“’Fraid we’ll have to agree to disagree,” Theo said as a waiter approached their table with the wine list. Sinai was well-known, both as a painter and a sculptor, and Theo had seen and admired his installations, but that didn’t mean she had to enjoy arguing with him about whether her own work actually counted as art. Instead of continuing that line of conversation, she took the wine list and let the talk carry on without her.
The three men provided an interesting study. Sinai was at ease with the waiter and his companions, ordering easily, while Applebaum’s politeness couldn’t quite conceal his awkwardness when he tried to tip the waiter. Artist and art historian, somehow opposites.
The third man didn’t fit with either. The relative ease of his manner was at odds with the lines of his form: his shoulders and back were held stiffly, as if he were afraid of being caught doing something he shouldn’t. She wondered if she was imagining it, but when she followed the line and silhouette of his broad form, watching the way the shapes shifted as he moved, she realized she was right. It wasn’t so much how he moved as how he didn’t. Sinai’s shoulders were relaxed, Applebaum’s pulled forward slightly as if he were trying to duck into himself. Mr. Adler was tense and still.
The waiter turned to Theo, distracting her from her thoughts. “Your choice, ma’am?”
“Just water, I think,” she said, handing the list back to him and mentally thanking the universe for the intervention. Being caught staring again wasn’t going to make a good impression on the patrons. “I have to work later, and I don’t want to push my luck.”
“And for you, sir?” the waiter continued. Mr. Adler had barely glanced at the list.
“The Arras Blanc,” he said. “You have to work later?”
It took Theo a moment to realize that the question was directed at her, he’d changed gears so quickly. “Well, I don’t have to,” she said, flicking a stray wisp of blonde hair behind one ear to cover her confusion. “But I want to. We’re planning the main mural for Treasures of the Middle Kingdom, and I’m sure you know how big projects go. The minute I turn my back, I think of something I should’ve done instead.”
“Treasures of the Middle Kingdom,” Mr. Adler repeated slowly. “The artifacts are from the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties, I believe. It opens at the end of December, doesn’t it?”
“And it has the mummy?” Professor Applebaum interjected. There was a genuine smile on his face, and Theo couldn’t help smiling back more widely this time; the man was clearly an enthusiast. “The tubercular specimen with the anachronistic burial?”
“You’ll have to talk to the Egyptologists about the details, professor,” Theo said. “I just paint them.” Not that she hadn’t studied every scrap of information she could get her hands on about the planned exhibition—or about Egypt in general. Theo always had time for a culture that equated images with magic. “But yes, the mummy and its funeral goods. It’s one of the most unusual things we’ve ever done, and definitely one of the biggest. Practically every department we’ve got is involved somehow.”
“What’s so special about this mummy?” Sinai said. “You’ve got whole rooms full of mummies in the other exhibits. Was this one a king?”
“They don’t know what it was,” the professor cut in, his hands flat on the table as he leaned forward in his excitement. “Nothing about it suggests royalty. But it was buried with thousands and thousands of ushebtis, the little figurines meant to serve the gods in the next world. It’s the largest ushebti cache discovered, ever. A very rich burial in a very small tomb with a very sick mummy.”
That drew raised eyebrows from Sinai. “Ahh,” he said. “There’s a story here, isn’t there?”
“Any chance of a curse?” Adler said. There was a touch of dry humor in his voice. “That’s usually what stories like this are about.”
“No curse that we know of,” Theo said. She knew plenty about the shabti statuettes and their mysterious inscriptions, but she wasn’t sure how interested the whole tableful of donors was in Egyptian minutiae. Applebaum was clearly into it, because he’d described them using the academic ushebti rather than the everyday shabti, but the other two might be bored stiff by the topic. She settled for middle ground. “But it’s a definite deviation from the historical record, and that’s almost as good. Add that to one of the best-preserved Twelfth Dynasty mummies discovered in a long time and, well, everyone’s very excited about the possibilities.”
