It made Liesl happy that the girl hadn’t worn black. John was appropriately attired, his teddy-bear air made serious in dark slacks and a charcoal sport coat, but not their daughter. Hannah smiled, a happy girl in an orange dress, when she saw her mother.
“We were waiting to meet you after you did your bit,” Hannah said. “Have you decided to make a break for it instead?”
Liesl wanted so much to hug her daughter. So she did.
“Just getting some air,” she said.
“Mom?” Hannah said from inside the hug. “Is everything okay?”
Before they could untangle, Francis poked his head around a corner, his hair even smoother and his eyes puffier than normal.
“They’re looking for you, Liesl,” he said. So she left her family behind.
Liesl was drinking water. She didn’t want to be red-mouthed or slow-tongued for her portion of the program. In the very first row of attendees, there was a Nobel Prize winner. She had her head tilted down, inspecting the program, every time Liesl glanced over at her, but Liesl was sure that any stumbles would be noticed and, even worse, would find their way into the woman’s fiction. In the row behind there were prominent local philanthropists. As well as handpicking the speakers, Christopher had left behind suggestions for the types of people he would like invited to a memorial service, should the university choose to host such an event in his honor.
“Many years ago when he was neither ill nor particularly old, I received in the mail a letter in which Christopher, ever the captain of his own ship, outlined the instructions for his memorial service,” Garber told the assembled mourners.
The line got a laugh, and Garber looked pleased about it. Liesl wondered if the use of that specific line, if that joke that was sure to draw a laugh because it called to mind just how controlling Christopher was, had itself been a part of the instructions. Her own portion of the program was a small one. Christopher hadn’t mentioned her by name in his instructions, but the poet that she would be introducing had been specifically requested. It was Garber who had suggested that Liesl should be involved in the event. Garber who thought always of continuity and the way things might appear to those who were paying attention.
The readings that Christopher had requested were from The Death of Ivan Ilych and The Brothers Karamazov. As if Christopher had been Russian. During the preparations, Liesl had joked that they should use the Auden poem “Funeral Blues” that Christopher thought was forever sullied through its use in a film. The suggestion had been received as appalling. Liesl quite liked Auden, quite liked the poem, quite liked the scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral when it had been read. No matter. The readings were from heavily bearded Russian novelists, just as Christopher had requested. A rhyming scheme is nice! Liesl wanted to yell from the podium.
“Beautiful service, wasn’t it, Liesl?” Percy asked afterward. “Very moving.”
“Yes,” she lied. She had hoped the umbrella would keep her concealed while she walked back to the library where the reception was being held. But Percy had found her.
“Did I hear old Chris designed the program himself?”
“You did.”
“Not a bad idea, that,” he said. “Maybe I’ll ask my assistant to do the same. The queen’s funeral is all planned and ready, did you know that?” He stayed on the sidewalk beside her.
He was not embarrassed to be comparing himself to the queen. As they walked, his umbrella bumped against hers, moving it over enough that the rain fell on the shoulder of her coat.
“I should go check on the catering,” she said when they arrived at the library. “Christopher left instructions for that too.”
Seeing that others had begun to arrive, he’d already lost interest in her, and she wandered off to leave her coat in her office. John and Hannah were waiting there for her.
“Hey, you,” Hannah said.
“Hope you don’t mind,” John said. “You seemed as though you might need some moral support.”
“The crowd is a bit much.” She hung her coat on the rack. The shoulder of her blouse was damp.
Hannah looked at her mother with her wide-open face and serious dark eyes, waiting to be asked to stay.
“How many are coming back to the library, Mom?”
“Only about a hundred, chickadee,” she said.
“Just the really fancy ones, huh?”
Liesl straightened her blouse.
“None as fancy as you.”
“Let us help,” John said. “No one does small talk quite like your daughter.”