The Geographer's Library

Jon Fasman
lights on inside. Pühapäev’s swing was still down for the count, and the rain
had turned his front yard into a muddy, cratered moonscape. I parked in front
of the three-story clapboard place (which was the only house on the street
that gave any signs of habitation) and walked up to the front door. A white
sticker just below the doorbell said desouza, with an arrow pointing up at
the bell, and rowe, with an arrow pointing around the side of the house, so I
followed the arrow, stepping over a puddle of rainwater. Walking to the side
door, I slipped on something left in the path and sent it into the door with an
embarrassingly loud thwack. It was a huge wrench. I picked it up as the door
opened.
She was smaller than Mrs. Rolen had led me to expect—an inch or two
taller than me, but her thinness and long hair made her seem taller still—and
she had light brown hair, gray eyes, and sharp, clear features. It was a face just
on the perfect side of plain, one that grew deeper the more you looked at it. I
always found it unreadable: changes of mood and thought swept across it
like water and just as quickly sank beneath the surface. That, of course, came
later, but even at this first meeting, she leveled me.
“Hannah Rowe?”
“Paul Tomm?” she repeated in the same tone. I wasn’t sure whether she
was teasing me or merely responding musically. She looked down at the
wrench that I held in my hand and was now extending to her like a flower.
She smiled broadly, and I blushed. “I know the one about Greeks bearing
gifts, but I’ve never gotten any advice on reporters bearing wrenches. You are
Paul, aren’t you?”
I nodded, and she invited me in, taking the wrench from my hand and
tossing it carelessly back onto the path. “You’re a little early,” she said, waving
me off as I began to apologize. “Just an observation, no reason to be sorry.
Would you like some tea?”
I said I would, and she invited me to sit down. She pointed to a pair of
green armchairs in the corner of the room, on either side of a circular wooden
table. I walked over to one of the chairs and, in taking my jacket off, upended
the table. An odd assortment of junk—some pottery, a playing card, and a
number of what looked like children’s art projects—all fell to the floor with a
crash. Hannah laughed; again I blushed. “Paul Tomm, we’re going to have to
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