Page 35

Thirteen

Christian switched on a lamp and hummed a snatch of “Ode an die Freude” as he moved to the next shelf of books awaiting his attention. He moved them to his worktable, making the stacks large enough that Kraus, when he came in from his cigarette break outside, groaned.

“Again, Professor?” he asked.

Christian smiled into the pages. “It is my job, soldat .”

“No other officer works so much overtime. It is nearly time for supper.”

So it was—and he would take it next door, with Josef. With Corinne. With Felix . He flicked his gaze up toward his aide, careful to keep his eyes blank. “You might as well go home.”

They went through this little dance four of seven days of the week—even on the nights when Christian didn’t knock on Corinne’s door, because it wouldn’t do for Kraus to notice the pattern.

The younger man sighed. “Ackermann doesn’t like me leaving you here unattended.”

That was new. Usually Kraus argued about his duty and Christian’s overworking, but he’d never actually put such a fine point on it.

Christian frowned, spun to face Kraus fully, and let his perplexity settle on his face without a mask.

“I beg your pardon? Does my superior not like the idea of me being without help or does he think I need a babysitter?”

They both knew the answer, but Christian had never dared to call it out so baldly before, never forced his young aide to admit to his true purpose.

Kraus winced. “It is only that you aren’t a soldier, sir, and—”

“And these books are not enemy combatants. They are books . They do not put up a fight when I stamp them or sort them or store them. So why, pray tell, would I need a soldier overseeing the process?”

Kraus flushed. “It is just—”

“Allow me to tell you what it just is.” Christian straightened to his full height.

He was no giant, but he had a couple inches on the soldat —who was probably still growing, young as he was—and he utilized them now.

A professor dressing down a wayward student.

“It is just a military officer uncomfortable with what he doesn’t know.

Ackermann is a fine officer—and please, tell him I said so when you report this conversation.

He is exceptional at his job. But if he were capable of this job, then I would not have been recruited into the army and brought to Paris as the bibliotheksschutz . Is that not so?”

Kraus’s flush deepened. “Of course, Professor—and no one doubts that you are an excellent library protector, but—”

“But some military men have an innate distrust of academics. He does not trust me because I did not volunteer, because I did not join the military of my own volition. Isn’t that so?”

Kraus cleared his throat and looked away.

“And yet the very fact that I am here now , fulfilling a needed position that a purely military man is incapable of doing does not settle well either. When the simple fact is that no one who had spent his career following military pursuits would now be qualified for the job I have been assigned. So instead of second-guessing me and my authority at every turn and feeling the need to stand around watching me read, I highly suggest that you report back to Ackermann and tell him that I said that if he feels the need to watch me so closely, he can petition Goebbels to replace me here and now, because I will not suffer this a moment more. I have been patient for the last three and a half months, but this cannot continue.”

Strength, he told himself. He must show it even when he didn’t feel it. Blustering before a bully.

No, not blustering. He must actually face them all down, just as he had Erik and his gang when he was a boy. It didn’t matter if he was weak and destined for a black eye. Vater had taught him the importance of knowing which fights to choose, hadn’t he?

Christian needed to plant his feet now, make his stance clear, or he would be bulldozed over—and at this point, that meant danger for far more people than just him .

Josef. Felix. Corinne. All their safety now relied on him maintaining the trust of his higher-ups.

He squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and did his best imitation of a too-proud scholar.

“I am a tenured professor of the most prestigious institution in Berlin. I am the chosen and trusted emissary of Goebbels to Paris. My work in the university library has made it the premiere example in all of Germany, my assistance creating the list of banned books has been applauded by Hitler himself, and I have had enough of this constant hovering, soldat . I am a man of letters. I am accustomed to working in peace. Do I make myself clear?”

Kraus edged back a step. “Of course, sir. I’ll...”

“You’ll go immediately to Ackermann and tell him that if I cannot be granted quiet evenings after working all day in the public libraries, then he should write to Goebbels immediately and have me replaced.

