by D J Mcintosh
“You said he had a wife. What about her?”
“I was coming to that. She ceased working for me shortly after their marriage. When Helmstetter took off, he left her behind. Broken-hearted, she grew bitter. Refused to even speak his name. She remarried. She passed away last October.”
He motioned toward the case. “Her will instructed her executor to send me those objects as a way of paying me back for Helmstetter’s theft. It was most generous of her.”
“Well, if they do turn out to be authentic, which I doubt, they’re worth vastly more than the money and book combined. Consider yourself compensated.”
A flash of irritation crossed Strauss’s face. “Their financial value is of no interest to me,” he snapped.
“Did you learn how they came into her possession?”
“All I know is that almost a year after he disappeared she received a package from Helmstetter containing the objects. It included a short, undated letter in which he begged her forgiveness and hoped the valuables would provide her with some financial security. She kept them all those years, unsure of their authenticity or provenance but unwilling to give them up. In the letter to her, underneath his signature, Helmstetter wrote some kind of code expressed in a series of numbers.”
Strauss took out a sheet from his tuxedo jacket and handed it over.
20 8 9 18 20 25 6 15 18 20 25
5 9 7 8 20. 44 34 49.
30 34 32 33 45 20 23 15
19 9 24 76 55 68 65
26 5 18 15 19 5 22 5 14
6 9 22 5 31 34 47 30
14 9 14 5 101 80 93 90
51 30 43 40 55 59 57 58 70
“What do these mean?”
“I have no idea. But now I know why I couldn’t find him.”
“Why?”
“He’d journeyed to a remote location. A village named Kandovan near Lake Urmia in northwest Iran, close to the Turkish border. The package addressed to his wife was sent from there.”
With another tissue in hand, I got up and bent over the case to examine the statue, turning it so the light shone fully on it. I could see tiny crystals lodged in the pits and crevices.
“You’re thinking along the right lines,” Strauss said, observing me. “Those are salt crystals. They’re present on the cylinder seals as well. And I’ve had the microscopic molds and soil deposits on all these objects analyzed. They’re consistent with samples from the Lake Urmia district near Kandovan.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Assuming they’re authentic, the seals are clearly Sumerian. They would have come from southern Iraq—over five hundred miles away from Lake Urmia. Helmstetter couldn’t have unearthed them near Kandovan.”
“Are you intrigued, Mr. Madison? I thought you would be.”
“Yes, but only about the origin of these artifacts.”
“Trace their origin and you’ll pick up Helmstetter’s scent.”
“Why not just approach me about this directly? Why the excuse about Bennet writing that article? I’m assuming the article is a joke, just not a particularly funny one.” Bennet’s cheeks flushed.
“It’s no joke at all. If you do agree to take on the task, I’d like her to be your chronicler. What could be more flattering than to have an account of your investigation?”
“You’re saying you want me to travel to this Iranian village and try to track down Helmstetter and the book with Bennet as my sidekick?”
“As I said, if you find one, you’ll discover the other. I’m convinced of it. The Steganographia never turned up, whether at a legitimate rare book sale or on the black market. I’ve employed the best people in the business to verify that.”
“Two wars are being waged on Iran’s borders right now. Even if I somehow managed to get into the country, I’m an American. I’d never make it out again.”
Strauss got up slowly and leaned against the mantelpiece, an amused look on his face. He nodded to Bennet. “From what Ms. Bennet has been able to unearth, you’ve escaped even more dangerous conditions in Iraq, twice, in 2003.”
“And nearly got killed doing so.”
“Quite correct. I’ll compensate you handsomely.”
“Tell me.”
Strauss swept his hand toward the case. “I have no interest in these objects. If you conclude the mission to my satisfaction, they’re yours.”
This appeared to surprise Bennet as much as me.
“Worthless reproductions aren’t much of an inducement,” I said.
“Talk to Tricia Ross. She knows they’re real.”
Bennet put her hand on my knee. “John. You must be aware how valuable they are. How could you turn it down?”
