The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections(5)

“Something Indian. Not a bible.”

“Something fewer than a dozen men have clapped eyes on in almost fifteen hundred years.”

“Basically a virgin, right?”

“Guess so. You won’t meet another man who has seen the inside of this book.”

“Open her up then.”

“Lean in and take a look,” Francis said.

Liesl stepped back from the men and their mating. Percy preferred his conquests in ill-fitting blouses, but all attention gave him a hard-on. A powerful ego responded to stroking. The Peshawar was an international treasure, a clue in the development of modern mathematics, into the complexity of thought and writing carried out by people about whom scarcely any documentary history existed in the West. It was being treated as some Indian curiosity. Percy Pickens was a collection of sweaty chins and family money. He was being treated as remarkable, rousing. She walked backward toward the door. Cardboard ripped, someone opened a new case of wine. A roar of laughter. Someone had had one too many. The suits in the room were expensive, but one of these posh people was sure to ejaculate in the stairwell before the event was over. Nothing in the library was as it seemed.





3


She sat staring at the screen, listening to the library go quiet around her as the voices retreated one by one into the elevator and back onto the street. First the clinking Sancerre glasses at the donor event ceased, then readers went quiet, then the rumble of book trucks as materials were packed away, and finally the voices of the staff went dim and Liesl was left alone in the darkened building with only the hum of the air conditioner to keep her company.

Liesl savored the stillness. Her once-blond hair was blown shiny, and the blues of her eyes were even lined with mascara for the day, but it was a costume; a convincing disguise for a woman who preferred to be wallpaper and liked to describe her sense of responsibility as her most attractive trait. Dan had cleared the scattered volumes from around the office in her absence, so there were not even books to keep her company. Her solitude was absolute. Her cell phone lit up—her husband, John. She didn’t move to answer it. She didn’t call back. She hadn’t answered a single one of the emails that blinked before her. She stared at the screen, wondering what to do next, until the ringing of Christopher’s office phone startled her out of her meditation.

“Christopher Wolfe’s office,” Liesl answered.

“I’m sorry. I expected voicemail.”

“Can I help you with something?”

“Sorry, how rude of me. My name is Rhonda Washington; I’m with the math department. Are you Mr. Wolfe’s assistant? Can I leave a message with you?”

“He’s on sick leave, I’m afraid. I’m his replacement, not his secretary. Can I help?”

“Gosh,” the woman on the phone said. “I’m making a real mess of things, aren’t I?”

“It’s no problem, really. How can I help?”

“I’m new to the university, and I’m told you might have some materials in your collection that are of value to my research.”

“What’s your area of research?”

“I study the zero.”

“How odd.”

“That I study the zero?”

“No. Well, yes, it’s a bit odd to me that someone would choose to study a single digit, but what do I know; I studied literature. You must know about the Peshawar?”

“Of course. I’ve read a lot about it.”

“We happened to have it out today. That’s what was odd.”

“Can I come see it now?”

On the desk, Liesl’s cell phone was ringing again. Her husband. No doubt wondering why she hadn’t made her way home yet, even as the skies were darkening. If he was looking for her, it meant he was up, it meant it was a good day. Even still, she pressed End on the call.

“Well,” Liesl said. “The library is closed for the night.”

Liesl glanced down at the sheet of paper where she had written the woman’s name so she wouldn’t forget it: Rhonda Washington. Liesl wondered about this new breed of academics, who were so accustomed to getting what they wanted when they wanted it that they wouldn’t even think to make an appointment to see a manuscript like the Peshawar. She opened the drawer of the desk to find a pencil sharpener and found instead a half-full bottle of whiskey and a couple of tumblers. She shut the drawer.

“Of course,” Rhonda said. “I just thought if you still had it out.”

“You can make an appointment to come work here.”

“My research need is a bit unusual.”

Liesl kept the phone propped under her chin as she stood and began to gather her belongings. She switched the computer off without having done anything with it and stretched the phone cord as long as it would go so she could get her coat, hanging on the rack in the far corner of the office. She had heard thousands of researchers expound, all in the exact same way, about the unique character of their research. There was a catalog for an upcoming books-and-papers auction in the corner of Christopher’s desk, and Liesl began to flip through it as the woman talked.

“Unusual how?”

“I’m less interested in the content of the manuscript than in the object itself.”

“The study of manuscripts and bindings isn’t uncommon.”