar. She pushed off and cruised down the sidewalk. Picking up speed, she dropped onto the street. She rang the bell, scaring a cat slinking along the gutter. After a few tours around the bumpy, small streets nearby, she felt confident enough to pedal toward the post office. There were more bikes than autos. The breeze caressed her face as she rode north, heading toward the Seine, trying to remember Sylvia’s directions. She knew Les Halles was on the Right Bank, near Pompidou Center, which was built in the 1970s. Lily used a bike exclusively in Denver, a city that made cycling easy with its flat surfaces and quiet side streets. On her bookseller salary, owning a car wasn’t an option. Riding in Paris on a simple errand, she felt the possibility that she could fit in here. Coasting along, she wondered what Paul was doing at that moment. If she were stuck here, would they do things like ride bikes together in the Bois de Boulogne? She had done nothing to find a place to stay. Hopefully she could crash again in his room tonight since he said he didn’t mind.

  She pedaled easily toward the Seine, feeling Paris’s rhythm. People didn’t hurry so much. When Lily moved at her twenty-first-century pace, it appeared she was operating in emergency mode. As she slowed down and integrated into this era, bits of home fell away. It was oddly difficult to remember what her father or Daniel looked like. Were they worried about her since she hadn’t emailed as promised? With the immediacy of Paris around her, Denver was a lifetime away, one that may be lost to her.

  Lily stopped with a group of people waiting for traffic before crossing onto the Pont Neuf, a lump in her throat. If she didn’t find her way back to 2010, she would be here when Sylvia made history by shutting down the shop. She could help carry things upstairs, taking the portraits off the wall, holding the ladder while Sylvia removed the Shakespeare and Company sign from its post outside. She was used to carrying books, and could haul boxes to Sylvia’s rooms to hide them from the Nazis. Warning Sylvia would be wrong, but she would be with her when things got bad. She would be a friend.

  Traffic eased to a stop and Lily pushed away from the curb, moving slowly with the crowd over the bridge. It was a beautiful day, and the air seemed to wrap Lily in an invitation to stay. She was smiling, relaxing even, when she saw a familiar woman coming toward her. It was the woman from the reading—Louise, wearing a cloche hat and a smart cream-colored jacket with elaborate black trim. She moved with purpose, a clutch tucked under one arm. Lily’s heart thumped; she stopped her bike, interrupting the flow of pedestrian traffic.

  “Louise!” she called out. The woman continued on. “Please!” Lily shouted, causing several people to cast annoyed looks in her direction.

  Louise turned and watched as Lily approached. She spoke calmly. “Finally, you made up your mind to come to me.”

  Lily was speechless. A confusion of thoughts tumbled in her head. “You’re the woman from the plane! Are you the reason I’m here?”

  “Let’s discuss this calmly.”

  Louise led her past the statue of Henri IV to an empty bastion. She invited Lily to sit on the curved stone bench but Lily remained standing, her impatience seething inside her. She leaned her bike against the bridge’s railing.

  “So? Tell me. Who are you? Why am I here?”

  Placidly, Louise observed a boat passing under the bridge. Turning to Lily, she smiled.

  “Patience, my dear. This is all you need to know: we know all about you—Paul, your new job at Shakespeare and Company, Capitol Books, Claire, your hope to be a writer, and so on, and so on.” With that, she extracted a cigarette case from her purse, opened it, and offered it to Lily.

  Lily shook her head violently. This woman knew her mother? She knew that Lily wanted to write? How?

  “What? You’ve been spying on me? What do you want from me?”

  Louise lit her cigarette and replaced her lighter and cigarette case. Exhaling, she spoke calmly.

  “Listen carefully. You are exactly where we want you to be.”

  Lily guffawed. “Where you want me to be? I don’t care what you want! I want to go back home. I want to go back to my life. I want to go back to 2010!”

  “You have no choice, dear Lily Heller. Your only ticket back to your life will be acquired by following our instructions. You have no alternative.”

  Lily threw up her arms and shouted, demanding to know who Louise was. A mother crossing the bridge with her child pulled the girl away from Louise and Lily, muttering something in French. Lily didn’t care what anyone thought—she needed answers.

  “In such a rush to go back to your boredom.” Louise tilted her head dismissively. “Well, you can’t go home yet.” Louise paused, eyeing Lily, who tightened her mouth in an effort to keep the tears back.

  Even as Lily insisted, she also felt a pull away from her known, safe life. She realized she was demanding a thing she was no longer certain about—going back to Denver.

  Louise flicked her cigarette into the river. “Go ahead and cry. But nothing will change this.”

  Lily stared out over the Seine, watching the white speck float down and away on the current. After a second of gazing at the water, she pulled back with a start and faced Louise.

  “You mean you brought me here and I’ve been here, what—a week—without your help? Where were you when that guy mugged me? Where were you when I was trying to pawn my ring?” The thought that she might not have needed to sell her ring enraged Lily. Hot tears sprang to her eyes.

  “Please, Lily, trust us. We were watching you the whole time.”

