Chapter 18 #2
She craned her neck to see down the rows, saw “Trains, Boats, and Automobiles.” Mr. Estes might find something interesting
in there. She pulled it out and started a third stack. She was running out of room for herself. She climbed down and sidestepped
between the stacks, in search of additional space toward the back of the store, and discovered a nice square with two high,
tiny windows that were eye level with the back courtyard.
She could get rid of some of the bookcases upstairs and move them down here. Ugh. She might have to hire a whole team of movers;
this whim was turning into a time-consuming and major financial enterprise.
Then she remembered that the Tellers had a nice sitting room in their basement, though no one ever used it, as far as she knew. She’d seen it only once when Mrs. Teller had invited her to tea. But Mrs. Teller didn’t come to the store very often. And Daphne had been remiss about visiting her.
What if she turned the basement into a reading room for all the regulars? There was light from the row of basement windows
that looked onto the courtyard. And there was electricity. With a little fixing up, she could put all her regulars down here
with plenty of chairs to enjoy themselves, and that would free up the first floor for new buying customers.
She sighed and sat down on the nearest box, despite the dust that her dress would pick up. What was she thinking? The bookstore
didn’t need presentation. She did, if she were to have a chance of finding herself a husband. She had thought for a moment
that Joshua Starling might make a candidate for happily ever after. But not if he appeared and disappeared like a jack-in-the-box,
then stayed away for days at a time.
He looked the part, but a future took more than good looks, even in novels. She dropped her head back, stuck somewhere between
tears and resignation. She was surrounded by books as high as she could see: “New England Authors,” “Political History,” “Eastern
Philosophy,” “Classical Poetry.”
Her eye snagged on that last label.
Didn’t “Classical” mean ancient Rome and Greece?
She’d never been much of a poetry reader. Even the romantics were usually morose unless they were waxing about daffodils—morose
and usually disappointed in love. But Classical Poetry . . .
Sappho must be a classical poetess. Maybe that’s why the box was in the basement. Could it be that the classicists had all
been banned? Sappho had been. But Daphne had never read a word of what was said to be so immoral.
She’d just take a look now. No one would ever have to know.
It wasn’t easy. By standing on a wooden crate, she was able to shimmy the “Classical Poetry” box back and forth until it tipped over the edge of “Eastern Philosophy.” For a moment the whole tower swayed.
Daphne held on fast, afraid she might end up as an item at the newsstand dailies: “Girl Crushed by Books.”
With a determined effort, she slid the box all the way out and it dropped, knocking her off her feet and spilling its entire
contents across the floor, making for an uncomfortable but not concrete landing for Daphne, though it did unleash a paroxysm
of coughing.
She pushed the volumes away until she came to A Golden Treasury of Ancient Greek Poetry. She lifted it out. Opened it. It was all in Greek. Well, that didn’t help. And she couldn’t ask Olivia to translate. Olivia
could have just shown them the poetry in the papyrus, but she probably thought it would shock them. It probably would. The
Applebaum sisters were well read, but they were not very worldly.
While other girls went out to work, met each other for lunch, went on dates, got married . . . the Applebaum sisters went
downstairs to work, then went back upstairs to live.
The only people they met were customers, most of whom were old, or eccentric, or both. It wasn’t normal, though Daphne supposed
Olivia had done the best she could. She’d given up her whole future to take care of Daphne and Celia.
The thought made her feel a little queasy. Daphne knew she wasn’t always nice to her sisters, especially Olivia, who, though
she tried to be a mother and sister, just ended up acting like a spinster. It was embarrassing.
She pushed the other books out of the way and stood up.
What was the point of having banned poetry if you had no life?
She gathered up the fallen books and returned them to the box.
She’d had enough for one day. She was headed to the stairs when her toe hit a slim volume that skidded across the floor and came to rest at the bottom of the stairs.
She leaned over and picked it up; it was thin, hardly more than a pamphlet, old and foxed with age. She was about to toss
it back in the box when she made out a faded S and A on the cover. She squinted at it for a few seconds. No, that would be like magic if out of all these books . . .
She opened the fly leaf gingerly, turned the page. And there was the title The Poems of Sappho. She riffled through the first pages, Greek but a translation in English, too.
