Angelology

by Danielle Trussoni

  “And now?” Evangeline asked, breathless. “It is no longer there?”

  “Abby secured it in the hollow underside of one of the statues—Aristide Maillol’s The Mediterranean, which has a great hollow space at its base. She believed that Celestine Clochette would arrive within months, perhaps a year at the most. It would have been safe for a short amount of time. But at the time of Abby’s death in 1948, Celestine had still not come. Soon after, plans were made for Philip Johnson to create his modern Sculpture Garden. I took it upon myself to move it before they tore the garden apart,” he said.

  “That seems like a difficult procedure,” Bruno said. “Especially under the kind of security implemented at the MoMA.”

  “I am a lifetime trustee of the museum, and my access—although not as complete as Abby’s—was considerable. It was not difficult to arrange its removal. It was simply a matter of having the statue moved for cleaning and extracting it. It was a very good thing I had the foresight to do so: The treasure would have been discovered or damaged had I left it. When Celestine Clochette did not come, I knew that I must simply hold on and wait.”

  Bruno said, “There must have been safer ways of securing something so precious.”

  “Abby believed the treasure would be most safe in a populated environment. Together the Rockefellers created magnificent public spaces. Mrs. Rockefeller, always a practical woman, wanted to use them. Of course, with such priceless pieces of art inside, the museums were also the most secure locations on the island of Manhattan. The Sculpture Garden and the Cloisters are under constant scrutiny. Riverside Church was a more sentimental choice—the Rockefeller family built the church on the site of Mr. Rockefeller’s former school. And Rockefeller Center, the great symbol of Rockefeller power and influence, was a nod to the Rockefellers’ social standing in the city. It represented the range of their power. I suppose Mrs. Rockefeller could have thrown all four pieces into a bank vault and left it at that, but it wasn’t her style. The hiding places are symbolic: two museums, a church, and a commercial center. Two parts art, one part religion, and one part money—these are the exact proportions by which Mrs. Rockefeller wished herself to be remembered.”

  Bruno gave Evangeline a look of amusement at Alistair Carroll’s speech, but said nothing.

  Alistair Carroll left the room and returned after some moments with a long rectangular metal casket. He presented it to Evangeline and gave her a small key. “Open it.”

  Evangeline inserted the key into a tiny lock and turned. The metal mechanism ground against itself, rust blocking its progress, and then clicked. Opening the lid, Evangeline saw two long thin bars, slender and golden, resting in a bed of black velvet.

  “What are they?” Bruno asked, his surprise apparent.

  “Why, the crossbars, of course,” Alistair said. “What did you expect?”

  “We thought,” Evangeline said, “that you were keeping the lyre.”

  “The lyre? No, no, we did not hide the lyre at the museum.” Alistair smiled as if he were at last allowed to tell them his secret. “At least not all of it.”

  “You took the liberty of dismantling it?” Bruno asked.

  “It would have been much too risky to hide it in one place,” Alistair said, shaking his head. “And so we disassembled it. It is now in four pieces.”

  Evangeline stared at Alistair in disbelief. “It is thousands of years old,” she said at last. “It must be extraordinarily fragile.”

  “It is a surprisingly sturdy instrument,” he said. “And we had the help of the best professionals money could buy. Now, if you don’t mind,” he said, leading them back to the fireplace and taking a seat in the armchair. “There are a number of pieces of information I have been entrusted to relate to you.

  As I mentioned, Mrs. Rockefeller assumed that the pieces would be collected by one person and that they would be retrieved in a certain order. She planned the recovery in a very meticulous fashion. The Museum of Modern Art was the first location—thus she included a card with my name for you—followed by Riverside Church, the Cloisters, and then Prometheus.”

  “Prometheus?” Evangeline asked.

