Brother Odd

wandered the aisles, sometimes phasing through the stacks, reading the spines of the books.
        He had periodically been a reader. Following his early fame, he ordered twenty hardcovers at a time from a Memphis bookstore.
        The abbey offers sixty thousand volumes. A purpose of monks, especially Benedictines, has always been to preserve knowledge.
        Many Old World monasteries were built like fortresses, on peaks, with one approach that could be blockaded. The knowledge of nearly two millennia, including the great works of the ancient Greeks and the Romans, had been preserved through the efforts of monks when invasions of barbarians-the Goths, the Huns, the Vandals-repeatedly destroyed Western civilization, and twice when Islamic armies nearly conquered Europe in some of the bloodiest campaigns in history Civilization-says my friend Ozzie Boone-exists only because the world has barely enough of two kinds of people: those who are able to build with a trowel in one hand, a sword in the other; and those who believe that in the beginning was the Word, and will risk death to preserve all books for the truths they might contain.
        I think a few fry cooks are essential, as well. To build, to fight, to risk death in a good cause requires high morale. Nothing boosts morale like a perfectly prepared plate of eggs sunny-side up and a pile of crispy hash browns.
        Restlessly wandering the library aisles, I turned a corner and came face to face with the Russian, Rodion Romanovich, most recently seen in a dream.
        I never claimed to possess James Bond's aplomb, so I'm not embarrassed to admit I startled backward and said, "Sonofabitch!"
        Bearish, glowering so hard that his bushy eyebrows knitted together, he spoke with a faint accent: "What's wrong with you?"
        "You frightened me."
        "I certainly did not."
        "Well, it felt like frightened."
        "You frightened yourself."
        "I'm sorry, sir."
        "What are you sorry for?"
        "For my language," I said.
        "I speak English."
        "You do, yes, and so well. Better than I speak Russian, for sure."
        "Do you speak Russian?"
        "No, sir. Not a word."
        "You are a peculiar young man."
        "Yes, sir, I know."
        At perhaps fifty, Romanovich did not appear old, but time had battered his face with much experience. Across his broad forehead lay a stitchery of tiny white scars. His laugh lines did not suggest that he had spent a life smiling; they were deep, severe, like old wounds sustained in a sword fight.
        Clarifying, I said, "I meant I was sorry for my bad language."
        "Why would I frighten you?"
        I shrugged. "I didn't realize you were here."
        "I did not realize you were here, either," he said, "but you did not frighten me."
        "I don't have the equipment."
        "What equipment?"
        "I mean, I'm not a scary guy. I'm innocuous."
        "And I am a scary guy?" he asked.
        "No, sir. Not really. No. Imposing."
        "I am imposing?"
        "Yes, sir. Quite imposing."
        "Are you one of those people who uses words more for the sound than for the sense of them? Or do you know what innocuous means?"
        "It means 'harmless,' sir."
        "Yes. And you are certainly not innocuous."
        "It's just the black ski boots, sir. They tend to make anybody look like he could kick butt."
        "You appear clear, direct, even simple."
        "Thank you, sir."
        "But you are complex, complicated, even intricate, I suspect."
        "What you see is what you get," I assured him. "I'm just a fry cook."
        "Yes, you make that quite plausible, with your exceptionally fluffy pancakes. And I am a librarian from Indianapolis."
        I indicated the book in his hand, which he held in such a way that I could not see the title. "What do you like to read?"
        "It is about poisons and the great poisoners in history."
        "Not the uplifting stuff you'd expect in an abbey library."
        "It is an important aspect of Church history," said Romanovich. "Throughout the centuries, clergymen have been poisoned by royals and politicians. Catherine de' Medicis murdered the Cardinal of Lorraine with poison-saturated money. The toxin penetrated through his skin, and he was dead within five minutes."
        "I guess it's good we're moving toward a cashless economy."
        "Why,"