The Kindest, Most Caring Library You've Ever Known

by A. W. Prihandita

Once again, you hunch over a desk in the second floor reading room, like you’ve done the past few midnights. The papel picado you’ve been wrestling with now looks almost pretty, a testament to your determination—I know how your arthritis bickers with the scissors. I can’t soothe you, but I make the desk lamp shine brighter so your shadow won’t bother you, and when the night outside gets colder, I turn up my heating just enough to keep you exactly comfortable.

I want to see you finish your work, this decoration for the altar you’re building. It’s only two more sleeps before the Day of the Dead, but you’ll finish it—I know you will. The question is, will you notice me in time to help me, as well?

Sometimes I wonder if I should be ashamed of how much I rely on you, my caretaker, my custodian. You have fingers that perform such wonderful tasks. I’m just steel-and-glass, 4060 Chelan Lane Northeast, the new Wesley Lanehart Undergraduate Library. We’ve only been here for ten months, but I’ve seen that you are kind—and you knew the old library that stood here before me. I wish I’d known her as well as you did.

***

She was a century old by the time of her demise, but she was a library with good bones and a strong soul, which means traces of her remain even past her demolition. I first noticed the echoes of her soul when I was trying to know myself. New buildings are stiff, inflexible, still trying too hard to follow the blueprint. I barely knew how to breathe like nature does, and for a long time, I smelled like pungent new paint and factory-fresh synthetic carpeting.

I started studying the twists and turns of my air ducts and the spaces between my walls. As I strained my awareness, I suddenly realized I had always known how to catch unwanted particles, how to expel them and exchange them with fresh air. I had always known how to breathe, albeit with different lungs—not modern HVAC filters, but plain old windows and the gaps between bricks.

It was her memory. I felt her existence and mine overlaid—she, the original 19th century Wesley Lanehart Undergraduate Library.

***

I learned how to be a good library from her. In the wee hours of the night, I often power down all my electric organs—the heat pumps and thermostats, aircons and motion sensors, a dozen different types of alarms—until the humming dies into absolute quiet. Like a monk in meditation, I strain my awareness to catch the softest echo of her soul and memories.

She had this trick of shifting the molecules of her walls in such a way to control echoes. She could catch someone’s whisper and reflect it so gently, transforming it into a sibilant caress so the Economics major in the corner would feel less alone. She was the master of temperature control—she could tell if the librarian in suite 2A was cold and would send him warm air, all without touching his co-worker on the next table who already wore too many layers of sweaters.

I don’t even know half of her tricks. She was a hundred and fifteen years my senior; I am no match for her. She was charming bricks and sweeping domes, biblichor and antique scrolls. I am an ugly block of steel and glass, tangled electrical wires disguised as progress. Her patrons loved her so much they’d curl up on her floor with novels and forget their homework; mine just rush in and out with headphones clamping their ears and dark thoughts of grades and deadlines. I try to be kind, but I don’t know how to really care for them. They never look as happy as her patrons did. I have no idea how to make them smile, but I bet she’d know.

That’s why I love her. That’s why I’d like to meet her.

***

You, too, know what it’s like to be in love with the dead, don’t you? You’re still here past midnight exactly because of that.

Your Carla had hair like a halo, curly and white, floating over eyes that shone brighter than the sun. I remember you were the first person to come on my opening day. You unlocked the west entrance at exactly 7:46 AM, because you knew Carla, the librarian, always took the train that arrived at 7:40, and she needed six minutes to walk the distance between the station and me. You were there to hold the door open for her. Just in time again, eh? she said with wondrous surprise, like she wasn’t the slightest bit suspicious that you’d planned all of it. Then, she pulled a breakfast sandwich out of her bag and handed it to you.

I witnessed this every morning since then. Your kindness and hers, they fit together. I knew you two could’ve ended up together, could’ve arrived and gone home as one forever, if not for your belief that you, a janitor, didn’t deserve the hand of the longest serving librarian at the university—and how she thought she was too old and shriveled to make a man happy.

I was there when you received news of her sudden death. The look of horror on your face—that was how I learned what grief was, and how it built upon regret as its foundation. If only I’d taken my chances, your face said. If only I’d told her.

If only the old Lanehart library hadn’t been taken down and rebuilt. If only she were here instead of me. If only I could know her; if only she could teach me better; if only I could live in her and understand the workings of her hospitality.

If only we could bring back our loves from the dead.

***

That’s why you’re cutting these papel picados, isn’t it? That’s why you’re making an ofrenda for Carla: so that on Día de los Muertos, her spirit will travel down from heaven and find you again, and you’ll tell her how much you loved her.

