Page 9

Four

Christian had heard it said—in his circles at least—that Paris was a city of readers. A city of books. Without doubt, a city of libraries, too many of which he had already seen, at least from the outside.

A thought he’d never expected to think. There was no such thing, in a good world, as too many libraries. And in ages past, he had dreamed of visiting Paris for the sole purpose of touring as many of them as he could squeeze into a week or two.

Not like this. Not knowing that he would be greeted at each institution not as a fellow booklover, but as an invader.

Not when he knew that he wasn’t there to run his fingers over the spines in appreciation and select a few with which to pass his afternoon, but to determine which could stay, which would burn, which would be sent back to Germany.

He caught himself just before he sighed but couldn’t quite bring himself to tear his gaze from the bookcases that took up every spare inch of wall space in the small flat.

Whoever the Bastien women were, they clearly loved books.

He indulged in a quick clearing of his throat. “These are all your mother’s?”

The young woman—who hadn’t deigned to tell him her name—blinked at him. He could all but see the calculation ticking through her eyes as it so frequently did in his students’. What truth to give, what to withhold. But after a moment, she shrugged. “We consider most of them to belong to both of us.”

“You have eclectic taste.” He granted her the reprieve of looking away from her, back to her shelves.

The one he stood in front of now was fiction, alphabetized by author’s last name; but the one on the opposite wall was nonfiction, organized first by subject, then by author’s name, so far as he’d been able to tell in his quick glance.

She didn’t want him here. He didn’t blame her.

He knew very well that Parisian women had been warned by their well-meaning neighbors who remembered past wars to avoid being caught alone with any soldier, lest they be assaulted.

He didn’t know how to assure her she was safe with him.

And knew she wouldn’t believe him anyway.

So instead of trying words, he would prove his innocent thoughts with actions and respect the space she’d put between them.

He scanned the titles on the topmost shelf of fiction, then had to scan them again when he realized he hadn’t paid a bit of attention to whether any were from the list he’d held out to his hostess, which she hadn’t taken.

None were from the library next door, not that he could tell. Still he pulled out one of the books, smiling at the gold-leaf printed title. “ Grand Hotel . I haven’t read it in French, but the original German Menschen im Hotel was brilliant.”

Mademoiselle Bastien folded her arms across her chest. “Are you baiting me? Vicki Baum is a Jew—that book, along with all her others, has been banned by your people, hasn’t it?

” Her chin came up, eyes spitting fire that she really needed to learn to bank in the company of anyone in a Nazi uniform.

“Are you going to take it from me? Burn it?”

The sigh he’d held back a minute ago leaked out.

He slid the book back into its place. “I regret to say that we’ll be calling on quite a few prominent writers residing in Paris and confiscating their private collections, when their lineage or works label themselves enemies of the Nazi Party.

” He paused, but her eyes only narrowed at his use of the word regret .

“But private citizens such as yourself will not have your libraries searched through. Generally speaking.”

Her golden brows arched. “Generally speaking?”

He held up the list again. “I search only for these. Although...” He hesitated, not wanting to say the next words, but having little choice. “I’m afraid we’ll have to interview your mother when she returns. Her interest in these titles has gotten the attention of the Party.”

The girl straightened, eyes flashing. “The Party will be waiting a good long time for that interview .” She said it like she meant interrogation .

He frowned. She’d said that Yvonne Bastien was “not in Paris.” Did she mean...was her mother dead ? Was he causing her distress by even mentioning her?

A million thoughts whirled through his head. She could have been killed during that single bombardment of Paris in June. There had only been two hundred some civilian casualties, but what if this woman’s mother had been one of them? It would explain the hostility in her eyes. The defiance.

Then again, those could be explained by youth. He oughtn’t to jump to conclusions. “You say she’s not in the city? If she fled before our arrival, why did she not take you with her?”

Another quick calculation spun through her eyes. Then a jerk of a shrug. “Her work took her out of the country. Mine kept me here.”

