“Alexander!” Nick shouts toward the Gates of Nineveh.
Alexander turns, distracting one of the groups of religious tourists who tend to be the sole occupants of the Ancient Near East Galleries. The visitors are beguiled by his beauty, following his every move as if an idealized sculpture has come to life before them. They are strikingly unfazed by the fact that a man is yelling in the otherwise silent space.
“Nick,” Alexander hums as the frenetic curator catches up to him. Proximity to Alexander’s height and ease immediately and irrationally calm Nick. “What’s up?” Alexander asks.
“Has my press release gone out?” Nick asks breathlessly, as if there is a typo in an artist’s name.
“No, you have the draft. We’re waiting on your comments.”
“Oh, right. Of course.” Nick replies, now deflated. “I’ll…I’ll get it to you. It’s just that I heard that my exhibition is being moved to Service Building B, and if the journalists were already expecting the show to be in the B Galleries, then we really can’t move it.”
Alexander tilts his head as if listening to a small child tell him about a monster under the bed.
“Well, I’m not sure that would be the case anyway. Let’s hope the journalists don’t ever have that kind of power, but Julia will handle it,” Alexander lulls. “These things always sort themselves out.”
“Right. I know, but I can’t show my pictures in a gallery with seven-foot ceilings.”
Once again, Nick’s refrain does not produce the desired fury.
“It’ll be fine,” Alexander assures. “I have to dash to meet someone in the Great Hall for lunch. Let me know what happens.”
“Yeah, OK.” Nick says, defeated.
“Eye of the tiger, my friend,” Alexander encourages with his signature line—which works not for its poetry, but for the astonishing magnetism of the person delivering it.
* * *
—
As Nick enters the Staff Cafeteria he sees Marta’s tiny frame out of the corner of his eye. She fills the birdlike proportions of a young girl, but maintains the demeanor of a deposed dictator: At any time, she might be quietly wrangling a small army for a retaliatory coup d’état. He must avoid her in case she asks about the B Galleries. Or worse, claims them as hers without apology, sealing his low-ceilinged fate.
Nick stands frozen in the entry and thinks he might want to run. The cafeteria is cleaved into two halves, one for hot food and one for cold. Marta stands with her tray on the hot side waiting patiently for her ladle full of the Mexico! special. She is not prepared for the unenthusiastic “Olé” that accompanies the sound of wet beans hitting the dry paper plate.
“Excuse me?” she questions in her galloping German accent. “Vas?” But the unhappy ladler has moved on.
Nick grabs a plastic tray and holds it over his face as he slips into the cold food side. He approaches the salad bar and panics as he sees Marta now coming toward him. Desperate, Nick burrows his face toward a vat of carrot salad, as if he’s lost something in the stringy orange glop. It reeks of dill and vinegar.
“You must really like carrots,” Peter Geldman jokes as he slaps Nick on the back, bouncing his head forward, and lodging a small sticky piece of dill between his nostrils.
“Good presentation,” Nick muffles into the carrots, as Peter moves on.
Nick feels Marta at his back reviewing the salad bar.
“Look at all zee meats and cheeses,” Marta comments aloud as she walks past him. She delivers her observation with surprise, as if the cold cuts are dipped in gold. He hears victory in her voice. The lenses of her enormous glasses seem drawn toward the sandwich station; they miss—or more likely ignore—Nick.
When he thinks it’s clear, Nick clutches his still-empty tray and moves to the soda fountain to avoid Marta’s sightline as she heads to the cashier. He focuses intently on filling his cup with ice, then adds some Diet Coke while he stares at the machine’s worn, sputtering spigot.
When Marta has paid, Nick scuttles to the hot side, a restless beetle dodging the crush of a boot. He grabs a pre-made tuna sandwich and drops it into a paper bag at the register, so he can avoid the seating area and eat in the safety of his department.
He shifts his eyes sideways to see where Marta is sitting, but she has moved on, perhaps to another room. She is so slight she could be perched on a windowsill nibbling her food like a squirrel.
After making a U-turn to leave through the cafeteria entrance, Nick traverses the museum underground, tense with the possibility that Marta will appear in his path. He passes the old dumbwaiter and is sure she could fit in there, ready to pounce.
* * *
—
At last, Nick sits at the table in his office, inhaling the consoling smell of old books. He is not even hungry. Maybe he could call Carl, the compassionate head librarian, and tell him about the low ceilings? But the desk seems far away after Nick’s outlay of frantic energy this morning. He is relieved to be back in his office, but sure his fate is sealed.
He remembers how he used to escape a bully named William at school by eating lunch in the principal’s office. William once asked Nick to join his table in the cafeteria, then pulled the chair away as Nick sat down. He laid on the floor like a starfish, blinking away tears under a tent of howling faces. Nick’s stomach still flips at the thought of the humiliation.
