Codex

“Die,” he said under his breath. “Die, you little fucker.”

  After a while he got bored of trying to drown himself. It was getting darker. He swam over to the base of the one remaining tower and clambered up onto it. Very far away, almost indistinguishable now from the shoreline, he watched the sailboat recede into the distance. There was writing on the stern, illegible now, though he thought it might have said MOMUS.

  A GARBAGE TRUCK was blocking the Wents’ narrow street, so the cab let him off around the corner from their apartment. A hard-faced woman was selling tattered back issues of Penthouse and Oui, sun-faded and water-damaged, spread out on a card table. The heat was brutal—the city was a cement oven. Sunlight flashed painfully off apartment windows and the side mirrors of cars; even the sidewalk was too bright to look at. He walked straight in past the doorman without even looking at him.

  The doorman called out after him halfheartedly, “In you go!”

  After the glare outside Edward was practically blind in the gloom of the lobby, and he barked his shin on a coffee table. The air smelled like leather and potpourri. He picked his way through the darkness toward the elevators and fished the tube key Laura had given him out of his pocket. It fit easily into a circular socket next to the button for the seventeenth floor. The doors rumbled shut.

  Edward hoped nobody would be home, that he could slip upstairs without having to talk to anybody. His shin ached. An elderly Chasidic man got on at nine, reeking of sweat under his black coat, and got off at ten. As he approached the twenty-third floor Edward had a strange premonition that the doors would open onto nothingness, or a blank wall, or a sheer drop, but when he arrived there was only the mirrored anteroom, exactly as before, with the cleaning woman vigorously vacuuming the oriental rug in the front room.

  Laura was nowhere in sight. He walked through the front room and down the elegant, empty white hall with its ghostly missing pictures until he found the closet with the spiral staircase. The sound of the vacuum dwindled behind him. His shoes rang lightly on the metal stairs. This time the door at the top of the stairs opened easily, and he closed it firmly behind him. Walking into the library was like slipping into a movie theater on a summer afternoon—the same dark coolness, the same air of hushed anticipation. He took a deep breath. The air was chilled and musty, but it felt like a damp towel on his aching forehead.

  Under the circumstances the prospect of a long afternoon of quiet, industrious, relatively brainless work seemed incredibly pleasant. He walked through the long room to the table, slowly, enjoying the silence and the solitude. Everything was exactly where he’d left it. The large leather volume from the day before was still lying out on the table, dark and sober as a gravestone. He turned on the laptop and strolled over to the open crate while it booted up. The heavy curtains hung open just a sliver, sending a single line of light along the wood floor.

  Edward lifted out a short stack of tightly wrapped books from off the top and carried them back to the table. He opened the first one, a small, thin volume bound in gray-green leather with gold trim. A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, by Laurence Sterne. The leather was so soft and crumbly it left smudges on his fingers. It was a tiny, delicate thing, barely a hundred pages long. He opened it just as far as the frontispiece. It was printed in 1791.

  He unwrapped the rest of them, throwing the paper on the floor as he went. The Complaint; or Night Thoughts, and the Force of Religion. A Victorian-era account of the excavation of a frozen mammoth, full of gorgeous illustrations and bound together with a contemporary treatise on meteorites. Le sofa, a prerevolutionary French novel with pink paper covers, turned out to be a pornographic account—with strong revolutionary subtext—of the sex lives of the French aristocracy, written from the point of view of a piece of sentient furniture. An unidentifiable bundle of crumbling old papers tied together with a black ribbon: early American religious broadsides. A mottled, cheap-looking edition of Joyce’s Pomes Penyeach.

  Edward opened the binder with the instructions in it and followed them as best he could. He counted the unnumbered extra pages at the front and back of each volume. He measured each book in centimeters. With his fingertips he gauged the sharpness of the corners, and he tsked over foxing and broken spines. He counted pictures and illustrations and looked up any ornaments in a big book that listed the more popular ones, along with the names and dates of the printers who invented them. He copied out any marks or inscriptions—the endpaper in the Sterne was covered in arithmetic, written in fountain pen ink gone sepia with age. He spent a long time deciphering a signature on Pomes Penyeach. It turned out to have belonged to Anita Loos.