  “Trust you! You were watching me and never helped me. What is this? You kidnapped me and now you’re blackmailing me to do—to do what? What do I have to do to get home?”

  “You have no choice but to trust us. I understand that you’re upset—”

  “I don’t want your understanding. I want answers. Go on! Say what you want from me. Maybe I will accept, maybe I will throw you into the Seine.”

  Louise smiled. “Well, you have put yourself in a perfect position to help us, and you don’t want to blow it.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “There’s a very rare book that we need to get our hands on. And we know it is at this moment at Shakespeare and Company.”

  “A book? You only want a book? Just buy it!”

  “It’s more complicated than that. Only you can bring this book. And this book is your key, too. You will understand later.”

  Lily shook her head, trying to comprehend it. After a minute she asked about the book.

  Louise leaned in and spoke quietly. “Its called Yggdrasil: The Secret Power of Nordic Mythology. We’re very ea
ger to make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

  “Yig-dra-sil?”

  “It’s an English translation of an ancient Nordic book. But it’s useless to tell you more about it now.”

  “Wait—how do you spell that? What was the title again?”

  Louise smirked and repeated the title that Lily tried to commit to memory. She had to write it down to remember it. She asked whose wrong hands they were saving the book from. Louise glanced at the pedestrians passing along the bridge and spoke in a whisper.

  “Our German friends, of course. What’s in that book could provide a significant advantage to Hitler during the next world war. We don’t want that. We need you to get it for us.”

  “Why me? And how did I get here . . . in ’37?”

  But Louise shook her head. “Enough of your questions. You know all you need right now. Just get that book and you’ll have your answers afterward.”

  “But . . .”

  Louise rose. “No more chat. You have your instructions.” With that, she moved away, heading across the bridge toward the Left Bank.

  “Hey, wait! How am I supposed to contact you?”

  But Louise just called over her shoulder. “We’ve got our eye on you. We’ll contact you when the time comes.”

  Louise vanished among the other pedestrians. Lily grabbed her bike to follow, but a wave of people blocked her way. By the time she got her bike rolling, Louise was gone. A car honked and startled Lily. She pulled over. What was that title? Gidril? She couldn’t remember. A flash of panic tore through her—her only salvation was a book whose title she couldn’t recall. Things were becoming more and more bizarre. One minute she was an aimless bookseller, the next she was helping her heroine Sylvia in another era, and now, she was in charge of saving a very important book from evildoers. “German friends,” Louise had said. Was she allied with the Nazis?

  LILY WHEELED HER bike away, wishing Louise had given her answers. Instead she now had a task that she didn’t feel capable of achieving. Steal a book from Sylvia Beach? Inconceivable, even for her. At the end of the bridge she mounted her bike and pedaled away.

  Bumping along the cobbled street, Lily tried to recall Sylvia’s directions. She pushed her bike along the quay, passing the bouquinistes. Distracted by the outdoor book market, she strolled slowly, attracted by the green boxes holding all kinds of books. She remembered an item on her list, buy a gift for Daniel at a bouquiniste. What would he think of all this? She wished he were here, someone smart to help her sort it out. But she was on her own. She gazed at the sepia postcards and the small cloth-bound books tucked in the wooden boxes. If she did buy Daniel something, would she ever be able to give it to him? She pushed that thought away. Eventually, the directions came back to her, at least part of them. The post office was on rue des Halles. She was to continue on rue de Pont Neuf until she arrived at the Place des Halles, then from there the directions had sounded simple enough. Lily mounted the bike and headed toward the post office.

  At the Place des Halles, she found herself in a mass of controlled confusion. The square was packed with people and their wares; rickety wooden tables overloaded with vegetables, people pushing carts loaded with wooden crates. She dinged her bell to pass through, but was ignored. It was too crowded to continue by bike, so she parked with a group of others against a wall. She looked for a lock, but didn’t find one, so she untied the books from the bike rack and turned back to the market.

  A row of giant pavilions loomed over the street, and the cast-iron buildings imposed a regal order on the market. Lily moved among the vendors who lined the street outside the pavilions, finding it easier to navigate on foot. Men in long aprons and rolled-up shirtsleeves bustled around the market. Scraps of paper and debris skirted the dusty ground, moving under the breeze kicked up by market-goers. The aisles were lined with straw baskets, propping up sacks overflowing with potatoes. Rough wooden tables held bunches of onions, their stringy roots clumped with dirt. At a low table, a woman ladled something hot from a large soup pot and served a thin man. A worker with a ladder strapped to his chest passed Lily, and she stepped out of the way. The ladder, piled with boxes, spilled leaves of lettuce. It was like a circus act, only the man was not performing, but working. He bent forward from its weight as he moved his cargo through the market’s aisles. Then someone jostled Lily from behind and she jumped back as a woman passed, pushing a wicker basket on a cart.

