Angelology

by Danielle Trussoni

  Evangeline folded Mrs. Rockefeller’s letter and put it into her pocket. Walking from the archives into the library, she felt the difference in temperature in an instant—the fire had overheated the room. She removed the letter she had written to Mr. Verlaine from the stack of mail waiting to be posted and carried it to the fireplace. As the flame caught the edge of the envelope, painting a fine black track into the pink cotton bond, an image of the martyred Rose of Viterbo appeared in Evangeline’s mind—a flitting figment of a willowy girl withstanding a raging fire—and disappeared as if carried away in a swirl of smoke.

  The A train, Eighth Avenue Express, Columbus Circle station, New York City

  The automatic doors slid open, ushering a gust of freezing air through the train. Verlaine zipped his overcoat and stepped onto the platform, where he was met by a blast of Christmas music, a reggae version of “Jingle Bells” performed by two men with dreadlocks. The groove mixed with the heat and motion of hundreds of bodies along the narrow platform. Following the crowd up a set of wide, dirty steps, Verlaine climbed to the snow-blanketed world aboveground, his gold-wire-rimmed eyeglasses fogging opaque in the cold. Into the arms of an ice-laden winter afternoon he rose, a half-blind man feeling his way through the churning chill of the city.

  Once his glasses cleared, Verlaine saw the holiday shopping season in full swing—mistletoe hung at the subway entrance, and a less-than-jolly Salvation Army Santa Claus shook a brass bell, a red-enameled donation bucket at his side. Christmas lights scored the streetlamps red and green. As masses of New Yorkers hurried past, scarves and heavy overcoats warming them against the icy wind, Verlaine checked the date on his watch. He saw, to his great surprise, that there were only two days until Christmas.

  Each year hordes of tourists descended upon the city at Christmas, and each year Verlaine vowed to stay away from midtown for the entire month of December, hiding out in the cushioned quiet of his Greenwich Village studio. Somehow he had coasted through years of Manhattan Christmases without actually participating in them. His parents, who lived in the Midwest, sent a package of gifts each year, which he usually opened as he spoke with his mother on the phone, but that was as far as his Christmas cheer went. On Christmas Day he would go out for drinks with friends and then, sufficiently tipsy on martinis, catch an action movie. It had become a tradition, one he looked forward to, especially this year. He’d worked so much in the past months that he welcomed the thought of a break.

  Verlaine jostled through the crowd, slush clinging to his scuffed vintage wing tips as he progressed along the salt-strewn walkway. Why his client had insisted upon meeting in Central Park and not in a warm, quiet restaurant remained beyond his imagination. If it weren’t such an important project—indeed, if it were not his only source of income at the moment—he would have insisted upon mailing in his work and being done with it. But the dossier of research had taken months to prepare, and it was imperative that he explain his findings in just the right manner. Besides, Percival Grigori had dictated that Verlaine follow orders to the letter. If Grigori wanted to meet on the moon, Verlaine would have found a way to get there.

  He waited for traffic to clear. The statue at the center of Columbus Circle rose before him, an imposing figure of Christopher Columbus poised atop a pillar of marble, framed by the sinuous, barren trees of Central Park. Verlaine thought it an ugly, overmannered piece of sculpture, gaudy and out of place. As he walked past, he noticed a stone angel carved into the base of the plinth, a marble globe of the world in its fingers. The angel was so lifelike that it appeared as if it would come unmoored from the monument entirely, lift over the bustle of taxis, and rise into the smoky heavens above Central Park.

  Ahead, the park was a tangle of leafless trees and snow-covered walkways. Verlaine went past a hot-dog vendor warming his hands over a gust of steam, past nannies pushing baby carriages, past a magazine kiosk. The benches at the edge of the park were empty. Nobody in his right mind would take a walk on such a cold afternoon.

