The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections(78)

Christopher paused before answering. And then, slowly, his weathered face spread into a smile. Here was a worthy adversary. “Not even niceties to ease me into it, eh?”

“No. I had reserved the first forty-five minutes for niceties.”

Christopher knew he had to say something else to rebalance the room. “So, who’d you have in mind to take my job?”

“Your job?” Garber said. “Well, for a future chief librarian, I’ve heard Max Hubbard has impressive credentials.”

“Pity he’s a queer, though,” Christopher said. “And that nasty business about how he left the church. I agree he would be ideal, but if the donors ever learned about it, it would be a scandal.”

This time it was Garber who took a long pause. He considered telling Christopher that he himself was gay, considered admonishing him for his dated language. But showing offense was showing weakness, and there was no room for that in this first meeting. “What’s this about the church?”

“You don’t know?”

“Pretend I don’t.”

“He had a parish here in town. As well as being a well-known scholar, he led a congregation. He was popular. Busy church. Brought in a lot of donations. And he was caught stealing fifty thousand dollars.”

“Fifty thousand dollars?” Garber said. “What the hell is he doing working for us?”

“Well, he’s a talented books man, Mr. Garber. That can’t be understated. And as it turned out, the fifty thousand dollars was to pay off a parishioner who had learned that the beloved father was a flamer and was blackmailing him. Ugly business.”

“And the church learned of this?” Garber shook his head. “Of the blackmail, I mean?”

Christopher interrupted to answer the incomplete question. “They didn’t press charges. Against either party. Max was asked to quietly give up the collar. In the end, they cared more about the queer thing than the money thing.”

“And you gave him a position?”

“Yes! A great books man was available.”

“Is it common knowledge that…”

“That a thief was invited to work with our precious collections? He’s a great books man, but some things, to some people, would be unforgivable. The only way to keep Max’s secret safe is to keep his name out of the press, and the only way to do that is to keep Max exactly where he is. Wouldn’t you agree?”





17


Liesl stood at one of the tall, dusty windows that lined the south side of Christopher’s office and watched the two old men in charcoal suits on the stairs outside exhibit the copulatory behavior of the educated upper classes vis-à-vis compliments on each other’s wristwatches and marathon times. Their pointless patter snuck in through the slightly open window, and she braced herself for a tiresome meeting.

Liesl gave up a morning of solitary anxiety about the loss of one precious text via theft and the capture of another via auction when an early-morning email from President Garber summoned her to her office at exactly nine without further explanation. She had taken this to mean it would be a morning of public anxiety.

At nine exactly, having exhausted all their compliments and other formalities while still outdoors, the suits had made their way to her office door. Punctual.

“I’d like you to meet Professor Langdon Sibley,” Garber said.

“Call me Sib,” the man said. “I hear ‘Langdon,’ and I start looking for my father.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Sib,” Liesl said. “Welcome to our library.”

Garber was grinning from ear to ear.

“Heard of each other?” he said. “Brilliant. Shared friends?”

“Not that I know of,” Liesl said. “Mr. Sibley’s reputation precedes him.”

“A famous librarian?” Garber said. “Brilliant.”

“Not at all,” Sibley said. “I’ve sat on some committees, authored some papers. Nothing more.”

“Of course,” Garber said. “You’ll have heard then, Liesl, that Sib was planning on moving on from his role in Boston.”

“I hadn’t,” Liesl said. “I’m sure they’ll be sorry to lose you.”

“They’ll never replace him,” Garber said. “Sib’s is the name I hear most when I ask about great libraries. He was considering the private sector for his next stage.” The dollar-bill sound of private sector hung in the air.

“Nothing’s decided,” Sibley said. “And President Garber was kind enough to invite me for a tour of your beautiful campus.”

“That was kind of him,” Liesl said. “Did you know Christopher?”

“Socially, of course. He once sent me a John Grisham paperback for my birthday. As a kind of joke.”

Garber’s smile was so wide. He didn’t get the joke at all.

“You have plans to write, Liesl? About gardens?”

“About gardening books,” Liesl said. “A study of knowledge sharing about plant cultivation.”

“Very interesting,” Sibley said. “My wife is a great horticulturalist; she’d find that fascinating.”

“Your wife,” Liesl said. “Is she an academic too?”