The Word Exchange (48 page)

In the dining room, Henry brought a pot of tea. And a message for me. “You had a visitor,” he announced. Frowning.

My lethargy fell away. “A visitor?” I said, pulse quickening. “Who?” Pictured the man from the train silently saying, “Goodnight.”

“How should I know?” Henry said, eating a sugar cube, wiping his fingers on a rag at his waist. “Bloke didn’t leave his name.” He also couldn’t describe the man. “I wasn’t here,” he explained. “He left the message with my wife.”

“What did it say?” I asked. Agitated, I knocked over my milky tea.

“I don’t know,” Henry said, swiping his rag at the pale brown spray spackling the plastic cloth. “But let me ask you this—do you ever go by the name Alice?”

My face filled with heat. I was afraid to hope I might know who’d been to see me.

Henry took forever rummaging through a message box varnished by years of touch. Finding his glasses. Moving things closer to and farther from his face. Yellowing scraps of paper snowed down like jumbo confetti. Finally he found the note marked “Alice.” And what it said, in a sharp, alien hand, was, “ ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and
gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe.”

I turned the paper over, confused. “Was this it?”

“What do you mean?”

“The note. There wasn’t more to it?”

Henry peered at me quizzically over the beveled rim of his bifocals. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Where did you say you’re from? I’m having trouble placing your accent.”

I realized my nerves had shown the seams of my lie. Flustered, I mumbled something about being sent to boarding school in British Columbia as a child.

“I see,” Henry remarked crisply, a deep groove darkening his brow. Then he said something else. Something that raced through me like a shock. He said, “One other thing. Mary mentioned that the man who left this had an odd argot. He sounded quite strange. Dressed head to toe in black clothing.”

I gripped my throat. Feeling cold, I reread the note. And the next lines sprang from nowhere, like branches snapping back in woods: “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!”

At another time I would have been happy to be back in Oxford. The castle. The colleges. The keep. The Ashmolean and Bodleian and Radcliffe Camera. The air ramified by literary history. Stone grotesques grimaced down from godly perches. Church bells rang at every hour. Christmas lights sparkled from eaves. Ice skaters spiraled. Musicians busked on Cornmarket Street. Pub windows glowed gold and warm. Ducks slid over the frozen pond like stockinged children on fresh-waxed floors. Young mothers dangled bulging shopping bags from pram handles. Things felt almost natural. Good.

Almost—but not quite. Orange public health warnings sullied lampposts and buses. Crowds were thin. Few strolled idly on the street. No one was chatting on a phone or screen. Smokers inhaled grimly, not lingering. Many wore headphones. Street-crossing sirens blared, augmented by flashing lights. Children didn’t squeal and scream; they kicked silently on playground swings, barely tittered over holiday displays, got hauled along sidewalks by stone-faced fathers anxious to take quiet pints. And I started noticing the Ø symbol pinned to many coats. Tourists from
Denmark, China, Spain seemed like the only unworried ones. Laughing. Shopping. Having tea. At least that’s how it was when I first arrived.

The morning after I received the cryptic note, I set out to visit my father’s colleagues at the
OED
. Walking north toward Jericho, I found it nearly impossible to fight the urge to look over my shoulder. I tried instead to steal glances in the mirrors of storefronts: a barber with a spinning red-and-white pole; a shop on a corner called the Corner Shop; a café that looked like a coliseum; a playground; a row of houses like pastel chalk; and, finally, the colossus of the Oxford University Press, pillars and arches and a spiked iron gate. Old brick tinged the rich yellow of Oxfordshire cream.

The compound was enormous, surrounded by a high stone wall. I hadn’t visited in years, and Phineas had reminded me to circle to the less lovely glass-peaked building at the side. I passed a bleak clot of quiet smokers stamping their feet against the cold, my own white billows of breath mimicking their clouds of smoke. Steeling myself, casting one quick look back, I climbed the stairs.

The lobby was carpeted blue, like a hotel drawing room. There was a real grandfather clock, and an elaborate display of dictionaries in cases and on stands. People streamed past, swiping badges over black readers beside glass doors, their faces tight—but with focus, it seemed, not fear. At reception, a striking older woman asked me to sign in. She also stole a look at the front of my coat: the spot where I’d seen others pin their Ø. I glanced down, too, at the blank bank of my olive-green baffles.

When she asked who I was there to see, I was startled by the question.

