by Gigi Pandian
Though my primary job is historian and professor, and I love my students and teaching, recently I’d gotten caught up in a few historical inquiries that took me far from an academic’s usual habitat of libraries and archives. As soon as the phrase “treasure hunter” was written about me by the press, my life got out of hand. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Because it was both.
For Lane Peters, real name Lancelot Caravaggio Peters, it had turned out far worse. His good deeds with me had cost him his position as a graduate student returning to school in his early thirties after a questionable first career. Not to mention that he’d been found by people in his criminal past and blackmailed into pulling off a heist at the Louvre.
A loud click sounded.
“Jaya? Abby Wu here. Thanks for holding. I’m so glad you called.”
“You know what Rick Coronado is up to?”
“One never knows exactly what Rick is up to. But yes, I know he’s showing you the draft of his next Gabriela Glass novel before he sends it to me.”
“Is this kind of thing normal for an author?”
She laughed. A throaty chuckle, one that I took to be both genuine and well-rehearsed from a lifetime of working in New York publishing. “I’ve never met a normal author.”
“He sent me an overnight package and asked me to call him by midnight last night if I didn’t want him to abandon the novel.”
“Rick has always been eccentric. I’m not going to feed the stereotype and say the best writers are always like that, but in his case he always got away with it. It’s only gotten worse since he stopped writing Gabriela. I think she grounded him. I finally decided to indulge him.”
“Have you actually seen him lately? And have you read the pages? I mean…” I bit my lip. “Could it be someone pretending to be him?”
She laughed again. This time it was a bark that convinced me I’d surprised her. “You mean like his plot from The Glass Deception coming to life, where the old treasure hunter was killed by the bad guy who’s assumed his place, but nobody realizes it until the denouement? No, sadly—or I suppose I should more accurately say happily—it’s nothing like that. Even though Rick rarely leaves the grounds of his house in upstate New York, he throws dinner parties. He hasn’t given up on the world, so he brings the world to him. He had a grand one a few months ago, and there was a look in his eye I hadn’t seen for far too long.
“I pressed him, and he confessed he had an announcement he’d make over dessert—did you know he was a great chef? He didn’t used to be. But since sequestering himself and feeling unable to write, he said he needed something to do besides read books. God knows he didn’t need to spend more time with his brother Vincent. That man is a marketing genius, but a first-class leech—”
“About the announcement?” I prompted.
“Oh yes. I had previously suggested he write nonfiction, since he could do that without writer’s block. He did so much research for his fiction that I was sure he’d come across enough juicy tidbits to form a book. But that didn’t interest him. At least not before. Over dessert—a soufflé so decadent I hadn’t known such a thing could exist—he told us he was writing again. I asked if he was finally trying his hand at nonfiction. He said no, that it was a new Gabriela Glass novel. We all applauded. Until he told us the catch.”
“Me.”
“Yes, but he didn’t mention you right away. He said he couldn’t tell us any more just yet. I didn’t think much of it, since I know authors can have trouble talking about their work before the story is fully formed. When I contacted him a few weeks later to see how the book was going, he said he had a plan. I thought he meant an outline. But I was wrong. That’s when he explained that he had a plan to show the book to you as he wrote it. He said you were the one who’d inspired the story and gotten him out of his funk, so he wanted to share the story with you as he developed it.”
“He said he needs me to give him feedback if he’s going to write the book.”
Abby laughed. “I know. He says there’s something missing as he finds his voice again, and he thinks you can help. If you’re worried about him being a stalker or anything like that, don’t worry. Watch out for Vincent, but not Rick. When they say Rick is ‘eccentric,’ they don’t mean that as a euphemism for anything else. He’s truly inspired by you. He mentioned you to me last year, long before he had the idea to start writing again. He loves that you save real pieces of history, and also that you’re a teacher. Listen, I need to jet in a minute, so is there anything else I can tell you?”
“His research is wrong.”
“Excuse me?”
“The facts in the book. They’re sloppy. Does he write his first drafts like that?”
“He didn’t used to, but since he hasn’t traveled in the last seven years, he’s probably having trouble doing research. That’s my bet for why he wants your help.” She swore and her voice grew muffled as she spoke to someone else. “Gotta run. An editorial fire to put out—can you believe a typo nearly got through on a book cover? A book cover! Call if you need anything else.”
The phone clicked off. I looked at its clock. Two hours before I had a class followed by office hours. I hoped Becca and Wesley would come see me, but I needed to get some work done first. Since my Thanksgiving break trip to Japan had been extended longer than anticipated, I hadn’t prepared as well for the remainder of the semester. I didn’t want to let my students down.
I scooped up my messenger bag, locked my office, and walked across campus through the whipping wind to a hidden cubby at the library. I needed to go over my lecture notes for the course I was teaching that day. I could have stayed in my office, but even with the door closed and without scheduled office hours, I knew I wouldn’t be able to say no to my students if they knocked.
