But what kind of luck to see someone you’ll undoubtedly never see again? That’s what is known as hard luck, bad luck. What did the old song say? If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. You lie here and you’re forced to wonder what it will be like not seeing her again. How long to forget last night? A week? A month? A year? Ever?
Back to the baby dinosaur! What could have brought that tiny creature, certainly ugly in our eyes but just as certainly beautiful and cute in the eyes of the mother who hatched him, to the place where it had been found? How had it been separated from its parents at the time of its young death, for no other bones had been found in the area? Had the parents, facing danger, hidden the small creature, only to have death come to the tiny thing from some unknown source? It had hatched live; that much the zoology professor had been able to state. Had the parents, returning after hiding the baby, found him dead? And if so, what had been their reaction? Or did dinosaurs have reactions? Was it just a legend that only the human animal truly feels sorrow at the death of a dear one?
He and Natasha had never had children. If he and Ruth were married, do you suppose they—? What a ridiculous thought! What an absolutely idiotic thought! Good God! One dinner with a girl and he was having her married to him! And raising a family, yet! Still, if he and Ruth were married, of course they were still both young enough to have children. But the fact was he was more than ten years older than she was. Oh, of course ten years wasn’t all that much, but when he was sixty, an old man, she would still just be in her forties, and without a doubt as beautiful and charming as she was now. And when he was eighty—
He rolled over and stared at the shadowy wall. Now, really! Stop thinking about Dr. Ruth McVeigh and think of something else. Be serious about that. You’re not a child. If not baby dinosaurs, or babies of any species, then think about the Schliemann treasure. After all, that is what brought you to London in the first place. Recall the conversation with Ruth — Dr. McVeigh, that is — at dinner last night without thinking of her, particularly. Remember what Ulanov had said about the probable — no, almost certain — destination of the treasure. But precisely how had it gotten from Bad Freienwalde to Langley, Virginia? Ulanov had not mentioned this minor detail, assuming he even knew it, which was doubtful. Ulanov was only interested in how it had been restolen from Langley. Well, that was his field, his job. It would seem more interesting, if equally unimportant, to try and trace its path from one place to another.
Most probably by way of Scandinavia, in some fashion, to England, from which it would be the simplest thing in the world to get it to America and Langley. He closed his eyes and tried to picture in his imagination, the two men. They had left the train at a darkened railway station at Bad Freienwalde in war-torn Germany, had climbed into a black official-looking car, and had disappeared. Well, they couldn’t have disappeared, but where were they going? Where did one go from Bad Freienwalde, anyway? Where could one go from Bad Freienwalde? Where was Bad Freienwalde, as a matter of fact? It was just a name to him, heard from Ulanov, and Gregor, yawning, realized his knowledge of East German geography was sketchy, to say the least. As was his ignorance concerning Danish or Swedish geography. But at least trying to picture these unknown places had the advantage of taking his thoughts from Ruth McVeigh...
But had they? Because there she was, as he handed her down from the railway car at some unknown station — no, it wasn’t unknown, for there was the name, BAD FREIENWALDE, carved in the stone sill above the doorway, and there was the car he was guiding her to, aware as he did so of the warmth of her beside him, and her faint but unforgettable perfume. And of Ulanov in the front seat, wearing a chauffeur’s cap, even after he had been specifically told he had not been invited...
He slept, at last.
Ruth McVeigh was tired, and she knew she looked terrible because she hadn’t slept. She was sure the rings under her eyes made her look ten years older than she was, and while that would make her only a year or so younger than Gregor, she would rather he always thought of her as being much younger than that. She sat at the head of the conference table, staring at Gregor’s empty seat, while the delegates filed in and took their places around the table, fiddling with their consoles as if they had never seen them before, filling water glasses, placing cigarettes and matches in position.
Where was he? Didn’t he know how much she wanted to see him, to look at him, to see that same light in his eyes when he looked at her that she knew would be in hers as soon as he walked in? Or the light she hoped would be in his eyes? To see if last night had been real, or if her imagination, through the sleepless night, had added dimensions to it that did not, in reality, exist? Where was he?
She sighed and shook her head, suddenly feeling depressed. Why was she so intent upon hoping he would appear, anyway? What difference did it make? Possibly he knew the utter hopelessness of their ever being anything but friends and had taken off for Leningrad to save both of them the embarrassment of a further meeting. Or at least to save her from making a fool of herself. She had probably done or said something the night before that told him how she was beginning to feel toward him, and to save him from having to — what was the word they had used when they were in school? — jilt her, had simply gone away. Jilt, my God! She was getting positively infantile!
She looked around the room, her eye quickly jumping the blank space where Gregor had sat the day before, her cheeks red. What was she doing here, anyway? Why had she come? Why had she ever suggested this silly conference to begin with? Bob Keller was right; Gregor was right. The entire conference was pointless, useless. In fact, the entire Schliemann collection was a pointless thing. Who cared who had it, who was selling it, or who bought it? Let them all fight over it, the Germans, the Greeks, the Russians, the Turks, all of them. Let them have their next war over the silly collection. It made as much sense as any of the other things they fought about. Not more sense, but as much. She suddenly shook her head. Was this she, Ruth McVeigh, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and avid collector, thinking this way? The Schliemann treasure was extremely important, and no thoughts of a mere man should or would be allowed to obscure that fact!
Where was he?
She became aware that the elderly stocky man with the pure-white crew-cut hair had taken his chair next to the empty one Gregor had occupied the day before, and her eyes instantly went to the door to see if Gregor might have followed, but the doorman was already closing the door in a manner that indicated the meeting was closed, ready to begin. The white-haired man seemed to be considering her with a faint air of commiseration, and her cheeks felt on fire. Had Gregor discussed her with this unknown? He was a friend of Gregor’s, that much she knew. Had they talked about her last night when Gregor returned from leaving her at her door? Had they discussed her girlishness, her gaucherie, and laughed together over it? Had Gregor mentioned that low-cut gown and thought of her as a bit pitiable, throwing herself at a man? She felt flushed. The room and all the people in it were suddenly intolerable. She became aware that Tim Rubin had leaned over and was speaking to her. She turned. “What did you say?”
“I said, what’s the matter with you? You look like three days in the city morgue,” Tim said cheerfully. “My old grandmother, a hundred and six the day she was run over by her father on a motorbike, and two weeks after she was buried, looked better than you do right now.” He studied her with concern. “Why don’t you go up to your room and lie down? Let me handle the feeding of the animals? I’ve always wanted to rise to an occasion.”