Mr. Adler relaxed as conversation began to flow, but that didn’t mean much. Something about his lines bothered her: the tension in his shoulders and back, the odd angles of his nose and cheekbones…. He had interesting lines, that was for sure, and his palette begged for a portrait in oil pastels.
Once, she glanced up from the table to see a familiar figure standing at the edge of the hall. Mark Zimmer, the new head of Security, a lean man in his late thirties or early forties with striking red hair and a tendency to stare at people as if he were trying to X-ray them. He’d gotten a reputation for anal-retentive efficiency, but nobody complained too much about his strictness when he was around to hear it. With a museum thief making headlines—especially one flashy enough to get himself a colorful nickname—increased security was a necessity.
Zimmer didn’t look happy, which hardly surprised Theo. The donors’ party always concluded with a behind-the-scenes tour of the museum’s workshops, and having several dozen unvetted persons prowling around and poking at things was probably high on his list of worst-case scenarios.
As she watched, he swept his gaze toward her table. She could almost see the wheels turning as he ticked off the people: Applebaum—not a threat. Sinai—not a threat. Her—cleared. Adler—possibly suspicious? He moved on. Apparently, Adler hadn’t pinged his radar too much, though Theo would bet Zimmer’d be coming back their way soon enough.
Theo saw him twice more during the second and third courses. She wondered vaguely if he was going to eat, but her attention was diverted by Sinai and Applebaum starting a loud argument about disease in art. By the time the dessert plates were taken away, she hadn’t gotten them to agree, but she had at least persuaded Applebaum not to shout. Nobody wanted to hear about gout over their ganache.
At that moment, a murmur of conversation rippled through the room, and heads automatically turned. On the dais, a middle-aged man stepped up to the microphone, a smile on his sharp face. As near as he ever got to a smile, anyway.
Dr. Wayne Van Allen, curator of the Columbian’s Egyptology Department and the man whose pet exhibit was keeping Theo’s and Aki’s teams busy. The museum staff could guess the content of his prepared remarks: “Welcome,” “glad you could make it,” “here’s what we’re planning to do in the next year,” “please give us more money.” Still, Theo lent half an ear. It wouldn’t make a good impression to be seen not paying attention.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. His voice was flat and soft, though he seemed to be making an effort to sound lively. Theo kept her head aimed in Dr. Van Allen’s direction, watching the movement of her tablemates in her peripheral vision.
“We’re gratified to see so many of you,” the curator went on, “especially since this coming year is going to bring us a lot of surprises. Thanks to your generosity and the hard work of our museum staff, we’ll soon be ready to display a unique set of treasures. Artifacts from a period of Egyptian history that public perception often overlooks.”
As Dr. Van Allen continued, sketching out their plans for the exhibition and giving the donors some background on the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties, Theo took the opportunity to sneak a few more peeks around. Though he effected a pose of bored detachment, Sinai was definitely listening: The idea of the lost periods of history seemed to intrigue him more than he would let on. Professor Applebaum, on the other hand, had tuned out, and Theo guessed that he was growing tired. Being talked to—or at—seemed less to his taste than an active conversation. Or argument. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Aki and San
dra at their table, their heads close together as Aki sketched something on the tablecloth.
Something flickered to her right—a glint of gold, moving sideways and too quickly to be the ripple of a banner. Theo turned her head slightly and met the eyes of Mr. Adler. He had taken out a pocket watch—yes, a real pocket watch, the kind of old-fashioned affectation that the bankers and lawyers loved—and was checking the time as discreetly as he could.
When Theo caught his gaze, he gave her a small smile and flicked his eyes toward Dr. Van Allen. She smiled a little herself as she understood—like Professor Applebaum, he didn’t enjoy being talked at, but he was trying to be more discreet than simply zoning out in his seat.
