“Marie called me last night,” she said to Francis.
“I’m glad. I told her about the fuss with the safe. She had the combination then?”
Liesl tried not to think of the security implications of Christopher sharing the safe’s combination with anyone, even his wife.
“You told her?” she said. “You didn’t tell me you were speaking with her.”
“Keeping in touch. Seems right.”
“I guess.”
“So did she find it then? The combination?”
“Will you excuse me?” She left him without answering. When she returned to the office, she should have called Marie immediately, but her mind went to Rhonda instead. She had to email to call off the meeting or rearrange the terms of the meeting or somehow gently explain that the woman would have to do her work from photographs, yet that was easier than the long-overdue call to the wife at the sickbed.
The Plantin, she thought, could wait a few more minutes while she thought of the right thing to say. But the wife at the sickbed had other plans.
“Marie’s here to see you,” Dan said from the doorway of her office when she’d scarcely hit Send on her email to Rhonda.
“Thanks, Dan.” Liesl put her palms on her desktop to steady herself. “I’ll be right there.”
“No hard feelings?”
“Should there be?”
“No.”
“Well then.”
“Christopher was so particular.”
“And you owe him respect. But I’m owed it too.”
“So I should have ignored his policy?”
“So you should have come to see me if there was a question about policy. Instead of defying instructions with no comment at all.”
She went to meet Marie in the lobby and, unable to find words for comfort, words for apology, she greeted her with a hug. Then, with an arm around her, Liesl guided Marie into the office. She was surprised that Marie hadn’t just come to the back the way she would almost daily when Christopher was working. Her white hair looked whiter. Her small frame looked smaller. Liesl supposed that she wouldn’t have come on back either, being in Marie’s place.
“I called you yesterday,” Marie said.
Liesl nodded. “I know. I’m sorry. It was an overwhelming day. Christopher’s shoes…”
“Don’t apologize. I should apologize.” Marie was looking around the familiar room. “You didn’t have what you needed to be successful.”
Liesl looked back at the tiny woman, wanted to hug her again.
“It’s hardly your fault, Marie.”
“I’m sorry all the same. If this created an embarrassment for you,” Marie said.
“You’ve had much more important matters to worry about,” Liesl said. “Tell me, how is he?”
“The same,” Marie said.
Liesl closed the door to the office. She thought the stale smell that bothered her so was probably giving Marie comfort. She was sorry now that she had reshelved Christopher’s volumes so quickly. Marie might have liked to know what he was working on, what he was reading.
“You do have the combination then?”
“Shall we try it right away?” Marie said.
“We can sit a bit if you like.”
“I should get back to the hospital.”
“I hate that I dragged you all the way down here.”
“You did no such thing. I came myself. I needed a bit of a break.”
“You could stay, and we could have lunch?”
“He might wake up.”
The way she said it, Liesl understood for the first time the severity. The truth.
That he would probably never wake up.
“Well,” Liesl said. “Let’s get you back to him then.”
Liesl crouched on the floor by the safe, ready to enter the combination as Marie read it to her. Marie reached into her handbag—brown, sensible—and retrieved a small datebook. “Are you ready?” she asked.
“Whenever you are.”
Liesl spun the dial right, then left, then right again, and when she got to the last digit, the safe gave an almost imperceptible click that indicated the right combination had been entered. Liesl closed her eyes with relief. She stood and jotted the numbers down on a pad before she could forget them. She’d have to change the combination. Marie was hardly a risk, but policy was policy, and having the numbers out there wasn’t secure. She lifted the handle with her foot and crouched back down to the safe.
“It’s empty. Marie. Marie, the safe is empty,” Liesl said.