The Lost Bookshop

Chapter 49

Chapter Forty-Nine

OPALINE

Dublin, 1941

‘G uten Abend, Fr?ulein. ’

I didn’t know how to respond, or why he was speaking in German. I wrapped the sliver of a shawl tightly around myself, as if it offered any protection. I thought I’d heard something and had come down from the attic to check.

Following my escape from St Agnes’s, I had made my way back to Ha'penny and was relieved to find the shop still standing. It was like a dream, where things were both familiar and yet strange. Like Miss Havisham, the shop seemed to have halted the passing of time after I was taken away. the front door opened at my touch and even the brass handle felt like the soft muzzle of a long-lost family pet. Things had decayed and deteriorated and most of my belongings were missing. The windows of the shop were all boarded up. I had dragged my mattress up to the attic – the basement was far too cold – with only tap water to fill my belly. After the elation of gaining my freedom, a tremendous tiredness had come over me and I couldn’t do anything to help myself. Days had passed with no human contact and now I was standing face to face with this man.

He reached into his pocket and took out a packet of cigarettes and proceeded to light one. He offered the packet to me, as if this situation were perfectly natural and I wasn’t noticeably shivering with fear. Still, he said nothing, he simply leaned against the wall, casual and unhurried. He was a tall man, with dark blonde hair slicked back and piercing blue eyes. I could see now that he wore an army uniform, a khaki jacket with an eagle sewn on the breast.

‘How did you get in here?’ I asked, hardly trusting my voice, which croaked from neglect.

‘The window in the basement. It is not locked.’

I had checked it myself. Either he was lying, or …

‘Who are you?’

‘Josef Wolffe. Zu Ihren Diensten .’

‘I’m afraid I don’t speak German,’ I said.

‘You are alone.’

It was more of a statement than a question. I didn’t reply. Life continued on the street outside as we stood there, figuring one another out. Friend or foe?

‘Whatever you’re looking for, you won’t find it here.’

Every muscle in my body was tense. He simply nodded, as though this entire situation were commonplace. He looked around the shop, taking his time, then looked me over. What did he see?

‘I come here, sometimes. To read.’ He nodded towards the small pile of books that still remained on the bottom shelf. My books.

‘This is my home. You have no right to be here.’ I didn’t feel very commanding, standing there in old rags, emaciated from years of undernourishment and my hair falling out. ‘I want you to leave.’

He nodded to himself, as if having come to some decision, then he unbolted the front door. I rushed over and locked it behind him. When I heard the engine of a motorbike fade away, I finally let out the breath I’d been holding.

I slowly climbed back upstairs, feeling my way in the darkness, my legs threatening to buckle beneath me. I collapsed on the floor of the attic with relief and tried to quieten my shallow breathing; listening for that old familiar sound, the reassuring presence of my books around me. Perhaps I imagined it, but I thought I could hear a soft wind and gentle pats, like snow falling against the window. In the gloom I spotted a book with Little Women on the spine. I closed my eyes and I was in Concord with Jo Marsh and her family and even the thought of it brought warmth to my skin. The words were working a magic spell to give me refuge and reawaken my soul – to the person I was before all the badness happened.

* * *

The next evening there was a knock at the front door. I Ignored it, yet the knocking persisted. No one knew I was here. I was weak with exhaustion and hunger, but I heaved myself up to the attic window and looked down on to the street. There was a motorbike and standing in front of my shop was Josef Wolffe, the German soldier, with what looked like a large pine branch and packages under his arms. He was stamping his feet, trying to stave off the cold. He couldn’t see me inside, for all was dark, but I could see him clearly. The light stubble on his jawline, his eyes scanning the street.

I hesitated for a moment, then walked wearily down to the door and opened it.

‘You should not be alone. Es ist Heiligabend . Christmas Eve.’

He stepped inside and left the packages and the giant tree branch in the middle of the floor, then went back outside. All I could do was watch, as he returned with a box and closed the door after him. He squatted down and, opening the box, took out candles and lit them. He looked for somewhere to place them and I gestured towards the stairs. I was too tired and hungry to argue. Then he opened another package which had food – bread, cheese, meat. I went and grabbed the bread out of his hand and began ripping pieces with my fingers and shoving it in my mouth. I was like a wild animal, my eyes wide, my jaws chewing rapidly. I sat on the last step, still wrapped in my blanket, and watched as he unwrapped more items. A bottle of wine. Apples.

