The First Female Librarian

The sound was a dull yet deafening roar; the feeling, a shock that went through the whole body, from the soles of the feet to the grinding, quivering skull. It came over and over and over again, drumming, booming, and showed that the enemy had given up on the futile attempt to burn the gate down, and gone back to their original strategy - cannon shot.

That was the worst possible news, thought Rabbi Gershon Cohen, the youngest of the few black-clad, black-bearded figures still busying themselves among the rapidly emptying shelves. The enchanted gates could have withstood fire from the Sun, if they had to; but pure brute force, applied long enough, will break down any enchantment. Already the gate was showing signs of buckling. A few words of comfort strengthened the hinges against further blows, but - "This is futile," said Rabbi Shmuel Perlmutter as soon as he had spoken them, as another row of manuscripts seemed to vanish into thin air. "We no longer have the time to send them all away."

"Oh yes we have," came a voice as if from the grave, from the bent and wizened form of the oldest among them, Rabbi Yithzak Ben-Veniste. For a second all the other Rabbis wondered what the old sage meant; then Rabbi Shmuel and Rabbi Gershon, almost at the same time, jumped as if shot, and, neglecting what they were doing, ran to the bowed old man. He saw them and raised his cane to strike them: "Go back!" he cried angrily, "go back and complete your work!"

Just at that moment, another colossal cannon-blow shook the corridors like an earthquake. Rabbi Yithzak, Rabbi Shmuel and Rabbi Gershon all fell to the ground. After a second, the old man's voice rose again, more calm and more certain. "You see? The enemy is almost upon us. You must save the library. As for me..." he exhaustedly scrabbled to his feet, "I have lived long enough. The Lord has given me more life than I deserve, and it is time I gave it back to Him, with my thanks, defending that which belongs to Him." He was standing almost straight, if it were possible for such a crook-backed old man, and his eyes shone like lamps in the semi-darkness; it was clear that there was no turning back. Rabbi Gershon and Rabbi Shmuel looked at him with tears in their eyes - their teacher, their almost father, the oldest and wisest and the most good of them all. Then they went back to the shelves, and started again the words of power that were making shelf after shelf and book after book vanish. They never knew whether it was their imagination or their bodily hearing that brought to them, over the thunder and the roar, the whisper of an old man about to die, the last, beautiful, terrible word - emeth. Truth.

................................................................................................................

"Rabbi Yithzak knew how to animate a Golem, a stone giant bigger and stronger than a score of men, by the power of truth. But he also knew that even the power of the Golem would not be enough against a modern Muggle army and their devices of destruction. He calculated, however, that if he lived and fought long enough, he would buy us enough time to vanish all the books and Disapparate ourselves."

"What happened?"

"Part of it we only found out later. The Golem bought us even more time than anyone thought possible. It appeared outside the gate, and its first blow cracked the cannon's barrel as it was about to fire again. The shell exploded in the barrel and killed several Nazi soldiers. The Golem then raised the wreck of the cannon like a club and went berserk, killing them like cattle, like Samson among the men of Gaza with his donkey's jaw. They were unable to do anything to it, until they managed to clear some space around it and rip it to pieces with grenades."

Rabbi Gershon was the last living man to remember that terrible day - September 14, 1939, when select Waffen-SS units had been dispatched to a location outside Lublin to capture the ancient library of the order of Wonderworking Rabbis. He never once had told the story without bursting into tears at the moment when his old teacher had handed himself over to death to save the library. It was one of the wonders of the sorcerous world, this library - greater than anything they had in Hogwarts or Salem, only comparable to the Secret Library of the Order of Watchers, the Crypt of the Vatican Library, the Freemason House of Wisdom, and the University Libraries of Salamanca and Avignon. Generations of prospective Wonderworking Rabbis had been sent there to be educated as soon as their abilities became manifest; for among the Jews of Eastern Europe (and to a lesser extent elsewhere) the distance between Muggle and wizard was less than in almost any other nation. A certain part of their teachers and judges had always been able - and expected - to work wonders; most Jews knew this from their mother's knee, and were content.

Thanks to Rabbi Yithzak's self-sacrifice, the Library had been saved. Every book and manuscript had vanished to America, followed at the very end by all the librarian and teaching rabbis. It was only later that Gershon realized that the Golem in whom Rabbi Yithzak was at that moment incarnate was still fighting; and that if he had had the courage and presence of mind, he could have apparated on the battlefield and taken it off with him, saving his old master's life. The sense of guilt haunted him for the rest of his life.

