Uneasy Relations

by Aaron Elkins

  It had turned out extremely well for him. His association with Gibraltar Boy and the First Family had made his name. He had written several excruciatingly detailed papers on the dig, and two of Adrian’s books on the subject listed Corbin as full coauthor (although Gideon had always assumed this was simply a generous gesture on Adrian’s part; an expression of thanks for Corbin’s probable assistance with bibliography, background research, data compilation, etc.). On the strength of all this, he was able to leave his position at Tunica State College in Mississippi, where he’d been locked into a disastrous specialty in ceramic techniques of the middle woodland horizon, and move into an assistant professorship at Stanford, where he had since acquired tenure and advanced to associate professor.

  “Now then,” Corbin said, having studied his card a few moments, “as to timing. I think we ought to keep the whole thing to no more than an hour and a half, so may I suggest that we all limit ourselves to fifteen minutes each at the most? Would fifteen minutes be agreeable to everyone . . . yes, Rowley?”

  Rowley Boyd, looking uncomfortable, coughed discreetly and stood up, nervously sweeping back a few strands of lank, straw-colored hair from his forehead. “I just want to say that, ah, we might want to rethink tonight’s event entirely. Ivan is . . . well, I don’t know how to put it other than to say that he’s not the man he was.”

  “As are none of us,” Audrey said. “And your point is?”

  “I only mean to say that, well, that he doesn’t always . . . he’s not always . . . we don’t want to put too much, shall I say, stress on him, that’s all I mean to say.”

  “I don’t think there’s much fear of that.” Adrian laughed. “I’ve never known anyone to be overstressed by testimonials to his own eminence.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Rowley persisted. “I’m suggesting that we eliminate the testimonials completely. Just present the awards and call it an evening. Keep it short. I say that entirely in his own interest. ”

  Rowley was closer to Gunderson than any of them, and probably more in debt to him as well. Before the Europa Point dig, the Gibraltar Museum of Archaeology and Geology had been a virtually unfunded operation with a dedicated but unpaid part-time staff of a single archaeologist (Rowley), housed above a hole-in-the-wall Arab grocery store in George’s Lane. Now it was in an impressive old naval headquarters building on Line Wall Road, with a salaried staff of eight, the finest cast of the First Family skeletons in existence, a collection of stone tools from the site, and three magnificent, life-sized dioramas of prehistoric life at Europa Point, including a torchlit, affecting scene of the burial in progress. All of this was thanks to Ivan Gunderson, only partly because of his initial excavation and subsequent donation of the dig site itself. More important, Gunderson, who now lived in Gibraltar most of the year (he had other homes in Palm Beach and Aix-en-Provence) had been extremely openhanded in his financial support of the museum. He was by far its most generous and reliable donor.

  “Oh, bosh,” Audrey said. “I spoke with Ivan by phone less than two weeks ago. He was very much his old self. He was very excited about the dinner.”

  But Rowley wouldn’t be put off. “He has his moments, but I assure you, if you haven’t seen him recently, you’ll find him very much changed. He spends most of his time now, er, gluing pots.”

  That got everyone’s attention. It wasn’t simply the notion of the celebrated Ivan Gunderson sitting around gluing ceramic shards together all day, it was the very idea of pots. Gunderson had never had any interest in pots. The European Neanderthals and early humans to which he had devoted the last six decades of his life had never managed to make one. It had taken another 15,000 years before someone in Japan came up with the first pot.

  “Gluing pots?” Adrian repeated dully. “What kind of pots?”

  Rowley, twisting his hands around one another, looked miserable. “Any kind. I just get them from a ceramics shop in Ronda. I, er, break them up with a hammer and bring them to him and he glues them together. He puts them on shelves and forgets where he put them, and I take them away and . . . and break them again and bring them back, and he . . . well, he glues them together again. He never seems to notice.”

  There was shocked silence. Something squeezed Gideon’s heart. “What does he imagine he’s doing?” he asked quietly.

  “I tell him I take them to the museum,” Rowley said wretchedly. “Not that he asks very often.”

