Outside the window the sycamores shivered. Several robins bounced about the gravel paths, stopping for a quick layover on their way north. Nathan looked quizzically at Bradshaw who was still looking at Hilary.
“Ah, Nathan,” the Director said at last, “I thought you were going to be the only one to work on the Regensfeld artifacts. That’s what I told Dol—Dolo—Mrs. Coburg. With all due respect, young lady, those are priceless objets d’art that don’t belong to us.”
Great, Hilary told herself. I’ve been here five minutes and I’m already juggling a political hot potato. Let Nathan handle it. She looked past Bradshaw’s bear-like form to the bookcases behind his desk. Only a cup and a saucer bearing a used tea bag were evidence that a human hand had ever touched shelves as perfectly arranged as a photographer’s backdrop.
Nathan sighed. “Wes, either I drop something else I’m doing—like the Coburg biography—and concentrate on the artifacts, or I let someone else work on them. Hilary came with excellent references, and I’ll be keeping an eye on her. Strictly speaking, the artifacts are no longer the Coburgs’ responsibility, but Nicholas Vasarian’s.”
“Er—yes—I know—your references really are quite nice, Hilary.”
Hilary murmured a thank-you and looked down at the plush beige carpet. Even her low heels had sunk into the thick pile. She could see Sharon Ward and her stiletto heels in here, walking like a flamingo.
Bradshaw sat down with a slight frown, focused inward. “No, Nathan, you’re quite correct, I’ll check with Mr. Vasarian—he’s staying at the Worthington downtown. I’m sure you’ll do a good job, Hilary. It’s just that there’s more involved here than the artifacts. The Coburgs….”
Nathan stood holding his mug, his head tilted to the side, looking like one of the robins considering a toothsome worm. Hilary tried her best wide-eyed innocent gaze. She was beginning to appreciate the humor in Nathan’s bear-and-penguin cartoon.
“The Coburg Foundation,” Bradshaw went on, “might be making a sizable grant to us, to use for expansion: a new gallery for Arthur Coburg’s collections, general improvement of the facilities, and perhaps even a contribution to our acquisitions fund.” He opened his drawer and pulled out a plastic container of antacid tablets. “It would be very—er—awkward if one of the artifacts the Coburgs so generously donated back to Germany was mishandled in any way. It would be very unfortunate if Mrs. Coburg, or Mr. Coburg, or Mr. or Mrs. Ward—or even Mr. Vasarian, for that matter, were disconcerted or annoyed in any way. I know I can trust your good sense, Hilary.”
“Yes, sir,” Hilary replied. What a job he had, directing the Lloyd between the rock of Dolores Coburg and the hard place of financial necessity. Mark could mutter about ransoming the artifacts. Bradshaw couldn’t. And as for her…. She didn’t think Travis Ward had taken offense at her fending him off with intellectual double-speak last night. He probably hadn’t realized he was being fended.
Nathan looked as if he’d taken a drink of scalding coffee and was too polite to spit it out. “I’ll get Hilary to work,” he said and ushered her out the door. He managed to get into the hall before he laughed. “I don’t have to translate that for you, do I?”
“Let me guess. I’m supposed to brown-nose the Coburgs for all I’m worth. Will it really be all right if I work on the artifacts?”
“Dolores is the only Coburg who can tell the difference between a Meissen figurine and a Venus de Milo with a clock in its stomach. She’s already seen your references. And I’ll be close by. No problem.” Nathan walked farther down the hall and turned into his own office. He laid the by now-empty-mug on a battered desk paved with papers, books, computer printouts, sketches, and catalogues, and indicated a card table in the corner of the room, straddling several more stacks of printouts and tied bundles of pamphlets. “That’s your office, I’m afraid. But you’ll be in the conservation labs for the rest of this month. After that I have a long, long list.”
“No problem,” Hilary told him.
Past an elevator, through a heavy door, and down some steps, Hilary sensed a subtle change in the air. Here, where the museum’s collections were stored, the temperature was kept between 65 and 75 degrees and humidity at 50 per cent. Her nose detected hints of varnish, mold, and woodworm, the elements of cultural alchemy.