Neither of us spoke a word. He wandered around the shop and found an empty crate, which he turned upside down and used as a seat beside the stove. He snapped the branch into small twigs against his knee and used the old paper to start a fire. The wood was too new to burn well, but the flames instantly made me feel warmer and the smell of pine was sweet and comforting.

He ate also, but sparingly. He peeled the skin off the apple and gave the carved flesh to me. He opened the bottle and handed it to me. I’m not sure how long it was before I spoke.

‘Why are you here?’

He looked up from under his blonde hair.

‘I am a prisoner of war,’ he said with a flourish, as though he were announcing that he had royal blood. ‘The Irish government are very kindly detaining us at one of their camps in Kildare.’

‘But, if you’re a prisoner …’

‘Why am I not in prison? Because we are permitted to leave during the day. I am completing my studies at Trinity University.’

‘You can’t be serious?’ I tried to laugh but the muscle was stiff from lack of use.

‘Ireland is a neutral country. We are something of a nuisance for them.’

I ate some more cheese and helped myself to another cup of wine. He seemed pleased that I was accepting his charity.

‘I didn’t know it was Christmas Eve,’ I said.

He was sitting quietly, carving something out of a piece of wood. He didn’t look up. It was strange, being in someone’s company yet not being required to talk. I leaned back against the wall and for the first time since I had arrived, looked at my old shop. What had gone on here since I left? Who had emptied it? Where was Matthew? What should I do now? I felt myself growing drowsy with the food and the warmth.

* * *

Sleep came quickly and deep. I dreamed of my father, taking me to Christmas Mass as a little girl, and the strains of ‘Silent Night’ filling the vaulted space of the church.

I woke up with a start. Music. There was a record playing. I scanned the room and saw that Josef was still there, the Victrola on the floor beside him playing the carol that was in my dream. He was leaning back against the wall, his eyes focusing on an invisible memory that softened his face. Perhaps he was dreaming of childhood too. Then, almost inaudibly, he began to sing. Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht . It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. His low voice, breaking in parts, was so full of tenderness that I thought I would cry. The crackling of the record was all that was left as the violins faded away.

‘Happy Christmas,’ I said, stirring him from his reverie.

His eyes widened briefly and when he looked at me, he gave me a half-smile. ‘ Frohe Weihnachten. ’

After a moment’s pause, he got up and with a curt bow, turned to leave.

‘Fog,’ he said, his back turned to me.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You are wondering how I ended up here. Fog. And engine problems.’

He turned back and lit another cigarette.

‘We took off from Bordeaux. It was the end of the summer, last year. Six of us crew flying a Condor for weather reconnaissance.’

All of that time I was wasting away behind barred windows, the world had been at war.

‘We had to ditch somewhere along the south coast. Policemen found us. Took us to the internment camp and I have stayed there since.’

‘I see.’

‘It’s not so bad. You see, we have much freedoms.’

‘You were fighting for that madman Hitler?’

He blew cigarette smoke skyward and grunted bitterly. ‘You think we had a choice?’

I shook my head. I didn’t know. I thought of Lyndon then. The rumours about the shootings for cowardice.

‘I suppose all Germans were conscripted.’

‘I am not German.’

A car drove by and the lights dazzled me. I got to my feet.

‘Perhaps I should get back,’ he said.

He bowed curtly before unbolting the door.

‘I am Austrian. Good evening, Fr?ulein.’

* * *

Over the following weeks, Herr Wolffe began to leave little parcels of food and wood for fuel in the basement. I never saw him arrive or leave. I would simply see a package wrapped in brown paper with a large ‘W’ written on a blank note. There was even a package with some worn but perfectly functional clothing, wherever he had managed to source it.

As I regained my strength, my desire to reclaim my old life grew, the life that Lyndon had tried to take away from me. But that required finance, and the only thing I owned that was worth anything was the Bront? manuscript. And so I did something rash – I wrote to Abe Rosenbach. I told him of the provenance and that there was no doubt in my mind, the manuscript was a draft of Emily’s second novel. He was one of the most powerful men in the book world and the richest. He would take the risk.