  Verlaine glanced at his watch again. He was late, something he wouldn’t worry about under normal circumstances—he was often five or ten minutes behind schedule for appointments, attributing his tardiness to his artistic temperament. Today, however, timing mattered. His client would be counting the minutes, if not the seconds. Verlaine straightened his tie, a bright blue 1960s Hermès with a repeating pattern of yellow fleurs-de-lis that he had won on an eBay auction. When he was uncertain about a situation or felt that he might appear ill at ease, he tended to choose the quirkiest clothes in his closet. It was an unconscious response, a bit of self-sabotage that he noticed only after it was too late. First dates and job interviews were particularly bad. He would show up looking as if he’d stepped out of a circus tent, with every article of clothing mismatched and too colorful for the situation at hand. Clearly this meeting had made him jittery: In addition to the vintage tie, he wore a red pin-striped button-up shirt, a white corduroy sport jacket, jeans, and his favorite pair of Snoopy socks, a gift from an ex-girlfriend. He had really outdone himself

  Pulling his overcoat closer, glad that he could hide behind its soft, neutral gray wool, Verlaine took a deep breath of cold air. He clutched the dossier tight, as if the wind might tear it from his fingers, and walked deeper through the whorls of snowflakes into Central Park.

  Central Park’s southwest corridor, New York City

  Beyond the rush of Christmas shoppers, obscured in a pocket of icy tranquillity, a ghostly figure waited upon a park bench. Tall, pale, brittle as bone china, Percival Grigori appeared to be little more than an extension of the swirling snow. He lifted a white silk square from the pocket of his overcoat and, in a violent spasm, coughed into it. His vision trembled and blurred with each seizure and then, in an instant of respite, resumed focus. The silk square had been stained with drops of luminous blue blood, vivid as chipped sapphires in snow. There was no more denying it. His situation had grown increasingly serious in the past months. As he tossed the bloodied silk onto the sidewalk, the skin of his back chafed. His discomfort was such that each small movement felt like an instance of torture.

  Percival looked at his watch, a solid-gold Patek Philippe. He’d spoken to Verlaine only the previous afternoon to verify the meeting and had been very clear about the time—twelve o’clock sharp. It was now 12:05. Irritated, Percival leaned into the cold park bench, tapping his cane on the frozen sidewalk. He disliked waiting for anyone, let alone a man he was paying so well. Their telephone conversation the day before had been perfunctory, functional, without pleasantries. Percival disliked discussing business matters over the telephone—he could never quite trust such discussions—yet it took some restraint to resist inquiring after the details of Verlaine’s findings. Percival and his family had amassed extensive information about dozens of convents and abbeys across the continent over the years, and yet Verlaine claimed he had come across something of interest just up the Hudson.

  Upon their first meeting, Percival had assumed Verlaine to be fresh from business school, a climber who dabbled in the art market. Verlaine had rather wild curly black hair, a self-deprecating manner, and a mismatched suit. He struck Percival as artistic in the way that men were at that time of life—everything from his attire to his manners was too youthful, too trendy, as if he had not yet found his place in the world. He certainly was not the sort Percival usually found working for his family. He later learned that, in addition to his specialization in art history, Verlaine was a painter who taught part-time at a university, moonlighted at auction houses, and took consulting work to get by. He clearly thought himself to be something of a bohemian, with a bohemian lack of punctuality. Nevertheless, the young man had shown himself to be skilled at his work.

  Finally Percival spotted him hurrying into the park. As he reached the bench, Verlaine extended his hand. “Mr. Grigori,” he said, out of breath. “Sorry to be late.”

  Percival took Verlaine’s hand and shook it, coolly. “According to my exceed
ingly reliable watch, you are seven minutes late. If you expect to continue to work for us, you will be on time in the future.” He met Verlaine’s eye, but the young man didn’t appear chastened in the least. Percival gestured in the direction of the park. “Shall we walk?”

  “Why not?” Glancing at Percival’s cane, Verlaine added, “Or we could sit here, if you’d like. It might be more comfortable.”

  Percival stood and followed the snow-dusted sidewalk deeper into Central Park, the metal tip of the cane clicking lightly upon the ice. Not so very long ago, he had been as handsome and strong as Verlaine and wouldn’t have noticed the wind and frost and cold of the day. He remembered once, on a winter walk through London during the 1814 freeze, with the Thames solid and the winds arctic, that he had strolled for miles, feeling as warm as if he were indoors. He was a different being then—he had been at the height of his strength and beauty. Now the chill in the air made his body ache. The pain in his joints drove him to push himself forward, despite the cramping in his legs.