I watched over your shoulders as you scoured the internet and the library catalogs for information on the Day of the Dead. Carla was Mexican, but you came from another side of the world and had to learn your way around the legend. You tracked down a bakery that made pan de muerto, checked which florists sold yellow marigolds, collected Carla’s photograph from her obituary in the campus newspaper. And now you’ve got the papel picados. On the morning of November 1st, you’ll make her breakfast sandwich, and when everyone else is gone for the night, you’ll go to her old office and arrange everything into a proper ofrenda. And then you’ll wait for midnight. And you’ll say what you need to say.

I, too, want to say what I need to say. But I have no fingers; I can’t build an altar.

***

“What kind of library do you think this would be?” Carla asked you cheerfully on opening day, once you both got inside me.

You cocked your head. “I am not sure what you mean.”

“Oh, you know,” she waved her hand around, “buildings have souls—can’t you tell? The old library, for example—I think she was like a very patient lady who loved sipping tea and reading books with a cat on her lap.”

“I never thought of her as an old lady,” you said. “But sometimes, I thought she knew what I was thinking. Sometimes…snow started to fall outside, and I thought, Oh, it will get cold in here too, but it never did. The temperature on the heater was the same, but it got warmer anyway.”

“Right? Isn’t that marvelous?”

From time to time you and Carla would repeat this wondrous imagining—of buildings that were as alive as people. But the truth remains: this was just a flight of fancy to you. You like the idea of it, and maybe you’re even halfway to believing it—but at the end of the day, I’m just a building to you.

Still, I try.

***

When you wrap up for the night and make your way out of me, I nudge the wiring of the lightbulb over your head, making it flicker. And then the lightbulb after that, and the one after—all the way to the end, and then a right turn. You stop, like you’ve done the past few midnights. You look up and click your tongue in sympathy.

“Cannot fix you,” you say. “I’m sorry.”

The first time I sent you the signal, you went to Building Maintenance and reported an electricity glitch. No one found anything wrong, but you blamed yourself anyway.

***

I think you should look in the mirror sometimes; look closely and kindly. I’ve done what I can—every time you pass a mirror, I will my lamps to give you the most flattering light—but still your gaze slips away like you’re uncomfortable with the idea of yourself. As you spend long hours working on Carla’s ofrenda, I also notice your attention slipping into the distance. I can guess what you’re thinking: Is this worth it? Would she even want to see me?

She would love to see you. I know this for sure.

You don’t have walls for eyes, so I cannot blame you for missing this. When death took her, Carla was preparing a birthday present for you, which included a letter. I watched her spend hours among the bookshelves, ostensibly tidying up the stacks but actually perusing books on love letters. She had borrowed one in particular—Famous Love Letters Throughout History. She’d been studying it for inspiration, and had tucked her handwritten draft among the pages. When she died, another librarian found the book on her desk and put it back on its proper shelf.

No one but me knows the letter exists. But you, of all people, have the right to read it. And above all, you need to read it before the Day of the Dead, so you won’t stop and sabotage yourself again.

***

I’ve been slowly diverting dust particles from all over the library onto this specific shelf that hosts the book with Carla’s letter. Two days before Día de los Muertos, you finally notice the ungodly accumulation of dust on that particular shelf. Your eyes widen in alarm.

“What…?” You breathe a sigh of disbelief.

You step closer to the shelves, squinting at each individual level. Only one of them was dusty; the rest were as squeaky clean as the last time you cleaned them. And even more peculiar, on that dusty shelf, there’s a patch that is completely untouched by the dust, right in front of Carla’s book.

You reach out and touch the clean space. I send a thin ribbon of a breeze along your finger, willing you to go just an inch farther.

Your fingertip touches the spine. The air goes still—I am holding my breath.

“What…?” you whisper again. But there’s also a touch of curiosity in your voice, and with relief, I watch you slide the book out carefully.

A piece of paper falls out and lands face up, Carla’s handwriting curling on it elegantly. You freeze, then abruptly, your heart thumps so hard I can hear its echoes. You pick up the letter.

“Carla?” you call out, faint like a snowflake melting on one’s palm.

You start reading the letter. Like a child who’s just learning to read, you follow the shape of the words with your lips, sometimes pausing and starting again from the top because you can’t believe what it’s saying. I know what goes on in your head, the doubt that is mounting in you:

Why would anyone love me?

I’m just a janitor —

—an ugly block of steel and glass that doesn’t feel like home …

I know your thoughts; they are mine too. But here is your love, your Carla, telling you you are wrong, that you are the kindest most passionate person she’d ever known, your presence, an honor to everyone, including her.

You have no reason to feel unlucky, my dear custodian.