So I dangled the opportunity in front of him with a carefully worded letter, before finding the courage to complete the second part of my task: finding Matthew and my manuscript.

* * *

‘Can I help you?’

‘Yes, I-I’m looking to speak with Mr Fitzpatrick. Matthew Fitzpatrick.’

‘I’m afraid Mr Fitzpatrick no longer works here. Can someone else be of assistance?’

I fidgeted with my hands and then shoved them deep into my pockets. Matthew had been my one constant from the moment I arrived in Dublin. When I thought of him, I thought of things being right. Now everything felt wrong again.

‘Madam? Can I help you with anything?’

‘Where is he? I mean, when did he leave?’

‘I’m not permitted to give out private information.’

My only friend from the past was no longer here, and what did that mean for my manuscript? I had to believe that Matthew would have kept it safe for me.

‘It’s just that he was keeping something of significant value for me and I’ve come to claim it.’

‘I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I suppose it doesn’t make much difference now. Mr Fitzpatrick, Matthew, was killed just over a year ago.’

I could hardly speak.

‘B-but that’s not possible!’ She was telling the wrong story. A story about somebody else. ‘There must be some mistake …’

‘The Germans had just begun bombing London.’

‘No, that can’t be right. Matthew wasn’t a soldier, he wasn’t in the army—’

‘I’m sorry, I know it’s difficult. He was visiting family there. It was simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

I couldn’t make sense out of it. All this time he was gone and I hadn’t even known. My time at St Agnes’s was still stealing things from me. I felt completely robbed of everything I’d known.

‘If you could give me your name, I will check the records and see if there is anything outstanding in his files,’ she suggested, softer now that she could see my distress.

‘Um, yes. Opaline Carlisle. Or perhaps Gray, I’m not sure.’

She checked and rechecked. There was nothing. Wherever he had put my manuscript, he had not left a paper trail. It was as I would have wanted, total secrecy, but neither of us had known then what was to come. Now I had no way of getting it back and in that moment, I no longer cared.

* * *

Josef visited again and helped me to unpack what remained in the attic. I found more of my belongings, some boxes with my books neatly packed inside, and one of the old mechanical bird music boxes belonging to Mr Fitzpatrick. It was broken.

‘There’s nothing more sad than a tuneless bird,’ I said and put it aside.

When I looked up he was staring at me, thoughtfully.

‘You must open the shop again.’

The wooden shelves seemed to whine a plaintive sound. He might as well have suggested I fly to the moon.

‘I couldn’t possibly.’

‘Why not?’

It was always so simple for men. Just do this or that, whatever you please.

‘For one thing, no one is supposed to know I’m here. My prison is far stricter than yours and if anyone found out … The thought of going back there …’

I hadn’t realised I was shaking. He put down what he was doing and came to me, putting his arms around me. I was a little stunned at the proximity, but it felt overwhelmingly good to have human contact again. Kindness. He broke away before I did.

‘I am sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’

After a moment, we both smiled.

‘It’s a shame,’ he continued, opening another box of books. ‘It must have been a wonderful shop.’

‘It was.’

I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to remember how it once looked. To feel the warmth of customers coming inside and finding the one thing they didn’t know they were looking for. Could I do it? Could I afford not to? Without my manuscript to sell, I had no way of providing for myself. I couldn’t keep relying on Josef’s charity. It was sheer luck that he had helped me in the first place. He saved my life. Perhaps he was right. What was the point in gaining my freedom, only to remain locked inside?

‘I would have to be careful,’ I said, and his broad smile gave me a tickle of hope.

* * *

The shop began trading quietly and without fanfare. I simply opened the door and invariably people began to wander inside. I used the money from whatever sold to begin restocking the shop properly, as well as stocking my larder. I could even afford some essential items that now seemed like luxuries. I bought soap, undergarments and a brand-new pair of shoes. I began to see a way forward again. I suppressed my worries about being found out; as long as Lyndon believed I was still in St Agnes’s and Dr Lynch kept receiving the money, they would have no reason to bother me. Little by little, I returned to myself. Bruised but still intact – and that was more than some.

Reliance is something that happens without you noticing it. In the weeks that followed the shop’s reopening, I grew to lean on Josef and his quiet, dependable ways. He asked nothing of me and sometimes I couldn’t quite work out why he returned, day after day, without ever questioning the past or the future. Perhaps it was because he was not one to discard broken things. I discovered that about him the day he arrived at the shop with the tiniest tools I had ever seen, rolled up in a satchel.

