Press snapped his fingers. “Hey! I’ve got a great idea. Amara will be a freshman. You can employ her.”
“Oh, my gosh. It would be a dream come true.” Amara touched her chest, clearly moved. She, too, had switched out of the sari and was wearing the shirt and skirt she’d had on the night she’d come to dinner.
“What a good idea.” Penelope beamed, wanting to encourage her positive attitude.
And she would have said something more but she noticed a small, frail-looking man making his way to the front of the room. His dry skin showed a web of fine lines and was very pale, except for several conspicuous age spots. Atop his head, he wore a black baseball cap emblazoned Class of ’43.
“Excuse me, I was wondering if I could have a closer look at the Grantham Galen?” the man asked. He had a wisp of a German accent. “I’ve only seen one other like it.”
“You must mean the manuscript in the Vatican Library. I remember studying it years ago, but I believe this one is finer,” Penelope said.
“Penelope.” Press touched her shoulder. “If it’s all right, I’ll take off?”
“Absolutely. You three go and celebrate, enjoy yourselves.” She watched them leave and give their goodbyes before turning to aid the man.
He had rested a metal cane against the cabinet containing the manuscript and was peering close to the glass. He murmured something that Penelope couldn’t catch.
Then she saw him reach, grabbing the corners of the wooden frame of the cabinet to steady himself. She rushed to his side. “Can I get you a chair?” she asked. “A glass of water? It’s been warm today and perhaps with the crowd…”
“No, no, I’m fine. I’m just…ah…overwhelmed.” He pointed to the typed label next to the manuscript. “This indicates how the university came to possess the document, correct?”
“Yes, yes, that’s right,” she responded. “As you can see, it was donated by Stanfield Bigelow, Class of ’71. He’s a professor here, quite renowned.”
The small man stared at Penelope, taking in her words, before returning to gaze at the manuscript. “You know him well, this Professor Bigelow?”
Penelope nodded. “Very well. He happens to be my father. In fact, I believe he’s in the room now, looking at some of the other pieces in the collection. I could get him.” She struggled to find him among all the people still lingering around the exhibition space, admiring the objects on display.
The man touched her sleeve lightly. “If you please, would you wait just a minute?”
Penelope glanced at his withered hand atop her jacket. It seemed to be formed by weightless birdlike bones. Her gaze met his. His eyes were rheumy, behind glasses with thick bifocal lenses. Still, the force of the gaze was sharp, piercing.
“Yes, Mr…Mr…?” she asked.
“Himmelfarb. Daniel Himmelfarb. My father was Jacob Himmelfarb? Perhaps as a curator of rare books you have heard of his name?”
“Jacob Himmelfarb?” she repeated. “The famous Berlin collector and dealer in rare books?”
“The same. Unfortunately he died in the camps during the war. Auschwitz.”
“Yes, I remember that from the biography I read. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
“There is no need for you to be sorry. You weren’t even born then. Luckily I was already in the United States, studying physics at Grantham. My father, ever the patriot, insisting on staying, convinced that Germany—his Germany—would see the light. When I signed up to fight for America, naturally the army in its infinite wisdom stationed me in New Guinea. Not particularly pleasant. But I survived, unlike my father—or my mother or sister…” His voice trailed off, his gaze once more lingering on the manuscript. “Tell me, your father? He is a good man? An honorable man?”
Penelope automatically nodded. “Yes, of course.”
“In which case, I am sure there is some kind of explanation. You see, this manuscript, which somehow came into his possession and which he subsequently donated to Grantham—I must tell you—” once more he shifted his gaze from the display case to Penelope “—it belonged to my father. That is, until the Nazis confiscated it, along with the rest of his holdings, before they sent him to Auschwitz.”
Penelope was stunned. “Are you sure? Perhaps you are mistaken? Perhaps it was another manuscript?”
He shook his head. “Perhaps, but I don’t think so. I still have the inventory of my father’s holdings. He had mailed it to me before he was killed. At the time, I couldn’t understand why. And this manuscript, I am sure, is among those listed. I even remember him showing it to me before I left for America. It was one of his favorites. In any case, there is a simple way to verify if it was his or not. On the next-to-last folio of the manuscript—the recto side, to be precise—he always made a faint black mark of the Hebrew letter hei. I don’t know if you know it? It has two vertical lines, and one horizontal wiggly line at the top. It stands for the sound of an h—as in Himmelfarb.”
Penelope felt the encounter take on an almost out-of-body experience, as if she were hovering somewhere above the floor, watching a woman, who looked very much like she looked, talking to a man in his late eighties, who clearly had deep and sad memories. And then she heard this woman in the room—the woman who looked and sounded like she—speak. “There’s no need to look. I know the mark is there.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
PENELOPE LOOKED DOWN at the business card that Mr. Himmelfarb had given her before he left, obviously shaken. She had promised she would get in touch with him as soon as possible. He was staying at the Grantham Inn across from the university, so setting up a meeting would be no problem.
She anticipated more than one.