“…including a complete reconstruction of the burial chamber.” This drew murmurs of approval from the donors, and Dr. Van Allen inclined his head to the room at large. “While the focus of the exhibition is the treasures of the period, we are honored to be able to exhibit the mummy of tomb THS2 as an integral part of the story. The so-called ‘leper mummy’: a man who lived with a terrible disease four thousand years before he had a prayer of understanding it—and who was buried under very unusual circumstances. We look forward to sharing with you what this ancient artifact has to teach us.
“And now for the final event of the evening. On the back of your place cards, you will find a group number. Each group will be personally escorted around the museum, behind the scenes, for a firsthand tour of the most important and secretive parts of our work. Please don’t hesitate to ask your guides about anything that interests you—the Columbian is proud to host all of you who have made our efforts here possible.”
Theo breathed easier after she turned over her place card and confirmed that it was blank. The donors would have been placed in groups, but someone might have failed to turn up and left her guiding one of the tours.
Aki and Sandra, along with half a dozen other museum employees, were waving and calling out congenially to the people who had been assigned to them. Theo envied them their ease, not their job. Not when she still had a mural to finish planning.
As people began to rise and find their groups, she nodded to the fellow members of table five and climbed to her feet. She wobbled on her heels but didn’t fall.
“From the escape attempt, I take it you’re not leading a group?” Adler said dryly. “No fool, you.”
Be nice to the guests; don’t make the Columbian look bad; relax. “I’m just part of the team,” Theo said, lifting the hem of her dress to prevent stepping on it. Damn shoes. “There are so many talented people here already that I couldn’t add anything to a tour tonight. You’re in group…six?” He nodded. “That’s probably Aki’s group. He’s the painter I mentioned earlier; incredibly talented, and not even thirty either. He’ll be able to tell you so much more than I could.”
Sinai was saying something to Professor Applebaum, and she took the opportunity to slip out while they were distracted. As for Mr. Adler, it would probably be better if she didn’t get caught staring again. He would be looked after—Dr. Schechter’s genius for social arrangements would see to that—and Theo, having done her duty, could escape with a clean conscience.
Chapter Two
Underneath, where the ink and paint had been scraped away, there was only blank papyrus. But then Bet shook ash and some special powder over it, and the images stood revealed. I ordered him to teach me the trick, but he would not. Scribes must have their secrets, he said.
– Excerpt from the Wilkinson Texts,
circa 1000 BCE (fragment)
The Columbian Exposition Museum of Natural History was laid out in a grand classical style, with one massive hall at the center of the ground floor and a dozen smaller galleries branching off on either side. It had been a real triumph of planning to make the echoing hall comfortable enough for a sit-down meal, but Theo still slipped away from the party with relief.
One particularly ornate pillar fronted a niche for a security door. She scanned her ID and went through, pulling off her heels as she did so. One of the security guards nodded to her as she passed an intersection, stopping his automatic reach for his walkie-talkie.
Being behind the scenes at the museum was like going backstage at a theater. Out front it was all elaborate displays set against the seemingly ageless stone, a backdrop of history with the modern elements never quite overpowering it. Back here, the museum’s lifeblood ran through painted concrete corridors lit by harsh fluorescent lights. There was no clash of decoration because there was no decoration.
Farther on, beyond an old-fashioned steel gate, was one of the massive freight elevators that helped the place run smoothly. They were constantly in use during the day, carting supplies between floors as one traveling exhibit was broken down and another constructed. At night, with the massive building quiet, Theo could catch a ride straight to her floor.
She could hear chattering in the distance as she closed the grate of the freight elevator. Theo pressed the button for the top floor—the artists’ loft—and breathed a slight sigh of relief as the doors closed before any groups could join her. She felt a twinge at the selfishness, but she was also fairly sure that if she got stuck in an elevator with a donor, she’d wind up accidentally getting her department defunded.
The elevator rose and rose and rose. The gates on each level were closed but the doors beyond them were open, and Theo caught glimpses of the museum coming sluggishly to life as she climbed upward. The Columbian was like an iceberg: ninety percent of it went unseen. She spotted scenery painters, robotics technicians, document preservation specialists, and an associate professor of botany arguing with a man who was wheeling a giant stuffed gorilla into Oversized Taxidermy.