  “You have something for me,” Percival said at last, without looking up.

  “As promised,” Verlaine replied, pulling an envelope from under his arm and presenting it with a flourish, his black curls falling over his eyes. “The sacred parchments.”

  Percival paused, uncertain of how to react to Verlaine’s humor, and weighed the envelope in the palm of his hand—it was as large and heavy as a dinner plate. “I very much hope you have something that will impress me.”

  “I think you’ll be quite pleased. The report begins with the history of the order I described on the telephone. It includes personal profiles of the residents, the philosophy of the Franciscan order, notes on the FSPA’s priceless collection of books and images in their library, and a summary of the mission work they do abroad. I’ve cataloged my sources and made photocopies of original documents.”

  Percival opened the envelope and sifted through the pages, glancing absently at them. “This is all rather common information,” he said, dismissive. “I fail to see what could have drawn your attention to this place to begin with.”

  Then something caught his attention. He pulled a bundle of papers from the envelope and paged through them, the wind ruffling the edges as he unfolded a series of drawings of the convent—the rectangular floor plans, the circular turrets, the narrow hallway connecting the convent to the church, the wide entrance corridor.

  “Architectural drawings,” Verlaine said.

  “What variety of architectural drawings?” Percival asked, biting his lip as he flipped through the pages. The first had been stamped with a date: December 28, 1809.

  Verlaine said, “From what I can tell, these are the original sketches of St. Rose, stamped and approved by the founding abbess of the convent.”

  “They cover the convent grounds?” Percival asked, examining the drawings more closely.

  “And the interiors as well,” Verlaine said.

  “You found these where?”

  “In a county-courthouse archive upstate. Nobody seemed to know how they ended up there, and they’ll probably never notice that they’re gone. After a little searching, I found that the plans were transferred to the county building in 1944, after a fire at the convent.”

  Percival looked down at Verlaine, the faintest hint of challenge in his manner. “And you find these drawings significant?”

  “These are not really your run-of-the-mill drawings. Take a look at this.” Verlaine directed Percival to a faint sketch of an octagonal structure, the words ADORATION CHAPEL written at the top. “This is particularly fascinating. It was drawn by someone with a great eye for scale and depth. The structure is so precisely rendered, so detailed, that it doesn’t fit at all with the other drawings. At first I thought it didn’t belong with the set—it’s too different in style—but it has been stamped and dated, like the others.”

  Percival stared at the drawing. The Adoration Chapel had been rendered with enormous care—the altar and entrance had been given particular attention. A series of rings had been drawn within the Adoration Chapel plan, concentric circles that radiated one from the next. At the center of the spheres, like an egg in a nest of protective tissue, was a golden seal. Flipping through the pages of drawings, Percival found that a seal had been placed upon each sheet.

  “Tell me,” he said, placing his finger upon the seal. “What, do you suppose, is the meaning of this seal?”

  “That interested me, too,” Verlaine said, reaching into his overcoat and removing an envelope. “So I did a little more research. It is a reproduction of a coin, Thracian in origin, from the fifth century B.C. The original was uncovered by a Japanese-funded archaeological dig in what is now eastern Bulgaria but was once the center of Thrace—something of a cultural haven in fifth-century Europe. The original coin is in Japan, so I have nothing but this reproduction to go by.”

  Verlaine opened the envelope and presented Percival with an enlarged photocopied image of the coin.

  “The seal was put on the architectural drawings over one hundred years before the coin was discovered, which makes this seal—and the drawings themselves—rather incredible. From the research I’ve done, it seems that this image is unique among Thracian coins. While most from that period depict the heads of mythological figures like Hermes, Dionysus, and Poseidon, this coin depicts an instrument: the lyre of Orpheus. There are a number of Thracian coins in the Met. I went to see them myself. They’re in the Greek and Roman Galleries, if you’re interested. Unfortunately, there is nothing quite like this coin on display. It’s one of a kind.”