That vulnerability has never left him, the pressing fear that things will be taken away from him: chairs, lunchrooms, galleries, control. Nick’s mother used to take away his World Book Encyclopedias to force him to play with the other boys on his block. “Get some fresh air, some rough and tumble,” she would plead. He would go outside to placate her, baffled by her “rough and tumble” aspirations for him, then promptly repel the other children with tedious, exhaustive descriptions of the world, as remembered from his confiscated books: entries on the Russian Revolution, or Charles Lindbergh, or Nick’s favorite section, the Mylar pages showing layers of dissected frogs and human innards. It was perhaps the first time that he realized that some things simply needed to be seen. And that success sometimes rests on how they’re seen: Mylar pages, ceiling heights, it all matters.
* * *
—
At 1:00 PM, the phone rings, and he can see it’s Julia.
“Hey. What’s the news?” he quivers.
“Done,” she says without a hello.
“Wait. How? What is Marta going to do?”
“Nick, it’s done. Everyone’s happy. Stop worrying. The B Galleries are yours.”
Her tone is that of a sister delivering the family’s decision about who will host Thanksgiving. Nick knows that Julia understands that his needy arrogance and fretting are anchored in the same dedication to the Met that she herself feels. They have grown up together in this museum. It is a kind of trust that spreads across all the old-timers, the unbreakable bond of an unchanging cast.
“Uh, thank God. Thank you.” Nick sighs with relief.
“Anytime,” she replies. “You’re the talent. And the Director’s Office aims to please.”
“Well, you’ve got a satisfied customer.”
“Only 101 more to go,” she adds with a laugh, referring to the full staff of 102 curators.
Only three hours have passed since their first call this morning, but Nick has packed a year’s worth of agonizing into that time. He shoves his anxiety into every second of every minute, like jamming extra socks into an overstuffed suitcase.
“Drinks at the Stanhope on Friday?” he asks, now cheered.
“Done.”
* * *
—
Six months later, the B Galleries are empty at 8:00 PM except for the 184 pictures that lean against the walls of the nine rooms in an initial configuration for the exhibition. Couriers from across the globe have brought the works of art to this space, inspected them, and l
eft them in the museum’s care. The technicians will start hanging the paintings in the morning. Folding screens block the entrance to the galleries where tomorrow a guard will sit all day, allowing only authorized staff to enter after signing in. A credit line on the title wall reads, “Made possible, in part, by Mrs. Leonard Havering.”
Nick stands in the space he was so fearful of losing. He feels a calm that only arrives in moments like these, when he and the art have nothing between them. He rests his gaze on each painting like an old friend, comforted by the same excitement and familiarity that marks any passionate reunion. He has seen each work before in its home, but now assumes the role of host to this gathering.
“Oh, hello lovely,” he says tenderly as he kneels to look at a portrait of a young girl. Her eyes sink with a knowingness that seems to portend some tragic fate. Her hands clutch each other to reveal a strain beyond her years. She is at once fresh and ancient, the very essence of Nick himself in the guise of an eighteenth-century child.
This is the dream. To stand before the weight and heft of the real things, not reproductions or high-definition scans, but the objects themselves, touched by the artist’s hand, made by human effort, skill, and ambition. The centuries traversed between that creation and Nick’s lifetime are made irrelevant by an immediacy that is overpowering here, on this night, in this gloaming, charged with Nick’s own, glimmering spark.
His hands slip into his pockets as he walks quietly through each room, a father beholding his sleeping children. What is laid out on the floor is what was specified in the original, chronological exhibition design, but it is different than what is now mapped in Nick’s head.
He has changed his approach from that early plan, and he will fix it. His new version will more closely mirror the conversation that has unfolded in his mind over years of research and contemplation, two decades of thinking about what this show could be—visually, sensually, intellectually. He will ignore chronology and use subject and style to structure the show instead.
It is part class reunion, part dinner party: the juxtaposition of pictures that have known the same maker, but never the same room. Only a curator can imagine this meeting and then actually construct it. The unraveling of a life’s work to build a story for the world to see.
Nick pulls his hands from his pockets and folds them over his chest. It is a gesture of silence, a pause before a swelling momentum. In his head there is not music, but a steady beat, one that pulses along with the intensity of his anticipation.
He begins. In his mind, the first picture floats through the dark to the south wall, the opening salvo to the exhibition. It is followed by the next painting swiftly landing where Nick has always envisioned it, alongside the first self-portrait drawing, revealing how the quality of line never really changed from that earliest work.
Nick sorts it out all in his head, imagining each object dangling in the air and then gliding into just the right slot. He blinks and shifts his eyes back and forth, dreaming of the works flashing from one spot to another—one room to another—with the rolling precision of a dancer dipping inevitably into the next step of an improvised movement.
There is an elegance that circles this quiet shuffling. The tangled, worried Nick has disappeared. In his place is a graceful illusionist, able to see what others will only realize once he is finished. Every grievance, every complaint, fades in the face of the marvel he can conjure in these rooms.
He’s simply worth the trouble.
Nick decides the placement of the last picture around 1:00 AM. He leans against a doorway and thinks about his Greek vase colleague: this instant must be what it feels like to slip an ancient shard into its long-lost vacancy.
He is drained and exhilarated by his new plan, buzzing with a spiraling high. He secretly knows the art will rescue him every time, even if tonight he didn’t need its magic. Before he leaves, he looks around with satisfaction, registering the height of the ceiling with a lingering sense of triumph.
