Page 17

It was the first Christian had been accepted by his father’s crowd.

The first they began to view him as an equal, not just a child.

He’d been only twenty, still in university.

But he’d known that he never meant to leave academia.

That this circle, his father’s friends and colleagues, were who he wanted to be his own.

That if he could find a place among the intelligentsia, he would live a happy life.

How naive he’d been.

How he wished he could return to those days.

Abraham gave a tight smile. “I’ve read it. Twice.”

Wagner pushed back from the table. “Someone will escort you out. You may return home, but do not attempt to leave the city again. You will soon have to register as a Jew and check in weekly with your assigned office. Curfew is in effect for all Parisian citizens from nine p.m. until five a.m. Jews are allowed only on the last Métro car in a line, at designated cafés—a list will be provided to you by your registry officer—and in certain stores, which will be on the same list. By week’s end, no person not born to French parents will be permitted to hold any job in the city.

” Wagner rattled it off in as bored and perfunctory a tone as Christian had employed. He stood. “Any questions?”

He clearly didn’t mean to answer any, given the way he tugged his jacket back into place and reached for his cap.

Cohen cocked his head. “Not for you, sir. But if I could ask that one about books...?” He nodded toward Christian. Pasted on a smile. “Acceptable ones, of course. Since it seems I will have ample reading time.”

When Ackermann stood too, Christian held his breath. He could just as easily refuse the request as allow it...but he didn’t. He merely followed Wagner out, with a laugh about leaving the bücherwurms to their talk—and a caution to Christian not to take too long.

He didn’t dare let out a breath of relief, not even when the door closed behind them.

Doors still had ears. But he did let his eyes slide closed, let his shoulders sag.

Then he pulled a sheet of paper from the bottom of his stack.

“Book recommendations.” He slid it across the table, meeting Abraham’s eye. “Have you read number four?”

Three Comrades by Erich Maria Remarque. Abraham surely knew what he was asking.

Where are Josef and Earnst? Have you seen them lately?

They’d been inseparable, once. Abraham, Josef, Earnst. They’d decided to leave Berlin together, and though their departures had been staggered, Christian knew they’d met up again here, had continued traveling in the same literary circles.

Abraham shook his head. “I haven’t.” Regret clouded his dark eyes. Silently, he added I’m sorry.

As if he had anything to apologize for. Christian nodded. “What about number ten?” The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz. Have they fled France? Gone to England? To America? Even Free France would suffice, though they were sure to suffer from lack of food in the coming months and years too.

An Allied country would be better. America best of all. Perhaps then they, at least, could stay away from this war. Could escape its claws. Please, God.

Abraham let out a quiet breath, his shoulders lifting. “I...don’t know. It does not sound familiar, but...as I said. Chaos.”

Christian let himself slump in his chair. Told himself for the thousandth time that in this case, no news of them was good news. As long as they weren’t here in Paris, then he could believe they were safe. Out of Nazi-controlled territory. That they stood a chance.

His old friend, one of the few people left in the world who remembered Father, one of the men who’d helped usher him into the world he loved so much, regarded him with a look of pure sorrow as he fingered the corner of the book list. “Am I able to...get these books from a library?”

Christian winced and tossed his eyeglasses down so he could rub at his eyes.

“Not the one you belong to. It was the first to be shut down. I myself am keeping it under lock and key. I have in fact set up my personal headquarters there—I find working among books far more productive than a hotel room.”

Abraham’s eyes were the ones to slide shut this time, in obvious thanksgiving. “I daresay that one wouldn’t have these titles anyway. But there are others.”

Did he really mean libraries? If so... “They’ve all been ordered not to lend books to Jews. You will have to purchase any title you want. From, of course, a vendor approved for your people.” What if he was really asking about where to meet with his compatriots? Underground gatherings?

About those, Christian had no knowledge, if they existed.

They would. He had to believe that. As he’d said to Kraus in the car, the young people wouldn’t sit idly by, once they made their choices. But that didn’t mean they’d made any strides quite yet. It had only been a month since Pétain surrendered.