Tamarind knew me well, so she found me in my hidden spot at the library and brought me a smuggled coffee and donut.
“Cop food is good for this time of year,” she said, handing me a compostable cup and donut dotted with rainbow sprinkles.
It was cold even inside the library. Tamarind wore pink-and-black-striped fingerless gloves, a faux fur stole, and leopard print tights under a fuchsia skirt. I was in a black turtleneck sweater and had put black tights on underneath my black slacks, but had left my gloves in my office. I accepted the warm coffee with thanks, wrapping my chilled fingers around the paper cup.
I sometimes wondered what would happen to my library privileges if I were to be found eating in the cubicle (in my humble opinion the only thing keeping libraries from achieving their spot as the most perfect places on earth was the rule of no food and drink), but my guess was that Tamarind’s presence would smooth things over. She was brilliant at her job (and in life) but she suspected her large stature and misunderstood punk appearance (she used to describe herself as a post-punk post-feminist, but after the year she’d had, she was back to being a self-described feminist punk) served as an asset when she applied for her job at the library. Tamarind was great at dealing with people who caused problems at the library, able to handle tricky situations without calling the police. It wasn’t only her appearance. She was good at talking to people who felt like misunderstood outsiders, being one herself.
She grinned at my happiness as I bit into the donut. “Glad you wanted it. I already ate two. It’s bribery in case you’re slow on the uptake. What else have you heard from Rick? Did he or his captor get back to you?”
“I spoke with his editor this morning. It’s really him writing this manuscript, no kidnapping to speak of.”
“But?”
I looked again at my phone and swiped aside several messages, none from Rick. “But he’s hiding something, even from his editor.”
“What?”
“That’s the question.”
Chapter 8
There were two weeks of every semester when students were mo
st engaged: the first week and the last. After an energetic class that ran long with a great discussion, I headed back to my office—with one quick stop on the way. Logically I knew it was too soon to expect another chapter, but I found myself more disappointed than I wanted to admit when there wasn’t another package from Rick Coronado waiting for me.
As a historian, I liked the idea of reading it as a serialized novel, like Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White or Charles Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers, with hungry readers eagerly awaiting the new installment each week. But who was I kidding? The suspense was killing me. When would I hear from him again?
I left my office door open so students would know I was available for office hours, and Becca and Wesley arrived right away.
I was again struck by the odd couple appearance of the pair, Wesley in sweat pants and flip flops, Becca with perfectly manicured pink nails and wool coat folded neatly over her arm. But today they seemed more comfortable with each other. Becca especially. She was far more at ease than the evening before.
“It’s a good thing I procrastinated on finding an approved topic for my Research Methods final project for Naveen,” Wesley said, sinking into one of the two squeaky chairs in front of my desk. “This is the perfect project to show how to research an interesting piece of evidence you find, when you have no idea where it leads and you have to reverse engineer the discovery.”
“He didn’t approve your first idea?” I asked.
“He said it wasn’t historical enough.”
“Too recent?”
“Sort of. I wanted to work on a computer code to crack a 5,000-year-old password, to get through that Kerala temple’s ‘Cobra Lock’ password system for the secret inner vault nobody will touch.”
Becca pursed her lips. “We shouldn’t be wasting Dr. Jones’s time.”
“I’m not in a rush,” I said with only the slightest hesitation. “So a computer code to crack a thousands-of-years-old lock? You think that’s possible?”
Wesley shrugged. “I’m not the first person to think of it. But Naveen didn’t like the idea as a project.”
The temple in India he was referring to had always been shrouded in mystery. Especially recently, when it was discovered the gold-plated temple that legend says was built 5,000 years ago contained billions of dollars of riches. All but one of the known chambers have been searched. Two gigantic cobras are carved into the protective iron door known as Vault B. It’s one of the examples I keep handy when students say there’s no new historical research left to be done or when I see them getting bored.
“That’s the temple the Indian Supreme Court stopped them from opening?” Becca asked.
“Only Vault B,” I said. “A naga bandham, a snake-binding spell, was supposedly what locked the vault. So a garuda mantra, the mantra of the snake’s bird nemesis, needs to be recited perfectly to open the doors without causing disaster. If breached by force, all sorts of catastrophes will be unleashed.”
Wesley laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re superstitious.”
“Not superstitious. Prudent. If ancient priests wanted to keep people out, don’t you think they would have found ways to ensure their warnings were heeded?”
“Like a booby trap?” Becca asked.
“That’s the cool thing about trying to get in with a computer program.” Wesley became more animated as he spoke, and he kicked his skateboard under my desk without noticing. “If it can find the right order and frequency of sound waves that the Cobra Lock accepts as legitimate, nobody gets hurt, because the priests themselves were supposed to get inside, right?”
