Chapter 9
Though I hated to admit it, Alain did know what he was doing, which made me suspect he’d been helping Guy for a while.
By the time he had been helping with the deliveries for a couple of days Alain was already making a difference.
He seemed fearless, though I thought that came from his arrogance.
He would load up his bicycle basket with books every day and whizz all over the city, taking books to our Jewish friends who were banned from using the library. Alain was quick and we needed him.
I helped too, but Alain had taken on most of the deliveries. I was worried he might annoy some of the people we delivered to, but when I popped in to see Maurice, he sang Alain’s praises.
‘Apparently he saves his charm for other people,’ I told Sylvie, wryly. ‘And we get the rest of him.’
‘He is arrogant,’ she said. ‘And he thinks a lot of himself.’
‘You’ve got that right.’
Sylvie frowned. ‘But perhaps he is not a bad person.’
I snorted. ‘He reminds me of my ex-husband. He was very good at always being right, even when he was wrong. And I believed everything he said. More fool me.’
‘Perhaps that’s why Alain annoys you so much,’ Sylvie suggested.
‘It was a long time ago,’ I said firmly, though the thought of my cheating, lying husband Vince affecting my judgement so many years later was unsettling.
I snorted again.
‘We’re ready to send out another soldier delivery,’ I said, changing the subject. ‘And we’ve already had requests from more hospitals. The people at the Red Cross are really spreading the word.’
‘We’ve had another donation, too,’ Sylvie said. ‘It arrived earlier. Guy is sorting it upstairs.’
‘I’ll go up and see how he’s getting on,’ I said.
Sylvie nodded, smiling as some readers came into the library. ‘Bonjour,’ she said, her attention already elsewhere.
Upstairs, Guy was standing in the office, surrounded by boxes, looking a little lost. Alain was sitting on a chair, spinning round and round on his tiptoes.
‘Another delivery,’ Guy said. ‘So many books.’
‘This is wonderful.’ I peered at the boxes. ‘Where are they from?’
‘A bookstore in London.’
‘Gosh, you’d think they’d have enough to worry about over there,’ I said. ‘How thoughtful.’
‘The note says his shop closed because of the bombs,’ Guy said. He handed me a handwritten letter with an address on Charing Cross Road in London.
I scanned the neat writing. ‘The owner – this Mr Anderson – has moved to live in Lancashire with his daughter, and he says he wanted the books to be read instead of leaving them in the shop. Lord, how awful it must be for them.’
‘It’s awful for us,’ said Alain. ‘We have Nazis on our streets.’
‘It’s not a competition,’ I said, rather more sharply than I’d intended.
I checked to see that Mr Anderson had included his address in Lancashire. It was there at the bottom. ‘I’ll write and thank him,’ I said.
‘I heard they took the animals from London Zoo and walked them to a safer part of England,’ said Guy.
‘Really?’ I said. ‘Giraffes and tigers and elephants all walking along together?’
‘That’s what I heard,’ he said. He smiled. ‘That would be something to see, wouldn’t it?’
‘Like something from a children’s book.’
Alain chuckled. ‘Like The Carnival of the Animals. I loved that music when I was a child.’
Guy gazed at Alain, his eyes soft. Wanting to break the moment, I said: ‘What do we have?’
‘Good stuff,’ Guy said, dragging his gaze from Alain’s chiselled jawline. ‘M. Anderson has really thought about what to send. Lots of funny stories to raise the spirits of the soldiers.’
I looked round at the piles of books. It seemed Mr Anderson had sent us the entire shop. ‘Are you here all day, Alain?’
He shrugged. ‘I can be.’
‘Could you help Guy parcel these up? We’ve got a collection coming later and it would be good to send them out with that. I’m trying to get some sort of schedule for when the Red Cross can collect, but it’s hard. So, who knows when the next pick-up will be.’
‘I suppose.’
‘And you’re all right to do your own delivery later?’
‘Oui.’
‘It’s no surprise that people are using books to raise their spirits,’ said Guy. ‘I had a difficult time at school when I was a child, and I read as an escape.’
Alain gave Guy’s good arm a small, sympathetic pat and then took his hand away as he saw that I’d noticed.
‘We do appreciate your help, you know,’ I told him, wanting to make amends for my sharp look. ‘I know some people believe that books are trivial in a time of war, but they’re much more important than that.’
‘Vital,’ said Guy.
Alain puffed his chest out like a cockerel. ‘De rien.’
‘It’s not nothing,’ I said. ‘It’s something. Thank you.’
I left them to pack up the donated books and went to find the list of book requests I’d had from our Parisian readers.
Our readers had taken to adding little notes in the books they borrowed, so when Alain brought them back to the library, I would shake each volume and see if a scrap of paper would fall out.
When I found something, I would make a note on my list and then every day, I’d gather all the new loans, stamp them out, and send them off with Alain.
There was no reason for me to stamp them; it hardly mattered if one or two books never came back.
But I was determined to keep things going as normal.
The delivery loans kept me busy most of the day.
I spent a couple of hours shelving returns, while Sylvie kept an eye on readers – not that there were many today.
