Short Story
The Librarian
In the burrows of Byzantium
“Do you know what happened to the senior librarian?”
“Senior librarian?” she said, peering over her specs.
“Yeah, the guy who used to sit over there?
The visitor pointed to a small brown chair in the corner with a rumpled cardigan hanging over its spindled back.
“Used to help me find all the old books I needed for my research. He sat right over there,” he said, pointing again.
“Research?” the woman behind the counter asked.
“Yeah, into the collapse of the postpalatial Bronze Age in the Peloponnesian Peninsula and the rise of pre-Mycenaean Pylos through to the burning of Boeotia … and beyond.”
The woman wiped her cheek in an exaggerated manner.
“Wow,” she said with an awkward chuckle. “Quite a mouthful. Kinda sorry I asked now. Lots of moist plosives and hard Ps and Bs in there.”
“I’m sorry?” the man said, adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses.
“Oh, no, really, the pleasure was all mine. Forecast says, cloudy with a chance of stranger spit. Film at 11. Ha ha ha ha anywho …”
“Yeah, anywho. He always seemed to know what I needed, that guy in the chair. Ray, I think his name was. He’d even point out books he thought I should read had nothing to do with my research. I’m a perpetual student. Always learning, right? So, I figured, what the heck!”
The woman behind the counter put her two fingers to her temple like a mentalist, or like someone with a really bad migraine.
“Oh, you mean RJ. Oh no, RJ wasn’t —er isn’t— a librarian,” she snickered. “He is senior, though. That much is true.”
The visitor looked around but nodded vacantly to show he was listening.
“Yeah, uh huh. Well, I just assumed. I mean, he always seemed so knowledgeable and, you know, helpful,” he said.
The librarian glanced again at the empty chair.
“Yeah, good old RJ. He was …
“Well, just between you and me,” she whispered and leaned in, though no one else was within earshot. “He didn’t work here. He wasn’t even an official volunteer. Nope. He just sorta hung around. Seemed to like helpin’ out,” she said, using air quotes to emphasize “helpin’ out.”
“Oh yeah, a genuine people pleaser, that one,” she continued. “And, ya know, we kinda just let him do it. Odd duck, though. A bit lonely, I guess. A tad creepy but in a non-threatening kinda way? But super nice. Yeah. And sharp, too. Oh my gosh. Sharp as a tack. Yeah, for his age, I mean. Well, except towards the end, ya know.”
“The end?”
“Yeah, well, he sorta just stopped showin’ up a few weeks ago. Actually, maybe it was more like a month or even a few months ago, possibly. Can’t remember, exactly. He seemed a bit … well, absentminded, I guess you could say. Lost, maybe?”
The visitor nodded his head slowly, as if formulating a thesis.
“Right. Well, I guess it’s been a while since I’ve been here, too,” he said. “Now I’m wondering what happened to him. Jeez. I hope everything’s ok with him, ya know? I kinda wish I’d gotten his number or somethin’. Maybe I shoulda gotten to know a bit more about him than just, ya know. We always just talked about the books. History and stuff. Nothin’ in the here and now. Nothin’ about each other.”
“Ya know,” she said. “Sam, the nighttime security guy. He might know more about RJ. Where he is and all. Sam’s not here right now, but if you come back Thursday eve — ”
“Yeah, no. That’s ok. I don’t want to be a bother.”
“Oh, it’s no bother to me, but … ok, then.”
The woman stuck a card inside the sleeve of an open book.
“Well, anyway, all the same books are here even if RJ’s not.” She cleared her throat and — suddenly all business — said, “I would be more than happy to assist you today. The library’s entire catalog is fully indexed and searchable. Even if you don’t have a library card, you can still use a guest login to access — ”
“Oh, I see. Yeah, thank you, no. That’s ok, I kinda just like to–”
“And then there’s the Internet,” she said, her volume rising, “I mean, if you’d rather take your chances in Google’s un-curated wilderness of –”
“Well, yeah. I know about the Google, ma’am,” he interjected, seeming to communicate something else with his eyes. “I’ve definitely used the Google before.”
“You mean, the Interwebs?” She said, catching his drift.
In the brief pause that followed, an unnamed tension broke and they both laughed.
“Yeah, good ol’ RJ, right?” said the woman, finally.
