The Librarian of Burned Books, page 18
Hale caught her midstride as he stepped out onto his stoop, shrugging into his jacket despite the heat of the day.
“Manhattan’s that way,” he called, pointing west.
Viv swiveled theatrically. “You mean I’m not on Broadway? I could have sworn I took the correct left at Times Square.”
Hale’s lips tipped up in a gentle smile. “Hiya, Childs.”
“Hiya, Hale,” she called back, just as irreverently, her hands on her hips, the wind catching at her skirt.
“What’s that look for?” Hale asked after he’d skipped down the three steps.
She held a hand to her forehead to block the setting sun as she squinted up at him. “Just thinking about life, I guess.”
“Makes sense, thinking about life in a war,” he said, shifting so that she could look up into his face without her eyes tearing. “Here for another favor?”
Shaking her head, she nudged his elbow with her own. “A distraction.”
He sent her a knowing look. Viv was sure he’d had at least a few appearances to honor Memorial Day, had probably accepted more condolences than he could count from well-meaning folks.
“Walk with me?” she asked.
Surprise came and went in a blink-and-miss-it heartbeat. His smile was cautious but he nodded once. “It’s a nice enough evening. Where to?”
“Where our feet take us,” she suggested.
He hesitated, clearly unsure of her mood. She didn’t blame him. The last time they’d spoken she’d come wrapped in protective barbed wire.
But today she’d found herself wanting to talk to someone who’d known Edward. Not because the two of them were alike in any way—in terms of personality they were polar opposites. Just . . . it was easier. Knowing someone shared her specific grief. Not the larger feeling of mourning for all the soldiers who had died.
For Edward.
Viv’s knees went wobbly, her thighs weak, her breathing ragged. Her fingertips found the solid brick of a rowhouse, and she leaned back against it, let the wall hold her up.
Ignoring Hale’s concerned expression as he came back to stand in front of her, Viv closed her eyes and focused on the next inhale, the next exhale.
Edward was dead.
Never again would she see the sly humor slip into his eyes right before he told a joke, never again would she seek comfort in the warmth of his hug, never again would she tease secrets from him and let her own be teased out in return.
Fingers encircled her wrist, not chaining her, but grounding her.
Hale stood shielding her from the street—and any nosy passerby’s hungry gaze—his thumb rubbing out a small circle on the skin that stretched over her rabbiting pulse. Neither of them said anything as her heart slowed, but neither of them looked away either.
“Most of the time I’m all right,” Viv managed to rasp out. Hale’s thumb paused for just a second before continuing its soothing rhythm. “Most of the time I can just not think about it.”
In the fading light of early evening, Hale’s eyes had gone a stormy green, the gold flecks little bursts of lightning among the clouds.
“Does that make me terrible?” she asked in a rush. “That I don’t always think about it?”
Hale huffed out a breath, his body swaying toward hers. With anyone else it would have made her feel cornered, but instead she sunk into the protectiveness of the gesture.
“If you made yourself think about it all the time you’d spend your life on your knees, unable to do anything but cry,” Hale said softly. “I can get up every day only because I don’t let myself think about him.”
Viv sniffed and studied his face. Maybe Hale and Edward should never have been as close as they were, but they had been. Two men who had decided to be brothers instead of enemies.
In that moment, she loved them both fiercely, without restraint or condition or scars. Loved Hale for loving Edward, for giving him family where he so easily could have withheld his affection.
She pressed a hand to Hale’s chest, over his heart. He dropped his forehead to hers, and they stood like that even as the street bustled around them, workers heading home from jobs, mothers pushing prams, girls giggling as they tried not to stare.
They only broke apart when something bumped gently against Viv’s foot.
Startled, she looked down to see a baseball. It wasn’t the pristine white you’d see at a Dodgers game, but rather the dirty and frayed kind that was so familiar to that summer Hale had first taught her how to play. Her body ached with the memory.
When she looked up, Hale grinned at her, mischievous, the despair of the last few minutes forgotten, a practice they were all good at now.
Viv bent down, picked up the baseball, and looked around for the owners. The boy stood on the curb a few feet away, a battered mitt dangling from one hand, his eyes big and awed as he stared at Hale, clearly recognizing him as the beloved neighborhood institution that he was.
Viv met Hale’s eyes one more time and quirked her lips into a questioning smile.
Hale’s shoulders lifted in an amused inhale as he took the ball from her and turned to the boy. “You have room for two more?”
“But what if you muss up your suit, Congressman Hale?” Viv teased quietly as the boy simply continued to gape.
Hale’s eyes traced over her flirty dress, her heels, the little hat that perched atop her hair. “I don’t think my suit is going to be the problem.”
She was spared having to come up with a response—which was good because his slow, assessing gaze had her tongue-tied—when the boy with the mitt whooped and hollered and called back to his friends.
Viv and Hale followed, Hale shrugging out of his well-tailored jacket and draping it over a fire hydrant while Viv chewed on her lip. There was no fixing the dress but the heels would have to go.
The street was mostly smooth and she thankfully wasn’t wearing her stockings, so she didn’t have to worry about rips. She stepped out of her shoes, earning a smirk from Hale. The boys took it as invitation to crowd around both of them, talking all at once.
