Ray Bradbury. Exchange

                Ray Bradbury
                http://blogs.myspace.com/mysteryal

                Exchange
                1996

     There  were  too many cards in the file, too many books on the shelves, too
many  children  laughing in the children's room, too many newspapers to fold and
stash on the racks ...
     All  in  all, too much. Miss Adams pushed her gray hair back over her lined
brow,  adjusted her gold-rimmed pince-nez, and rang the small silver bell on the
library  desk,  at the same time switching off and on all the lights. The exodus
of  adults  and children was exhausting. Miss Ingraham, the assistant librarian,
had  gone  home  early  because  her  father  was sick, so it left the burden of
stamping, filing, and checking books squarely on Miss Adams' shoulders.
     Finally  the  last  book  was stamped, the last child fed through the great
brass doors, the doors locked, and with immense weariness, Miss Adams moved back
up  through  a  silence  of  forty years of books and being keeper of the books,
stood for a long moment by the main desk.
     She  laid  her glasses down on the green blotter, and pressed the bridge of
her small-boned nose between thumb and forefinger and held it, eyes shut. What a
racket!  Children who finger-painted or cartooned frontispieces or rattled their
roller  skates.  High  school  students  arriving with laughters, departing with
mindless songs!
     Taking  up  her rubber stamp, she probed the files, weeding out errors, her
fingers whispering between Dante and Darwin.
     A  moment  later  she  heard  the rapping on the front-door glass and saw a
man's  shadow  outside,  wanting  in.  She  shook  her  head. The figure pleaded
silently, making gestures.
     Sighing,  Miss Adams opened the door, saw a young man in uniform, and said,
"It's late. We're closed." She glanced at his insignia and added, "Captain."
     "Hold on!" said the captain. "Remember me?"
     And repeated it, as she hesitated.
     _"Remember?"_
     She  studied his face, trying to bring light out of shadow. "Yes, I think I
do," she said at last. "You once borrowed books here."
     "Right."
     "Many years ago," she added. "Now I almost have you placed."
     As  he  stood  waiting  she  tried to see him in those other years, but his
younger face did not come clear, or a name with it, and his hand reached out now
to take hers.
     "May I come in?"
     "Well." She hesitated. "Yes."
     She  led the way up the steps into the immense twilight of books. The young
officer looked around and let his breath out slowly, then reached to take a book
and hold it to his nose, inhaling, then almost laughing.
     "Don't  mind  me,  Miss  Adams.  You  ever smell new books? Binding, pages,
print. Like fresh bread when you're hungry." He glanced around. "I'm hungry now,
but don't even know what for."
     There was a moment of silence, so she asked him how long he might stay.
     "Just  a  few  hours.  I'm on the train from New York to L.A., so I came up
from  Chicago  to  see  old  places, old friends." His eyes were troubled and he
fretted his cap, turning it in his long, slender fingers.
     She said gently, "Is anything wrong? Anything I can help you with?"
     He  glanced  out the window at the dark town, with just a few lights in the
windows of the small houses across the way.
     "I was surprised," he said.
     "By what?"
     "I don't know what I expected. Pretty damn dumb," he said, looking from her
to  the  windows,  "to  expect  that  when  I went away, everyone froze in place
waiting  for me to come home. That when I stepped off the train, all my old pals
would unfreeze, run down, meet me at the station. Silly."
     "No,"  she  said,  more easily now. "I think we all imagine that. I visited
Paris  as  a  young girl, went back to France when I was forty, and was outraged
that  no one had waited, buildings had vanished, and all the hotel staff where I
had once lived had died, retired, or traveled."
     He nodded at this, but could not seem to go on.
     "Did anyone know you were coming?" she asked.
     "I  wrote a few, but no answers. I figured, hell, they're busy, but they'll
be _there._ They weren't."
     She  felt  the next words come off her lips and was faintly surprised. "I'm
still here," she said.
     "You  _are,"_  he said with a quick smile. "And I can't tell you how glad I
am."
     He  was  gazing  at  her now with such intensity that she had to look away.
"You  know,"  she said, "I must confess you look familiar, but I don't quite fit
your face with the boy who came here-"
     "Twenty  years  ago!  And as for what _he_ looked like, that other one, me,
well-"
     He  brought  out  a  smallish wallet which held a dozen pictures and handed
over  a  photograph  of a boy perhaps twelve years old, with an impish smile and
wild blond hair, looking as if he might catapult out of the frame.
