Looking out the French doors, I could see one of the gargoyles stationed on a cornice over the terrace, a winged figure with a snarling lion’s head, a lion’s body, and a dragon’s tail, not unlike an Assyrian demon. Gargoyles protected against evil spirits, which is why they were used on European churches. But this one seemed to draw the evil in.
When Laurel returned she looked like a different woman. She’d put on a dress, a green floral print with a tight bodice and flouncy skirt, a kind of hippie-chick number that showed off her curves admirably. Her rich, natural brown hair fell in silky coils to the base of her long neck. I liked the fact that she didn’t touch it up.
We left the moody atmosphere behind.
I decided not to bother with the car. NYU was just around the corner, and Phillip Anthony’s gallery not much farther away. Besides, I didn’t want Laurel to think I drove a rental by choice. My Maserati coupe had been totaled in the crash. It killed me to even think about that.
The philosophy building, a handsome turn-of-the-century structure in red sandstone, was just a few minutes away from Washington Square Park. Laurel showed her grad-student pass to the guard, allowing us to get upstairs without alerting Reed to our visit. We went to Hal’s office first. It was small enough to qualify as a broom closet. One look told us we’d wasted our time. The place had been swept clean. I pulled all the desk drawers out. Empty, every one.
“That was fast,” I said.
Laurel glanced around angrily. “What about his papers, and the computer? Where are they?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Although I’d called earlier to make sure he’d be in, I purposely hadn’t told Reed we were coming to see him. Caught unawares, he’d be more likely to spill something.
Reed masked his surprise at seeing us with a hasty smile, scraped back his chair, and rose. “Laurel,” he said, “how are you? I was shocked to hear about Hal. I’m so sorry. Can I do anything to help? Just say the word.”
He went to hug her and she thrust him away. “You were shocked, Colin? If Hal had been drowning you would have held him under. You know how vulnerable he was, and you still took away his job. I count you responsible for what happened.”
Seeing that false sympathy wasn’t working in his favor, Reed reverted to his usual abrasiveness. “I don’t recall agreeing to an appointment with you two.” He threw an unfriendly glance my way. “Hal was drug addled. He wasn’t even able to handle the limited classes we gave him.”
I couldn’t argue with that, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of letting him know. “Glad to see you care so deeply about Laurel’s feelings. Where are all of Hal’s things? His desktop’s gone. Nothing’s left in his office.”
“The computer is university property. We wiped the files and it’s already been given to someone else.” He motioned toward the door. “Outside are a couple of plastic boxes with his papers and other stuff. Laurel, you’re welcome to them.”
“You’re a wretch, Colin.” Laurel spun out the door and bent down to sort through the material.
“Well?” He glared at me openly now. Bluster didn’t suit the man. His squat nose wrinkled unattractively and his fleshy lips stretched into a grimace.
“That blonde you were romancing at Hal’s party—Eris Haines. I need to get in touch with her.”
“Wouldn’t have the foggiest. I’d never met her before. She kept pawing at me all night. I had a tough time shaking her off.”
I broke into a laugh. “Colin, come on.”
“I have nothing more to say to you, John.”
“What would your wife think about that, I wonder?”
“You asshole. You are capable of that, aren’t you?” He turned and searched among some papers lying on his desk and picked up a card. “This is all I have. Be my guest.” He held it out for me.
The logo on the card read TRANSFORMATIONS in large gold lettering. Underneath that, in black, Eris’s name, phone number, and fax. Nothing else.
“One other thing. The stone engraving Hal kept in his office, did you take it out of his desk? It was stolen from my brother. I’ve already talked to the FBI. Best to give it up now.”
I struck out on that one. The look of sheer astonishment on his face told me he knew nothing about it.
Thirteen
Phillip Anthony, a British import who’d settled in the city twenty years ago, sold prints and paintings from his gallery on East Tenth Street, just past University Place. He’d started the gallery with Claire Talbot, who became successively his business partner, his wife, and his ex-wife. You could still see her name spelled out ever so faintly on the brick where he’d removed the brass letters. I’d known Claire first. She’d drifted in and out of our group of friends at Columbia. The two of us had kept in touch only because our professional lives brought us together. I’d applauded her when she made the break from Phillip. He was insufferable even for short intervals.