“M-my father isn’t here, is he?” I asked, trying to smile. “Douglas Johnson?” My voice crumpled a little, like paper.

The woman feathered her brow and pressed her lips together. Shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. And I prayed that all she meant was,
He’s not here right now
, or,
I don’t know who that is
. Nothing worse.

“What about …” I groped the dark room of my memory, strangely unable to grasp names I’d heard many times. “Bill?” I tried.

“Bill …?” she said, tilting her head to the side.

But I couldn’t remember his last name, and it worried me. I didn’t know whether it was just nerves or a symptom. “I’m not sure,” I said. “I think—maybe he’s … in the Diachronic Society?”

She twisted a tiny cross at her throat. “The Diachronic Society?” she
mused. “Don’t believe I’ve heard of it, I’m afraid.” But she added kindly, “Bill Grabe, perhaps? In sales?”

“Is there a Bill who works at the Dictionary?”

She smiled, relieved. “Ah, Bill Jennings,” she said. “I’ll call him up, then.”

And in a few minutes an unlikely hero appeared. He had on a pouchy brown blazer, a slightly rumpled button-down, and rimless glasses; his reddish hair was tucked behind his ears. When he saw me, he ducked his pink, disappearing chin. Smiled crookedly. Did a small wave. “You must be Anana,” he said brightly.

For two weeks, at Phineas’s, I’d been Alice, and I hesitated just the shadow of a moment before nodding and holding out my hand. Maybe stumbled faintly over my reply.

I watched Bill’s face crimp with concern. A crease appeared beside his mouth. “Forgive my asking,” he said, “but are you sure you’re all right?”

I felt myself flush. And of course I wondered, too. But I just bit my lip. Nodded again. Hoped it was true.

He observed me in silence, head cocked. Shifting his gaze to the carpet, he cleared his throat. “Right,” he said. “Well, this is a bit awkward.” My pulse picked up. But he continued on. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you not to speak once we’re inside the Dictionary. Do you mind terribly? It’s policy.”

I shook my head, cheeks still warm.

“Good, then,” he said, lightly patting my back. “Let’s go in, shall we?”

Gratefully I followed him into a hall that was also a shrine: lined with
OED
love letters from elder statesmen and literary lights, photos, original pages, and quotation paragraphs. Then we reached the door to the Dictionary. Bill placed a finger to his lips with an apologetic smile. He punched in a code, then another, before the door slid open.

We stepped into a room of glass, ablaze with brilliant winter light. I’d forgotten how mesmerizing it was inside. The space felt vast and open; its lucent ceilings soared. The outer walls were also clear, and from nearly anywhere you could see courtyard, trees, the world outside. Of the walls there were, many were made of shelves lined with rows and rows of books.
¹
And there were sixty lexicographers at work, I knew—more
than twice the number we’d had. After what we’d just been through in New York, it was a pretty moving sight.

Bill studied my face and tried, without success, to suppress a small grin. Then he whispered, “Come on. I have to show you something.” Gently taking my arm, he squired me into a room with
REFERENCE LIBRARY
emblazoned on the door. Inside, he pointed out hundreds of dictionaries, in French, Finnish, Sanskrit, and historical ones, like Grimm’s. Then, abruptly, he stopped talking. Perplexed, I followed his gaze. And I gasped. Brought a hand to my mouth. Because there, mere inches away, were forty dark-blue leather volumes, spines gold-embossed.
North American Dictionary of the English Language
, they said.
Third Edition
. Filling its own wall was Doug’s life’s work. The work that had vanished along with him. Except—here it was.

Warmth flowed through my chest. I felt as light as the empty shell of an egg. Giddy, I slid out a volume:
J
. Carefully cracked it to the center. Smelled the sweet, musky scent of leather. Heard the pages’ soothing, dry-leaf rustle. And there, in beautiful, irrefutable black-and-white, was my father’s brave face, smiling up. “He’s here,” I whispered. “Isn’t he?”

“Indeed,” Bill said, not admonishing me for speaking, bending over my shoulder to peek at the page.

Hopeful, turning toward him, I asked, “Where?” At least that’s what I meant to say.

But Bill didn’t reply. Just pinched the loose skin at his Adam’s apple. Looked away.

“He’s all right, though,” I said, suddenly afraid. “I mean—he’s fine.”

Bill sighed. “I have every reason to think so,” he offered. Shrugged.

