Part 3 (1/2)

She threw down the tool she was using, sighed dramatically, dismounted her stool, strode away, and returned with a plastic bottle that she shoved into his hand so hard it rattled like a tiny castanet. Motrin.

”Thank you,” he said formally and took three at the kitchen sink. Ordinarily he would have reclined in a quiet place until the pounding pain ceased, but chez Rolly had no comfortable seating, and he was wary of using her bed. He sat therefore on a kitchen chair and was glum and shuffled the sheaves of old paper. Were Carolyn Rolly an actual sane human person, he thought, we could puzzle this out together, she probably has books on watermarks and Jacobean secretary hand or at least she knows more about this s.h.i.+t than I do....

But as soon as he had this thought, he brightened and drew his cell phone from his pocket. He checked his watch. Not eleven yet. At eleven his mother watched the Tonight Show Tonight Show and would not answer the phone during that hour to hear of the Apocalypse, but now she'd be in her lounger with a book. and would not answer the phone during that hour to hear of the Apocalypse, but now she'd be in her lounger with a book.

”It's me,” he said when she answered.

”Where are you?”

”I'm in Red Hook, at Carolyn Rolly's place.”

”She lives in Red Hook?”

”It's gentrifying, Ma.”

”It's dockies and gangsters. Why is a cla.s.sy girl like that living in Red Hook?” Mrs. Crosetti had met Carolyn on several occasions, at the shop, and delivered this a.s.sessment to her boy afterward, with the implication, like a thrown brick, that if he had any sense, he would put on some moves. She resumed, with a hopeful note, ”And how come you're there? You got something going with her.”

”I don't, Ma. It's the fire. She had to work on some heavy books at her place-she's kind of an amateur bookbinder-and I helped her carry them over here from the city.”

”And you hung around after.”

”We ate. I'm just about to leave.”

”So I shouldn't rent the hall. Or alert Father Lazzaro.”

”I don't think so, Ma. Sorry. Look, why I called...do you know anything about seventeenth-century watermarks, or Jacobean secretary hands? I mean how to decipher them?”

”Well, for the secretary hand, that would be Dawson and Kennedy-Skipton, Elizabethan Handwriting, Elizabethan Handwriting, 15001650. It's a manual, although I understand there's some good stuff on the Web, more like interactive tutorials. For the watermarks, there's Gravell...no, wait, Gravell starts at 1700; just a second, let me think...oh, right, it'd be Heawood, 15001650. It's a manual, although I understand there's some good stuff on the Web, more like interactive tutorials. For the watermarks, there's Gravell...no, wait, Gravell starts at 1700; just a second, let me think...oh, right, it'd be Heawood, Watermarks Mainly of the Watermarks Mainly of the 17 17th and 18 18th Centuries. What's this about?”

”Oh, we found some old ma.n.u.script in the covers of a book she wants to repair. I'd like to find out what it is.” He wrote the references down on a Visa counterfoil from his wallet.

”You should talk to f.a.n.n.y Doubrowicz at the library. I'll call her for you if you want.”

”No, thanks. It's probably not worth her time until I know if it's not just an old shopping list or something. Part of it, some pages, are in a foreign language.”

”Really? Which one?”

”I can't tell. A funny one, anyway, not French or Italian-more like Armenian or Albanian. But that could just be because I can't really read the script.”

”Interesting. Good. Anything to keep that brain working. I wish you'd go back to school.”

”Ma, that's what I'm doing. I'm saving money to go to school.”

”I mean real school.”

”Film school is is real school, Ma.” real school, Ma.”

Mrs. Crosetti said nothing, but her son could well imagine the expression on her face. That she herself had not settled down to what became her profession until she was years older than he was now did not signify. She would have helped him pay for serious grad school, but making movies? No, thank you! He sighed and she said, ”I got to go. You'll be home late?”

”Maybe real late. We're interleaving wet books.”

”Really? Why don't you use a vacuum? Or just send them to Andover?”

”It's complicated, Ma. Anyway, Carolyn's in charge. I'm just the help.” He heard music faintly in the background and applause, and she said good-bye and hung up. It never failed to astonish him that a woman whose profession had given her an immense store of knowledge and who typically finished the Times Times Sunday crossword in twenty-two minutes could waste her time watching a celebrity gabfest and listen to a moderately talented comedian tell a skein of leaden topical jokes, but she never missed an evening. She said it made her feel less lonely at night, and he supposed that lonely people were in fact the main audience for such shows. He wondered if Rolly watched the Sunday crossword in twenty-two minutes could waste her time watching a celebrity gabfest and listen to a moderately talented comedian tell a skein of leaden topical jokes, but she never missed an evening. She said it made her feel less lonely at night, and he supposed that lonely people were in fact the main audience for such shows. He wondered if Rolly watched the Tonight Show. Tonight Show. He had not seen a television in the place. Maybe vampires didn't get lonely. He had not seen a television in the place. Maybe vampires didn't get lonely.

Crosetti rose from the terrible chair and stretched. Now his back ached too. He checked his watch and walked the length of the loft to where Rolly was still bent over her tasks.

”What?” she said as he drew near.

”It's time to change the blotter. What're you doing?”

”I'm putting the cover of volume four back together. I'm going to have to completely replace the covers on volumes one and two, but I think I can get the stains out of this one.”

”What're you using to replace the ma.n.u.script pages as backing?”

”I have some contemporary folio sc.r.a.p.”

”Just happen to have it around, eh?”

