“Liesl, wake up.” John came into the room smelling of shampoo. “You have to go to work.”
He was washed and dressed. Gray beard, blue eyes, white teeth. The man she was married to had once spent fifteen consecutive days in bed, and now he looked like an advertisement for a retirement home for active seniors; she was stupefied by how much she resented it. She calculated that she had thirty minutes longer to sleep. She turned her back to him.
“You’re in the newspaper. The library is.” He set a mug of coffee on her night table and then the newspaper on the opposite side of the bed so she could see the frowning photo of Miriam on the front page next to the cathedral of the library’s inner stacks.
She sat up.
The rare books library thought it was just unlucky earlier this year when a rare Plantin Polyglot Bible, printed between 1568 and 1572, went missing.
“The Plantin Polyglot Bible closes the most notable gap in our collection of post-1500 bibles,” said Maximilian Hubbard, a former Catholic priest and the library’s religion collections coordinator, when the book was acquired.
He had no idea that the book would soon go missing, alongside one of the institution’s librarians. Miriam Peters was reported missing two weeks ago. A source familiar with the case, speaking on background to reporters, said Peters is suspected of having made off with the Plantin Bible and at least one other work from the library’s vast and valuable collection.
“Who else has seen this?” Liesl asked John.
“Liesl. It’s the front page of the newspaper. We’re not in the boom days of journalism, but it’s the front page.”
“If we leave now, can we buy them all before anyone else is awake?”
“You didn’t tell me about Miriam.”
“Of course I did. I told you she was missing.”
“That she was missing. You didn’t tell me that you suspected her of the theft.”
“I don’t suspect her. But she is suspected.”
“Nice girl, that Miriam. I always assumed you quite liked her.”
“Do I stink? Can I run in now without a shower?”
“You need a shower. Would you like to do some breathing exercises?”
“I don’t think you understand what this news story means for me.”
“I understand precisely. But this is about more than your work. Miriam is someone you care about.”
Liesl threw the newspaper aside so she didn’t have to look at the familiar wounded expression on Miriam’s face as she contemplated what to do next.
Liesl felt nauseated with guilt; there was no way to tell John of his role in her quiet detachment from Miriam. Ashamed, embarrassed, disgusted with herself for looking the other direction when Miriam’s demeanor began to look too much like John’s and the weight of another John seemed too heavy.
“A coworker,” she said, her voice creaking.
“Your protégé, I thought.”
“I told you she was missing,” Liesl said.
“You told me half the story.”
In the early days of their marriage, the smell of toast in the kitchen meant John was up early to fix breakfast for her, and in the later days of their marriage it meant he couldn’t get out of bed and that Hannah had cooked dinner for herself after school. He had put two slices in the toaster before going outside to get the paper. They were forgotten now, gone cold and stale. But the smell of toast lingered when she rushed down to the kitchen with wet hair and her blouse unbuttoned.
“It’s going to look as though I leaked to the press.”
He looked at her like she was a stranger. “That’s your concern?”
“It’s one of them.”
He sat in a creaky chair at the creaky kitchen table. “Who cares what people think?”
She did not sit down beside him.
“Everyone—humans—care what people think,” she said.
“A young woman has disappeared!” he said. “And her reputation is being ruined. She is being called a thief while she can’t defend herself.”
“I know that. Of course I know it’s terrible.”
“Then why are you thinking only of yourself?” he said. “Are you still not telling me the truth? Is it that you suspect Miriam too?”
“Her disappearance is suspicious,” said Liesl. “Right as the thefts were discovered.”
John got out of his chair and walked to the toaster, taking the cold bread out and handing it to her on a napkin.
“You should eat something,” he said.