“Gold?” Ermete asks.
“Frankincense?” says Harvey.
Vladimir Askenazy shakes his head. “Myrrh, naturally.”
“I was just about to say that!” Ermete groans.
“I don’t think anyone these days knows what myrrh was once used for,” the antiques dealer goes on. Wanting to avoid embarrassing themselves, Harvey and Ermete stay silent.
Behind the thick lenses of his spectacles, the antiques dealer’s eyes look huge. “We’ve lost everything,” he continues. “Meanings, symbols, traditions … we’re even losing the gods themselves.”
“Maybe we just came up with new ones,” Harvey suggests. “Internet, oil, cell phones, TV …”
“And what knowledge do we receive from these new gods?” Vladimir shakes his head. Then he returns to the topic he’d begun before. “In any case, these aren’t tops. Their real name is iynges.”
“Iynges?”
Vladimir begins to paraphrase from the book by the Byzantine scholar. “Within each top is a golden sphere with a precious gem inside of it. Once cast, the top mimics the bellowing of the primordial bull and is influenced by the rotation of the celestial orbs.”
“Golden spheres? Precious gems?” Ermete asks.
“Bellowing of the primordial bull? Celestial orbs?” Harvey says.
The antiques dealer rests the book on the workbench and stares at the top, which is still in Harvey’s hands. “Inside the wood, which represents the cosmos, is a gold sphere, which represents the Earth, and a precious gem … the heart of the Earth.”
“Then it must cost a fortune,” Ermete murmurs, worried.
On hearing this, Vladimir Askenazy frowns. “I never said it had a price. Nor that it was for sale. I only explained why it’s so precious: because it’s one of a kind.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Ermete shoots back. “Who knows? We might have another four or five of them….”
“Now it’s my turn to doubt you. Such items are impossible to find.”
“Then how’d you get this one?” Harvey asks.
“I have my friends.”
“So why aren’t you selling it?” Ermete demands.
“Because it was put on hold months ago by a client of mine.”
“And there’s no way to …?” Harvey’s voice trails off.
“Not any longer.”
“Can’t you even tell us …?” says Ermete.
The antiques dealer shakes his head. “I’m sorry. All I can do is let you see it.” Vladimir Askenazy takes the top out of Harvey’s hands and rests it back in its case. Then he looks up. A crow with one blind eye is perched on top of the roof. Its feet are clicking rhythmically against the glass.
“Did you know that the great Homer studied with the Magi?” he asks distractedly. “As did Pythagoras, the master of numbers?”
But Harvey and Ermete don’t reply. All their attention is focused on the wooden top as it slowly disappears into its case. Harvey sighs. Ermete scratches his head, forgetting about his blond wig for a moment.
“The thing is …,” Harvey starts out.
Vladimir Askenazy stretches his lean, bony neck farther over the table. “What?”
“We …” Ermete gulps and struggles to continue.
“We need to know who put the top on hold,” Harvey blurts out. “We really need to.”
“I can’t tell you that…. Not yet,” Vladimir replies, shaking his head.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t sound like a refusal to Harvey. There’s something left unspoken in the man’s tone of voice. Besides, what he’s said about the Chaldeans, the Magi and the gods of antiquity was like a tacit invitation, as if he’s given them information and now, before going any farther, he wants something in exchange.
“We’ve already seen other tops like yours,” Harvey ventures to say.
“Where?” Vladimir Askenazy asks, as if he already knows the answer.
Ten feet above them, the crow’s claws are clicking against the glass ceiling. Then comes the sound of someone banging on the door in the front room of the shop. Startled, the crow takes wing.
“I think I should go open up,” says Vladimir. He’s only taken a couple of steps when he’s stopped by the deafening clang of a metal cable striking the glass, the violent thud of something heavier … and an entire section of the ceiling shattering into a thousand pieces.