” He cracked a grin, and it went genuine when he saw the way Kraus startled at the change in his expression.

“It’s a matter of my sanity, Kraus. I am a solitary man.

If I don’t have a few hours of quiet each week surrounded by nothing but books, I’m liable to start snapping at everyone. ”

Kraus relaxed, a smile of his own overtaking his lips by millimeters. “I’d say I understand, Professor...but that sounds about like the worst punishment in the world.”

Christian laughed. “Yet another example, then, of how our differences make us uniquely suited to our tasks. Go, soldat . Please. Before I assign you an essay to write to get you out of my hair.”

Kraus’s eyes went wide, and whether the panic in them was exaggerated for the joke or genuine, he took off toward the door at a comically quick pace. “I’m going!”

After the door had shut behind him, Christian sat, drawing in a long, slow breath as he did so. He would give Kraus forty minutes to be well and truly gone, as he always did. Time to do the actual work he said he was doing, though he didn’t require nearly the time for it that he claimed.

It was a simple matter, really, given the nature of this particular library.

Many of the titles in here were already known by the Party and banned.

It was merely a matter of cataloguing them—because the library’s records were not to be trusted—stamping them with the wretched red V and putting them where they should have been on the shelves all along.

Once in a while, he came across a book that hadn’t been on the original list, because it was too new—but whose author was banned. These he took more time with, skimming through each one and making notes that he would send back to Goebbels on the contents.

Much as he’d like to leave out reference to anything inflammatory, he didn’t dare. It would be too easy for someone to check his work and look up the books themselves.

Facts. He was only recording facts, which anyone could find on their own.

It wasn’t a betrayal. Wasn’t a selling out of the men and women who had written the words.

Most of them were well out of reach of the Nazis at this point anyway, safe in England or America, other copies of their work circulating freely in the part of the world that welcomed their thoughts.

He pulled forward a copy of Helen Keller’s autobiography and sighed.

Perhaps her words weren’t welcome in Germany—but they were needed.

His people needed to see that someone could be born different, could be born “less,” could be born with defects that would have them killed now in Germany, but it didn’t make them weak.

It made them strong . It didn’t make them a mark against their race—it made them the triumph of it.

Civilization wasn’t just built on raw physical power.

It was built on strength of character that made people overcome the worst of circumstances.

He traced his fingers over the gilt lettering on the cover and prayed that Felix would have Keller’s kind of strength.

Her courage. Her ferocity in the face of limitations.

This title was already on the banned list, so he didn’t need to flip through it—but he did, his eyes soaking up a few familiar, beloved passages.

On page 35, he paused. Frowned.

Keller’s weren’t the only words in these pages. In the margins were light pencil markings, random French and Latin and even German strung together.

The words themselves made no sense—none. He knew them all, and they were nothing but gibberish. Not just some rude lender’s notes made in the margins. They had nothing to do with the text.

But the fact that this was the fourth book he’d found with such notations, all in the same hand... He flipped more carefully through the pages, reading the handful of places with writing. Several of the words repeated.

Some sort of code?

He tapped a finger against the time-softened trimmed edge of the book block, considering. It could be nothing—someone’s strange and indecipherable shorthand. It could be more.

Either way, he closed the book and slipped it into the crate he kept well buried under other piles of books, with the other three tomes he’d found with similar markings.

He made no note of it in his records. And when he flipped through the master records of the library and found its entry, he wrote “Poor condition, destroyed” in all caps, as he had the other three—and several copies of books that really were in too bad a shape to be sent anywhere but to a burn pile.

The mold infesting them would spread to other books if he stored them together and destroy the whole lot.

He worked until the emptiness of his stomach prompted him to look at his watch.

Two minutes until his designated time to abandon the library and knock on Corinne’s door.

Perfect. He left himself a few notes on where to pick up tomorrow, switched off the lights, scooped up the three newly purchased books he had waiting by the door, locked up, and moved a few steps into the warm October evening.