They were about ten years old if Viv had to guess. Too often, when Viv saw girls and boys their age, they wore the serious faces of children forced to grow old too soon. But these boys were alight with the simple summer pleasure of baseball in the street, their smiles almost too big to bear.
“Missus,” one of them said to Viv, nudging her shin with the bat. “Mr. Hale says you’re up first.”
“Oh he did, did he?” Viv slid a look to Hale, who was watching her with an emotion she couldn’t identify. Whatever it was made some dormant part of her crack open, tendrils of spring-green hope seeking the warmth she saw in his eyes.
“Move in,” one of the older boys called to the haphazard outfield. “A dime says she can’t even swing the bat.”
Viv’s eyes narrowed.
By this point, girls had started congregating on the sidewalk to watch also, the spectacle of two respectable adults joining in the children’s game too interesting to pass by.
“I’ll take that bet,” one of the taller girls yelled. She was slim with long dark hair and a set jaw that carried a stubbornness Viv recognized from her own youth. Viv pointed the bat at the girl, in a universal gesture of appreciation and earned herself a toothy grin in response.
Behind her Hale clapped and hollered along, the tough talk almost as familiar as the dirty baseball had been.
Viv stepped up to the busted street sign that was acting as home plate, gripped the bat, stuck her behind out in a way that earned her a few wolf whistles by a passing pair of young men, and glared at the pitcher. He, with the cockiness that came from being ten years old and the center of attention, cackled and carelessly tossed the ball in the air.
“Bring it on,” she called out.
“You want a girl’s pitch?” he asked, and once again the girls on the sidewalk shouted him down.
“You can’t even hit a girl’s pitch yourself, Bobby.”
“When was the last time you got to first?”
“You want me to tell your momma you’re talking like that?”
Viv didn’t smile, though she wanted to. Instead, drawing her brows down even further, she said, “I’m starting to think you’re all talk. Can’t even throw the ball, I’d bet.”
The gentle gibe had the intended effect. It wiped the amusement from his face and got him to pitch to the best of his abilities—which meant the ball was easier to hit than if he’d been messing around, trying to throw underhand.
Viv swung to miss, because she liked drama. But she also swung to miss because the joy that radiated from every person on this small block in Brooklyn was unmistakable. Women were leaning in doorways now, their eyes always tracking back to Hale, but some of them paid enough attention to Viv to call out encouragement. A couple of sailors lounged against the wall of a grocery, the owner coming to watch in the window.
With the simple addition of two adults joining the game, the entire atmosphere had become that of a party, a treat, a celebration of summer and life and happiness.
And Viv wanted to draw it out as long as possible.
“Told ya,” the same boy who’d called out earlier said from his spot on third base. The lanky girl on the sidewalk rolled her eyes.
“I know you ain’t so smart, Jimmy, but in baseball you get three strikes before you’re out,” the girl said, and Viv tossed her a wink.
Viv let the second pitch slide by her, and Hale, who seemed to have taken on the role of umpire, hollered out, “Strike,” as if he were at Ebbets Field.
“This one’s for all the marbles,” some voice called from the audience now gathered. The boys were practically thrumming with excitement from the attention.
Viv regripped the bat. Drama was only fun if she could pull off the grand finale.
It made her think of her fight with Senator Taft. But in the next moment she pushed the thought aside. There was no space for that tonight; she had to be here, present, ready to swing.
The ball left the boy’s fingertips and she lifted her elbow, shifted her weight. Exhaled, just like Hale had taught her.
The bat connected with a satisfying crack that reverberated through the crowd. For one eternal heartbeat, everyone seemed to hold their breath as the ball sailed up and over the heads of the furthest line of boys. Then Viv dropped the bat and took off, the roar that followed pushing her on, even as her skirt flew up around her legs.
Rocks cut into the soles of her feet, sweat gathered beneath her arms, pins fell out of her hair and tumbled to the ground, and she ignored all of it as she rounded second and headed toward third. The boys were scrambling, after having sent two outfielders sprinting after the ball that had seemed to lodge itself under some distant car. Shouts of encouragement and disbelief greeted her at third, and the lanky girl from the sidewalk was there, grinning so hard it took over her entire face, her arm wheeling in the signal to haul off toward home base. The other girls had gathered behind the tall one, their bodies all but vibrating as they hollered out their encouragement.
Out of the corner of Viv’s eye, a flurry of movement nearly distracted her. They’d found the ball and had started up a chain to get it back to the boy who now guarded home. Viv ducked her chin, reached down for every bit of energy she had left, pumped her arms, and lengthened her stride.
The pitcher had the ball.
She was two, maybe three steps away.
The ball sailed toward her—toward the glove the catcher held outstretched.
It landed in the mitt, only one heartbeat after her foot touched metal. She skidded a little at the change of surface, but managed to stay upright as everyone, en masse, shifted toward Hale.
He let the suspense hang, build, and nearly crescendo as the audience leaned toward him, ready to accept his judgment.
Finally, with all the grandiosity of deciding a World Series game, he yelled out, “Safe!”