A figure plummets to the ground in a shower of glass. Vladimir cries out, stunned, while Ermete throws himself down, trying to shield his head from the shards of glass raining on top of him. Harvey dives under the table.
In a flash, a second figure plunges down from above, clinging to a rope, and lands athletically on the floor a few steps away from the first one.
“What’s going on? Who are you? What do you want?” Vladimir shouts. There’s a fluttering of wings and the crow flies down into the room, too, circling madly around Vladimir and Ermete.
There’s more banging on the front door, and this time it’s even louder.
From his place beneath the table, Harvey watches as four legs clad in jeans draw closer. The floor is covered with broken glass.
“Stop! Who are you?” the antiques dealer groans a few yards away from him. The two figures ignore him. Women’s boots crush shard after shard with their every step.
Harvey’s heart is beating wildly. He waits for the mysterious women to move even closer and then springs to his feet, trying to overturn the table right on top of them. The two leap back. Among the countless objects that crash to the ground, they spot the case containing the top and grab it at once.
Harvey bares his fists and then, suddenly, he recognizes them. They’re the two women from the club. One white and one black, with geometrical faces and sparkling white teeth, like predators.
He takes a swing at the one closest to him but misses. An instant later, a hand grabs his wrist, stopping him. Panther whirls him around, twisting his arm behind his back. Then she moves her lips up to his ear and lets out a long, threatening hiss. Finally, she shoves him away.
Harvey stumbles and falls down onto the broken glass. He hears Vladimir let out a final shout: “Stop, thief!” When he looks up again, he sees the two women climb swiftly up the rope and disappear.
“Dammit!” Harvey shouts, getting to his feet. One of his palms has a cut on it. “They stole the top!”
Once he’s sure the danger is over, Ermete pulls himself to his feet and shakes his fist at the hole in the ceiling. “Lucky for them they got away. Otherwise I would’ve …”
Vladimir Askenazy coughs, looking around in a daze. His eyes are wide open, his pupils dilated.
“You okay?” Harvey asks him.
“Just a few scratches.”
“We need to call the police….”
The man checks the little wooden cases and the other items that have tumbled to the floor. He’s in shock. “Yes … I think … I think that would be best.” He can’t make heads or tails of what’s happened. “You … you two … they …,” he says to the boy, trying to understand.
Ermete is searching the floor for the blond wig he’s lost.
“Yeah, it’s our fault,” Harvey confesses. “They followed us.”
“What do you mean they … they followed you?” Vladimir gasps.
The boy points up at the shattered ceiling. “I should’ve realized it the moment I saw that crow.”
“What does the crow have to do with it?”
“Aha!” Ermete exclaims. He’s just slipped his wig back on, even though it still has a few pieces of glass caught in it.
Harvey shrugs. “Let’s just say that for a while now I’ve felt like … like I was being followed. And those two women were at the club where Ermete and I met today.”
The engineer is walking around the room with long strides. “They swiped that top from right under our noses!”
“The two women from the club,” Harvey repeats.
Ermete helps the antiques dealer turn the table right-s
ide up. “Yeah. This is the first time in my life that two women have followed me … and look how it ended up.”
“I’m the one they were following,” Harvey points out.
Vladimir doesn’t ask any questions. He’s bewildered, devastated.
“We’ve got to warn the others,” Harvey says.
“We aren’t safe,” Ermete says.
“We never have been.” Harvey clenches his fists angrily. The memory of the woman’s hiss in his ear is still vivid. “I didn’t even manage to hit her.”
8
THE DEBATE
AUNT IRENE’S BEDROOM IS FILLED WITH PERFECT SILENCE. THE elderly woman is sitting in her wheelchair, a plaid blanket covering her lap. Sitting on the floor facing her are Elettra and Sheng.
“Well?” Irene asks her sister, Linda, who’s standing rigidly behind the kids.
“Well what? It’s sheer nonsense!” the latter blurts out, her hands on her hips.
Elettra rolls her eyes, nudging Sheng with her elbow. “What did I tell you? It’s no use.”
