She wanted to give them privacy. To lock the doors before she said the words aloud so that no one was interrupted to go find a pencil sharpener as the grief—and there would certainly be grief—set in. Liesl pushed through her unmoored sensation, moving with plan and purpose toward that simple goal of privacy. When she returned to her office, it had already emptied. Dan had been there before her to herd Francis and Max. She made a simple sign to hang on the library door explaining the early closure. Should a student or faculty member or member of the public come by to use the library, they would hear the news before the staff did. When she walked back through the workroom with her sign, it was already empty. Dan was fast. She poked her head into the reading room, the one that was actually used for reading, and saw that it too was empty. That made it easier, no one to hustle out. She hung the sign on the door, flipped the lock, and headed downstairs to face the staff.
“Has something terrible happened?” Francis asked when she entered the room.
“Haven’t you been paying attention?” Max said.
“If you don’t think things can get worse,” Francis said, “it shows what a soft life you’ve lived.”
“In grade school they used to call me soft too,” Max said, hand immediately going to his collar as he spoke in his own defense. “But I didn’t have a human resources department to turn to in grade school.”
“My goodness, will you stop?” Liesl said.
“No, Liesl, please let them continue,” Dan said. “I love learning from those who outrank me.”
“That’s enough from everybody.”
“Go on then, Liesl. Tell us whatever it is you’ve brought us in here to tell us,” Francis said.
“We’re going to be closing early today.”
“Oh no,” Max said. “Christopher has a policy about that. If someone comes to use the library and you’re closed even a few minutes before your posted hours, they’ll never come back. They’ll feel as if they can’t count on you.”
“Is it Christopher?” Dan asked.
“We’ve had some news,” Liesl said. She almost gagged on the dread, the anxiety of having to be the one to tell them.
Anyone who had been standing sat down. Anyone who had been having a side conversation fell silent. They waited. Turned to her like sunflowers, their quiet faces open for the news that had long been coming. Above their heads, the panopticon of books, the building itself seemed to tense for the blow.
“Christopher passed away this morning.”
“Not really,” Francis said. He had been sitting in a chair, but slid out of it to sit on the floor. Dan moved toward him as if he had fallen, but Francis waved him away. Liesl briefly caught Dan’s eyes, gave a sad half smile, and looked away immediately to stem the unexpected wave of sadness that little bit of eye contact wrought. Ignoring the others, Max was pacing back and forth across the room. He walked to the bust of Shakespeare in the far corner, tapped the head, and then turned around and walked to the door before doing it all over again. Each time he came back to old Will he gave him another tap. With perfect posture he kept at it, back and forth across the room, drawing not a single look from the others until, satisfied with his penance, he dropped into a chair in the back of the room and slouched over to look at his feet. Liesl stared at the unlikely army, amazed at the consistency of their emotion, at how each of them was processing the news as a deep and personal loss.
“Should I go lock the doors?” Dan asked. “I can make a sign.”
“It’s already done,” Liesl said.
After a long silence they walked, one by one, back into the workroom. The old man with the ponytail, clutching an armful of film reels, stood in the center of the empty room, bewildered as to why he had been left all alone.
***
On the second Monday in November, it was raining. The sidewalks were slick with damp leaves. The navy flags with the school crest that hung from the pillars on Convocation Hall dangled limp and dripping. Liesl walked to the illustrious lecture hall under a giant black umbrella. A rumble of thunder in the distance promised more rain.
The steps of the hall were clustered with black umbrellas that covered smart black coats; the army of black-clad soldiers was reflected up to Liesl in the puddles, but the umbrellas hid their faces and hers, so she slid into the lecture hall without having to shake hands, without having to give or to accept condolences. Despite the rain, the crowds lingered outside.
Over the next thirty minutes, the wet mourners would filter in, occupying the creaking wood seats, filling the domed roof with their hushed conversation and their subtle perfume until, at exactly eleven o’clock, they would fall silent as a solo violin played a mournful Mahler piece to signal the start of the proceedings. The crowd, their wet coats hung over the backs of their chairs, their dripping umbrellas creating puddles at their feet, would be moved, or they would act as though they were, for here was the funeral of a great man, a literary man. The booksellers who had benefitted from his acquisition budget came, the writers who had donated their manuscript materials, the writers who hoped they might be important enough one day to be asked for theirs, they came too.