And I exhaled, relieved. But Bill hadn’t answered my question. “If you don’t know where he is,” I said, trying not to sound impatient, “is there someone else here I can talk to?”

Bill pressed his temples. Gave me a look that I read as a gentle reminder that I should be silent. “Anana, I’m sorry not to be more helpful,” he said softly. “Some of us have been in touch with Douglas. But I haven’t heard from him in days. There are a few places he could be, but I’ll admit I haven’t inquired. He hasn’t wanted to be seen.” Then he added quietly, “I hear you were asking out front about the Society. You should be careful.”

I swallowed, feeling both heartened that he knew the Society and concerned.

“Just in general, you should be careful,” he clarified, lowering his voice. “We’re making every effort to safeguard our work here and get your father’s out into the world. Collaborating with other researchers to find out what, if anything, we can learn about the virus, or viruses, especially how to prevent them spreading to more documents and texts. And we’re doing what we can to help human victims, too. Which of course isn’t much, I’m afraid. But we’ve tried at least to contribute our thoughts on convalescent therapies.”

Bill sighed, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses. “This is a very troubling time,” he said, adjusting his frames. “For some reason there seem to be people quite keen on stopping communication.” Lowering his voice even more, he explained that the virus
was
moving to networks and people outside the United States. He’d heard that documents and English-speakers had been infected all across India, and probably elsewhere. But perhaps even more disturbing, reports had surfaced that it had made the leap to other languages. Digital texts written in Spanish were starting to corrupt, and Spanish-speakers had become aphasic and sick—in the U.S., and in American tourist hubs like Barcelona and Cancún. But in Mexico City, too. Buenos Aires. San Juan. It was said that some people in southern France had it. That there were scattered cases in Italy, Portugal, Turkey, Poland. “And there’ve been rumors,” he murmured, “of widespread outbreaks across China that the government has been working to hide. In Russia, too, and the former Soviet states.”

I felt so jarred by this news that his words sounded strange and far away, as if they’d been distantly whispered through a tin can and string. Bill could tell, it seemed. He gently proposed that we keep going; he had to be getting back, he said.

After that I had a hard time focusing as he guided me through the space where they stored old QPs, his office with a courtyard view, the front and back ends of their corpus. In a small room marked
COMMUNICATIONS
, I saw a typewriter and an inelegant machine that Bill confirmed was a fax. “Until recently, I doubt anyone used either of those for twenty years or more,” he said. Then, putting a hand on my shoulder, he began to lead me back down the tribute-lined hall. But as we neared the lobby he stopped short. Asked, “Would you like to see our museum?”

I was disturbed by what I’d heard, and no closer to finding my father. And I’d seen the museum before. I didn’t really have it in me to visit
again that morning. But Bill had been very gracious; I didn’t want to be impolite. As I looked at him more closely, I also thought I saw a faint, mystifying smile. “Of course,” I replied.

And at first I was disappointed. The museum was filled with remarkable things: a Stanhope press; some seventeenth-century Fell types; the tidy wooden filing system used by James Murray, editor of the first O
ED
. Lovely and strange as scarab beetles. But just curiosities.

At the end, though, and seemingly in passing, Bill pointed out an old accounting book I’d never noticed. Absorbed in other thoughts, I barely looked. Vaguely took in that it was open to a page noting that two thousand copies of a C. L. Dodgson book had cost, I think, £75 to print. But that name, C. L. Dodgson, seemed to sound some far-off bell. I murmured it aloud.

“Ah, yes,” Bill said, ushering me back to the hall. “He was brilliant at maths. A lecturer for many years. Also a famous hater of sport. He’d write vitriolic essays about how the ball fields around Christ Church should be devoted to something else.” It was clear that Bill expected me to know who Dodgson was. And I would have asked, but we’d reached the lobby door, and Bill said, “Guess you’re rid of me, then.” So I thanked him, unlooping the guest badge from my neck, and was soon stepping back outside, into the blinding sun.

I thought I was being careful on my walk back to the hotel, still looking out to see if I was being watched. But I was distracted, upset by all that Bill had said—and not said, about my father. And I let down my guard just a bit. It wasn’t until I neared the Bridge of Sighs that I realized I was being followed. By the same man, I was sure, who’d been on my train. I didn’t turn, but sensed a dark shadow about a block behind me. I tried as hard as I could to act as if I hadn’t seen him. To stroll, unhurried. To swing my arms in a way I hoped looked natural.