Chapter 23 Joyce
Joyce
‘Libertatem per Lectio’
VICTORY
Secret Society. I hope you’ll permit me some bragging rights, but our little travelling library has hit the press again. I enclose an article cut from the London Times, but Dore tells me it’s also been syndicated to Australia, the United States and Canada . . .
London’s wartime innovation! City’s first mobile library to be disbanded after five years of service.
At its launch, branch manager of Camden Central Library, Joyce Kindred, memorably told the assembled crowds: ‘People without books are like houses without windows. Books will strengthen us to beat Hitler!’
And did she ever deliver on that promise.
Accompanied by her loyal library assistant, Polish refugee Adela Berkowicz, the pair nightly braved the Blitz bombardment to deliver books to plucky Londoners.
The service was threatened with closure, but was graced with a last-minute reprieve, thanks to donations from individuals and libraries from around the world, following considerable publicity.
The BBC and Movietone News film footage of the launch was transmitted all over the Empire.
The novel scheme helped to deliver over 10,000 volumes throughout the war.
‘The travelling library was the brainchild of Mrs Harding (née Kindred), and her hard work meant we were able to supply an essential wartime service in our country’s darkest hour,’ remarked Councillor Dore Silverman, head of the Library and Education board for St Pancras Borough Council. ‘She deserves a medal!’
‘No awards are necessary,’ Mrs Harding, now 26, modestly responded.
Don’t I sound like an absolute fop? Anyway, I know how busy you are, but I wonder if you could make it down to London for a weekend?
I have news . . .
Joyce
It was the last Sunday in August when the Secret Society of Librarians were able to gather together on top of Primrose Hill to mark the end of the war.
London was drenched in a golden sunshine and the streets and parks were full of military parades, bunting, bonfires and endless street parties, now that Japan had finally surrendered. The war was truly over.
But Joyce couldn’t quite find it in her heart to celebrate when the news filtering out of Europe was so catastrophic. Millions had been killed on the battlefields and in the Holocaust.
Whole communities wiped out. Families ruptured. A generation lost.
And so, so many wartime secrets yet to unravel . . . Joyce knew she had to break it to the group, she must, and yet . . . could she not protect them from the truth for just a little while longer? The news was so incongruous with the brightness of the day.
Perched on top of London’s prettiest park, the world seemed alive with sounds. Church bells rang, automobiles with their horns blaring, girls with red, white and blue ribbons in their hair shrieking with laughter, and the sweetest sound of all.
‘Mama . . . Mama . . . look at me!’
Virginia, as Joyce and Harry had decided to name her, was four now, and charging towards them on chubby little legs. She had a strawberry ice-cream cone in one hand and a fistful of buttercups in the other. Like her namesake, she was sharp and astute, funny yet fierce.
‘Oh, Joyce,’ Clara said, laughing as Virginia barrelled into Joyce, lacing her hands around the back of her neck and placing a wet strawberry kiss on her cheek. ‘She’s absolutely adorable.’
‘And absolutely filthy,’ Joyce laughed, untangling herself from her daughter’s sticky embrace.
‘Harry, would you mind . . .?’
‘Come on zingy Ginny,’ her husband laughed, scooping the delighted girl up and blowing a raspberry on her cheek.
‘I’ll go and get her cleaned up and leave you librarians to your business,’ he said, his eyes shining with pride and love.
He dropped a kiss on the top of Joyce’s head and hoisted Virginia high up on his shoulders.
As he strode away, Joyce heard him murmuring lines of William Blake.
She smiled as he stopped to let Virginia pick a leaf from a tree and use it to tickle his ears.
There was no doubt that his love for that little girl had saved him.
The trauma of pulling all those children from the rubble that dark day had cast a deep shadow that only being around Virginia lightened.
‘Do you realise this is the first time we’ve all been together for six years,’ Evelyn remarked. ‘Minus our dear Dorotha, of course.’
Joyce’s gaze flickered to the horizon. Fortunately, the group were too focused on Evelyn to notice her discomfort.
‘And to mark the occasion,’ Evelyn continued with a sly grin, ‘I mixed us a little heart-starter. I call this one Librarians’ Courage.’
The group groaned and laughed as Evelyn pulled out a cocktail shaker from her handbag with a flourish and poured out a drink that Joyce had no doubt would blow the roof of her mouth off. Evelyn handed around six teacups and one for herself.
‘To the Secret Society of Librarians, and all we achieved. A bloody good job well done.’
‘To the Secret Society,’ the group chorused back. ‘And a bloody good job.’