  “Is it Alzheimer’s?”

  “We don’t know. I suppose so, but he won’t see a doctor. He becomes angry if it’s brought up.”

  Audrey was furious. “Rowley, for God’s sake, I wish you would have told me this before. I’d never have arranged the damned dinner. Oh, the poor man. We’ll have to cancel it. Oh, this is dreadful.”

  “Aw, honey,” Buck said, “he’ll love it, you’ll see.”

  For once he had no effect on her. “Oh, poor Ivan. I had no idea—”

  “No, no,” Rowley interrupted, “Buck’s right. Ivan is looking forward to it tremendously. He’s been talking about it all week. It would be a terrible disappointment to him to call it off.”

  Audrey rounded impatiently on him. “So then what exactly is it that you’re suggesting?”

  “I’m suggesting that we have the reception and dinner as planned—moving things briskly along—and then present him with his awards.” Here he was referring to the Horizon Foundation’s V. Gordon Childe Lifetime Achievement Award in Archaeology, to be conferred by Audrey, and the annual Mons Calpe Medal from the Gibraltar Historical Association, which Rowley himself, as director of the museum, was to present.

  “And then we simply call it a night and go home,” Rowley continued. “No testimonials. It’s really his awards that he’s so excited about.”

  “No testimonials at all?” said Adrian bleakly.

  Rowley offered an apologetic shrug. “Well, a few words with the awards, of course, but I really think it best that we don’t do any more than that. He tires easily, you see, and when that happens, his mind tends to . . . his memory seems to . . . well, I fear that an hour of testimonial after testimonial would simply tax him too much.” Another shrug, equally apologetic.

  “It seems like the best thing to do,” Gideon said, his spirits low. Others offered reluctant agreement. Everyone was disappointed. And depressed.

  “As you may know, we have a similar situation arising in a few days, and we’ve been struggling with what to do about that one too,” Rowley said by way of appeasement. “We’ve come to the same conclusion. No long addresses.”

  As Gideon knew, a public event was set for the day after tomorrow, at which the first shovelful of dirt was to be turned at what would eventually be the Europa Point Prehistoric Site and Ivan S. Gunderson Visitor Center. Ivan, who had matched the public funding pound for pound, was supposed to make a speech and also have yet another award, the Honorary Freedom of the City of Gibraltar, bestowed on him by the territory’s minister of culture.

  Audrey was not that easy to appease. “I see,” she said stiffly. “And assuming that we hold our own little dinner at all, can we be sure he’s going to remember to come?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll be collecting him myself.” Rowley hesitated. “He does have good days, you know. More often than not, actually. Perhaps this will be one.”

  “Let us fervently hope so,” said Audrey with a roll of her eyes.

  EIGHT

  IT started off well enough.

  The Rock Hotel, a long, white, six-story art deco building situated above Gibraltar town on the lower flanks of the Rock itself, and directly overlooking the Alameda Botanical Gardens, is by most accounts Gibraltar’s finest, its register adorned with the names of royalty real, cinematic, and literary—Prince Andrew, Prince Edward, Sean Connery, Peter Sellers, Alec Guinness, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway. Its particular gem is its marble-balustered Wisteria Terrace, a trellis-shaded patio set among lush plantings, filled with the sounds of birds, and looking out toward the
wide bay with its tankers at rest, and in the distance, the gleaming rooftops of the Spanish town of Algeciras on the far shore. It was here that the participants gathered for cocktails and exotic canapés—lobster-and-fennel wontons, mini-éclairs with creamed prawns, ham rosettes on duck liver croutons—before going in to dinner.

  Before that, most of them had already gathered in Gideon and Julie’s room for predrink drinks. Among the hotel’s famous amenities (which included a bright yellow rubber duck in every guest bath and a supply of lollipops) was the provision each afternoon of a decanter of sherry and another of Scotch to every room. Gideon and Julie had earlier invited Pru to join them for a chat. She had been spotted carrying her Scotch decanter down the hall by Buck and Audrey and she had invited them to do the same, picking up Corbin and Adrian on the way. Even Rowley, who wasn’t staying at the hotel, had stopped by for a few words with Audrey—and a small glass of sherry—before driving off to pick up the guest of honor. As a result, most of the attendees were already pretty well oiled—relaxed and good-humored—before they ever got to the Wisteria Terrace.

