Sanskrit Cipher: A Marina Alexander Adventure

by C. M. Gleason

  The stamps were in French and so was one of the postmarks. Maybe from a family member, left back in Paris? Ignoring the tickle in her nose that portended another sneeze, she pushed up her slipping glasses and shined her mobile phone’s flashlight on the fading ink.

  The postmarks were hand-stamped, and she identified one for Paris—which appeared to be the originating location—and another for New York City. Years weren’t added to many postmarks or cancellation marks until the turn of the nineteenth century, and as the ones on this package were missing the year, she felt another skip of her pulse. Before 1900 probably, but later than the mid-1800s.

  She was mildly disappointed to see that the ink of the sender’s name had bled away and wasn’t legible. The last few letters of the name looked like itch, and the initial of the first name might have been an N or an M. Hmm. That sounded Russian, so it probably wasn’t a family member.

  Careful not to destroy the wrappings, which, as far as she could tell, hadn’t ever been opened, Jill snipped the worn string that crisscrossed the bundle, knowing that it had likely spent a month or more in transit from Paris to Chicago. And to never be opened? What sort of work had Alexina done for Rand McNally? And if she didn’t work for them, why would someone send her a package there?

  Jill pulled the crisp brown paper away, setting the wrappings aside to behold her treasure: a wooden container, about the size of a cigar box. In fact, it was a cigar box—and its cover instantly dated it as the mid-to-late 1890s Art Nouveau style of Belle-Époque Paris.

  My God, is this a Mucha? She paused to admire the beautiful illustration of a woman on the front. The intricate, pale pastels—particularly peach, melon, and sage—and painstaking, undulating detail of flowers, swirls, and long hair that coiled like macaroni were definitely the hallmarks of Alphonse Mucha’s distinctive fin de siècle style. And when she saw his name on the printed image, Jill gasped with pleasure. If nothing else, she was holding a beautiful, wonderfully preserved antique box that belonged in a museum.

  The container opened easily. Jill set the top aside and surveyed the contents. A letter, addressed to Alexina Donovan with the notation Privée on the outside of the envelope. Three thick packets of papers, each folded into squares, and possibly ten pages each. The papers were aged and brittle, and she carefully spread the first packet open. Handwritten in fading ink in French.

  Good thing she had a decent handle on the language. It was difficult enough trying to read old, spiky writing; it would be nearly impossible if she didn’t know the language.

  Resisting the urge to skim at least the first pages, Jill set the papers aside and turned her attention to the last item, which was nestled on the bottom among some wads of cotton batting: a cloth-wrapped bundle that was about the size and weight of a teacup.

  When she took it out, Jill had the impression of an item very old and fragile; there was something about the way it felt in her hands—solid and substantial, like metal or stone—and the way it smelled, the way it had been so carefully packaged.

  Yet, despite her burning curiosity, she forced herself to set the small bundle next to her on the table, then looked inside the cigar box to see if there was anything else tucked down in the cotton batting.

  She found a small cork cube, unpainted, unadorned other than a blob of wax on one end. She couldn’t imagine what it was for—it wasn’t the right shape or size for a wine bottle—but she put it aside. When she pulled out the musty wadding, she unraveled it gently over the box and something fell out of it. A very small glass vial with a dead insect tucked inside. Jill wondered how a bee— Or was it a fly? Maybe a moth? No, she decided as she gave it good look, it was a bee.

  How did a bee get caught up in the wadding and packaged inside this box—with all the other contents that had been put together so carefully?

  Was it actually a bee? Jill frowned as she looked at it, not quite certain why it mattered so much, why it had snagged her interest. It was just an old bug.

  But it had been caught in there for over a century, she realized. Sometime before 1900, this poor little insect had been trapped inside the cigar box and left in there to die during his trans-Atlantic voyage.

  Interestingly enough, the creature wasn’t damaged or crushed, as one might expect an insect to be in a box that had been shipped all the way from Paris.