But the Library was saved. Deep in the immense expanse of North America, in a place which the Rabbis thought beyond the reach of their enemies, it was reassembled; and in spite of a later schism, when some of the Librarians moved to Israel and took a considerable part of the Library with them, what was left was not only kept safe, but grew, as a small, unobtrusive Yeshiva or Jewish school was built around it. It was in southern Texas, on the river Nueces, a few miles upriver from the port city of Corpus Christi, where the river made a sharp bend that allowed entry only from the south side. The site had been chosen, like its predecessor in Lublin, exactly for this peculiarity: no ill-intentioned person could enter the Library except through an enchanted and strongly defended gateway. It was also rather distant from the main highway, reached only by a dirt track that nobody except the Yeshiva's own members ever needed to use. And the gate was designed to look less impressive than its size would suggest, the entrance slowly sinking into the ground and covered with turf that sheltered even the roof of the great library. The whole building melted into the lush, green background, where the Nueces watered and fertilized the great state's dry brown land, and tall trees grew to give shade in the long, hot, dry Texas summers.

The years passed; librarian succeeded librarian, and the collection slowly grew, as ancient tomes were copied out by the gifted calligraphers of the Yeshiva, and new contributions were made by former students and friends. The tall trees of the Nueces frequently heard lessons and rabbinical disputations, as some elderly teacher, surrounded by a swarm of black-clad children, sat in their shade in the evening as the heat of day was fading, and recited or debated according to the ancient forms of Rabbinical culture; rarely troubled by any outsider, unless it might be from time to time a pleasure boat on the Nueces, or a wanderer on foot or on horseback, exploring the large lands not reached by asphalt. On these rare occasions, there were secret flutterings in certain places in the Library, among Rabbis who normally kept their power hidden; just in case the traveller should turn out to be other than what he or she seemed; but nothing ever seemed to come of it. The Nueces flowed quietly year after year, and a generation of Wonderworking Rabbis followed another in the hidden place in Texas, as the rest of the world boiled and raged and changed with a speed that would have startled good Rabbi Yithzak.

.....................................................................................................................

Finally change came to the Great Library itself; and late one morning all the rabbis and librarians gathered together, in due order of precedence, to debate an unprecedented proposal.

"There has never been a female Librarian before; and that is reason enough," said a stiff, slim, middle-aged Rabbi who had flown in for the occasion from Chicago, where he taught a conservative theological faculty. "Shall we tear down the barriers set up by our ancestors?"

"Ah, and there never was a prophet before Moses, either," answered the wheezy, cracked tone of an elderly Rabbi from California, still exhausted from his Apparation, but keen and lively in mind. "I can think of no rule that proscribes women from working in libraries, and of no precedent in which one was refused." And coming from this immensely learned elder, the point had weight; if they wanted to challenge it, they would have to search the books for weeks for obscure rulings and precedents, and likely enough they would find that things were as he said. "I know the young woman: she is of good family, modest and industrious, and dedicated to learning."

"Part-Goy, though," said, injudiciously, a young, tall, fair-haired and blue-eyed young Rabbi from South Carolina. Significant looks and repressed laughter from a couple of swarthy Rabbis of Moroccan origin put a quick, embarrassed end to that line of argument.

To distract attention from that fearful brick, one of the Librarians present addressed the elder from California: "I would like to know what you meant, Rabbi, when you spoke about Moses."

"Just," answered the Rabbi, still in that cracked old voice that strained most ears, "that the Lord brings all things to fruition in due season. When it was His will, the first prophet appeared on Earth, and led our people out of Egypt. Shall we say that, now that the first female Librarian has appeared, this is not His will? Are we wiser than God, to guess His times and His seasons?"

"Rabbi," answered a Rabbi who was a university professor in London, "the same argument might be deployed against her. Who are we who ascribe to God our own little preferences and views?"

"They might," answered the elder, "except that, as I said, I do not believe a norm against it exists. If the Almighty had wished us not to appoint female Librarians, He would have made us know it."

"It is the slippery slope, Rabbi," replied the teacher from Chicago. "If we admit Librarians, we must admit Rabbis; and then we shall be no better than Liberals, who hardly count as Jews at all." His synagogue existed in bitter rivalry with a Liberal one that poached members, led by a young, blonde, blue-eyed female Rabbi about whom the wildest rumours circulated; and his bitterness was increased by the fact that he was not allowed to use his Wonderworking Rabbi powers to change the situation.

