The Geographer's Library

The Geographer’ s Library
old man. I knocked at the door, first politely, then firmly, then insistently, then
loudly, and finally with my fists in tandem with the toe of my shoe. Professor
Jadid hurried downstairs wearing an open-neck blue oxford shirt and neatly
pressed jeans; I had never seen him in anything other than tie and blazer
before. His glasses bounced on a string around his neck as he came down the
stairs. He looked like somebody’s kindly young grandfather without his professorial
armor.
“Paul, lovely to see you again so soon. I apologize if I’ve kept you waiting:
have you been out here long?”
“Not too long, thanks.” Long enough to break a couple of toes, is all.
“Good to see you, too.”
“Excellent.” He stood aside and ushered me into the dark hallway. “My
office, you see, looks over the courtyard in back of the building. A lovely,
quiet place, totally deserted once the department closes. I chose it precisely
for that reason, but this evening, unfortunately, it made it rather difficult to
hear you knocking. I’m glad I finally did. Come in, come in.” He put a paternal
arm around me as he pulled me into the musty, silent building and locked
the door behind us.
“I’ll tell you why I called you,” he said, rubbing his hands together,
whether out of eagerness or cold, I couldn’t tell. “No, actually, I believe it
would be best if I showed you. I suppose we won’t be violating any expectation
of privacy now, right?”
“Whose privacy?”
“Ah, the right question. Whose indeed? Jaan’s, of course. You see, he . . .
I really never have been good at giving presents. Come this way, upstairs.
“Our department, like most in the humanities, has a severe shortage of
space,” the professor said as we ascended the stairs. “Professors Ryerson and
Zinoman, both of whom we hired at the beginning of this year, have been sharing
an office, and good sports though they both are, I would guess that neither
finds the situation ideal. So I decided to begin clearing out Jaan’s office today to
give each his own office by next semester. But I found I was impeded,” he said,
pulling me to a stop in front of Jaan’s door. Next to it I noticed that Crowley
had pasted both his book jacket and three favorable reviews to the outside of
his office. “Does anything strike you as unusual about this door?”
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