Chapter 11
Nobody likes doing inventory. And when your inventory consisted of hundreds, no thousands, of musty books, it made for a long,
dirty, sneezy day. Sunday morning, the sisters dawdled over breakfast, even Olivia, who looked tired and kept rubbing her
temple as if she had a headache.
So Celia was surprised when she informed them that she would help out on the first floor.
“I haven’t been very active in the goings-on downstairs.”
“Have we done something wrong?” asked Daphne tenuously.
“No, of course not. It’s just that I sometimes place too much responsibility on your shoulders. You both should be out with
your friends, having fun, instead of spending Sundays doing inventory.”
Celia frowned; now she really was beginning to worry. This did not sound like their older sister at all.
Daphne caught her eye. And Celia knew just what she was thinking. That Olivia thought she had to oversee them, to make sure
they weren’t cutting corners.
Which of course they sometimes did. There were so many books, both old and new, stuffed higgledy-piggledy on the shelves.
They tried at least to keep them in groups of subjects, but it was nearly impossible, especially when people sometimes helpfully returned books to shelves across the room from where they belonged.
At last, Olivia pushed her chair away from the table, and the chore before them could be put off no longer. Celia gathered
up the dishes and took them to the sink. Since they’d had only bread and butter it was a quick wash and dry, and all too soon
they were tromping down the stairs, dressed in their oldest, worn dresses. As if going to the gallows, Celia thought.
She followed behind Daphne, who always tied a bandanna over her hair to protect it from dust and cobwebs. It usually made
Celia laugh to watch the tails bobbing up and down like rabbit ears. But today even the rabbit ears were limp and downcast.
Celia collected the mop and polish; she only used water on the common trafficked area in front of the entrance. The rest would
get a vigorous sweeping. It was hard enough keeping a climate for books dry enough to prevent mold and mildew without sloshing
water about. But she gave the counter a good polishing, making certain to rub in the oil until it was completely absorbed.
Then she straightened the cashier’s counter and the little office, and mopped the hallway past the elevator and kitchen.
When she returned to the floor, Daphne had reached the second aisle and had a basket stacked with books that were destined
for the overflow stock in the basement. Celia could hear Olivia in the back somewhere, which gave her a moment of panic. If
Olivia removed the OEDs she might discover the loose board that hid Celia’s work, and then the cat would be among the pigeons. She hurried to the back and found Olivia in the back corner of the “Fiction” section among the W’s, her dust wand held in the air and as still as a statue.
“I thought I would start in the middle,” Celia informed her. Olivia jumped like one of those windup toys sold on the street.
She nodded and disappeared down the aisle. Celia quickly knelt by her dictionaries and began to dust vigorously.
Halfway down the aisle she came to a narrow niche where a straight-back chair had been squeezed, which was now piled with
books. Celia sighed. There were several of these uncomfortable nooks for customers to sit and read, which Celia thought removed
the incentive to buy. Some of them would spend hours, cramped uncomfortably in these niches, each one darker and more secluded
than the next.
Sometimes “the regulars,” as they called themselves, would pull these chairs together and chat. The Arcadia had always been
a congenial, welcoming shop. Celia looked the other way if one of them brought out a pack of cards, but she drew the line
at cigars or pipes. One careless spark and their livelihood and home would be but a memory.
The girls took a short break for tea and sandwiches, then began again where they had left off. Several times during the day,
Celia stepped out the front door to see if there was any sign of Yannis. It was Sunday, and his family always went to church services at St. Nicholas on East Tenth. His mother would prepare roast chicken,
and sometimes they would invite the Applebaum sisters. In the afternoons, Yannis could be found oiling and adjusting the printers
for the coming week. But not this week, and Celia felt worse and worse.
“Why do you keep going outside?” Daphne asked her. “I’ve almost finished my section, and you’re only halfway through yours. I’m not doing yours, too.”
“I’ll do mine, don’t worry,” Celia told her, and went back to her own worries.
They made an early night. Even so, by the time Celia and Daphne had bathed and Daphne was sitting at their vanity tying her
hair in socks, Olivia’s bedroom door was already closed.
“I hope she isn’t getting sick,” Daphne said, tying off the last curl.
Celia shrugged. “I think she just has a lot on her mind. Running the store, the raids, and the mystery package . . .”
“She should have just put it back and let someone else deal with it.”
“I’m sure she will return it to the proper authorities—as soon as she figures out who they are. It’s only been since yesterday.
Just try to forget about it. The less we worry about it, the less the chance of our slipping up and saying something we shouldn’t.”
“To whom?” Daphne asked as she climbed into her bed. “We never talk to anyone but customers.”
“I don’t know.” Celia fluffed her pillow and turned out the lamp.
“Well, I’m not going to think about it anymore. I’m going to be standing outside Wanamaker’s tomorrow when they open the doors.