But the sense of the meeting was against him; as another Rabbi asked, why should we teach our daughters to read, if we do not want them to live among books? It also helped that the young candidate lived only a few miles down the road, saving the ever-impecunious Library any relocation expenses. And so it was that a slim, sporty young woman, 5'10 and 145 lbs with green eyes and what she liked to call "faded" brown hair, was summoned, a week hence, to the quiet site on the Nueces. Her eyes shining in joy and disbelief, she saw the great gates - which she had often contemplated from outside - open before her, and row after row of books disclose themselves. Behind the gates stood the governing body of the Yeshiva and Library, waiting to administer the oath that would admit her, Rachel Buchbinder, to the junior ranks among the dedicated keepers of the Place of Learning.

..................................................................................................................

The enemy came when he was least expected, one night of bright moon and stars. A series of unexpected accidents and illnesses had put many of the regular workers at the Library out of action; looking back, this looked less than coincidental. Yet, as it was summer and the Yeshiva was closed, nobody minded too much. The work to be done was little, and Rachel, who was by now fully aware of just how physical and back-breaking work with books could be, was glad to relax at the feet of elderly Rabbi Gershon, taking in his wisdom and his stories. The job had thus far matched and exceeded her hopes: she could hardly believe all the wisdom and excitement, all the enormous fields of learning opening themselves before her in book after book, manuscript after manuscript.

She sometimes had to be reminded that her service was not to herself, but to the Library and its users; nonetheless, she was a hit among most visitors, quiet, polite and helpful. It was a pleasant novelty for many aging sages from around the world to be helped and shepherded around the pillars and chambers of books by a slim, energetic, modestly-dressed, fresh-faced young woman whose green eyes shone with enthusiasm when the Library's contents were mentioned, and who always did her best whenever some obscure text or reference were sought. Sometimes she would actually run to the right shelf, forgetting that some of the visitors, portly Rabbis of advanced age, could not match the agility of her sports-loving body; but then nobody could apologize more charmingly. She made other contributions: the entrance to the Library was brightened by pretty little bonsai trees which she loved to grow - although she was disappointed to discover that growing plants inside the austere, closed spaces of the Library itself would risk affecting the books with damp. And when once her colleagues at the Library had got to know her really well, they found that she could also talk with enthusiasm - prattle, as some of them put it; but nobody particularly minded the prattle. In fact, that was what she was doing that evening: talking expansively with the oldest member of the library, the only one then present who had been able to join her - when Rabbi Gershon dropped dead before her, without a sign of illness or a mark on his body.

She felt the magic around the old man at once, and, hardly even thinking about it, spoke the words she had been taught, to seal the great gate against intruders and detect hostile wills in the area. Immediately dozens of hate-filled presences became manifest in her mind, reeking with a concentrated violence and love of pain that she had never even imagined in human beings, and all clustering about a very tower of hatred whose presence almost blinded her. She had to stop the spell, lest the mere sense of so much spiritual pain and darkness blight her mind; and so she was left with an inadequate, yet clear, understanding of who the enemy was. There was one sorcerer so mighty and so dark that she had never even imagined his like; and surrounding him, lesser beings of great power and terror, clustering about his darkness to savour his vileness and his darkness, and be confirmed in theirs. The Great Library was under assault, as had never happened since the War, and by even worse enemies.

Rachel guessed that the enemy, already unleashing spells that were making the library and gates tremble, was the British dark wizard, Lord Voldemort. She had heard much about him, and he was the only living Dark Wizard she knew about who had a powerful army of lesser wizards at his command. She wondered what she could do. There was no direction in which she could escape, except through the Front Gate, which he and his Death Eaters guarded; the rest was barred by tons of solid rock, and such a wizard as Voldemort would easily perceive an Apparation spell if she cast one - and follow, to finish her off. Or could she stand against him? She had learned so much already, after all. Could she at least hold him back for a while? Standing alone, her against him...

Rachel all but laughed, in the middle of that horror, at the image thus formed. She knew that she was not so fast or so strong. If this nightmare from another continent could overcome Rabbi Gershon, old and wise as he was, she stood less than no chance.