  She’d never seen one that looked like this (not that she was an expert on bugs by any stretch). Her first instinct might be correct: the creature was sort of fuzzy, like a bee, and it had stripes on its body. But the colors weren’t gold and black. Instead, the stripes were black and a sort of reddish-pink-gold. It was the size of a housefly, smaller than most honeybees she could think of. Maybe there were different species of bees in Paris.

  Jill tipped the cigar box so the winged insect fell out, and when it tumbled into her palm, she realized there was a pin stuck through its abdomen. Ah. That was what the small block of wood was for, and maybe the glass vial: the bee, or whatever type of insect it was, had been mounted on the cube by the little pin stuck through it, like a specimen in a lab, and then protected by the glass vial, which made a sort of top over it. There was a bit of wax on the vial that must have been a stopper to keep the chunk of cork in place and sealed. She suspected the whole glass container had been wrapped up in the batting to protect it. Amazing that it had traveled so far and that the insect was still intact.

  The situation was fascinating and a little startling. What was so special about this insect that it had been packaged up and sent overseas to her great-grandmother, along with—whatever was in this other bundle?

  She set the bee gently on top of the batting and turned her attention to the cloth-wrapped item. The fabric was an unexceptional contemporary linen weave, undyed, unadorned. No stitching or embroidery. A thick string tied it around the weighty, solid object, and once again Jill cut the bindings carefully. She’d saved this part for last, hoping there would be some significant revelation when she opened it, that she’d immediately know whether she had a find, or a find.

  Carefully unrolling its wrappings, she let it sit on the desk in front of her. The object was revealed to be a small, simple clay pot, roughly three inches across and five inches tall. A lid made from the same material fit tightly and was sealed closed with a substance like wax all around its seam. She couldn’t determine the original color of the clay, for now it was gray-brown with the wear of centuries. It didn’t have any sort of glaze on it like more modern stoneware, nor was it painted or decorated with beads or other pieces of pottery. Fashioned from clay and some grasses or reeds for added strength, the pot put her in mind of a small medicinal or even perfume container. If anything was inside, it made no sound when she gently shook the jar.

  There were etchings on the jar—if she had to guess, she’d say it was text and not merely decorative markings. Definitely not French. Nor was it Germanic or Latin… Asian, perhaps, or Middle Eastern.

  Crude lettering aside, this unpainted, rough in texture, and crudely formed jar made Jill think ancient. Her fingers trembled a little as reality sank in. This pot was far older than a century or two.

  What it was or where it had come from, she couldn’t guess. Well, she could—and her mind was already jumping to wild possibilities—but she was an historian. A scientist. She would take this step by step.

  But oh…she was excited.

  Jill reached for the letter marked Privée, hoping this, at least, would be legible and easy to read. Before she left tonight, she wanted an idea of who’d sent this package with its curious contents and why.

  Carefully, she used a letter opener to slit through the age-brittle envelope. The paper inside crackled alarmingly as she eased it out of its enclosure. The one-page letter, addressed to Mrs. Alexina Loranger Donovan, was also written in French, and in very hurried, scrawling penmanship. Ink blots, smudges, and streaks abounded. It would take significant work to parse the characters and words from the messy paragraphs before she could begin to translate th
em. Nonetheless, she scanned it, looking for anything that jumped out at her—proper names or places, dates, anything.

  Only the date and place from which it was sent—Paris, 20 April, 1897 (she’d been right in dating it by the postmarks)—along with the addressee and sender’s names were legible to her.

  All right, then, Jill thought, removing her glasses to rub watery, weary eyes. Despite her enthusiasm, it was late and her vision was blurring. And if she was going to make her yoga class at five thirty, she had to get going.

  Tomorrow, when I can actually see clearly, I’ll start on this letter.

  She couldn’t wait to find out why someone named Nicolas Notovitch had shipped a bee and an ancient medicine jar to her great-grandmother—all the way from Paris to Chicago.

  Four

  Champaign, Illinois

  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  July 6

  Tina Janeski hesitated outside Dr. Sanchez’s office door. Her palms were a little sweaty and her stomach slightly queasy, but in a good sort of way.

