Angelology(200)

of coughing overtook her. Her lungs were so tight she could hardly breathe. What had begun as simple

discomfort in her chest had grown in the past hours to a full-blown hack. Each breath she took felt

labored, giving her only the slightest bit of air.

Alistair Carroll removed his scarf and placed it gently around Evangeline’s collar. “You are

freezing, my dear,” he said. “Protect yourself from this wind.”

“I’ve hardly noticed it,” Evangeline said, drawing the thick, soft wool about her neck. “I’m too

worried to feel anything. The others should be here by now.”

“It was at this time of year that we came to Rockefeller Center with the fourth piece of the lyre,”

Alistair said. “Christmas 1944. I drove Abby here in the middle of the night and helped her through a

terrible storm. Luckily, she had the foresight to call the security personnel herself, informing them that

we would be coming. Their assistance proved most useful.”

“So you are aware of what is hidden here?” Bruno said. “You’ve seen it?”

“Oh, yes,” Alistair said. “I packed the tuning pegs of the lyre into the protective case myself. It was

quite an ordeal, finding a case that would allow us to hide the pegs here, but Abby was certain that

this was the best place. I carried the case in my own hands and assisted Mrs. Rockefeller in locking it

away. The pegs are tiny, and so the case is merely the weight of a pocket-watch without its fob. It is

so very compact that one cannot conceive that it could hold something so essential to the instrument.

But it is a fact: The lyre will not produce a note without the pegs.”

Evangeline tried to imagine the small knobs, envisioning how they fit onto the crossbar. “Do you

know how to reassemble it?” Evangeline asked.

“Like all things, there is an order one must follow,” Alistair said. “Once the crossbar is fitted into

the arms of the lyre’s base, the strings must be wound about the tuning pegs, each at a certain tension.

The difficulty, I believe, is in the tuning of the lyre, a skill that requires a trained ear.”

Directing their attention to the angels collected before the Christmas tree, he added, “I assure you

that the lyre looks nothing at all like the stereotypical instruments held by the herald angels. The wire

angels at the base of the Christmas tree were introduced to Rockefeller Center in 1954, one year after

Philip Johnson completed the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden and ten years after the

treasure’s interment here. Although these lovely creatures’ appearance here was purely coincidental

—Mrs. Rockefeller had passed away by then, and nobody, save myself, knew about what had been

hidden here—I find the symbolism rather exquisite. It is fitting, this collection of heralds, wouldn’t

you say? One feels it the moment one enters the plaza at Christmastime: Here is the treasure of the

angels, waiting to be uncovered.”

“The case was not placed near the Christmas tree?” Evangeline asked.

“Not at all,” Alistair replied, gesturing to the statue at the far end of the skating rink, where the

statue of Prometheus rose above the rink, its smooth gilded-bronze surface wrapped in light. “The

case is part of the Prometheus statue. There it lies, in its gilded prison.”

Evangeline studied the sculpture of Prometheus. It was a soaring figure that appeared to be caught

in midair. The fire stolen from the hearth of the gods blazed in his tapering fingers, and a bronze ring

of the zodiac encircled his feet. Evangeline knew the myth of Prometheus well. After stealing fire

from the gods, Prometheus was punished by Zeus, who bound him to a rock and sent an eagle to peck

at his body for eternity. Prometheus’s punishment was equated with his crime: The gift of fire marked

the beginning of human innovation and technology, harkening the gods’ growing irrelevance.

“I have never seen the statue up close,” Evangeline said. In the light of the skating rink, the skin of

the sculpture appeared molten. Prometheus and the fire he’d stolen were one incendiary entity.

“It is no masterpiece,” Alistair said. “Nevertheless, it suits Rockefeller Center perfectly. Paul

Manship was a friend of the Rockefeller family’s—they knew his work well and commissioned him

to create the sculpture. There is more than a passing reference to my former employers in the myth of

Prometheus—their ingenuity and ruthlessness, their trickery, their dominance. Manship knew that

these references would not be lost on John D. Rockefeller Jr., who had used all his influence to build

Rockefeller Center during the Great Depression.”