The thought came to her almost unnoticed, that there was one thing she could do. Two spells, both simple enough, could be combined to send out an S.O.S. to every really powerful wizard in the world. If she aimed right, she could unloose the spell without her enemy even sensing it; and - she suddenly grinned grimly - the foresight of founders such as Rabbi Gershon had insured that attackers could only assault the Library from the Gate side, concentrating in one area alone. If the spell were aimed in the opposite direction... She worked urgently.

A few seconds went by, and the gate silently and quietly crumbled. Rachel, thinking of the spells that had held it together, trembled briefly, as she watched a grotesquely tall figure - much taller than any many should be - outlining itself against the dust. Then Lord Voldemort strode in looking like death itself, purpleish-white amidst the gathering shadows.

"I know who you are, child." The courteous, cultivated British accent sat incongruously with the high, hissing voice and the inhuman countenance, adding to Rachel's revulsion. "The assistant librarian whose appointment has caused so many ruffled feathers in Yeshiva dovecotes. You do not have to die, you know."

"And I know who you are, my lord. But I certainly don't know that I have to do what you say."

"Ahh. And what do you know, then?"

"It is not what I know, my lord. It is what you know. You, not I, know how many people would die if I took your kind offer not to die at your hands."

"Clever girl. Well, then, let's put it this way: you can die, and know as you die that exactly as many people will die after you as would have died if you had accepted life at my hands."

"Life... life at your hands" she said, trembling and forcing herself to speak, "would be a filthy thing to accept, my lord. What is all this talking about, anyway? Can't you kill me as you will, that you have to bandy words?"

She had forced herself to speak so much, that her last words sounded shrill and angry. And on Lord Voldemort's face, an angry expression answered. He raised his wand as if to strike -

- then a shudder seemed to pass through the air -

His eyes opened wide, with those dreadful snake slits seeming, for an instant, to blaze like fire. "That was an Apparation wave! You little minx, what have you done?"

"It is the bow-wave of help coming, my lord. Shall we both go out and take a look?"

He looked at her with undisguised rage, and for a second she felt sure she would not live to see another. But then he turned angrily and strode back, passing the crumbled gates with great steps. His eyes sought out the source of those waves of Apparating power; and as Rachel cautiously followed her enemy, they saw a smallish, dark-skinned, middle-aged figure with iron-gray hair in an elegant Indian sari, standing calm and unruffled in the middle of the melee, mouthing Sanskrit mantras no less powerful for being pronounced with a strong Bengali accent - Samjukta Gupta of Calcutta, one of the wisest and mightiest witches in the whole sub-continent, easily the match of many Death Eaters. As they were looking, they felt the waves of another Apparation, immediately followed by a fat, middle-aged, irritable-looking figure: Edoardo Vigilio of Rome, London and points between, the laziest master wizard in Europe. He immediately started striking at anything that moved, evidently furious at having been jolted out of his usual idleness; angry spells that knocked Death Eaters down like nine-pins and left a mark. Then the waves of Apparations became too many to follow them all; here was handsome Robert Coles, a freelance from Barcelona, with his boyfriend; there Richard Gombrich, the Professor of Magic at Oxford; there young Christine Angela, still only a Privatdozent at Tübingen, but clearly destined for better things, and, almost at the same time, Bogdan Zemanek from the Jagiellonian University (I haven't done enough about those damned ancient universities, thought Voldemort angrily); Elena Fanelli, middle-aged but still beautiful, from the Justice Office of the Italian Ministry of Magic; Dumbledore, damn his eyes, with McGonagall always by his side; Amelia Bones; Rabbi Jaakov Kurtzberg; Master Miyazakifrom Kyoto; Frances Gumm, the dancer; the Duke and Duchess of Ormagno; Katherine Malfoy of the rebel branch, always looking to do him some damage... The situation was becoming untenable. With a single gesture of his hand, Voldemort vanished himself and all his supporters, leaving the white witches and wizards masters of the field. Rachel felt her knees go limp under her, as the realization stole on her that she would not die tonight.

The master sorcerers themselves were looking at each other with some disconcertment. The battle was over almost before it began, but it did not feel right to just go and leave things as they were. At least, they should inspect Library and battlefield to make sure that the departing enemy had left no surprises.