‘Where did you get those?’

‘From the clock repair man. Is not far from here.’

He said it as though it were perfectly obvious. That a prisoner of war could wander into town and borrow some tools from an horologist and fix an antique music box belonging to a woman who had just escaped a madhouse. I couldn’t help but giggle, which utterly bemused him, though he didn’t ask. He never asked. He just went about his work.

‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ I asked him, before setting out for groceries, now that I had some money again.

‘In Salzburg, I used to repair organs.’

I shook my head, unable to assimilate this new information.

‘What do you mean?’

‘For the church,’ he said, gently unscrewing the casing from underneath the gold-plated box.

‘You used to repair church organs?’ I repeated and he nodded without making eye contact.

‘As a boy. With my father. Then I studied mechanics at Gottingen University. I like fixing things,’ he said, a broad smile stealing across his face.

How had someone like him ended up on a Luftwaffe airplane, crash-landing in Ireland? Perhaps for the first time, I began to wonder if he had killed anyone. He had been stationed in occupied France. I watched his eyes flicker keenly over the minute workings inside the music box and how he gently removed the little automaton bird that sat on top. His hands were smooth; long fingers with clean, precisely cut fingernails. His blonde hair had grown long at the front and without the gel he once used, it slipped into his eyes, and he shook his head to dislodge it. Sitting in my shop, he looked perfectly at home. He had brought two old wooden chairs and a table from who knew where. Josef just had a knack for finding what was needed. Nothing ostentatious, but

simple and sufficient.

He made me laugh without meaning to. In fact, that was how he seemed to exist in the world. Just making it better, without meaning to.

* * *

Dublin, 1944

‘I am to be repatriated.’ Josef stood in the doorway, rigid from head to foot in his uniform.

‘When?’

‘Now.’

His voice betrayed no emotion. I nodded as if this information was perfectly fitting. Surely some part of me had expected this. Nothing lasted for ever and his precarious position here was clear to us both. And yet we had created a bubble of existence where the outside world and its changing winds could not penetrate, until now. I was holding a book that had constantly tumbled from its space on the shelf, no matter where I put it or how snugly it fit between its neighbours. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I clung to it now, trying to find some kind of steadiness.

‘Is there someone waiting for you? In Austria?’

I had never asked. Truth be told, I had not wanted the answer before now. But now it was time to face reality. Perhaps it would help me to let him go.

‘My father. There is no one else.’

He looked at me and I could see in his eyes what his words meant. I ran to him, threw my arms around his neck and buried my face in his chest. It was the first time we had even touched and so it should have felt unfamiliar, but it didn’t. It felt like the only place I ever wanted to be. He hesitated at first, but after a moment’s pause, he encircled me with his arms and I could feel his warm breath on my neck.

I pulled back to look at his face. His eyes looked straight into mine and held all of my world within them.

‘ Mein liebling ,’ he said.

All of this time, we had kept our distance from one another. I suddenly realised that, at least for my part, it was purely out of fear of losing another person that I loved. I had fooled myself into thinking that if I didn’t allow myself to get close to him, I wouldn’t miss him if he left. Stupid, stupid woman. Intimacy is only one string on the bow. The instrument still plays the music.

He took my hands in his, turned my palms upwards, then lifted them to his face, one on each cheek. Then he took each one and kissed them. The sadness that always seemed to tug at the corners of his mouth was still there, but there was something else. A vulnerability he had not let me see before.

It felt like time had slowed, just for this moment, as if he wasn’t being whisked away from my life. I tilted my head upwards and let my lips linger next to his. I could feel his breath and watched as he let his eyes close. I brushed my lips ever so lightly around his mouth, then kissed the corners that would curl in a smile when he thought I wasn’t looking. His arm pressed tightly against my lower back and when I could no longer hold back, I let myself melt into him. We felt like one person and I knew that no matter what happened, I had met my true soulmate, and maybe that was enough. Just knowing he was out there, breathing, living, would have to be enough.

* * *

I couldn’t watch him leave. It was only when the engine of his motorbike faded that I went back out on to the street. Empty once again.