     "Ah,  yes."  Miss  Adams  adjusted  her  pince-nez  and  closed her eyes to
remember. "That one. Spaulding. William Henry Spaulding?"
     He nodded and peered at the picture in her hands anxiously.
     "Was I a lot of trouble?"
     "Yes."  She  nodded  and  held the picture closer and glanced up at him. "A
fiend." She handed the picture back. "But I loved you."
     "Did you?" he said and smiled more broadly.
     "In spite of you, yes."
     He waited a moment and then said, "Do you _still_ love me?"
     She looked to left and right as if the dark stacks held the answer.
     "It's a little early to know, isn't it?"
     "Forgive."
     "No,  no, a good question. Time will tell. Let's not stand like your frozen
friends who didn't move. Come along. I've just had some late-night coffee. There
may be some left. Give me your cap. Take off that coat. The file index is there.
Go look up your old library cards for the hell-heck-of it."
     "Are they still _there?"_ In amaze.
     "Librarians  save  everything.  You  never know who's coming in on the next
train. Go."
     When  she  came  back with the coffee, he stood staring down into the index
file  like a bird fixing its gaze on a half-empty nest. He handed her one of the
old purple-stamped cards.
     "Migawd," he said, "I took out a lot of books."
     "Ten  at  a  time.  I  said no, but you took them. And," she added, _"read_
them!  Here."  She  put  his cup on top of the file and waited while he drew out
canceled card after card and laughed quietly.
     "I  can't believe. I must not have lived anywhere else but here. May I take
this with me, to sit?" He showed the cards. She nodded. "Can you show me around?
I mean, maybe I've forgotten something."
     She  shook  her head and took his elbow. "I doubt that. Come on. Over here,
of course, is the adult section."
     "I begged you to let me cross over when I was thirteen. 'You're not ready,'
you said. But-"
     "I let you cross over anyway?"
     "You did. And much thanks."
     Another thought came to him as he looked down at her.
     "You used to be taller than me," he said.
     She looked up at him, amused.
     "I've  noticed  that  happens  quite  often  in my life, but I can still do
_this."_
     Before  he could move, she grabbed his chin in her thumb and forefinger and
held tight. His eyes rolled.
     He said:
     "I  remember.  When  I  was really bad you'd hold on and put your face down
close  and  scowl.  The  scowl did it. After ten seconds of your holding my chin
very tight, I behaved for days."
     She  nodded, released his chin. He rubbed it and as they moved on he ducked
his head, not looking at her.
     "Forgive, I hope you won't be upset, but when I was a boy I used to look up
and  see  you behind your desk, so near but far away, and, how can I say this, I
used  to  think  that you were Mrs. God, and that the library was a whole world,
and  that  no  matter what part of the world or what people or thing I wanted to
see and read, you'd find and give it to me." He stopped, his face coloring. "You
_did,_  too. You had the world ready for me every time I asked. There was always
a  place I hadn't seen, a country I hadn't visited where you took me. I've never
forgotten."
     She  looked  around,  slowly, at the thousands of books. She felt her heart
move quietly. "Did you really call me what you just said?"
     "Mrs. God? Oh, yes. Often. Always."
     "Come along," she said at last.
     They  walked around the rooms together and then downstairs to the newspaper
files,  and  coming  back  up,  he suddenly leaned against the banister, holding
tight.
     "Miss Adams," he said.
     "What is it, Captain?"
     He exhaled. "I'm scared. I don't want to leave. I'm afraid."
     Her  hand,  all  by itself, took his arm and she finally said, there in the
shadows, "Sometimes-I'm afraid, too. What frightens _you?"_
     "I don't want to go away without saying good-bye. If I never return, I want
to  see  all  my friends, shake hands, slap them on the back, I don't know, make
jokes."  He stopped and waited, then went on. "But I walk around town and nobody
knows me. Everyone's gone."
     The  pendulum  on  the  wall  clock  slid back and forth, shining, with the
merest of sounds.
     Hardly  knowing where she was going, Miss Adams took his arm and guided him
up  the  last  steps,  away  from  the marble vaults below, to a final, brightly
decorated room, where he glanced around and shook his head.
     "There's no one here, either."
     "Do you believe that?"
     "Well, where are they? Do any of my old pals ever come visit, borrow books,
bring them back late?"
     "Not often," she said. "But listen. Do you realize Thomas Wolfe was wrong?"
     "Wolfe? The great literary beast? Wrong?"
     "The _title_ of one of his books."
     "You _Can't Go Home Again?"_ he guessed.
