Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [54]
And that was just the beginning.
I stood in line again, at another desk, to apply for a seat at a table in the reading room. After I got that, I was shown the card catalog. Yes, a card catalog, for here inside the Abelard Library it’s still the thirteenth century. I looked up Malherbeau, Amadé, and found that the library has handwritten scores, personal letters, household papers, his will, and his death certificate. I went back to Yves Bonnard’s desk to ask for Malherbeau’s original scores only to be informed that I can’t just ask for what I want; I have to fill out a call slip. So I did that. But I didn’t do it correctly. Not the first time, and apparently not the second time, either.
I trudge back to the card catalog. A professor type is working in the N section. I ask him if he’d take a look at my call slip and tell me what I did wrong. He takes it from me, then says I have the section and department reversed and that when I write my name I must stay precisely within the lines of the little box allotted for it.
“You’re kidding me.”
The man shakes his head. “We call him Cerberus,” he tells me in a whisper. “The three-headed dog who guards the gates of hell.”
“I can think of other things to call him.”
“He is difficult, yes. But no one knows the archives like he does. I advise you to get on his good side.”
I thank him, fill out yet another call slip, and get back in line. It’s nearly three-thirty and the archives close at five. I really want to get these records, like, now. I borrowed a digital camera from Lili. I’m going to photograph everything and use the images in my PowerPoint presentation. I’ll take some photos of Malherbeau’s house and the street where he lived, and put those in, too. Between images and music, my intro alone will have more going on in it than a Ken Burns flick.
Ten minutes go by. The line barely budges. Yves Bonnard recites the rules of the archives to every single person as they hand over their call slips. His voice drones on. All the people in line have books and papers to read while they wait. I’ve got nothing. I dig in my jacket pocket for my iPod, thinking it’ll help pass the time, then remember that I don’t have it—Virgil does.
And then I remember this morning and I wonder if it really happened or if I dreamed it. It was nice. And weird. And tender. I’m not used to tender. It’s a fossil, that word. Conditions changed and it died out. Like the woolly mammoth. It just couldn’t live in the same world as dick box. Ho dog. Or wiener cousins.
For a few seconds, I let myself wonder if it means anything, that odd phone call. Then I decide it means he has my iPod and that’s all. Because nothing’s more dangerous than hope.
I dig in my bag, pawing past my wallet, and my keys, and my pills, thinking maybe I’ve got a magazine in here, or an old Musician’s Friend catalog, something, and then I see it—the diary.
“Forgot about you,” I say, remembering that I stuffed it into my bag last night when I ran to my room to avoid my father.
There’s a bench against the wall. I sit down. I’m tired from running around all morning and my legs hurt from standing. I’ll just read a bit, keep an eye on the line, and hop back on when it goes down a little. Yves Bonnard drones on. His voice is torture. Listening to it makes me want to bang my head against the wall.
“… then one of the junior archivists will bring the materials to you. Keep them in their acid-free boxes until you are ready to use them,” he’s saying. “You may use only pencils to make your notes, no pens. If you use a pen, it will be confiscated. If you use a second one, your reading privileges will be revoked for the