"The Library of Gromma" by Zeph Auerbach
A young boy must protect the machine that preserves the memories of his grandmother and his community.
“Short Stories For Long Discussions…”
Mission Statement: After Dinner Conversation is an independent, nonprofit literary magazine that publishes philosophical short stories to encourage discussions with friends, family, and students.
Letter from Tina
I’m proud to volunteer for a literary magazine that actually cares about paying writers and promoting their work.
Have you thought about publishing with ADC?
If you’re reading our stories, you know the kind of thing we are looking for. If you’d like to try your hand at getting a story in our monthly magazine, we are always accepting submissions, and submissions are free.
Become part of the ADC team!
We are always in need of volunteer readers—and it’s a great way to improve your writing.
Just email us at info@afterdinnerconversation.com to learn more.
If you enjoy these stories and want to support writers and what we do, you can always subscribe to our monthly magazine via our website (digital or print), or via substack.
Tina
Take the poll for this week’s story, “The Library of Gromma”:
Last week’s poll results:
Free Partner eBooks Downloads
(Updated Weekly, Click The Photo)
"The Library of Gromma" by Zeph Auerbach
Scroll down for audio.
Zac was sweating and panting as he reached the top of the hill. The crooked beams of the library loomed over him. He dropped the buckets of water, swore at the few drops that spilt, and escaped the piercing morning sun in the shade of the library.
He walked through that vast, tall chamber. He pictured himself and Bernard, when they’d been small, ducking and diving and climbing through the web of containers, pulleys, cogs and gears. Bernard confidently shunting wooden switches and cranking metal levers, swinging from the iron scaffold to reach the highest contraptions in the up, up, up. Zac himself clambering after his older brother, pretending to do the things his brother could.
He looked at the guts of a broken contraption strewn across the floor. Hours and hours he’d spent, and he still had no idea how to put the pieces back together. No idea how to get the memories back.
Mr. Adamson with the bushy beard could fix it. Perhaps he was the only one left who could. Had he really returned, like the villagers had said?
As usual, Zac had been up early to collect water from the meager stream in the valley. He took it into the shed where he and Gromma slept. She was already sitting there on the side of the bed, her hair all up on one side, a deep frown across her wrinkled brow.
“Robert?” she greeted him, squinting. Robert had been Zac’s dad.
“It’s Zac, Gromma,” he said, smiling and patting her hair down.
“Zac, that’s right. And will Rebecca be along soon?” Rebecca had been Zac’s mum. Zac knew Gromma didn’t really think she’d be along soon; it was just that Gromma got cloudy outside of the library.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, she will be here any minute.”
Gromma smiled and her thoughts soon drifted onto something else.
“Don’t forget, Robert,” she said authoritatively, wagging a finger in the air, “I met Rebecca’s father – Joseph Bauman – in a library. He would be proud of what we’ve achieved here. He was… now what was he doing? Tell me, what were we talking about just then?” She rubbed her frail fingertips together anxiously.
“Groppa – Joseph Bauman,” Zac said, which encouraged her to smile and keep talking. Soon she was hopping and skipping onto other topics, and she was never going to stop, so Zac stood her up and helped her wash. Her skin felt like cold wet cloth draped loose across her bones. Lifting her up was one of the few things that got easier day by day, since she grew smaller while he grew bigger. He was now 11 (and three-quarters). Helping her wash and sorting out her toilet troubles was not nice work, but who else was going to do it? Mum had shown him and Bernard how to do it all, only last summer, when she’d been growing weaker. He’d had to do it for her too. He could still hear mum’s voice, telling him not to be scared.
He wanted mum to be proud of him. Was asking Mr. Adamson to help with the library the right way to do that?
She used to tell him she was proud of him all the time. Bernard will be the head engineer and you’ll be the head librarian, he heard her saying in her voice that’d gotten all wheezy. I’ll be the only librarian! he remembered replying, half with humor and half with fear. Her laugh.
Zac lifted Gromma to her rusty zimmer. She tilted her head at it quizzically. “Are you sure I need this thing? If you say so, dear.”
They shuffled to the library. Everyone in the family had always called it a library, but Zac had seen pictures of an olden library and it didn’t look like that at all. There were no books you could hold, for a start. He had always seen it more as a tree – a huge, ancient tree. A broad canopy of green tarpaulin was supported by trunks of iron and timber scaffolding. There were all kinds of ropes and cables running through pulleys and wrapped around the trunks, like vines growing and criss-crossing to reach the sun. The trunks branched out over cogs and axles, budding off into all manner of strange and complicated contraptions: Boxes within boxes, gadgets and gizmos, magic and mystery. All he knew was that without all this, Gromma had no memories to share.
He set Gromma down in her chair in the heart of the library. She almost purred with contentment as she snuggled in and adjusted her giant magnifying glass. She snatched instinctively at a wooden keyboard, swinging it towards her and tenderly stroking the hand-carved keys.
