Angelology(87)
during Dr. Raphael’s lecture, only now she seemed on the verge of hysteria.
“You are wrong,” Gabriella said, her voice rising with each word. “We are not watching them.
They are watching us.”
With this, she turned and ran from the room. I stared after her, wondering what could have caused
such an emotional outburst. It seemed to me that she had gone mad. Turning to the manuscript once
again, I saw nothing more than a page filled with family names, most of them unknown to me, some of
prestigious ancient families. It was as unremarkable as any page from any of the history books we had
studied together, none of which had caused Gabriella any measure of distress.
Dr. Seraphina, however, appeared to understand Gabriella’s reaction exactly. In fact, from the
sanguine manner in which she had assessed Gabriella’s reactions, it was as if Dr. Seraphina had not
only expected her to recoil from the book but had planned it. Seeing my confusion, Dr. Seraphina
closed the book and tucked it under her arm.
“What happened?” I asked, as astonished by her manner as by Gabriella’s inexplicable behavior.
“It pains me to tell you,” Dr. Seraphina said, leading me from the room, “but I believe that our
Gabriella has gotten herself into terrible trouble.”
My first impulse was to confess everything to Dr. Seraphina. The burden of Gabriella’s double life
and the pall it had cast over my days had become nearly too much for me to bear. But just as I was
about to speak, I was startled into silence. A dark figure swept before us, stepping from a shadowy
corridor like a black-cloaked demon. I caught my breath, momentarily unbalanced by the interruption.
After a brief examination, I saw that it was the heavily veiled nun—the council member I had met in
the Athenaeum months before. She blocked our path.
“May I speak with you a moment, Dr. Seraphina?” The nun spoke in a low, lisping manner that I
found, to my embarrassment, instantly repulsive. “There are some questions we have regarding the
shipment to the United States.”
It comforted me to see that Dr. Seraphina took the nun’s presence in stride, speaking to her with her
usual authority. “What questions could there be at this late hour? All has been arranged.”
“Quite correct,” the nun said. “But I wish to make certain that the paintings in the gallery are to be
shipped to the United States along with the icons.”
“Yes, of course,” Dr. Seraphina said, following the nun into the hallway, where a large gallery of
crates and boxes awaited shipment. “They are to be received by our contact in New York.”
Looking over the crates, I saw that many of them had been marked for shipping.
Dr. Seraphina said, “The shipment will leave tomorrow. We need only to be sure that everything is
here and that it gets to the port.”
As the nun and Dr. Seraphina continued their discussion of the shipment and how they had, in the
increasingly tightened schedule of vessels leaving France’s harbors, secured the evacuation of our
most priceless objects, I returned to the hallway. Holding back the words I’d wished to speak, I
walked away in silence.
Moving through the dark, stone corridors, I passed empty classrooms and abandoned lecture halls, my
footsteps echoing through the pervasive silence that had fallen over the rooms months before. The
Athenaeum proved equally still. The librarians had left for the evening, turning out the lights and
locking the doors. I used my key—given by Dr. Seraphina at the outset of my studies—to let myself
in. As I opened the doors and examined the long, shadowy room, I felt utterly relieved to be alone. It
was not the first time I’d felt thankful that the library was empty—I often found myself there after
midnight, continuing my work after everyone else had left the school—but it was the first time that I
had come in desperation.
Empty shelves lined the walls, the occasional volumes tipped and stacked at random. On every
side I found boxes of books waiting to be moved from our school to secure locations throughout
France. Where these locations might be, I did not know, but I could see that we would need many
cellars to hide such a large collection. My hands shook as I went through one of the boxes. The books
were in such a state of disarray that I began to worry that I might never find the one I had come for.
After some minutes of searching, my panic growing at each disappointment, I at last located a box of
Dr. Raphael Valko’s original works and translations. In keeping with Dr. Raphael’s disposition, the
contents were arranged in no discernible order. I found a folio containing detailed maps of various