“Do we know anything about how she came to own it?” John asked. “I mean, it matters little how it got from Hildegard to Chicago. What matters is how Hildegard got her paws on it in the first place. If we can dig that up, it might help us find the rest of the stones.”
“If the information isn’t in the library system of the University of Maryland, it doesn’t exist. I trust my people. I went to school there, you know.”
John knew. He was sick of hearing about it. David was not a product UMD could boast of, so he ought not to have been boasting of UMD. John would have liked to compare the merits of attending a large, prestigious university, a degree from which served as an entry ticket to a successful career, with the merits of attending a small liberal arts college, one where students got lots of attention from faculty who were not burdened by Publish or Perish. But he knew he would be wasting his time.
“I have another question,” Sarah said.
David sat back down in the grass. “God help us.”
“Why would Cellarius go after Tavernier, a correspondent of his, rather than the king himself?”
“Louis XIV was untouchable,” John replied patiently. “He was far too powerful for a lone adversary to take a shot at him directly. I suppose Cellarius could have wormed his way into court and tried an assassination, but obviously he considered it too difficult, or else he didn’t aspire to martyrdom. At any rate, given the king’s love for gemstones, the route Cellarius chose seems pretty fitting.”
“Okay, why did the seventeenth-century trio—Cellarius, Hildegard Weinbrenner, and her boyfriend the cutter—bury the treasure at all?”
The men were silent. Finally John suggested, “To wait for the smoke to clear. If there truly was a connection between the stones and Louis XIV, agents of Louis might have come looking—might have traced them to the cutter, Jakob Langenbach. Besides, why is any treasure buried?”
“Why indeed?” Sarah asked. “I’ve got another one.”
“Jesus.” David mockingly covered his ears with his hands.
“Why would they recut only one stone? Why not all of them?”
“For all we know,” David said wearily, “they did cut all of them. And if they didn’t, maybe the Tavernier ruby was a test. They wanted to wait, as John said, for the smoke to clear before doing the rest.”
“Ruby was considered good protection against the spells of witches,” John recalled. “And at least two members of the trio were deep into that stuff. Maybe it’s why they cut the Tavernier ruby into three pieces—to split it among themselves.”
“Cellarius got one,” David said, “and kept it to the end. Weinbrenner got another and passed it down the family tree. When we find the cutter we’ll probably find the missing third, or at least the beginning of the path it took after he died.”
“I have just one more question,” Sarah said.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
“Why would Cellarius, who lived in Hamburg and masterminded the theft, hide the stones in Idar-Oberstein, as everyone thinks he did? Stop making that face, David. If we’re going to find the treasure, we’ll need to pose the whys before the wheres.”
“How profound,” David said.
“She’s right, you know,” John said gently. “But I think the choice of Idar-Oberstein is clear. They had to hide the stones in a safe place. And Idar-Oberstein was the home of the person whose job it was to recut them.” He laughed. “It’s funny, but my family originally came from that area—three hundred years ago, as Anabaptist immigrants. And now I have a question: why didn’t Jakob Langenbach and Hildegard Weinbrenner also know where the stones were hidden?”
“They did know,” David answered. “They all knew.”
“Exactly. Which is why we have to continue studying all the personalities involved, and why Sarah’s questions are legitimate.”
“Whatever you say, Johnny. Maybe you can learn about those personalities at Washington and Franklin, or wherever you went to college.”
John closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m beginning to wish you did have that ring on your finger. You’d still be locked up.” He opened his eyes again. The look on David’s face told him he’d crossed a line.
“That would be convenient for you, wouldn’t it? You could use my input to find the stones all by yourself, and hit on my girlfriend while you’re at it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I see the way you look at her—and get together with her behind my back.”
“Stay out of jail, Mr. Feinstein, and you won’t have to worry about who’s getting together with your girlfriend. You’ll also be able to contribute more of that ‘input’ you keep bragging about, and perhaps help us make some progress.”
David’s expression darkened. “Are you suggesting I’m not pulling my weight?”
“The possibility occurred to me.”
“Let me ask you this, Mr. Anabaptist. Remember that problem with the map grid you mentioned some time ago? How the grid didn’t match anything past or present, didn’t seem to make any sense?”
John looked away and said nothing.
“Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“Yes.”
“Then look me in the eye and tell me the truth. Have you solved that problem?”
John swallowed, looked David in the eye, and said, “No, I haven’t.”
“Maybe you don’t know, but I’m more than just a magician and a flimflam man. I’m also a student of character—a very astute student of character. You have to be, I think, to succeed in magic and flimflamming. And I know you just lied to me.”
John looked away again.
“Don’t go off on your own, John. You need me, or at least you will toward the end. We have to get along even if we don’t like each other. And I think the best way for us to get along is for you to keep some distance between yourself and my girlfriend.”
David stood up once more, grabbed Sarah by the arm, and pulled her into a standing position. “Come on,” he said. “Meeting’s over. And I’m hungry.”
