by Scott Blade
Barbara looked at an old, black clock that hung from the wall. The time was 7:33 a.m. She looked down at her sketchbook and thumbed through the pages. Frustrated, she sighed.
Behind her she heard a noise. It was the sound of a mop gliding across the stone floor. A bubbling sound followed, like the mop was being dipped into a bucket full of soapy water.
Barbara rose and walked beyond the exhibit, around a set of portraits and one large Japanese sculpture. She peered around the sculpture and saw the janitor mopping the floor. She moved in a little closer. It was Evan. Apparently, he was the janitor as well as the groundskeeper.
“Seems like you have every job on campus,” Barbara joked.
Evan turned. He looked extremely startled, almost unsettled.
“What’s wrong?” Barbara asked.
“I'm not used to being snuck up on anymore,” he said, surprised.
“Snuck up on?” She looked puzzled. “Did people used to sneak up on you?”
“Not really. I fought in the war. Still have the jitters, that’s all.”
“Oh, how old are you?” Barbara asked.
“Twenty-four, I think,” he answered.
“You think?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Okay, well I’m working in the other room. Is that going to interfere with your mopping? Because I can come back later on,” Barbara said. She smiled at him intensely.
She was taken aback by his not knowing his age. Maybe he is an orphan or something, she thought. She didn’t want to ask.
“No. You can stay. I can mop around you,” he said.
Barbara started to walk away.
“Wait,” Evan said. “What are you working on?”
“My thesis,” she said. After a brief pause, she was struck with an idea. “Hey, how long have you worked here? At the college.”
Evan thought for a long moment. He looked away from her. Then he said, “We’ve talked too much. I have to work now. I’m sorry, Miss Howard.”
“Oh, okay,” Barbara said. Then she turned and started to walk back to her bench and return to her work. Suddenly, she stopped for a moment and turned back toward him. “Evan, how did you know my last name?”
He looked up at her and said, “You said it.”
“No, I didn’t. I’ve never told you my last name. I’m positive,” Barbara said, puzzled.
“Oh. I think I heard one of your sorority friends talking about you. Lucy something. That’s it. I must have heard her say it in the hall. I hear a lot of things around here,” Evan replied.
“Maybe,” she said. “But I don’t think so. Have you looked at my school records?”
“No,” he said. “I’d lose my job if I did something like that.”
“Okay,” she said. “I believe you. I was just wondering. Sure you don’t want to help me with my thesis?”
Withdrawn at first, Evan scratched the stubble on his face. Barbara was rarely attracted to men with long hair, but Evan’s hair fit his face. It was long, but still cut above his shoulders. It cradled his face perfectly.
“I’ll listen for a minute until people start coming in. Because then I’ve got to return to work,” he said.
“Okay,” she said.
Evan leaned the mop against a blank space on the wall between two portraits. He followed her to a familiar painting, The Secret of Lions. His eyes widened as they approached it. He hadn’t visited it in a long time. It was a little shocking to see that it was the painting that she was studying.
“Are you okay?” Barbara asked, noticing when he reacted strangely to the painting.
“Yes,” he answered.
“I’m sure that you know about this painting. I’m writing a thesis on it. The challenge that I’m experiencing with this thesis is that I want to write something profound about the secret in The Secret of Lions, something that has never been discovered, by anyone, like who painted it. However, I am getting nowhere. The only leg that I have up on anyone else who has investigated the painting is that I think that the positioning of the painting is important. I think that it has something to do with the war. Still I am lost.”
“Positioning?” Evan asked.
“The painting was placed here on this wall, near the ghastly, Holocaust paintings, and also near some famous works on the other wall. It struck me as symbolic,” Barbara said.
“What do you mean, symbolic?”
“Honestly, it may be nothing, but I thought, why would the university hang such a beautiful painting in this spot? And I remembered a slide that Dr. Blake showed us in class.”
“Dr. Blake?” he asked.
“He’s a new art professor,” she said.
Evan nodded. Although she suspected that he had not actually seen Prof. Blake. A fact that was unusual since he was such astute observer of everything else.
Then she continued, “He showed us a photograph of Adolf Hitler standing in his office. Well, this painting or a painting exactly like it was in the background. So I think that the painting must have been painted within the last 10 years or so,” Barbara said.
Evan listened and his blood rushed through his veins like a river of intrigue. For the first time, he realized that he wasn’t as hidden as he’d thought.
Barbara could see uneasiness come over Evan, but he stayed composed. So she continued, “I think that the painting might even have something to do with Hitler.”
Barbara. You are going to discover me. You are going to discover my secrets, Evan thought. I am not safe from you.
“So I figured that perhaps the artist is a friend of Hitler’s. Maybe he gave it to him as a gift. Maybe he’s someone close to Hitler?” she said.
“You’re not from here.” Evan said, changing the subject.
“New York,” Barbara said.
“Interesting,” Evan said.
“Have you ever been there?” she asked.
“I’ve always wanted to go there.”
“Why haven’t you?”
“I just don’t venture too far from Europe. Besides I prefer European art. It has had a much longer life. It’s had time to flourish. American art has not had a long life. European art is divided into periods because of its long history.”