“If that isn’t enough,” Strauss said evenly, “I can offer you something else. Worth more than money.”
“What do you mean?”
“The truth about your birth. Who your real parents were.”
Nine
A clock chimed in another room. I was conscious of my heart thumping. “How would you know anything about that?” I said, feigning a calm I didn’t feel.
“Our friend here is awfully good at digging out information,” Strauss said.
When I turned to look at Bennet she blushed again.
“Bennet was able to learn that your birthright is a matter of concern to you. As to what I discovered about you when I started inquiring, I prefer not to say, until, that is, you carry out my request.” Strauss smiled.
Who knew about the questions concerning my birth parents? Just my former housekeeper, Evelyn, who was like a mother to me—that was it. I couldn’t see her talking to Bennet.
Evelyn and Samuel had always claimed that he and I were half-brothers, sharing a father. Samuel, much older than I, searched for me in Turkey after he heard about my parents’ death in a mining disaster. He adopted me at the age of three, brought me home to New York, and one year later Evelyn arrived to be our full-time housekeeper. But I’d come to wonder about this story in a serious way ever since I’d been diagnosed with that genetic blood disorder— one of my parents must have had it and I had no way of knowing. Other things had since surfaced in my mind: not one photo existed of me with either of my parents. I had no idea what they looked like. When I’d asked my brother about it he’d change the subject or find some other way to avoid answering me. Samuel was dead—I couldn’t get the truth from him. And when I tried with Evelyn she’d resisted; the whole issue seemed to upset her.
I stood up, fuming, gave Strauss a curt nod, ignored Bennet, and walked out.
I’d barely made it down half the block when Bennet flew after me, her coat undone and flapping in the wind. “John, please don’t be angry.”
“Lady, you’ve got a hell of a nerve. What was it? Did you hack into my medical records or something? I could report you.”
She had to run to keep up with me; her breath came in gasps. “What are you talking about? That’s not where I found out.”
“Then how?” I stopped in my tracks.
“Evelyn Farhad told me. Or rather I should say, she let it slip. I told her I was writing an article about you for a prestigious archaeological magazine.” Bennet hung her head at that point, suggesting she possessed at least a fragment of a conscience. “She was so thrilled and kept saying how happy your brother would have been to see you recognized. I’m afraid it made her talkative.”
“So you squeezed out private information about me by manipulating a vulnerable woman?”
“You’re putting the worst face on it.”
I put both hands gently on her shoulders. “I’m heading to the subway. If that’s the direction you’re going in too, you’re welcome to walk with me. After we say goodbye, I would appreciate not hearing from you again. Is that clear?” I paused to see whether I’d finally gotten through. She looked defeated.
“I’ll go back to the house. Gina’s son offered me a ride home.” She stuck her hands in her coat pockets and trudged back down the sidewalk.
A pang of regret hit me as I watched her retreat
ing figure. After what she’d done, I couldn’t imagine why.
Ten
February 16, 2005
Sleep didn’t come easily that night. I couldn’t shake the memory of that strange chorus of chants—the ghost voices accompanying Strauss’s channeling. The sounds reverberated through my brain like an earworm. I tossed and turned. Nor could I stop thinking about Strauss’s biblical quote and the seven evil spirits haunting Gina’s husband and home. I will return to the house from which I came.
Around four in the morning another episode of sleep paralysis hit me, one of the worst I’d ever had. It seemed to go on forever. Before, I’d always been aware of my own consciousness trying to fight off the dead weight of my limbs. But this time it seemed as if another presence was in the room, someone who wanted to harm me. When I finally awoke with a jerk and heaved myself out of bed, I was trembling and soaked in sweat.
By then it was late morning. I took a long shower, got some orange juice and food into my system, and finally felt human again. On my way to pick up the dog I dropped in to check on Evelyn.