  As was appropriate, Ivan Gunderson, urbane and smiling in the cream-colored, subtly beige-striped blazer and midnight-blue silk ascot that had become his trademark dress, was the center of attention, and he performed brilliantly. Straight-up martini in hand, he graciously if somewhat regally mingled with the others, making sure to allow time for everyone. He had been quite charming on being introduced to Julie, bowing over her hand—for a moment Gideon wondered if he was going to kiss it—and wryly apologizing, in his elegant, agreeable tenor, for the boredom she was surely about to endure.

  But it wasn’t long before Gideon, whose lunchtime wine hadn’t set well with him and was therefore one of the few not drinking, began to see that Rowley was right. Gunderson wasn’t the same man he’d had last seen a couple of years ago. Age, lying confidently in wait for so long, had finally caught up to him with a vengeance. Oh, he still looked much the same; a little more stooped, a little more frail and tentative on his feet, but still the same tall, graceful frame that made any jacket look like an Armani, the same thick, scrupulously brushed mane of white hair, the same clear, ice blue eyes, the same kindly, appealing air of intelligence and reasonableness. But behind the polished surface, it became increasingly clear that a battle had been fought and lost. The witty, urbane Ivan Gunderson known to the world had been evicted, and a confused, forgetful, and probably frightened old man had taken up residence.

  He was operating by rote now, and by instinct. He was still skilled at the little ceremonies of life; his remarks to Julie showed that. But he initiated almost nothing in the way of conversation. Say something to him with a smile, and he would smile back, and look amused and knowledgeable. Say it with a solemn shake of your head, and he would turn grave too, and shake his head as well, and commiserate with you in vaguely relevant terms. Gideon had warm and grateful memories of their early meetings, when the famous Ivan Gunderson had gone out of his way to be welcoming and helpful to the young, unknown physical anthropologist. It had been Gunderson who’d taken him in hand at the very first professional conference he’d attended, and had made sure that he was included in dinner plans and social outings. Through the years they had met a good dozen times, often at small, convivial dinners, but whether Gunderson now had any idea of who Gideon was was doubtful. Clearly, familiar words and phrases served as cues: weather, archaeology, Gibraltar Boy, First Family, I believe the last time we met was in San Diego—all would prompt replies, lively and seemingly pertinent, but at bottom no more than stimulus-response reactions.

  He was good at it too, but after twenty minutes, the emptiness behind the words sank in for almost everyone, and Adrian’s jocular suggestion that they go in and sit down to dinner before they perished of hunger was greeted with relief by all.

  DINNER was in a private dining room where three tables had been arranged in the shape of a T in front of a row of floor-to-ceiling windows. At the head was Gunderson, with Adrian to his right, and Audrey and Buck to his left. At the table that formed the stem of the T were Julie and Gideon, sitting across from Corbin and Pru. At the bottom of the stem was Rowley, who had modestly turned down the invitation to sit at the head table. Sun-dried tomato and couscous salads were brought out as soon as they came in.

  “Before we begin,” said Adrian from behind his chair, before sitting down, “I think it would be appropriate if we all were to raise our glasses in memory of Sheila Chan, our cherished friend and colleague, and my dear student, whom we all mourn and miss.”

  “Sheila Chan,” several others echoed. The glasses were raised, sipped (Gideon’s held tonic water), and set down, followed by three or four seconds of silence, after which the couscous salads were addressed and conversations were resumed.

  “Who’s Sheila Chan?” Julie asked Gideon.

  Gideon hunched his shoulders. “No idea. It’s a familiar name, though.” He looked across the table at Pru and Corbin. “Who’s Sheila Chan?”

  “You didn’t know Sheila?” Pru said, surprised. “No, that’s right, of course you wouldn’t have known her. But you must have heard about what happened to her?”

