Quiet People

Abstract

T he archive center is the color of a manila envelope, has no windows, and smells like dust with only a hint of lemon Pledge cleaner. There are four hundred and fifteen rows of shelves that stretch ten feet into the air like the columns of an ancient structure, each shelf completely full with neatly labeled boxes in chronological and alphabetical order. Margaret arrives every morning at six am with a thermos of decaf coffee creamed to the light brown color of an old newspaper. She wears her hair in a loose bun, bangs neatly combed in a straight line parallel with her eyebrows. Her clothes add twenty years to her appearance with her muted blouses and charcoal gray skirts and high stockings. Nobody coming into the archive center would guess she’s under forty five, though she graduated with her master’s degree in historical preservation only two years ago at twenty four. Margaret looks at people’s hands when she talks and barely speaks above a whisper. Around nine, a man enters the building while Margaret is logging a set of police reports from last month. She stands and greets him softly, but he pushes right past her desk and heads for the large room with the shelves, gruffly grumbling, “Maps,” and ignoring