Page 25 of The Librarians

Madeira, off the northwest coast of Africa

Twelve years ago

It was raining hydrangea petals. Flights of white doves crisscrossed the sky. Hazel’s silk scarf streamed in the breeze, a long gossamer ribbon sparkling under the sun.

It was nothing of the sort, but it might as well have been.

What does Hazel actually remember of that day, a third of her lifetime ago? What was real and true, and what has been photoshopped in by her mind in the long years since?

The steep gradient of the streets was real—confirmed by Google Earth. The seemingly endless upward slant was real enough—she’s never encountered other residential lanes that climb with such steady ferocity. San Francisco’s got nothing on Funchal, Madeira.

The early October weather was lovely. Hazel was comfortable in her T-shirt and cargo shorts, her face shaded by the giant visor that is part of the stereotypical Asian Auntie travel uniform.

Her mother would have shaken her head at this getup—Lillian Kuang has never once in her life looked like a tourist, not after she returned to Singapore, in any case.

But Nainai always had on her visor and Nainai was a lot cooler.

Hazel is also sure that during the long ascent to the Jardim Botanico, she was thinking of her father.

Crazily tilting neighborhoods were a sentimental favorite.

She lived the first ten years of her life in such a neighborhood at the edge of Texas Hill Country.

Some streets there were so steep they were scored diagonally across to provide traction in bad weather.

Dad walked up those streets for exercise; he liked to have her with him, and he was always happy to hoist her onto his back when her little legs protested.

When she left, he was a bawling mess. She was the one to reassure him, through her own tears, that she would be back every summer and every Christmas.

But the only time she ever returned to her old house was four months later, to attend his funeral and pack up all the remaining memories of her American childhood.

Yes, she thought of him on that climb. But she wasn’t too sad. Her mother had put her in therapy for two years. She knew it was okay to wish that he was still around, that he could have shared this trip with her; it was also okay that he wasn’t and couldn’t.

Such was life. Life had never been unfair to her parents or herself.

Life was simply like video games: It was normal to try hard and fail spectacularly; it was normal to invest untold hours only to realize that the game itself sucked; it was normal to love a game to bits and still, with the passage of time, never go back to it again.

Here is another certainty. At forty minutes past nine that morning, she turned around and took several panoramic photos: ocher roofs and white walls amidst subtropical greenery.

The pictures failed to capture the vertical nature of the vista or its sweeping expansiveness.

Looking at them in the years since has always felt like listening to someone talk about a movie whose original footage has been lost.

And then what happened? Flower petals, doves, and scarves streaming as if on a soundstage, with wind machines whirling just outside camera range.

She doesn’t even remember what he wore.

Okay, not entirely true. She definitely remembers the canvas deck shoes, which she thought to be a fashion affectation, until he told her that he’d come to Madeira as a cabin boy on a sailing ship.

Because she remembers the deck shoes, she also recalls bare ankles and long, shapely calves. But not his knees. Was he wearing something three-quarters length?

And his T-shirt, what color was it? Blue, gray, faded indigo?

The only thing that really comes to mind is the small hole in the left shoulder seam.

He tried to do the gentlemanly thing and walk on her outside to protect her from traffic, but she didn’t like to be hemmed in and insisted on walking on the outside.

So every time she glanced at him, the little aperture was always in her line of sight, tempting her with a hint of very light freckles underneath.

Hi. Excuse me, I’m completely lost. Are you by some chance also headed for the botanical garden?

She was texting her mother. She looked up to see a cute boy standing a few feet away, a hopeful expression on his face.

He might be hitting on her, but she didn’t mind the possibility. They walked around the Jardim Botanico together, admired its famous green-and-oxblood parterres, which overhung a panoramic view of the island, and shared beverages at the Jardim’s café.

It was while she was drinking her can of sparkling water that she learned he was only nineteen. Or rather, not even nineteen.

I’ll be nineteen in three days , he said, chugging down black coffee as if he worked three jobs. And how old are you, if you don’t mind me asking the same question?

Me? Twenty-three next month.

He appeared delighted. We’re the same age, then.