She made a beeline toward her father in the corner of the room. He wasn’t so much standing out of the limelight as holding court—attracting a coterie of former students and admirers. He glanced up when he saw her approach. A pleased smile was on his face as if to say, You see, it may be your exhibit, but I am the one they all came to see.
Or maybe she was simply feeling critical just then. Who could blame her? Nonetheless, what she was about to do wasn’t personal. It was necessary. For her. For the university. But mostly for Jacob Himmelfarb and his descendants.
She nodded politely as she sidestepped a middle-aged couple. “Father, I need to speak to you privately.”
“I’m busy at the moment. Perhaps later in my office?” he said, focusing again on the couple. He launched into a story Penelope had heard many times about how he first discovered his love of the Classics as a young boy in Indiana. A neighbor, a retiring high-school Latin teacher, had offered him a copy of Caesar’s Gallic Wars when he was helping clear out her classroom. “Even though I didn’t know a word of Latin, somehow the text spoke to me—not to mention the gory bookplates that accompanied the edition.”
The little group chuckled.
They always did. Penelope remembered doing the same, many times.
“Father, this can’t wait,” she interrupted.
Stanfield stared at her, his eyes wide. Then his expression softened as he addressed his admirers. “If you’ll excuse me, please. This is my daughter, and as I am sure you know, a father’s job is never done, even when children become adults.”
The middle-aged couple nodded knowingly.
Penelope guided her father to a small office off to the side of the exhibit room. It contained a metal desk and chair, stacks of library catalogs and the unforgiving light of overhead fluorescents. They hummed accordingly. The obligatory poster of an illuminated-manuscript show at the Morgan Library hung on the wall.
“Father, I need to talk to you about the Grantham Galen,” she said, closing the door behind them.
He waited silently.
She didn’t let this behavior intimidate her. She c
arefully chose her words. “Up until dinner at the house last week, I had always assumed you found the manuscript while you were in Italy after graduate school. But then Mother mentioned her recollection of the time you visited Berlin.”
“West Berlin,” he corrected. “And I am sure your mother is mistaken.”
“Perhaps you are mistaken,” Penelope went on. “Perhaps you think you remember purchasing it in Naples, but in fact, Mother is correct. In which case, if you were to find such a rare manuscript in Germany—West Germany,” she modified before he could change the subject, “surely you would have suspected that it might have been unlawfully confiscated from a Jewish collector during the war?”
“Penelope, I have never known you to mangle the English language in such a fashion. But to answer what I believe to be your question, even if hypothetically I were to find such a rare manuscript, the logic does not necessarily follow that it would have been taken by the Nazis.”
Penelope nodded thoughtfully. “Tell me, Father. You know of Jacob Himmelfarb?”
Stanfield made a tsking sound. “Please. Any classicist worth his salt has, of course, heard of the great collector.”
“And would you also be able to recognize the distinguishing mark he always made in his acquisitions?”
“You mean the Hebrew letter hei? As a learned man, naturally I know Hebrew. But I have yet to see why this discussion warrants pulling me away from talking to one of my former students. He owns a very successful commodities-trading company, and I’m sure the university’s Development Office would much rather I spend my time charming him than verifying my academic capabilities with you.”
Penelope refused to back down. “Father, the elderly gentleman talking to me a few minutes ago turns out to be Jacob Himmelfarb’s son. The Grantham Galen, which you purchased in what I believe now to be Germany despite your recollections, belonged to his father. There is no question. It has the letter hei that Jacob Himmelfarb always marked on a particular folio. Surely you must have recognized it as such. You must have realized that it is a stolen artifact that rightly belongs to the Himmelfarb family.” Her eyes never left his face.
She saw the tendons in her father’s neck grow taut. He cleared his throat. “No, I didn’t know.” His eyes blinked rapidly.
“You didn’t ask.”
He raised a disdainful eyebrow. “Neither did you.”
Penelope breathed in. “You’re correct. I improperly assumed the provenance of the piece based on my respect for you. It was only as I was putting the exhibit together that I noticed the ink mark. It didn’t register at the time. A subconscious attempt at denial, I can only assume. In retrospect, I believe I am also responsible for what very well could be a crime.”
“If you feel culpable, then you have only yourself to blame. The fact that you question me offends me as a scholar, a moral person and your father.”
“I’m sorry, Father, but regardless of your professions of innocence and my own judgment in the matter, the fact remains—indeed, the law states—that the work is the property of Jacob Himmelfarb’s family. The university will have to make restitution as soon as possible. As a courtesy to you, I am letting you know that I will be contacting university counsel and the president’s office as soon as we finish speaking. I will also let the University Press know about the development, since it has a direct bearing on my book contract.”
Penelope realized that she would also have to let Nick and Georgie know that they couldn’t use the footage they had shot involving the manuscript.
“If that’s all” was her father’s only reply.
“Isn’t that enough?” she asked. “If it makes you feel any better, Mr. Himmelfarb’s son appears only to be interested in the rightful return of the manuscript. He made no mention of pressing charges of illegal trafficking in stolen merchandise.”
“I’m not the least bit concerned about the interests of Mr. Himmelfarb’s heirs. My only interest in the manuscript was as a scholar and as a loyal member of the Grantham University community.”