Joyce cast a look around the exhausted and arguably thinner and more lined faces of her friends.
Jo from Exeter Library. Grace from Jersey. Beth from Coventry. Evelyn from Plymouth. Clara from Bethnal Green. And Annie from Barnstaple.
Their singular vow at the outbreak of the war had been to deliver books to people, when people couldn’t get to the books.
Well, they had certainly delivered on that front.
It was just as well too, for every single one of their libraries, bar Barnstaple, had been bombed.
They’d worked out that between them, they’d lost close to 1,295,000 books.
Their bulletin name, ‘Libertatem per Lectio’, freedom through reading, had never felt so apt.
‘They’ll be pinning medals on all the servicemen and -women soon,’ Beth remarked. ‘Think we’ll get any?’
‘I doubt it,’ Evelyn scoffed. ‘Books were a key weapon in the fight for morale and we helped our patrons to escape, but they’ll only ever see us as just librarians.’
‘At least we proved to ourselves what we can achieve,’ Clara pointed out.
‘Meanwhile, anyone got any bright ideas on how we go about restocking our poor empty shelves?’ Jo asked. Poor Jo. Out of them all, Exeter Library had suffered the worst losses, with one million books and historic documents incinerated in the raids.
‘I have one book left,’ she groaned, holding up a finger. ‘One! English Men of Letters: The Life of Thomas Gray by Edmund Gosse.’
‘Typical that a man has to have the last word,’ Evelyn scoffed, lighting a cigarette.
‘Begging helps,’ Grace said.
Grace was visiting from Jersey now that the Occupation was finally over, working on behalf of the Channel Islands Refugee Committee to restock vital supplies, including books, for Jersey, after the Nazis had plundered the island.
‘I went into Agatha Christie’s publishers; when they heard about the popularity of Cards on the Table during the Occupation, they donated one hundred and fifty signed copies.’
‘Genius, Grace!’ Beth exclaimed. ‘She was the best-read author in an air raid.’
‘It must’ve been tough for you, Grace,’ Clara said softly. ‘I can’t imagine what it was like living under Nazi rule.’
Grace looked down and shrugged. ‘We coped.’ Joyce got the impression she wasn’t ready to share her war just yet.
‘Fortunately, most of the island’s Jewish population were able to evacuate to England before the German invasion.’
Grace’s remark spread a deep sadness through the group, as somewhere in the distance a Spitfire did a victory roll over St Paul’s Cathedral.
For so long they’d been wrapped up in their war, focused on bombs and rationing in England, that they’d been ignorant to the true extent of suffering under the Nazi’s genocidal regime.
‘The news coming out of Europe is so ghastly,’ Annie grimaced. ‘I’ve seen pictures in the papers of walking cadavers with vacant eyes and bald heads. Those poor people.’
She looked around the group in disbelief. ‘How did we not know about these horror camps? Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Mauthausen . . . and more being reported on every day. What monstrous minds conceive of such places?’
Joyce knew she couldn’t delay it any longer.
‘I have news from Adela and news about . . . about Dorotha,’ she stumbled. The sun was slowly sinking now, painting the sky in a vivid palette of pink, gold and orange. The soft scent of summer jasmine was carried on the breeze. How could the world be so beautiful and ugly all at the same time?
‘What news would you like first?’
‘Adela?’ Annie said, looking around the Secret Society for confirmation. Everyone nodded.
Joyce pulled the letter from her bag and eased open the thin seal. ‘I’ll read it out loud, shall I?’
‘Yes please,’ said Evelyn, topping up their cups.
Joyce cleared her throat.
Dear Secret Society of Librarians,
How can I find the words to thank you for taking me under your wing.
Joyce especially. You helped to heal me at my most broken, and saved me from society’s condemnation.
I was a desperate woman – well, girl really – when I asked you to care for my child, but four years on, I don’t regret my decision.
With you and Harry as parents, Virginia has the chance of a happy, settled future.
Now that the adoption has formally gone through, I shall never refer to her as ‘my child’ again. Virginia is your daughter now. The milestones, joys and challenges, all yours and Harry’s.
Now, I am planning a future of my own. I’ve just accepted a marriage proposal! I met Henry Rossney in Ilfracombe where he was serving with the North Devon Jewish Pioneer Corp. Henry’s a Jewish refugee from Poland, like me.
He survived the Normandy landings and now he is determined to make the most of the life God has gifted us. Henry is modern orthodox and has a deep faith. It feels good to be able to observe once more.