Phillip used his gallery primarily as a showcase—he made most of his sales to private clients for substantial sums. If I lacked the knowledge to solve Hal’s puzzle, I’d have to seek it from people like him.
His assistant told us we’d find him on the second floor. Phillip normally used this space for storage and picture restoration. Today the room was bare, making it appear much larger. The walls had a fresh coat of white paint and the floors shone. Stretched across the entire ceiling was a canvas depicting Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes.
Laurel didn’t know what to make of it. “Well,” she said, searching for something polite to say, “if you can’t see the real thing, I suppose it’s better than looking in a book. It’s surprisingly well executed.”
I wouldn’t have been that complimentary.
A voice behind me broke into my thoughts. “Rather adven turous, don’t you think? It took fifteen art students two months to complete.”
Behind us stood a tall, angular man with a receding cap of gray hair and watery blue eyes, extra large, like a baby’s, magnified by the thick lenses of his glasses.
“Phillip.” I stretched out my hand. “This is Laurel, a friend of mine.”
He gave me a brief, cool handshake and bestowed a warm smile on her.
I explained that she was a doctoral candidate in philosophy. Phillip liked people with lofty credentials.
“What brings you here?” He turned to me. “We usually see you only when there’s something to gain. Like an event where you can score some clients.”
“I’m researching a Dürer.” A cutting remark he’d just made. Then something clicked. I’d been in such a fog of sorrow over Samuel’s death that I’d missed it. The steady drop-off in the number of party invitations and work offers.
Like courtiers in a royal circle, the movers and shakers in our world could close ranks in an instant. I got work because of my connection to Samuel, and they adored him. People blamed me for his death. You could be on top of the crowd, but if you stumbled they’d fight over who got to make the final twist of the knife. Not only had Samuel’s death produced a hard knot of grief that felt permanent, but it could very well end my career.
I pretended not to notice his frostiness. Phillip had never really warmed up to me, nor had we gotten off to the best start. I’d gone out power drinking with a couple of other dealers after an auction. One of them celebrated his big win by treating us to pricey shots of twenty-three-year-old Evan Williams bourbon. As the evening wore on we all got pretty hammered. Phillip, boasting about his sexual performance, told us he’d once lasted an hour and five minutes. I asked him whether that was on daylight savings time, when the clocks went ahead. It didn’t go over too well.
I tried to think of something positive to say about the Michelangelo reproduction. “This is an unusual display for your gallery.”
He smiled. “A fundraising project. Each panel is sponsored by a different corporation. We had the event last night and did damn well out of it, actually.” He pointed vaguely in the direction of God touching t
he hand of Adam. “IBM shelled out ten thousand for that panel alone. We had to talk them out of covering Adam’s nether parts with their logo, though.”
Laurel gaped at him, wide-eyed, the shock palpable on her face. He grinned to show this was just his little joke. I joined in with a laugh I didn’t really believe in. “How much longer will it be on display?” I asked.
“Oh, at least until summer’s end.” He directed his gaze toward me. “Ghastly news about Hal Vanderlin.”
“It was terrible.” I stole a glance at Laurel. A slight reddening of her face was the only clue that Phillip’s comment had upset her.
“I heard rumors about a drug problem.” He cocked his eye.
I had no interest in turning up the heat under the rich stew of art world gossip and changed the subject. “Tell us about your project.”
Phillip lifted his thin arm and pointed again to The Creation of Adam. “There’s some interesting speculation about Michelangelo’s meaning here.”
“You mean the pop analysis,” Laurel said. “It’s not about God creating Adam at all but the reverse. Adam, who stands for mankind, imagining God in his own image.”
