Amber Beach

by Elizabeth Lowell

“Oh,” she said, as though surprised. “Excuse me. I was looking for the rest room and thought this was the door.” She smiled prettily and withdrew.

  The door didn’t quite close behind her.

  Resnikov got up, grabbed an extra chair, and wedged the back of it under the doorknob. He secured the alley door in the same way. Only then did he open another box and hand it to Jake.

  Displayed against burgundy velvet, a piece of jewelry gleamed in shades of ivory. In fact, Honor assumed it was ivory, until Jake picked it up with a care he showed only when handling amber—or a lover. He had touched her like that, as though she were distilled of moonlight and time.

  “Rosary,” Jake said. “Decade type. Probably sixteenth century. Possibly earlier. Faceted white amber beads with a few ‘pine needle’ inclusions. Quite rare. Excellent metalwork. Gold filigree beads separating the decades. Very fine silver filigree cross. May I have my loupe back?”

  Resnikov dropped the magnifying device into Jake’s outstretched hand. He put the glass to his eye and studied the beads.

  “First quality,” he said simply after a time. “I could set a needle to the beads, but there’s no real point.”

  “Why?” Honor asked.

  “The edges of the facets and the drill holes in the beads all show the subtle wearing down expected in jewelry of this age. Imitation amber doesn’t wear like that simply by moving against the silk strands holding the beads together. True amber does.”

  Jake returned the rosary to its box with gentle care and an odd smile.

  “What?” Honor asked.

  “Just thinking about amber and the human mind,” he said. “In all its hundreds of colors, amber’s earliest use was as a talisman, a means of warding off evil and luring good. Paternosters like this were so proudly displayed by their owners that some orders banned the use of amber in rosaries during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, saying that simple knotted cords were all the pious needed to count their prayers.”

  Honor looked from Jake’s long index finger to his half-closed eyes, gleaming like quicksilver in the dim light. Yet it was his voice that held her, deep and husky, rich with memory and emotion, resonant with a shared human hunger for that which is rare and beautiful.

  “I’ll bet the ban didn’t stay in place for long,” she said. “People have always used beauty to celebrate their gods and their own lives.”

  “No, it didn’t last,” he agreed. “The amber trade has flourished from the time women who gathered firewood on the shores of the Baltic Sea discovered that the ‘sea stones’ washed up on shore burned more readily than wood.”

  “They burned amber?” Honor asked, horrified.

  “I can’t prove it, but I’m sure they did. The Baltic climate is cold, wet, and miserable. Anyone who has ever tried to set fire to wet wood couldn’t help but value something that burned as quickly and sweetly as amber. The peasants and soldiers in the amber mines certainly knew it. During the wars, they burned raw amber just to stay alive.”

  “My God. Imagine the gems they must have destroyed.”

  “No thanks,” Jake said dryly. “I’d rather think of the women who collected firewood and carved up the carcasses brought home by the men. I’m betting those women were the first artists who worked in wood and amber. If they carved in driftwood, it rotted and vanished in a century or two. If they carved in amber, it never rotted. So the same women who burned amber in hearth fires also made rare, extraordinary pieces of Stone Age art, pieces that outlasted their creators, their children’s children, and their culture itself.”

  Honor remembered what Kyle had said about the man he called Jay—a collector of Stone Age amber carvings. What Kyle hadn’t said was that Jake’s passion for the amber remains of past cultures was intellectual and sensual rather than simply greedy and possessive.

  Resnikov set out another box. This time the piece inside was set off by cream-colored satin. The amber itself was a deep shade of cinnamon and radiantly clear along most of its four-inch length. A portion of one end had been left untouched. The rest of the object was carved into the shape of a vaguely tapering, irregular cylinder, with the thicker end embedded in the rough amber.

  Honor frowned as she looked at the piece. The shape itself was teasingly familiar. Where it was polished, there was a surge of fluid lines and intriguing, shadowed ripples that made her want to run her fingertips over each curve and hollow. She was reaching out to do just that when she realized why the shape seemed so familiar. Instantly she snatched back her fingers.

