The Librarian

Ameleia is late, flustered.  She is late for the craft group meeting at the local library.  Plus it is fat Gloria's birthday, and Ameleia doesn’t even really like her, with her endless, pointless stories and racist jokes, secretly shared when she thinks Amaleia is not looking. Gloria doesn't like her, either. Amaleia can tell. More than once Amaleia has caught her side eye, unblinking. Gloria smiles but it doesn't reach her eyes. 

Gloria’s best friend is Pam, a fat and petty woman that  the others roll their eyes about whenever she is mentioned. They do this sometimes, watching Gloria for entertainment. It is delicious, this kind of disapproval.  Pam doesn’t come anymore, not since Ameleia joined, after staring, unsmiling, at her for the whole of the first hour. She had a face like she thought Amaleia was an upstart,  an uppity immigrant who likely smelt of onions and foreign substances if she came close and sniffed, rather than holding her breath and keeping her distance. Amaleia came back the next week, but Pam did not.

Amaleia doesn't know why she comes here, beyond liking using her hands, pathetically needing human female company, hearing sound beyond a clock ticking.  Sometimes she actually hates it. She doesn’t know why she continues to try to be all niceness and approachability, showing empathy and understanding and practising to look like she fit in.  But she does.

So today she finds herself at the library on a cold and dank Thursday morning in a one-room library in the outer shires.  Today’s job is to sort through a large donation of a dead woman's stash of thousands of crafting items and tools.  This was a woman just like them, busy creating things that reflected her personality, culture, state of mind.  She had a vast collection of materials. They are sorting paper, folding fabric, boxing up ribbons and beads, untangling and rolling yarn into tidy balls. There are sets of specialist tools, miniature vices and pliers,  metal fixings, embroidery hoops, mulberry silk floss and endless boxes of needles that the ladies examine, and keep or return to the table with a shrug.  Throwing out the dross. Finding new possibilities in the fragments. Amaleia finds it hard to throw anything away, however, and leaves that to the more ruthless.  She hunts for fabrics and unfinished pieces that speak to her.

There is a new librarian sitting at the desk, looking busy with librarian work. Generally the librarians aren’t doing anything at all, and are wary of Amaleia, since she complained about an unsavoury rude and racist joke one ageing librarian made to the group, rocking her hips lewdly and winking at the supposed sexual prowess of an imaginary black man. Amaleia couldn’t not say it -  she tries not to engage in encounters that will prove contentious  with the group but this time, she had tried to explain that racial and sexual stereotypes were in bad taste and probably risked the librarian’s job as a local authority employee. Surely there was an anti-racist policy. And if she thought she was being friendly she was just being a tit. Amaleia might have warmed up, got carried away, revealed a bit too much of herself.  Some of the ladies laughed, some glanced nervously at her.

Today, one of the ladies loudly enquires of Barry, the regular librarian, who the new man is. Turns out his name is Matias, he has driven here from South Wales, as cover for the day. General incredulity ensues. "Wales??" "Why?" "Isn't that, like, hours and hours away?" Barry whispers smugly that the man isn't even being paid full petrol money, or overtime. He rolls his eyes, superior. 

While they work, the conversation turns to the doings of various nieces, grandchildren, aquaintances, as usual.  Someone says that some weeks ago her niece  had unexpectedly left her boyfriend after an argument and had left a load of boxes that she was keen to have moved on, as she wanted the space to get ready for Christmas. The girl and the boyfriend have now made up and rented a flat for six months, so the boxes could go any day now. 

Amaleia finally found something to say,. "I know all about wanting the space... My son's boxes are in my house and they are finally off to Dubai tomorrow!" She has found a length what looks like actual silk rather than acrylic, shimmery and pale.   She caresses the fabric,  looking down as she speaks.

The new librarian's ears must have pricked up at the word Dubai, because he came over, saying "did someone mention Dubai? I live in Dubai. I mean I did live there, I will live there. My wife lives in Dubai." Matias is a smooth, exquisite cafe au lait color. He has a cultured Welsh accent.  A bright, even smile. His family originated in Mexico but came to the UK in the 70s.  She feels dizzy with the paradigm shift, the thought of the rest of the world existing, on a regular December Thursday morning in the middle of an English village. She struggles to fit herself into the tight mold of acceptability when the rest of the world breathes, corset free. 

“Who are we?” Amaleia wonders. The general curiosity of one diaspora member of another is undeniable, encountered in a moment of recognition amongst strangers. Brown to brown, foreigner to foreigner. Doesn't matter that she has lived here,  in the UK, for nearly a half century, or that he was born in Ireland, or that they both have British passports. 