“Hey, is that his sweater over there? On the chair?” he asked.
“Well, yeah. I suppose it is,” she said.
“I know this is gonna sound a bit strange, but do you think I could, well, try it on?
The woman behind the counter glanced over at the rumpled cardigan and then back at the visitor.
“Um, sure, I guess. I don’t see why not. I was just gonna donate it or toss it, actually.”
“Oh, great. Thank you.” said the man.
He scratched his neatly-trimmed, salt-and-pepper beard and walked over to the chair. He grabbed the sweater, held it up, and gave it a shake. Then he stuck his long arms through its sleeves.
“Little tight, but basically fits,” he smiled and said.
“Yeah, looks great,” she said, glancing over briefly.
“By the way, my name’s Ted.”
“Ok, Ted. Pleasure’s all mine, I’m sure. Now, uh, if you don’t mind …” She held up a book and tapped it. “I’ve got some indexing to get back to.”
“Sure, sure. Thanks again.”
Ted walked through the history section: past the Dorians, the Persians, the Goths, Slavs, and Turks. He settled into a familiar corner, the one RJ showed him a year or so ago. The one with a world of forgotten esoterica. A time travel portal right there in Newton Public Library’s lower level, just past the DVDs and the YA section.
He scanned the shelves with books arrayed like parapets and spires in an ancient city he couldn’t wait to explore.
Burrows’ A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century.
Chester G. Starr’s A History of the Ancient World.
Atlas of Improbable Places: A Journey to the World’s Most Unusual Corners, by Travis Elborough and Alan Horsfield.
Ted wasn’t searching for anything in particular. He’d already finished his never-to-be-published epic on the Mycenaeans. No, tonight’s visit was purely recreational.
He opened A History of Histories and started to read. Out of habit, he reached into his pocket for a pencil and paper to take notes, something he’d seen Ray do many times before. But it wasn’t his own pocket he was reaching into now, it was Ray’s. RJ’s. And it was like RJ was willing him to do it.
Ted found a slip of paper. It was folded. He took it out and read it.
Dearest Ted,
If you’re reading this, I’ve more than likely slipped the earthly bonds. Shuffled off this mortal coil. Kicked the bucket. Or maybe I’m just pining for the fjords.
You know, Ted, they say when an old person dies, a library goes with him. I’m hoping you find my sweater and, subsequently, this note. If so, perhaps I’ll be able to join you on your continuing journey through the halls of Alexandria; down into the burrows of Byzantium and beyond.
Happy hunting, Ted!
Your friend,
Ray (“RJ”)
Ray never did come back to that beat up old chair in the corner, nestled between a water fountain and a fire extinguisher. But Ted continued to find his notes in the oddest places.
After that initial letter, Ted found another note, this one tucked into an inside pocket of the cardigan. It was a short reading list of books Ray thought Ted might enjoy — a curious mix of wisdom, wit, ardor, and whimsy: W. H. Auden’s Collected Poems; Danielle Allen’s transformative, 2014 look at the Declaration of Independence; Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure; William S. Burrough’s The Soft Machine; Nikki Giovanni’s Love Poems; Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.
Each book had another note with suggested readings slipped into its pocket, just behind the card that told you who’d taken it out and when. Without fail, the older books’ last sign-out dates were a decade or more ago. The borrowing of newer ones tended to happen just after the book’s publication and then … nothing.
It was as if Ray knew his notes would find their intended recipient without fail, because no one besides Ted was likely to open these particular covers to discover the timeless and relevant insights within them. Not in this library, anyway. Not with the world’s information — if not its wisdom — available at everyone’s fingertips. Not with all the other distractions on the Interwebs, as Ray might say in that creaky tone of his.
Long after Ted finished all or most of the readings on the list, he continued finding “Ray books” scattered throughout the library, each with notes of encouragement written in the older man’s quirky, dogeared style. Ted felt RJ’s spirit guiding him, but it didn’t feel creepy. Not to him, anyway. He knew their conversation would continue, egged on by an eclectic group of poets, rebels, and cranks — some long forgotten but still eager to be heard.
Thanks to Viraji Ogodapola!
A short list of alternate titles for this piece:
My sweater half
The purloined sweater
Show me your library card AGAIN
