Elisabeth Kostova - The Historian

“You are absolutely not going to do that,” I murmured. “Getting information about Rossi is my problem.”

“Getting information about Rossi is precisely my problem,” she muttered back. “Please do not think that I am doing you a favor, Mr. Dutch Merchants.”

I glanced sidelong at her. I was getting used to her harsh humor, I realized, and something about the curve of her cheek next to that long straight nose looked almost playful, amused. “All right. But I’ll be right behind him, and if you get into trouble I’ll be up there in a split second to help you.”

At the library doors we parted with a show of cordiality. “Good luck with your research, Mr. Dutch,” Helen said, shaking my hand in her gloved one.

“And you with yours, Miss -”

“Shh,” she said and walked off. I retreated into the card-catalog stands and pulled out a drawer at random to make myself look busy: “Ben-Hurto Benedictine.” With my head bent over it, I could still see the circulation desk; Helen was getting a permission slip to enter the stacks, her form tall and slim in the black coat, her back turned decisively on the long nave of the library. Then I saw the librarian creeping along the other side of the nave, keeping close to the other half of the card catalog. He had reached “H” by the time Helen moved toward the door of the stacks. I knew that door intimately, went through it almost daily, and never before had it yawned with meaning for me as it did now. It stayed propped open during the day, but a guard nearby checked entrance slips. In a moment, Helen’s dark figure had vanished up the iron stairs. The librarian lingered for a minute at “G,” then groped for something in his jacket pocket-he must have special library identification, I realized-flashed a card, and disappeared.

I hurried to the circulation desk. “I’d like to use the stacks, please,” I said to the woman on duty. I’d never seen her before-she was very slow-and it seemed to me her round little hands fumbled for an eternity with the yellow slips before she could give me one. At last I made it through the doorway and put a cautious foot on the stairway, looking up. On each floor you could see up one level through the metal steps, but no farther. No sign of the librarian above me, no sound.

I crept to the second floor, past economics and sociology. The third was deserted, too, except for a couple of students at their carrels. On the fourth floor I began to feel really worried. It was too quiet. I should never have let Helen use herself as bait on this mission. I suddenly remembered Rossi’s story about his friend Hedges, and it made me quicken my pace. The fifth floor-archaeology and anthropology-was full of students, undergraduates attending some kind of study group, comparing notes sotto voce. Their presence relieved me somewhat; nothing heinous could be going on just two floors above that. On the sixth floor I could hear footsteps above me, and on the seventh-history-I paused, unsure how to enter the stacks without giving my presence away.

At least I knew this floor well; it was my kingdom, and I could have told you the placement of every carrel and chair, every row of oversize books. At first, history seemed as still as the other floors, but after a moment I picked up muffled conversation from a corner of the stacks. I crept toward it, past Babylon and Assyria, treading as quietly as I could. Then I caught Helen’s voice. I was sure it was Helen’s, and then an unpleasant scraping voice that must be the librarian’s. My heart turned over. They were in the medieval section-I knew it well, now-and I got close enough to hear their words, although I couldn’t risk looking around the end of the next stack. They seemed to be on the other side of the shelves to my right. “Is that correct?” Helen was asking in a hostile tone.

The scraping little voice came again. “You have no right poking around in those books, young lady.”

“Those books? University property? Who are you to confiscate university library books?”

The librarian’s voice was angry and wheedling at the same time. “You don’t need to fool around with such books. They aren’t nice books for a young lady to be reading. Just turn them in today and nothing more will be said.”

“Why do you want them so badly?” Helen’s voice was firm and clear. “Does it have something to do with Professor Rossi, perhaps?”

Cowering behind English feudalism, I wasn’t sure whether to cringe or to cheer aloud. Whatever Helen thought of all this, she was at least intrigued. Apparently she did not consider me crazy. And she was willing to help me, if only to gather information about Rossi for her own ends.

“Professor-who? I don’t know what you mean,” the librarian snapped.

“Do you know where he is?” Helen asked sharply.

“Young lady, I have no idea what you’re talking about. But I need you to return those books, for which the library has other plans, or there will certainly be consequences for your academic career.”

“My career?” Helen scoffed. “I cannot possibly return those books just now. I have important work to do with them.”

“Then I will have to force you to return them. Where are they?” I heard a step, as if Helen had moved away. I was on the verge of swinging around the end of the stack and bringing a folio of Cistercian abbeys down on the nasty little weasel when Helen suddenly played a new card.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “If you can tell me something about Professor Rossi, maybe I could share with you a little -” She paused. “A little map I saw recently.”

My stomach dropped all seven stories at once. The map? What was Helen thinking? Why was she giving away such a vital piece of information? That map might be our most dangerous possession, if Rossi’s analysis of its meaning were true, and our most important one. My most dangerous possession, I corrected myself. Was Helen double-crossing me? I saw it in a flash: she wanted to use the map to get to Rossi first, complete his research, use me to learn all he had learned and passed on to me, publish, expose him-I didn’t have time for more than a fleeting revelation because the next moment the librarian let out a roar. “The map! You have Rossi’s map! I’ll kill you for that map!” A gasp from Helen, then a cry and a thump. “Put that down!” screamed the librarian.

My feet didn’t touch the ground until I was on top of him. His little head hit the floor with a thump that rattled my brains, too. Helen crouched next to me. She was very white but looked calm. She was holding up her twenty-five-cent silver crucifix from the church, keeping it trained on him as he fought and spat under me. The librarian was frail, and for a few minutes I could more or less pin him down-lucky for me, since I’d spent the last three years turning through brittle Dutch documents, not lifting weights. He flailed in my grasp, and I brought my knee down on his legs. “Rossi!” he shrieked. “It’s not fair! I should have gone instead-it was my turn! Give me the map! I waited so long-I did twenty years of research for this!” He began to sob, a pitiful, ugly sound. As his head jerked back and forth, I saw the double wound near the edge of his collar, two scabby thorn holes. I kept my hands as far away from it as I could.

“Where’s Rossi?” I growled. “Tell us this instant where he is-did you hurt him?” Helen held the little cross closer and he turned his face away, writhing under my knees. It was astounding to me, even at that moment, to see the effect of that symbol on the creature. Was this Hollywood, superstition, or history? I wondered how he’d been able to walk into the church-but there he had stayed far from the altar and chapels, I remembered, and had shrunk away even from the altar-guild lady.