  Suddenly, she was overwhelmed by it all—the crush of the people, the smells, the banging of crates and boxes. She searched for something to lean against but she was surrounded by people moving about their business. Bending down, she put her hands on her knees, trying to regain her equilibrium. She breathed deeply to fend off panic. It was too crowded, too smelly, too close. This wasn’t the Paris of her fantasies. Her mind returned to the conversation with Louise. What was that book? Why was she the only one who could get it? Why couldn’t they just buy it? She cursed silently as she slipped inside an arched entry and into the covered pavilion. It was quieter inside, but still bustling with activity. To the left and right, vegetable stands overflowed with crates holding giant cauliflowers, heaps of carrots. Burlap sacks of onions and potatoes lined the edge of the rows. Past the vegetables, the smell hit her first—a stew of repellent odors that made her stomach roil. She was in the meat row. She hurried past a stall that sold horsemeat and at the end of the aisle, she turned and entered the colorful arena of fruits and vegetables.

  Here it was easier to breathe, though the vegetables gave off their own odor. The grocery stores back home were sterile by contrast. She often went to the farmers’ market, located in a big parking lot near the Cherry Creek Mall, but it was nothing like this. This was wild, loud, real, and raw. These working-class people bought and sold food for restaurants, not for chichi parties in downtown lofts. It was as if she had accidentally wandered into the docks in a busy, rugged port.

  She passed into another row, where cheese makers sold their products. The smell here was more pungent than in the meat aisle, more pleasant but only slightly so. She inhaled the scent of tired feet and old leather. She paused at the goat cheese stall. The cheeses came in all shapes and sizes, tidy stacks and bricks, oozing rounds that puffed out like pillows she wanted to lay her teeth into. Square bricks, scored with indentations. A small man with a cap and a cigarette butt in his mouth winked at her.

  “Bonjour, mademoiselle. Some cheese from my sweet goats?”

  “No, I’m just admiring them, thank you.”

  She smiled and moved on, out of the building and into the light. The books were starting to weigh down her arms. She had to find the post office. The sky had become overcast while she was inside the market, threatening rain. Pausing at the edge of the fracas, she tried to recall the directions. The buildings loomed, impervious to Lily’s search. Skirting the square, she finally found rue des Halles. A statue of a woman guarded the corner from her niche high above the street. The post office was right there, a cream-colored building flying the French flag from its pointed roof. Lily looked for a sign, and there it was: La Poste.

  Inside, it took forever to find the right line, to stand in it, to fill out the forms, and then be directed to another line. While waiting, she read the painted signs and tried to memorize French names for customs, shipping, and insurance. Lily could see why Sylvia sent her. This was tedious. She couldn’t imagine Sylvia waiting through all of this. The French bureaucracy was maddening.

  Relieved of her duty, she stepped out into the day. Lily was hungry. She slipped back into the market. The vendors were closing down. Scraps piled up along the back of the stalls. Boys with giant brooms pushed debris. At the goat cheese vendor, Lily ordered a small round of cheese. Further on, Lily surveyed the remaining offers from the baker: a few baguettes, a squat and seeded pain de campagne. She chose a demi-baguette. The baker enveloped it in a piece of thin paper, tw
isting the end to a sharp point.

  Outside, she found a bench. Behind her, a pair of old men occupied their own bench, chatting under a cloud of cigarette smoke. Lily settled in, their heated conversation about the Front Populaire a backdrop to her lunch. The bread was crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, the cheese sharp and tangy. She munched, watching the market workers finish their day. What would these people do when the Germans commandeered the city? When food became scarce, surely they would be among the first affected. Lily stopped chewing. Could she do something to change what was coming? What could she do to stop Hitler, to eliminate the suffering of millions of people? She swallowed, doubting her ability to alter the course of history. Weren’t time travelers forbidden to affect change? She finished the baguette, shaking her head. The fictional rules of time travel seemed silly now. She had no idea what forces had allowed these bizarre circumstances. All she knew was getting the book for Louise was her next best step.

  Dark clouds gathered overhead. Lily brushed the sharp crumbs from her skirt and hurried toward where she’d parked the bike. But the bevy of bicycles only confused her. They all looked the same: solid, heavy, banged out of metal. She looked for Sylvia’s book rack and didn’t see it. A rivulet of fear trickled down her spine. Taking a deep breath, she tried to remember the shape of the seat, the color of the paint. Nothing came to her. She hovered for a long time, growing anxious. How could she face Sylvia having lost the bike? The first day on the job and she’d already messed up. She searched the crowd for a clue, for a kid who may have stolen it, any sign. Only rain came, spattering the pavement in large drops.

  Desperate, she finally found it. At least it looked like Sylvia’s, a rack on the back, the bell on the left side of the handlebars. But when she grasped the handlebars, she knew it wasn’t Sylvia’s. Lily glanced around. No one was watching her; people now rushed to avoid the imminent rain. Lily eased the bike away, her hands sweaty. She pushed it, heavier than Sylvia’s, away from the others. Weaving around the men pushing wheelbarrows piled with empty crates, she tried to appear nonchalant. Lily was almost at the end of the block when a shout arose right behind her. “Ey, oh!” the man’s voice pierced her back. Feigning calm, she turned, but when she saw the man bearing down on her, she let out a little scream.