The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections
Eva Jurczyk
For Matty and Hank
1
From the first spin of the lock, she knew she wouldn’t be able to open the safe. What does a librarian know about safecracking? Standing in the office of the venerable Christopher Wolfe, in front of that safe, the combination to which was only stored inside Christopher’s broken brain, she began to stammer excuses. The university president himself stood over her as she spun the dial again and tried her old combination again and failed to open the safe again.
Before Christopher’s brain had set itself on fire, he had lacked a talent for details and had been reliant on Liesl to keep him to schedules and plans. Which was why, despite the fact that she was on sabbatical and had no official responsibilities at the library for a full year, she had called Christopher three weeks ago to remind him that the combination to the safe was scheduled to be changed. He was supposed to call her back once it was done and tell her the new code because it was prudent to make sure it was stored in more than one place. But Christopher and details being what they were, the call had never come.
Liesl wanted to suggest to Lawrence Garber, the university president in question, that perhaps the priceless object wasn’t in the safe at all so he would begin hunting around the office in panic rather than standing over her in panic, but she saw how that was unlikely to be helpful. He hovered; she spun the dial of the safe.
Christopher’s office smelled of cigars and vellum, and President Garber smelled of sweat and eucalyptus. She had been in this office hundreds of times but had never noticed the smell of cigars so acutely. Smoking in public buildings hadn’t been legal in decades. She had never chided Christopher for the state of his office and had never questioned his commitment to rules about things like smoking, but she thought that when he woke up and returned to work, she might need to have a gentle discussion with him about tidiness and the consequences of embers for priceless papers. Liesl hated a cluttered desk. If she had to work in here, as Garber had suggested she should, she would ask to have all of the scattered volumes reshelved to create some space.
Christopher had been the director of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections since the department had moved into its current building in 1969. He shook hands and bought lunches and poured Lagavulin and behaved in ways both atrocious and effective at soliciting millions of dollars of annual donations, both in cash and gifts in kind, to grow the library’s collection. The contents of the safe were his latest triumph. Or so they would confirm if they could get the thing open.
The valuable title had been courted, acquired, paid for, and delivered all in the weeks while Liesl had been at home working on her own book. There were rumblings that the university’s rivals in Boston wanted it and that the British Library wanted it, but when the day came, neither had bid, and Christopher had easily won the auction, competing against mid-tier schools who made half-hearted efforts at securing the prize for below-market value. At half a million dollars, it was a steal. A contact at Christie’s had grumbled about Christopher scaring off other bidders, but there was no proof of anything like that.
Christopher had scarcely had the opportunity to inspect his prize before disaster struck. The call to Liesl’s home, summoning the assistant director back to work and ending her sabbatical though it had barely begun, came late on a Sunday as she and her husband, John, were settling in with their port and weathered paperbacks for the evening. Lawrence Garber told her she was an angel, sent to maintain the appearance of order until Christopher regained consciousness, an angel who would keep the ship steadily on course. Liesl wasn’t fond of the mixture of biblical and nautical metaphors, but Garber had been an economist before becoming university president, so she was willing to overlook it. They had bigger problems than poorly deployed literary devices. The donors were arriving to see what their money had paid for, and Christopher had been the only one who knew the new combination.
The book inside the safe was a Plantin Polyglot Bible. Some of the money for its volumes had come from the library’s endowment, but most of the cost was covered by a group of donors who were gathering at the library that very afternoon to cup the balls of their new prize horse. The auction house, the shipping department, and several staff had confirmed the Bible’s arrival at the library. But before their insurer could add it to their policy and allow it to be placed on the shelf, it could only be in the very room where Liesl stood. Guidelines dictated that the uninsured book be secured in the safe in Christopher’s office, and presumably one of the last things Christopher had done before a blood vessel that carried oxygen to his brain had burst was to strictly adhere to guidelines.
During his forty years as director, Christopher had frequently forgotten to do important administrative tasks, and Liesl had no choice but to suppose that the period of restricted oxygen to the brain had somehow made him more responsible. She would have expected to find one of the volumes lying open on the desk where Christopher had been poring over its pages in awe, the others stacked up alongside. She suggested to President Garber that they call off the donor meeting.
President Garber planned to do no such thing. He marched around the office. He hadn’t yet removed his bicycle helmet or the reflective Velcro strips around his ankles that prevented his cuffs from entering the gears of his bike. While walking his laps, he would occasionally drop to a crouch and yank at the handle of the safe as though he could force it open with his 150-pound frame and sheer will. An economist, a university president. He had authored books, shaken hands with prime ministers and more than one member of the Saudi royal family. Liesl could see in his eyes that this was a problem he considered solvable. It was unclear to Liesl whether the cycling accessories were part of Garber’s imagined solution.
The book needed to be appraised for insurance, separate from the general collection, which is why it was in the safe in the first place. The donors would understand, would be impressed by the level of care with which the library was treating the new acquisition. Liesl suggested again that they call off the meeting and tell the donors the truth. They had already been briefed about Christopher’s stroke and knew that he would not be the one greeting them.
“We’ll show them the Plantin as soon as the safe is open, and until then, they know it’s secure,” she said.
President Garber was typing something into his phone. She thought he was acting on her suggestion, so she went on. “Everyone knows that these acquisitions take time, and think how nice it will be to pair the first viewing with good news about Christopher’s health as he’s recovering.”
Garber continued to type into his phone, and looking at him and waiting for a reply, Liesl could see his jaw clench. Presumably the tension of his jaw against the strap reminded him of the bicycle helmet, and he finally snapped it off.
“Just think,” she said. “With a little bit more time to plan? We could bring in a scholar to talk about the book’s importance.”
Garber looked up from his phone. He was not smiling. Liesl straightened some papers on Christopher’s desk. Garber put his phone in his pocket. Crossed his arms. Uncrossed them. “For God’s sake,” he said. “There are no circumstances under which we are canceling today’s meeting.”
“Why shouldn’t we? If it means time to get the book, time for Christopher to improve, time to plan a lecture?”