by Neil Olson
“So the risk was worthwhile when you thought you might find your Nazi,” he said instead. “But now that there is no Müller, it isn’t. Is that about the shape of things?”
“The risk was never worthwhile, especially for you.”
“You’re asking me what I’m going to do. What about you? Are you going to let it go?”
“I want to know what happened to Fotis. If I can find him, I must persuade him to talk to me about old matters. I see now that this should have been my priority all along.” Andreas cleared his throat. “When I ask you to let this matter go, I do not speak merely of the physical search. I would like you to let it go in your mind, in your heart.”
A flight attendant marched past them to the bar, tall, blond, her professional smile replaced by an acute weariness about the mouth and eyes. She reminded Matthew of Ana.
“The police will be ahead of us with the Russians,” Andreas pressed. “That is where they have focused their efforts. I will make inquiries, and let you know what I learn. Would that help? Or would it help you more if I let everything go? There is your father to think of. The woman. These are more worthy objects of your attention.”
A hint of desperation had crawled into the old man’s speech. Matthew made fists with his hands, aware of his grandfather watching him. Why not just say it?
“The icon is poison,” Andreas whispered, hoarse with emotion, a tone so unlike him that it paralyzed Matthew’s anger. “It’s poison in your blood. Over and over this has happened; you’re not the first. You must cure yourself of it.”
“I need to go to the bathroom.”
Matthew stood quickly and left the table. Instinctively, he headed toward the rear of the bar, having no idea where the bathrooms were. He might well be going in the wrong direction. Let it go, give it up. Magic words. Why could he not bring himself to say them?
19
T his was a bad idea, Ana thought. She had thought it from the moment the man on the telephone suggested the place, but it was only now, standing in the dim, cavernous nave of the cathedral, that it struck her just how foolish she was being. These underworld dealers were an eccentric lot, always concerned about safe locations. Her grandfather had dealt with a number of them, perhaps with this very one she awaited. That was the reason she was here. But they were not making an exchange; there was no reason for secrecy, for this Gothic, out-of-the-way location. Wouldn’t a coffee shop have done just as well?
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine was a lovely mess. No one would expect to find the world’s largest Christian church—short of St. Peter’s at the Vatican—on Morningside Heights between Harlem and the Hudson River. In true medieval fashion, work had been proceeding on it for a hundred years, was still not complete, and probably never would be. Ana couldn’t imagine the square towers ever outreaching Notre Dame, yet what had been achieved so far was remarkable. She always went the long way around in order to approach from the west. As she climbed the hill from Riverside Park on 112th Street, the massive, looming facade filled up the view, sunlight catching the fifty-foot rose window and every curve and adornment, the rows of larger-than-life saints made miniature by the whole. It might, as many right-minded people claimed, be a waste of money, but Ana understood the impulse to create on such a scale, to overwhelm the eye, to touch the soul with grandeur. It was a substitute for the pure spirituality that few could muster on a regular basis. It was made for people like her.
The broad, empty nave was large enough to seat an army. The aisles were lit by hundreds of yards of stained glass and lined with displays. As directed, Ana stood before the Holocaust Memorial, a fallen, skeletal figure stretched taut upon the ground. It was powerful but ghoulish, and after some minutes she felt a growing embarrassment at being made to stand there so long, as if del Carros were stirring up the darker rumors of her grandfather’s past by suggesting it. Simple paranoia on her part, no doubt. It was cold in the place, and Ana felt alone, more alone than she ever had before, and that was saying something. The emptiness of the church served to echo and enhance a hollowness inside herself. There were, in fact, a number of other people in the place, but the cathedral’s vastness swallowed them. She saw only tiny figures at a distance.
One of those figures was making his way toward her from the direction of the altar. Tall, or his leanness made him appear so, with short blond hair and spectacles over transparent blue eyes. Bland features, but a winning smile, which did not leave his face from the time he spotted Ana until the moment he stood before her.
“Ms. Kessler.”
“That’s right.”
“Jan Klee.” He put out his hand, which she took. A soft, European handshake. “I work with Mr. del Carros. Who is awaiting you, this way, if you would come along please?”
She followed him, trying to identify the accent. Must be Dutch, with that name. He walked with a casual stroll, yet covered ground with deceptive speed. Ana strode quickly to keep pace.
“I hope I haven’t kept him waiting long. I believe I was on time.”
“You are perfectly punctual, not to worry. Mr. del Carros is always early. And very patient.”
“How good of him. I’m always late, and impatient.”
Jan chuckled agreeably.
“I am also that way. Patience comes with age, I am told. Though you might expect the reverse to be true.”
“What do you do for Mr. del Carros?”
“Many things. Mostly I help him get around. He’s quite old, you know.”
“Right, of course.”
They passed through the broad crossing. Far above was the immense inverted bowl of the dome. Rust-colored and unornamented. Both of them stopped and stared a moment.
“One hundred and sixty-two feet,” Jan pronounced, “from floor to dome.”