And then as evening crept in, I went upstairs to check on Guy’s progress.
He’d done a marvellous job – he’d packed up the books in bundles of ten and tied them securely with string.
‘Did you stamp them all?’ I asked. I wanted the soldiers to know that the books had come from Paris.
We thought they would find it a comfort to know we were thinking of them even in our darkest days.
So, we stamped all the donations with ‘American Library of Paris’ before we sent them out into the world.
‘We did,’ said Guy.
‘Who’s collecting?’ asked Alain. ‘Where are they going?’
‘A chap called Eduard for the Red Cross,’ I told him.
He nodded.
‘We have a lot for local people too,’ I continued. ‘Too many for you – you won’t be back before curfew. I’ll take some this evening too.’
‘Be safe,’ Guy said with a frown.
‘The good thing about being a middle-aged woman is that I pose no threat to anyone,’ I said, more cheerfully than I felt.
The idea of cycling around the city delivering books was always daunting, but I had been doing it for more than a year now and experience had taught me to gird my loins and get on with things.
‘Shall we get all these on a trolley, then?’ I asked. ‘We can put them in crates downstairs.’
It took us a while to get things organised and to get all the books downstairs. The library’s elevator was old and cranky and we needed to make several trips.
The sky outside was darkening though it was only early evening. ‘It’s going to rain,’ I said to Alain.
‘I have waterproofs.’ He gave his customary shrug again. ‘It’s fine.’
‘What time is the collection?’ Guy looked worried.
‘Any minute now,’ I said, checking my watch. ‘They’ll be here.’
‘Shall I lock up?’ he said. ‘I’ll tell Sylvie to go home.’
‘Yes, please do. Alain and I are fine here.’
Guy went back inside and I watched as Alain watched him go.
‘You’re good friends,’ I said. I knew I was digging, trying to gauge if Alain and Guy were just friends, or if they were more than that.
But Alain simply said: ‘He’s a nice man.’
‘He’s kind,’ I said. ‘And brave.’
‘Yes.’ I thought Alain was going to say something else, but he didn’t. He turned his head towards the street. ‘Eduard,’ he said.
Sure enough, I heard the sound of an engine and the van turned into the courtyard where we stood.
It drew to a halt beside us and Eduard jumped out of the driver’s seat. He greeted us both cheerfully and he and Alain began chatting so fast, with so many slang words, that despite my almost-fluent French, I struggled to follow.
Feeling a little awkward, I began to carry the crates of books over to the van.
With Eduard’s help, we had the books loaded on the van in no time at all. Overhead the clouds were gathering.
‘We should be quick,’ I said to Alain as Eduard locked the doors. ‘We don’t want to get caught in this rain.’
He nodded. Then he opened the passenger door of the van and said something urgent and hushed to Eduard, who was getting in behind the wheel. Eduard nodded. He gave me a cheerful salute and started the engine.
‘How do you know Eduard?’ I asked Alain.
He looked at me blankly. ‘I don’t.’
Through the gloomy evening the van’s rear lights lit up the courtyard and I saw, in the shadows by the entrance to the street, two men in uniform.
‘Germans,’ said Alain in an undertone. ‘Where are the other books?’
I tilted my head slightly, indicating that deliveries for the Jews were still inside the library, and he nodded.
‘Guten abend,’ called one of the soldiers. They began walking towards us and I echoed their greeting.
‘You were getting a delivery?’ the first soldier asked in German. He was wearing an officer’s uniform, and he was tall and broad.
‘Collection,’ I said. Before the invasion, my German had not been as good as my French, but I had become more confident now there was so much around. ‘We are sending books to hospitals and churches.’
‘You are British?’ the other soldier asked in heavily accented English, frowning. He was shorter but just as broad, and his eyes were sharp.
‘American,’ I said.
He nodded.
‘Do you have the correct paperwork?’ the first German asked.
‘Oui,’ I said. ‘Ja.’
Beside me, Alain was very still, his face shadowed by the peak of his cap.
‘Do you need to see the papers?’ I asked. ‘I have them upstairs but the library is locked up now, and it will take a while to get them. I have permission from the Bibliotheksschutz, Dr Hermann Fischer.’
There was a pause. The two Nazis looked at each other and I waited. My heart was thumping in my chest. There was nothing to link the books by the door with any Jewish Parisians – no names written down, no addresses. But I was still frightened. I wiped my palms, subtly, on my skirt.
And then the rain began, pattering on the Germans’ flat-topped caps and dripping down my collar.
‘Pfft,’ said the taller man. ‘It’s fine.’
‘It’s almost curfew,’ said the other one. ‘Go home.’
‘Immediately,’ I lied. There was still more than two hours before curfew, but I wasn’t going to argue.
The Germans nodded, then they both tramped across the cobbles of the courtyard, raindrops glistening on their jackets.
As they reached the street, the smaller man turned and looked at me, his eyes boring into mine.
I shivered and not just because of the water snaking down my neck.
And then he was gone, back into the shadows that had spat him out.
I looked out of the entrance for a moment and then I turned to Alain.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Shall we get on with these deliveries?’