“What year?” Gabriella asked, studying Sabine, attempting to recognize her.
“The first term of 1987,” Sabine responded.
“My last year at the academy,” Gabriella said.
“It was my favorite course.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” Gabriella said. “And now you can repay me by helping me solve a puzzle: ‘As a hand at the loom wove this mystery, so a hand must unravel it.’ ” Gabriella watched Sabine as she repeated the line from Mrs. Rockefeller’s letter, searching for a spark of recognition.
“I am here to assist in the unraveling,” Sabine said. “And I now know what it is that I’m meant to free from the tapestry.”
“Mrs. Rockefeller wove the strings into this tapestry?” Verlaine said.
“Actually,” Sabine replied, “she hired a very adept professional to do the work for her. But yes, they are there, inside the Unicorn in Captivity tapestry.”
Verlaine stared at the weave skeptically. “How in the hell will we get them out?”
Nonplussed, Sabine said, “If I am informed correctly, the procedure was skillfully performed and will leave no damage whatsoever.”
“It is odd that Abby Rockefeller would choose such a delicate piece of art as a shield,” Gabriella noted.
Sabine said, “You must remember that once upon a time these tapestries were the private property of the Rockefellers. They hung in Abigail Rockefeller’s living room from 1922, when her husband bought them, until the late 1930s, when they were brought here. Mrs. Rockefeller had a very intimate knowledge of the tapestries, including their weak spots.” Sabine pointed at a heavily repaired patch on the weave. “See how it is irregular? One snip of the repair thread and it will open in a seam.”
A museum security guard stationed at the far side of the room walked casually over to them. “Are you ready for us, Ms. Clementine?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you,” Sabine responded, her manner becoming crisp and professional. “But we will need to clear the gallery first. Please call in the others.” Sabine turned to Gabriella and Verlaine. “I have arranged to block off the area for the duration of the procedure. We will need complete freedom to work on the tapestry, a task that would be impossible in such a crowd.”
“You can do that?” Verlaine asked, looking at the congested hall.
“Of course,” Sabine said. “I am the associate director of restorations. I can arrange repairs as I see fit.”
“What about that?” Verlaine asked, nodding to the security camera.
“I have taken care of everything, monsieur.”
Verlaine gazed at the tapestry, realizing that they had very little time to locate the strings and remove them. As he’d originally suspected, the repaired fabric above the unicorn’s horn, located in the upper third of the tapestry, contained the largest defect. It was high off the floor, perhaps six feet. One would have to stand upon a chair or a stool to reach it. The angle wouldn’t be ideal. There was every possibility that the seam would be too difficult to open and that it would be necessary to remove the tapestry from the wall, spread it flat on the floor, and work it open there. This, however, would be the last resort.
A number of security guards entered the gallery and began directing people from the room. Once the space had been cleared, the guards stood watch at the door.
With the gallery emptied, Sabine escorted a short, bald man past the guards and to the tapestry, where he placed a metal case on the floor and unfolded a stepladder. Without so much as a glance at Gabriella or Verlaine, he climbed the stepladder and began to examine the seam.
“The glass, Ms. Clementine,” the man said.
Sabine opened the case, revealing a row of scalpels, threads, scissors, and a great magnifying glass, the last of which collected a bright swirl of light from the room and condensed it into a single ball of fire.
Verlaine watched as the man worked, fascinated by his confidence. He had often wondered at the skills of restoration and had even been to an exhibit that demonstrated the chemical processes used to clean fabrics such as these. Holding the magnifying glass in one hand and a scalpel in the other, the man worked the tip of the blade into a row of tight, neat stitches. With the slightest pressure, the stitches split apart. He opened one stitch after another in this fashion until a hole the size of an apple appeared in the tapestry. The man continued his work with the concentration of a surgeon.
Standing on tiptoes, Verlaine peered up at the unbound fabric. He could see nothing but a fray of colored threads, fine as hair. The man requested a tool from the case, and Sabine handed him a long, thin hook, which he inserted into the hole in the fabric. Then he slipped his hand directly between the A and the E. He tugged, and a bright spark caught Verlaine’s eye: Twisted about the hook, there was an opalescent cord.
Verlaine counted them as the man handed him the strings. They were capillary-thin and so smooth that they slid between Verlaine’s fingers as if waxed. Five, seven, ten strings, limp and sumptuous, draped over his arm. The man climbed down the ladder. “That is all,” he said, a look of sobriety upon his face, as if he had just desecrated a shrine.
Sabine took the strings, rolled them into a tight coil, and zipped them into a cloth pouch. Pressing it into Verlaine’s palm, she said, “Follow me, madame, monsieur,” and led Gabriella and Verlaine to the entrance of the gallery.
“Do you know how to attach them?” Sabine asked.
Gabriella said, “I will manage, I’m sure.”
“Yes, of course,” Sabine said, and with a snap of her finger the security guards collected around them, three on each side. “Be careful,” Sabine said, kissing Gabriella on each cheek in the Parisian manner. “Good luck.”
As the security guards escorted Gabriella and Verlaine through the museum, pushing past the ever-present crowd, it seemed to Verlaine that the studies he had undertaken, the frustrations and fruitless searches of academic life-somehow, all of it had delivered him to this moment of triumph. Gabriella walked at his side, the woman who had brought him to understand his calling as an angelologist and his future-if he dared to hope-with Evangeline. They passed under archway after archway, the heavy Romanesque architecture yielding to the light trelliswork of the Gothic, the pouch containing the strings of the lyre held tightly in his hand.
Riverside Church, Morningside Heights, New York City
Riverside Church was an imposing Gothic Revival cathedral rising above Columbia University. Together Vladimir and Saitou-san mounted the steps to a wooden door adorned with disks of iron, Saitou-san’s high-heeled boots crunching upon the salt-strewn ice, a black shawl wrapped snugly about her shoulders.
As they walked inside, the light diminished to a honeyed glow. Vladimir blinked, his eyes readjusting to the ambience of the foyer. The church was empty. Straightening his tie, Vladimir walked past an alcove with an empty reception desk, up a set of steps, and into a large antechamber. The walls were creamy stone that rose to a confluence of jointed arches, one meeting another like wind-filled sails hoisted in a crowded harbor. Beyond, through a set of wide double doors, Vladimir ascertained the deepening hollow of the church nave.
His first impulse was to search the church, but he held back, his attention drawn to two copper plaques hung on a wall. The first commemorated John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s generosity in the building of the church. A second plaque was a dedication to Laura Celestia Spelman Rockefeller.
“Laura Celestia Spelman was Abigail Rockefeller’s mother-in-law,” Saitou-san whispered, reading the plaque.