“Right,” I said. “The theory is that the naga bandham is a tonal lock, so the unlocking mantra recited at a certain octave serves as something like a musical key.”
As much as I hated to admit it, Naveen was right in this case. It sounded like a fascinating project, but it wouldn’t have given Wesley the best application of the traditional research methods Naveen was going for with this assignment. I’m all for creative research, but after you learn the foundations. I was also glad Wesley wouldn’t be getting himself embroiled in the on-going political turmoil over that temple.
Becca cleared her throat. “So, our Gold Rush era letter?”
“There’s only a week to do research as part of your class projects, but you can do a lot in that time.”
“I was thinking I’ll use the letter as one of the many forgotten pieces of history that helps tell the story.”
“Together,” I said, “you two might prove something previously unknown.”
“And find our mystery man’s treasure.” Wesley grinned as his stomach rumbled.
“Not in a week,” I said. “Focus on the limited scope of your projects for now. If you find something, you might turn it into a bigger project next semester. Now, how can I help? Do you know your steps for this weekend?”
“We already showed it to the librarian. She said it was real, not a fake,” Becca said.
I shook my head. “Tamarind isn’t an archivist. And I didn’t exactly say it might be ‘fake.’ Just that we didn’t know its age, so it might not be what you think it is. The location is suggestive, but not proof.”
“Is that a common thing to do?” Becca asked. “That level of authentication, I mean. Can’t we assume if we find something in a library the librarian says is legitimate, or in an archive, that it’s real?”
“What’s ‘real’ though?” I prodded. I was playing devil’s advocate, but that was the point of an advanced seminar.
“You mean like we could be in the Matrix?” Wesley stared across the desk at me, his dark brown eyes wide.
Becca rolled her eyes.
“Um, no,” I said. “People throughout history have different motives for writing things. That’s why different accounts can vary so much—there’s another student doing a project about different historical records not matching each other. The fact that you found a letter tucked into a book doesn’t necessarily mean what it seems to indicate. It might have been a joke—”
“People back then would have done that?” Wesley stared at me.
“You think people in history had lesser imaginations than now? How do you think people explored the world? The adventurers. Colonizers. Pirates.”
“But that was like real life, right? Practical jokes and fiction are different—”
“Storytelling began millennia ago.”
“That’s different.”
“Beowulf was written a millennium ago.”
Wesley blinked blankly at me.
I sighed. “Treasure Island was written in the late 1800s. But it could be something completely different.” Which is what I expected, but I didn’t want to bias their research. “The letter you found might have been referencing something else entirely and was slipped into the book accidentally, and then forgotten about.”
Wesley groaned and Becca laughed. “I do that all the time,” she said. “Who knows what a person who checks out my art history library book in the future will say about my Anthropologie receipt.”
“Exactly,” I said, excited she was getting it. “I take it you mean the boutique clothing store, not the academic discipline? But once that store no longer exists, a future historian might think you were using an antiquated local dialect spelling of Anthropology.”
Wesley groaned again. “I thought we’d get to go hunting for this underground ship.”
“You might,” I said. “You just need to put in the work first. It’s good to consult experts like archivists. See what you can figure out about the person who wrote the letter. Then back to the library to track down those less obvious sources.”
The university library didn’t have mysterious hidden staircases or centuries-old thick wooden bookshelves, but it held secrets that by far made up for that. The library had offered up one of its secrets to the students, so I could tell they
were eager to go back.
“Do you want me to talk to Professor Veeran about you being able to merge this with your Research Methods project?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It’s too late. The deadline was yesterday to get Naveen’s feedback before turning in our final paper next week. We were supposed to turn in our proposal last month, and our preliminary research by yesterday at the latest.”
“Did you turn anything in?”
Wesley scratched his neck. “Um, nothing. For either. I didn’t have any ideas after he didn’t like the computer program.”
Becca rolled her eyes. When she caught me looking at her, she blushed and tried to pretend she was looking out the window.
“You’ve got a great project now,” I said. “Can you write up a proposal this afternoon?”
He grinned. “Definitely.”
“Let me talk to Nav—Professor Veeran—for you.”
After talking with four more students, I wrapped up office hours and walked across the hallway to Naveen Veeran’s office.
I found him sitting in his desk chair, dressed in his signature three-piece tweed suit and with a pile of papers in front of him and cup of steaming tea at his elbow. His neatly trimmed black hair was prematurely touched with gray at the temples. He did look the part of a professor.
He looked up and beckoned me inside. “How lovely of you to grace us with your presence. I’m surprised you’re not jetting off to a glitzy destination and abandoning your students when they need you. Again.”
“Thanks for covering my class the other day.” Which I’d thanked him for already. Twice. “I’m here about one of your students. Wesley.”
“Bright. But no focus. I was hoping he’d get his act together for his final project, but he didn’t turn in a proposal for feedback, as I’d strongly recommended to each student. It was due yesterday.”