”Yes, as a matter of fact,” she snapped back. ”There's a lot of it available from books broken for their maps and plates. Who were you talking to on the phone?”

”My mom. Look”-he gestured to the walls of bookcases-”do you happen to have a book about watermarks? I have a reference...” He reached for his wallet.

”Well, I have Heawood, of course.”

Unfolding the counterfoil and smiling: ”Of course. How about Dawson and Kennedy-Skipton?”

”That too.”

”I thought you weren't a paleographer.”

”I'm not, but Sidney asked me to take a course on incunabula and early ma.n.u.scripts and I did. Everyone in that field uses D & K-S.”

”So you can read this stuff?”

”A bit. It was some years ago.” Here again he heard a tone creep into her voice that discouraged probing.

”Can I take a look at those books after we do the interleaving?”

”Sure,” she said, ”but early secretary hand is a bear. It's like learning to read all over again.” They changed the blotters and then she extracted the two books from her shelves. She went back to work at her table and he sat down with the guidebooks at the spool table.

It was was a bear. As the foreword to D & K-S has it, ”The Gothic cursive hands of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries in England and elsewhere in Europe are among the hardest to read of all the scripts normally considered by paleographers.” Crosetti learned that the contemporaries of Elizabeth and James I made no distinction between a bear. As the foreword to D & K-S has it, ”The Gothic cursive hands of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries in England and elsewhere in Europe are among the hardest to read of all the scripts normally considered by paleographers.” Crosetti learned that the contemporaries of Elizabeth and James I made no distinction between n n and and u u, or u u and and v v or or i i and and j j, nor did they dot their is. S is. S appeared in two different forms, and appeared in two different forms, and r r in four, and there were strange ligatures tying in four, and there were strange ligatures tying h h and and s s and and t t to other letters, distorting the shapes of each. They punctuated and spelled as they pleased, and to save expensive parchment they had invented dozens of incomprehensible abbreviations, which had remained in common use even when paper came in. Doggedly, however, he applied himself to the exercises provided by the manual, starting with Sir Nicholas Bacon's to other letters, distorting the shapes of each. They punctuated and spelled as they pleased, and to save expensive parchment they had invented dozens of incomprehensible abbreviations, which had remained in common use even when paper came in. Doggedly, however, he applied himself to the exercises provided by the manual, starting with Sir Nicholas Bacon's An Exhortacion gyuen to the Serieaunts when they were sworne in the Chauncery in Anno domini An Exhortacion gyuen to the Serieaunts when they were sworne in the Chauncery in Anno domini 1559. By the time he had reached line three, checking nearly every word against the translation provided, it was well past midnight. Rolly was still at her task, and he thought that if he could just rest his eyes and his aching back for a few moments he would get a second wind. He slipped off his sneakers and lay down on one edge of the pallet. 1559. By the time he had reached line three, checking nearly every word against the translation provided, it was well past midnight. Rolly was still at her task, and he thought that if he could just rest his eyes and his aching back for a few moments he would get a second wind. He slipped off his sneakers and lay down on one edge of the pallet.

Then there was a weird clatter sounding in his ear. He sat upright with a curse and grappled in the bedclothes until he had the source of it in hand: an old-fas.h.i.+oned alarm clock, the kind they draw in cartoons, with twin bells and a clapper on top and a wide white face, and Carolyn had taped the bells so that when the thing went off it would not awaken her as well, a typically elegant low-tech solution. He shut it off and saw that there was a note affixed to it with a bit of ribbon: Your turn; I did the last two myself.

It was written on a slip of heavy antique paper in black ink, the hand an elegant italic. Crosetti's violent annoyance instantly evaporated. He examined the deeply breathing shape in the bed next to him. He could see a shock of hair on the pillow, an ear, a curve of downy cheek. Cautiously, he leaned over and placed his face close to this, mere inches away. He breathed in long and deep and got soap, some kind of shampoo, a note of glue and old leather, and underneath this something more personal, eau de girl. Crosetti was no stranger to the delights of women, specializing in those that liked nice guys rather than the type (more numerous, in his experience) that preferred the other kind, nor was he even sure he particularly liked this woman. No, actually, he was sure he did not, and also sure that never in his life had he obtained an erotic charge as powerful as the one he now received, sniffing absurdly at the skin of Carolyn Rolly.

Incomprehensible, but there it was. He peeked under the duvet and found that she was wearing a dark T-s.h.i.+rt. He could just make out the little k.n.o.bs of her spine bulging the thin fabric. Below that, dim whiteness. He had to know, and so he reached out and touched her, barely touched her haunch with the back of his hand, and felt tight, sheer fabric; a shock like an electric current flowed up his arm; she stirred and murmured.

He was out of the bed in a flash, and stood there feeling a jerk, with (could it be?) his knees actually trembling and his p.e.n.i.s turgid. Holy s.h.i.+t, he said to himself several times, and then Uh-uh, no thank you, this is not not happening. He marched like a soldier to the sink, where he drenched his face with cold water. He wished he could take a shower, but there was none, nor any bath either. An image of the occupant standing nude on a towel dabbing at her body with a warm sponge suddenly inhabited his mind. He forced it away by an act of will and started on the changing of the blotters. happening. He marched like a soldier to the sink, where he drenched his face with cold water. He wished he could take a shower, but there was none, nor any bath either. An image of the occupant standing nude on a towel dabbing at her body with a warm sponge suddenly inhabited his mind. He forced it away by an act of will and started on the changing of the blotters.