  For each book he tapped an entry into the laptop—the cataloging software had a separate field for each piece of information. Nobody came up from the apartment below to bother him. It was cold in the library, but the old sweater he’d brought kept him warm and kept the dust off his clothes. As he worked his headache gradually faded. The traffic on Madison was so far away that it registered as nothing more than oceanic white noise, a seashell roar punctuated by the occasional musical honk.

  He went back for another stack of books: a three-volume English legal treatise; a travel guide to Tuscany from the ’20s crammed with faded Italian wildflowers that fluttered out from between the pages like moths; a French edition of Turgeniev so decayed that it came apart in his hands; a register of London society from 1863. In a way it was idiotic. He was treating these books like they were holy relics. It wasn’t like he would ever actually read them. But there was something magnetic about them, something that compelled respect, even the silly ones, like the Enlightenment treatise about how lightning was caused by bees. They were information, data, but not in the form he was used to dealing with it. They were non-digital, nonelectrical chunks of memory, not stamped out of silicon but laboriously crafted out of wood pulp and ink, leather and glue. Somebody had cared enough to write these things; somebody else had cared enough to buy them, possibly even read them, at the very least keep them safe for 150 years, sometimes longer, when they could have vanished at the touch of a spark. That made them worth something, didn’t it, just by itself? Though most of them would have bored him rigid the second he cracked them open, which there wasn’t much chance of. Maybe that was what he found so appealing: the sight of so many books that he’d never have to read, so much work he’d never have to do. When was the last time he’d actually finished a book? A real, non-detective book?

  A moist and pungent smell billowed softly out from each volume as he opened it. The catalog in the computer lengthened, entry by entry, and he lost track of time. Most of the books were from England, but there were a fair number from America and the Continent, and a few from even farther away. Some of the German books were printed in spidery Gothic black letter which took him twice as long to decipher; books in Cyrillic or Arabic he just set aside as lost causes. A printed card slipped out of a book of Bengali poetry. He retrieved it from off the floor: It said “With the Compliments of the Author,” above a florid, illegible signature.

  When the thin thread of light from the window reached the tabletop, he checked his watch and saw that it was almost six. He stood up and stretched, his spine popping deliciously. The long table was two-thirds covered with even, orderly stacks of old books, and the floor was littered with huge rafts of wrapping paper. He felt gloriously virtuous, like a medieval monk who had finished his daily penance and could retire to the abbey for a beer and some artisanal cheese.

  There was still that book that Laura mentioned, by somebody from somewhere. He had it written down: Gervase of Langford. Just for extra credit he ran a search of the entries he’d already created, but it wasn’t there. He looked over at the dark shapes of all the other crates still waiting to be opened and wondered if he’d even get that far before he went to England.

  There were some reference books in the shelves along the wall, and he walked over for a look. They ranged from xeroxed chapbooks to cheap paperbacks to sturdy volumes to mas
sive ten- and twenty-book catalogs, each volume so fat the binding sagged under its own weight. It was highly technical stuff: Repertorium Bibliographicum, Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, Incunabula in American Libraries, Eighteenth Century Short-Title Catalogue, English Restoration Bookbindings. Well, he’d never been scared of a little research. He took down a single large, authoritative-looking book entitled A Catalogue of English Books Before 1501.

  It turned out to be nothing more than a collection of cardcatalog cards from different libraries, all painstakingly photographed in black and white and laid out in alphabetical order, row upon row, page after tissue-thin page, tens of thousands of them. He cleared a space on the table under the lamp and opened it up. It took a minute to find him, but there he was, right in between Gervase of Canterbury (d. 1205) and Gervase of Tilbury (ca. 1160–ca. 1211): Gervase of Langford (ca. 1338–ca. 1374). There were three cards under his name, two of them for different versions of what looked like the same book, Chronicum Anglicanum (London, 1363 and 1366). The third was called Les contes merveilleux (London, 1359).