Good. She slipped it into her apron pocket.
Now at last she would find out what all the fuss was about.
Olivia and Max sat shoulder to shoulder at her worktable, a table she’d worked at alone for what seemed like a lifetime. It
hadn’t taken much to convince him to at least take a further look at the Sappho fragments. What restorer wouldn’t give their
eyeteeth to study an original specimen up close and solely without having to share it with a team of archaeologists, museum
curators, and various other men from all walks of the archaeology hierarchy?
By the time he’d finally taken off his jacket and loosened his tie, the fire of anticipation gleamed in his eyes.
“Truly amazing,” he said in a hushed voice.
“Hmm,” Olivia answered. Each glimpse of the papyrus set her blood rushing.
She had spent nights and days trying to piece the individual phrases and lines into some sort of poetical pattern.
Arranged and rearranged . . . “It’s been impossible for me to tell if they even come from the same sarcophagus, much less the same poem.
I think I’ve made some headway. I’ve managed to put several lines together that might be from the same song, but we can never be certain without . . .”
She shrugged.
“A lengthy process, on equipment only a big museum has. It’s impossible for anyone to tell at this point,” Max said. “I can
see they’ve been cleaned, probably with water if they were used for papier-maché, as many used papyri were, especially for
covering the sarcophagi. It’s amazing that they even stayed intact. We should—”
She shook her head. “It goes nowhere until we find who owns it.”
“Agreed. I’ll put out feelers, listen for news of any theft, but—”
“You are not to risk your career or your reputation. Do you understand me?”
He tilted his head to look at her. She thought he would say something, but he merely reached past her to pick up a stronger
magnifying glass, then peered at the scrap currently beneath the glass. He read off the Greek words, his voice clear and unfaltering.
“Speak—my tongue is broken.”
“I think these two go together.” She reached for her transcribed notes. “Laughter that makes my own heart beat fast, If I meet you suddenly, I cannot . . .” Her voice faltered.
“Speak,” he finished for her.
They were both silent.
“I cannot speak—my tongue is broken.” His voice was a whisper, and it sent chills up her arms.
Olivia’s words had faltered on the line, not because she was unsure of her translation, but because of their meaning. Like the poet’s, her voice was broken, had been broken when she was just learning to use it. She swallowed a whimper of loss before it ever became something heard.
“Definitely goes together,” Max said. “What about these?”
They worked for another hour or so, though time existed only outside the workroom. She’d have to stop soon; her eyes were
strained, her head began to ache. When he carried the latest fragments to the other table, she rubbed her temple to relieve
the pain.
“We should work at the museum; the light is better.” He eased her fingers away and replaced them with his own. And she relaxed
against him. “The equipment is more refined. They can be preserved properly until they can be returned to whoever lost them.”
“No.”
“It will be easier on your eyes.”
She pushed his hands away. “But nothing will stop what is to come.”
He turned her to face him. “You don’t know that. There are new discoveries every day. Already there are surgeries—”
“That will keep me from being completely blind, but they will not save my ability to work.”
“All the more reason to do what you can now. You’re the best we’ve had in the department before or since. Come back, I can
get you at least a sinecure until there’s a permanent place for you. Don’t deny the time you have left.”
“And who will care for my sisters? They depend on me; I’m all they have.”
“Oh, hang your sisters; they’re healthy young women, and they can run the bookshop. You can help them on your days off.”
Oh, how she wanted to be convinced, coerced, strong-armed; to have another chance to work at what she loved most, next to the man . . . To have a future where she didn’t go blind and had to rely on whatever her sisters were willing to do for her. But it was no good.
She turned away.
“Don’t do this.”
She reached for the next fragment. “Now, here’s one that is impossible to decipher.”
Celia sat behind the counter alternating between greeting customers, selling the occasional book, and reading the copy of
Lillian Wald’s book.
She felt oddly unsettled, knowing that Olivia was upstairs with someone she obviously knew well enough to keep him there for
hours. She refused to think of what they might be doing. The image of Olivia walking out of the shop with her briefcase, saying
nothing more than “I’m going out.” The thought of what might have been her sister’s future—her chosen path—sent a searing