She moved her cushion closer to him. He read.
The hand was unfamiliar; the letter, written in Latin, dated April 17, 1665.
To Thomas Farrow,
Being the recipient of two of your letters, I am compelled to offer a reply. Your intelligence is sound I am sure, but you err in thinking I will rush into discourse concerning such propositions and proofs as you contemplate.
I am not of a mind to engage in disputation with persons unknown to me. Nonetheless I feel compelled to warn you that your arguments are dangerous in nature. I do not entertain such notions as you suggest, nor do I welcome further correspondence.
Faithfully,
F. van den Enden
“Who’s Thomas Farrow?” said Aaron. “And why does Van den Enden sound familiar?”
“No idea about Farrow,” said Helen. “But Van den Enden is a name you surely once memorized for an exam. He was a former Jesuit and a convener of radical circles in Amsterdam—he tutored Spinoza and was one of Spinoza’s influences. Van den Enden was known mostly for his political theories, and in the end got himself executed for conspiring against Louis XIV. I’ve no idea, though, what he might be responding to here. Nor do I have any idea what this letter is doing with Aleph’s papers. Perhaps Farrow or Van den Enden had some connection to the rabbi, or to whoever put the papers in the stairwell in Richmond. Or who knows—perhaps someone entirely unrelated threw this letter into the Richmond cache at a later time.” She wrote the two names deliberately on her notepad. It took her a long time to shape the letters: Thomas Farrow. Franciscus van den Enden. “I can go over to the archives tomorrow,” she said, “and start a records search on Farrow.”
For a moment Aaron worked his neck in a circle, thinking. “I still can’t get used to the notion,” he murmured, “that you Londoners can just do a search for records of some nobody who lived in the seventeenth century. A paper trail for everyone going back into the mists of time.” He slid the cushion and its document away. “Sometimes I wonder how you people breathe in this country.”
She pulled the cushion back toward her protectively. “What’s wrong with having good records? Historians thrive on records.”
“No offense, it’s just that the English are pinned under the microscope from the moment they’re born. Everyone knows about their heredity. Their lineage.”
Helen responded with a small sniff and turned back to the document.
Had he sworn to stay out of dangerous territory with Helen Watt? Fuck it. “We,” he dimpled at her, “don’t give a rat’s ass about lineage.”
“Yes,” she said thoughtfully, pencil in hand. “It’s one of a very finite number of things I’ve always respected about America.”
He straightened. “See that?” he said.
“See what?”
“You English can’t give a compliment. Not a real one. You don’t know how to do it.”
She turned fully in her seat to face him. “And how, Mr. Levy, do you suggest I compliment you? Please. I’d like precise instructions.”
He leaned back in his chair. “I like you,” he enunciated.
She looked at him over the rims of her glasses, her eyebrows arched. He almost laughed at the perfect pose of English discomfiture, but held back.
“Go ahead,” he said. “I dare you.” He exaggerated each word now, as though teaching elocution to a foreigner. “I like you, Aaron Levy—you’re a decent human being after all.”
Her mouth had shut. She opened it, after a time, to say only, “You’re a bigger fool than I’d thought.”
“That was close,” he said. “We’ll try again some time, okay? Don’t feel bad, you almost got it.”
When she was busy with her work again, he turned to his laptop once more. Let Helen go to the archives, he thought. He opened his browser and typed in the name.
A hundred Thomas Farrows lit his screen. A Canadian politician. An obituary in a Florida newspaper. He narrowed the search to the seventeenth century. The yield this time, once he’d weeded out the junk, was one solitary link. A graduate student in Michigan named Brendan Godwin was writing a dissertation on a Thomas Farrow, circa 1622–1667. Godwin had delivered a paper at a conference three years prior; presumably he, like Aaron, was still laboring away to produce his masterwork. Godwin, according to the précis listed on the conference’s outdated website, was arguing that Farrow was an overlooked voice in seventeenth-century thought, a man of slim but prescient output.
Potentially interesting, assuming this was the same Thomas Farrow. Certainly the fellow wasn’t getting a friendly reception from Van den Enden. Aaron made a note to find Godwin’s address and e-mail him later; he’d do it outside the rare manuscripts room, where clicking away at a keyboard wasn’t risky.
Across the room, Wilton’s team entered. They settled together at the table farthest from Helen and Aaron, silently positioning themselves so that eye contact with Helen and Aaron was impossible—all but the woman postgraduate, who was the last to the table and took the seat at the end. Aaron caught her eye as she lowered herself into the chair, and she turned away guiltily.
Immediately, Patricia was at their table. As Aaron discreetly tucked away his laptop, he saw why she’d come. Without seeming to look up, Helen indicated the two cushions she wanted to keep on the desk. Within seconds, the evidence of Patricia’s favoritism was gone, and Patricia was back at her desk.
The document that remained in front of Aaron was the letter addressed to Thomas Farrow. On the cushion before Helen was a page Aaron hadn’t seen.
It was a simple page, written in the familiar flowing hand. A roster of expenses and debts—again, there seemed to be no income from students. Near the bottom, though, was something that had not appeared on any of the other household accounts. There was the usual letter aleph signed by the scribe . . . but trailing down from it vertically was a signature, done not in a flowing hand but in separated Hebrew letters, as though the writer were daring the world to miss this slim path of markings leading toward the bottom of the page. Aleph samech taph reish.
And then, beneath that, written horizontally in small Roman letters: Ester Velasquez.
“That’s her,” Helen whispered. “That’s her.” And a look settled on her face, one Aaron did not understand: a look laden with regret and sympathy, as one might wear to a reunion with a friend one has wronged terribly, and from whom one does not expect forgiveness.
“Ester.” Aaron tried out the name.
Beneath Ester’s name, signed with a small flourish by the same hand, was another.
Thos. Farrow.
Let there be one place where I exist unsundered. This page.
Beneath that line, a list of three names, the first two with tick-marks next to them.
Van den Enden
Hobbes
de Spinoza
Helen turned from the page to Aaron.
“Thomas Farrow,” he said, “might or might not be a minor philosopher who corresponded with some of the greats. There’s a grad student in the U.S. who thinks Farrow’s been shorted by history.” His heart was beating foolishly. “Do you think it’s possible—”
He didn’t want to finish the sentence.
Helen was silent a minute. Then she nodded.
Together, as though they’d choreographed it, they looked over at Wilton’s table. For the moment, at least, this document was theirs.
Aaron took out a pad and paper, and began writing swiftly. Helen saw that he was transcribing the page before them, laying out each letter identically on his notepad.
When he’d finished, he set down the pencil and closed his eyes. Then he reached, blind, toward the cushion, and felt for the document with both hands.
She started forward in her seat. “What—”