The most attractive and confident young people wore primary-colored stockings and thick sashes of bright veneer, their hair cut in swatches — this was the style, apparently. Leonard felt embarrassed in his flowered climbing suit: no one was wearing patterns! If only he’d stayed at home, but that had been out of the question.
When they arrived at the library — an immense structure built in the late Domestic Imperial style — Leonard’s heart was beating so fast his health meter gave a soft vibrating alarm. He steered his nephew to an engraved rockseat, where they sat.
I’m supposed to meet her here, Leonard said, pulling out jujuberries for Felix.
Who? Felix asked.
My true love, Leonard mumbled. How will I know it’s her? And why would she like me?
Felix’s eyes opened wide.
Here?
Leonard nodded.
Excellent! Felix said. Can I help? What does she look like?
I don’t know.
That makes it harder, Felix said.
Isaac said something about her drawing refreshment from a well.
Who’s Isaac?
I’ll tell you later.
This satisfied Felix, so Leonard practiced a five-second Pythagorean meditation that brought his heartbeat back to normal.
Okay, kiddo, he said. Let’s do it.
The Book Guide
Leonard’s Book Guide was Sally. She was his age, which is to say, about twenty-four and a half years old, and she wore her light brown hair on top of her head in a waterfall of curls and headbeads. She was lucky enough to have freckles, which she accentuated with freckledot makeup. Her clothes were old-fashioned — a combination of the heavy materials Leonard remembered from his last year of school, which is to say, when he was fifteen, and the neoclassical outfits Carol had worn at that age.
Sally shook Leonard’s hand and he felt electric sparks way past his elbow.
I will be your Book Guide, she said. Come this way that I may offer you some lemonade.
They followed, and Leonard liked the way she walked: it was as if all the air in the world belonged to her and made way when it saw her coming.
Pink, yellow, or green? she asked when they arrived at the serving station. She picked up a ladle, prepared to dip into one of three large wells.
Felix tugged at Leonard’s suit.
It’s her, he said.
I know, Leonard said.
Just looking
Do you find the lemonade refreshing? Sally asked.
Very, Leonard said.
Then finish it, please.
Leonard and Felix obliged, and she said, What shall be your destination today?
We don’t really know why we’re here, Leonard said. We’re just looking.
It will rather waste my time if I can’t guide you, Sally said.
I suppose we’d like to see whatever you find most interesting, Leonard said.
Sally’s face brightened.
I’ll take you to the Voynich manuscript! Check me out for three hours!
Leonard did, then Sally led them through the lobby with its vaulted ceilings and clerestory windows, through the din of the talking-books room, up a dark staircase into the silent scriptorium where pale undergraduates worked feather pens, down another staircase, through a hallway painted aqua and green, into a long, wide room containing many scholar tables. Sally stopped at one, retrieved a heavy leather clutchbag from a locked drawer, and on they walked till they reached a bubble-glass partition. We have to be absolutely invisible! she whispered, and blew on an antiquated breathreader. When the door opened, she pushed Leonard and Felix through ahead of her. More long hallways followed — and dark staircases, in which Leonard could now hear marching music.
That’s Peter, Sally said, no longer whispering. He works for me. When he’s on duty he pipes a military tattoo into the stairwells.
Leonard looked at her quizzically.
Don’t worry, she said. It’s a good thing.
I’m not worried, Leonard said, because already he trusted her, utterly and with his entire being, this woman who would be grandmother to his grandsons — and he wondered what he might give her, to show her his love. Milione had said women want only three things: wealth, position, and compliments. Well, Leonard had neither wealth nor position, not since he’d quit Neetsa Pizza. But he could offer compliments.
You guide very well, he said.
She ignored him.
They eventually passed through a wooden revolving door, marked with a sign that read Priceless Manuscripts, into a paneled room full of empty study tables. An old man peered at them from a curved desk that dominated the room.
That’s Peter, Sally said. I’ll vouch for you.
Thank you, Leonard said.
Peter said nothing, just handed them some antiseptic silk gloves and pressed a button, allowing them into a small room to the side.
The small room to the side
The room was small but opulent: stucco friezes of angels cavorting amid orchards framed the lower part of the walls; above waist level, the walls were painted with strange botanical specimens, huge plants with drooping buds, and roots that dug deep into the earth; the ceiling was adorned with gigantic gilt flames; and the floor was covered by a thick carpet of yellow, gold, and pink rosettes. Against the back wall was an elaborately carved blackwalnut wardrobe that looked like it belonged in the Leader’s domus. In the center of the room was a scholar’s table with four matching swirly chairs.
The local Society of Cathars commissioned this room in 1873, said Sally. They wanted the manuscript to abide in magnificent surroundings. They are convinced that it is a lost Cathar treasure. They are wrong, of course.
Leonard nodded, not knowing what a Cathar treasure might be. He wished he could slip into the hallway and ask the Brazen Head, but Sally said, Gloves, please! and stood before the wardrobe — for a long time, as if gathering her strength — then opened the door with a key that was already in the lock. Inside, resting on a green plush dais, was a book — small but thick, about seven inches wide and ten inches long. On a bottom shelf were other old books, leather bound and stained, covered by a dustproof cloth. Sally removed the cloth, laid it reverently on the scholar’s table, and placed the book from the dais on top of it.
This is the only unreadable book in the universe, she said. It is written in a code no one can understand. Emperor Rudolph II of Bohemia purchased the manuscript in 1586, though it is known to be older than that. The emperor was a strange man who amused himself with games and codes. He collected dwarves—
Dwarves? Leonard asked.
Don’t interrupt, Sally said. If you interrupt, I forget where I am and have to start over.
Sorry, Leonard said.
He amused himself with games. He collected codes — no, he collected games. Gosh darn it!
Sally sat down and looked flummoxed.
I believe he collected dwarves, Leonard said.
If you know so much, why am I telling you? Are you from the Cathar Society? Is this a test?
I promise you, Leonard said, we are just an uncle and a nephew interested in books.