As they walked away, Sarah kept glancing back at John. It was obvious she regretted the turn of events—or perhaps the choice of man she was leaving with.
“Whether I see Sarah is up to Sarah,” John called after them.
David shook his head without turning around. “No, my friend, it isn’t. It sure as hell isn’t.”
TWENTY-FIVE
ELEANOR HALL PUT HER feet up on the conference table. She knew the men sitting at the table could peer up her skirt. She didn’t care. Or rather, she did care, but knew the men wouldn’t be caught dead looking. They wanted to look, and they wanted to be observed not looking, and the torment put them in exactly the state of mind Eleanor Hall wished them to be.
“The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette?” she asked rhetorically.
The men scratched their heads, drummed their pencils on the table, loosened their ties. By allowing their eyes to rove around the entire room, ceiling and floor included, they could justify that split second during which their eyes just happened, by statistical chance, to gaze up her skirt. But it could only last for a split second, then they had to look away.
Eleanor Hall raised her hands before her, palms up, as though she were weighing two objects. “The Chicago Tribune,” she said, looking at her left hand. She looked at the right: “The Little Rock, Arkansas, Democrat-Gazette.” She bobbed her hands slightly, then brought them even with each other to show the two objects were equally weighted.
“Tribune … Gazette.”
A fly buzzed in the room. The men took a serious interest in it.
“Chicago … Little Rock.” Again they weighed the same.
Eleanor Hall picked up a sheet of paper from the table. “The ultimate prone position?” she asked.
Silence.
“The foot of the elevation?”
The men flipped through notes, looked at their watches, cleaned their reading glasses.
“The S
ieve of Eratosthenes?” Eleanor Hall opened her knees a few inches to increase the torment. “The gates of Hell?”
“Ma’am?” Justin had his hand up.
“Yes, Justin?” She adjusted herself in the chair, allowing her skirt to inch higher; the men sitting around the table adjusted themselves too.
“It’s from the Bible, ma’am.”
“What’s from the Bible, Justin?”
“That line: ‘The gates of Hell shall not prevail.’ It’s from Matthew, chapter sixteen.”
Eleanor Hall dropped her feet to the floor and pressed the intercom button. “Bring me a Bible. Now.”
WHEN JOHN FINALLY SHOWED up for work Monday, muttering about faulty alarm clocks, he couldn’t help noticing all the rubber-necking that greeted his arrival. Cartographers on both sides of the aisle turned to watch as he hurried to his cubicle, as though getting there ten seconds sooner would make a difference. He had pulled another all-nighter, then had overslept trying to get a few minutes of shut-eye before going to work.
As he sat down at his PC, Annette rose from hers across the aisle. The concern on her face suggested she intended to alert him of unseen clouds above his head. But the timely and efficient appearance of Harry Tokuhisa interrupted her visit.
“Good morning,” John said cheerfully. He looked at his watch. “Or maybe I should say good day.”
“Let’s go for a walk,” Harry suggested.
They went down the hall to the chief cartographer’s office, and Harry closed the door behind them. John had always liked visiting the office because it was decorated with prints of Harry’s favorite map artists: Heinrich Berann, Richard Edes Harrison, Erwin Raisz, Hal Shelton, Tibor Tóth. But he had a feeling today’s visit was not going to be a pleasant one.
“Have a seat.” Harry directed him to a chair in front of his desk.
“Am I promoted—or fired?”
“Neither.”
Harry sat down behind the desk and tapped his desk nervously. “Your work has been less than spectacular lately. Your production is down, both in quantity and quality. I was going to steer a new Bible atlas your way, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“Oh, Harry, please don’t say that.”
“You need a vacation, John.”
“I’m just a little burned out on … personal matters. I’ll shape up. It’s a temporary problem.”
“Get some rest,” Harry said. He would not look John in the eye. “Take some time off, then come back. I need you, but I need you happy and healthy.”
“Is it as bad as that?”
Harry nodded.
“All right. Let me clean up a few projects, then I’ll look at the calendar and schedule some time off. I promise.”
“John, you don’t understand. You’re going on vacation. Starting today.”
John felt his face flush. “I don’t believe this. This is embarrassing.”
“I’m the only one who will know. You’ve just decided to take some leave. People do it all the time. Normal people, that is. It just so happens you’re going to do it today.”
John gritted his teeth. “For how long?”
“As long as necessary. Don’t make this hard for me, John.”
“For you?”
Harry chewed a fingernail. “I’ve been under pressure to … do something about you.”
“I see. It is as bad as all that.” He got up and went to the door. “All right, I’ll try it your way for a couple of weeks. And when the little green spots—the first sign of map withdrawal—begin to appear on my skin …?”
“Call first.”
John returned to his cubicle to pick up a few personal articles before leaving the building. He looked around to see if the other employees were watching him. All were bent over their work.
The compilation sitting on his light table had been due five days earlier. He couldn’t remember ever being overdue on a job; he would stay as late as necessary and work weekends just to get a project done on time. Someone else would have to finish this one.
