The Vaults - By Toby Ball Page 0,2

sideburns, and sparse hair parted in the middle. Most striking to Puskis was the man’s stare, as though unaware of the camera, which could not have been more than ten feet away. It was, Puskis thought, haunting.

This was a troubling development. Puskis picked up his phone and, for the first time in over a decade, dialed out.

Puskis felt more uncomfortable than usual in the Chief’s office. He rarely deviated from his three destinations: his apartment, seven blocks from the Vaults; the grocer’s around the corner; and, of course, the Vaults themselves. Anywhere else and he realized how eccentric—even grotesque—his nearly three decades in the Vaults had left him. He was alarmingly thin and stooped, the latter a consequence of years leaning to read files in the too dim light. His face was pale, and he sweated more than he liked when he was in the open air. He wore thick, wire-framed glasses, as the reading had left him nearsighted. Inside the Vaults he did not need to see beyond four or five feet.

The Chief was looking at Puskis with mild bewilderment. During his first years as Archivist, Puskis had occasionally come with some kind of request—a different kind of paper, a newfangled sprinkler system, a lockable door between the elevator and the Vaults, a bathroom—that the Chief could not possibly fund. In time, the consistent fruitlessness of these requests put an end to Puskis’s visits. Now, after a decade, he was back. This was something quite different.

“Two identical files?” The Chief’s jowls quivered when he spoke.

“Yes, sir. Two files in the C4583R series. An individual by the name of Reif DeGraffenreid.”

“And the problem?” The Chief was polishing a badge of some sort with his tie.

“Well, sir, you see, there were two different photographs. The files were for the same person, but the photographs were of two different people.”

“I’m not sure that I understand the problem, Mr. Puskis.”

“It’s just that, sir, well, it’s just that there can’t really be two Reif DeGraffenreids in the city with the same FACT number and address and everything else. It’s just, well, not possible.” At some level, Puskis himself did not necessarily believe this statement. But such was his faith in the unerring accuracy of the files in the Vaults that there seemed no other explanation.

The Chief sighed. “Mr. Puskis, it seems quite evident to me that somebody made an error in filing one of those photographs.”

“But why the two files, sir? In my twenty-seven years in the Vaults I have never seen a duplicate file, and now, when I do, there are different photographs in each.”

The Chief shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Puskis.”

“That’s exactly my point, sir,” Puskis said somewhat desperately. “That is just the point I’m trying to get across to you. I don’t know what to make of it either. I am bringing it to your attention so that an inquiry can be initiated.”

“Into who misfiled the photograph?”

“No. Please, do not take this lightly. There are two Reif DeGraffenreids in this city, sir. They are different, but they are the same person.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

“Neither do I, sir. That is the point that I am continuing to try to get across to you. I don’t know what I mean either. It makes no sense, yet there it is. Sir.”

“Maybe it’s the files that are wrong,” the Chief suggested in a softer voice.

“No. I’m afraid not. The files would not be wrong.” Puskis did not mention the different-colored inks or the age difference in the papers. The former was a detail whose significance would escape the Chief. He would not understand the system by which the transcribers who assembled and notated the files worked. He would not understand the dramatic importance of the same comment appearing twice, but in different ink. What Puskis found most alarming was that he, Puskis, understood this detail to be of vital importance, but could not glean its meaning.

The Chief opened a file on his desk and leafed through its pages. Puskis watched the Chief’s inexpert handling of the papers, his fat fingers occasionally pulling two sheets instead of the desired one.

“Mr. Puskis, when did you last take a vacation?”

The question caught Puskis off guard and he stammered before answering, “I’m not absolutely certain, sir. Not for a long while, but I fail to see—”

“Mr. Puskis,” the Chief interrupted, his fleshy lips in a benign and sympathetic smile, “it was 1917. Eighteen years, almost to the day.”

Puskis conceded