“Wow,” Ana said, stupidly. “I couldn’t have told you that. You must know a lot about this place.”
“No. I just read it in that brochure.” He started off again. She was starting to like this guy. Anyway, she was pleased that del Carros had a studious assistant; it made all this feel more normal.
The name had troubled her from the moment it left Emil Rosenthal’s mouth, and she had racked her brain to think why. Her grandfather did not keep a diary, as far as she knew, but his calendars were large, leather-cased volumes in which he recorded a good deal of information. She had found the long line of black books a few days after his death, on a shelf in his study, fifty of them, numbered and dated. She’d meant to look through them then, but there had not been time, until yesterday. On impulse, she had turned to 1984, and found what she was looking for instantly. June 16 was circled, with departure and arrival times for a Pan Am flight to Caracas, a flight her grandfather never took, because of illness. Her father went instead, in his own jet, and presumably met with the man whose name was written below: Roberto del Karos. Two days later her father’s jet crashed in the mountains. The names were close, but close enough? And how common a name was either?
They went up a few steps into the south ambulatory, part of the semicircular corridor surrounding the choir and altar, and opening onto seven chapels. Jan stopped before an entry in the stone wall to their right. Unlike those further on, fronted by decorative iron gates that made them fully visible to the passage, St. James’ chapel was hidden away. Ana glanced at Jan and thought she found something challenging in his smile, saw an unnerving flatness in his eyes that was visible only close up, and he stood very close to her now. She was breathing too quickly; her pulse throbbed in her neck. This was ridiculous, the collector was only being careful.
“Just inside here,” Jan instructed, pleasantly.
Ana stepped through the archway. The chapel was deceptively large, big enough to be a small church, spare in its adornments, except for the highly detailed windows and a carved stone altar, four saints flanking a cross. A shrunken old man sat several chairs into one aisle, draped in a black raincoat with a gray hat in his lap. He was round-faced with a head of pure white hair and wa
tery blue eyes, and his gaze never shifted from the altar, even as Ana slid into the aisle beside him. She left one chair between them. Jan had vanished.
“Thank you for coming, my dear.”
He looked at her now, one shy glance before shifting his eyes downward.
“Thank you. This was my idea.”
“But I’ve taken you out of your way.”
“It’s fine. I love this place.”
“Do you? It’s rather freakish, but I like it too. And it has these discreet corners.”
“Are you hiding from someone?”
“Oh, yes.” He grinned mischievously. “Many people. Does that surprise you?”
“Not at all. I know a bit about the complications that afflict collectors’ lives.”
“Of course, you are one yourself. And a dealer too, yes?”
Had she told him that? Anyway, Rosenthal could have; it wasn’t a secret.
“Strictly an amateur, on both counts.”
“But your grandfather was a great collector.”
“You knew my grandfather.”
“Not well. We did some business a long time ago.”
“Would it be too rude to ask what that business was?”
“Not too rude.” He was looking down again, shifting the hat about in his lap with his long, withered hands. “It’s simply that business is so boring. Especially old business, and I’ve forgotten the details. If I’m not mistaken, we are here to speak of more recent business. True?”
What was the accent? Certainly there was a Spanish lilt, but it overlaid something else. He didn’t look Spanish. She was getting distracted.
“You know, I sort of had a deal in mind,” she answered. “An exchange of information. I don’t want to sound mercenary. I’d like this to stay friendly.”
“No need to apologize. I understood the conditions. I was to explain my willingness to pay so much for your fine icon. You were to give me your best guess at its present location. I imagined that trading stories about your grandpa was something extra, just friendly conversation. Have I misunderstood?”
He was not a doddering old man, she must get rid of that idea at once. He had thought this through more carefully than she had.
“Let’s make this simple,” he continued, leaning in her direction. “We shall each take turns speaking, until we run out of things to say. I’ll go first.” He faced the altar once more. “There is no good reason I should have offered so much for the icon. It is a personal matter. My father was also a collector, and an art historian. Byzantine art was his special love. He had heard and read what little there was on the Holy Mother of Katarini, and then, between the wars, he went to Greece to see it. It was not easy. The icon had moved over the years, and there were several villages which claimed theirs as the true one. Maybe they believed it. The Greeks are not a people careful about history. My father bribed a priest, and was able to see the real icon, the genuine Mother of Katarini. And he became so entranced by it that he made the priest an offer to buy it. A generous offer, I believe, but it was no use. The Greek would not part with it for any price.”
“What was your father’s name?”
“William. It would have been William in English. In any case, years later, I went to see the icon myself. I was trying to be a collector also, though I had to do other things to live. My family was not rich, despite my father’s indulgence in art. I too fell in love with the work. It was…well, I need not describe it to you. You have had years to admire it. I envy you that.”
“I seem to have been less affected than others. Maybe I didn’t spend enough time looking closely.”
“Perhaps, but the effect is usually immediate, in my experience. Can I ask you, do you believe that Jesus Christ is your savior?”