  Down at the bottom of each of the cards was a string of two-and three-letter abbreviations indicating the libraries that held copies of the books. The key to the abbreviations was in a long appendix at the back; a little flipping back and forth told him that the Chronicum Anglicanum was in libraries in New York, Texas, and England. The New York copy was in something called the Chenoweth Rare Book and Manuscript Repository. He wrote down the name, shut down the computer, and picked up his things. Checking around to make sure everything looked shipshape, he snapped off the desk lamp on his way to the stairs.

  Downstairs, the hallway was flooded with an early evening light that turned the stark white walls a soft candy pink. The windows had all been thrown open, and a delicate, cooling breeze moved through the empty rooms. Earlier on he’d wanted to avoid people, but now, after his long afternoon of silent work, he was in a gregarious mood. He almost hoped he’d run into Laura Crowlyk. He wondered again if she lived here, if she ate her meals here and slept here at night. On his way back to the elevator he glanced through a half-open door and discovered a small, cluttered office. The walls, the floor, the tops of cabinets, even the windowsill were stacked high with manila folders, bundles of paper, black three-ring binders, bursting Redwelds tied shut with string, as if some gigantic paper-loving bird were lining its nest. It was odd to see an office with no computer in it.

  Edward hesitated a second, then stepped inside. No time like the present. He picked up the phone and called Information for the number of the Chenoweth Rare Book and Manuscript Repository. Would it still be open? The man who picked up transferred him unceremoniously to another department where he was put on hold. While he waited, Edward browsed the papers spread out on the desk: insurance forms, letters, some kind of legal wrangle about contractors buffing the floors. There were flimsy pink carbon copies of invoices for some computer work, made out to an Alberto Hidalgo.

  A woman answered.

  “Privileges.”

  Edward explained that he was looking for Gervase of Langford.

  “Book or manuscript?” she asked curtly.

  “Book.” What else could it be?

  “Are you affiliated with an institution?”

  “I’m with the Went Collection,” he improvised.

  There was a muffled exchange with somebody else in the room, then the woman was back:

  “Are you a member of the Went family?” she asked.

  “I’m an employee.”

  Something in his peripheral vision caught Edward’s attention: Laura Crowlyk was standing in the doorway watching him. He did a classic guilty double take. He wrapped things up with the library.

  “You’ll need to register when you arrive,” the woman warned him, “so bring photo ID and proof of address.”

  “Gotcha.”

  They hung up. There was a moment of silence while Laura Crowlyk looked him up and down, taking in his baggy, dirty sweater and his stubbly face. Edward felt he had made a faux pas.

  “Finished?” she asked.

  “I wanted to call them before they closed for the day. Sorry. I couldn’t find you.” He’d used that excuse once already, he realized.

  “I haven’t been hiding.” Laura stepped into the room and began pointedly clearing off the desk, putting the papers away out of sight. Edward picked up his bag to leave.

  “Don’t forget to record your expenses at the Chenoweth,” she said. “They’ll charge a fee when you register. It’s quite expensive. And bring pencil and paper, if you plan to take notes. You can’t take pens into the Reading Room.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “Oh yes, once or twice. But I can’t imagine what they have that would interest you.”

  “I thought I’d do some research on Gervase of Langford.”

  At this she smiled, showing lots of prominent white teeth.

  “Ah.”

  “Speaking of whom,” he said, “I haven’t found anything upstairs yet.”

  “I’m sure he’ll turn up.”

  “What else can you tell me about him? I’m not sure I really know what I’m looking for.”

  She shrugged.

  “I think you’ll know him when you see him.”

  “I hope so.”

  He had the distinct feeling that she was waiting for him to go. Therefore, perversely, he tried to keep the conversation going as long as possible.

  “You may be underestimating my ignorance.”

  “Yes, well I don’t know why she didn’t ask for somebody more qualified to take care of this,” she said irritably. “Myself, for example. But that’s the Duchess for you all over.”

  “The Duchess?”

  “Yes, the Duchess.”

