Sanctuary by Patricia Ljutic

Jasmine approaches the library through the vacant field. She searches for a place to hide her blue duffle bag and the remainder of her carrots and apples. She stuffs it between the hedges and the building. The low-hanging branches make it invisible there. The blister on her right heel burns.

“I’ll be back,” she whispers to her possessions. She lifts her shoulder pack and walks away toward the entrance.

Two men stand near the bike rack. She remembers Ted and his tent-mate from the last encampment, before the cops came, before the city installed chain-link fences, back when Jasmine had a tent.

“Hi,” Ted says. He looks down. He kicks the gravel. His head jerks right, then left.

She nods, ascends the stone steps, and walks through the dark wooden doors.

The building’s domed ceiling and high rows of windows invite shafts of sunlight into the interior. This effect leaves Jasmine with the impression that she has entered a cathedral or a house of mirrors with its repeated, infinite rows of bookshelves.

Library staff sit behind the counter near the entrance. Jasmine sees one woman scrutinize the multiple layers of clothing she wears. These identify her as a woman without a home. A shelter worker told her everyone is welcome here. Last night, Jasmine didn’t make it back in time before the shelter closed. A safe refuge for the day is all she wants.

Tables and chairs occupy the center aisle past the front desk. There, people read, use laptops, or scroll through their phones. Jasmine discovers a line of cubicles. Each cubicle contains a computer. She sits at one and touches the keyboard, hopeful for a connection. A couple of weeks ago, while she huddled with a group of women under the awning at the dog park, someone stole her government-provided phone. She’s still waiting for word on a replacement. Maybe her sister, Ashley, hasn’t paid the fee yet. This would be the second time her sister has “forgotten.” Her brother-in-law says, People should carry their own weight. Getting on a computer at this library can mean connecting with Ashley and a couple of friends who still stay in touch with her. The screen lights up. User ID? Password?

“Damn it!” Jasmine says, then covers her mouth.

She enters her gmail address and password.

Username or Password incorrect.

She taps her fingers on the keys just to feel the sensation. Then she types her name and in the password field she enters, PLEASE.

Username or Password incorrect.

Then, LET ME IN!

Username or Password incorrect.

HELP!

On the way discovers the children’s corner near the reference desk. A little haven. Sets of small tables. Shorter bookshelves. Murals on the walls. Some of these she recognizes: Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar, Arthur, and The Cat in the Hat.

Past the children’s corner, she finds the bathroom unguarded and unlocked. No ID or password required. She waves fingers in front of the sink sensor and her cupped hands fill with water. Jasmine closes her eyes and rests her face in the liquid warmth. She pulls off her sweater, an extra pair of pants and two layers of T-shirts. An unavoidable sour smell wafts from the clothes. She stuffs them into her shoulder bag. She combs through her hair and peeks out of the bathroom door to check if anyone is coming. She brushes her teeth. Spits in the sink. She wishes she could soak the blister on her heel.

This momentary relief sparks a longing for home. Any home.

The boutique café where Jasmine worked closed and left her unable to pay rent. Ashley took her in after. Jasmine slept in Ashley’s garage on an inflatable mattress. Surrounded by boxes,  a dorm room mini fridge, microwave, and the smell of motor oil. That ended when Ashley’s husband landed a better job, and the family relocated to Texas.

Sadness begins to clench again. Jasmine exhales, inhales, exhales. She wonders  about the next meal, the next bed.

At the reference desk, she asks a woman whose name tag reads Mindy, “How can I use the computers?”

“How long since you’ve been in a library?”

“We had a book club where I worked. I used to sign up on the library’s waiting list to take out the books.”

Mindy smiles. “So, you read hardcovers, not eBooks?”

“Hardcovers.”

Mindy nods. “To get a library card, you need an ID displaying your current residence, or an ID and a piece of mail or another proof of residence. Of course, if you bring your device, the Wi-Fi is free. Do you have a phone or iPad?”

“Someone stole my phone.” No point in explaining how difficult it is to get a new ID when you lose one. Jasmine points toward the rows of desks, cubicles, and books. “Can I sit here?”

“Yes. The library is open to everyone. You can read.” Mindy lowers her voice. “Some people come to get out of the rain or cold. Just do something. Read a book. Walk around. We don’t allow people to camp here.”

Jasmine walks away, stops, and turns back. “Thank you.”

Mindy nods again and then helps another patron.

Jasmine keeps her head down and sits across the table from two girls scrolling an iPad together. They each wear one earbud and sigh as if their lungs are synchronized. Jasmine fidgets in the chair.

“Over there,” one whispers. She pinches her nose, and together they move away.

Jasmine envies their iPad and friendship.

