The Book of Air and Shadows

answer. Crosetti shrugged and went to change the diapers. The blotters. They were barely damp now and the pages seemed almost dry to the touch, maybe a little cool: the miracle of capillary action. They were still buckled along the edges, in the way of paper that has been wetted, and the gilt edges of the text block no longer had the perfect smoothness of the pristine book. He wondered how she was going to fix that.
    As he worked he heard sounds from the sleeping zone: throat clearing, the swish of fabric, the sound of running water, a toothbrush in action, more cloth sounds, the water again, the clunk of a pot, openings of cabinets. He was just finishing the last of the volumes when she appeared at his side, dressed in yesterday’s overalls and black Converse high-tops with bright blue socks; she held two mugs of aromatic bad coffee, one of which she handed to him.
    “I’m sorry I don’t have any cream. Or milk.”
    “That’s okay,” he said. “I’m sorry I startled you when the alarm went off. You looked like you were going to jump out of your skin.”
    A blank look here, a small shrug. She opened a volume of the
Voyages
and felt the paper. “This is good. It’s almost dry.”
    “What are you going to do about the buckling?”
    “Press it out, or use heat. This kind of linen rag paper is a lot like cloth. I’ll iron every edge if I have to and then trim and regild.” She turned to face him and smiled. “Thanks for the help. I’m sorry I was cross with you last night. I’m not very social.”
    He said, “You let me sleep with you on our first date. I’d call that social,” and instantly regretted it when her smile faded, replaced by a wary look and a very proper sniff. Then, in her characteristic way, she pretended nothing untoward had been said and announced her plans for that day. She had to go out and buy leather for the covers and arrange for the patterned endpapers to be re-created; there were specialty shops in New York that did this sort of work.
    “You want me to come along?” he asked when she had finished.
    “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. It’s going to be quite tedious. A slog, really.”
    “I’m a slogger.”
    “No, thanks. I think I have to do this by myself. And, ah, I’d like to get started right away.”
    “You’re booting me out?”
    “I wouldn’t put it that way. I’m sure you have things to do…”
    “Nothing more important than traipsing around after you, carrying packages and hoping for the tiniest smile.”
    He got it, just. Desiring to build on this, he asked, “Don’t you want to see what I discovered in those manuscripts we found in the cover padding?”
    “Like what?”
    “Well, for starters, they were written by a man who knew William Shakespeare.”
    This got a reaction, although not exactly the one he desired. Her eyes widened, startled, and then rolled in disbelief. “I find that rather unlikely.”
    “Come here and I’ll show you,” he said, and led her over to the spool table, where the folio sheets were stacked. He pointed to the key lines and explained about the ciphered pages. She examined the writing with the magnifying glass, and took her time doing it. He sat next to her and inhaled the scent of her hair. He did not kiss the back of her neck, although he had to actually grit his teeth not to.
    “I don’t see it,” she said, at last. “Shakespeare was a fairly common name in some parts of England, and that name could also be ‘Shawford’ or ‘Sharpspur,’ not Shaxpure.”
    “Oh, please!” he exclaimed. “Sharpspur who wrote plays? For the king?
And
who was suspected of being a papist
and
was significant enough to prompt an intelligence operation against him?”
    “Shakespeare wasn’t a papist.”
    “He might have been. There was a program on PBS I saw that was pretty certain he was one, in secret, or at least that he was raised Catholic.”
    “Uh-huh. So on the basis of-what is it?-two hours’ experience in interpreting Jacobean secretary hand and a TV program you think you made a major literary discovery?”
    “And the cipher letters?”
    “They’re probably Dutch.”
    “Oh, fuck Dutch! They’re in cipher.”
    “Oh, you’re an expert on ciphers too? Jacobean ciphers?”
    “Okay, fine! One of my mother’s best friends is Fanny Doubrowicz, who happens to be head of the Manuscript and Archives Division at the New York Public Library. I’ll show it to her.”
    He was watching her face as he said this and