A couple of people waved or nodded as she went past. Theo responded in kind. After eight years as a volunteer and employee at the museum, she knew many of the behind-the-scenes people. They were families and societies unto themselves.
The upper workshops of the Columbian had been chipped out of several combined spaces long after the rest of the building had been completed, and the loft was twenty feet high on one wall and thirteen feet on the other. Small skylights on the angled roof could let in sunlight, but in the middle of the night they were like black mirrors. Two windows, each covered with steel bars to prevent anyone accidentally going skydiving, gave the loft a bisected view of the lake shore.
The room itself had been pulled, rather awkwardly, into the twenty-first century. Deep blue carpeting and slightly paler paint covered the hundred-year-old wood and plaster. Small offices lined each side of the aerie, filled with mismatched pieces of old furniture and displaying whiteboards with schedules and sketches pinned up around them. The rest of the space was taken up by a loose assortment of half-height cubicle walls surrounding messy workspaces. The cubes themselves overflowed with cartoons, reference pictures, personal touches, and the other things that the members liked to see. Papers, fliers, and Post-It notes were plastered an inch deep on the walls.
She liked the loft. Jokes and sarcastic commentary bounced from person to person, designers trading tips and artists criticizing one another’s technique. If a new hire was likely to clash with the existing ones, it became obvious in the busy communal atmosphere.
Visitors often expected an old-fashioned artist’s studio, but the world of graphic design these days was high-tech. Digitizing tablets and flatscreen monitors filled most of the cubicles, each setup boasting the latest editions of Photoshop, Illustrator, and Corel Painter. But the Columbian had all kinds of artists on staff, and many of the large cubicles had desks jammed up against the dividers to make room for easels and art boards.
Theo’s own station, its dividing walls no higher than her chest, was one of the largest and closest to the door: a benefit of seniority, but sometimes bad for her concentration. A digital knight in armor rode back and forth across her monitor, carrying a banner that read Welcome to the Art Department!
A photograph of her parents, grandparents, and siblings was p
ropped up next to the monitor, displayed in a worn Disneyland frame and looking like an ad for an insurance company that Cared About You. She was in the middle with her grandma Dora, just as awkward at fourteen as she was at twenty-seven. With her hooded green eyes and strong jaw, she took after Grandma, but having the two of them together in the photograph created a strange effect she wasn’t sure she liked.
The rest of the cubicle at least pretended to be professional. Her calendar had every hour of every day blocked out for various projects. Next to her desk sat a small file cabinet, each drawer labeled and locked. It actually contained her secret stash of Top Gear and Car and Driver, silent testament to a hobby she could never afford, but nobody had to know that. Stacked on top of it were the Atlas of Human Anatomy, a pamphlet on Tuscany left over from a previous exhibit, Gardiner’s Egyptian Grammar, and a reference book about leatherworking. The carpet was protected by a plastic drop cloth, and her easel displayed a half-finished painting.
She liked digital. It had an Undo button, for starters, which in real life was a palette knife and a lot of cursing. But for something like this, a mural being created for an exhibition of the Columbian’s own, doing it old-school was important to her.
Plus, it looked better for the donors.
Humming, Theo dropped her uncomfortable shoes and kicked them under the desk. She ducked down behind the low cubicle wall and opened a desk drawer, pulling out a pair of jeans and a button-down shirt. It was the work of moments to slide into the jeans and whip the dress off over her head. Shirt, smock, hair in a bun, dress into the desk. No point in wasting expensive paint by getting it on her good clothes.
The design she was working on would become the final mural for the new Egyptian exhibit. It would be a…well, she didn’t consider anything her masterpiece, but there was something in it that made it special. Normally she worked on it in the dedicated studio area, but she’d had to bring the design out into the open for the donors to see. Hopefully they would like it. If only she could make it something worth being liked.
Painter of the Dead (Shades of Immortality Book 1) Page 2