“Linda, please be reasonable!” Irene begs.
“I am being reasonable! Can’t Fernando go?”
“It seems that a mystery publisher liked his novel. They made him a good offer and—”
“Let’s not talk about that novel of his, please!”
“In any case, Fernando can’t leave town right now.”
“Neither can I. Or maybe you want the Domus Quintilia to fall to pieces?”
“It’s been standing for four hundred years, Linda.” Irene sighs. “I don’t think it’s going to collapse over the course of a week.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Besides, the Olfaddestens will be checking in on Wednesday, and they—”
“They’re two of our oldest clients who’ll be coming back to stay with us for fifteen more years even if they happen to find a speck of dust on a nightstand this time,” Irene insists.
“So what? Have you forgotten that the curtains need to be laundered? That the wardrobes are packed full of clothes that need to be aired out? Heavens! You all buy far too many things! Things I need to miraculously straighten out …”
“Auntie! Don’t you understand how important it is for us to go? Sheng’s father needs us,” Elettra breaks in, jumping to her feet.
“I can’t help you with that, not this week. Nor next week, for that matter. I have spring-cleaning to do….”
“Linda, for goodness’ sake!” her older sister interjects. “All the kids are asking is that you go with them to New York for one week. The plane tickets have already been paid for. So has the hotel.” Irene rolls her wheelchair forward slightly. “As I see it, Sheng’s father is offering the kids a wonderful opportunity, and they’re offering to share it with you.”
“But isn’t there anyone else who can go with them?” Linda Melodia suggests, staring stubbornly at the ceiling. “Mistral’s mother, for instance?”
“She’s away on business.”
Linda glances at the kids and points at a tiny patch of dampness in one corner of the ceiling. “Do you two see that? If I go to New York with you, once we’re back it’ll be twice as big as it is now!”
“We have three rooms booked on the top floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel….”
“There’s a spa….”
“A view of Central Park …”
“It’s only a short walk away from the boutiques on Fifth Avenue….” Irene notices a glimmer of interest in her eyes and seizes the opportunity. “Linda, when’s the last time you bought yourself a nice pair of shoes?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. What would I do with new shoes?”
“That’s my line, little sister. You can still use your legs.”
“I wasn’t saying that, Irene.” But the woman’s eyes have grown sweet and understanding.
“I know perfectly well what you meant. But just imagine, a vacation, at long last, after all these years! In the world’s most beautiful city. Besides, the kids will behave like little angels.”
“We’ll be on our best behavior,” Elettra agrees for both of them. “You won’t even notice we’re there.”
“The truth is that … well, there’s nothing I’m interested in seeing in New York,” Linda bursts out.
“Not even the skyscrapers?” Elettra asks.
“The museums?” says Sheng.
“The Brooklyn Bridge?” Irene offers.
“The Statue of Liberty?” says Elettra.
When Linda hears mention of the Statue of Liberty, her eyes sparkle. The woman looks like she’s about to give in. But suddenly, she raises her head and emphatically exclaims, “I can’t.”
“Auntie!”
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” she repeats obsessively, waving her hands in front of her. “I don’t have that optical thing.”
“Huh?”
“To enter the United States these days, you need that special doodad. The passport, I mean. The electronic one. I’ve read that it takes them almost two months to issue one. Which means I can’t go.”
“So that’s the problem, is it?” Irene asks her.
“Isn’t that reason enough? Without the right passport, they arrest you. And what about the children? What will they do?”
“I’ve already got an electronic passport,” says Sheng.
“Me too,” adds Elettra.
“But I haven’t!” Linda Melodia retorts triumphantly.
“Fernando!” Irene calls out.
The bedroom door opens slightly and in steps a grinning Fernando Melodia. The man winks at the kids. Linda peers at him suspiciously.
“It just so happens,” her older sister explains, “that one of Fernando’s friends works over at the police headquarters.”