  “The statue of Prometheus at Rockefeller Center,” Alistair said, straightening in his chair so that he appeared suddenly taller, more patrician than before. “The order was arranged in this fashion so that I could give you specific instructions, as well as words of advice and caution. You will find a man at Riverside Church, one Mr. Gray, an employee of the Rockefeller family. Abby trusted him with the position, but frankly I don’t understand why. One cannot say if he has remained attentive to Mrs. Rockefeller’s wishes after all these years—he has come to me on a number of occasions requesting money. In my book, indigence is never a good sign. In any event, if there is time, I suggest you bypass Mr. Gray altogether.” Alistair Carroll removed a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his tweed jacket and unrolled it on the coffee table. “This shows the exact location of the lyre’s sound chest.”

  Alistair Carroll gave Evangeline the paper so that she might examine the maze at its center.

  “The labyrinth on the chancel of Riverside Church is similar to the one found at Chartres Cathedral in France,” Alistair explained. “Traditionally labyrinths were used as tools in contemplation. For our purposes a shallow vault was installed below the central flower of the labyrinth, a seamless compartment that can be removed and replaced without damaging the floor. Abby locked the sound chest inside. It was to be removed according to these instructions.”

  “As for the strings of the lyre,” he continued, “that is another matter altogether. They are located in the Cloisters and must be removed with the assistance of the director, a woman who has been informed of Mrs. Rockefeller’s wishes and will know the best approach in circumstances such as ours. The museum will be open for another half an hour or so. The director of that space has orders to allow full access. With a call from me, it shall be done. There is simply no other way to go about it without causing mayhem. You said that your associates are there now?”

  “My grandmother,” Evangeline said.

  “How long ago did she go there?” Alistair asked.

  “She should be there now,” Bruno said, checking his watch.

  Alistair’s complexion drained of color. “I am deeply distressed to hear it. With the order of things so upset, who can say what dangers await her? We must try to intervene. Please, tell me your grandmother’s name. I will place the call immediately.”

  Walking to a rotary telephone, he lifted the receiver and dialed. Within seconds he was explaining the situation to another party on the line. Alistair’s familiar manner gave Evangeline the impression that he had discussed the situation with the director on previous occasions. After he hung up, he said, “I am greatly relieved—there have been no unusual occurrences at the Cloisters this afternoon. Your grandmother may be there, but she has not been anywhere near the hiding place. Thankfully, there is still time. My contact will do everything in her power to find your grandmother and assist her.”

  He then opened a closet door and slid into a heavy wool overcoat, adjusting a silk opera scarf about his neck. Following his lead, Evangeline and Bruno rose from the couch. “We must go now,” Alistair said, leading them to the door. “The members of your group are not safe—indeed, now that the recovery of the instrument has begun, none of us are safe.”

  “We have planned to meet at Rockefeller Center at six,” Bruno said.

  “Rockefeller Center is four blocks from here,” Alistair Carroll said. “I will accompany you. I believe I can be of some assistance.”

  The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fort Tryon Park, New York City

  Verlaine and Gabriella stepped out of a taxi and ran up the pathway to the museum. A cluster of stonework buildings rose before them, ramparts lifting over the Hudson River beyond. Verlaine had visited the Cloisters many times in the past, finding its perfect likeness to a medieval monastery a source of solace and refuge from
the intensity of the city. It was comforting to be in the presence of history, even if there was an air of fabrication to it all. He wondered what Gabriella would think of the museum, having had the real deal in Pans—the ancient frescoes, the crucifixes, the medieval statues that constituted the Cloisters’ collection had been put together in emulation of the Musée National du Moyen Age, a place he had only read about in books.

  It was the height of the holiday season, and the museum would be filled with crowds of people out for an afternoon of quiet contemplation of medieval art. If they were being followed, as Verlaine suspected they were, such a crowd might shield them. He studied the limestone façade, the imposing central turret, the thick exterior wall, wondering if the creatures were hidden inside. He had no doubt that they were there, waiting for them.

  As they hurried up the stone steps, Verlaine pondered the mission at hand. They had been sent to the museum without any notion of how to go about their search. He knew that Gabriella was good at what she did, and he trusted that she would find a way to bring them through their part of the mission, but it seemed a daunting task. With all his love of intellectual scavenger hunts, the immense difficulty of what lay before them was enough to make him want to turn around, find a cab, and go home.