A twenty-two-year-old woman and an eighteen-year-old boy are not the same age.

Ouch , he said—and laughed.

He had dimples and spectacularly clear skin. His dark hair was thick and wavy. He spoke with a British accent and was most likely some sort of Eurasian mix, the kind who looked like he could hail from 60 percent of the world’s land area.

You’re not going to try to persuade me otherwise? she asked, not sure why she was hanging on to the subject.

He shook his head, a mischievous look in his eyes. No. What if you like boys who aren’t the same age as you?

She’d snorted—and laughed too.

After refreshments at the café, they took the cable car across a deep canyon to a place called Monte, and there rode a toboggan launched down narrow, steep streets by two local experts—even though he admitted to not enjoying that sort of rushing, descending motion.

Then, on their way back to Funchal, they stopped by a roadside eatery and had lunch.

One hears a lot about photographic memories.

What Hazel would have liked is a phonographic memory.

They spent close to five hours in each other’s company and talked for most of that time.

But though she retained a fair amount of information—he just learned to make Bolognese sauce from the ship’s cook; the espresso machine on board, prone to blockage, was the bane of his existence; it took his vessel five days to sail from Gibraltar to Madeira, relying solely on wind—she could recall only a few snatches of conversation in their entirety.

If those five hours were an archaeological dig, they would be akin to a site with a handful of well-preserved artifacts, the rest only shards and weathered foundations.

She could still generate a floor plan and maybe even a forensic blueprint for how the villa must have looked in its heyday, the gardens here, the baths there, a lovely pergola for the occasional alfresco dinner. But mostly, just a lot of rubble.

Sometimes a night watch at sea feels as if it will never end. But there are also times when all the stars are overhead and it’s overwhelmingly beautiful. Times like that I’m almost sad that this won’t be my life forever, that I will go back to land, to people, traffic, a desk job.

They were waiting for the cable car to Monte, standing atop a terrace with magnificent views.

You don’t like normalcy? she teased.

Oh, I do. If I ever get to live in a full-size room again, with internet on demand and a shower that’s wider than a telephone pole, I will cry.

I miss those amenities so much that I have to remind myself nobody forced me to sign up for the mariner’s life.

The opposite: I fought hard for an opportunity to sail the seven seas.

He turned and smiled at her. Those dimples again. She felt covetous.

It’s a good lesson. It tells me I can never have everything—not at the same time, in any case. Adventure has its costs; stability has its own costs. And I should stop thinking about what I don’t have.

Zen and the art of cable car tourism , she murmured.

He laughed and escorted her up to the cable car’s boarding point.

I came here for work. How did you end up in Madeira?

They’d alighted from the cable car some time ago and now stood looking over the deep green canyon they’d just traversed.

Hazel’s mother, unable to stop her from finally leaving home to travel on her own, had booked her a long cruise from Singapore to London. Hazel had not minded: Nainai had stepped off just such a cruise to visit her in Singapore six years ago.

It took her a few days aboard to perceive Lillian Kuang’s Machiavellian brilliance: For the entire journey Hazel was lumped in with several hundred septuagenarians.

The ship departed most destinations by eight o’clock in the evening—five o’clock in the afternoon, sometimes—well before local nightlife kicked into gear. And even when it stayed in port for more than a day, the itinerary worked against her—Cape Town on a Monday night was not exactly lit.

And Hazel had barely minded. I’m here in Madeira because I finally ran away from home.

It felt good to say that aloud.

At your advanced age? he teased her.

She giggled a little. She deserved that. Better late than never, I guess. My mom’s always been overprotective.

He studied her. There was a steadiness to his eyes, an intelligent focus. But you seem to have yourself very much in hand. What is she trying to protect you from?

Her heart thudded, whether from his gaze or his question she couldn’t be sure. From life itself, perhaps.

How can anybody do that?

People will try. They don’t want to accept that pain is simply a part of life; they still think, after thirty, sixty, or even ninety years on this earth, that something can be done, if not for themselves, then for those they love.

A leaf fell from the tall plane trees overhead and landed on the parapet that separated them from the canyon. He picked up the leaf. Have you accepted that pain is simply a part of life?