William Gass - Middle C

Urichstown.

Ugly. Ugly name. Urichsburg. Anyway, she said the place was cursed. Cursed?

Some women were accused of being witches there one time. Ages ago, of course. The witches put a curse upon the place. It floods regular. As the Nile, she said. To wash away the stain.

I hope your room’s high up.

Joseph described his digs to his mother, but discreetly, without any damaging details. He repeatedly mentioned the rent and how reasonable he thought it was. A garage, Miriam said dubiously, a garage isn’t reasonable: a garage is going to be drafty, the floor will be cold, on a hill the wind will be shrill and biting, the windows — you can count on it — will fill with frost — they will — it will be cold, ears to tootsies cold, so be careful to keep plenty of blankets about, and if there’s no charge for utilities, plug in an electric blanket, have a little heater, don’t freeze.

Joseph agreed to every suggestion while trying to forestall criticism. What’s this “digs,” she wanted to know. It’s not a basement. You’ve rented a garage. He explained that it was a word he’d come upon in an English novel. This is America, Lord save us. You are living in a garage. Like a car. You are living like a car in a garage. With your friend the rust-colored car living like a homeless one on the hard cold pavement.

I’ll be fine, Mother, and it’s such a brief walk to work.

Watch out about that Miss Brush—

Bruss.

It’s too convenient for her, too tidy entirely, giving the space away after she’s fixed it up, invested some of the little money she must make at that library — look at what you’re getting — they pay in book paste, those people — in fines and petty change, dime a day for overdue. So be punctual. They’ll expect that.

Joseph did not speak to his mother about Miss Moss, whom he finally met in the stacks one afternoon about a week after he started in his job, though he and Ms. Bruss had gone hunting for her a time or two so that he could be properly introduced. She was indeed — as Ms. Bruss had said after they’d missed her yet another time — a wraith. She drifts. And when she drifts all that needs to be there is a draft, a whiff, a puff of air — or so it seems, she said, a certain determination in her voice. I’ve been startled a hundred times. She drifts. Miss Moss reshelved, dusted, and repaired books. She had an office in the basement furnished with a book vise and adhesive. Breathe easy around her, Ms. Bruss advised, an unguarded sneeze could blow her into a corner. Loud voices will extinguish her like a match.

The library had a basement and above it two floors. The first contained a reading room which opened to the left as you entered, a central stairway greeted you, next to which Marjorie Bruss had her desk installed, and to the right a labyrinth of beautiful oak cases, many laid against the walls where there weren’t windows or radiators, while the rest were arranged in military rows throughout the central space. These stacks were open to the public who might wander through them as they chose, though the only places one might sit and peruse a volume were the window seats, invitingly covered with soft plum pads. The public might ascend the handsome middle staircase, also of oak, to a balcony surround, behind which were further shelves and a lonely meeting space that contained several tables, an inadequate number of ladder-backed chairs, a portrait of Andrew Carnegie, and a silver coffee urn that was never used because, Joseph was told, the spigot leaked. He made a silent note to fix that.

The basement was restricted. Kept there were books that were so rarely wanted they had to be called for, or were so valuable they could not be checked out but were required to be read in the reading room where — now — Joseph delivered them. Books that needed repairs sat on a trolley, and near the trolley, which never seemed to trolley much, was a room full of volumes, donated by the heirs of the recently deceased, waiting to be checked, selected, or cast aside for sale at the library’s yearly benefit and gala. Joseph was immediately tempted to remove a few, but he decided it wouldn’t be prudent.

Miss Moss was in gossamer when he first heard, turned, and saw her in the space behind him, pale as a shadow and similarly bluish, light and frilly, insubstantial. When he tried to describe Miss Moss’s dress to Miriam she guessed it was of voile, which told Joseph nothing. Her short hair was silver, her complexion a pale airborne shade of bruise, as if her veins had become pools, or perhaps spills, beneath her skin. She did indeed whisper in response when he introduced himself. I’m Joseph Skizzen. I’m new here. Thank you, Miss Moss seemed to bob.

I’m pleased to meet you finally, he said. You’re the new … boy. Yes, ma’am. For the gar … age, is it so? Yes, ma’am, I’m to help check out and catalog and—. Not Ree … shelve, she asked with a tremor. Oh no. Not to dust? Yes, ma’am, I do dust. Oh no you must not dust till you’ve been trained. I hope you don’t Ree … pair? I don’t know how to do that, but I’d love to learn … to watch you work sometime … to restore an injured volume … to nurse to health a broken spine … oh … it would be a pleasure. A rivulet of wrinkles moved across her face and disappeared. When I … Ree … pair my door is closed, she said so softly he wasn’t certain what he’d heard. Then, as if a wide cloth were furling around a stick, she turned and fluttered away.

Miss Bruss said that if ever she saw blue moss growing on a tree, it would be Miss Moss clinging to the bark of it. Joseph said she seemed a shadow. A shadow that has dark thoughts about its source, Miss Bruss replied, she is full of suspicion — apprehension and suspicion. But a harmless old thing. She haunts, I think, because she is haunted. I certainly don’t know by what. Joseph did not say so, but he decided Miss Moss was an incredibly romantic figure and that it was splendidly appropriate to have her floating about in the dark lanes and corners of the library.

There was a backlog of little things to do as well as a lot to learn during the first weeks of Joseph’s employment. Marjorie Bruss’s library did not catalog according to any well-known scheme like the Dewey Decimal System or the Library of Congress. We don’t have that many books, and we pretty well know our card carriers’ habits and preferences. When Joey didn’t smile she had to explain what a card carrier was. His ignorance she put down to innocence, and it did not seem to annoy her. After they are assigned an entry number, new arrivals are racked along the walls of the North Room, labeled on the their plastic jackets NA. No one ever removes our Klean Kovers, she said as if expecting the question. Washable. His blank look forced her to add, With a wet sponge. Ms. Bruss let that sink in. After six weeks they are cataloged, allowed to relax and take their jackets off (she smiled and Joseph smiled, too, only a breath behind), and those that have been checked out most often are sent to the South Stacks where they are shelved alphabetically by author under the subject matter to which we assign them: ARTS or OUTDOORS or SELF-HELP, you see? Do the library’s patrons understand the system? Most do. We post the categories. So after a while they get the hang. Anyway, we know how it works, and that’s what matters. Expensive, oversized, and rare books are placed upstairs and don’t go down or out. The rest are sent to the dungeon. To Miss Moss, Joseph said, smiling his own smile this time. No. She only reshelves down there. She doesn’t assign places down there. She doesn’t understand the system we have … down there. Joseph nodded, but he didn’t understand the system either, never would, really, here, there, or anywhere. FENCING was a category, for example, but he had noticed there were no books in it. Stolen, that’s why. By that skinny pilferer, Joey privately imagined. We’ll refill one day. Even FENCING. Ms. Bruss shook more steel-gray glint through her hair. Stolen by a rotten little red haired crop-headed squish who came here and started giving fencing lessons — imagine, in Whichstown — I should have called our cop when I saw him coming. Ms. Bruss says Whichstown, too, Joey marveled. Stole the whole category though the listing wasn’t large. No, you needn’t be on the lookout for him. He apparently punctured one of the little ladies under his tutelage and was run out of the county by her enraged papa. Marjorie’s smile was slight but sly, a signal. No one to my knowledge knows if she liked her lessons or not or whether she learned to thrust and parry. Ah … but her father wasn’t foiled, Joseph managed. Marjorie lit up. Good, that’s good. You may do yet.