***

You head home still brushing away tears from your reddened eyes, sniffling. I flicker the lamps over your head again. Maybe today is, indeed, my lucky day. My other signal finally worked; surely this can work too—

No. You’re not even looking up. Chin tucked to your chest, you wrap your arms around yourself—tenderly, as if it’s Carla you imagine holding, or maybe, she holding you.

I leave my lights burning bright and steady for you, then withdraw into my own depths.

Tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow it’s my turn.

***

You arrive with a bag of sandwiches, a bouquet of yellow marigolds, and a box of pan de muerto. It’s the day before the Day of the Dead, which means, tonight, you’ll build the ofrenda, and at midnight, Carla will come to you.

Can you feel the floor tremble? That’s me. I’m shaking. I have only a handful of hours to catch your attention, or else…

***

Every time I catch you alone, I flicker the light bulbs again. But you keep doing what you’re doing—though I notice you also pause long enough for a thought, for your gaze to drift up to the ceiling. Your eyes grow wider and wider, and your body tenses like all your nerves are standing on end.

When the day grows late and everyone else is gone, you take a deep breath and look up just as I begin nudging the lights.

“I been thinking,” you say aloud, as if to someone next to you. “What happened last night…and all this time with the broken lamps…it is you, is it not? You are the library, trying to talk to me?”

I flash the lightbulb right over his head. Yes!

“Ah, so Carla was right. She used to say that buildings have souls. I’m glad to know it’s true.” A gentle smile spreads across your face. “Thank you. For leading me to her.”

I make the lights fade out slowly, then fade in again even slower. You’re very welcome.

“You want to lead me somewhere, yes?”

My flickering now is rapid and excited—then the lights all go steady. With firm deliberation, I begin blinking them one after another, down the corridor and to the right. This time, bless you, you are following.

We walk through my halls and down stairwells, until we reach my front lobby. I lead you to the exhibition about the old and new Wesley Lanehart Undergraduate Libraries. At its center are scale models of myself and her. I shine my light upon her.

You cock your head. A panicked wave of electricity runs down my wire-veins—I have no reliable way of saying Please take this scale model to the ofrenda so I can also meet my lost love.

But it turns out I don’t even need to do that.

“You led me to the letter because you understand I miss her. And you understand this because you also have a dead lover that you miss. Isn’t that right?”

My lights blink in relief.

“I am building an altar, for Día de los Muertos. Would you like me to add your lover to it?”

The lights dance a victory dance. Yes yes yes!

You pick up the scale model and cradle it in your arms. I follow you to Carla’s office, where you push tables into a tiered altar, arranging the food and decorations on it. Next to Carla’s framed photo and the building model, you set down the love letter too, and in a touch of thoughtfulness, a scroll of the old library’s blueprint.

You take a step back to admire your work, but I can also feel your hesitation. You run your fingers over your graying hair. You fidget with the collar of your shirt. I blow warm air over you, and that shakes you aware.

“I am feeling very nervous,” you admit. “I am not sure Carla would like to see me, but you led me to the letter. She said she loved me. I have nothing to worry about.” A pause. “Are you worried, Library?”

I don’t have a voice with which to utter an admission, but I have, indeed, been worried.

“You have no reason to feel not enough,” you say. “You are a shelter for both books and humans. I have felt so much love here, and right now I feel it when I need it the most, thanks to you. It is an honor to be your custodian.”

You smile and give me a bow. I stand frozen on the land.

You are smiling, and you, too, are my patron. If no one else smiles the way her patrons smiled, isn’t it enough to have at least you? I did manage to turn your dark thoughts of death and demerit into smiles and confidence, didn’t I?

Thank you, I vibrate with all my air. You nod solemnly.

“I am only saying the same as what Carla said to me. At midnight, I hope your lover will tell you all that herself.”

I join you in watching the clock tick toward the Day of the Dead. In the last few seconds before midnight, I send a steadying blow of warmth around you. Good luck, my friend. I withdraw my consciousness to give you and Carla privacy.

And then, finally, the clock strikes twelve. I open my awareness up toward heaven. I can feel the air vibrate, a shift in the pillars that hold up this grand architecture called the universe.

She rises within me. The soul that was merely an echo, now back as tangible as any living being. I stand in her vastness and depth, her soaring tips and sturdy bones.

Hello, she rumbles. I’ve been watching you.

She is as warm as her memories suggested. I want to curl up on her floor with her voice and forget all my duties.

You can do that until 8 AM, she says in amusement. But first, I want to say: you are already the kindest, most caring library your patrons ever need. I know, because I was one too.

She repeats this gently, inexorably, until I believe it in my steel-and-glass heart.