Abraham nodded and folded the list. “If you’ve headquartered at that small library...you may have run into one of its neighbors? She and her mother were dear to me. If you tell her I am well, that I send my greetings...?”

Eyes going wide, Christian leaned back. Corinne? Were she and her mother really that close to the men who ran and organized—or failed to organize, as the case may be—the Library of Burned Books?

Why? Were they communists? Jews? Corinne didn’t look as though she had any Semitic blood, but that didn’t always mean anything.

He prayed she was neither though—because if she were, then she’d be forced to register too. She’d come under the scrutiny of officers all too eager to teach the people they deemed inferior a lesson.

She could well end up at the mercy of Ackermann, who had mused for fifteen solid minutes about her curves, her face, how he’d like to get a taste of her. It had been all Christian could do to force his dinner down.

It didn’t matter. Regardless, he couldn’t give a message from Abraham to Corinne. “I’m afraid Nazi officers aren’t in the habit of passing along messages.” If he dared to try, she would see straight through him. Know that he passed it along as a friend, not an enemy.

And he couldn’t afford to let anyone know who his friends really were.

But...perhaps, if she brought any books back today... “I can perhaps mention that I interviewed you today. Offhandedly,” he said under his breath, praying the words were too low for anyone but Abraham to hear.

Abraham nodded. “She is...lonely. Has been since her mother left before the invasion. Be a friend, if you can.” Abraham not only spoke in the same bare murmur, he said it in English—unlikely to be understood by either of the officers who had been here with him, if they lingered outside the door.

Christian wasn’t sure he understood either. Because surely Abraham Cohen wasn’t suggesting that he trust Corinne Bastien that much? With who he was? With...?

He shook his head and stood. “If you read English, then I suggest you pick up a copy of number twelve. A highly enjoyable story.” The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell.

Abraham’s eyes glinted. “I’ve read it. It is, after all, the most popular short story ever written in the English language. Very intriguing premise too, isn’t it? Rainsford didn’t ask to be put in the game. But he was. So then, his job was to survive it.”

The challenge was clear. None of them had asked for this, none of them wanted to be the prey in this madman’s deranged hunt. But they were. They all were.

Their job was to survive it. To accept that the training they’d received might amount to nothing, that sometimes they might have to swim around the long way to avoid the dogs, that there would be a struggle that could well kill them.

The character survived. Won. And ended the game so no other victims fell prey to it.

Christian was none too sure he had the stamina of Rainsford.

And certainly wasn’t about to trust any other fellow victims of the hunt.

It was Rainsford’s skill as a hunter himself that had given him an edge with the evil Zaroff—if some other panicked, shipwrecked passenger had been on the island at the same time, would he really have worked with them?

Unlikely. He’d have known that trusting someone else would get him killed.

Christian put his briefcase on the table again, slid the papers into it, and met his friend’s gaze one more time. He didn’t know if he’d ever see him again. Didn’t want to leave now with frustration and thrown gauntlets between them.

He didn’t want this man to leave thinking Christian’s father would have been ashamed of him. But he couldn’t make promises he had no intention of keeping.

So he did the only thing he could think of doing.

He lifted his right hand and spread it wide over his heart, as he’d done the day he realized he was in love.

The men had laughed at him, but it had been a good-natured laughter.

They had all been in the same place. They all knew the joys, the pitfalls, the ups and downs that would come.

The heartache. The tears. The crying out to a God who seemed so far away.

Abraham spread a hand over his own heart too, in a silent covenant. And then, with a sad little smirk, he lifted his other hand and spread his pointer and middle fingers into a V .

For a second, Christian could only see it as the red V stamp he’d been forced to use in book after book as he consigned them to cupboards and boxes and closets— Verboten. Forbidden.

Then he realized that it wasn’t that V at all. It was the V that defaced posters all over the city. The V of a people not ready to give up, not ready to surrender. It was the V of la victoire —victory.

He returned the salute, feeling the strangeness of Abraham’s smile on his own lips. Not a smile he ever gave to his students, to his colleagues. Not a smile he ever remembered giving to anyone. Unpracticed. Unbridled.

Full of reckless hope.