  A shake of the head from Gideon. “No. So, who was she?”

  “She was one of the area supervisors on the dig,” Pru said with the slightest of edges to her voice, “a hard worker, competent— well, you knew her a lot better than I did, Corbin. Why don’t you tell it?”

  Corbin, whose mouth was fully occupied with couscous, nodded while he finished chewing, his long, gaunt, blue-tinged jaws working steadily, deliberately away, tendons popping and shifting as hard as if they were working on a slab of beef jerky. Finally he swallowed and sipped some water. “Yes, Sheila and I were grad students together at Cal, under Adrian.”

  Sheila had been two years ahead of him, he explained, although she never did finish up her doctorate because of, well, various problems. “Not academic, you understand, not at all; more . . . oh, personal. She was the sort of person—well, it’s hard to describe—”

  “No, it’s not,” said Pru. “She was impossible to work with. She couldn’t get along with anybody.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” said Rowley, who had been silent till now, his worried attention fixed on Gunderson at the head table. “I know she wasn’t well liked, but she seemed nice enough to me. During the original dig, she spent some time at the museum—we had lunch together once—and I found her very stimulating company. An interesting person.”

  “You didn’t know her that well,” Pru said. “You never worked with her. Lunch isn’t the same thing.”

  “Well, that’s true enough,” Rowley admitted, and went back to watching Gunderson. He leaned toward Gideon. “How does he seem to you?” he asked in a whispered aside.

  “Hard to say, Rowley. All right, I think. I hope.”

  Rowley shook his head. “Oh, I hope so too.” He had eaten no more than a third of his salad and was now back to gnawing on his unlit pipe.

  “She had a chip on her shoulder like a two-by-four,” Pru went on. “This lady walked around like a stick of dynamite just waiting for you to light her fuse. One of the reasons she didn’t pass her comprehensives the second time was that she wound up telling her committee they didn’t know what the hell they were talking about and stomping out.”

  “Not good,” Gideon opined. “It’s supposed to work the other way around.” He was a little surprised at Pru’s vehemence. There weren’t many people she so actively disliked.

  “It’s not that I disagree with you entirely, but I think we should be a little more respectful of the dead,” Corbin said.

  “Oh, please,” said Pru.

  “She had a very hard upbringing, Pru, you know that.” Corbin appealed to Gideon and Julie. “She never knew her parents. She grew up in foster homes, shuffled from pillar to post. No one ever adopted her.”

  “That’s so,” Pru allowed. “I suppose a childhood like that might have ruined even my sunny pe
rsonality. Still, you have to admit, she went out of her way to make it hard to like her.”

  “She didn’t make it easy,” Corbin agreed, returning to his salad.

  “Well, go ahead with the story,” Julie suggested into the ensuing silence. “What happened?”

  She had been unable to land a university position when she finished up her course work, Corbin went on. Things had been tight that year; he’d been lucky to land his own post with Tunica State—and of course Sheila’s having an unfinished doctorate didn’t help any. So she’d been teaching community college evening courses and working as a part-time consultant for an archaeological survey firm when Corbin, whose responsibilities as assistant director included staffing, brought her on as one of the site’s three area supervisors, in hopes that it might flesh out her résumé a little.

  “Her résumé wasn’t the problem,” said Pru.

  Corbin ignored her. “It didn’t do her much good, though, professionally speaking, even after the dig became famous. She never did hook up with a university. She applied for my spot when I left Tunica State and even they turned her down, along with everyone else. No one really knows why.”

  “Au contraire,” said Pru. “Everyone knows why. Not only couldn’t she finish her dissertation, but Adrian would never give his ‘dear student’ a decent referral.”

  “I don’t know where you get your information,” Corbin said prissily, “but I suppose everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.”

  “Wait a minute,” Gideon said as a few memories clinked into place. “Sheila Chan . . . I did know her, or at least we corresponded. She was the one doing a dissertation on Neanderthal genetic anomalies—on ankylosing spondylitis, in particular.”