She roused herself: her watch read twelve-forty. Her hunger was nearly intolerable, her innards protesting at increasing volume. She was due in Jonathan Martin’s office at two o’clock for what Penelope Babcock had referred to as the standard pre-retirement sendoff. Personally, Helen would have liked nothing more than to conclude her decades of service without Jonathan Martin’s fare-thee-well. But even at this late date, she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her or Aaron’s access to the documents for the remainder of the term. She’d go to Martin’s bloody patronizing sendoff, stopping first in her office to fortify herself with the crackers and soda water she kept there.
Her gloved finger juddering down the column of names, she scanned for HaCoen Mendes. And her finger stopped at a name that had no business being there.
Manuel HaLevy, of plague, July 6, 1665.
“Pardon me.” It was the archivist. Helen’s gaze swam upward. At length her eyes found him, haloed against the fluorescent bulbs. “It’s been brought to my attention,” he said—she noted he did not lower his voice to protect her privacy—“that your handling of the documents is inconsistent with our standards. I need to ask you to leave, and return when you’ve found someone to assist you in handling these records.”
She looked away from the blinding light, down at the inked pages before her. She nodded into the list of deaths.
On the steps to the street she withdrew her mobile from her bag with shaking hands and, with difficulty, dialed Aaron’s number. Ignoring the hesitant note in his greeting, she said, “I need you to check something for me.”
“I’m at home,” Aaron said.
It hadn’t occurred to her that he could be at home. “Why aren’t you at the manuscripts room?”
“I needed a day off.” There was something strange in his manner. He didn’t seem to care what she thought of his answer.
“I’ve just found a death record for Manuel HaLevy,” she said. “And it’s in the summer of 1665.”
He seemed to wake slowly to this information. “But they were married in 1666.”
“Yes,” she said. “Exactly. How long will it take you to get to the rare manuscripts room?”
There was a long silence.
What on earth was preventing Aaron Levy from jumping to the chase? It occurred to her to ask just what had happened to him the other day in her office. But she was familiar enough with her own shortcomings to guess that her words would be too blunt, likely to slam a door rather than open it.
Aaron, for his part, seemed to feel no obligation to fill the silence on the phone line.
Never mind: there was just enough time, if Helen omitted the stop at her office, to do it herself. “I’ll go to the rare manuscripts room and recheck Ester’s references to him,” she said. “Perhaps there’s some other detail there—something to differentiate the Manuel HaLevy she married from the one who died. I’ve a meeting with Martin at two o’clock. Can you meet me in my office at three?”
“All right.” He seemed to be processing information very slowly. “I can call Richmond Local Studies, to verify the marriage date.” Another long pause. “Do you think there might have been more than one Manuel HaLevy?”
“No,” she said. “Though we need to consider it a possibility. Also, the death record might be an error. One-fifth of the population of London died in that year. Surely mistakes happened.” Only she didn’t believe this was a mistake. She believed she and Aaron had gone wrong somewhere farther back up the trail.
She hardly was aware of getting into her car, driving, parking. In her absorption she noted only that the city seemed unaccountably miniaturized. She parked her car and locked it, and walked toward the library building with her head strangely abuzz, a smell like ammonia in her nostrils rendering her light and lofty.
Only when she’d entered the building, and the doors of the lift had enclosed her, did she note how her body was quaking. Not only her hands, this time, but her legs as well. She gripped the handrail, but it felt flimsy. The walls of the lift slid up and up around her, slow but unstoppable, then—abruptly—twisted as though readying to drop down on her for good. Standing was out of the question. Her knees hit the floor of the lift hard, and she let out a cry in a voice that wasn’t her own. She’d dropped her cane—it lay out of reach—and still the walls seemed to rise and turn, stretching dangerously. So swiftly did the world upend, with no time for appeal. The floor of the lift was her god, and she clung to it as though she might fall off, for although it was bearing her higher, she herself was sinking. She was aware vaguely that her need to use the loo couldn’t be delayed, and like a little girl she looked into the veil of dim air above her for permission. A warm stain and then cold, blooming on her skirt and stockings, leaking into her shoes.
The doors of the lift slid apart.
Ahead of her, in the amber light of the atrium, the student manning the security desk was intent on his computer screen.
The lift stood open.
She steadied the sole of one shoe on the floor, then the other. With her outstretched fingertips she found her cane. She reached into the infinity above her for the handrail, and grasped it. Slowly she stood, one shoe plashing in a small puddle of urine on the lift’s floor.
The student at the security desk looked up. For a moment he looked uncertainly at her. Then he turned back to his screen.
With shaking hands, she pulled her card from her wallet, presented it to him, and swept through the turnstile without looking to either side, not allowing herself to see whether or not he noticed the dark stains on her clothing. Stiffly she made her way into the rare manuscripts room, the fabric of her skirt and stockings soaked. She shut the door silently behind her, and walked as straight-backed as she could past the students bent over their work, to the circulation desk.
“Patricia,” she said.
Patricia Starling-Haight looked up. “Yes?” she said after a moment.
Helen closed her eyes. She stood mute before the desk, her head impossibly high.
Seconds passed. Then Patricia was standing beside her, her librarian’s voice a crisp whisper. “Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“No,” Helen said. “I need . . .” She gestured; she couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes. “To clean up. And . . .” She licked her cracked lips. “I believe I need something to eat.”
Only when she felt Patricia’s arm tuck securely under hers did Helen open her eyes, and let herself be led. Turning their backs to the reading room, Patricia Starling-Haight steered Helen swiftly out a wooden door behind her desk. The narrow hall they entered was congested with laden carts. A pale young woman sorting binders looked up curiously. “Is there a problem, Elizabeth?” Patricia snapped, and the woman’s face pinked as she returned to her appointed tasks. Patricia stopped them at a small cabinet, in which she rummaged a moment before pressing something to Helen’s hand: a nut bar. “Open it in here,” Patricia instructed, and guided Helen into a cavernous freight lift: a great, hollow, weather-beaten box. The doors closed on them.
With a soft, wordless sound, Helen handed the bar to Patricia, who unwrapped it briskly and put it back in Helen’s palm.
Helen ate. Patricia watched in silence as crumbs rained to the metal floor.
When she was able to speak, Helen said, “What time is it?”
“A quarter past one.”
“I have a meeting,” Helen managed, “at two o’clock.”
Patricia’s face was somewhere above Helen, hidden from view. “And precisely what,” she snapped, “do you find more important than minding your health?”
Helen straightened and looked into Patricia’s face. “My last meeting with Jonathan Martin before I retire,” she said.
Patricia’s expression darkened. But her hand, which had been hovering over a button for a lower floor, hesitated—then swept decisively upward. The lift lurched and began to rise.
In the enclosed space, Helen was aware of the odor of urine emanating from her, filling the lift. If it offended Patricia, though, she didn’t permit it to show.
“Where do you live?” Patricia said.
Helen told her the address.
“Give me the keys to your flat.”