Liesl nodded, made an effort to look convinced, but grieved for those pages and the tiny pieces of them that would be taken forever.
Others began to filter into the lab. No one wore a lab coat. Liesl wasn’t sure if they were supposed to. She never wore white gloves when handling books, and everyone assumed librarians did that, so maybe lab coats were one of those things. More for TV than for life.
She didn’t want to ask; it seemed like such a stupid question, the way the questions about the gloves always did. The girl asked if Liesl wanted to see the machine, and Rhonda looked delighted, as did the rest of the staff who were now in the lab. Liesl cared nothing for machines, but they all looked so pleased to show her that of course she agreed. She was led to another room, and there it was, the monstrosity of a thing. White cylinders of various sizes were linked together by silver pipes, but from every surface sprung wires and tubes. It was a science experiment that had been dreamed up by an eleven-year-old boy in his bedroom. They were looking at her, Rhonda and the rest of them, waiting to hear that she was impressed. She tried to think of something nice to say about the thing.
“There certainly are a lot of pieces,” Liesl finally said.
“There are a lot of steps required,” Rhonda said, “when it comes to revealing secrets.”
***
Liesl noticed Hannah’s haircut, half of her head buzzed nearly bald, before Hannah noticed Liesl outside the noodle shop. The half-bald head moved back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, as Hannah swiveled on her stool at the counter. It was strange that Hannah had a haircut that Liesl hadn’t known about. That she could have passed her daughter on the street and not known her.
When she came up behind Hannah, Liesl ran her hand over the buzzed side of her head, and Hannah turned to her with a big grin. When her daughter’s face came into view, Liesl nearly wept with relief; the sight of Hannah was always the best balm. They sat together, laughing for a minute at Liesl’s betrayal at being the last to know of such a big event in a young woman’s life as a haircut and Liesl recovering almost immediately from any hurt feeling she may have harbored.
Though Liesl wished they could talk only of haircuts and lunch dates and other whimsical things, they moved, of course, to sadder matters. Hannah asked about Miriam. A crowd of students, their denim coats covered in layers of scarves against the mean November, came into the noodle shop, bringing their noise and the cold in with them. They packed a table at the far end of the shop. John had told Hannah about Miriam. Liesl hadn’t wanted to speak about it. She still didn’t want to. Their noodle bowls arrived. Had Hannah cut her hair before or after the news about Miriam? Liesl wanted to ask but didn’t.
The steam smelled like chile and ginger. The students were having pitchers of Sapporo brought to their table. They poured it out in glasses and raised them in a toast; they were celebrating. Liesl was sweating, not unpleasantly, from the heat of the noodles.
“They’ve made it spicier, I think.”
“It’s been exactly the same since I was ten. Why won’t you answer me about Miriam? Have you seen Vivek?”
Liesl took a big mouthful of noodles, taking her time to chew.
“Have you ever seen a machine for carbon dating?”
“When would I have seen that?”
Another bite of noodles.
“You’re a student. You took sciences classes all through high school.”
“You think that radiocarbon dating is a standard part of a high-school science curriculum?”
The group of students toasted again, sloshing some beer on the table as they did.
“Maybe,” Liesl said. “We paid for that fancy private school that one year.”
They slurped and sweated over their bowls of noodles. The shop got darker, louder, more crowded. Liesl considered ordering herself a beer to cool the tingling of her tongue, but she knew that Hannah would notice. As they’d tended to John over the long years, Hannah had more than once pulled Liesl’s empty wine bottles out of the bin, called to attention that their numbers expanded when the family was in moments of tension. And Liesl could feel her counterargument boiling up; it never interfered with her life, it never rose to the point of a problem, it relaxed her, and she cut it back when she was less in need of relaxation. But then Hannah would point to the arguments, to the type of person who might have arguments about the level of their alcohol consumption always at the ready.
So Liesl sipped water. Hannah reached over into Liesl’s bowl with her chopsticks and plucked out a piece of pork belly. If John had done that, it would have made Liesl mad. When Hannah did it, it was charming. She didn’t like not knowing about what Hannah was doing, about her haircuts, about what the girl ate all week. She took another piece of pork belly out of her bowl and placed it in Hannah’s.
“I won’t say no,” Hannah said with a shrug.
Liesl leaned back from the table and dabbed at her hairline with a napkin. Hannah grinned at her mother, who had never had the same stomach for spice as her husband or daughter but who had always insisted she did. From across the restaurant, one of the students gave a laugh that was like a roar, fueled by belly and beer.
“Maybe you should study science,” Liesl said. “Seeing all of those women in the lab. Young women like you. You’d fit in there. They’d probably even like this haircut.”
Hannah had just crammed a tangle of noodles into her mouth and took a moment to slurp before responding.
“Those are serious scientists, Mom,” she said through half-chewed food. “It would take more than a haircut.”
“They’re young like you.” She wished Hannah wouldn’t talk with her mouth full.
“Okay,” she said. “But they are serious about science.”
Liesl took a deep drink of her water and signaled to her server for more. She drained the new glass as soon as it was poured.
The buzzing and laughter from the table of students meant she and Hannah had to raise their voices to hear each other.
“Do you know that all of the people in charge are women?” Liesl said.
“I didn’t,” Hannah said. “But that’s hardly unusual anymore.”
“The head of your department is a man,” Liesl said.
“That’s one example,” Hannah said. “And it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not a scientist.”
“Christopher is a man.”
“But you’re not,” Hannah said. “And you’re in charge. Doesn’t that disprove your point?”
“It might.”
“It might?”
“If I were really in charge,” Liesl said. “Then I agree it would disprove my point.”
“Mom,” Hannah said. “You know I’m not all of a sudden going to become a scientist just because you met some cool lady scientists. Right?”
Liesl thought of her daughter being made to feel unimportant. It made her stomach hurt.
“No,” Liesl said. “Of course not.”
“It’s nice that you were so inspired.”
The server dropped off the bill. Liesl hadn’t seen Hannah signal for it. Hannah’s bowl was empty, but Liesl wasn’t ready to go.
“More jealous than inspired, I think.”
“That’s fair,” Hannah said. “Though I always wondered what would have happened if you had put your name forward to be in a leadership position.”
“Didn’t I?”
“You kept your head down and did the work. It’s not the same.”
“I guess not,” Liesl said. She recognized the line of conversation from lectures she’d given Hannah through the years, about naming your goals and pushing toward them; an illusion dispelled for Liesl by the disappointments of participating in society for sixty years.
“You might have been the type of leader that you always said you wanted.”
Hannah wiped her mouth with a paper napkin and stood to leave.
“Thanks for the noodles, Mom.”