The Geographer's Library

The Geographer’ s Library
we were coming for him? We can defeat age and disease, but we are hardly
bulletproof. Not impervious at all to physical violence, as you showed so well
tonight.”
“So I still don’t understand—”
“What this has to do with Hannah? She has a good heart, quite unaffected
by the premature cynicism that infects so many of her contemporaries.” He
wagged a finger at me mockingly. I had left myself no credible responses
between stoicism and murder: I chose the former.
“We had been watching him for quite some time,” he continued, “and
noticed that the only visitor he ever received was this charming young neighbor
of his. So I arranged several accidental meetings with her. This would
have been, let me see, several months ago. She was quite active in the
church’s summer programs, giving children music lessons, swimming lessons.
Quite selfless, Miss Rowe, and, between the two of us, rather proud of
her selflessness. Only too happy to help.”
I exhaled disgustedly. “So you just told her . . . what? You have to help us
kill your friend?”
“No, no, of course not. Nothing so crude. Gradually I revealed to her who
we were and who Jaan was and what he planned to do. I explained to her—
proved to her, in fact, detail by painful detail—just why and how goodness
required her to assist us. To put her petty personal concerns, her feelings of
friendship, to one side, if only for an evening.”
“And she believed you?” This fell somewhere between a fearful statement
and a question. She believed in everything. She told me that herself.
“She agreed that we couldn’t release the Tablet into the world, as Jaan
wanted to do. At the same time, she was not ready—is still not yet ready—for
some of the messier work we must do.
“Jaan gave her a key to his house, you see. She felt she was doing a good
deed by cooking for him, taking in his washing, and he loved having a pretty
girl attendant. He instructed her to hide the key, of course, and to notify him
before using it. Which she did, naturally. Every time but one.”
After he said this, he sat silent for a time. “For what it’s worth,” he said
quietly, “all of us regret Jaan’s death. Hannah more than anyone else. Her
guilt, after all, forced this messy cleanup effort.”
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