“That’s true,” she said. “I never thought about that, but even in the U.S. we study European art a lot more than we do American.”
“Yeah, American art is better in other mediums. America has a good canon of literature and philosophy, unlike paintings. But don’t worry, America is still young.”
Barbara was fascinated by Evan’s academic knowledge of the arts.
“Don’t look surprised. The people who clean up after other people are usually well informed,” he said.
“Of course, I didn’t think that you were stupid. I’m just a little shocked that you know so much about art. You should enroll in classes. Why don’t you?” Barbara asked.
“Why pay the tuition when I can get paid to be around all of these great, young artists? Not to mention that with my job, I can come in here and stare at these paintings whenever I want to. You may be the student, but I hold the keys,” Evan said.
Barbara couldn’t tell if Evan was joking or not. If not, his answer made sense.
“So, what are your thoughts of The Secret of Lions? Do you think it’s worth all of the attention?” she asked.
Although Evan seemed interested, he also seemed put off by it. Yet, his interest was different from her fellow scholars.
“It’s a good painting,” he said.
“That’s it. Hold on. A minute ago you were giving me all this stuff about your love of art. And now you have a short answer for this one.
“The way you were talking gives me the feeling that if you were asked to, you could lecture a seminar about Monet, Da Vinci, or Rembrandt.”
“Yeah,” he said. “This painting is relatively unknown except in certain, elite circles.”
“That’s not good enough, Evan. Do you have any idea about what the secret is?
”
“I know the same as everyone else. The painting was mysteriously donated to the school. And no one knows who painted it. Sorry I can’t be more helpful. I’d better get back to work. It was nice talking to you though,” he said. Then he walked off abruptly.
Barbara was left facing two mysteries: the painting and Evan.
For some reason, she started to wonder if they were connected.
17
Evan stood with the blue hood pulled tight around his head, nearly obscuring his face. The wind blew behind him. He leaned against the girl’s dorm building. A rake with a wooden handle was propped against the wall in front of him. Earlier, he’d raked the leaves around the sidewalks. Now he was waiting.
It was early on a Saturday morning. Evan waited to see Barbara. Every Saturday morning, she got up before everyone else and went for a walk. She liked to walk when there was no one else around. It was a time for her to think.
He’d noticed her doing it a few Saturdays earlier.
She ran across the campus and alongside the river. A long path followed the river. It usually was crowded, but not today. Today, the weather was bleak. A thick fog rolled in over most of the ground. As autumn neared its end, cold weather began to creep across the terrain. And so did the foggy season.
Barbara stepped out of her dorm wearing gray pants and a green pullover with a hood. She headed off in the direction of the river. She didn’t appear to notice that Evan watched her. He left the rake and ran after her. He followed her for a short distance and then stopped.
This is crazy, he thought. I can’t chase her.
He retreated.
Barbara glanced back and saw a figure moving away from her through the fog. She knew it was Evan. She had noticed him pretending to be busy raking. She smiled. For a moment, the thought of chasing after him and confronting him crossed her mind.
I could just ask him to join me for a run, she thought.
She stopped running and turned back again, but he was already lost in the thick of the fog.
18
In the commons, Barbara sat alone. Although some of her sorority sisters ate in the other corner, she still chose to sit alone. A barren tray rested on the table in front of her. All that was left of her salad was an empty bowl. She still couldn’t get used to English food, so she usually just stuck to her plain salads.
She thumbed through all of the scribbled notes in her journal. Most were crossed out as dead ends to her research. But one large scribble remained unmarked. It read:
1935?
She guessed the earliest possible date of the conception of the painting. The canvas was slightly worn like it had some minor age on it, but that particular type of canvas was manufactured by an Italian paper company, and they had been in business for only fifteen years. So the painting was definitely created around the time of the war. Since she believed that the painting was representative of the war, she suspected that it was painted somewhere in mid to eastern Europe, probably Germany or Austria.
The painting had undergone some obvious changes from the one shown behind Hitler in Blake’s slide. Some touch-ups. For no particular reason, Barbara suspected that they were done post-war.
The war is part of the artist’s secret, she thought. Maybe the artist escaped the war. Maybe the secret is about that. Yes, he must have survived the war. Maybe he wants to remain anonymous because he is a wanted criminal.
What does almost every artist dream of? Fame, money, and an audience.
This mysterious artist has the talent and means to acquire all of those. He could have been more than just unknown. If he is still alive, why doesn’t he come forward and claim the prize sought after by most artists?
Barbara thought about this for a while.
Why not come forward?
She concluded that was the secret. Not just the identity of the artist, but the story of the painting. Most great works of art had stories, and they were often dismissed. This work of art had a story.
Barbara was determined to find out what that story was.
19
Across the room, near the lunch line, Evan sat at a high-top table. He sat alone. He held a pencil in one hand. A sketchbook lay on the table in front of him. He flipped through multiple pages of drawings. Each page displayed an incredibly detailed image of one woman—Barbara.
20
The King’s College School of Music’s orchestra played in the auditorium. Evan sat in the dark listening to their practice session. Over the years, he had learned all of the entrances and exits on campus.