  She was only a lowly undergraduate student who was working as an admin during the summer semester, but like most of the female students in the entomology department—and some of the male ones too—she was half in love with Eli Sanchez. Well, as much as she could be from a distance, anyway.

  Even Patty Denke, the tall, willowy blonde who had plenty of her own admirers, admitted Sanchez had that certain something-something that attracted people like flies—or bees.

  Oh, God, it was just horrible about Patty!

  And that was why Tina was more than a little nervous. She’d had Dr. Sanchez for one lecture, but had never met him one on one. And now, here she was, about to deliver some pretty bad news to him about one of his best grad students.

  This was not the way she wanted to get on his radar, so to speak. But it had to be done.

  She knocked and, when his answering response told her to come in, opened the door. And there he was.

  To Tina, thirty-seven-year-old Eli Sanchez didn’t look anything like a world-renowned entomologist who specialized in beetles—Coleopteroids, she corrected herself—and bees. Apis.

  He reminded her of a musician in a reggae band, with his light brown skin, deep-hooded black-brown eyes, and long, lanky body. When she first started at UIUC, he’d had shoulder-length dreadlocks that he usually wore in a ponytail, but he’d since cut them off. His dark hair, which had silver threads in it, had grown back thick and wiry—not quite an Afro, not merely curly—and just long enough to pull it into a very short tail.

  A Chinese letter was inked just behind his left ear; she’d looked it up and learned it was the symbol for peace. A goatee that was considering going gray obscured most of his mouth, but when he smiled, he revealed handsome white teeth.

  It was difficult to get into one of Dr. Sanchez’s classes because he did a lot of fieldwork, and therefore didn’t teach as much as he used to. And Tina knew that Sanchez had even been called in by the FBI for help on a few cases—one of which was about potentially deadly insects from the Amazon that had been part of some sort of possible terrorist threat. He’d even been on television—NatGeo for one. That obviously just made him even more interesting.

  As Tina walked in, Sanchez looked up from the thick sandwich he’d been eating. She eyed it warily, but there weren’t any insect legs or wings protruding from between the bread slices. It looked like normal ham and cheese, dripping with some sort of sauce.

  She’d never forget the first lunch of her sophomore year when she saw him sitting at a table in the most popular dining hall near the entomology school. He had a plate filled with insects—later she learned they were mopane worms—and was enthusiastically crunching on them and offering them to anyone who wanted to try. It was almost enough to put her off her crush on him.

  “What can I do for you?” As usual, the professor was wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and Birkenstocks beneath an open white lab coat. Today, his shirt read “Spider-Man,” but it was nothing like the Marvel logo. Instead, there was the silhouette of what looked like a mad scientist splashed on the front of a psychedelic spiral with arachnids dangling from his fingertips.

  “Hi, Dr. Sanchez, sorry to bother you. I’m Tina Janeski, one of the summer interns—uh, admins working in the office here for the summer,” she said, then mentally kicked herself because she sounded like a repetitive, babbling idiot. And her cheeks felt hot, which meant she was blushing. “I—uh. I just took a phone call that I need to tell you about.”

  “All right.” More sauce oozed out when he set the sandwich down. “Go ahead.”

  “Well, um, Patricia Denke is— She died. She’s dead. They’re—uh—sending her notes and papers back here to you.”

  The professor stared at her for a moment, and Tina hoped against hope he wasn’t going to freak out or burst into tears or anything. As far as she was aware, he and his graduate student hadn’t had anything romantic going on, but who knew for sure? After all, who could work so closely with him and not want to jump his bones?

  “Say that again,” he told her, his face blank with shock.

  “Patty Denke’s dead. She died—”

  “That’s what I thought you said.” He closed his eyes briefly, made a gesture with his right hand (the sign of the cross?) then muttered something that could have been a prayer. Finally, he looked back up. “When? How?”

  “I-I don’t know. It was her parents who called, her father.” Tina fumbled through what little she knew. “Sounded like it was just a few days ago? Maybe a week?”