Out of the country, not just Paris? Then who knew when or if she would be allowed to return. If she’d fled to England or America or another Allied nation, there was no way she’d be let back into occupied France.

So then. No interview. Just the books. He turned back to the shelves.

“Very well. If you can simply help me gather the books she’d checked out, I’ll be on my way.

” He stepped back, letting his brows draw together again, clasping his hands behind his back to keep from reaching for any other beloved titles that his fingers would thumb through of their own volition, if he let them.

“I don’t imagine library books would be shelved, would they? ”

Mademoiselle Bastien breathed what could have been a laugh, in different circumstances.

“Honestly, it’s hard to say. Maman is not known for her order.

I find her things in the strangest of places.

It’s even possible that she forgot they were library books and packed them in her trunk.

” Strange light filled her eyes. “Quite possible indeed. She would have thought only that she hadn’t finished reading them yet and wanted to do so. ”

His eyes scanned the room. Though the bookcases took up all the wall space not occupied by the windows, a sofa and two chairs, two end tables and lamps were still crammed into the space, leaving just enough room to walk the shelves and sit without banging one’s knees into one’s neighbor’s.

“She would have taken library books with her out of the country?” His horror must have colored his tone.

Her spine snapped straight. “No one was thinking quite clearly, what with bombs falling around us.”

“Of course.” He held out the list again. “Even so, she surely did not pack eighteen books in her trunk, all of them borrowed. If you help me, I’ll be out of here more quickly.”

After a bracing inhale, she snatched the list from his fingers and then retreated a step again, putting a chair between them. Why did it feel as though she were putting on a show as she read the list?

Answer: Because she was clever. Clearly.

She would know that she ought to guard her every action and reaction around him, so of course she exaggerated her study of the list, no doubt to prove to him that she was doing what he asked.

He’d already memorized the list, so while she mumbled something about checking her mother’s room, he continued his perusal of their shelves.

Was it his fault that he kept getting lost in the collection?

The Reich should have known the pitfalls of sending a booklover to hunt down books.

It was a quest full of delightful rabbit trails and tangents.

When the mademoiselle emerged again, hands empty, she caught him with his nose in Les Misérables .

She huffed.

He offered a smile by way of apology. “I’ve only read the German, but I’ve heard it is best in its native French.” The first pages bore out that theory. Why had he never sought out Hugo in his original language? He ought to be slapped for the oversight.

She looked as though she’d be happy to do the slapping. But instead of a rebuke, she said, “Your French is very good.”

He slid Les Mis back into its spot, though not without a wistful sigh.

He’d have to find a copy at whatever booksellers were open again.

Jean Valjean would be a better companion for his evenings than the other officers who kept badgering him to join them on the town.

“I was taught French by my godfather, who had spent decades here in Paris.” He pressed his lips together before anything more could slip out.

It seemed even that was enough to make her brows pucker. “Godfather? I didn’t think Germans had such things.”

“We are not all atheists.” His lips quirked up. “Or even Lutherans, believe it or not.” He nodded toward her, tapping his chest where her necklace rested on hers. “I am Catholic too.”

If he’d hoped it would spark camaraderie, that she’d realize that the Catholic sectors of Germany were the least receptive to Naziism and the most quickly persecuted, he was sorely disappointed.

Anger flared in those blue eyes instead.

“Clearly you need to read the section of Aquinas that addresses just wars. This does not qualify.”

Did anything? Nothing offensive, anyway. The only just war, it seemed, was a defensive one. But there would never need to be a defensive one if everyone abided by those rules of righteousness.

He narrowed his eyes at the end table and skirted the couch—the long way, to avoid entering her personal space—to approach it.

“I am not the one who declared war on France, mademoiselle . I am not even a soldier who marched on your land with a gun pointed at your neighbors and friends. I am merely a professor, drafted for service because of my work at the library of the University of Berlin.” He crouched down, as much to avoid her dagger of a gaze as to investigate the book under one of the mismatched legs of the end table.