Pantheon

James squinted upward to see a stretch of pipework attached to the ceiling. That must be the pneumatic tube system introduced with equal fanfare last year: put the request slip in the capsule and off it whizzed, powered by nothing more than compressed air. Aeroplanes, the wireless, the cinema – the world was changing so fast. It was already unrecognizable from the Victorian age his parents still inhabited.

‘Miss? Are you there?’ Where had the librarian gone and why was she not answering?

There was a sharp turn right; he wondered how far he had gone. Could he already be under Radcliffe Square? He didn’t think he had walked that far, but perhaps the absence of light had confused his senses. He suddenly became aware that he was cold; he shivered, feeling the film of sweat that still coated him.

What was that? Was that a flicker of light far ahead? There had been some kind of change, perhaps a torch coming on and off. He quickened his pace.

He broke into a jog. ‘Miss, is that you?’

There was a delay and then an answer, one that made his blood freeze.

The answer was ‘No.’ And it was spoken by a man.

SIX

‘Who’s there?’ He could hear the alarm in his own voice.

‘Is that Dr Zennor?’

An accent. What was it? Dutch? German? He couldn’t even see where the voice was coming from. What exactly had he walked into here? ‘Where has the librarian gone?’

‘I am the librarian.’

As that moment, James was dazzled by a bright-yellow beam aimed directly in his face. He turned away, lifting his hand to his eyes.

‘My apologies, sir. For the light, also I am sorry.’

The torch was now angled away from his face, but still James remained blinded. He blinked and blinked again to regain his vision. ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Please.’ Pliz. ‘Do not swear at me.’

James could feel his rage building again. In a low voice, the calmness of a man repressing fury, he repeated, ‘Who are you?’

‘I am Epstein. I am now the night librarian here.’

So that would explain the accent: an émigré German. ‘And what happened to the woman?’

‘I saw her down here after six of clock and told her to go home already. Such long days they work, these girls. Working for seven days she has been, without a break. On a trot.’

‘On the trot.’

‘Yes. On the trot. That is what I mean.’

‘But she was helping me. I had a request.’

‘Yes, yes. I know this. I am helping you myself. I was trying to find the books.’

‘The books Mrs Zennor was borrowing?’

‘That’s right. But why you come down in the tunnel? This is prohibited, yes?’

James exhaled. His heart was pounding, at a pace that refused to slow. The light shining in his face had rattled him. He was still dazed, but it was not just the light. Something else.

The man spoke again. ‘Please. I have them now. You are to follow me.’

They walked in silence, James embarrassed by his pursuit of this man underground. And also fearful – that he would, by saying the wrong thing, induce a change of heart in the émigré librarian, that he would come across as too sweatily anxious. So he curbed his impatience to see the books in the man’s hands and waited till they emerged into the relative light of the stairwell, moving from there back inside the reading room.

‘We have to save the power, you see. At night. That is why there is no lights down there. Only this.’ Epstein waved his torch. ‘And no conveyor of course. So this I do by hand. It takes a long time, for which I apologies.’

‘No need to apologize,’ James replied.

‘Apologize, yes, of course. Sorry for my English. I can read it perfectly, but I never had to speak it before so much.’

‘No. It’s excellent.’ James momentarily considered speaking to him in German, then imagined the delay that would entail – explaining how he knew the language, his reading of the great Viennese analysts and all the rest of it.

‘In Heidelberg, I did not need so much English. But now I am here.’

‘I see.’ James was trying to identify the three books the German had placed on the desk, their spines facing – maddeningly – away from him.

‘I did not choose to leave, Dr Zennor. You see, I am of a type considered, how to say, undesirable by the new governors of my country. I came here two years ago.’

‘You are a Jew?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, welcome to England. And thanks for finding these books so quickly.’ James nodded towards them, hoping he would get the hint. ‘You’re obviously a good librarian.’

‘Thank you. I am learning. In Heidelberg, I was not librarian.’

‘No?’ James glanced again at the books, but the man was still laboriously engaged in signing them out, taking what seemed an age over each word.

‘No.’ Epstein smiled a wistful smile. ‘My last job at the university was as a cleaner. I had to mop the floors.’

‘Oh.’

‘Before that, I was Professor of Greek and Chairman of the Department of Classical Studies.’

‘I see.’ James looked into the old eyes, seeing a terrible sadness and longing. He had read about the ghastly things the Nazis were doing to the Jews; he knew of the laws banning them from the professions, burning down their synagogues and God knows what else. But it was different to meet one in person, to see the human consequences of such barbarism standing in front of you.

The librarian must have grown used to this reaction. ‘Oh, do not feel sorry for me, Dr Zennor. I am very grateful. For my job and for this country. The only country in the world fighting this evil.’

James glanced once more at the pile on the desk between them.

The professor pulled himself upright. ‘I am forgetting myself. Please.’

James picked up the books and shifted over to one of the desks. He turned the first one over. To his surprise, it was a bound volume of journals: The Proceedings of the British Psychological Society for 1920–1. He flicked through it, trying to work out what might possibly have drawn the interest of his wife. This was not her subject after all.

As he turned the pages, he caught a slip of white paper, the tiniest bookmark that had been left inside. Instinctively, he held it close to his face, hoping that he might catch a scent of her. But it carried no trace. Instead it marked an article entitled: ‘A survey of British veterans of the Great War’.