Page 14 of Library of Forbidden Books

Dr. Vichow made a noise between a snort and a scoff. What could one old man do to change anything if he sacrificed himself on the altar of knowledge?

“Hitler is greatly admired, and parties like his and other Fascist entities are cropping up all over Europe. We can’t turn this tide. We have to just ride it out, though I fear it will ruin everything in its wake. I’m old, and after a lot of suffering, you develop a taste for it, like the soul gets used to sadness. I’d rather die in Germany than live far away.”

The old man spoke with conviction, but Helene knew that he was not thinking clearly. His bruise-covered body was evidence that he was in shock.

“As soon as the doorkeeper is out, we’ll go down and drive to the Polish border. I know you’ve got plenty of friends in Warsaw. We’ll leave you at a train station there with money. Do you have your passport on you?”

Dr. Vichow’s resolve waned under Helene’s insistence. He nodded and pulled it out. Since Hitler had been named chancellor, Dr. Vichow never left home without his passport. He had always vowed to stay in Germany no matter what, but his determination had weakened with the passing days.

“Okay, good,” Helene sighed.

“But can’t I go by my house and collect a few things? What will those brutes do with all my books?”

“I’ll save what I can and will send you some of your belongings in Poland once things calm down,” Helene promised and then gave him a hug.

At midnight, the three of them were traversing the calm streets of Berlin. At every corner they feared running into a police car, but apparently the unsuccessful boycott had had a positive effect in that regard. Instead of being out on patrol, the SA who weren’t drinking at the bars had gone home to lick their wounds.

They started to breathe easier once they left the well-lit downtown streets and got into the working-class neighborhoods. Dr. Vichow fell asleep in the back of the car. Helene and Derek listened to his uneven breathing while watching the forests and fields flash by the highway illuminated only by the Mercedes’s headlights.

Maybe getting out and away was not such a bad idea after all. The treasure that makes young people wealthy is doubt, which is better than the certainty of those who know that they will do nothing with their monotonous, humdrum lives.

Chapter 9

The Secret List

Berlin

April 11, 1933

Helene and Derek had left Dr. Vichow at a solitary train station in Poland at four o’clock in the morning after crossing the border with no difficulty. The sleepy soldiers hardly paid attention when they explained that their elderly friend needed to see a specialist in Warsaw for a serious medical condition.

Dr. Vichow’s last words to Helene were seared into her memory: “Don’t let Rudolf Kummer get away with this. Find the list of librarians they’re going to do away with, and send it to von Hindenburg. Then warn everyone on it that their lives are in danger. They’ve got to escape.”

He had given her a nearly impossible mission. Helene did not think of herself as a hero, but instead as simply another human being. But in that, in her personhood, infinite freedom and absolute dignity were bestowed upon her. Helene’s paternal grandfather had always said that being human meant knowing how to choose between complacency and action. She had no idea where he had picked up that idea, as the old diplomat wasn’t exactly a philosopher, but every bit the man of action.

As Helene fiddled with a pencil in her office, Lena marched in unannounced, as usual.

“What’s on your mind? You’ve been distracted the past few days. Problems with your Prussian prince?” Lena snickered, amused with herself.

“No, nitwit. You’re always going on about him.”

“Yeah, but are you really sure you want to marry a guy with a big spike on his helmet?”

At Lena’s description of a pickelhaube, Helene joined in the laughing.

Lena plopped down and looked straight into Helene’s eyes. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on.”

Helene took a deep breath and nodded toward the open door of the office, which Lena stretched out to close without moving from her seat.

“We took Dr. Vichow to the border of Poland. He’d been beaten half to death. I didn’t say anything about it so you wouldn’t be in any danger. Knowing things is risky these days.”

Lena sat up, crossed her arms, and frowned.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Helene said.

“There are no secrets between us. We’ve been friends since the first day of university classes. I remember you telling me your dreams for your life, and I thought you were crazy. Then I learned for a fact that you are crazy, and since then I’ve been by your side in all your crazy, quixotic ideas. You’re not so different from all the authors you adore. Those writers are lonely souls looking for happiness and determined to create imaginary worlds because they don’t like the real one. That’s you to a tee—a memory keeper of everything that other writers have given the world.”

Lena’s uncustomary pontification took Helene by surprise. “You’ve never said anything like that to me before. Thank you. I think of myself as just a local librarian.”