I quickly became acquainted with the books around me. Major Tamwidge, who had hunted in Namibia, sat to my right, with a shelf support standing between us so we did not touch. Beyond him stood Professor Andover and Ernest Dawkins. Arturo Villareal rested to Janine's other side, and I could not help but wonder, with a twinge of jealousy, whether their covers pressed as closely as did ours.
On the shelf immediately below us stood the Bonne triplets, a trilogy of older women with theosophic leanings. To their right was Katrina Voletta, a reformed lady of the evening, though whether she reformed before or after becoming a book, she did not disclose. Beyond her rested Parson Niemoller (who was literally a man of the cloth now). On occasion Miss Voletta was caught in the midst of furious debates between the parson and the triplets.
The books generally slept from midnight until dawn and would drowse again through the heat of the afternoon, waking at evening when Yon Diedo came to read. He would light the lamp, choose a volume, and prop himself in the comfortable chair for two or three hours, often chuckling as he read. Occasionally, he perused non-living books, and was a great enthusiast of Baron Karkonolf, an author I consider unbelievably dull. Sometimes he would not read at all, but would sit contemplating his collection, rising to dust a volume, to tap it gently into place, or simply to hold it a moment, his hands caressing its cover and spine, his expression rapt in admiration.
Contrary to my expectations, he did not begin reading from me at once, and I began to wonder if he intended to do so at all. To my surprise, the thought made me resentful. He had, after all, brought me into his library. Was I to be nothing more than an unopened volume? Yet, I dreaded the idea of him reading me as well.
When he at last took me from the shelf, I found it ghastly. Bad enough to be handled by his smooth, meticulous hands, I had not realized that as he scanned me, I would feel myself being read, hear the words in my mind, know exactly what part of my personal life he plundered. I struggled to shut myself until his fingers trembled against my efforts.
"My friend,” he finally said, “the fireplace is at my feet, and a book can be easily burned."
For an instant, I considered letting my pitiable existence end. Yet, I feared the flames, and by that time I had taken some comfort in the society of the other volumes. I ceased my struggles and he finished his reading.
I sighed in relief as he closed me. He turned my spine to face him, and I saw tears glistening in his eyes. He ran his hand along my cover.
"Jakob,” he said, his voice taut with emotion. “I must apologize. I am truly sorry. I shouldn't have threatened you. It's just—you have such a beautiful cover. And such wonderful words. Your phrasing ... all my books are so beautiful. So lovely. You should be satisfied here. You will be satisfied. Think! How often have you longed to spend your days in such a library, in the company of good books? And these are the best of books. You can read them; they can read you. Idyllic. The slow turn of library days. I have given you what you always dreamed."
He beamed at me, his face childlike as a cherub's. But his expression crumbled, taking on a haunted look.
He glanced across the shelves, his lip curled. “Filthy collection. Filthy books. Would I had never seen them."
As he returned me to my place, violated, humiliated, I had no doubt that we were in the hands of a madman. He departed immediately after, but not even Janine's kindness could cheer me.
"Has he read you often?” I asked.
"Nearly every night at first."
"Did you ever get used to it?"
"Never,” she said. “And pray you never do, Jakob. Among the books are those who learn to enjoy it. Let us never become as those."
* * * *
Perhaps I was not as interesting as some of the other volumes, for Yon Diedo soon wearied of me. But it may have only been that his attention shifted to a new prisoner. He led her into the little room exactly as he had done me, an extraordinarily beautiful woman whom I later learned was the Contessa du Maurier. She and Diedo spoke warmly, even flirtatiously. I thought perhaps he intended to court her, but instead, once he had seated her in the comfortable chair, a jade light enveloped her. Her laughter died into the dusty corners of the bookcase. She became a slender volume with brightly colored pages.
"Such a shame,” Janine said. “She was so lovely."
"No more beautiful than you,” I said.
"Oh, Jakob, how would you know?"
"Why, by your cover, of course."
She laughed to conceal her embarrassment, but I felt her turning warm against my side.
* * * *
The days passed and my affection for Janine grew. She was my oasis, my sanctuary. One would imagine our being constantly together would grow tiresome, yet her wit, vitality, and good nature always pleased me. There came an evening, after Yon Diedo had spent his hours dipping into a seventeenth-century Englishman who had served under Oliver Cromwell, that she and I did not sleep, but talked late into the night. Moonlight through the window in the main library illuminated a section of its floor, leaving our bookshelves in shadow. The library lay silent, save for the settling of boards and our own, papyrus-small voices.
"I suppose this is to be our lives,” I said, staring into the shadows with my single eye. “You and I moldering together on the shelves?"
"You won't mold,” she said. “Yon Diedo is careful with his collection. And if a bookworm comes for you, I will squash it between my covers."
I laughed. For the first time since beginning my strange imprisonment, I felt suddenly contented, as if I were a man again, the library's owner rather than its captive.
"Perhaps it won't be so bad,” I said, “sitting on the shelf, spending my days here. As long as you are by my side."
I felt the heat of her blush. “You make too much of me, Jakob. You have been through a terrible ordeal. I was the one who helped you through it, that's all."
