The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections(9)

Liesl found that she had knit her hands together and was clenching them tightly. She dropped them to her sides. “We had it out just yesterday.”

“For donors,” he said. “It was an extraordinary circumstance, you’ll admit.”

“Of course it was an extraordinary circumstance,” Liesl said. She immediately wished she hadn’t conceded this point, even though it was an obvious one.

“President Garber himself requested it,” he said.

“Well, no,” Liesl said. “I did. As I am again today.”

Francis looked up from his catalog. “Come on, Dan,” he said. “Quit being lazy and giving Liesl a hard time. Just fetch the Peshawar if she says she needs the Peshawar. She’s Christopher’s proxy now.”

“The white-collar man accusing the working man of laziness. What a cliché.”

Liesl cut in.

“Francis didn’t mean that.”

“I bloody well did,” Francis mumbled into the catalog.

“Francis, can you tell me of a single time Christopher pulled the Peshawar out for researchers?” Dan asked. “We had the thing photographed for a reason.”

Liesl looked over at Francis, waiting for him to take her side even if it was just to prove Dan wrong. She waited and waited until the prolonged silence became uncomfortable for all parties. Help wasn’t coming. Dan put his headphones back on, pushed the sleeves of his plaid shirt higher up his forearms, and looked at his computer screen.

Liesl was in an impossible position. She would look like a fool and an amateur in front of Rhonda Washington, who had been promised a visit with the Peshawar, or she would look like a fool and an amateur in front of a workroom of her staff who all knew of Christopher’s policy that she was trying to violate. She needed the staff to respect her. She could handle Rhonda by email.

“The photographs are very good,” Francis called as she walked away.

“Are they? I’ll let her know.”

“I’ll get Dan to pull up the prints so she doesn’t have to work at a screen.” He had followed her out of the workroom.

“That’s thoughtful of you.”

“It’s just so fragile, you know,” he said.

She nodded. “I’m happy to defer to your expertise. I’m sure the photos will be fine.”

They were huddled in the hallway now, out of earshot of the others.

“They’re better than fine,” Francis said.

“Is that what I’m meant to tell her?” Liesl asked.

“Yes. The photographs were made before that terrible binding. The mica sheets have caused the birch bark to darken.”

He was probably just placating her. “It did look quite dark to me yesterday.”

Francis nodded. “The photos were done before decades’ worth of deterioration. She’ll have a hell of an easier time.”

“You’ll take care of Dan then?” Liesl asked.

“As best I can,” Francis said. “Within the confines of the law.” He winked one of those impenetrable brown eyes at her, and for that moment she felt as though someone was on her side.

“Marie called me last night,” she said to Francis.

“I’m glad. I told her about the fuss with the safe. She had the combination then?”

Liesl tried not to think of the security implications of Christopher sharing the safe’s combination with anyone, even his wife.

“You told her?” she said. “You didn’t tell me you were speaking with her.”

“Keeping in touch. Seems right.”

“I guess.”

“So did she find it then? The combination?”

“Will you excuse me?” She left him without answering. When she returned to the office, she should have called Marie immediately, but her mind went to Rhonda instead. She had to email to call off the meeting or rearrange the terms of the meeting or somehow gently explain that the woman would have to do her work from photographs, yet that was easier than the long-overdue call to the wife at the sickbed.

The Plantin, she thought, could wait a few more minutes while she thought of the right thing to say. But the wife at the sickbed had other plans.

“Marie’s here to see you,” Dan said from the doorway of her office when she’d scarcely hit Send on her email to Rhonda.

“Thanks, Dan.” Liesl put her palms on her desktop to steady herself. “I’ll be right there.”

“No hard feelings?”

“Should there be?”

“No.”

“Well then.”

“Christopher was so particular.”

“And you owe him respect. But I’m owed it too.”

“So I should have ignored his policy?”

“So you should have come to see me if there was a question about policy. Instead of defying instructions with no comment at all.”

She went to meet Marie in the lobby and, unable to find words for comfort, words for apology, she greeted her with a hug. Then, with an arm around her, Liesl guided Marie into the office. She was surprised that Marie hadn’t just come to the back the way she would almost daily when Christopher was working. Her white hair looked whiter. Her small frame looked smaller. Liesl supposed that she wouldn’t have come on back either, being in Marie’s place.