Exhausted, she pulls her red sweater out of her shoulder pack. She bunches it into a makeshift pillow, places it in front of her on the table, rests her arms and head on it, and shuts her eyes.

“Hello. Miss. Miss. Wake up.” The man speaks softly. “You can’t sleep here.”

Unsure where she is, Jasmine forces herself to full consciousness. “What?” A man. Girls laughing. The light beaming from the high windows. The table. Cubicles. The man’s name tag, Darin. She’s in the library.

Jasmine pushes the man’s hand off her shoulder.

“You can’t sleep here. If you want to read, I can help you find a book or magazine.”

“I can find one, thank you,” Jasmine says.

Jasmine collects her shoulder bag and sweater, stands, and shivers. How does sleeping hurt anyone?

What did Mindy say? Read a book. Walk around.

In the stacks, Jasmine runs her fingers down the multicolored bindings and reads the titles. Where are the manga, graphic novels, and romance sections? Just grab something, she tells herself.

She stares at a row of Colleen Hoover’s novels but can’t rally the energy to reach for one. A worn hardcover sits flat on top of the row. But it isn’t romance. She lifts the book from the shelf. The Fellowship of the Ring.

She watched the movies when she was twelve. Read half the book once when she lived in her sister’s garage. She could finish it now, or at least pick up where she left off. The book is heavy. Over four hundred pages. A multi-day pass to the library. Jasmine opens it. Never a fan of prologues, she skips to the first chapter and starts with Bilbo Baggins’ birthday party.

Groups of children enter the library. Jasmine finds a chair at the most distant table from the front door, but where she can see the wall clock with Time To Read written on its face. She finishes Chapter 4, “A Shortcut to Mushrooms,”then realizes it’s time to leave for the shelter. After she closes the book, Jasmine places her hand on top of it. The Hobbits have also left home and also long to return. They walk a dangerous road, but unlike her, they’re not alone. They have each other, magic, and purpose.

She folds the top corner of the page. When Jasmine approaches the reference desk, Mindy is helping someone else, leaving Jasmine to Darin. She struggles not to tell him that people need places to sleep. “How can I save this book to read tomorrow?”

“Do you have a library card?”

She shakes her head.

“ID? Address?”

“I’m between homes. Why don’t you just hold it for me?”

“I can’t. I’m sorry. You can leave it here or shelve it yourself.”

He reminds Jasmine of her brother-in-law. The rules always worked for her brother-in-law.

The pain in her heel flares. She shuffles to the stacks. Holds the book against her chest with both hands and seeks a hiding place. This library still maintains a large reference section. There are no people here. She chuckles as she wedges the novel between the shelves where two rows of books sit back-to-back. “Stay here,” she whispers, seeing it out of place between two volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica.

Jasmine leaves the library and enters the darkening day.

***

The Fellowship of the Ring is missing.

Jasmine pulls back the entire row of reference books. Nothing. She checks a lower shelf. She even pushes her hand between the shelves, feeling for it, hoping, but only stirs up a few dust balls.

The blister on her heel has grown. To keep from making it worse, she takes small, deliberate steps. The romance shelves where she first found the novel. Of course, it’s not there. It shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Regardless, it’s vanished.

She wanders into the bathroom and washes her face in warm water. Lets it grow hot over her hands. The winter makes her bones ache. She’s crying, gripped by pain so tightly she can’t wail.

When she emerges from the bathroom, it’s story hour in the children’s corner. Jasmine steps inside and sits on an adult-sized chair in the corner to listen. The mood of the room changes. Jasmine’s presence, ignored by many, causes some parents and one librarian to stare at her, ensuring she doesn’t move nearer. When story time is over, the librarian approaches her.

“Miss, could you sit somewhere else? This space is for children.”

Jasmine stands and retreats into the stacks. Thousands of books here. She could chose anyone of them, but she wants The Fellowship of the Ring. If she’s ever going to find the book, she’ll need help. She decides to try the reference desk. Jasmine smiles when she sees that the nice librarian is there.

“Hello,” Mindy says.

“Is there a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring?”

Mindy scrolls through the computer.

“There’s one unaccounted for and three checked out, and …”—Mindy clicks the mouse—“one is due back today.” She looks up. “It will be available tomorrow.”

Mindy speaks just above a whisper. “I can hold it for you under my name. You’ll have to come to me to get the book. No one else. And I don’t work on Tuesdays and Fridays.”

Is this woman really going to help her? “Thank you.”

Jasmine steps outside, sits on a cold metal bench, conceals her face from the world and weeps.

***

Jasmine wakes in the cold shelter. Overnight the world froze. It’s still dark and still early, but she pulls on as much clothing as she can wear and still move and leaves the shelter. It’s pantry day. She joins hundreds or people shivering in line. She blows into her hands and pushes them into the sleeves of her sweater. They give her canned soups, vegetables, a box of pasta, and five apples.