  “Go ahead,” Jake said, amused. “It won’t bite.”

  “Another fertility fetish?” she asked dryly.

  “Probably not. Amber has always been thought of as supernatural. In Baltic lore, an amber necklace was believed to choke anyone who spoke lies. Talismans were carved in various shapes to ward off sickness or accidents or ill wishes. An amber phallus like this one was believed to be the most powerful of all talismans, guarding its wearer against any evil sorcery.”

  “Must have been a patriarchal culture that dreamed that one up,” Honor said.

  “No doubt. Most cultures were.”

  “Only after women taught them how.”

  Jake smiled. “Hold this while I get something.”

  Before she could object, she was holding the palm-sized amber phallus. Once she got past the subject matter, she saw that the workmanship on the carving was both exquisite and accurate. The amber itself was warm to her fingertips. It wasn’t the first time she had noticed amber’s unique property of feeling warm to the touch, but it was the first time she had blushed over it.

  Yet even as she did, she couldn’t help thinking of ways to turn the ancient talisman into decorative art. A brooch, possibly. Or a pendant. Yes, a pendant on a handmade golden chain, with long, elegant vines curling around the phallus, cupping it in the rich warmth of beaten gold . . .

  “Rub it with this,” Jake said without looking up from his briefcase. “See if it will pick up a bit of tissue.”

  Still thinking of design possibilities, Honor took the cloth he held out to her and rubbed it briskly over the smooth part of the phallus.

  “That should do it,” he said. “Now the tissue.”

  She passed the blunt, smoothly rounded tip over a small piece of tissue. The paper lifted and clung to the amber like a hungry lover.

  “Lots of electricity,” she said, her tone carefully neutral.

  “Some plastics have that property,” he said as he fiddled with his lighter and a pressurized canister of butane. “May I use the needle?” he asked Resnikov.

  “If you must,” the Russian said dryly. “I admit that I find the prospect troubling.”

  “I’ll do it,” Honor said, looking at Jake with wide-eyed malice. “I’ll be really careful, just like it was still attached.”

  Jake shot her a sideways look as he heated the needle with the recharged lighter. When the steel was good and hot, he touched the rough end of the carving very delicately. After a few moments the scent of ancient resin and million-year-old sunshine curled sweetly into his nostrils.

  “Not plastic,” he said.

  He got out the jeweler’s loupe, turned on a flashlight, and examined the phallus in strong light.

  “Ambroid,” he said after a time. “You can just make out the flow lines and bubbles flattened by the pressure of the mold.”

  “Another fake?” Honor asked.

  “To some. To others, merely an ‘enhanced’ form of amber. In any case, the piece isn’t ancient. The technique for creating a big piece of amber out of little chips was discovered in the late nineteenth century.”

  Jake gave the piece back to Resnikov, who put it away. Honor watched rather wistfully as the carving appeared.

  “It would make a dynamite necklace,” she said. “Just think how safe I’d be.”

  “You already have an amber phallus,” Jake said. “Remember? You’re safe from the inside out.”

  She willed herself not to blush. “
I haven’t put it to the hot needle test. It might be fake.”

  “Trust me. It’s real.”

  “That’s what they all say.”

  Snickering, Resnikov set out a shallow box on the table and took off the lid.

  Jake turned to the new item. Inside the box, pieces of amber interlocked to form an intricate, exquisite mosaic in the shape of a royal crest. Several pieces were missing.

  “Amber?” Honor asked.

  “Ask me in a few minutes,” Jake said. “Amuse her, Pete. Tell her about ginteras.”

  “It is an old Lithuanian word,” Resnikov said to Honor. “In general it means ‘defender’ or ‘protector,’ but it particularly refers to an amber talisman worn around the neck. Jake wears one in the shape of twined dragons. It is of Chinese making. The ancient Chinese believed amber to be the soul of a dead tiger.”

