Angelology(191)

knew that this was impossible.

“Dr. Gabriella Valko?” she said. Verlaine recognized the accent as similar to Gabriella’s and

deduced that the woman was French. “I am Sabine Clementine, associate director of restoration at the

Cloisters. I have been sent to assist you in your endeavors this afternoon.”

“Sent?” Gabriella said, looking the woman over warily. “Sent by whom?”

“Alistair Carroll,” she whispered, gesturing for them to follow her. “Who works on behalf of the

late Abigail Rockefeller. Come, please, I will explain as we walk.”

True to Verlaine’s predications, the entrance hall overflowed with people, cameras and

guidebooks in hand. Patrons waited at a cash register in the museum’s bookstore, the line curling past

tables stacked high with medieval histories, art books, studies of Gothic and Romanesque

architecture. Through a narrow window, Verlaine caught another glimpse of the Hudson River,

flowing below, dark and constant. Despite the danger, he felt his entire being relax: Museums had

always had a soothing effect on him, which may have been—if he wanted to analyze himself—one of

the reasons he chose art history as his field. The curatorial feel of the building itself, with its

collection of disassembled medieval monasteries—façades, frescoes, and doorways taken from

dilapidated structures in Spain, France, and Italy and reconstructed into a collage of ancient ruins—

contributed to his growing ease, as did the tourists snapping photos, young couples walking hand in

hand, retirees studying the delicate, washed colors of a fresco. His disdain for tourists, so

pronounced just a day before, had transformed to gratitude for their presence.

They walked into the museum proper, through interconnected galleries, one room opening into the

next. Although they didn’t have time to pause, Verlaine glanced at the artwork as they passed by,

looking for something that might give a clue about what they’d come to the Cloisters to do. Perhaps a

painting or piece of statuary would correspond with something in Abigail Rockefeller’s cards,

although he doubted it. The Rockefeller drawings were too modern, a clear example of New York

City Art Deco. Nevertheless, he examined an Anglo-Saxon archway, a sculpted crucifix, a glass

mosaic, a set of acanthus-carved pillars—restored and cleaned to a polish. Any one of these

masterpieces could hold the instrument within it.

Sabine Clementine brought them into an airy room, a wall of windows drenching the glazed wide-

plank wooden floor with thick light. A series of tapestries hung on the walls. Verlaine recognized

them at once. He had studied them in his Masterpieces of the World Art History course during his

first year of graduate school and had encountered reproductions of them again and again in magazines

and posters, although for some reason he hadn’t visited the tapestries in some time. Sabine

Clementine had led them to the famous Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries.

“They’re beautiful,” Verlaine said, examining the rich reds and brilliant greens of the woven flora.

“And brutal,” Gabriella added, gesturing to the slaughter of the unicorn in which half of the hunting

party looks on, placid and indifferent, as the other half drives spears into the helpless creature’s

throat.

“This was the great difference between Abigail Rockefeller and her husband,” Verlaine said,

gesturing to the panel before them. “While Abigail Rockefeller founded the Museum of Modern Art

and spent her time buying up Picassos, van Goghs, and Kandinskys, her husband collected art from the

medieval period. He detested modernism and refused to support his wife’s passion for it. He thought

it profane. It’s funny how the past is so often judged sacred while the modern world is held in

suspicion.”

“There is often good reason to be suspicious of modernity,” Gabriella said, glancing over her

shoulder at the cluster of tourists, as if to ascertain whether they’d been followed.

“But without the benefits of progress,” Verlaine said, “we would still be stuck in the Dark Ages.”

“Dear Verlaine,” Gabriella said, taking him by the arm and stepping deeper into the gallery, “do

you really believe we have left the Dark Ages behind?”

“Now,” Sabine Clementine said, stepping close to them so that she could speak softly, “my

predecessor instructed me to memorize a clue, though I have never fully comprehended its purpose

until now. Please. Listen closely.”

Gabriella turned to her, surprised, and Verlaine detected the slightest hint of condescension on

Gabriella’s face as she listened to Sabine speak.