     "That's it. He was wrong. _This_ is home. Your friends are still here. This
was your summer place."
     "Yes.  Myths. Legends. Mummies. Aztec kings. Wicked sisters who spat toads.
Where I really lived. But I don't see my people."
     "Well."
     And  before he could speak, she switched on a green-shaded lamp that shed a
private light on a small table.
     "Isn't  this  nice?" she said. "Most libraries today, too much light. There
should  be  shadows, don't you think? Some mystery, yes? So that late nights the
beasts  can  prowl out of the stacks and crouch by this jungle light to turn the
pages with their breath. Am I crazy?"
     "Not that I noticed."
     "Good. Sit. Now that I know who you are, it all comes back."
     "It couldn't possibly."
     "No? You'll see."
     She  vanished  into  the stacks and came out with ten books that she placed
upright,  their  pages a trifle spread so they could stand and he could read the
titles.
     "The summer of 1930, when you were, what? ten, you read all of these in one
week."
     "Oz? Dorothy? The Wizard? Oh, _yes."_
     She  placed  still  others  nearby.  _"Alice  in  Wonderland.  Through  the
Looking-Glass._  A  month  later  you  reborrowed  both.  'But,' I said, 'you've
already  _read_ them!' 'But,' you said, 'not enough so I can speak. I want to be
able to _tell_ them out _loud.'_
     "My God," he said quietly, "did I say that?"
     "You did. Here's more you read a dozen times. Greek myths, Roman, Egyptian.
Norse myths, Chinese. You were _ravenous."_
     "King  Tut  arrived  from  the  tomb  when  I was three. His picture in the
Rotogravure started me. What else have you there?"
     _"Tarzan of the Apes._ You borrowed it . .
     "Three  dozen  times!  _John  Carter, Warlord of Mars,_ four dozen. My God,
dear lady, how come you remember all this?"
     "You  never  left. Summertimes you were here when I unlocked the doors. You
went  home  for  lunch but sometimes brought sandwiches and sat out by the stone
lion  at  noon.  Your  father  pulled  you home by your ear some nights when you
stayed late. How could I forget a boy like that?"
     "But still-"
     "You  never  played,  never  ran  out  in  baseball weather, or football, I
imagine. Why?"
     He glanced toward the front door. _"They_ were waiting for me."
     "They?"
     "You  know.  The  ones  who  never  borrowed books, never read. They. Them.
_Those."_
     She looked and remembered. "Ah, yes. The bullies. Why did they chase you?"
     "Because they knew I loved books and didn't much care for them."
     "It's  a  wonder  you  survived.  I  used  to  watch  you  getting, reading
hunchbacked, late afternoons. You looked so lonely."
     "No. I had _these._ Company."
     "Here's more."
     She put down _Ivanhoe, Robin Hood,_ and _Treasure Island._
     "Oh," he said, "and dear and strange Mr. Poe. How I loved his Red Death."
     "You  took  it  so  often  I  told  you to keep it on permanent loan unless
someone  else asked. Someone did, six months later, and when you brought it in I
could  see  it  was  a  terrible  blow.  A few days later I let you have Poe for
another year. I don't recall, did you ever-?"
     "It's out in California. Shall I-"
     "No, no. Please. Well, here are _your_ books. Let me bring others."
     She  came  out  not  carrying  many books but one at a time, as if each one
were, indeed, special.
     She  began  to  make a circle inside the other Stonehenge circle and as she
placed  the books, in lonely splendor, he said their names and then the names of
the  authors who had written them and then the names of those who had sat across
from him so many years ago and read the books quietly or sometimes whispered the
finest  parts  aloud,  so  beautifully that no one said Quiet or Silence or even
_Shh!_
     She  placed  the  first book and there was a wild field of broom and a wind
blowing  a  young woman across that field as it began to snow and someone, _far_
away, called "Kathy" and as the snows fell he saw a girl he had walked to school
in  the  sixth  grade  seated  across the table, her eyes fixed to the windblown
field and the snow and the lost woman in another time of winter.
     A second book was set in place and a black and beauteous horse raced across
a  summer  field of green and on that horse was another girl, who hid behind the
book and dared to pass him notes when he was twelve.
     And  then  there was the far ghost with a snow-maiden face whose hair was a
long  golden  harp  played  by  the  summer  airs; she who was always sailing to
Byzantium  where  Emperors  were  drowsed by golden birds that sang in clockwork
cages  at  sunset  and  dawn. She who always skirted the outer rim of school and
went to swim in the deep lake ten thousand afternoons ago and never came out, so
was  never  found,  but  suddenly now she made landfall here in the green-shaded
light and opened Yeats to at last sail home from Byzantium.