"It goes deeper than that,” I said, lowering my voice so the others could not hear. “You have become more than a friend—at least, for me. I wish we had met outside these walls. What adventures we could have together."
"You mustn't talk this way."
"Have I misread us?"
"I ... you don't understand. I have loved my time with you, but it can't last. The sorcerer occasionally shifts the entire collection to provide us with variety."
"Because he cares so much for our well being?"
"We are his obsession. But whatever his motives, a day will come when we will be separated. You mustn't expect too much."
"I see,” I said, stunned by the thought. “I don't want us to be parted."
"Nor I, but we must anticipate it."
After a moment's silence, I said, “Then let's at least enjoy this evening. Tell me all about you. I want to know everything."
She hesitated. “And I, you. Perhaps....” Her voice faltered. “I would be willing ... would you, perhaps ... like to read me?"
The question surprised me, for I had already learned that allowing oneself to be read was singularly personal. This differed from reading to another book, which was done all the time, sometimes to all the surrounding volumes, as if one were giving a recital. Janine and I had read to one another several times. But to actually read a companion's pages was an act of deep friendship or love.
At my hesitation, she blurted. “I didn't mean all of me, you know. Just select passages. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"
"No,” I said, embarrassed. “Please. It would be an honor. It's just, I don't know the custom or even how it's done. Do we take turns?"
"It can only happen when two books are touching. We do it together. You must think of the pages you wish me to read, as will I. It just happens then. It's all quite natural. Just concentrate on a single page at first."
I looked inward and found a humorous incident from my childhood on page twenty-three.
"Perhaps this one,” I suggested.
She gave me her page ninety-seven, an account from her teenage years. I gas
ped as her page sprang to my mind, vellum-white with golden letters—Janine was beautiful inside and out.
We read together, a brief passage, and it was the most intimate experience I had ever known. Her soul lay before me, captured in lines rhythmic as poetry. More than the words, it was the order and the shape, the letters and punctuation, the sentences and paragraphs, the way her thoughts rose and fell. It was an ecstacy, holy and wonderful. At the same time, I felt her partaking of me. She murmured in delight as she read me; I basked beneath her approval; our thoughts intertwined in the reading. Our covers touched lightly; I felt the passion of her soul.
Her page finished at the end of a sentence.
"I want to see the next one,” I said.
"No, not that one."
"Please. We could—” I concentrated, trying to turn her page. She struggled to hold me back.
"No, Jakob. You're hurting me."
"Please, Janine, I—"
She gave a cry, abruptly ending the contact. I felt sudden mortification.
"I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't mean to. It was so overpowering."
She said nothing.
"Forgive me,” I pleaded. “Please."
After a moment, she replied, her voice calm. “The fault is mine, Jakob. I should not have allowed it. It was too soon. Come, let us speak of other things. I read of your childhood. Tell me of it."
We talked until the moonbeams climbed high up the far wall of the central chamber.
The days passed and our love grew. After our first awkward encounter, we read regularly from one another, and as our trust increased we enjoyed more personal passages. Not all, of course. The only one who ever read everything is Yon Diedo. Only he has seen my page 126. Bad enough that I burned crimson as he scanned the text, but he laughed as he read.
But I did not show page 126 to Janine, and she kept her own secrets as well, saying a woman must have her little mysteries.
As the weeks passed, I gradually began to accept my new life. Sitting on a shelf sounds dreadfully dull, but as long as the company is good, books possess a wonderful capacity for repose. I found myself looking upon my former life more philosophically, wondering about my constant hurry and impatience. I enjoyed reflecting on my own text, seeing how the path of my life, which had appeared random before, now seemed orderly, almost planned. But perhaps its being written down only made it appear so. I tried not to spend too much time looking within, however. More than one volume had become obsessed to the point of narcissism, living within itself, no longer interacting with the other books. Only in the library of Yon Diedo could one learn everything there is to know of one's self.
I participated in grand discussions, sometimes with one or two other books, sometimes with nearly the whole library. These latter could last for days, with points and counterpoints being passed from book to book all around the library. It sounds tedious, but it was exhilarating. So many fine minds! Some of the books were learned, some less so, but Yon Diedo had chosen his library well, and there were no vapid volumes. I mingled with orators and princes, theologians and philosophers, scientists and socialists. Others, despite having little education, were treasuries of experience, wisdom, and wit. A poet from Arana, an Ottoman mercenary, a Persian merchant, a former slave from America. A library of great books.
Out of all the wonderful volumes, the one exception was a large book of battered leather, bare of any name. We called it the Gray Book. It never spoke to anyone, though it muttered almost continuously to itself. None knew its history, except that it had been there longer than any of us. Some said it was a sorcerer Yon Diedo had conquered. Some said it was his first victim, grown mad through the centuries. Diedo never placed it beside another book, but kept it apart, between two plain, wooden bookends. Everyone, even the earliest captive, agreed that Yon Diedo never read it. In fact, he seemed loath even to touch it.
After several weeks of captivity, the dreaded reordering of the books occurred. Our captor arrived early and began moving the volumes with studied care, humming as he worked, sometimes addressing us.