She lived in a brown-brick high-rise complex on Ninth Avenue. When I tapped on her door and she opened it, I could see she was all set to go out, her coat on and her purse lying on her lap. She lifted her arms from the wheelchair pads and stretched them out for a hug.
“You’re surprising me, John. I am so happy to see you. But it is Layla’s birthday. I promised to take her to lunch.”
I bent down to kiss her cheek, glad to see that today she looked well. She suffered miserably from arthritis and the pain became particularly bad in the depths of winter. “Don’t worry. I just wanted to pop in for a few minutes.”
“Let me make you tea. Let me call Layla and say for her to wait.” She patted my hands and made to turn her wheelchair.
“No need, really—actually I just stopped by to ask you something.” She gave me a questioning look. I had to be careful how I phrased this; I didn’t want to upset her. “You chatted with Margaux Bennet the other day? She’s been in touch with me.”
Evelyn’s eyes lit up. “Yes. A very nice girl. Much better manners than many you see now. So rude some of them are with their phones out all the time, hardly looking at you. I’m glad about the story in the magazine! I will show it to all my friends here when it comes out.”
“It’s pretty exciting all right. What did she want to know about?”
“Mostly about when you were younger. Your childhood and student days.” Evelyn put a finger to her lips. “I forget what she called it. Background, I think she said.”
“Listen, dear. It’s great you had a chance to talk with her, but if she calls again just pass it on to me—all right? I’m really enthusiastic about the article but I want to make sure everything’s accurate. These writers sometimes like to stretch the truth, you know.”
Evelyn always read me well; I couldn’t get away with anything when I was a kid that her sharp eyes wouldn’t pick up. Her expression darkened. “Did I say something wrong to her, John? You’re happy about the story, yes?”
“Not at all, it’s fine. Nothing to worry about. Can I hang here for a few minutes? I need to make a couple of calls and it’s too noisy out on the street. I’ll lock up when I’m done.”
“Of course. Baklava is made fresh today. Sitting on the counter. Take some home with you.”
I gave her a hug and made sure her top coat button was done up and that she had her warm gloves. Layla was already waiting at her apartment door down the hall. I waved to them as they headed for the elevator.
I felt guilty lying to Evelyn about the phone calls. But the question of my parentage, raised all over again in my conversation with Strauss, made me determined this time to find out anything I could.
Evelyn’s studio apartment was small, so if she’d kept any evidence of my origins, it wouldn’t take long to find it. I searched through every drawer, putting everything back carefully. Bad enough that I was betraying her trust this way; I didn’t want to risk her discovering what I’d done. She had no desk, just a bookcase. The bottom two shelves held a pile of assorted files and photo albums. Almost all the pictures in the albums were of Samuel and me or of each of us alone. One of them showed Samuel on his knees at an unnamed archaeological site, intent on brushing gray-brown dirt from an object in a marked-out trough. I remember poring over photos like that as a kid, cross-examining Evelyn about what Samuel had found. Of course she had no idea. In those times, I so badly wanted to be there with him, to make what I thought would be legendary discoveries, and yet I never got the chance.
Another photo was of me around eight years old, larking around at the Natural History Museum, pretending to scare the dinosaurs.
I saw nothing more of interest in the albums and turned to the files. They held old bills, tax letters and so on, newspaper clippings about Samuel’s career, nothing personal. Then, in a Kraft envelope secured with a rubber band, I discovered that Evelyn had kept every greeting card I ever gave her. I looked through them just to be sure, smiling at my early childish scrawls and the earnest notes I’d written from boarding school.
Halfway through the pile of cards, I found something: a brittle piece of paper wrapped around a photograph and lodged between two larger cards, almost as though she’d tried to hide it. The page was an official-looking government document in Arabic text, complete with a stamp. The photo, an old black-and-white image, yellow with age, showed a settlement of unusual stone houses with conical roofs, seemingly carved from an immense rock face. I snapped a photo of both document and image, wrapped the page around the photo again, and put the items back in the envelope.