  At the arched entrance of the museum, a petite woman with glossy red hair hurried in their direction. She wore a fluid silk blouse and a strand of pearls that caught the light as she made her way to them. It seemed to Verlaine that she’d been stationed at the door waiting for their arrival, but he knew that this was impossible.

  “Dr. Gabriella Valko?” she said. Verlaine recognized the accent as similar to Gabriella’s and deduced that the woman was French. “I am Sabine Clementine, associate director of restoration at the Cloisters. I have been sent to assist you in your endeavors this afternoon.”

  “Sent?” Gabriella said, looking the woman over warily. “Sent by whom?”

  “Alistair Carroll,” she whispered, gesturing for them to follow her. “Who works on behalf of the late Abigail Rockefeller. Come, please, I will explain as we walk.”

  True to Verlaine’s predications, the entrance hall overflowed with people, cameras and guidebooks in hand. Patrons waited at a cash register in the museum’s bookstore, the line curling past tables stacked high with medieval histories, art books, studies of Gothic and Romanesque architecture. Through a narrow window, Verlaine caught another glimpse of the Hudson River, flowing below, dark and constant. Despite the danger, he felt his entire being relax: Museums had always had a soothing effect on him, which may have been—if he wanted to analyze himself—one of the reasons he chose art history as his field. The curatorial feel of the building itself, with its collection of disassembled medieval monasteries—façades, frescoes, and doorways taken from dilapidated structures in Spain, France, and Italy and reconstructed into a collage of ancient ruins—contributed to his growing ease, as did the tourists snapping photos, young couples walking hand in hand, retirees studying the delicate, washed colors of a fresco. His disdain for tourists, so pronounced just a day before, had transformed to gratitude for their presence.

  They walked into the museum proper, through interconnected galleries, one room opening into the next. Although they didn’t have time to pause, Verlaine glanced at the artwork as they passed by, looking for something that might give a clue about what they’d come to the Cloisters to do. Perhaps a painting or piece of statuary would correspond with something in Abigail Rockefeller’s cards, although he doubted it. The Rockefeller drawings were too modern, a clear example of New York City Art Deco. Nevertheless, he examined an Anglo-Saxon archway, a sculpted crucifix, a glass mosaic, a set of acanthus-carved pillars—restored and cleaned to a polish. Any one of these masterpieces could hold the instrument within it.

  Sabine Clementine brought them into an airy room, a wall of windows drenching the glazed wide-plank wooden floor with thick light. A series of tapestries hung on the walls. Verlaine recognized them at once. He had studied them in his Masterpieces of the World Art History course during his first year of graduate school and had encountered reproductions of them again and again in magazines and posters, although for some reason he hadn’t visited the tapestries in some time. Sabine Clementine had led them to the famous Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries.

  “They’re beautiful,” Verlaine said, examining the rich reds and brilliant greens of the woven flora.

  “And brutal,” Gabriella added, gesturing to the slaughter of the unicorn in which half of the hunting party looks on, placid and indifferent, as the other half drives spears into the helpless creature’s throat.

  “This was the great difference between Abigail Rockefeller and her husband,” Verlaine said, gesturing to the panel before them. “While Abigail Rockefeller founded the Museum of Modern Art and spent her time buying up Picassos, van Goghs, and Kandinskys, her husband collected art from the medieval period. He detested modernism and refused to support his wife’s passion for it. He thought it profane. It’s funny how the past is so often judged sacred while the modern world is held in suspicion.”

  “There is often good reason to be suspicious of modernity,” Gabriella said, glancing over her shoulder at the cluster of tourists, as if to ascertain whether they’d been followed.

  “But without the benefits of progress,” Verlaine said, “we would still be stuck in the Dark Ages.”

  “Dear Verlaine,” Gabriella said, taking him by the arm and stepping deeper into the gallery, “do you really believe we have left the Dark Ages behind?”

