Brazil

I was horrified.  “How could it just…vanish?  That’s not possible.”  It was 1959, I was almost 9 years old, and four weeks earlier we had moved to San Paulo, Brazil—the fourth country I had lived in.  My father, just 31years-old at the time, was starting a new enterprise:  a textile factory.  I had gone with him during the machinery installation and loved sitting on a high perch watching it all come together and listening to the language I was just beginning to learn—Portuguese.  The men had books with instructions and suggestions for how to make it happen and slowly the design took shape.  But today when I came home from school, I found my parents talking animatedly about what happened that day.  My mother was waving her arms about in a state of near panic, and my father was trying to console her.  “Sara,” he began, “these things happen.  It’s not too bad.  We’ll fix it soon and we can get back on schedule.” 
There had been a small fire in the back warehouse of the factory and while some inventory had burned, the machinery was fine, he explained to me.  I nodded in understanding, and remembering the large concrete partition between the front and the back, I explained to my mother that it would be just fine.  “It’s not like the library of Alexandria disaster,” he said off-handedly.  Confused I asked him what that was.  “It was a very ancient library that held much of the knowledge of the world.  Great writers and philosophers and thinkers wrote on papyrus scrolls—what they used before our modern paper—and stacked them in this huge and beautiful library.  Being a librarian there was a very prestigious position which came with a great deal of power and honor. And then almost two thousand years ago the entire library was destroyed by a giant fire.  And by neglect. The whole thing was gone.”  “None of it was left?” I asked in horror.  “No.  Nothing.  Imagine all of that information and knowledge of the world and of people gone,” he explained. 
I grabbed my light jacket, told my parents where I was going, and ran down the block to our local library.  No matter where my parents moved us to, I always found the closest library and made it a kind of home.  I loved sitting on the chairs or comfy couches, surrounded by hundreds of books, and leafing quietly through one or two or three.  Sometimes I would walk around the stacks and just run my hands along the book-spines and then let my fingers feel the embossed titles on the sides or the fronts of the covers.  My problem came with the language.  I had learned my first language, Spanish, in Uruguay, and then learned my next language, English, when I was seven and we moved to my father’s home country, The United States. 
But now Portuguese was a new challenge.  The library clerks were at first surprised to see an eight-year-old who couldn’t speak their language showing up several afternoons a week. They would smile at me welcomingly as I bounced recklessly up and down the aisles.  But no matter how hard I tried, I could not yet read any of the books.  “No English?” I would ask.  “No…” they would respond sadly.  But I was not deterred.  Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I would still show up.
We started learning each other’s language. “Book” I would say pointing. “Livro” they would respond smiling.  “Pencil” I would say; “lapis” they would answer.  And so it went for several weeks.  They would sometimes have picture books or art books for me to peruse when I came in.  But just walking around in the midst of all of those words between covers waiting for me to discover their secrets was enough of a joy for me.
On this day, though, I needed to share this horrific new knowledge about the burnt library.  I burst into the San Paulo library and kept repeating that the Alexandria library burned.  “Tragedy—tragedia—Alexandria biblioteca,” I blurted breathlessly as I ran into the marble building with socks slithering down my skinny legs, jacket half off my arms, hair tumbling out of my normally tight braids.  They looked confused and dismayed.  The head librarian came out from the back room and I repeated the words to her.  “Ah, si,” she said, shaking her head and sighing the expiration I myself could feel.  “Tragedia. Grande tragedia.”  And then in Portuguese I could see and hear her explaining to the women about the ancient library and its demise.  I didn’t understand most of the words, but I could read the women’s faces clearly. “Tudo?” (everything) one of them uttered in disbelief.  “Tudo,” explained the head librarian.  And they looked at me, an eight year old disheveled girl whose place of happiness and comfort was where they worked day in and day out; a little girl who could not yet read the words in this world of theirs but somehow understood their power; a little girl standing before them feeling her first encounter with the immensity of loss—and they all reached down to hug me.  One by one, with tears in their eyes, they hugged me.  And for that moment, on a Wednesday afternoon, in San Paulo Brazil, no words were necessary.
Within a month the textile factory was running smoothly.  I would visit with my dad and see the weaving of the lined-up threads somehow magically finding their ways through metal to come out changed into cloth.  One time I took samples of the various woven fabrics, and over the weekend made bookmarks for my librarian friends which I stored carefully in my pockets.  But when I walked into the library that Monday afternoon, they were lined up waiting for me and giggling with anticipation.  I was confused.  Then three of them pulled out books they were hiding behind their backs.  One excitedly said, “We buy books for biblioteca—library.”  And they handed me three books in English.  The books were about Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson.  I jumped up and down.  “I can read these. I can read these,” I chanted with glee.  “Thank you!” And immediately I plunked myself down on the nearest couch and read. When I looked up I could see them beaming.  Before I left I remembered to give them the bookmarks I had made which they delightedly accepted commenting admiringly about the different patterns and colors.
Every time I went to the library for the rest of the year they ceremoniously and with great joy brought me those three books.  And even if I didn’t re-read them each time, I carried them about proudly as I wandered—and sometimes skipped—down the aisles.
When I was almost 10 we moved away from Brazil and back to The United States. The day before we left I said good-bye to my librarian friends.  “Nos sentiremos sua falta,” they said in unison.  I smiled, “I will miss you too,” I answered hugging each of them. One of women solemly continued: “Alexadria not gone,” she said, “it here always,” and she pointed to her heart and her head, and then to my heart and my head. And as I walked out through the large wooden door, they waved good-bye using the multi-colored woven bookmarks I had given them like signal flags on passing ships.
Many years later I learned that the government in Brazil during that time had no money for library books in foreign languages.  And that these women who had to commute several hours a day to their jobs for very low pay, lived in small homes in the back-country with little running water and electricity.  And I learned that for months they had saved small amounts every week so that they themselves could buy those books so that I could read in their library.

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