“I don’t understand,” grumbles Linda, who now clearly smells a rat.
“With friends in the right places, instead of it taking the customary two months, your passport was renewed in only—”
“Six hours!” Fernando says, finishing her sentence and handing Linda a brand-new biometric passport. Then he adds sheepishly, “Sheng took your picture.”
“With a telephoto lens, ma’am,” the boy specifies.
Linda Melodia takes the passport, making no further protests. “Rascals,” she remarks. “You were all in on this, were you?”
Irene, Fernando and the kids cast knowing glances at each other.
“Actually, yes,” Elettra says, grinning.
* * *
Later on, Sheng locks himself in his room. He leans against the wall and sighs. On the other side of the door, the three daughters of the family hosting him are dancing nonstop to “You Make Me Crazy,” which is turned up full blast. The floor is even trembling. The Chinese boy claps his hands over his ears and tries to think straight. He soon realizes it’s no use.
He pulls his biggest wheeled suitcase out from under his bed, unzips it, opens the dresser drawers and throws in everything he can fit into it. He grabs his toothbrush, toothpaste and floss from the bathroom, thinks it over for a moment and adds a perfectly useless disposable razor. Then he looks in the mirror hopefully. “Maybe I’ll start growing a beard in New York,” he muses.
Trying to ignore the commotion the three young girls are making, Sheng walks over to the shoe cabinet, detaches the bottom of the lowest shelf and gropes around the gap beneath it. He pulls out a small wooden object and says, “You’re coming with me, little top.”
Now it’s time for his ever-present backpack. He takes it off its hook, hides the top in an inside pocket and slings it over his shoulder. Then, wheeling the suitcase behind him, he goes back to the door. A second before he walks out, he freezes. “Oh, man! The tickets!” he exclaims. He rushes back, opens the desk drawer and grabs the hotel vouchers and the open-ended plane tickets that his father gave him. Then he walks out of his room. The music hits him like a blast of air from a hair dryer.
“Hey, guys!” he hollers to the three hyperactive girls. “Can you hear me? Tell y
our folks I’m leaving! Got that? I’m going to New York for a week!”
They nod, but Sheng doubts they hear a single word. He waves to them and hurries out of the apartment.
* * *
“It’s eight-nineteen! We’re late!” Linda Melodia says fussily from the backseat of the minibus. They’re in the Domus Quintilia courtyard, waiting to go.
“Just a sec!” Elettra shouts, shoving in her suitcase and running back into the house.
Fernando plops into his seat. Behind him, Sheng pats his bulky carry-on bag, as if to make sure it’s really zipped up. Linda’s yellow suitcases, all lined up by height like Russian nesting dolls, have taken up every square inch of the luggage compartment.
Meanwhile, Elettra climbs the stairs two at a time and reaches Aunt Irene’s room. “We’re leaving!” she cries, saying goodbye for the hundredth time.
The woman wraps her feeble arms around the girl and strokes her black, black tangle of hair. “Be careful, you hear me?”
“Of course, Auntie.”
“Don’t do anything crazy, under any circumstances.”
“You can count on me.”
“And—”
A horn honks down in the courtyard.
“What?” Elettra says, breaking away from the hug.
“Nothing. Go on. Have fun. And say hello to the other kids for me.”
Irene listens to her niece going down the stairs, the minibus door slamming shut and the engine starting up with a sputter.
“Make sure you come back, my dear,” she whispers to the old furniture in her bedroom. Then she clasps her hands together on her lap and adds, “And you, Nature, protect her.”
* * *
Mistral reaches the front door of her apartment. She glances around again. The note for her mother is there on the table. She’s rewritten it five times. She never managed to get through to her on the phone to say goodbye. She bites her lip. Maybe she’s being a little too cold? She walks back, rereads what she wrote and, at the bottom of the note, draws her profile and writes I love you. Then she pulls a lilac-colored hat with a cloth flower onto her head and shuts the door behind her.
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