  “Now,” Sabine Clementine said, stepping close to them so that she could speak softly, “my predecessor instructed me to memorize a clue, though I have never fully comprehended its purpose until now. Please. Listen closely.”

  Gabriella turned to her, surprised, and Verlaine detected the slightest hint of condescension on Gabriella’s face as she listened to Sabine speak.

  “‘The allegory of the hunt tells a tale within a tale,’ ” Sabine whispered. “‘Follow the creature’s course from freedom to captivity. Disavow the hounds, feign modesty at the maid, reject the brutality of slaughter, and seek music where the creature lives again. As a hand at the loom wove this mystery, so a hand must unravel it. Ex angelis—the instrument reveals itself.’”

  “‘Ex angelis’?” Verlaine said, as if this were the only phrase of the clue to perplex him.

  “It’s Latin,” Gabriella replied. “It means ‘from the angels.’ Clearly she is using the phrase to describe the angelic instrument—it was wrought by the angels—but it is an odd way to do so.” She paused to give Sabine Clementine a look of gratitude, acknowledging the legitimacy of her presence for the first time before continuing, “Actually, the initials E A were often imprinted on the seals of documents sent between angelologists in the Middle Ages, but the letters stood for Epistula Angelorum, or letter of angels, another thing entirely. Mrs. Rockefeller could not have possibly known that.”

  “Is there anything else that might explain it?” Verlaine asked, leaning over Gabriella’s shoulder as she extracted Abby Rockefeller’s card from the case. She turned it over, looking at the reverse side.

  “There is a drawing of some sort,” Gabriella said, rotating the card in an attempt to get a better view. There was a series of lightly sketched lines arranged by length, a number written next to each one. “And that explains exactly nothing.”

  “So we have a map without a key,” Verlaine said.

  “Perhaps,” Gabriella said, and asked Sabine to repeat the clue.

  Sabine repeated it word for word.

  “The allegory of the hunt tells a tale within a tale. Follow the creature’s course from freedom to captivity. Disavow the hounds, feign modesty at the maid, reject the brutality of slaughter, and seek music where the creature lives again. As a hand at the loom wove this mystery, so a hand must unravel it. Ex angelis—the instrument reveals itself.”

  “Clearly she’s telling us to follow the order of the hunt, which
begins in the first tapestry,” Verlaine said, stepping through clusters of people to the first panel. “Here a hunting party makes its way to the forest, where they discover a unicorn, chase it vigorously, and then kill it. The hounds—which Mrs. Rockefeller advises us to ignore—are part of the hunting party, and the maid—whom we should also bypass—must be one of the women hanging around watching. We’re supposed to ignore all that and look where the creature lives again. That,” Verlaine said, leading Gabriella by the arm to the last tapestry, “must be this one.”

  They stood before the most famous of the tapestries, a lush green meadow filled with wildflowers. The unicorn reclined at the center of a circular fence, tamed.

  Gabriella said, “This is most definitely the tapestry in which we should ‘seek music where the creature lives again.’ ”

  “Although there doesn’t seem to be anything at all referring to music here,” Verlaine said.

  “Ex angelis,” Gabriella said to herself, as if turning the phrase over in her mind.

  “Mrs. Rockefeller never used Latin phrases in her letters to Innocenta,” Verlaine said. “It’s obvious that the use of it here has been meant to draw our attention.”

  “Angels appear in nearly every piece of art in this place,” Gabriella said, clearly frustrated. “But there isn’t a single one here.”

  “You’re right,” Verlaine agreed, studying the unicorn. “These tapestries are an anomaly. Although the hunt for the unicorn can be interpreted, as Mrs. Rockefeller mentioned, as an allegory—most obviously a retelling of Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection—it’s one of the few pieces here without overt Christian figures or images. No depictions of Christ, no images from the Old Testament, and no angels.”

  “Notice,” Gabriella said, pointing to the corners of the tapestry, “how the letters A and E are woven everywhere throughout the scenes. They’re in each tapestry and always paired. They must have been the initials of the patron who commissioned the tapestries.”