  Percival Grigori leaned on the sweat-slicked ivory knob of the cane, attempting to contain his irritation. Snow fell through the sky, fat, wet flakes that drifted through the tree branches and settled upon the sidewalk. Clearly Verlaine did not realize how irrelevant the drawings, or the seal, were to his plans.

  “Very well, Mr. Verlaine,” Percival said, straightening himself the best he could and fixing Verlaine with a severe gaze. “But surely you have more for me.”

  “More?” Verlaine asked, perplexed.

  “These drawings you’ve brought are interesting artifacts,” Percival said, returning them to Verlaine with a dismissive flourish, “but they are secondary to the job at hand. If you have obtained information connecting Abigail Rockefeller to this particular convent, I expect you have sought access? What progress there?”

  “I sent a request to the convent just yesterday,” Verlaine said. “I’m waiting for the response.”

  “Waiting?” Percival said, his voice rising in irritation.

  “I need permission to enter the archives,” Verlaine said.

  The young man displayed only a slight hesitation, a hint of color in his cheeks, the faintest bafflement in his manner, but Percival seized upon this insecurity with furious suspicion. “There will be no waiting. Either you will find the information that is of interest to my family—information that you have been given ample time and resources to discover—or you will not.”

  “There’s nothing more I can do without access to the convent.”

  “How long will it take to gain access?”

  “It isn’t going to be easy. I’ll need formal permission to get in the front door. If they give me the go-ahead, it could take weeks before I find anything worthwhile. I’m planning to take a trip upstate after the New Year. It’s a long process.”

  Grigori folded the maps and returned them to Verlaine, his hands shaking. Suppressing his annoyance, he removed a cash-filled envelope from the inside pocket of his overcoat.

  “What’s this?” Verlaine asked, looking at the contents, his astonishment apparent at finding a pack of crisp hundred-dollar bills.

  Percival put his hand upon Verlaine’s shoulder, feeling a human warmth that he found foreign and alluring. “It is a bit of a drive up,” he said, leading Verlaine along the walkway toward Columbus Circle, “but I believe you have time to make it before nightfall. This bonus will compensate for the in
convenience. Once you’ve had a chance to complete your work and have brought me verification of Abigail Rockefeller’s association with this convent, we will continue our discussion.”

  St. Rose Convent, Milton, New York

  Evangeline walked to the far end of the fourth floor, beyond the television room to a rickety iron door that opened upon a set of mildewed steps. Mindful of the softness of the wood, she followed the steps up, moving with the curvature of the damp stone wall until she stood in a narrow, circular turret high above the convent’s grounds. The tower was the only piece of the original structure remaining in the upper floors. It grew from the Adoration Chapel itself, rose in a twist of spiraled stairs past the second and third floors and opened up on the fourth floor, giving the sisters access from their bedroom chambers straight to the chapel. Although the turret had been designed to offer the sisters a direct path to their midnight devotionals, it had long been abandoned for the main staircase, which had the benefit of heat and electricity. Although the fire of 1944 had not reached the turret, Evangeline sensed smoke lingering in the rafters, as if the room had inhaled the sticky tar of the fumes and stopped breathing. Electrical wiring had never been installed, and the only light came from a series of lancet windows with heavy, handmade leaded glass that spanned the east curve of the tower. Even now, at midday, the room was consumed by an icy darkness as the relentless north wind rattled against the glass.

  Evangeline pressed her hands upon the chilled windowpane. In the distance, anemic winter sunshine fell over a rise of rolling hills. Even the sunniest of December days cast a pall over the landscape, as if light passed through an unfocused lens. In the summer months, an abundance of brightness collected upon the trees each afternoon, giving the leaves an iridescent hue that winter light, no matter how bright, could not match. A month before, perhaps five weeks, the leaves had been brilliant umber, red, orange, yellow, a quiltwork of color reflected in the brown glass of river water. Evangeline imagined day-trippers from New York City taking the passenger train along the east side of the Hudson, gazing at the lovely foliage on their way to pick apples or pumpkins. Now the trees were bare, the hills covered with snow.