A security post on the right was where a uniformed guard read the morning paper and glanced up frequently at the dials, gauges, and screens ranged along one wall—smoke detectors, alarms, thermostats. A series of monitors showed distorted black and white pictures of places Hilary didn’t as yet recognize…. No, there was the atrium and the gallery where the Coburg Collection was arranged, and that was the office hall and the door of the break room.
“Impressive,” she said to Nathan, including in her comment the guard herself, whose finely molded face and long throat looked like the classic bust of Nefertiti carved from mahogany.
“You can see why we’re always desperate for money,” Nathan returned. To the guard he said, “Leslie, this is Hilary Chase, my new assistant. Look at her good now, she’ll be in and out of the labs.”
“Oh I know about you, Hilary,” Leslie said with an engaging laugh. “I have a mole. Preston Baker was at my place for dinner last night.”
Hilary returned her laugh. So this was Preston’s lady. What a handsome—and formidable—couple they made.
Nathan led Hilary on through windowless corridors, as though descending into a submarine. One sliding doorway opened into a vault containing wire grilles hung with the paintings not on display, as much as 50 per cent of the museum’s holdings. Three coveralled men were dollying a huge Bierstadt landscape gingerly down the aisle. Two other sliding doorways were shut, but Hilary visualized the metal and stone sculpture, the antique furniture, the ethnic materials of cloth and feathers and shells that were always so difficult to preserve. This is great, she said to herself.
Then Nathan opened a glass door into the conservation labs, and her heart leaped. Computers, air hoses, magnifying lights, bottles of chemicals and paints, brushes, cloths—this was a wizard’s chamber. A white-coated figure worked on a painting on an easel.
“June, this is Hilary,” said Nathan. The conservator nodded affably, her eyes distorted behind her thick glasses.
The atmosphere was as studiously peaceful as the scriptorium of a medieval monastery, a place sheltered from the world and the world’s demands. The murmur of the air conditioning and the tiny clinks of tools were a quiet counterpoint to a radio playing Beethoven’s “Pastorale”. The lilting phrases complemented Hilary’s mood, but jumping up and down like a high-school cheerleader would be entirely inappropriate. “Lead me to the artifacts—I’m ready to go!”
Laughing, Nathan led her to a worktable to one side of the room. He pulled out the tall metal chair for her. “Be right back with the goodies.”
Hilary took out the six photographs she’d brought back with her and tucked them into a row of clips along the edge of a shelf. She made a quick inventory of the available supplies—pencil and paper, a computer terminal, various preservatives and cleaning agents. Not that she’d start to use any chemicals without explicit instructions. She turned on the angle-arm lamp, making a spotlight on the rubber mat on the tabletop.
Glancing impatiently over her shoulder, she saw Nathan emerge from a heavy door on the far side of the room. Carefully, as though it contained the Holy Grail, he rolled in a cart that held a wooden crate.
Nathan braked the cart at her elbow. “Let’s get you logged onto the computer. You need to fill out the official descriptions of the artifacts for the insurance forms. Not that these things are really insurable, it’s just a pleasant little fiction we cling to, to preserve our sanity.”
Hilary laughed appreciatively. “Then you can start packing them. I’ll show you where the supplies are when you’re ready.” His somewhat stubby fingers cavorted over the keyboard of the computer. The screen hiccupped and waited with blank expectancy, a twentieth century sc
ribe-slave. “Database, Hilary. Hilary, database. Don’t worry about cleaning anything. I’ve already given them the once-over.”
Hilary followed Nathan’s instructions, and repeated them, and wished he’d hurry up and go away so she could get to the artifacts themselves. At last he did, trailing encouraging phrases behind him.
She liked Nathan. His intelligence and sense of humor would serve him well in skirting the mine fields of the museum business, which combined academic backbiting with business skullduggery. As for his manifest integrity—well, whether that would be an asset or a hindrance would depend on what particular mines he encountered. She wondered if he was going to tell Dolores Coburg that a lowly assistant curator, with barely a bachelor’s degree and one fellowship, was handling her precious artifacts. Vasarian’s artifacts, she corrected. Dolores probably couldn’t care less, now that the deal was done. As for Vasarian himself…. Hilary envisioned herself holding up a cross to fend him off. But the collection didn’t include a cross.
