It wasn’t like Marlene to extend her trip and not tell them, to leave them in the lurch like this. The exhibit was an opportunity for the Berg to shine. It would attract international attention, and they’d all been working doggedly ever since it was announced, spending weekends down in the stacks, going through the rare books and taking inventory.
Over the past four years, Marlene had proved a kind and generous advisor and friend to Sadie. Surely, if something were wrong, Marlene would have reached out and let her know. The mystery around her absence, followed by Dr. Hooper’s curt dismissal, worried Sadie. She considered airing her concerns out loud to Claude after he hung up the phone, but thought better of it. They’d been circling each other with caution the past couple of months, now that their “relationship” or whatever it was called was over, and she didn’t want to show any vulnerability in front of him.
Sadie had always preferred books to people. In high school, she’d eaten her lunch in the library to avoid the confusing maze of social rules in the cafeteria. She’d befriended one of the librarians, who, Sadie’s senior year, urged her to get a degree in library sciences at Rutgers, where Sadie aced every class. After eight years working at the university’s library, she landed a job at the New York Public Library and moved into an apartment in New York’s Murray Hill neighborhood, not far from the town house where she’d been raised. It was perfect, with soaring ceilings, a fireplace, and a narrow stairway that led to a generous sleeping loft. The first night, she hugged herself with happiness, hardly believing that this was her life.
It was at the New York Public Library that she truly began to shine, manning her station at the reference desk in the Catalog Room next to the old pneumatic tubes that still carried the book requests down to the stacks far below. The questions came fast and furious, and she loved the more difficult ones.
How much horse manure was dumped on the streets in 1880? Sadie scoured the Department of Sanitation’s books from that year and found the answer: approximately one hundred thousand tons.
When did the Statue of Liberty turn green? Digging through the library’s archives, she came upon letters that described the landmark, looked up artists’ renderings, and compared postcards of the statue over the decades, before pinpointing 1920 as the year it had weathered enough to turn completely green.
The crazier the request, the more fun. Here at the library, she was the queen of the inquiry, and her colleagues envied her talents. Sadie’s skittishness around strangers, her worry that she was somehow lacking, disappeared at work. Because books didn’t play games. Facts didn’t play games.
Then she was promoted to the Berg Collection. While the library’s vast holdings included several rare book and map collections, the Berg was Sadie’s favorite. It wasn’t like the Reading Room, where anyone with a library card could request a book. At the Berg, scholars and researchers were closely vetted. To gain access, they had to describe their research topic, summarize their research to date, and submit a reason for requesting whatever item it was they wanted to see. Which meant the inquiries were more challenging than the general ones down the hall, and also more satisfying. Even if she had to put up with a preening Claude repeatedly tossing his hair out of his eyes like a horse in the dressage ring, it was the perfect job.
None of the envelopes on Marlene’s desk were time sensitive, so Sadie closed them back up and placed them in the in-box. Where could she be?
The phone at her desk rang, and she rushed to pick it up.
“Sadie, I need you to do me a favor.” She recognized the voice as Dr. Hooper’s. “Marlene was supposed to give a tour for our new board members today. Can you take over? I’d completely forgotten and they’re already here. Then I’ll need to see you and Claude in my office at two thirty.”
“Of course. Where shall I meet the board members?”
“The Trustees Room. They’re waiting.”
The tour group consisted of a tall man with a neatly trimmed beard named Mr. Jones-Ebbing, and a married couple called the Smiths.
Sadie led the trio through the halls, pointing out all her favorite spots: the painted ceiling of a cloudy sky above the back stairwell, the Edward Laning murals depicting the history of the written word in the rotunda, and the view of the foyer from the second-floor balcony. Then down to the stacks, where the library’s millions of volumes were housed. “If the shelves were laid end to end, they would measure over eighty miles,” she said.
Mrs. Smith let out a small “Oh, my.”
“This particular branch of the New York Public Library is a research library, not a circulating one,” said Sadie. “That means we don’t lend the books out, they must be consulted on-site. Furthermore, the stacks are not for browsing, they are closed off to the general public. Instead, a patron consults the card catalog and puts in a request, and then the book or books are sent to the Reading Room. The retrieval process hasn’t changed much in all the time the library has been open to the public, since 1911.”
The stacks consisted of seven tiers that rose from the basement level to just below the Reading Room. They reminded Sadie of an ant colony, with library pages dashing up stairs and down the narrow aisles, locating one book among millions within minutes along the steel shelves. She pointed out the conveyer system that carried books up to the patrons waiting in the Reading Room, as well as the dumbwaiter used for oversized works.
Mr. Jones-Ebbing ran his fingers along the spines of the books beside him.
“Don’t touch.” She smiled in an attempt to soften the command. These were the people who supported the library with their large donations. Marlene was quite good at coddling the VIPs. Sadie really needed to work on that.
Mr. Jones-Ebbing withdrew his hand and grinned, thankfully not in the least offended. “I just love the feel, and smell, of old books. Can’t help myself.”
“I’m the same way.”
The group emerged into the newly constructed storage area that extended deep under Bryant Park. Sadie proudly reeled off the statistics. “The temperature is kept to sixty-five degrees with forty percent humidity, in order to best preserve the books. There’s even another level below this one.”
She showed how the bookshelves could be moved back and forth with a large wheel, so there was no wasted space. “Near the very back are a couple of small escape hatches—in case of fire—that exit onto the west side of Bryant Park.” She was surprised to catch Mrs. Smith raise her eyebrows at her husband, unimpressed, as if they were touring a seedy warehouse.
“I prefer the old part of the library better,” said Mrs. Smith.
“We had to expand to accommodate all the books. Although we currently use only one story of the two that were excavated, together they’ll accommodate up to 3.2 million books and half a million reels of microfilm, effectively doubling our storage capacity.”