Some of contents are only mildly nutty. Someone wants to know how many rune stones have been found. Or who invented barbed wire. Or insists Shakespeare didn’t exist. There is never any guessing what the next mail delivery will bring. In many departments, certainly in mine, the youngest, newest member of the staff is tapped to answer all such letters. I had, in my short time at the museum, answered some lulus. So I was outraged when Timothy showed no sympathy at my complaints and, instead, jibed that it was only another proof that New World civilizations were superior to the old in all respects, including the manner in which their departments were run. In the Mesoamerican section, all staff members took turns with the nut mail.
It was such an inconsequential conversation to later matter so much.
I did remember very clearly the spring morning, a Friday in April, that I wearied of my work, the final listing of all items in Storeroom 3-B, and pushed back my chair in my tiny office and decided to go find Timothy. I felt in need of cheer.
Instead, I walked right into the midst of a first-class row.
Unfortunately, the doors that screen staff sections from the museum display areas fit perfectly. I don’t suppose the rattle of a jackhammer would filter through into the sacred precincts of the collections. I had no warning, no chance to slink gracefully away as one would from a family quarrel when a guest was in the house.
I opened the door labeled MESOAMERICAN SECTION and found myself in the middle of an old-fashioned shoot out. All it lacked was guns.
I stepped into a reception area opposite a conference room. The conference room was open. I saw a table and a circle of faces. Standing in the conference room doorway, a letter clutched in his hand, was the section director, Dr. Rodriguez. He was frowning after the man who was stalking up the hall, his back straight and angry.
“Karl,” Dr. Rodriguez called, “I’m sure there was no intent to be disrespectful.”
Karl Freidheim, second in the department, swung around and glared at Rodriguez. “It is an insult. They have no right to do this.”
Dr. Rodriguez’s reply was stiff. “They have every right. I agree that it is thoughtless of them to ask for the manuscript’s return before you have completed your analysis. But we must remember that the manuscript belongs to the Ortega family. If they wish for the material to be returned, it must be returned.”
Freidheim’s blunt face, one cheek disfigured by a scar, was rigid with fury. He grimaced, turned away, barged into his office and slammed the door.
Dr. Rodriguez shook his head tiredly.
I was, as unobtrusively as possible, opening the door out into the main hall. Just as I slipped through, Dr. Rodriguez noticed me and looked inquiring, but I kept right on going. Five lions couldn’t have pulled me back in there.
All the way to the museum’s basement café, I was thinking gratefully how charming almost everyone was in Egyptology. Even those who weren’t charming were certainly civil. Good grief, what an uncomfortable place the Mesoamerican section must be to work in.
I said as much to Timothy when he joined me a few minutes later. But he thought the whole scene hilarious, which made Timothy himself seem less than charming to me. He was obviously delighted by the quarrel between the two men. He took great pleasure in recounting it.
“That bastard Freidheim—it’s time someone knocked him down. He’s always leaning on everybody. It’s fun to see him thwarted. You should have seen his face when Rodriguez told him the manuscript had to be returned.”
“What’s it all about?”
“Some rich Mexicans loaned Freidheim a valuable manuscript dating from early Colonial days. They wrote this week and said they wanted it back pronto and they wanted it hand delivered. Our Teutonic friend is beside himself. He hasn’t finished with the manuscript; plus he likes to give orders, not get them. In his view, it’s adding insult to injury to insist that someone bring the manuscript hat in hand.”
Timothy laughed out loud. I shushed him when others in the café turned to look at us. But he wouldn’t be shamed.
I didn’t seek him out for coffee for more than a week. When he dropped by my office, he was at his most charming. He didn’t mention the manuscript and the trouble it had caused and neither did I.
Oddly enough, I never connected the manuscript with the notice that appeared a week later on the staff bulletin board in the main office. This bulletin board, which every museum employee probably passed at least once a day, is a hodgepodge of miscellany: brochures announcing conferences, notices offering items for sale, letters from staff members visiting afar. Anything and everything that might be of interest.
I saw this particular notice immediately. The all-capital first line couldn’t have attracted me more quickly if it had flashed alternately red and green.
FREE TRIP MEXICO CITY
Wanted: Reliable person to
deliver package. Inquire:
Museum ext. 41.
I was back at my desk, my hand on my telephone, in less than two minutes.
Just for an instant, I hesitated.
Surely, this was not I, Sheila Ramsay, pursuing, literally, a man I had met but once?
I dialed extension 41. I had been sensible all my life, every day in every way. Why shouldn’t I go to Mexico City?
The phone was answered on the second ring.
“Freidheim here.”
Again I hesitated. That bastard Freidheim, Timothy had called him. But what difference did it make to me, the personalities in the Mesoamerican section?
“This is Sheila Ramsay. In Egyptology. I wanted to inquire about the notice, the trip to Mexico City.”
“Ah yes, very good.” There was only the slightest hint of gut in his pronunciation. “Let me see.” He paused.
I waited, breath held, sure he would say he was sorry but I was calling too late. It was only then, as my fingers gripped the phone, that I knew how badly I wanted to go.