The crate was made of featureless pine, probably constructed in the Lloyd framing and packing shop in order to bring the artifacts over from Osborne House. Hilary remembered the sunny study and the tower room so small that she and Mark, Preston and Jenny, had filled it up. More than just the four of them had been in the house—another presence had followed them…. Stop it, she told herself. Old houses were creepy, and Mark’s admission of fear had hardly helped.
She picked up a screwdriver, opened the lid of the crate, and set it aside. Inside she found mounds of acid-free paper and an occasional strip of unbleached muslin. She sniffed. No mold or mildew.
A pair of clean cotton gloves lay ready on the table. She pulled them on. Offering up a prayer to whatever saint watched over neophyte scholars, she took out the top bundle, laid it on the table, and unwrapped it.
She held a boxwood carving of parishioners filing through a church doorway. The rounded arch of the door was edged by band after band of zigzags, lozenges, and tiny angelic faces. The human figures looked like grasshoppers, their round heads perched above tightly wrapped cloaks. The faces of the angels and the parishioners expressed similarly intense devotion, each a portrait achieved with only a few strokes of the chisel.
Spontaneous impression? she asked herself. Vespers. Unpretentious but melodious chanting offering contentment and certainty. She thought of the west doors of Rudesburn Priory. In the evening the sound of their shutting would roll across the green grass, although the doors themselves had been gone for centuries. Closed doors meant security. They also meant exclusion. The doors in the carving were open wide, God’s arms embracing the sinner.
Hilary set the carving down on the mat. A pedantic description now— age, wear, repairs, style. The symbols on the archway identified the piece as eleventh to thirteenth-century, probably Norman English, although it could be French. She found a label among the wrappings and read: “Thirteenth c. England. N.V.” Vasarian’s writing was a fine antique, almost copperplate, hand. Something to be said for a childhood in Eastern Europe, if you discounted war and political mayhem.
Hilary’s gloved fingertips slipped over the computer keyboard. The outermost figure of the carving had been repaired, probably a long time ago. No evidence of worms or rot. Size, weight, texture. Two dowel holes in the back of the piece showed it had once been attached to a choir stall, making a little seat called a misericord. Delicately she brushed her naked wrist across the smooth wood and detected a roughness. She reached for a magnifying glass. Gloria tibi, domine, the faint, scraggly letters spelled out. Glory be to God.
The skin prickled on the back of her neck at this echo of a distant, long-dead mind, an intellectual ghost. The craftsman had thought no human eye would ever see his prayer. Today people didn’t manufacture artifacts for God but for money and status.
Hilary considered her cataloguing options—attributed to, studio/workshop of, manner of…. She could check the museum library and make an educated guess as to where this was carved, but for now “England” had to be enough. It wasn’t really her decision, after all.
The next piece she unwrapped was the ivory bishop, feeling oddly heavy and cool even through her glove. She smiled at its stolid little face and body; no nonsense about that cleric, he’d keep priest and parishioner alike in line. The label read “Tenth-century Denmark”, just as she’d predicted. She allowed herself a quick pat on the back and inspected the piece for cracks and discolorations, recording each tiny imperfection.
Hilary set the ivory bishop next to the church door and dived again into the box. Part of her mind heard the radio playing the soaring hymn of “Appalachian Spring”, but the rest of her mind was focused with telescopic intensity on her task. It seemed unreal that she was being paid to do something so enthralling.
She unwrapped a small panel painting of “The Last Supper”. It had to be a Giotto. She checked the label. All right, Giotto it was, early fourteenth-century Italy. A unique piece; almost all of the artist’s known work were frescoes. But it would’ve been difficult for some potentate to haul a wall to Regensfeld. Maybe this was specially commissioned.