* * *
—
A week later, with every picture now hanging, Nick clutches the phone with rage and dials Julia’s number.
“Mr. Morton!” Julia welcomes, “The installation is beautiful. You must be thrilled.”
“Julia,” he begins tightly, despite knowing that this issue is not really her responsibility. “I am looking at the menu for my opening reception, and there are only almonds. I was promised cashews.” His voice manages to pick up speed while simultaneously extending the underlying whine. “I don’t know how this happened. Last March, I had a meeting with Special Events and they asked”—his exasperation becomes mocking—“ ‘Nick, what would you like to serve at your opening?’ and I said, ‘Just make sure there are cashews.’ Now I see that they have completely ignored that request. I mean, what is going on here? Are there even going to be drinks? I feel like I have no idea what is happening around my own show!”
Eeyore is back. And they have taken away his cashews.
“What’s Mona Havering going to do?” he continues, “Munch on a bunch of almonds like she’s on a business-class flight? I was at the Asian Art Friends event two weeks ago and they had cashews—a lot of them. I remember the last time I ordered a cheese plate from Special Events, and we got a giant hunk of cheddar with a big hole cut in the middle stuffed with crackers. It looked like…like casserole night at the Elks Lodge!…Julia?…Julia?”
Julia’s voice lowers into her most “I-know-more-than-you-know” tone.
“You know what, Nick…,” she replies slowly and with perfect sincerity, hinting that she has just figured out the root of this dreadful cashew crime. A sense of revelation soaks her words.
“Maybe Marta got your cashews?” she suggests with a tinge of horror.
Before he can answer, he hears the distant ring of Julia’s laughter. She sounds even farther away when she teases him with the phrase she knows he hates most.
“Let a smile be your umbrella!” echoes from the phone. The fading words are followed by another, more familiar sound: Click.
WHAT WE WONDERED ABOUT ALEXANDER FERRIS
We wondered how he came to us.
How his fair-haired ease slipped into a job in the Communications Office. He was a fresh, gleaming apple amid the gloom of ringing phones and broken office chairs.
We wondered about his beauty. He could release it like a slingshot, showering us with its delicate, shimmering force: a Staff Caf Achilles without the wonky heel, a marble Adam before the fall.
We wondered if he ever touched the ground. Did he glide through the outside world the same way he floated through the museum, effortlessly propelled by some kindly nudging breeze? His pace was rebellious in its calm. No urgency could cling to him, no authority could unsteady his soothing ballast.
We wondered if he was real. If he ever lost keys or bought milk or missed subway trains. In his elegant blue suits and Italian shoes, he quieted the museum’s often nervous energy. We fell into his charisma. Sank into its depths until it coated our every surface. We made him gay and straight and secretly married, the leading man of so many great and glamorous affairs.
We wondered if he was even paid, preferring the dream that he was impossibly wealthy. His time with us was a cultural diversion, a professional trifle. He was our Gatsby—minus the unworkable dreams and tragic demise.
We wondered why he stayed.
We wondered about his words. The slow beat of his phrases and crisp, clarion voice. He spoke in the balanced paragraphs taught in elementary school, ending, always, with tidy, punctuated precision.
We wondered where he was from. Once we heard Ohio. Which sounded too ordinary. That he was one of six children. Again, not quite right. We ignored what did not suit our illusions, cherry-picking our details like fresh blooms in a field. Chocolates from a box.
We decided San Francisco. Four children. With standard poodles and a platinum mother (h
air and credit). Heiress to some unexpected fortune, pet food or plastic wrap.
We wondered if he liked us. Our cafeteria banter and trite office greeting cards seemed so small against his majesty. But there he was: farewells, weddings, birthdays—all marked with the same cryptic phrase, somehow asserting a relevance no one else could conjure. Four words scribbled in his florid hand, no matter what the occasion: Eye of the tiger.
We wondered how long our hero would remain.
After four years, he left. Our golden gladiator, carried down Fifth Avenue one warm October evening. On to Lisbon or Monaco, the Ottoman Empire or fifth-century Athens.
But we did not let him go. We wised up, took over his ghost, and gossiped on. Introduced his foamy celebrity to each new staff member, like some crucial orientation film.
We rolled out his story at every occasion—all those farewells, weddings, birthdays—until it became a museum anthem, sung passionately at each event, bloating his infinite legend, until we were whispering “eye of the tiger” to deathbed retirees.
Curators identified him as Caravaggio’s lover, Saint-Gaudens’s model for Hiawatha, and Picasso’s drinking buddy. Staff, old and new, claimed sightings in the basement, the Japanese Galleries, and the Trustees’ Dining Room.
Over time, the pet food empire evolved into a principality itself—Purinoa, a small island nation off the coast of New Zealand—that he now ruled benevolently.
His departure took on intrigue, too, driven by a lustful tryst with either Nick Morton, Helen Winlock, or a guard named Maira. Maybe Zeus. Some say Apollo. Or Aphrodite.
We stood before medieval reliquaries stuffed with an arm bone or a wisdom tooth and sighed, “Yeah, that’s his.”
Metropolitan Stories Page 11