“Joseph Bauman,” she said, savoring the words. She typed something and yanked on a grubby lever.
The library whirred into action. Click, thump, whoosh, zrrrr, bmmbmmbmm, clack-clack. A tightly bound scroll, suspended from a pulley and a cable in a high-up nest of the library, whizzed and whooshed all the way down, ending up smack bang in front of her magnifying glass. As Gromma pumped away at a pedal a spool started spinning, and under her magnifying glass a short stretch of scroll was drawn out.
She read the words into an olden copper megaphone and her voice – clear, confident and strong – came booming out. “It was the spring of 1986. Spring reading week at Nottingham University. The Hallward Library. It must’ve been my third year of Architecture and it seemed like it was never going to end. I just wanted to build. This handsome chap walked in, looking completely lost, saying he was searching for a book of love poetry. I told him I knew where to look. This was a lie; I just wanted more time in his company. And that was that. We used to say he went in looking for love and he came out with me.” Gromma laughed and nestled deeper into her chair. “Came out with me!” she repeated, adding off-scroll, “Our little fairy tale.” She closed her eyes. “Joseph Bauman,” she said, deep in reverie.
She pressed some keys. Click, thump, whoosh, zrrrr, bmmbmmbmm, clack-clack. Another scroll came before her eyes.
“So there was this time with Joseph,” she started. But Zac didn’t listen because he had heard these stories so many times. Besides, he hadn’t even met Groppa.
A knock on the door. Gromma didn’t notice.
As Zac walked over to the door, he found himself desperately hoping there would be loads of visitors there, like the old days, bringing tasty food donations. At the moment it was looking like a can of chickpeas for supper again. Drink the goo, it’s good for you.
He remembered how the villagers and outsiders alike would come in big groups. His whole family would be ready for them. Mum and dad at the door to welcome them in. He and Bernard perching up by the contraptions. Gromma in her chair. The buzzing crowd would push in, then they’d gaze up in wonder and gasp at the machinery. They’d gather around Gromma in hushed reverence, eagerly awaiting the answers and the memories to come.
Zac opened the door now. It was just four people: Old Hattie, as always, Gerald the One-Armed Pig Farmer, and two outsiders. For the sake of the outsiders – a skinny, shawled lady and a little girl – Zac began mum’s spiel. As he spoke, Gromma repeated the odd word, sometimes hitting the timing just right to create a sort of harmony. “The Library of Gromma Atop the Hill offers you boundless knowledge of the world we know and the world that was. Ask Gromma questions of history, technology, philosophy, and every other -ology and -osophy. Hear memories of the fallen. Listen to the past and speak to the future.” You don’t need to tell them that about half of the library is just Gromma’s personal memories.
“Is it true?” the shawled lady asked the villagers, gazing up at the library with that wonder that still made Zac feel proud. “Will she know?” Old Hattie and Gerald nodded. “We have travelled so far,” the lady said, exhausted. She was clutching to her side her young daughter, who clearly wanted to run off to play with the levers and buttons and dials on display.
Just outside the door, Zac caught a glimpse of someone else, and at first Zac didn’t recognize him because it’d been so long and his beard had grown even more, but it was Mr. Adamson with the bushy beard. So it was true! Zac had thought he might never see him again. Zac’s thoughts raced through repairs that needed doing.
“Mr. Adamson!” Zac called out.
“Hello again, little Zac,” he said in a gravelly voice. “I’ll be back later. I’ll just have some time with my thoughts.” Zac suspected why. It was seeing the young daughter; she must’ve reminded him of his own.
The shawled lady stepped forwards. “O wise Gromma, it is a fine honor to meet you. We have been traveling from the West for eight long days.”
Her daughter tugged at her trousers. “You said the old woman knows lots of fairy tales?”
“Quiet now, Lily,” her mother snapped.
“Oh yes, lots of fairy tales,” Gromma said, giving Lily a cheeky wink.
“Yes, but we have come to hear about m’ ma.” She looked sternly at Lily. “Your nanna, like I told you. That first, so. Wouldn’t you like to hear what she was like?” Lily nodded because that was what was expected of her. Zac never understood why adults couldn’t see that children wanted new things, not words about old, dead people.
But that was what the library had become famous for. “Here,” Zac said, retrieving from a cabinet a large bundle of well-thumbed sheets of paper. The outsider leafed through the long list of names, photos and faces. “So many,” she whispered. Then all of a sudden she called out, “There! And I don’t believe it. The handwriting! It’s Connor’s!” She looked around her, but nobody knew what to say. Zac noticed a tear on her bony cheek. “It’s only m’ brother’s handwriting! He must’ve come here before he...” She looked to Gromma. “Did you meet my Connor?”
Gromma simply grasped the lady’s trembling hand and stroked it, as if that was enough. “What’s that you say, dear?” she asked, turning to Zac for help.
“You pick the name,” Zac told the lady. “Gromma remembers.”
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to After Dinner Conversation - Philosophy | Ethics Short Story to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.