Finally, Rabbi Kurtzberg, the only person present entitled to enter the Library, stepped forwards. He was a small, oldish, white-haired, but vigorous man, who radiated strength like a clenched fist; but the eyes that looked at Rachel were fatherly and warm, smiling like a parent on a daughter who had done him proud. "Well, my child," said he, in a gravely voice with a strong New York accent, but a tone that forbade any offence, "would you care to show me around?" They entered the huge subterranean building in silence, and Rabbi Kurtzberg set up a simple but incredibly powerful - Rachel was startled - searcher spell to find any intruders without exposing themselves to danger. But the Searcher particles came back to his wand unsatisfied: nobody was anywhere in the Library. Rabbi Kurtzberg looked down at the dead body of Rabbi Gershon, and said a few words in Hebrew, which have nothing to do with this story, and which Rachel repeated with feeling.

Outside, the situation had changed imperceptibly into a social occasion. People, after all, had a lot to talk about. Some of the master sorcerers present had not met for years, some not at all; as Rabbi Kurtzberg and Rachel came out, Elena Fanelli was introducing Samjukta Gupta to Susan Bones, and Christine Angela was making herself known to Master Miyazaki and to the Duke and Duchess. Katherine Malfoy sat embarrassedly in a corner, not knowing whether to put herself forward (hers was not a name to be proud of among so many white witches and wizards) and Edoardo Vigilio, typically, had conjured up a chair and sat down, pontificating to Bogdan Zemanek. But when the strong little elder and the nervous tall young woman came out of the smashed gate, a silence fell slowly over all those present.

"Well, my Mistresses and Masters," said Rabbi Kurtzberg in his slow gravely voice, "there is nobody in the library except one good dead man. We have driven out the villain, but I suggest that we stay the night just in case he gets any bright ideas. In the morning the Library's regular defenders can take over." There was a common whisper of assent.

Then Rabbi Kurtzberg turned to Dumbledore and McGonagall. "Master Dumbledore, Mistress Minerva, you know this enemy better than any of us. Can you tell us why he should have attacked this library?"

Dumbledore gestured McGonagall to speak. "We've been wondering, Rabbi. We think that the fact that it was an unexpected target, far from his usual beat, made it tempting. As a rule, this enemy always tries to do the unexpected."

"What do you think he wanted?" asked the Duchess of Ormagno, "To take the library or to destroy it?"

"I can say this," answered Dumbledore slowly, "that Voldemort has no interest in any kind of religion. As he regards himself as God, he is not interested in what anyone else has to say about... shall we say... himself. He knows himself... or thinks he does... and does not bother with others' views. So he would not even be interested in persecuting other religions: he would not see any reason to destroy the library. No; he was here to take something."

"And I will add this," went on McGonagall, "that this enemy has a natural preference for the Dark Side. If he deployed so much strength in a surprise attack, it means that there were manuscripts of power here that he wanted. Which they are, Rabbi Kurtzberg and Miss Buchbinder are better placed than us to know - not that I'm asking them to reveal the secrets of the Library."

"But we do not have Dark Magic here!" blurted out Rachel in disbelief.

Nobody answered. Rabbi Kurtzberg looked at her with a sad smile on his face.

"You mean...?" she whispered after an instant of silence.

"Evil thoughts and evil deeds are not things that respect ethnic boundaries, child. There have been Jewish Dark Wizards, just as much as there are Dark Wizards among other nations."

"It wasn't that which I meant... I meant, this Library..."

"You love the library, child, and you do well to. But you have to bear in mind that books are no more innocent than people. There are books that are evil: evil in their inception, in their content, in their intended effect on their readers."

"Y... yes, I can see that... yes, of course... But, Rabbi, if we have that sort of thing in here, why keep them? Why not destroy them?"

"Because that is not the way knowledge works, Rachel" (Rabbi Kurtzberg stopped himself from saying "child" once too often); "whatever their evil, it is better that these things should be known and studied - under suitable precautions, by suitably selected candidates - than that they should remain unknown and uncontrolled."

"Rabbi... it sounds like it is not safe..."

"It is not, Rachel. But then this is not a safe world. We are sent into this world as warriors among a million dangers... as you, you brave young woman, have faced your own tonight. But nobody promised us that we would win all our battles. Anyone who can be corrupted by reading an evil book might well be corrupted without one; it is we ourselves, all we children of Adam, who bear the danger in our own nature. Our enemy walks with us from the day of our birth, and only comes to rest when he lies with us in our grave. And whether or not there is any danger in it, our only resort against him is in reason and in truth."