     And  on  her  right:  John Huff, whose name came clearer than the rest, who
claimed  to  have climbed every tree in town and fallen from none, who had raced
through  watermelon patches treading melons, never touching earth, to knock down
rainfalls  of  chestnuts  with  one  blow, who yodeled at your sun-up window and
wrote  the  same  Mark  Twain  book  report  in four different grades before the
teachers caught on, at which he said, vanishing, "Just call me Huck."
     And  to  _his_ right, the pale son of the town hotel owner who looked as if
he  had gone sleepless forever, who swore every empty house was haunted and took
you there to prove it, with a juicy tongue, compressed nose, and throat gargling
that  sounded  the long October demise, the terrible and unutterable fall of the
House of Usher.
     And next to him was yet another girl.
     And next to her ...
     And just beyond ...
     Miss Adams placed a final book and he recalled the fair creature, long ago,
when  such  things  were  left unsaid, glancing up at him one day when he was an
unknowing  twelve  and she was a wise thirteen to quietly say: "I am Beauty. And
you, are _you_ the Beast?"
     Now,  late in time, he wanted to answer that small and wondrous ghost: "No.
He  hides  in  the  stacks and when the clock strikes three, will prowl forth to
drink."
     And  it  was  finished,  all  the  books were placed, the outer ring of his
selves and the inner ring of remembered faces, deathless, with summer and autumn
names.
     He sat for a long moment and then another long moment and then, one by one,
reached  for  and  took  all of the books that had been his, and still were, and
opened  them and read and shut them and took another until he reached the end of
the outer circle and then went to touch and turn and find the raft on the river,
the  field  of  broom where the storms lived, and the pasture with the black and
beauteous  horse  and  its lovely rider. Behind him, he heard the lady librarian
quietly back away to leave him with words .
     A  long  while  later he sat back, rubbed his yes, and looked around at the
fortress,  the encirclement, the Roman encampment of books, and nodded, his eyes
wet.
     "Yes."
     He heard her move behind him.
     "Yes, _what?"_
     "What  you  said,  Thomas  Wolfe,  the  title  of  that book of his. Wrong.
Everything's _here._ Nothing's changed."
     "Nothing will as long as I can help it,,, she said.
     "Don't ever go away."
     "I won't if you'll come back more often."
     Just  then, from below the town, not so very far off, a train whistle blew.
She said:
     "Is that _yours?"_
     "No, but the one soon after," he said and got up and moved around the small
monuments  that stood very tall and one by one, shut the covers, his lips moving
to sound the old titles and the old, dear names.
     "Do  we _have_ to put them back on the shelves?" he said. She looked at him
and at the double circle and after a long moment said, "Tomorrow will do. Why?"
     "Maybe,"  he  said, "during the night, because of the color of those lamps,
green,  the  jungle,  maybe those creatures you mentioned will come out and turn
the pages with their breath. And maybe-"
     "What else?"
     "Maybe my friends, who've hid in the stacks all these years, will come out,
too.',
     "They're already here," she said quietly.
     "Yes." He nodded. "They are."
     And still he could not move.
     She  backed  off  across  the  room  without making any sound, and when she
reached her desk she called back, the last call of the night.
     "Closing time. Closing time, children."
     And  turned  the lights quickly off and then on and then halfway between; a
library twilight.
     He moved from the table with the double circle of books and came to her and
said, "I Can go now."
     "Yes," she said. "William Henry Spaulding. You _can."_ They walked together
as  she turned out the lights, turned out the lights, one by one. She helped him
into his coat and
     then, hardly thinking to do so, he took her hand and kissed her fingers.
     It  was  so  abrupt,  she almost laughed, but then she said, "Remember what
Edith Whanon said when Henry James did what you just did?"
     "What?"
     'The flavor starts at the _elbow.'_
     They  broke  into  laughter together and he turned and went down the marble
steps  toward  the stained-glass entry. At the bottom of the stairs he looked up
at her and said:
     "Tonight, when you're going to sleep, remember what I called you when I was
twelve, and say it out loud."
     "I don't remember," she said.
     "Yes, you do."
     Below the town, a train whistle blew again.
     He  opened  the  front  door, stepped out, and he was gone. Her hand on the
last  light  switch,  looking in at the double circle of books on the far table,
she thought: What _was_ it he called me?
     "Oh, _yes,"_ she said a moment later.
     And switched off the light.