THE WORLD seemed excitingly new to Eva-no handcuffs, no prison guards, no eyes watching her around the clock. It was 8:30 P.M. and raining heavily as she hurried across the forecourt toward the British Museum. She hardly felt the cold wet on her face. London ’s traffic thundered behind her, and her old Burberry trench coat was wrapped around her. She looked up at the looming columns, the sheer stone walls, the Greek Revival carvings and statues. Memories filled her of the good times she and Charles had spent in the majestic old museum.
Dodging a puddle, she ran lightly up the stone steps, closed her umbrella, and entered the Front Hall. It was ablaze with light, the high ceiling fading up into dramatic darkness. She paused at the entrance to the Queen Elizabeth Great Court, two sweeping acres of marble flooring rimmed by white Portland stone walls and columned entryways. She drank in its serene beauty.
At its center stood the circular Reading Room, one of the world’s finest libraries-and coming out its door were Herr Professor and Frau Georg Mendochon.
Smiling, Eva went to greet them. With glances at each other, they hesitated.
“Timma. Georg.” She extended her hand. “It’s been years.”
“How are you, Eva?” Georg’s accent was light. He was a globetrotting academic from Austria.
“It’s wonderful to see you again,” she said sincerely.
“Ja. And we know why it has been so long.” Timma had never been subtle. “What are you doing here?” What she did not say was, You killed your husband, how dare you show up.
Eva glanced down, staring at the gold wedding band on her finger. She had known this was going to be difficult. She had come to accept that she had killed Charles, but the guilt of it still ravaged her.
Looking up, she ignored Timma’s tone. “I was hoping to see old friends. And to view The Book of Spies, of course.”
“It is very exciting, this discovery,” Georg agreed.
“It makes me wonder whether someone has finally found the Library of Gold,” Eva continued. “If anyone has, surely it’s you, Georg”-now that Charles is gone, she thought to herself, missing him even more.
Georg laughed. Timma relented and smiled at the compliment.
“Ach, I wish,” he said.
“There’s no word anyone’s close to its discovery?” Eva pressed.
“I have heard nothing like that, alas,” Georg said. “Come, Timma. We must go to the Chinese exhibit now. We will see you upstairs, Eva, yes?”
“Definitely, yes.”
As they crossed the Great Hall, Eva headed toward the North Wing and climbed the stairs to the top floor. The sounds of a multilingual crowd drifted from a large open doorway where a sign announced:
TRACING THE DEVELOPMENT OF WRITING
SPECIAL EXHIBITION FROM THE LESSING J. ROSENWALD COLLECTION
She found her invitation.
The guard took it. “Enjoy yourself, mum.”
She stepped inside. Excited energy infused the vast hall. People stood in groups and gathered around the glass display cases, many wearing tiny earphones as they listened to the show’s prerecorded tour. Museum guards in dress clothes circulated discreetly. The air smelled the way she remembered, of expensive perfumes and aromatic wines. She inhaled deeply.
“Eva, is that you?”
She turned. It was Guy Fontaine from the Sorbonne. Small and plump, he was standing with a huddle of Charles’s friends. She scanned their faces, saw their conflicted emotions at her arrival.
She said a warm hello and shook hands.
“You’re looking well, Eva,” Dan Ritenburg decided. He was a wealthy amateur Library of Gold hunter from Sydney. “How is it you’re able to be here?”
“Do not be crass, Dan,” Antonia del Toro scolded. From Madrid, she was an acclaimed historian. She turned to Eva. “I am so sorry about Charles. Such a dedicated researcher, although admittedly he could be difficult at times. My condolences.”
Several others murmured their sympathies. Then there was an expectant pause.
Eva spoke into it, answering their unasked question. “I’ve been released from prison.” That was what Tucker had told her to say. “When I saw there was a manuscript from the Library of Gold here, of course I had to come.”
“Of course,” Guy agreed. “The Book of Spies. It is beautiful. Incroyable.”
“Do you think its appearance means someone has found the library?” Eva asked.
The group erupted in talk, voicing their theories that the library was still beneath the Kremlin, that Ivan the Terrible had hidden it in a monastery outside Moscow, that it was simply a glorious myth perpetuated by Ivan himself.
“But if it’s a myth, why is The Book of Spies here?” Eva wanted to know.
“Aha, my point exactly,” said Desmond Warzel, a Swiss academic. “I have always maintained that before he died Ivan sold it off in bits and pieces because his treasury was low. Remember, he lost his last war with Poland -and it was expensive.”
“But if that’s true,” Eva said reasonably, “surely other illuminated manuscripts from the library would’ve appeared by now.”
“She is right, Desmond,” Antonia said. “Just what I have been telling you all these years.”
They continued to argue, and eventually Eva excused herself. Listening to conversations, looking for more people she knew, she wove through the throngs and then stopped at the bar. She ordered a Perrier.
“Don’t I know you, ma’am?” the bar steward asked.
He was tall and thin, but with the chubby face of a chipmunk. The contrast was startling and endearing. Of course she recalled him.
“I used to come here a few years ago,” she told him.
He grinned and handed her the Perrier. “Welcome home.”
Smiling, she stepped away to check the map showing where in the room each woodcut book, illuminated manuscript, and printed book was displayed. When she found the location of The Book of Spies, she walked toward it, passing the spectacular Giant Bible of Mainz, finished in 1453, and the much smaller and grotesquely illustrated Book of Urizen, from 1818. It was William Blake’s parody of Genesis. A few years ago, on a happy winter day, Charles and she had personally examined each in the Library of Congress.
The crowd surrounding The Book of Spies was so thick, some on the fringes were giving up. Eva frowned, but not at the imposing human wall. What held her was a man leaving the display. There was something familiar about him. She could not see his face, because he was turned away and his hand clasped one ear as he listened to the tour.
What was it about him? She set her drink on a waiter’s tray and followed, sidestepping other visitors. He wore a black trench coat, had glossy black hair, and the back of his neck was tanned. She wanted to get ahead so she could see his face, but the crowd made it hard to move quickly.
Then he stepped into an open space, and for the first time she had a clear view of his entire body, of his physicality. Her heart quickened as she studied him. His gait was athletic, rolling. His muscular shoulders twitched every six or eight steps. He radiated great assurance, as if he owned the hall. He was the right height-a little less than six feet tall. Although his hair should have been light brown, not blue-black, and she still could not see his face, everything else about him was uncannily, thrillingly familiar. He could have been Charles’s double.
He dropped his hand from his ear. Excited, Eva moved quickly onward until she was walking almost parallel to him. He was surveying the crowd, his head slowly moving from right to left. Finally she saw his face. His chin was wider and heavier than Charles’s, and his ears flared slightly where Charles’s had laid flat against his skull. Overall he looked tough, like a man who had been on the losing end of too many fistfights.