The girls whooped with a victory they’d taken on as their own, the boys poor-sport arguing in the way that seemed necessary for a losing team. The women who’d taken a break from their days smiled indulgently, the grocer laughed, and the sailors winked at Viv before continuing on to wherever they were headed.
And Viv stood panting, her hands on her hips, smiling so that she didn’t cry. Not from grief, but from some overwhelming tidal wave of joy that pressed at every frayed and vulnerable seam of her body.
It had been such a long war, so many years of hardship, of sacrifice, of fear and loss and pain and the dull monotony of helplessness. But none of that had crushed them completely. Even in the darkest days, in their deepest grief, at their most exhausted, humans found a way to create moments that were so fundamentally hopeful that they couldn’t help but inspire you to take one more step forward. And then one more.
Hale swooped in behind her, slinging an arm over her shoulder. “I knew you had it in you, Childs.”
Feeling magnanimous, Viv shot him a look. “Learned from the best.”
His fingers tightened on her arm and a panic-laced thrill raced through her at the thought of him pulling her into a kiss. But Hale just stepped away, clapping his hands to get the boys’ attention.
He, like Viv, knew the power of a good ending and didn’t bother taking his turn at the plate. Instead, he congratulated the boys on a good game, led them all to the grocer who had watched Viv’s triumph, and bought out his entire icebox of Popsicles.
Viv took grape and tried not to think about the way the flavor tasted on Hale’s tongue.
Hale was swamped with adoring constituents after that, but every so often his eyes would drift back to where Viv had situated herself on a stoop, talking to a pregnant young woman who had brought her sewing out to work on so she could enjoy the fun.
In another time, Viv would have asked about the woman’s husband, but she kept quiet. There were so few nights like this, ones that weren’t tainted by the war. The evening was tinged gold and pink, and Viv had no desire to bring any darkness into it.
Instead, they talked about the baseball games of their youths, of the woman’s son, who had been playing first base, of Hale, even.
Tomorrow would come, it always did. And with it, the sorrow they’d so carefully pushed away tonight.
Maybe the reprieve felt small given the enormity of what they were all coping with. But it felt similar to how Viv viewed the reprieve the ASEs must give the soldiers. A small reminder that life wasn’t just blood and bombs and fear.
And if they could all hold on to those reminders, if they could help each other create them, maybe together they would be able to make it through this godforsaken war. Not necessarily whole, but human.
Chapter 27
Paris
November 1936
The bitter smell of carbonic soap sat in the back of Hannah’s nostrils as she watched Otto’s chest rise and fall in the hospital bed.
He would live, the doctors had promised.
She didn’t need to hear the hesitation in their voices to know it had been a near thing.
Hannah’s fingers found the butt of the pistol she now carried with her anywhere she went.
It had been three days since the attack on the boulevard Saint-Germain and she’d only been home once to change and to fish the weapon out of the dark space beneath her floorboards. Never again would she be as defenseless as she had been on the street, desperate and pleading for help that just wouldn’t come.
The fight itself had been a blur, snatches of memories elusive and yet viscerally horrifying. But she wasn’t sure she would ever forget locking eyes with her colleagues. All of the other library volunteers must have rushed out on the street, because they’d all been there. Standing, watching, doing nothing.
Her eyes drifted toward the window, to the sun creeping above the Parisian skyline.
For perhaps the thousandth time, she told herself her friends from the library were intellectuals, thinkers. They probably had never thrown a punch in their lives, let alone fought the kind of brutes whose bodies had been crafted for violence. It would have been a death sentence for them.
Otto moaned, twisted beneath the sheets, then settled.
The doctors said he would live. But what would become of him? What would become of Hannah?
The way she knew the coming war would change her—had already changed her—was terrifying. Once upon a time, she had been happy and lighthearted. She had always been the cynic to Adam’s idealist, but she had never had ice around her heart.
There had been so many nights in Berlin that she had danced, and laughed and loved, where she’d drunk too much champagne and worn expensive silk dresses and went on bicycle rides on the first day of spring simply to collect tulips in her basket. She had believed in the basic goodness of people, that most were just trying to do their best in a world that could sometimes be hard. She had been open and kind and sarcastic, a good friend and a good sister. Not necessarily a good daughter, but she didn’t blame herself for that. She had loved bread and orange marmalade and a night at the theater, and she had quiet dreams that had seemed like they might be possible.
War—and she had decided they were at war—had a way of stripping away all those small things and then amplifying what was left. There were no tiny irritations or minor celebrations. It was all love and hate, fear and courage, poetry and destruction, everything more intense because of the contrast, the middle ground no longer there.
But the small things were what made a person. Hannah already felt gutted from grief, from betrayal, from a slow erosion of her faith in mankind.
What would she look like next year, and the next? Who would she be? Because the woman she had been in Berlin would never have dreamed she could pull a trigger.
Now, Hannah palmed the pistol, wincing when the metal nudged against her fingers. One of the Nazis had broken three of them. She hadn’t even noticed at the time.
The green-purple-yellow bruises that had bloomed along Hannah’s cheekbone were still the worst of her injuries, though. At the very edge of them she swore she could make out the shape of a boot.
