‘Sorry, do I know you, sir?’
He hooted with laughter. ‘Apologies, my dear, I am head of the Library and Education board for St Pancras Borough Council. For too long now, I have been chained to my desk, but no more, I tell you.’ He slammed a palm down on the counter. ‘No more. It is deeds not meetings that count in these troubled times. I’m doing a whizz round of all the borough libraries to check how all are doing, and I can’t tell you how impressed I am that you took the initiative to come in today and open up.’
‘I nearly didn’t,’ she confessed. ‘I slept on an escalator last night.’
‘Ha! I ended up down in Swiss Cottage Tube, sleeping on the platform. Extraordinary.’
‘Really?’ she gaped. ‘I thought it was just Liverpool Street Station that opened to shelterers.’
‘Oh no, my dear. Tubes all over London were occupied. That’s people power for you. I had no choice, of course. My home copped it during the first raid.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr Silverman.’
He sniffed. ‘Don’t be. It was a bit slummy. Walls so thin I could hear them thinking next door. Now to business.’
‘I’m afraid Mrs March isn’t in yet,’ Joyce said. ‘She must have been delayed.’
‘But that’s what I’m here to tell you,’ Mr Silverman replied. ‘She isn’t coming back.’
‘Is she all right?’
‘Perfectly fine, but she doesn’t have the stomach for it, I’m afraid. She’s probably half the way to Chichester by now, off tostay with her auntie for the duration of the hostilities, which is why I’m here, Miss Kindred.’
He pulled out a badge from his case and slid it over the library counter.
‘Branch Manager,’ she read out loud.
‘That’s right. You’re in charge now. And I feel sure you’ll make a roaring success of it, my dear.’
He turned to leave.
‘Mr Silverman.’
He held a hand up, eyes sparkling.
‘In times such as these, we can dispense with the formalities.’
‘Sorry, Dore. I’m probably chancing my luck here, but my friend Adela Berkowicz,’ she said, pointing to where Adela was playing peek-a-boo with a toddler while her mother browsed the mysteries, ‘she’s a refugee from Poland and needs a job. She’s not a librarian, but I wondered if we could offer her some employment?’
‘You’re the boss,’ he shrugged. ‘It’s entirely up to you. But I will say this. Anyone who escaped Nazi Occupation is deserving of all our support.’
Relief bubbled through her and, emboldened, she went on. ‘I have lots of ideas. Chiefly, a mobile library. If people can’t get to the books, surely we must take books to the people?’
She waited for the disapproval or, worse, laughter.
He clapped his hands together. ‘Genius. Just what the library system needs to shake it up. Books are a raft on life’s stormy seas, are they not? I bid you farewell and cheery-bye. Let’s have a good day and give Hitler one in the eye, but mind you don’t stay too late.’ He tapped his watch and gave a final bounce on his heels. ‘Don’t want to get caught out if the sirens go. Toodle-pip.’
He left as abruptly as he had arrived, and Joyce stared after him, feeling giddy with her sudden change in position. For so long, she had imagined herself the kind of anonymous womanwhom history bypassed, but it seemed that was changing. Now it was up to her to keep pace with that change.
The long-predicted bombings had finally begun, and they had unleashed a storm of emotions. Now that she had seen death up close, an awful thought clenched her. What else, Joyce wondered, were the Nazis capable of? If they could bomb innocent civilians with the eyes of the world on them, what were they doing in secret?
6
Dorotha
Occupied Poland, September 1942
‘Libertatem per Lectio’
