Page 37 of The Last Library of Paris

‘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?’

Chapter 10

Cassie

Lisbon

Rather grudgingly, I spent the rest of the day in clerical. I didn’t want to give Digby any reason to stop me going back to Section D, and I did feel a bit bad about not pulling my weight.

Clerical wasn’t the worst place to be, if I was honest. The other women were fun, and the chatter made the hours pass quickly, even if the work was mind-numbingly boring.