“My goodness, there’s a question. I’m not sure that I do, to tell you the truth. Is that necessary to the proper appreciation of the work?”
“We are not speaking of appreciation, but something deeper. The work’s ability to move one, yes? To heal, to comfort, to teach, even. Is belief necessary? No, probably not. Not as a precondition, in any case, but one is unlikely to feel that caress of the spirit and be unchanged. Conversion goes hand in hand with the healing.”
He had a schoolteacher’s manner, this del Carros. There was no evangelical thunder in his speech, yet a certain quality of hushed awe had crept into these last words. Ana felt alien, isolated, denied something that all these men around her had been able to access.
“You really believe this?”
“I believe in my own experience. I am not a man given to fanciful thoughts, I assure you. My life has not been an easy one. I have seen much cruelty, and my sins are great. My sins are great,” he said a second time, as if hearing himself for the first time. The hands worked the crumpled hat furiously now. He had lost his way a little. “In some degree this belief is a burden to me, but inescapable. For the brief time that I held the icon, I felt a calm, and a love, that have lived within me always. I long for that feeling again. That is why I made the offer I did.”
He had said more than he intended, that was clear, and a poignancy like truth had infused his words. She believed in his reasons. And yet so much had been left out of the tale.
“Do you know how the icon made its way to my grandfather?”
He smiled sadly.
“You are hungry for the past. Me, for the future. I think it is your turn to speak now.”
He would tell her what she wanted if she could only keep him talking. How much truth did she owe him, after his little unburdening? How much did he already know?
“My grandfather had his own theories about the icon,” she began, for no reason in particular. “He thought it was a lot older than anyone guessed. That it had been made in Constantinople in the fourth or fifth century. Even that St. Helena commissioned it herself.”
“Indeed?”
Ana had expected scorn, or amusement, but in fact her words seemed to unsettle the old man. His watery eyes fixed upon her, no longer shy, and a stillness came over him.
“I suppose that’s ridiculous,” she added quickly. “I mean, all those really old works were destroyed, right? By fire, or the iconoclasts, or the Turks, or somebody.”
“Undoubtedly. But I wonder where he arrived at such a theory. Do you know?”
“Not really. Something he read, I suppose. Maybe something in the work itself.”
“I see.” His body language expressed terrible agitation, though his voice remained calm. “Did he have experts examine the work?”
“Not that I was ever aware of. He was very protective of it. A few friends saw it. It’s possible that one of them was an art historian.”
“But there was no close examination, no testing paint, playing with the frame, and so on.”
“Nothing like that, I’m sure.”
“I am relieved to hear it. You know, those people have no reverence for sacred art. Sometimes they do great damage in the course of examining. Your own expert, Mr. Spear, was also careful with the work, I trust.”
Again, Matthew’s involvement was no secret, yet del Carros’ speaking his name made her uneasy. There was nothing about this encounter, it seemed, that did not make her uneasy.
“He was very gentle. He only looked at it.”
“And what useful analysis did he provide you?”
None of your damn business, she wanted say, but restrained herself. There was more to learn here. Her real annoyance came from not being able to figure out what he was after. She no longer had the icon, so what she might have learned could be of little importance. Unless he felt that certain information held value, or threat, quite apart from ownership.
“Mr. Spear works for the Metropolitan Museum, not for me. He confirmed that the work was old, possibly as old as the St. Catherine’s group. That was about it.”
“Yet he has taken a very personal interest in the work’s recovery, has he not?”
“You would have to speak to him about that.”
“Very well. To the point. Where is the icon now, Ms. Kessler?”
“I never claimed to know exactly where it was.”
“Your educated guess, then. Whatever it was you came here to tell me.”
She stared at the altar, picking through the scattered facts in her brain for an answer that might halfway satisfy him.
“There’s a man named Dragoumis. A businessman, who was the intermediary for the church, or claimed to be.”
“I know who he is.”
“The police think that he might have stolen the icon from himself. The Russian mob was in on it with him. He used the church to get the price down, then had it stolen to avoid turning it over.”
He nodded slowly, but without satisfaction.
“Someone reading the newspapers closely could have discerned that much. Though I thank you for confirming it. Is there anything else?”
“The icon may be in Greece now.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Why else would Dragoumis have gone there?”
“I can think of a number of reasons. Do I take it, then, that you have no reliable information that the icon is in Greece?”
Ana prided herself on quick thinking. Even now, she could dredge up numerous tidbits of fact to support her assertion, but they would all be known to him, she felt sure. She remained silent. Del Carros nodded again and slumped back in the hard wooden chair, disappointed less with her, it seemed, than with the world in general. They both faced forward. A burly, bearded sightseer entered the chapel from the far door and began carefully examining the altar.
“Tell me, Ms. Kessler,” del Carros said finally, “why your continued interest in the work? You did receive a tidy sum.”
“I’m not interested in it,” she answered.
“I find that hard to believe. Could it be that you have found parting with it more difficult than you expected?”