She didn’t seem to know what he meant.
“That is… does anyone else sell these pieces?”
She shook her head. “This is all he makes, right here. When he makes more, I sell those.”
In the distance, he heard Mickelson shouting his name. The dermatologist came running over the marble plaza. “Grant. I’ve got you a cab!”
Grant gestured as if to brush him away. “I’ll meet you later, David, all right? Something’s come up.”
“What have you found?” Mickelson tried to look past him at the blanket, but Grant spun him around in the direction of the taxis—perhaps a bit too roughly. Mickelson stopped for a moment, readjusted his clothes, then stalked away peevishly toward the cars. So be it.
Smiling, Grant turned back to the woman. His words died on his tongue when he saw what she was doing with beads she’d been stringing.
She had formed them into a noose, a bright rainbow noose, and slipped this over the head of a tiny brown doll.
He knew that doll, knew its tough, leathered flesh and pierced limbs, the apple cheeks and teeth of rice.
The cross from which she’d taken it lay discarded on the blanket, next to the jewelry that suddenly seemed of secondary importance.
While he stood there unspeaking, unmoving, she lifted the dangling doll to her lips and daintily, baring crooked teeth, tore off a piece of the leg.
“What… what…”
He found himself unable to ask what he wished to ask. Instead, fixed by her gaze, he stammered, “What do you want for all of these?”
She finished chewing before answering. “All?”
“Yes. I… I’d like to buy all of them. In fact, I’d like to buy more than this. I’d like to commission a piece, if I might.”
The squaw swallowed.
“My husband creates what is within the soul. He makes dreams into metal. He would have to see your dreams.”
“My dreams? Well, yes, I’ll tell him exactly what I want. Could I meet him to discuss this?”
The squaw shrugged. She patiently unlooped the noose from the shriveled image, spread it back onto its cross and pinned the three remaining limbs into place, then tucked it away in a bag at her belt. Finally, rising, she rolled up the blanket with all the bangles and bracelets inside it and tucked the parcel under her arm. “Come with me,” she said.
He followed her without another word, feeling as though he were moving down an incline, losing his balance with every step, barely managing to throw himself in her direction. She was his guide through the steaming city, through the crowds of ragged cloth, skins ruddy and dark. He pulled off his customary jacket, loosened his tie, and struggled after her. She seemed to dwindle in the distance; he was losing her, losing himself, stretching into a thin strand of beads, beads of sweat, sweat that dripped through the gutters of Arnoldsburg and offered only brine to the thirsty….
But when she once looked back and saw him faltering, she put out her hand and he was standing right beside her, near a metal door. She put her hand upon it and opened the way.
It was cool inside and dark except for the tremulous light of candles that lined a descending stairway. He followed, thinking of catacombs, the massed and desiccated ranks of the dead he had seen beneath old missions in Spanish Florida. There was a dusty smell, and far off the sound of hammering. She opened another door and the sound was suddenly close at hand.
They had entered a workshop. A man sat at a metal table cluttered with coils of wire, metal snips, hand torches. The woman stepped out and closed the door on them.
“Good afternoon,” Grant said. “I… I’m a great admirer of your work.”
The man turned slowly, the stool creaking under his weight, though he was not a big man. His skin was very dark, like his close-cropped hair. His face was soft, as though made of chamois pouches: but his eyes were hard. He beckoned.
“Come here,” the man said. “You like my stuff? What is it that you like?”
Grant approached the workbench with a feeling of awe. Samples of the man’s work lay scattered about, but these were not done in copper or brass. They were silver, most of them, and gleamed like moonlight.
“The style,” he said. “The… substance.”
“How about this?” The Indian fingered a large eagle with spreading wings.
“It’s beautiful—almost alive.”
“It’s a sign of freedom.” He laid it down. “What about this one?”
He handed Grant a small rectangular plaque inscribed with an unusual but somehow familiar design. A number of horizontal stripes, with a square inset in the lower right corner, and in that square a wreath of thirteen stars.
“It’s beautiful,” Grant said. “You do superior work.”
“That’s not what I mean. Do you know the symbol?”
“I… I think I’ve seen it somewhere before. An old Indian design, isn’t it?”
The Indian grinned. Gold teeth again, bridging the distance between London and Arnoldsburg, reminding him of the jerked beef martyr, the savage Christ.
“Not an Indian sign,” he said. “A sign for all people.”
“Really? Well, I’d like to bring it to all people. I’m a dealer in fine jewelry. I could get a very large audience for these pieces. I could make you a very rich man.”
“Rich?” The Indian set the plaque aside. “Plenty of Indians are rich. The tribes have all the land and factories they want—as much as you have. But we lack what you also lack: freedom. What is wealth when we have no freedom?”
“Freedom?”
“It’s a dim concept to you, isn’t it? But not to me.” He put his hand over his heart. “I hold it here, safe with the memory of how we lost it. A precious thing, a cup of holy water that must never be spilled until it can be swallowed in a single draft. I carry the cup carefully, but there’s enough for all. If you wish to drink, it can be arranged.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Grant said, recovering some part of himself that had begun to drift off through the mystical fog in which the Indians always veiled themselves. He must do something concrete to counteract so much vagueness.
“What I’m speaking of is a business venture. A partnership.”
“I hear your words. But I see something deeper in you. Something that sleeps in all men. They come here seeking what is lost, looking for freedom and a cause. But all they find are the things that went wrong. Why are you so out of balance, eh? You stumble and crawl, but you always end up here with that same empty look in your eyes. I’ve seen you before. A dozen just like you.”
“I’m an art dealer,” Grant said. “Not a… a pilgrim. If you can show me more work like this, I’d be grateful. Otherwise, I’m sorry for wasting your time and I’ll be on my way.”
Suddenly he was anxious to get away, and this seemed a reasonable excuse. But the jeweler now seemed ready to accommodate him.
“Art, then,” he said. “All right. I will show you the thing that speaks to you, and perhaps then you will understand. Art is also a way to the soul.”
He slipped down from the stool and moved toward the door, obviously intending for Grant to follow.
“I’ll show you more than this,” the Indian said. “I’ll show you inspiration.”
After another dizzying walk, they entered a derelict museum in a district that stank of danger. Grant felt safe only because of his companion; he was obviously a stranger here, in these oppressive alleys. Even inside the place, which seemed less a museum than a warehouse, he sensed that he was being watched. It was crowded by silent mobs, many of them children, almost all of them Negro or Indian. Some sat in circles on the cement floors, talking quietly among themselves, as though taking instruction. Pawnee, Chickasaw, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Comanche… Arnoldsburg was a popular site for tourists, but these didn’t have the look of the ruddy middle-class traveler; these were lower-class ruddies, as tattered as the people in the street. Some had apparently crossed the continent on foot to come here. Grant felt as if he had entered a church.