Sure you don’t want to go?”
“No, but thanks for asking,” said Celia. She had no money; her whole allowance had pretty much gone to printing supplies,
and tomorrow she would have to find her way down to the Henry Street Settlement. She’d take the latest pamphlets herself and
hope that someone could put her in touch with Selena.
She was drifting off when Daphne asked in a small voice, “What’s so bad about the poems anyway?”
“I don’t know, not exactly. I just know they would land us all in jail. Now go to sleep.” She had other things that she was
trying not to think about, because it seemed, like roads leading to Rome, theirs all had the same outcome, with one or all
of the Applebaum sisters in jail.
Olivia heard Daphne and Celia talking in their rooms. Probably excited about having the morning off. Normally, their chatter
didn’t bother her—she was a good sleeper—but tonight she just stared at the ceiling, wanting to call out, “Just shut up and
go to sleep.”
Instead, she bit her lip and willed herself to silence, if not to sleep. She knew it wasn’t their talking that was keeping
her awake, and she knew even now that she would succumb, not to sleep, but to temptation as strong as any sexual urge, before
the night was over.
When at last it was quiet, she pushed the covers away, slipped on her house robe and slippers, tiptoed through the apartment,
and let herself out the door.
She knew just which stairs creaked; she’d learned that as a child when she had often sneaked down to the workroom to pretend
to translate the books that weren’t locked up.
But tonight she wouldn’t have to pretend. She’d studied the classics at the university. Her father had made certain of that,
and he had taught her binding and restoration as well. If he couldn’t have a son, he would make his eldest daughter into a
bookman of the highest order.
Thank God he’d died before he learned that her career and his legacy would be short-lived.
She’d fought this off for a whole day, swearing she wouldn’t succumb until she had done some research, heard from the grapevine if there were rumors of a discovery or theft.
But the need to know was a fire she couldn’t quench.
Still, she stood before the safe for a long time, wrestling with her good sense.
Good sense never won. She had only to look at her own life to prove it.
Carefully, she removed the packet from the safe and carried it to her worktable. Gingerly she untied the string and, careful
not to breathe on the fragments, spread the sheets out before her.
There were more than twenty fragments. Some, like the first page, were no more than a few words, so small she needed her glasses
and her most powerful stand magnifier to read them.
She used tweezers to carefully turn them over one by one, her amazement growing as she found one fragment after another, then
a fragment larger than the others. It looked as though it might contain a completed line, possibly two.
She resisted the urge to translate them. They would need to be transcribed first, carefully reproduced in order to render
even the smallest detail accurately. The change of a curve, the direction of a stroke could change the meaning of the text.
But already she could see certain words, catch their rhythm. She’d accidentally discovered translations of a few lines when
she was young, though her father was quick to whisk them away with the warning not to attempt to read them again. For even
then the Society for the Suppression of Vice was in full throttle.
But being a curious young girl, she’d managed to filch one small book and hide it beneath her pillow. She recalled the poetry
was beautiful, gentle. She hadn’t been shocked by anything then. Of course, her experience of such matters had been nonexistent . . .
then.
I’m off to a place I shall never come back from.
She had never forgotten those words of love. But these fragments before her would be new—never before translated. She knew
it was wrong. That they might be pieces of the recent theft. But how could she tell if she didn’t study them? They might not
even be poems, much less poems by Sappho.
She had to fight her impatience. Slowly, gently, she read them; then put the page aside. If authentic, these pieces had survived
over twenty centuries. The immensity of it threatened to overwhelm her.
And then she came to the largest piece. Almost four inches by two. Four lines. Her blood raced. She lifted the lamp to get
a better view. She read the first, parsing then sounding out the words. Eleven syllables. She breathed slowly, careful not
to breathe on the fragments; she should work on them with a glass shield, but tonight she couldn’t wait. The second line,
eleven syllables, the third, eleven syllables. And she knew . . . she hoped. The fourth line, only five syllables, the Adonic
line. It was truly Sapphic verse.
Still, she cautioned herself. Sapphic verse was very common in that period. Regardless, whatever it was, it was very old.
But she knew, she could feel it. She was reading a poetess from the distant past.
She would save the largest stanzas to the last. Start with the smallest, word by word, study their arrangement. She had no
idea if the fragments were arranged randomly or had been translated and this was the meaningful outcome. She didn’t care.
She would do it for the first time. She wouldn’t rush; she would take her time.
But not tonight. The sky was already beginning to lighten.
And her work must be done in the strictest secrecy, even from her sisters.
Their ignorance of what she was doing would save them from being arrested if Comstock discovered the fragments.
Reluctantly, she gathered the pieces of papyri and returned them to the safe.
She was upstairs in her bed and didn’t hear the bring-bring of Daphne’s alarm clock when it echoed through the apartment.