"Ah, Minuet,” he said to one fat volume. “Petite Minuet. How lovely you look this morning. What a beautiful young woman you were when I first acquired you—how long ago? Five hundred years? Has it been so long? If not for me, your beauty would have faded. But here you are, as comely as ever. And such good stories! Perhaps I will dip into you later this evening. But for now, what if I place you beside Mr. Whitbourn? He tells the most devilish tales! I think you and he will get along splendidly. And your confidante, Lady Albrecht, can sit to your other side."
"All my old friends,” he muttered, picking up another volume. “I want you to be surrounded by the most pleasant of company, so you will be content."
When he came to us, he seized Janine first. I struggled with all my bookish strength to hold her, as if I still had arms. The results were pitiful; I could do no more than wriggle my covers. I shouted in my loudest voice, a bare flutter. He lifted my love high into the air, then brought her down to the lowest shelf at the end of the nook. When he seized me; I burned with such hatred toward him I thought it must surely scorch his hand, but he paid no heed. I was placed on the highest shelf, far from my beloved.
"I will put my two newest acquisitions together,” Yon Diedo said. “Perhaps you will find something in common."
I stood between two other books, our covers lightly touching. I recognized the volume at my front as the Contessa du Maurier. The other turned out to have been a captive longer than any other volume save for the Gray Book, an elderly tome, twice the thickness of the others, entitled Edward Dawson, though everyone knew him as Captain Steed. We were close to the Gray Book—only one other volume stood between it and the Contessa, and even from my position a foot away, I could sense the malevolence pouring from that unholy tome.
The library had a custom, after what we called The Shuffle, of reintroducing ourselves to our neighbors on every side, after which we were each expected to relate one story from our past. In deference to his age, Captain Steed was asked to begin, and told an absorbing tale of his passage as a young midshipman to Easter Island. The book on the Contessa's other side, Archibald Winters, took his turn next. He too had been to sea, and related a fantastic episode of an encounter with a kraken. In the midst of his telling, the Contessa whispered to me, “Believe none of it. I was a row above him before. A notorious fabricator."
"Really?” I was surprised. He had a sonorous, genuine manner.
"Can a book as slender as he have lived such adventures?"
"Actually, I can't see him."
"I have. He is no wider than a little finger.” Her pages rustled, which is the laughter of books. “Don't be fooled, my friend."
The Contessa told a charming story of her triumph over a particularly wicked rival in Paris, and I gave an account from my military days. I would have enjoyed these tales immensely, if only I had been able to share my delight with Janine. As it was, our separation left me heartbroken.
The days that followed were not as those before. Janine and I tried calling to one another, but it was impossible; I could scarcely hear her, much less continue the intimate conversations we had previously enjoyed. We passed messages, but it was not the same.
Captain Steed, while affable enough, was several centuries old and prone to repeating himself. But the Contessa proved a most interesting companion, and we spent many hours together. She had a droll wit and a way of leading people into conversation, making them feel that she held them in high esteem. Though she lacked Janine's sweet nature, she was much more sophisticated. Nor could I forget how beautiful she had looked when she first entered the library.
She often spoke of escape, especially after being read by Yon Diedo, a humiliation that made her so furious that her pages curled. At first, I tried to console her, but she only turned her wrath upon me, and I learned to leave her alone at those times.
One evening, following such a reading, the Contessa displayed an unusual fragility
.
"Jakob,” she said, pressing her back cover against me as if for sanctuary, “we must find a way of escape. I won't have him putting his hands on me, knowing my every thought."
She wept in the only way books can, moaning, her whole frame shuddering convulsively. The cries of a strong woman have always affected me deeply, and if I had possessed arms, I would have wrapped them about her.
"Come now, Contessa,” I soothed. “It is all right. He may abuse us, but he can't take away what we truly are. How can I help you?"
"Oh, Jakob. Tell me a story. Let me read your pages."
I had not meant for us to become intimate, but in that moment of sympathy, I let her scan a page of my text, and she gave me a page of her own. And then we were reading one another hungrily, taking in every letter and mark of punctuation. Hers was a world filled with the marvelous and cosmopolitan.
Thus, the Contessa and I became lovers in the only way books can. And if I felt guilt at giving myself so soon to another after my separation from Janine, I reflected that I was but doing what I must to survive in that bizarre prison.
In the nights, the Contessa and I sported together. Competitive, she loved proving her superiority, sometimes at my expense. Nor did she hold a high opinion of the other books, despite having met so few of them. But in the day, she often spoke to Archibald, the volume to her other side, the one she had earlier labeled a braggart. When I asked about him, she simply gave the bookish equivalent of a shrug (the slightest movement at the top right hand corner of a page).
"It means nothing, dear Jakob. He thinks he impresses me, not knowing how I scorn his pomposity. One must find amusement where one can in this dreadful place.” Despite her assurances, I burned with jealousy.
In response, I pushed to read more of her, as if by doing so I could utterly possess her. Sometimes she allowed it; sometimes she refused, pretending no interest. Or perhaps it was not pretense. Whatever the case, it felt like punishment. Only my pride kept me from begging for her attentions, for I knew that if she ever reduced me to that point, I would become an object of her ridicule.
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