“Yes.” Phillip gave her a smile that verged on a leer. “But I believe that’s too simplistic. An American doctor, Frank Meshberger, said Michelangelo had, through the shape of God’s image and his swirling robes, meant to depict the labyrinthine spirals of the human brain. Renaissance painters knew what the brain looked like because they dissected cadavers. God’s head is presented to us from the left profile, and the left hemisphere is the active speech center. His head is juxtaposed over the arcuate fasciculus, or the locus of speech in the human brain.” He gestured dramatically toward the ceiling.
I had to stifle a laugh.
“So here’s my theory,” he continued. “While appearing to faithfully depict the Old Testament fairy tale about creation, Michelangelo’s seditious brush was really saying that the sacred ability of man to speak, to imagine, to think in symbols and abstract concepts, represented his emergence from the profane— the animal world. And because of this, divinity lies within humans, not outside them. Adam is reaching out for the power of the word, not to a mythical god.”
When he took a pause Laurel broke in. “Would a sixteenth-century sculptor have known something like that—where the center of speech was located?”
“Perhaps we don’t give the artist enough credit.” Phillip rubbed his fingers absentmindedly over his chin, warming up to the subject. “A jolly old subversive, that’s what I call Michelangelo.”
“That’s a stretch, Phillip,” I said. “All you have to do is look at the art. Adam’s figure is flaccid, languorous, as if he’s just coming alive. All the energy and force are in the portrayal of God. Michelangelo had his differences with the religious hierarchy, but he was still devout.”
“Look at the rest of the ceiling, then,” Phillip persisted. “What are pagan soothsayers doing in the midst of what is arguably the most famous Christian work of art? The Oracles. Astounding, really. A Libyan sibyl is placed next to the Creation panel. He’s put pagan priestesses on equal footing with Old Testament prophets.”
“You’re saying Michelangelo promoted paganism?” Laurel said.
“Precisely. The church ruthlessly attacked pagans, but ironically they’re still celebrated at the very heart of the church through the genius of Michelangelo.”
I’d had enough of his pontificating. “Listen, Phillip, Laurel and I have been discussing Dürer’s woodcut—Melencolia 1. Can you shed some light on it for us? You’re the expert here.”
I’d struck the right nerve. He preened like a strutting peacock. “Ah, Melencolia 1, one of the three Meisterstiche—his master drawings. I’ve always felt Dürer rivaled Leonardo. He was a remarkable painter as well, and mathematician. He wrote two books on geometry. In order to appreciate his work, you must see the man in his cultural context.”
Here we go again. Could he not just get to the point?
“Dürer was tutored at the knee of his father, an acclaimed goldsmith, and became the foremost artist of woodcuts and copper-plate engraving. Six hundred years later no one has bested him. His father moved to Nuremberg in 1455.” He raised an eyebrow. “Stop me if you’ve heard all this; I do tend to run on.”
I motioned for him to continue.
“I said we need to be aware of the context. It’s not possible to fully appreciate Renaissance art without understanding Hermeticism, a Greek and Egyptian philosophy from Alexandria in the first century.”
Don’t tell me we’ll have to listen to two thousand years of history just to get some answers.
“Alexandria burst with life; it was, overwhelmingly, the beating heart of world scholarship. Cross-currents of many philosophies, religions, beliefs swirled through the city.”
He rubbed his hands as he gave us his little lecture. “Egyptian soothsayers, Jewish mystics, and Greek Platonists all gathered there. The priests of Cybele, who castrated themselves in honor of their goddess, paraded through the streets in bright orange cloaks, jewels, and long hair, clashing their cymbals and drums. Hermeticism first flourished in that city.”
“Hermeticism. That’s related to alchemy and transmutation, isn’t it?” I hoped this would give him a gentle nudge to move on to the topic we really wanted to hear about.
The man literally looked down his nose at me, his glasses sliding awkwardly to rest on its tip. “John, why is it you have such a penchant for reducing everything to the lowest common denominator? Alchemy is like an applied science, only one aspect of Hermeticism, and certainly not the most important.”