On my phone I sent the two pictures I’d taken to a colleague of Samuel’s along with a request to translate the document. He was a man I liked, and more important, an archaeologist who’d spent a lot of time in the Near East. A last look around the apartment turned up nothing else. Remembering Evelyn’s baklava, before I left I cut a slice, wrapped it in wax paper, and tucked it in my pocket. I let myself out.
On the way to the veterinary clinic I thought about names for the coyote. I considered calling her Wiley after the daredevil cartoon character. That name suited my penchant for taking huge risks only to find the bottom dropping out from under my feet. But I settled instead on Loki, after the Norse trickster god. She’d come to me in such an unusual way that, had I been of a superstitious turn of mind, I’d have taken it as a sign. Not that I’d be keeping her; it would be a temporary arrangement at best.
I waited in the reception room until Dr. Jefferson came down the ramp carrying Loki.
Her entire hind leg was encased in a pink cast with only the tip of her paw sticking out. He’d shaved her stomach. Her yellow eyes were open. Her black fur looked cleaner, although she was still rail thin. When she saw me she gave a little whimper, which I took, optimistically, to be a friendly greeting.
Jefferson set her down carefully. “As I said, there’s not as much damage as I’d thought. She’s recovering well so far. And she’s definitely not pure Canis latrans.” He looked at me over the top of his glasses. “That’s Latin for coyote. It means ‘barking dog.’ She’s indeed a hybrid—and young, probably around one year old. More important, we don’t think she’s feral. It’s apparent she’s been domesticated. If anything, she’s timid.”
“How do you know?”
“She’s been spayed, for one thing. And she’s shown a comfort level with our staff that a wild animal wouldn’t display. Here’s my best guess. It’s become popular to sell these hybrids for a lot of money. Drug dealers will buy them for watchdogs, or they’re used as bait in dog fights.”
“They actually breed them?”
“They’ll take a domestic female dog that’s in heat out to a farm where it’s known there are a lot of coyotes, muzzle her, and chain her up overnight. That isn’t guaranteed to succeed if local farm dogs get there first. But often enough, a male coyote will breed with her.”
“How do you think she ended up a
stray?”
“She was probably dumped by someone who bought her and later decided she wasn’t aggressive enough.” He gave me a long look. “Are you sure you’re up to looking after her? If she’s been foraging in the city on her own for some time it will require a lot of patience to train her.”
“I don’t see it as a long-term thing. So far I haven’t found anyone willing to take her, but I’ll look after her until I do.”
Jefferson grunted in response. “She’s mildly sedated right now and it’s best to keep her that way over the next few days. But once she’s perked up, she’s likely to run. You’ll have to keep an eye on her.”
He gave me enough pills to knock out an elephant. I thanked him and paid the bill, then took her in my arms. She struggled a bit when she got her first whiff of fresh air as we walked to the car, but seemed content once I’d settled her on the passenger seat. As I reached over to start the ignition, she gave my hand a quick lick. I took that as her seal of friendship and broke off a small piece of baklava for her.
At the parking garage near my place, my phone buzzed with an incoming text from Samuel’s colleague. He’d gotten back to me with lightning speed.
John:
Confirming the script is Arabic. The document is an Iranian birth certificate in the name of Yeva Nemat, born January 21, 1946.
Then, an even greater surprise:
I’m 100% sure the photo is of Kandovan, a village in northwest Iran.
Eleven
My mind spun with possibilities as I got into the elevator to my apartment with Loki in my arms. Kandovan: the name of the town where Strauss’s apprentice had mailed the package. Strauss’s puzzle had suddenly become much more personal. The birth certificate—Yeva Nemat? That must be Evelyn herself. I knew she’d grown up somewhere in the Middle East, but she never spoke about it. She’d kept the birth certificate and photo together, so I guessed that Kandovan was her family home. “Evelyn” was likely an anglicized version of “Yeva,” and she must have changed her name from Nemat to Farhad when she came to America. Or had she been married at some point before she came over here? Was there a husband somewhere in her past?