Matias turns out to be a town planner by trade. It seems ludicrous that he is here in this little forgotten corner of England.  He's well dressed, a good suit and tie, clean shaven and polished. She can smell a trace of cologne.  He makes Barry, the resident scruff of a librarian who doesn't ever do anything (except make boiled water, scroll on his phone and check out books for people too set in their ways who refuse to use the automatic machine) look even more dismal and rough at the edges. Barry used to talk to Amaleia,  until she made the point about the joke. Now he doesn’t smile, or look at her.  But Matias is outgoing, open, friendly to the local crafters even though they scowl  at him at first, and give each other looks. Most are still wary of Amaleia. Brown people are usually an unknown quantity, there is no real need to engage.  But they are generous in their attention.

Diana says, "How can anyone live in Dubai? All those restrictions!" She pulls a face. Like she's the real feminist and informed, worldly one here. 

Amaleia wants to be careful, but can't let it go. Diana is a scion of the group, and an accomplished local artist - she runs a successful business that sells shell art online.  But Amaleia can’t help herself. She knows Matias is listening and he definitely cannot say this, she feels the need to show that she has at least a modicum of courage. "What are you talking about, Diana? Those are a load of silly misconceptions. Dubai is cosmopolitan, rich, diverse, polished. As a woman you can shop, hold hands in the street, swim at the beach, go for coffee and work in high powered jobs as much as you like. " She feels like a salesman, although she has no vested interest and gains nothing from the sale.  She's not sure she even knows Dubai that well.  She's pretty sure it's okay if you hold hands, with a man, at least. She doesn't elaborate.

The ladies speak a bit about the Palm, no-one has been to Dubai but they’ve heard about it - Matias tries to explain that it is man-made island in Dubai, with posh villas and five star hotels. Matias adds, “If there's anything you want to know about how the Palm was built, ask me - I am a town planner and architect," and he gives them a bit more about the sand and construction than the ladies can take in, marvelling as they are at his unexpected Welshy international accent, well cut clothes and sudden appearance. He's certainly not Barry. Amaleia watches their eyes widen as they consider this.

But he doesn't know them, they don't know him, and they prefer to raise their eyebrows.  At the designated break time they push aside the mounds of the dead woman's posessions and eat Gloria's birthday celebration feast:  ham sandwiches on white bread, and frosted sponge cake squares made with butter icing and coloured sprinkles.

Amaleia sits at the far end of the crafting table. He hovers, between his librarian desk and their space. She offers Matias some cake. They speak, both aware that they are being not surreptitiously observed by the ladies.  Both of their fathers are from Mexico City. He has been to Oaxaca - a town most of the ladies would not have heard of or try to pronounce without exaggeration. He grew up in Ireland, the only non- white person in a small town, like her. He has family in Canada. In Brazil. In Germany.  Both of them have been to university. They have both travelled. He shows her a picture of his British mother and Mexican father. 

Amaleia says, “My parents met here, a mixed marriage, too.” There is so much more to say of this, of course, than can be fit into one very public conversation. What brought his father here? When was that? How bad was it? How successful? What are the scars and the skeletons hidden carefully from prying ladies' eyes?

The last time the ladies talked about racism, one confessed "Well back in the day, everyone used the P word. We didn't mean it in a racist way. And the N word.  Just that all of the corner shops were owned by the P's. The N's were very poor. So much crime. That's all it was.  We didn't think anything about it." Amaleia kept quiet about the very different immigrant experience of her father; the exclusion, the slurs, the violence. Of her own alienation, her experience of floating on the surface of this culture, dimly sensing the creatures of the deep below her.

Matias, with his informed and educated views, young ambitious wife and wide open world of expectations is very different from Amaleia, she recognises that. They are of different generations, have joined the fray at widely different times. He, and people just like him, are the future. Urbane, open to ideas, worldly and travelled; polished yet hungry for more.  Amaleia thinks she might have been courageous like that once.   

Matias is much more open.  He is likely never to see any of these women again, although town planning work in Dubai is a difficult prospect, hence his presence here. He's searching for a better job, though. In the meantime, he's working 24/7 preparing for his first child, who will be born in Dubai.  Barry scowls and mutters a bit in the background. Amaleia wonders briefly if he feels left behind in this brave new world. 

Matias said, “I hope we keep in touch,” a rare offer of friendship that Amaleia, taken by surprise, accepts.  When they exchange contact details, Diana is beside herself - Gloria remarks, "Look at Diana, she doesn't even need to say anything!" Diana is giving Amaleia a meaningful eye. A knowing grin.

"No, she doesn't," Amaleia say firmly. Diana thinks that brown people will of course want to connect, probably already know each other, even be related. And why not? They all look the same. But soon, Amaleia wonders, will this generation of heartland women be replaced by a younger, more worldly set of people, perhaps that do not  craft but have travelled, mixed, found and identified with the rest of the world beyond their own country's borders? She can only hope.