Every semester the school orchestra rehearsed on Tuesdays and Thursdays for their semester’s end concert. The school orchestra was talented. Their concerts were glorious, magnificent, and some of Evan’s favorite times of the year.
The problem was that it was almost impossible to get tickets to the concerts. They only performed two shows—one on Friday and one on Saturday night.
However, Evan knew that they rehearsed the entire week before––a dress rehearsal. So he snuck in backstage at least once during their rehearsal week in order to listen.
The grandiose music rushed through his ears, filling his core with images of passion and lust. He closed his eyes and pictured Barbara. He fantasized about her body in his arms, her skin beneath the prints of his fingers. He caressed the slope of her back with the palms of his hands.
The orchestra raised the tempo and thus infected his imagination with more passion.
Evan’s sketchbook rested on his lap. Even though he sat in near darkness, his body felt illumination from the music. The sudden illumination on the horizon of his life was Barbara.
As he listened to the music he drew with his pencil. He let the music guide him, listening carefully. He absorbed the music as it absorbed him.
In the darkness, across from him, Barbara stood in shock. She had seen him sneaking around earlier and had followed him into the auditorium.
He draws. He’s an artist, she thought. She couldn’t see what he was drawing. She had never seen anyone draw in the dark before.
The darkness, she thought. Evan drew in the dark, as though he was hiding his art from himself, like a great secret.
Maybe he knows more about The Secret of Lions than he was letting on, she thought.
21
The next day, Professor Blake called for Barbara. He asked her to be in his office as soon as possible as if she were being summoned. He told her that it was about her thesis project.
Barbara periodically reported to him on her progress. He was the head of her graduate committee. She had told him nothing about Evan, but she had reported some of her breakthroughs, like finding out about the canvas company.
When Barbara arrived, she was greeted by Professor Blake. He was not alone. Inside Professor Blake’s office stood a tall stranger.
“Barbara, this is Mr. Kobnhavn. He’s a lawyer from Denmark. He represents a group of wealthy collectors there,” Professor Blake explained.
“How are you?” Barbara asked, shaking his hand. She tried not to stare into his icy, blue eyes. Mr. Kobnhavn was an attractive man, except there was something unsettling about him. He had long, dark hair. Long hair on a man was very uncommon. It got him a lot of stares, but no one inquired about it. He wore a blue shirt with brown trousers and a tailored, brown jacket. He looked like a professor, not a lawyer.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Miss Howard,” Mr. Kobnhavn said. He had a strong accent. It was a mixture of German or Austrian. He was slightly muscular for a lawyer.
Barbara politely smiled.
“Barbara, Mr. Kobnhavn is searching for the artist of your painting. I’ve told him that you will help him as best you can to discover the identity of the painter,” Professor Blake said. “Miss Howard will be perfect for the job that you are requesting, Mr. Kobnhavn.”
“I thank you for your help, Professor Blake. My clients are very clear. I am not to return to Denmark until I have solved one of the greatest mysteries in the modern a
rt world; I must discover who painted The Secret,” Mr. Kobnhavn said.
“Barbara is a great admirer of the painting, Mr. Kobnhavn. That painting has become her life this semester. Don’t let her beauty fool you; she is reliable and intelligent. If anyone can help you, it is Barbara,” Professor Blake said.
Barbara stiffened her shoulders and felt proud of Dr. Blake’s compliment.
Charles Blake waved the two of them off as if they were his loyal subjects. Barbara signaled for Mr. Kobnhavn to follow her. The two of them walked out of Professor Blake’s office and into the catacombs of hallways.
“I think, Miss Howard, that you will have more success if you search for this mysterious painter on your own. You don’t want me tagging along. So here is my card; there is the number for the hotel that I am staying at on the back. Simply contact me there when you discover something,” Mr. Kobnhavn said. He handed her a card.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kobnhavn, but I’ve already spent months looking for the artist. I don’t think that it will be as easy as just finding him in a matter of days. You may be waiting in your hotel room for a long time,” Barbara said.
They continued walking together down a long hallway.
“There is something else, Miss Howard, something that may energize your search.”
“What is that?” she asked.
“There are two things actually. If you find the artist soon, my client is willing to fully fund your schooling as payment,” Kobnhavn said.
“Mr. Kobnhavn, my schooling is already paid for.”
“In Italy,” Mr. Kobnhavn said. He narrowed his eyes as he expected that she would be enticed by this.
“Italy?” Barbara said. She felt faint. Italy was rich with art history. Barbara dreamed of studying there.
Venice, Florence, or Rome, she thought.
“Or Paris,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “If you prefer. The second thing is sensitive. I need to be able to trust you. Can I trust you?” he asked.
“Yes,” Barbara said, though hesitant.
Mr. Kobnhavn pulled a black cloth out of his jacket pocket. The cloth was folded around something. It looked like a book. He removed the cloth. It was a sketchbook with the corners burnt off. The worst damage was on the bottom right corner away from the spine. Barbara could see that it was important to Mr. Kobnhavn. He held it like it was a precious artifact. He opened it up to show Barbara something.