Annette hovered in the aisle. “I’m sorry, John,” she said.
“You know?”
She nodded. “Everyone knows.”
“Great.”
After leaving the office, John went home to change into Amish garb; he couldn’t show up at the old homestead in English clothes. His sister Rebecca waited tables in Bird-in-Hand, and since it wasn’t yet time for her to go to work, she would still be home, probably alone in the house. Anyone else who happened to be there would leave as soon as John entered. He was used to it: community members who ran into him in Lancaster always looked the other way. Some even crossed to the other side of the street.
The Lancaster County farm country was a patchwork of crops wrinkled on the land like an unmade bed. Homesteads were free of antennas, satellite dishes, and telephone lines; instead, windmills added rustic texture to the rolling terrain. And instead of the roar and sputter of a motorcycle or souped-up jalopy to rend the calm, horseshoes and harness leather played subtle notes that mingled with the laughter of small children.
On the Graf family farm north of Bird-in-Hand, a silo and an elevated birdhouse broke the skyline with crisp silhouettes. The cluster of farm buildings had not been planned in advance; rather, it had grown one building at a time to adjust to ever-changing needs. Its white picket fence had grown with it, zigzagging and meandering along the periphery of a luxuriant green lawn.
Clothing, mostly blue and black, hung on a wire to dry. A pair of horses stamped the earth outside their stable and breathed lustily in the clean country air. Parked next to them was a solemn gray buggy outfitted with a bright orange warning triangle.
Clarence Graf was in the habit of milking his cows before sunrise, to conserve daylight for other purposes. The barn could be lit with a propane lantern, but work in the fields required the sun. After lunch, he liked to do chores around the house. Late morning was therefore the most convenient time for John to visit; the old man would be nowhere in sight.
“Hello, Becca,” John said hopefully when his sister answered the door.
Rebecca said nothing but left the door open as she returned to the kitchen.
Inside the kitchen, John found the walls still the same old shade of pale green, and still bare but for an unpretentious seed company calendar. He knew the rugs covering the plain wooden floor would be rolled up and stored away were visitors expected. They were hand-made wedding gifts, intended to last a lifetime, and could not be subjected to the risks of inconsiderate guests.
On the kitchen table was a copy of The Budget, an Amish newspaper. Martyrs Mirror, a thousand-page tome chronicling the persecution of Anabaptists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, occupied a dry sink in the corner.
Rebecca sat stiffly in a straight-backed chair, facing away from John.
“How is Father?” he asked.
“He’s the same.” She spoke tersely, her lips closing promptly, clipping the very idea of unessential commentary. John was nevertheless happy to hear her strained words; she was the only family member who would talk to him.
“Does he ask about me? Has he mentioned my name?”
“No.”
Clarence Graf had become a minister shortly before John left the community. Unlike most organized religions, whose leaders were appointed and trained, the Amish chose ministers by divine lot among the community lay population. When a position became vacant, an ordination ceremony took place during the next available mass. Each adult church member whispered a nomination to the deacon, who in turn passed it to the bishop. The bishop kept count of the nominations; any man receiving three or more became a candidate.
Songbooks were then lined up on a table, one for each candidate, and the men were asked to take their pick. Tucked into one of the songbooks was a piece of paper containing a verse from the Bible. The man who drew this book became the new minister.
He could refuse neither the nomination nor the selection, since during baptism he had vowed to accept
the office should God bless him with it. Nor could he aspire to the office, not only because doing so was haughty, but because the lot, not a power play, chose the minister. The choice was in God’s hands alone.
When Clarence Graf learned he had received the requisite three nominations, he stood before the congregation trying, John thought, to look humble. When the old man had opened his song-book and removed the slip of paper, his entire family and even some of the neighbors had shed tears. It was, after all, a great honor.
John watched his father’s face quiver as he tried to contain the emotion. For despite admonitions against coveting the office, John knew he had wanted it badly.
To Clarence Graf, the greatest conceivable crime was leaving the church. But John was also sure his father could not reconcile himself to the loss of a son. Because the second greatest crime, in Clarence’s view, was disowning one’s offspring. The dilemma was the root of all conflict in his life.
A large, bony man with thick gray hair, crinkled eyes, and powerful, broad hands, Clarence Graf preferred to suffer the dilemma rather than bend one way or the other.
“He should be less stubborn,” John told Rebecca.
“You should be less radical.”
“Come on, Becca. You of all people can appreciate the absurdity of this situation. Wasn’t it you who complained to me—back when you talked to me, really talked to me—that because our society is patriarchal, the concessions to modernize always favor the men? The men get the modern farm equipment to make their work easier, the women continue to mow lawns with push mowers. If men mowed the lawns, you argued, they would surely allow gas-powered mowers.”
“So I’m to abandon my family and faith over lawnmower technology?”
“Don’t take a single example and expand it to represent the entire issue.”
“Isn’t that what you just did?”
“Besides, I didn’t abandon my family or my faith. They abandoned me.”
The Tavernier Stones: A Novel Page 18