The commissioner began with the missing books.
He had put the dates on a board where everyone in the inquiry room could see them. Three gaps interrupted the sequence. Beside each was Bram’s explanation, carefully attributed to him: left behind, destruction unverified, carried by a colleague who no longer answered. Eli saw people in the public seats read those explanations and then look toward Bram as though the gaps themselves might confess.
Bram sat in the witness chair with no notebook in his hands.
“Did you preserve only the entries that make you useful now?” the commissioner asked.
“No.”
“How can we test that answer?”
“Against the office records, if they survive. Against other people’s copies. Against the missing volumes if they’re found.”
“And until then?”
