The library was open. The staff had all arrived. Liesl walked out to the workroom. Dan was sitting at his desk wearing headphones plugged into the Discman and frowning. She tapped him on the shoulder and their dance—she attempting to exert authority and he rejecting it—began anew. He looked at her. He found the pause button. He pressed it. He took the headphones off and laid them neatly on the music player. Everyone in the workroom was watching.
“Good morning, Liesl,” he said. “Here to mingle with the commoners?”
“I need the Peshawar again this morning.”
“The Peshawar?”
Francis with his summer tan and his slicked-back hair was seated at the desk closest to Dan’s. He was pretending to read a bookseller’s catalog.
“I left a note on your desk this morning,” Liesl said.
“Right.”
“For you to bring up the Peshawar when you got in.”
“Right.”
“And you haven’t.”
“Right.”
Dan was the union representative for library workers. So if she fired him to exert some control or acquiesced to his bullying and burst into tears, there were sure to be consequences.
“Well, you’re in now. So I’m hoping you can fetch the Peshawar.”
“Christopher had a policy about pulling the Peshawar out for faculty,” he said. “It’s very fragile.”
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.