The paint was faded, as Hilary would’ve expected, from exposure to sunlight. The human shapes were arranged simply but powerfully against a background consisting of little more than a misty landscape. They leaned toward the figure of Jesus, making His gilt halo the focus of the piece. Except for one, Judas, who turned his back on divinity. Every face seemed serenely self-conscious of its role in myth and history, even Judas’s, as if that were justification for his deed.
Needs cleaning, Hilary typed, considering the yellowing varnish covering the painting. Panel cracked. The painting felt as if it would break in two in her hands. A miracle it had survived all these years. Artifacts had a life of their own—as Jenny had pointed out last night.
The next piece was so heavy that Hilary knew it was the gold and enamel brooch before she unwrapped it. This was nonrepresentational art, the swirls and interlaces appealing to a different aesthetic taste than Giotto’s straightforward depiction of the human figure did. Only the miniature clasped hands on the rim of the brooch were literal. Friendship, Hilary thought, her perception tracing the pattern. Love. Marriage. Last night the photo of the brooch had reminded her of a claddagh ring, the gift of a groom to his bride. Perhaps this brooch was a reminder of a nun’s or monk’s marriage to his or her faith.
But don’t you have to know the physical before you can achieve the spiritual? Is clinging only to the spiritual a retreat from reality? Finding no answer in the gold, red, and blue surface of the brooch, Hilary typed its description and added, twelfth-century Ireland, before she turned over the label. Vasarian had attributed it to the eleventh century. Okay, he was the expert. She moved the cursor and changed twelfth to eleventh.
Several layers of muslin and paper concealed a cylindrical silver and copper gilt reliquary. “Eighth century Bavaria,” the label read, followed by the laconic notation, “Empty”. Whatever relic it had once held—bone, hair, or cloth—was long gone. It was in beautiful condition, though, with only a hint of the dark purplish scum of corrosion in the interstices of the filigree and behind the figures. Some of them were demons, mini-gargoyles swarming over the precious metal, eyes bulging, tongues sneering, hands plucking at the shrinking bodies of sinners. The open mouths of the human figures screamed, and Hilary shivered. Torment. Guilt and shame and irredeemable memory. And yet the whole point of religion was to assuage such pain, to formalize penance and forgiveness. Penance, one of the seven sacraments.
Instead of rearranging the row of artifacts before her—which should be handled as little as possible—she rearranged their photographs hanging on the edge of the shelf. Yes, there was an order to them. Now if only the last one had something to do with baptism.
She unwrapped the largest of the artifacts, a bejeweled gold Bible cover so large and lush that she glanced around, hoping Leslie was standing guard behind her back. But no one else was in the lab—the other c
onservator was gone. The faint electronic hum of the computer seemed suddenly loud. Hilary glanced at her watch. Twelve-thirty. Lunch time. It hardly seemed possible she’d spent an entire morning examining only five artifacts.
She laid the Bible cover on a piece of muslin. Its rounded, raised gold figures depicted Jesus, hands folded, head bowed, before John the Baptist. John’s upraised hand, meant to show he was in the act of sprinkling Jordan water over Jesus’s head, almost touched the first of several rough-cut rubies. Spinels, Hilary corrected. The gaudy decoration detracted from the modest figures of Jesus and John, who had gone around the Judean countryside counseling the rich to sell all they had, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow them. Hilary could see Dolores Coburg in a simple linen shift, sitting like Mary Magdalene at Jesus’s feet. He would’ve welcomed her. That’s why He’s divine, she thought, and the rest of us aren’t.
Ninth century France, she typed, and set the label aside. Inscriptions…. She had to use the magnifying glass to see the letters around the edge of the cover. Oh, no wonder—the inscription was in Greek. She sounded out, In archae ain ho logos, and smiled, completing the verse. “ ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ ”. So she hadn’t quoted it correctly last night. Her version was appropriate for questions of sacred and profane love.
“You noticed,” said a voice in her ear.
Every nerve ending in her body fired at once, propelling her six inches off the chair. “Nathan!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t hear you come in!”
“I’m sorry—I should’ve realized you were thoroughly engrossed. You’ve worked right through lunch.”
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