“You,” I called up easily at the men who paused. “City Ordinance. Closing time is nine sharp. Please be done by then. Wouldn’t want to break the law— Good evening, Mr. Lincoln.”
“‘Four score,’” said a man, passing, “‘and seven years—’”
“Lincoln?” The Chief Censor turned slowly. “That’s Bowman. Charlie Bowman. I know you, Charlie, come back here, Charlie, Chuck!”
But the man was gone, and cars drove by, and now and again as the burning progressed men called to me and I called back, and whether it was, “Mr. Poe!” or hello to some small bleak stranger with a name like Freud, each time I called in good humor and they replied, Mr. Barnes twitched as if another arrow had pierced, sunk deep in his quivering bulk and he were dying slowly of a hidden seepage of fire and raging life. And still no crowd gathered to watch the commotion.
Suddenly, for no discernible reason, Mr. Barnes shut his eyes, opened his mouth wide, gathered air, and shouted, “Stop!”
The men ceased shoveling the books out of the window above.
“But,” I said, “it’s not closing time …”
“Closing time! Everybody out!” Deep holes had eaten away the centre of Jonathan Barnes’ eyes. Within, there was no bottom. He seized the air. He pushed down. Obediently, all the windows crashed like guillotines, chiming their panes.
The dark men, bewildered, came out and down the steps.
“Chief Censor.” I handed him a key which he would not take, so I forced his fist shut on it. “Come back tomorrow, observe silence, finish up.”
The Chief Censor let his bullet-hole gaze, his emptiness, search without finding me.
“How … how long has this gone on … ?”
“This?”
“This … and … that … and them.”
He tried but could not nod at the café, the passing cars, the quiet readers descending from the warm library now, nodding as they passed into cold dark, friends, one and all. His blind man’s rictal gaze ate holes where my face was. His tongue, anaesthetized, stirred:
“Do you think you can all fool me, me, me?”
I did not answer.
“How can you be sure,” he said, “I won’t burn people, as well as books?”
I did not answer.
I left him standing in the complete night.
Inside, I checked out the last volumes of those leaving the library now with night come on and shadows everywhere and the great Baal machinery churning smoke, its fire dying in the spring grass where the Chief Censor stood like a poured cement statue, not seeing his men drive off. His fist suddenly flew high. Something swift and bright flew up to crack the front-door glass. Then Barnes turned and walked after the Incinerator as it trundled off, a fat black funeral urn unraveling long tissues and scarves of black bunting smoke and fasTVanishing crepe.
I sat listening.
In the far rooms, filled with soft jungle illumination, there was a lovely autumnal turning of leaves, faint sifts of breathing, infinitesimal quirks, the gesture of a hand, the glint of a ring, the intelligent squirrel blink of an eye. Some nocturnal voyager sailed between the half-empty stacks. In porcelain serenity, the rest-room waters flowed down to a still and distant sea. My people, my friends, one by one, passed from the cool marble, the green glades, out into a night better than we could ever have hoped for.
At nine, I went out to pick up the thrown front door key. I let the last reader, an old man, out with me, and as I was locking up, he took a deep breath of the cool air, looked at the town, the spark-burnt lawn, and said:
“Will they come back again, ever?”
“Let them. We’re ready for them, aren’t we?”
The old man took my hand. “‘The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie dawn with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together.’”
We moved down the steps.
“Good evening, Isaiah,” I said.
“Mr. Socrates,” he said. “Good night.”
And each walked his own way, in the dark.
The End
