The Librarian's Court

The Librarian’s Court – a mostly true; short-story by Jenny Grinwis

Library-Mary was no Atticus Finch. She wasn’t – not if you mean that she spent her time shooting rabid dogs and being the moral defender of the Boo Radleys and Tom Robinsons of this world. No, she wasn’t Atticus Finch in that kind of sense.

Mary was the moral defender of the library.

One day, as a newcomer to our small town, I waited patiently to enroll myself and my four children to the self-same library, while Mary, on the other side of the book-returns counter was giving a death-stare to an errant, senior member of the library who had spilt some coffee on a borrowed book. She turned the copy over three or four times in her arthritic hands never taking her watery-blue eyes off his. Her disappointment was palpable. Then, pausing for effect she lowered her gaze and sighed a deep; irritated sigh. Looking down at the book, her thick glasses magnified each wrinkle on her eye-lids so that it looked like there were two, shriveled, pale prunes resting behind the lenses. Deliberately slowly, she took in the state of the copy and tut-tutted, mumbling under her breath in disdain. I was peering at it curiously while she was considering her next step and though I could see a slight discoloration on the pages from the side, it was marginal and, really, quite negligible. The man, obviously thinking what I was thinking, began to turn away to get on with the business of being in a library (to browse for more books to read,) and headed slowly for the over-full bookshelves behind him. With his empty library card in hand, he perhaps thought that Mary had reached the limit of her retribution and that he was cleared for another round of reading; but; just as he seemed to be gaining confidence in his decision, she raised a crooked finger and said, “Don’t you go anywhere. A book has been damaged and somebody is going to pay.”

The laden bookshelves seemed to draw in their collective breath as the atmosphere became as charged as a court-room awaiting a verdict. The books seemed to straighten in the expectation of this long-in-the-tooth, judge’s gavel. I couldn’t decide, with the sudden change in the air, if the books on the shelves were really sentient or not, but as I looked at them, proud and erect, through the milky sunlight streaming in through the windows above them, I gave in to the thought that they knew what was coming and found myself joining them in anticipation. I looked over at the man, apologetically, but stepped back, shuffling off quietly to the side, avoiding the potential shrapnel from whatever was going to happen next. I remember watching him, as he turned to look at Library-Mary, thinking that he had such gentle eyes and wondered how she could ignore that and be so unbending towards him. In fact, in-spite of his being under fire, I would venture to say that there was a lively sparkle beginning to dance around in them. He seemed, somehow, to be enjoying himself. Without knowing it, she answered my question in what came next. “Listen, Mr. Smith,” I don’t care if you were having a bad day or that your advancing age, like mine, might have caused a bit of a shake that leads to surprise coffee-spills. It happens. I’m not very concerned if your blue eyes have lost some of their focus, rendering you a little clumsy – eyes do that with age. I must speak for my books…if I don’t who will? This is simply not good enough. What will you do about it?

“Come children,” I said, nervously gathering my chicks from the reading corner, feeling like a mother-hen who is, by nature, obliged to defend them but trying to be subtle about aiming them towards the door and getting them out of range of this wily old fox.

“Don’t you go anywhere; I will get to you in a minute,” she was still holding the gaze of blue-eyes who was standing defenseless in the open space between the library-counter and the start of the aisles of shelves while extending her arm backwards in my direction and pointing at me with her inflamed index finger. I thought the man seemed to be edging backwards towards the shelves as if they could provide some sort of cover but was surprised when he straightened up, squared his shoulders and met her gaze, dead-on, to match her challenge.

Obediently – and quite frankly, nonplussed - I stood with four confused children, two on each side, huddled under my protective arms and also thought better of the fleeting thought I had of defending the man. This woman had a reputation in the town as the Judge. Perhaps she had retired from court, fulfilling a need to be authoritative with nothing other than a few hapless library members to take it out on, but, whatever the case, she had shaped the calling for herself over the more than twenty years she had filled the position and I knew implicitly, by her reputation, and now, by what I was witnessing, that arguing would be pointless. It wasn’t that she looked formidable with her coarse white hair framing her wizened face. She didn’t – on the surface, this little ol’ lady looked nothing short of sweet and frail. It wasn’t the swollen knuckles on her fingers that were bending at almost right angles to her palms – if there was a judge’s gavel anywhere in the library I doubted she could use it to any effect. But she didn’t need one anyway – there was a command to her whispery voice and her carefully chosen words that doused the flames of anyone daring enough to respond to her library-bound authority. I watched as Mr. Smith, with a resigned sigh, put both of his hands into his pockets, relaxed somewhat, and said, “Alright, Mary what will it be?”

