The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections(57)

“Did you tell the police?” Liesl said. “Maybe refer them to her doctor?”

“I’m her husband,” Vivek said. “You think the police are going to believe me when I say she couldn’t have stolen those books?”

“Her doctor then?”

“That’s just it, Liesl,” Vivek said, sitting up again, pushing her hand away.

“Will her doctor not share information?”

“There is no doctor,” Vivek said. “That’s why I left her. It got too hard, and she wouldn’t get help. So I asked for a divorce.”

Back in those dark days with John, Liesl had tried an ultimatum. She’d packed a bag—a suitcase, not a duffel bag—rested it by their bedroom door, and tried to bargain with the monsters in John’s head. It was all for show. They both knew that she wouldn’t leave without Hannah and wouldn’t deprive John of her either.

Liesl stayed in place despite Vivek’s agitation. She would not allow him to carry the blame for this. She knew that the weight of it could break a person. She put her hands on him, lightly touching his knee so that he would look at her.

“Vivek. This isn’t your fault.”

“Of course it is,” Vivek said.

“You tried to get her help. It sounds like you really tried.”

“In sickness and in health. All that shit.”

“People have asked for divorces for worse reasons.”

“Have they?” He tried to pull his knee away. She didn’t let him.

“People have affairs. People have midlife crises. This is harder.”

“I put her in danger.”

“How?”

“By asking her to make a choice when she was in no position to make one.”

“Vivek, this isn’t your fault.”

“I wanted to do something radical to get her to act. To get her to admit that she was really sick. But it was more than that, Liesl. I couldn’t bear to live with her like that. I couldn’t bear to live like that. She’d had bouts before, and she would get through them, but it was never this bad, it was never this long. And she wouldn’t go see a therapist, she wouldn’t consider antidepressants. She thought that would make people say she was crazy. But she was fine to sit and stare at the wall for six hours or cry for three days straight or bite at her hangnails until each of her fingers was bleeding. Like none of that is crazy? I was so excited when I got this job, I was so excited to be with my wife again, to really begin to build our lives. But it only took, I don’t know, a week? Before I felt sick at the idea of coming home to her every night. I thought if I threatened to leave, she would finally get help. But I also just wanted to get out of that apartment.”

He stopped and waited for Liesl to reply.

“Maybe she’s gone to get help?” She finally withdrew her hand. Put it to her face. Conceding that she was just as helpless as he was.

“Were that true, how do you think this news will fit in?”

“It’s a misunderstanding,” said Liesl. “We can explain.”

Neither one of them believed that.

“It wouldn’t matter,” he said.

“Why wouldn’t it matter?”

“It’s not as though she’s doing art therapy at a sanatorium somewhere,” Vivek said. He had stopped crying. That was somehow worse. “I made an awful threat, a selfish threat, and now something has happened to her. Or she’s done something to herself.”

“You don’t mean it,” Liesl said. “Has she ever tried that before?”

“I don’t know. But it’s the next step in all this, isn’t it?” Vivek said. “When I was in London, I used to panic if she took longer than an hour to answer a text message. Do you know how many times I sent my mom or my sister over to our apartment, certain that they would find her drowned in the bathtub?”

“But you said she never talked about it,” Liesl said.

“They called her a thief,” Vivek went on, but the display of emotion had sapped him. He lay down again. “My sweet wife.”

“We can fix it.”

“My sweet wife,” said Vivek. “Other people’s opinions made her so anxious. She would have an upset stomach for days if she thought she said the wrong thing to someone.”

“And now she’s on the front page of the newspaper,” Liesl said.

“The front page of the newspaper,” Vivek said. “Being called a thief.”

“I’m so sorry,” Liesl said. She fought a swell of tears that threatened to accompany the apology, but he could hear it in her voice. “If I hadn’t called the police.”

“I called them first,” Vivek said. “I didn’t know about the missing books and all that, but what could we do but report her missing?”

“The police might find her safe,” Liesl said.

“They won’t,” Vivek said, fixing his eyes on some blank spot on the wall behind Liesl. “Tell the police to focus on finding the books. If we can’t save her, we can save her reputation.”

***

Another moldy bathroom, this time in the history department. Liesl locked the door and yanked paper towels out of the dispenser an arm’s length at a time. She pulled and pulled and pulled until she had a pillow’s worth, and then she balled it up and buried her face in it and screamed.