  “She was still in India, then.” Though he appeared shocked, he didn’t seem completely devastated, which gave Tina a little bit of hope. “That’s just terrible.” To her surprise, he bowed his head and his lips moved soundlessly, briefly. Then he looked up at her again. “I’m so sorry to hear that. What a loss—to the department, and to the rest of us. Patty is—was—well, she was a great woman. Smart. Did her parents say what happened?”

  “Um…no. Not really.” With all of his dark-eyed attention focused on her, Tina felt like her brains were leaking out of her ears. She pulled herself together. “But yes, she was still in India. That’s what Mr. Denke said. They—her parents—are sending all of her stuff to you; all of her papers and everything that came back with her—I mean, related to her work here, I guess.” Tina wondered what Patty had been doing in India. She’d been way up near the Himalayas, next to Nepal, which sounded wonderfully exotic and, at the same time, a little frightening. “Wonder what she was doing over there.”

  “Working on her dissertation project,” Dr. Sanchez replied, surprising her with the prompt answer. “Titled—let me see if I remember it…uh…‘Biochemical Analysis of Rhododendron honeys, with special emphasis on “deli bal” from Turkey, India, Nepal, and Inner Mongolia…and’…uh, let me think…oh, right, ‘and Behavioral Differences Between and Among Hives During Mad Honey Season.’ But in her last message, she said she might change it to something along the lines of… ‘A Novel Species of Apis Bee from the Himalayan Mountains.’” His smile was a little crooked. Sad.

  “Right,” Tina said, trying to look intelligent. What the hell was mad honey season?

  “What about arrangements?” he asked.

  “Arrangements?”

  “Funeral, memorial service? Did Mr. Denke tell you anything about that?”

  “Um, no. I-I didn’t ask.”

  “Well, she’s from Cincinnati, so I suppose it’ll be there,” he said, half to himself. “Did they leave a number? I’ll call and find out.”

  “I can do that,” Tina said eagerly. It would give her an excuse to talk to him again. “I’ll call them back and find out, and let you know all the details.”

  “Thank you. As soon as you get a date, let me know, because I’ll have to clear my schedule.”

  “You’re—you’re going to go? To Cincinnati? For the funeral?”

  “Yes, of course I’m going to go. And there may be others who want
to go as well. Can you send an announcement with the info when you get it? To the entire department, please.”

  “Yes, certainly. I’ll want to attend as well.” Tina was already imagining riding in a car with Dr. Sanchez, just the two of them, all the way to Cincinnati.

  How long of a drive was that? She couldn’t wait to find out.

  Five

  Cleveland, Ohio

  July 8, Tuesday morning

  Randy Ritter zipped up his windproof jacket and flipped its hood over his head, ducking against the unexpected rain dashing from the sky. A distant rumble of thunder had him hunching down a little more and frowning at the dark sky south of here.

  Gonna be driving right into that, he thought, walking out of the warehouse to where his tractor and its loaded-up trailer were waiting in a row with five others.

  Miserable day, and now he was thirty minutes late getting on the road because some asswipe had taken it upon himself to spray down the rigs waiting out here in the docks at Cargath Steel.

  Fat lotta good it does now, driving into a boomer like that.

  “Yo, Ritter, drive safe,” called Nate, one of his trucker buddies, as he dashed out to his own rig, parked alongside Randy’s. “Where’s dispatch got ya headed?”

  “Louisville, then down over to Nashville,” Randy replied, scrunching down into the hood and collar of his jacket as the rain swept down harder. Stupid cleaning crew, putting him behind schedule. He wanted to get to Cincinnati before nine so he could sleep at his favorite truck stop—Bill Nodd was supposed to be there about that time on his way into Detroit—but with those roiling clouds and spears of lightning, along with the construction he’d been hearing about on I-71, it’d be a miracle if he got there before midnight.

  “I’m off to Atlanta, then Mobile, then back up here. See ya on the flip side,” said Nate as he closed the door of his tractor.