It was enough to carry him back out of the hotel, back into his car, back to his work at the National Library. It lingered still as Kraus drove him once more to the Boulevard Arago, where he’d write his reports for the day before trudging to his room for the night.

It nearly stuttered when he saw Corinne Bastien lingering by the door, three books in her arms—only three.

He could feel Kraus’s gaze latched to him as Christian made his way toward the door, key in hand. He wouldn’t be surprised by leniency, not given the conversation they’d had earlier in the day. But he wasn’t convinced of its wisdom either, Christian knew.

“You’re back later than usual today,” she said by way of greeting, flicking her blue gaze from him to Kraus. “I was about to slip them through the book return slot.”

He had no obligation to offer her excuses, of course.

But since she gave him the perfect opportunity.

.. “An interview interrupted my workday—with one of the directors of this place, as it happens, upon his return to Paris.” He reached for the books, made a show of reading the titles. “Abraham Cohen. Know him?”

She didn’t start. Didn’t widen her eyes. Showed no distress, though surely she felt some. She only fastened on a smile as crooked as the halo of a fallen angel and said, “It’s impossible to live where I do and not know all the regulars. Monsieur Cohen was always kind to me. I hope he is well?”

“He is.” He looked at the last book in the stack, barely holding back a frown. It felt...new. Had Professor Bastien been the first to borrow it? He flipped to the back inside cover, glanced at the borrow card. Hers was the sixth name on the list.

“Is there a problem, Professor? Aside from the incompleteness of my stack, I mean?”

He glanced up at Corinne. No guilt limned her expression, darkened her eyes, tugged at her posture. Just curiosity.

Perhaps. He closed the book with a snap and put on a dismissive smile. “Only, as you say, the incompleteness. But I am encouraged that you’ve found these three. I shall help you look for the others sometime this week, oui ?”

That easy posture went stiff. “I will keep searching. You needn’t bother—”

“No bother at all.” He fit the key into the lock and opened the door, knowing Kraus would bar her from following.

His aide was still far from fluent in French, but he’d probably picked up a few words here and there.

Enough to get the gist of the conversation.

“Let’s say...tomorrow? Perhaps at lunch time? ”

Her chin came up. “I’m afraid I already have a lunch date tomorrow. And classes are starting again on Wednesday, so I won’t be at home regardless. I have to be there to prepare.”

He paused, fingers curled around the door. Classes. His soul yearned for them. “At?” It was none of his business. He was merely curious. Did she attend the university at which her mother worked? It seemed likely. “The Sorbonne?”

Her eyes narrowed. Answer enough.

He smiled. “I could meet you there in the afternoon. Give you a ride home.”

“Absolutely not.”

He’d known she would refuse—to be seen getting in a car with a Nazi officer, after all... But he smiled. Shrugged. “Very well then. When you arrive home. Let us say...five o’clock?”

The moment she agreed, he knew well she’d seen the trick. Saw it in the glimmer of amusement in her eyes—at herself. Saw the single spark of respect, quickly covered by annoyance. She spun on her heel and marched away.

Christian chuckled as he moved into the library, pausing at the circulation desk as Kraus continued toward the water closet. He drew out the patron cards, flipped that bottom book open again, and made a quick comparison.

His brows drew a little tighter together with each name he checked. Granted, the records were dreadfully incomplete...but the list on that card and the cards with the borrows for each name didn’t even begin to match up. And the few entries that did, the dates were years apart.

He flipped quickly through the other two books, the middle one with a card just as mismatched, the top one, decidedly more worn, its corners gone soft and round from much handling, the only one of the three whose records more or less matched the official record.

But even that one... He flipped through the pages, pausing when a black thread caught his eye.

No, not a thread. Rubber. Eraser detritus.

At the sound of a flush from down the hall, Christian closed all three books and slid them onto a shelf.

“All well?” Kraus asked as he came back down the corridor.

This smile was the absent one he gave to students who just wanted acknowledgment between classes, when he had time for nothing but that smile and a nod. “Indeed.” He glanced at his watch. “Give me thirty minutes to update my files, and then we can go and find dinner.”

Kraus grinned and took his usual seat behind the desk. “Perfect.”