“Miss Ramsay”—and I was impressed that he retained my name—“I can meet with you at three this afternoon. Is that agreeable to you?”
“Yes, of course.”
It was a quarter to ten. Time crept. But when, at last, it was ten minutes to three and I left my office and began to walk toward the Mesoamerican wing, my steps lagged.
Did I really want to chase thousands of miles after a man I had met only once? An abrasive, quick-tempered man. But his smile was unexpectedly likeable, and life would never be dull near him.
Besides, I lied to myself, it committed me to nothing to go to Mexico City. After all, I needn’t even go see him. I wouldn’t even think of that until I was there. I knocked on Dr. Freidheim’s door and entered on command.
I’m not good, really, at meeting people. Especially not people like Dr. Freidheim. I took one look at him and immediately felt possessed of three left feet. I stumbled as I sat down in the chair in front of his desk and, worst of all, felt my face flame with embarrassment. When you are sandy-haired and freckled a red face is noticeable.
He was big. Even sitting behind a desk, he looked big, heavy shouldered, huge handed. But it was his eyes that caught and held my attention, Alpine blue eyes that looked as cold and bright as a shallow lake on a winter day. His blond hair, well mixed with white, was cut short. He would have looked at home on a ski slope or in a financier’s office or in a yellowing photograph from World War II.
It was a strained interview.
Very quickly he elicited a summary of my past, where I was born, my schooling, jobs, family background.
I was aware throughout that he either didn’t like me or my answers or the interview itself. He was abrupt, cold, and very nearly rude.
Then came the question I had dreaded.
“Do you speak Spanish, Miss Ramsay?”
I shook my head apologetically. “No, I’m afraid not, Dr. Freidheim. I speak French and some German, but no Spanish.”
“German,” he repeated.
I could tell nothing from his face. It gave no hint how he judged me
. He straightened the page upon which he had made notes as we talked.
“Interest has been expressed by several persons in making the trip, Miss Ramsay.” He smiled, a humorless smile that did not reach those icy blue eyes. “Something for nothing is always attractive, am I right?”
I felt suddenly grasping and small. He was right, of course. The trip was a freebie on a giant scale and I had always prided myself on having too much style to go to openings for free baubles.
He looked down at the sheet then, viciously, gouged a check mark at the bottom of the page with his pen.
I shrank a little in my chair.
“I will check your background,” he said curtly, rustling the paper. “We must, you understand, have someone who is responsible.”
I nodded quickly, not understanding any of it.
“The return of the manuscript has been ordered.” He glared at me. “I am not finished with my study of it.”
If there was a reply to make, I couldn’t think of it.
“The Ortegas,” he continued, and the name was ugly on his lips, “have insisted that the manuscript be returned. Dr. Rodriguez says there must be a reason. But they have not given it.”
I nodded again, mutely, finally realizing that the trip was part and parcel of the angry scene I had stumbled into.
A muscle twitched in his scarred cheek. “The manuscript belongs to them so we must return it. But I will not permit a member of this department to carry it to them.”
“I see,” I said tentatively.
“It is an insult, you understand.”
I had no idea who was insulting whom, but I could tell well enough that Dr. Freidheim had worked it out in his own mind that sending a museum employee from another section took some of the sting out of having to return the manuscript.
“It is one of the few extant documents from the period directly following the Conquest so it is highly prized, you understand.”
I leaned forward in my chair, curious to see what might make it possible for me to go to Mexico.
He pushed back his chair and stood. Turning, he lifted down a leather-bound book from a shelf behind his desk. Covered in protective plastic, the book was massive—a foot in width, a foot and a quarter in length, and several inches thick. His huge hands touched it gently. He laid the book on a nearby table and began turning its golden-toned vellum pages.
As Freidheim spoke, I learned a good deal about its author, one Father Sanchez, and his work among the indios, as the Spaniards called the natives. Freidheim described the priest’s work among his charges, how he had learned Nahuatl—the Aztec language—and translated many codices, the painted fig-bark books in which the Aztecs wrote their histories.
I also laid to rest, as Freidheim droned on and on, the niggling little worry about the advisability of accepting free passage anywhere, a carryover from those long-ago days when I was warned never to accept a ride from strangers.
What could be safer, more respectable than serving as a messenger for my museum?
Chapter 3
One week passed, then a second. The chill days of April slipped into the teasing warmth of May.
I would hope, and then I would despair. One moment I would feel confident that Dr. Freidheim would be impressed with my respectable background. The next I would be sure that he wouldn’t even seriously consider an applicant who didn’t speak Spanish.
Just in case, I scurried about, got my clothes clean, checked on getting a tourist card, even buying (an extravagance) a new spring coat. It was, the guidebooks assured, eternal spring in Mexico City.
I avoided Timothy for a full week, and then, when he ran me down and we went for coffee, I confessed all in one breath.
“I don’t blame you if it makes you mad. After all, a trip like this should go to someone in the department, but when I saw the notice on the board, I couldn’t resist trying for it.”
He was surprised. “It never occurred to me that you’d try to go.”
“I’m sorry, Timothy—” I began, but he held up his hands.
