Free The Last of the Wise Lovers by Amnon Jackont Page B

in a pair of flimsy, transparent panties, were like
the marble buttocks of a statue at the Metropolitan.  Faint with
excitement, I watched as she inserted the square, stiff object into the front
of her panties, let her skirt fall, smoothed it down, and walked back toward
the door.  When she passed me I froze, not breathing.  After she'd
gone, I waited a while - then went back out.
       She was already on the way to her
table.  I watched her gather all her books, surrender them to the reserve
shelf, turn toward the door, and wait patiently for the guard to search her bag
for stolen books.  For a moment I toyed with the idea of going over to him
and whispering, "The underwear, check the underwear," but that was
only momentary mischief.  Whatever she had hidden it wasn't a book, and
anyway, the library managed just fine without my help.  I went back to the
cards, but I couldn't concentrate.  The vision of her flashed before my
eyes again and again.  I asked myself what had excited me so.  The transparent
panties?  The tanned legs, which ended in marble whiteness?  Or maybe
it was just the mystery of the stacks, with their musty smell and the blend of
darkness and light.
       I went on to think about what she had
stolen.  A page she'd torn out?  But what would have been simpler
than to fold it and stick it in her wallet?  The binding of a book?
 No, the librarians at the Reserve Desk would have noticed if they had
gotten a book back with no binding.  A card?  What kind of card could
be too dangerous for a guard to see when he was checking her bag at the exit?
       I remembered the way she had refused
to go and see Mr. K. Somehow, that was even more suspicious, since whatever she
had hidden in her underwear was likely to be her private secret (of
course, I thought of Mom's notebook) while the reason she had taken off when
I'd suggested she go up to his room to get his signature might have something
to do with the library, or with Mr. K. himself.  I wondered whether I
should go tell him, and what the chances were that he'd pass it off, the way
Mom had.   Then I asked myself how it
was that for seventeen-and-a-half years I had thought that all the biggest
secrets in the world had centered around me, when in one week I had found
myself caught up in so many other people’s secrets.
     
    *
     
       Like the books say, in the end it was
all up to fate.  It was toward the end of the day, the Catalog Room had
already emptied out, and Ms. Yardley had disappeared into the ladies' room for
her daily fifteen minutes of pre-exit preparation.  Mrs. Kahn was
struggling with some long and complex report that needed a signature, so I, of
course, volunteered.  I went upstairs with it and knocked on his door.
 This time he looked a little better.  The same dark bags the color
of worn leather were still under his eyes, but his eyes themselves shone.
       "Tomorrow I'll have the
answer," he said the minute he saw me.
       "It's no longer important,"
I rested the heavy report on his desk. As he was reading it I thought: how do I
get him to drop this agitator thing, now that I know it's something top secret
that's related to Dad's work?  "After all, it's only a washing
machine...” I ventured.
       "I'm not sure," he said.
 It was clear that the slide had awakened something stronger in him than
the desire to explain to me the diagramon
it.  I felt I absolutely couldn't leave until I had discovered what that
`something stronger' was.  I sat on the edge of the chair opposite him.
 Not only did he not object, but he got up, came over to clear the chair
of papers and books, then went back around to his side of the desk.
 Getting up had caused him some pain, and he grimaced as he signed the
report.
     "As for this matter of the...” I began,
but he beat me to it and asked in Hebrew: "How long have you been
here?"
       "Six years," I answered in
English, "before that we were in Africa."
       "The Foreign Service?"