The extra weight of the food makes her waddle. Tired already, her limp worsens. Warnings of snowfall. She needs to reach the library.

Relieved when she arrives, she hides her belongings in the usual spot. Shoves an apple in her pocket. Her hands tremble. She thinks of warmth.

There are a couple of fully stuffed shopping carts parked near the library staircase and packs stashed in the bushes. “They’re all coming in today,” she hears Darin say under his breath.

“It’s freezing,” Jasmine says as she walks past him. Just before opening the door, she feels the blister on her heel break open and warm fluid moisten her socks.  

Jasmine limps into the bathroom, sits in a stall, and takes off her shoe and sock, lifting her foot. The blister is ugly red with yellow drainage. She digs into her shoulder pack for her most threadbare T-shirt. Uses her teeth and hands to tear a strip of cloth off, she wraps her foot. It’s painful and makes her shoe too tight. At least the wound is protected. Now when she walks, she slides the wounded foot.

At the reference desk, she asks, “Is Mindy here?

The librarian at the reference desk says, “I’m sorry, Mindy is out today.”

“Can you help . . . can you help me find The Fellowship of the Ring? It was supposed to come in today and . . .”

The librarian sighs, points at another part of the library. Says something Jasmine doesn’t need to listen to to know her words are meaningless. The one person who saw her and tried to help isn’t here.

Jasmine tries, but cannot find it amidst books filled with dragons and monsters and quests. She grabs half a dozen magazines, sits down, and turns pages. It’s difficult to focus, even on the photos. Ted and his tent-mates take seats two tables down from her. She looks at advertisements for skin care products and food. Ted’s head trembles as he leans over a book.

A couple of hours pass. More people fill the chairs, seeking protection from the storm. Jasmine wants to eat her apple, but if she gets up to go outside, she will lose her seat. She opens the next magazine and realizes she grabbed House Beautiful, and rolls her eyes. This issue is all about perfect kitchens. But it’s good for something. Jasmine raises the magazine and uses it to hide her face so she can nibble on the apple without being seen. The arrival of the after-school kids provides additional cover.

 “They’re following me around!” Ted stands up.

Jasmine’s shoulder’s tense and she freezes in place.

“Look, empty pockets,” Ted says. “They want my soul. They’re soul eaters, all of them. They want me to starve to death so I can’t fight them off.”

A tall woman in heels and a wool suit approaches him. Two other librarians flank her, but not close enough to frighten Ted.

“Sir,” the woman says, “I’m the chief librarian. Hi, sir?”

Ted points at her, then sweeps his arm, implicating the entire building. “They … they want my soul.”

“You can’t yell in the library, sir.”

He slaps at his hips and legs as if being attacked by spiders. “You’re going to let them take me?”

 Jasmine stays still. Two police officers enter the building. She shoves the half-eaten apple back into her pocket.

Librarians circulate, directing the after-school children away from the disturbance and to the children’s corner. Some teenage boys get up to see more of the action.

The police officers invite Ted outside. “No! No!” his voice echoes against the domed ceiling. One officer asks if he’d like to have some lunch, and they coax him outside.

Jasmine sees more police and a pickup truck pull into the parking lot.

“No! They’re here.” Ted points to the children. “Thieves! Thieves.”

The pickup truck joins the ambulance and police cars outside. Even though she cannot hear all the remaining police officer says to the chief librarian, Jasmine knows what will happen. All good things are ruined.

She moves nearer and hears the chief librarian say, “It’s a public library. Everyone’s welcome here, within reason. We just can’t let it become an encampment, especially with the open field out back. I wish we had a social worker.”

Just beyond the doors, Jasmine sees packs and shopping carts being tossed into the cargo bed of the truck. Then, she sees her own blue duffle bag. She’s sure of it.

“No,” Jasmine says. She places her hand over her mouth. She wants to scream, wants to shove the shelves down, wants to make them collapse one by one until they crash to the floor.

The officer and the chief librarian look in her direction.

Everything Jasmine owns is in that bag. She seeks out the seclusion of the bathroom, but it’s full of girls talking and laughing. She leaves, tells herself to calm down and figure it out. She finds herself at the reference desk. A place that did not provide the refuge it promised. The metallic returns chart sits nearby, stacked with books ready to be reshelved. And there it is, returned as Mindy said it would be, The Fellowship of the Ring. Touching the book is as magical and powerful as a forbidden ring. Sometimes it works to be invisible. As much as she tries, the rules don’t work for her. She pulls the torn T-shirt over the book, slides itinto her shoulder pack, leaves the sanctuary of the library and steps into the cold.

Patricia Ljutic

Image: A Library with shelves full of books from Pixabay.com