  She sighed, settling her hair absentmindedly, and bent down to open a desk drawer full of hanging files. Was that the barest trace of whisky on her breath?

  “All right. If it’s clues you’re looking for, look at this.” She lifted out a typewritten letter and copied out something from it onto a yellow sticky.

  “Here’s the title—this is the name of the book they’re looking for.”

  “Uh-huh.” Her handwriting was neat and refined, no doubt the product of some inconceivably exclusive boarding school. It read: A Viage to the Contree of the Cimmerians.

  He nodded sagely as he scanned it, as if the words meant something to him.

  “Do you mind if I ask you why we’re looking for it?”

  She regarded him with unnervingly pale, slate-colored eyes.

  “Because the Duchess asked for it.”

  The molten orange sun was almost down over the edge of New Jersey. He was suddenly very conscious that they were alone together in an empty apartment.

  “This project is her idea,” she went on, “in case you hadn’t gathered that. You’re her idea, too—you Esslin & Hart people. Whatever it is you did with her finances—don’t tell me, thanks, not interested—you all seem to have made quite an impression on her, you in particular. I sometimes wonder if we aren’t all her idea, in some complicated metaphysical way. Her world seems somehow more substantial than ours.

  “As for the book, I suppose it would be valuable, though how valuable is beyond me. Apart from that, I couldn’t say why we’re looking for it, just that she was extremely insistent that we do so. It is a little unusual. It’s not often that I hear from her directly. This is a fairly remote outpost of her empire—the American Embassy, we call it.”

  Her irony had a trace of bitterness in it. He wondered if she wasn’t a little lonely.

  “You do know about the Duchess, don’t you?” she went on.

  “Well,” said Edward, with calculated vagueness, “I do and I don’t.”

  “Well, you’d better learn, if you’re going to work for her.” She seemed less severe now, more collegial, now that she was talking about the Wents. “Blanche and I were at school together. They advanced us both a year ahead of schedule. I sometimes thin
k it was a mistake for her. She was brilliant, certainly, but she had a difficult time. Hers is a very old family—nobody knows them here in America, but in England everybody wanted to get at her. It had an...effect on her. Made her very shy and untrustful of some people, and maybe too trustful of others.” She glanced at Edward. “It’s a cliché, but she really has led a very sheltered life.

  “As for Peter, I’ve only met him a few times, at the wedding and then later. They’re very reclusive now. They live on an estate in the north of England, and they hardly ever leave it. It’s enormous—they bought up the land all around it for miles, though it’s mostly fairly wild. Deer park.”

  Next thing you know she’d be telling him about the ancient family curse that haunted them to this day whenever the moon was full. Edward stifled a smile. It all sounded so unreal—like the clumsy exposition in a cheap horror movie. Edward remembered a guy he’d known in college who was supposed to be an aristocrat. He was Swedish and very tall, and people said he was a baron. They were in a Chinese history class together, but the baron never said a word the entire semester. He spent all his time in the basement of his dorm playing pinball and pining—Edward supposed—for his faraway fjords.

  “So you’ve met the Duke?” Edward prompted her.

  “Of course I’ve met him,” she said. “They’re both very kind people. Very kind. I understand he isn’t well these days—keeps to his bed, mostly. It’s hard for Blanche. She’s a good deal younger than he is, you know.”

  “Oh,” Edward said. “Is she?”

  “Yes, she is.” All at once she closed up again. She whisked away the paper, shut the desk drawer and stood up. “But don’t get any ideas. You’ll never even meet her.”

  Edward blinked.

  “I can assure you,” he said with complete honesty, “that my brain is completely devoid of any ideas whatsoever.”

  “Good.” She continued shuffling her papers. “Let me be frank. I don’t like this city, and I don’t like this godforsaken country, and I don’t like you. But if you are successful, if you find the Gervase, the Duchess might just see fit to bring me back to England, and there is nothing, nothing in this life, that would make me happier. As far as this enterprise goes, I’ll help you however I can. Beyond that I wash my hands of you. Is that understood?”