“It’s fine with me,” he interrupted. “Don’t worry about it. It’s no skin off my nose if you get the gold ring. Freidheim would see us all in hell before he’d let any member of the department make the trip.”
“Why? That doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t,” Timothy replied, “but Freidheim thinks it will put the Ortegas down if just any old museum employee lugs it back. No one else sees it that way but Rodriguez is going along with it because it soothes Freidheim.”
Then he said, almost uncertainly, “But I never expected—I mean, I’m surprised you checked into the notice. Why do you want to go to Mexico City?”
I drank a big gulp of iced tea. I would never, of course, admit to Timothy why I wanted to make the trip. But the questions caught me unprepared.
“I don’t know exactly,” I said. “It’s time for my vacation and I didn’t have anything special planned and it sounds like fun.”
He frowned. “I kind of wish . . .” he said slowly, then he ended in a rush, “It’s not really the kind of place for a woman traveling alone. It’s a huge city, millions, and it’s always open season on a woman alone.”
“Why, Timothy,” I said, smiling, “I can’t believe it’s you talking. I didn’t know you harbored such male chauvinist views. I’ll have you know it’s a brave new world out there. If I wanted to, I’d go to Tibet alone is somebody would offer to pay my way.”
He laughed. “So you have a streak of adventure. Well, so be it.”
I didn’t see Timothy again the next week. When the week was almost done, I began to lose what little hope I still had that I might be the lucky one. After all, why should Freidheim choose me?
It was Thursday afternoon when I answered my phone and recognized his faintly guttural voice.
“Freidheim here. Are you still interested in the trip to Mexico City, Miss Ramsay?”
It was like winning the sweepstakes or graduating cum laude or seeing for a fabulous instant the shimmer of a rainbow.
“Oh yes, Dr. Freidheim.”
“Good. You said when we talked that you had vacation coming. If it is agreeable with your department, I will obtain your tickets and you can leave Monday.”
“Monday.”
“Is that not convenient?”
“That will be fine.”
It was arranged that I should come to the museum Monday morning and pick up the boxed manuscript and my plane ticket.
Just before he rang off, Dr. Freidheim said brusquely, “You have been invited to stay with the Ortegas while you are in Mexico City. I assume that is agreeable to you?”
There is nothing quite as unattractive as the gaping spread when a gift horse opens its mouth.
I hesitated and, before I could answer, he continued. “It would not be polite to decline the invitation.”
“Oh, of course not,” I said hurriedly. “But wouldn’t it be an imposition?”
“Not at all. The Ortegas are a very old and wealthy family. The house is large and quite easily accommodates guests.” He paused, then said, “It would be very interesting to know why the return of the manuscript was requested. Although,” he added quickly, “you must certainly not ask.”
“I won’t ask.”
“It is settled then.”
If I stayed with the Ortegas, I wouldn’t have to use my slender resources for a hotel room and, of course, it would be very interesting to stay in a Mexican home.
I wondered over the weekend if Timothy would call to wish me luck. He didn’t, and I didn’t call him. I didn’t see him on Monday morning when I picked up the manuscript, but I thought it was as well because he couldn’t help but be jealous over my trip.
It was on the bus out to Kennedy that I realized that the manuscript, packaged in a cumbersome Styrofoam container, was going to be an unwieldy and exhausting burden. It took both arms around it to carry the oblong box; plus I had to mange a lumpy manila envelope containing the papers pr
oving Mexican ownership, and my purse.
I almost didn’t make it past the first screening table at Kennedy.
Since everything carried aboard an airliner must be searched, Freidheim had tied the box shut with nylon cord in neat bows that could be pulled and retied.
I was, after my final brief talk with him, aware of just how valuable and irreplaceable the manuscript was and what a grave responsibility I had accepted.
When the guard yanked the bow, I said sharply, “Please, be very careful.”
His hand jerked back from the cord. Before I could say another word, I was staring at the small black hole in the barrel of his automatic.
I don’t know which of us was the more frightened. His hand, holding the gun, shook. I help up equally shaking hands.
“Please, there’s nothing wrong with the box.” I didn’t dare say that prohibited word, or I might end up in jail before my trip even began. I tried again. “It’s an extremely valuable old book. I asked you to be careful because it is very old, very delicate. Look, I’ll open it for you.”
He waggled the gun at me as I started to lower my hands.
I promptly raised them again.
We finally straightened it out, but I came within a quarter hour of missing my plane. The other passengers eyed me strangely and my day certainly lost its original fine savor.
However, the rest of the trip, except for my continuing tussle with the awkward box, was a lot of fun. I’d never flown often and only once as far. When I was fourteen Mother and I went to England, my first trip, her last.
It was evening when we reached Mexico City. I don’t think I will ever again be so caught up in the magic of flying into a huge metropolis as I was that spring evening. The sky was clear. A pale quarter moon hung low on the horizon. Stars glittered in the night sky, but they didn’t gleam and glisten with half the sparkle of the millions of lights that spread across the valley floor as the plane curved in to land. No diamonds in a tiara could match the breath-catching beauty of those millions of glittering, twinkling lights.
Cry in the Night Page 3