Page 66 of Library of Forbidden Books

Kummer now slept in the basement of the Gestapo building. He occasionally ventured out to a meeting or to the war ministry building, but he no longer walked the streets of Berlin freely. There were traitors all around.

Kummer was smoking a cigarette and drinking straight from a bottle of schnapps, which reminded him of his hometown of Nuremberg.

“I’m going to end up dying in this infernal city,” he muttered, staring at the large map of Berlin tacked up on the otherwise blank wall. “Where would the Jew have put her library? Somewhere right under my nose . . .”

Kummer stood and studied the map for the thousandth time. He concentrated on the bureaucratic hub of downtown and then on his own building.

“What’s that one?” he asked, noting for the first time an inconsequential building just yards away. He took a final swig and decided to venture forth from the dank, moldy basement—a devil emerging from hell.

He crossed the street and went up to the building, studying it from the outside. The gate gave way when he pushed, but the front door was locked. His pistol made short work of that problem. The street was empty, and shots fired had long ceased to draw anyone’s attention.

He kicked open the door and peered inside. The foyer was unexceptional. He entered and went to the closest room. There were pieces of carboard strewn about and a few solitary pages that had come loose from old bindings. But there were shelves, shelves, and more shelves.

“Eureka! She was right here in front of my face the whole time! What a sharp little witch—and her stupid husband, right across the street all those months, and not a word!”

Kummer got to work searching the house from top to bottom. It was clear that Helene had lived there, and probably with her children too, judging from the clothes left behind. But there was no indication of what had happened next. In the basement, Kummer examined every scrap of cardboard and was rewarded with a notebook consisting of a few handwritten pages. He flipped through, but none of the information was of import until he came upon a roughly sketched map. It was of the Grunewald forest, west of Berlin.

“Aha! I’ve got you!” he cried aloud to the empty air. He stormed out of the building, not bothering to close the door. The Gestapo was busy chasing down the remaining Jews in Berlin and hunting traitors and deserters. Kummer would be satisfied if he could just trap Helene Nathan.

Chapter 39

Fight and Fire

Berlin

March 30, 1944

The weather was pleasant, and there were no airplanes in the sky. Gabor and Lena seized the chance to take Mark, now almost four, out to play in the woods. Amalia had taken to the boy immediately when Lena and Gabor moved in, and as his constant playmate, she joined them for the excursion. She sought every opportunity to be out in the sun.

Helene was in the basement reshelving a few volumes recently returned by some living library participants when she heard the distant but familiar sound of the front door opening and shutting. “You’re already back?” she called. “I thought you’d be gone longer. I haven’t even started on lunch yet.”

There was no answer.

She went upstairs to find the front door was closed. Confused, she ran her hand across her forehead and wondered if she really had heard it move. There were all sorts of unexpected noises in the woods. She went back down to the basement, where the books seemed to languish just as much as the house’s human occupants in their impatience for spring.

Then she sensed a presence behind her and heard the sound of boots. She turned in terror.

“Helene Nathan, you have no idea what I’ve been through to find you. So this is your Secret Library,” Kummer said, glancing around. “It’s rather underwhelming. I expected more.”

Helene willed herself to keep her head and not faint. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. They’re just books: paper, glue, cardboard covers, and some fabric to dress them up. Their intrinsic value is what’s inside, printed on their souls.” Her voice sounded much calmer than she felt.

“As poetic as always, I see. I’ve read a lot too. I used to be a dreamer like you, but the noise of the world woke me up a long time ago. You may recall Cervantes addressing the matter in Don Quixote.”

Kummer began reciting a few lines about the burning of Don Quixote’s library:

The housekeeper said the same, so eager were they both for the slaughter of those innocents, but the curate would not agree to it without first reading at any rate the titles . . . as there might be some to be found among them that did not deserve the penalty of fire.

“None can be spared, Helene. I’m afraid that, like the Man of La Mancha, many words have driven you mad. For these books you’ve sacrificed your children, your husband, your colleagues, and now your own life. Are they really worth all that?” Kummer crossed his arms, leaned back, and looked at her hard.

It was the question she asked herself a thousand times a day. She swallowed and replied, “Some people, like you, are willing to kill for their ideals. Others, like me, are willing to die for theirs.”

The Nazi nodded. “Which is why you’ll be the loser and I’ll be the winner.”

“Are you quite sure? The way the war is going, it doesn’t seem that way. Your Führer is losing. The thousand-year Third Reich won’t even make it twenty—probably not even till next year. You and the whole system have failed, despite your barbarism. You’re a drowning man flailing around, trying to drag everyone else down with you.”

Kummer responded by pointing his pistol at her. “You’re a rebel, but you don’t see that at the core, rebellion is a vain aspiration. The Allies might beat us, but our ideas are imprinted on the hearts of men and women all over the world. We’ve done it once, and we’ll do it again. Stop kidding yourself: Human beings just want happiness and security. They don’t care about freedom or all those books you so desperately love.”

“You may be right, but every time people like you rise up, there will be men and women like me who sing the sweet melody of freedom and refuse to live in chains.”