Penelope winced. “I’d like to think so. Because if I can’t trust my own father, who can I trust? Certainly, it seems, not myself.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
NICK CHECKED HIS MESSAGES. Yet again. Nothing. He threw the phone on the bedspread.
“Amara hasn’t rung back?” Georgie asked calmly. They were lounging in Nick’s hotel room. Georgie was drinking his umpteenth cup of black coffee with three Sweet’N Lows. Nick was nursing a bottle of beer.
Nick shook his head and took a long sip. “It’s like she’s gone completely off the grid, which frankly I can’t blame her for. But I’ve also been trying Penelope a bunch of times, and she hasn’t answered, either. I just get put straight to her voice mail. It’s not like her.”
“Maybe she’s got her phone turned off or is talking to someone? She had that talk at the library, right? The one that college kid is giving?”
“Or maybe she just doesn’t want to talk to me,” Nick acknowledged with frustration. “You haven’t heard anything since her text about the footage at the Rare Book Library, right?”
Georgie shook his head.
“Humor me. Look again?” Nick asked semipolitely.
Georgie pulled the BlackBerry from his pants pocket and checked his messages. “Nothing.”
Nick screwed up his face. “It was not my finest hour at The Parade, as you and the boys captured so brilliantly on film.”
Georgie shrugged. “Don’t sweat it. That’s what editing’s for. What’s more important was Penelope’s text saying that she was taking Amara to the talk. Things can’t be all bad then, am I right?”
“Wrong. I finally called Amara’s headmistress, like I should have done days ago, and I find out the reason things are now hunky-dory with Ms. I’ve Even Got Starch In My Underpants headmistress is because Amara’s friend went in and confessed the whole thing.” Nick held up his hands, palms up. “A frigging sixteen-year-old knows to do the right thing while I make a hash of it.”
“You’ve had a lot on your plate. Give yourself a break,” Georgie consoled him.
“Like in the midst of everything else you would have forgotten to do something for your kids?”
“Did I ever tell you about the time I forgot to pick up my eldest from nursery school? I got this call from her teacher, saying little Betsy was beside herself. Talk about feeling guilty. Marjorie didn’t let me forget it for weeks, no, years,” Georgie confessed.
“I hardly think that forgetting to pick up your daughter from nursery school is on equal footing with neglecting to make sure your daughter graduates from high school.”
“At the time, you wouldn’t have thought so.” Georgie reached over to place his coffee mug on the desk. “Listen, you made a mistake. Accept responsibility and apologize profusely. Whatever you do—don’t try to bribe her with money.”
Nick blinked. “That never would have occurred to me.”
“See? That just goes to show you’re not as superficial as you think.”
“I think you’re putting too positive a spin on it. Listen, we’re not shooting this dining scene at the student center until six, right? That still gives me time to hoof it over to the library and try to catch her there.”
“Which ‘her’ are you talking about?”
Nick didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure himself.
Georgie waved him off. “Sure, go. No problem. I promised I’d discuss some campaign-advertising strategies with Vivian, anyway, this afternoon.”
“So it’s ‘Vivian’ now?” Nick asked.
Georgie scowled. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re a smart-ass?”
“Yeah, you. All the time.”
* * *
PRESS HEARD THE TAPPING on the glass door at the entrance t
o the exhibit hall. It was Amara’s dad, probably coming to bust his chops about doing something he hadn’t even done. From what Amara told him over strawberry ice cream after the talk, the guy sounded like a total loser.
Press lowered his head and pretended he didn’t see Nick standing on the other side of the locked door. He had just removed the Grantham Galen from the locked display case to transfer it back to the vault, as per Penelope’s instructions.
She’d phoned him when he’d been sitting with Amara at the picnic tables outside the ice-cream shop.
“You need me to do what?” Press had asked his boss to repeat her words. And when she did, he said, “I don’t get it. Is something wrong?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss it now,” Penelope had responded in a clipped fashion.
Press started to feel guilty even though he couldn’t imagine why. “I didn’t do anything wrong at the talk, did I?”
Penelope had laughed, but it hadn’t sounded particularly jolly. “Press, we should all be as virtuous as you.” Then she’d told him to print up a card to place in the case, announcing that the manuscript had been temporarily removed.
Tap-tap-tap.
Annoyed, Press looked up. The guy clearly wasn’t about to take no for an answer. He locked the transfer box with the manuscript and pocketed the key. Then he walked to the glass door, undid the dead bolt and inched open the door. “I’m sorry, the exhibition is now closed. It will be reopened later.” He went to shut the door.
Only, Amara’s dad used his foot to block the door from being closed.
“Ow,” he complained when the heavy door pressed into his foot. “I’m not here about the exhibit.”
Press looked aside before glancing back at Nick. “Somehow I didn’t think so. Did you suddenly remember you had a daughter maybe?”
“Okay,” Nick stated matter-of-factly, “I deserved that. But as long as we’re on the subject of Amara…”
Press lifted his stubborn chin. “She’s not here. She went back to Penelope’s house.”
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