“It will have to be a good one – that coffee stain isn’t coming out,” she said. Was that humour I saw dancing from her eyes to his and back again?

You know what Ralph Waldo-Emerson said, don’t you?” he said, changing gear somewhat.

He was resisting a little and flaunting it - seemingly for the sake of it - and I watched, intrigued, as she thought about it and then answered, “Enlighten me.”

“You know?” he said, “…the one that goes: ‘I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten’.”

“Yes, she replied. But you left off the last part, “…even so, they have made me.” They finished off the last four words together and as they did, the atmosphere was growing lighter and more electric by the minute. They weren’t flirting with each other as much as they were being seduced by timeless literature; with prose and verse, and at the heart of it was an unmistakable, shared passion for beautiful writing.

They kept going and I was rapt.

“Alright, I’ll make it easy. Let’s not do books today,” she said, “perhaps the coffee you wasted on the book has left you a little less sharp than normal,” her caustic tone returning slightly. “What about a poem…by Thomas? Yes, speak me a poem.”

Clearing his throat and spreading his feet a little, he took a breath and began to speak, quietly and humbly at first: “I could never have dreamt that there were such goings on in the world between the covers of books,” at the sound of a composition she recognised, Library-Mary clapped her hands together in delight, suspending them there just over her chest, and with approval in her eyes, willed Mr. Smith to go on.

“..Such sandstorms and ice blasts of words, such staggering peace, such enormous laughter…” he recited Dylan Thomas’s Art of Poetry with growing resonance in his voice and, spellbound, she nodded him on, “such, and so many blinding bright lights, splashing all over the pages in a million bits and pieces, all of which were words, words, words, and each of which were alive forever.” He seemed lost in the magic of the moment. I certainly was and my children watched and listened in awed silence until he stopped at the last line and let Library-Mary finish it off in her soft, whispery voice, “…in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.”

Lost in the moment of words in flight, we all stood in utter silence and soaked in the glory of Mr. Smith’s recital. Then, with a cold flick of her misshapen finger she dismissed him and said, “You live to read another tale.” Turning to me, she said, “How can I help you?”

As I mentioned in the beginning, we had just relocated to this small town and having always believed in the benefits of reading and the magic of books, I had come to enroll myself and children as members and get them settled into a good reading routine again. I have oft told my children about the riches to be found in reading. One of their first books with proper chapters and more than a few pages that I ever read to them was To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. I love what Scout Finch says in the book about reading: “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” Now, here I was, standing before Library-Mary uncertain if what had just unfolded was a sign that I was about to stop breathing, or if I had witnessed the beginnings of a relationship cemented by a literary-bond – we clearly both shared a passion for literature and I was getting excited at the prospects of winning this stalwart over with text as my persuader. Seeing the opportunity, I asked for a moment, settled the children at the reading corner where The Cat in the Hat, Peanuts & Charlie Brown, Charlotte’s Web and Where’s Wally were strategically placed to look as if they just found their way there by chance; their easy presence aimed at enticing young readers into their imaginary worlds. I mentally tipped my hat to Mary who seemed to know how to appeal to my children and went back to the counter where, I realised, I would have to approach the argument I had planned to have with her before my arrival, from another angle.

You see, for weeks I had been trying to garner co-operation from this surly woman who, daily, held court in her library. She was so officious, so determined to follow the morals of library-law to the last dot on an ‘i’ that she simply refused to accept my documents because the only account I had received to prove I was a resident of the town was an electricity bill that showed the erf number of our property and not our actual physical address. When you live in a rural setting, physical addresses are a bit of a joke and I had arrived today thinking I would tell her to wind her adversarial-neck back in and stop being unreasonable. But now that I was standing before this mystery of a librarian; my prospects could easily go one of two ways and I was floundering over which option to choose.

‘How can I help you?’ she asked again as I approached the counter to settle my application for what I hoped would be the last time, and as I started to give an answer I was cautioned with a sharp, “Shhh! This is a library, keep it down.” I also noticed she was talking to me but looking at the children and I silently willed them into sainthood behind my back. Nonetheless, I laid my plastic sleeve of documents down apprehensively on the counter, took a deep breath and said, “Mary, could we please try this again? I am sure there must be a way around this problem. Look at my children, they want to be readers and we need access to books to do that. Please accept this utility bill as my proof of residence so we can…you know...get this thing behind us?”

 “That, deary, simply will not do,” and I could imagine the thwack of the gavel coming down on her verdict.

