Page 13 of The Last Library of Paris

‘Entre.’ Sylvie stood back to let him in, and then walked with him towards the shelves, telling him about a book she’d put by for him that she thought he’d like.

I looked out of the open door into the quiet Paris street that had once been so bustling, reflecting on how quickly things changed. Then I went to find Guy upstairs.

He was sitting on the floor in the staff room, sorting books into piles.

‘Good morning,’ he said as I came in.

‘Are these requests?’ I asked. ‘Goodness, there are a lot of them.’

A little awkwardly Guy twisted so he could put his left hand on the pile on his other side.

‘And there are all these, too.’

Guy’s right arm was small and thin, the hand on that side useless. He said it hadn’t grown properly inside his mother. He was self-conscious about it and tucked his hand into his pocket. But he was dextrous and quick with the other hand, and he never let it slow him down.

With his good hand on the pile, he nodded. ‘Word has definitely spread around the Jewish book lovers of Paris,’ he said with a small smile. ‘Almost everyone I visit says they’ve got a friend who’d like a book delivery.’

‘The Nazis have done many terrible things but stopping people visiting the library just because they’re Jewish, is definitely one of the most ridiculous,’ I said.

‘They’re frightened of books,’ Guy said. ‘Books are powerful.’

‘You’re right. Which is why we need to keep our delivery service going.’ I frowned. ‘If we can. Though I’m not sure how we’ll be able to deliver all these between the two of us.’

‘We might need to get some help.’

I screwed my nose up. ‘All three of us can’t do deliveries, because we always need someone to keep the library open. But finding another person we trust could be tricky.’

‘I might know someone,’ Guy said. His cheeks flushed slightly. ‘Leave it with me.’

Eyeing him curiously, I simply nodded. Guy wasn’t very chatty when it came to his personal life, so I was interested, but I didn’t push it.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Let’s divide these up.’

‘Already done.’ Guy showed me a list. ‘I’ve arranged it according to areas, and then I put Maurice Levy last.’

‘Is he still sick?’

‘He was when I saw him a few days ago. I thought perhaps we could visit him together. See what else we can do?’

‘Good idea.’ We’d been delivering books to our Jewish readers since a few days after the Nazi tanks rolled up the Champs-Élysée. They were library users once, but now they were friends. I wanted to check Maurice was doing all right.

I took the list from Guy and studied it, reading the names and addresses over and over and committing them to memory. It was too risky to go out with names written anywhere, so we memorised our deliveries.

‘Got it?’ Guy asked.

‘Got it.’

I handed him the list, and he lit a match then held the flame to the edge of the paper, watching it curl and smoke before he dropped it into the ashtray that was on the desk for this sole purpose. It vanished into a little pile of embers.

Then I took my bundle of books, and Guy took his, and we both went downstairs to say goodbye to Sylvie. We didn’t do deliveries every day – just Monday and Thursday – so we didn’t leave Sylvie on her own very often. Which was good news because though she was efficient, and I enjoyed her company, she was surprisingly defiant for someone as young, petite and pretty as she was. I’d seen men approach her and slink off, with their tails between their legs. She loathed the Nazis – as we all did of course – but she found it very hard to disguise her disdain.

‘That attitude will get you shot one day,’ Guy always warned her. But Sylvie didn’t care.

‘I will not pretend to like them.’

That was why I preferred her to be in the library, rather than out delivering books, and why I preferred being with her. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, as the saying went. Today, she was in charge and Guy and I were out and about.

We left the library on our bicycles and cycled a short way together, then Guy went left and I went right.