I Live With You

T
ABLE OF
C
ONTENTS

T
HE
L
IBRARY

I L
IVE
W
ITH
Y
OU AND
Y
OU
D
ON’T
K
NOW
I
T

T
HE
P
RINCE
OF
M
ULES

B
OYS

T
HE
D
OCTOR

B
OUNTIFUL
C
ITY

C
OO
P
EOPLE

T
HE
A
SSASSIN OR
B
EING THE
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OVED
O
NE

S
EE
N
O
E
VIL
, F
EEL
N
O
J
OY

G
LIDERS
T
HOUGH
T
HEY
B
E

M
Y
G
ENERAL

J
OSEPHINE

W
IS
C
ON
S
PEECH

THE LIBRARY

W
E’RE HEADED AWAY FROM
war, past it, around and beyond the enemy lines. We’re circling behind where the battle rages. Mostly we’ve hiked at night and hidden during the day. We no longer hear or even see the lights of explosions. We’re glad we were given this duty. It’s been a restful week. Kind of like a camping trip.

We each have a bomb and there are ten of us. We have several fire starters. That should be more than enough. What we do is for the good of all mankind.

Theirs is the largest library in the world, but it’s not our books. They’re not even in our language.

Even if we knew the language they’re in a kind of writing we can’t read. It’s full of squares and Os and curlicues. We’ve been told many of the books are about the art of war and that the poetry is bawdy. There’s pictures of nudes and of lovers in all possible positions.

I’m not to let any of us look at the books. Nor am I to let one single book survive. There can be no peace and no morality as long as these books exist.

There are statues at each corner of the building. Caryatids along the porches. They say that, in the center of the library, there’s a reading room—a garden—open to the sky. It’s full of flowers. Birds. Even trees.

They say we’ll recognize the library. It’s larger than any other buildings. Our side thinks that when it’s destroyed, their side will lose all momentum.

By now we have come to the beach. We’re from the south. We’ve never seen the sea. We walk with our feet in the shallow water so our tracks will be washed away. When we camp for the day, we don’t sleep much even though the sound of the water is soothing. We’re distracted by all these new things. We watch the waves. We keep tasting the water—we can’t believe it’s salty. Some of us want to fish. Some of us want to taste the things on the shore but I don’t trust them not to be poison.

Around midnight we hear singing, but it has no triads, no fifths. An accompanying instrument thunks and buzzes. I tell my group, “There. Listen. You can see what kind of people these are by this racket.”

My group laughs. They’re nervous and this odd music doesn’t reassure them.

The library is across from an artificial pool so as to show it off with its reflection.

This has all been explained to us, and yet when we come upon the reflecting pool and the sparkling whiteness of the library, its painted frieze, the golden roof… we’re silent. We’ve never seen such a building. It’s evening and the sun makes everything pinkish-orange.

Seagulls wheel over our heads as if they are the avant-gardes of the books, their shrieks as alien as the language of the enemy.

We don’t move. We just watch. The sun goes down. Stars come out. Nobody says anything. The moon rises and reflects in the pool. We should move back and find a place to camp but we can’t tear ourselves away. We sit where we are, fall asleep towards morning, then wake to watch the sunrise. I don’t ask the group what they think about burning it down. I don’t want to know. Besides, it doesn’t matter what they think.

After the sunrise we load up our weapons and cross to the edge of the pool, march right into it, two by two, and splash across to the library. We don’t care if they hear us or not.

Close up, the eyes of the caryatids stare at us, seem to warn us that the library is not for the likes of us. Each of them has one bare breast. I tell my men not to look.

We head to the main doors. They’re of carved wood. Easy to burn down with our fire starters. (We don’t look at them. Who knows what might be carved there.) We would have bashed through them, but they’re open. We walk right in.

We’re as awed by the inside as we were with the outside. We become aware of how dirty and smelly we are, how we’re dripping on their mosaic floor. The sun, shining through the stained glass of the clerestory windows, leaves odd colors on the walls, tables—on the people. The librarians look up, but they stay calm. Behind them there are shelves and shelves of books. The books are dark and dusty, and look old, as do the librarians. And—we can’t believe it’s true—all the librarians have one bare breast, sometimes the right and sometimes the left. Now, in front of us men, they don’t even try to hide themselves.