Realising I was out of options, I decided to counter her prejudice of my worth as a library patron with literary backing. It worked for Mr. Smith a few moments ago and he had actually damaged a book. I hadn’t had an opportunity to do that yet and I needed prose to work for me now. In a serious, low voice, I said, "Mary, I am guessing you know who Atticus Finch is, don’t you?"

She eyed me suspiciously, but nodded once. Of course she knew who he was; who didn’t? He is one of the best-loved examples of a literary character with an unassailable moral compass that there ever was. I swallowed hard and continued bravely, “Well, I’m sure you don’t need reminding, but…” and I paused here for effect, as I prepared to quote the moral giant and win my case for library cards. Gathering confidence like a lawyer issuing a summation at the end of a trial, I continued “...didn’t Scout Finch say that in the secret courts of men’s hearts, no matter how good the case was that Atticus made for an innocent man, he could never win it?”

Another dramatic pause.

“It just seems to me that you must be a great judge of character... look at us," (and I swept my arms around to include my children reading angelically in the reading corner,) "I promise you we will be exemplary library members. Don’t judge us too harshly in the secret court of your heart - we haven’t had a chance to be guilty of coffee spills on any books yet.”

I stopped; wondering if I had gone too far when I heard the children bickering behind me. Looking desperately over in their direction Mary followed my gaze and her implacable expression gave way to one of just recognisable approval when my little darlings – as if on cue – stopped fighting and started poring over the books laid out to entice little souls like them into reading – the whole goal of this mission! Feeling that redemption had arrived, my seven-year old picked up Where’s Wally and dashed my hopes when he said innocently, ‘Mommy, what’s a wally?’

This was enough to tip me over the edge, but Library-Mary seemed tickled – that humour she kept in check below the surface of a sullen demeanour seemed to be coming to the fore again and to my utmost surprise she said: ‘Alright, Deary, let’s get you some library cards.’ 

My relief palpable, I started to gush thanks but stopped short as she waved a rheumatic hand dismissively in front of my face. Knowing I was on the home-stretch, I bit my tongue and decided to humour this sanctimonious woman in the name of getting what I wanted and resigned myself to watching patiently as she struggled with her deformed fingers to pencil in our details onto temporary cards. Not daring to move, I waited until she was finished and started to celebrate inwardly when, to my abject shock, she put the cards away in the drawer under the counter and said in an officious voice, ‘I am required to phone you to tell you when your cards are ready. Please leave.’ 

Deflated by the sudden end to what had promised to be a successful conclusion to the library-card ordeal, I turned to my children and said through gritted teeth, ‘Come kids, no books today – we will come back in when Library-Mary phones us.’ 

I found myself inflecting ‘phones’ just a bit too caustically. Ignoring my attempt at a jibe, she replied in the direction of my children, ‘Don’t disturb the children. Leave!’ 

Up until this point it had been me versus this oddball librarian, but I was not about to leave my children to the wiles of this grey-haired eccentric. She didn’t really think I was about to leave my little darlings with her, did she? Suddenly the worn-out carpeting that had once seemed to boast years of happy, library foot-traffic, looked menacing and the over-burdened bookshelves; hostile. What was a charming country-library before, now looked like an overlord’s den equipped with a maniac at the helm. Atticus Finch, my foot! Stammering awkwardly, I tried to gather the troops who were now so confused as to whose instructions to follow that we stood motionless in a mute cluster before Library-Mary said, ‘Just leave the children and you can come back for your cards.’ 

Obediently, albeit perplexedly, I walked out the door to my car and thought about the bizarre situation we were in. How did it escalate from Atticus Finch’s life-lesson to Lucifer’s Hammer so quickly? Judge, indeed! Was I really going to leave my kids in the care of this senile hag? What did she think of me – that I am another Mr. Smith who should dance to her tune and quote poems to win her favour!? 

Pfft, not me!

I was starting to feel horribly foolish for even having walked away, so I turned resolutely to face the giant oak which stood sentry a few yards from the library door and made up my mind to march back in there and tell that geriatric that I was not about to be bullied regarding my children and that she could shove her library cards - as far as her inflexible, arthritic hands would allow – where they fit best; when my cell-phone rang. Not recognising the number, I answered it cautiously. The voice on the other end announced smugly: ‘Mrs Grinwis, this is Mary from the Municipal Library. Your library cards are ready for collection.’ 

Of course, it could have been static on the line, but I am convinced I heard her chuckle before she put the phone down with an impertinent click.