He pushed his glasses back and threw another indulgent smile Laurel’s way, then carried on. “One phrase is central to Hermetic thought: ‘That which is below is as that which is above, and that which is above is as that which is below, to perform the miracles of the one thing.’ That’s a translation of a key line in a tablet, The Secret of Hermes, from which all succeeding Hermetic works draw reference. The tablet was attributed to the Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus, but it’s thought now that it’s apocryphal. Like the Bible, it had numerous authors whose names may be fictitious. As above so below, as it came to be known, meant that all elements of reality were related and in harmony. The material and the spiritual were one. Patterns seen on earth mirrored those in the sky. Modern physics supports this view by showing us that the solar system is configured the same way as an atom. You’re familiar with the five-pointed star, the witch’s pentagram?”
“Sure.”
“In the upright position it signifies good, but when it’s turned upside down with its two apexes pointing skyward, the pentagram is considered the sign of the devil. But take either the Mesopotamian eight-pointed star or the six-point Seal of Solomon. Both look the same whether they’re turned upside down or not. They symbolize the phrase I just mentioned and stand for the harmony of all things.”
I’d had no idea Phillip was so knowledgeable on the subject. We’d veered a long way from Dürer, but his knowledge of hermetic thought caught my attention. I toyed with the idea that he might actually be the unscrupulous American dealer Samuel had suspected, but that seemed a stretch.
Laurel, picking up on my discomfort, jumped in again. “Christianity separated the material world, the dark and sinful flesh, from the spiritual realm.”
Phillip patted her shoulder. “Yes, their goal was not to know nature but to transcend it. To make room for the Christian church, pagan beliefs had to be either subsumed or crushed. As the church gathered strength, Alexandria, the seat of ancient paganism, crumbled.”
He stopped rather abruptly and turned again to Laurel. “Mesopotamians enter the picture here.”
“You mean Harran?”
“Just so.” He beamed at Laurel as if she were his prize student. “The flow of people and ideas gravitated there. When Harran declined, scholars migrated to Baghdad, the supreme center of learning in the eighth century A.D. There, Sufischools greatly added to the
body of Hermetic knowledge. One man in particular, Jabir ibn Hayyan, earned himself the title of father of chemistry because his accomplishments were so brilliant. He perfected distillation, invented the alembic still and the processes used to make hydrochloric and nitric acid.”
Phillip turned his watery gaze on me. “And here’s where your alchemy comes into it, at least as it concerns the poppycock of turning base metals into gold. An eminent Sufimystic in Baghdad of that time made the claim ‘It is we who through our glance turn the dust of the path into gold.’”
The insults to me were certainly piling up.
“Scholars focus entirely on Egyptian sources, but it could easily be argued that Mesopotamia gave birth to alchemy. The knowledge incubated in Harran and Baghdad spread to Cordoba under Moorish rule. When Europeans took a pause from the looting and massacres of the Crusades, they brought many texts and Hermetic concepts home. As a humorous aside, our own King John of England was so enamored of these ideas that he secretly petitioned to become a Muslim, with the intention of turning his kingdom over to Islam. And can you believe it, they denied him the honor!”
“Fascinating, Phillip. But I wanted to know about the Dürer print, Melencholia 1.”
His voice floated on as if I hadn’t said anything. “Hermetic thought and practice re-emerged in the great academies and secret societies of Florence under the Medici. When the Medici empire fell, Hermeticism took root in Venice. There, a gentleman named Manutius, one of the first publishers, produced Hermetic texts. In 1503 he greeted an honored guest—Albrecht Dürer.”
“Dürer actually visited the city several times,” I corrected him. I’d learned this while researching some pieces in Peter Vanderlin’s collection. “His eyes were opened in Venice. He loved Bellini’s work.”
Phillip directed another beatific smile Laurel’s way, as if she’d been the one to point this out. “He did. His exposure to Italian Renaissance culture fundamentally changed his artistic vision. The gothic stiffness of his early work gave way to more natural forms.
The Witch of Babylon Page 13