  Honor had a flash of memory—a translucent cinnamon-gold pendant lying against the black pelt on Jake’s chest. She had noticed the amber when her alarm clock screamed and he showed up nearly naked at her door. She hadn’t noticed the pendant last night.

  “Are you wearing it now?” she asked Jake.

  “Yes.”

  “Why weren’t you wearing it last night?”

  “Later,” he said without looking away from the amber in front of him.

  While Jake worked, Resnikov told Honor about the amber woven like sunlight through the darkness of ancient Baltic cultures. Amber to cure illness, amber to protect the body in war, amber to speed the soul on its final journey. Amber as the sign of the Celtic male sun god. Amber as sacred to the ancient mother. Amber as the precious residue of tears cried by the goddess Juarate, who fell in love with a mortal man and thereby ensured his death and her eternal grief . . . .

  Amber, always amber, the only stone that was warm to the touch, the only stone that could be carved with a simple knife, the only stone that crackled with life when rubbed by fur, the only stone that floated on the mysterious breast of the ocean. Amber, the divine made tangible. Amber, the burning stone of man’s desires.

  “Very nice,” Jake said, looking up finally. “An excellent sampling of eighteenth-century carving techniques. And someone resisted the temptation to fill in the missing pieces with Dominican amber.”

  Resnikov laughed softly. “You have not forgiven me for that table, have you? But it was an honorable take.”

  Jake grunted.

  “I would like to have seen the whole of the Amber Room,” the Russian said, watching him more closely, “or even just a single panel. To enter the room was said to be like being reborn into a world made wholly of sunlight.”

  Instinct and intelligence combined into a coolness sliding down Jake’s spine. “I’m betting on the side of those who said that room burned to ash.” He pushed his chair back as though to leave.

  “Not so quickly, my friend,” Resnikov said. “There are other pieces that require your fine touch.”

  Jake looked at Honor.

  “You couldn’t drag me out of here with amber horses,” she said instantly. “This amber is fantastic. Designs are going through my mind like chain lightning.”

  The smile he gave her was as warm as the touch of amber. She found herself responding before she could think of all the reasons she shouldn’t.

  Resnikov lifted out a long, shallow box that had been constructed with a care that bordered on obsessive. The box itself was wrapped in intricately tooled leather that had designs embossed on it in gold. The clasp and hinges were hammered from solid gold. The lining inside the box was a dark, very fine suede. Eight uneven compartments held amber carvings that seemed simple, almost crude, next to the elegance of the box itself.

  Jake whistled. “How many people did you kill for this lot?”

  “Ah, Jacob. Always the jokester, yes?”

  “Not this time.”

  “Then you will be pleased to know that no blood was spilled,” the Russian said smoothly.

  “I would be pleased if I believed you.”

  “It is the truth.”

  “Then some folks must have died of natural causes,” Jake said, unconvinced. “You would have to pry these pieces out of a collector’s dead hands. Or a curator’s. No one would willingly part with these artifacts . . . if they’re real.”

  “That is what you are here for, is it not? To determine if these are genuine.”

  Without another word Jake bent over the box. The difference in him was obvious to Honor. When he handled the other pieces of amber, he had been intent, interested, and appreciative. Now he was utterly focused. He radiated a kind of intensity she had seen in him only once before—last night, when he had taught her so much about the nature of sensuality and passion.

  The first piece of amber appeared to be a small, worn head of an ax carved out of pale butter. When Jake gave it a delicate, questing touch with his fingertip, a flush of memory and new hunger coursed through Honor. Holding her breath without knowing it, she watched while he ran his sensitive fingertips over the miniature ax head as though he were blind and reading Braille.

  “Unbelievably smooth,” he said after a time. “The drill holes that decorate it feel like they were polished after the piece was made.”

  “Is it a fetish?” Honor asked.

  “Of a kind,” Jake said. “Amber was believed to give immortality to its owner. Neolithic hunting societies sometimes buried their members with amber grave goods. Amber axes were probably a highly valued gift to the dead.”

