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.