  Resnikov nodded, but said nothing. He was watching Jake rather than the amber.

  Shifting his grip on the artifact, Jake ran his thumbnail over the surface with measured force. As he had expected, his nail didn’t leave a mark.

  “I won’t put the hot needle to this,” he said.

  “Is it real, then?” Honor asked.

  “I don’t know. But if it is, it would be a crime to mark it in any way at all.”

  “Stalemate?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Gently Jake replaced the ax head in the box. Then he turned to his own case and began pulling things out. When he was finished, he had several tightly sealed jars in front of him. Each was about the size of a big coffee mug and partly filled with a clear liquid. He unscrewed the top of one jar, took the small ax head, and dropped it in. The amber dipped and settled to the bottom of the container.

  “What’s the liquid?” Honor asked.

  “Distilled water.”

  Jake fished out the artifact, dried it carefully, and unscrewed the top of the second jar. Though the liquid looked the same, the ax head floated on it like thin, opaque ice.

  “What’s in that one?” Honor asked.

  “Salt water with a specific gravity of one point zero five,” Jake said without looking away from the ax head. “If this were transparent amber instead of opaque, I would have used the third jar. That water has more salt in it, which means a higher specific gravity.” He lifted the ax head out and dried it carefully. “Clear amber is more dense than the cloudy kind, because the ‘clouds’ are caused by very tiny air bubbles.”

  Jake returned the ax head to its compartment in the elaborate box and selected another piece. Honor sensed his increasing excitement in the clarity of his eyes and the slight tension in his mouth. The change in him was so small she wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t spent the night learning the depth of emotion he concealed behind his beard and impassive expression.

  She looked at Resnikov, wondering if he had noticed anything different. If he did, it didn’t show in his face. The Russian was watching Jake the way a fisherman watched a baited hook disappearing beneath the surface of the sea—uncertainty and hope combined.

  Jake picked up another artifact from the box. The figure’s shape suggested a horse. It was perhaps four inches wide by three inches tall.

  Though crudely made by modern standards, the artifact was nonetheless oddly powerful. A series of tiny drill holes, like tattoos, ran down the horse’s thick neck and ov
er its short back to its stocky haunches. Its feet were close together. The piece had a shape that was both bowed and supremely centered in its own life.

  “It looks like one of those ancient horses,” Honor said. “The kind they just discovered running wild in Nepal or Tibet.”

  “It probably was modeled after an animal just like that,” Jake said. “They weren’t as scarce seven thousand years ago as they are now.”

  “Seven thousand years?” she asked, startled.

  “At least.”

  She leaned closer, staring at the small object more closely. It looked like it had been carved from fossil ivory or bone. Yet the way Jake handled the horse told Honor that he believed it was amber. Gently he put it into a jar of liquid. The figurine floated just as the other had.

  “Amber,” she said.

  Neither man answered. The gentle motion of the horse floating on salt water said it all.

  In silence Jake lifted piece after piece out of the box. Each one that was small enough to fit in the container floated. None of them tickled his instincts, telling him that there was less to an artifact than it appeared.

  The eighth piece he examined was a primitive statuette of a person. It was perhaps five inches tall, two inches wide, and obviously had been broken off below the knees so long ago that the scar had blended with the whole. The facial features were minimally carved—brooding, sunken eyes and a straight-lined, strongly defined nose. The mouth was either worn away or hadn’t been considered important enough by the carver to command attention. There were two small holes drilled where the armpits would have been.

  “Perhaps a pendant, perhaps a badge of office, perhaps a fetish hung by a cave door to protect the family within,” Jake said. Then he added softly, “A very, very fine piece.”

  “Some of the others are more carefully carved,” Resnikov pointed out.

  “And less powerful for it.” Jake cradled the object in his hand. “It’s as though the artist didn’t want to make the mannequin too real, for fear of what it had been or might become. Stone Age people didn’t view life as we do, a straight line to death. I suspect they knew many kinds of life, many levels of death.”