1

“The collection is this way.”

His tone was dry and not particularly welcoming. Standing before her in the parlor, he gave her the chills. His gray reptilian eyes showed no emotion, and his long face seemed cut from ivory. His right hand was sunk deep in the pocket of his night-blue blazer and refused to budge—not even to greet her.

George Gaudin had been Edmond Magni’s personal assistant until a week ago, when, somewhere in Peru, Magni had mysteriously dropped dead—for the second time in Marion’s life.

The first time, her mother was the one to announce the news. “He died in a plane crash,” she had told Marion. It was a lie. In truth, her husband had abandoned his family and his given name, Jean Spicer, and had assumed a new identity.

From the age of three, Marion had gotten by without him, believing all those years that her father was dead, without so much as a photo to cling to. Not a single picture of him could be found in their home. And every time she asked her mother to share a story, an anecdote, a memory, the woman would retreat into a silence or fly into a fit that could only be remedied if she isolated herself in her bedroom and slept.

Marion stopped asking questions.

Now, thirty-three years later, out of the blue, an executor had informed her that her father hadn’t been dead all those years. He had just made a new life for himself, and she would be inheriting—among other things—one of the greatest collections of pre-Columbian art in the world, valued at over forty million euros. Of course, the inheritance had certain stipulations. Nothing came that easy for Marion.

Gaudin crept to the other end of the room and gestured for her to follow. She had hoped to linger in the immense space. Perhaps it would rouse the memory of a scent, an image, a feeling of déjà-vu—anything to fill the void. But she couldn’t find the slightest personal connection.

She hadn’t seen so many in one place since watching Barry Lyndon in a Stanley Kubrick retrospective. She surveyed the Louis XV-style furniture with its Rococo curves, the brocade fabrics, the brass, the redwood marquetry, the Boulle-work drawers, the Venetian mirrors, and the chandeliers dripping pendants of rock crystal.

A world so unlike her humble childhood.

“This way.”

The assistant’s directive dripped with arrogance.

Without any further formalities, he disappeared behind a copper-colored silk wall hanging. She followed and discovered a reinforced door that opened to a narrow staircase. She hurried down the steps just as the door closed behind her. It made surprisingly little noise, considering its weight.

Marion stopped at the bottom of the stairs. The space was cold and devoid of light, sound, colors, and smells. She peered into the darkness. It seemed like an unknown abyss, and she had the disturbing sensation that she was being watched.

Gaudin flicked on the lights. A shiver traveled up Marion’s spine, and she gasped. In the faint illumination provided by the bulbs, literally hundreds of clay sculptures and vessels took shape. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were lined with odd-looking creatures. Some had hollow eyes, stunted bodies, and swollen arms and legs. Many looked sickly and tormented. They stared at her with lifeless eyes.

Marion’s mouth went dry, and her legs began to shake. Eventually she inched closer and examined the sculptures one by one. She knew that some of the pieces were pre-Incan portrait vases. She had never cared for these indigenous works. And in such large numbers, she found them disturbing. Certainly there was nothing aesthetically pleasing about the frozen assembly of cripples in this place.

A second room was equally disquieting, filled as it was with oversized phalluses and female genitalia in every possible position and depiction—pimple-covered erections, clitoris-shaped noses, pumas copulating with toads, skeletal women being sodomized. By the looks of it, Magni had relished the world of sexual obsession. Marion just stared at the impassive expressions on the faces of the silent participants.

“Thousands of years, and these bodies are still here for us to see and touch. Isn’t that fascinating?” Gaudin said from behind her.

Marion didn’t respond. She could barely breathe. This space was a shrine to her father’s obscenity, negotiated at the cost of gutted tombs and stolen memories. And for what? A dark and irrational desire to claim ownership over the souls of the dead? An attempt to give them a second life? Or to extend his own? Was he afraid of something? Or of someone?

Gaudin appeared to take her silence as an invitation to continue. He picked up a female figure and weighed it in his hands.

“Here we have the likeness of a poor woman condemned for her sexual transgressions. Her mind and body are withered away,” he said in a clearly feigned tone of compassion. “Debauchery, depravity—this is how she’s immortalized.”

“That’s your opinion,” Marion replied harshly. “We don’t know enough about these early civilizations to make such judgments. And we certainly don’t know anything about her.”

“Does it matter? These objects are loved for the imagery they arouse, not necessarily for their raison d’être, which no longer exists in any case.”

“Whose fault is that? If they hadn’t been stolen and hidden away from the world like this, maybe we’d know a bit more about the people who created them.”

“A woman of morals,” Gaudin snickered. “I can’t believe Magni entrusted his collection with someone so naïve.”

He started to walk away before she could respond. “Let’s go. The tour isn’t over yet. I wager you’ll be convinced by the end of it.”

Her jaw clenched, Marion followed him into the last room.

“Here we are. The Holy of Holies,” the assistant said with feverish eyes. “Here we have the most beautiful pieces in the world.”

Marion’s tension dissolved as she gazed at the room while her tour guide swooped from one breathtaking piece to the next. The floor was covered with intricate lapis lazuli inlays. Soft lights in the showcases illuminated gold metalwork here and a shimmering serpentine mask there. The collection, nearly thirty pieces altogether, was shockingly beautiful. This was nothing like the wild assortment in the first two rooms. Perhaps Magni had become more selective over the years.

“But why? Why such a radical change?” she asked.

“Because all connoisseurs’ tastes evolve when they no longer give into the same impulses.”

“He could have sold his less valuable pieces. Why did he keep them?”

“They made him who he was. They were his questions, his answers, his qualms. They were his memories. They kept him on track. Having them around reminded him of why he was different.”

“Different?”

“He wasn’t like other collectors. Most are in it for the prestige, or they’re trying to forget where they came from—some are people with no families of note who want to create a new kind of lineage through their acquisitions.”

“And what was he after?” she asked as she approached a mask with both shaman and jaguar-like features.

“You have to get closer, much closer. Probe the object, smell it, imagine what lies beneath,” Gaudin whispered in her ear.

She swiftly slid away from him.

“Look at it. Such expression, such power in the design. This jade—a mineral harder than steel—was sculpted with ancient tools. Can you imagine?”

“You haven’t answered my question. What was Magni’s goal?”

“His goal? Ah yes, his goal,” Gaudin repeated indifferently. “I could tell you that he wanted to know everything, that he wanted to examine continuities and variations in style. Hmm, what else? That he had a need to replace something that he lost, maybe something that wasn’t there in the first place. Mademoiselle, collecting is a form of lust. There’s a burning desire. It’s not something you can explain in so many words.”

So Magni was no different from other collectors. Marion sighed and turned her attention to Gaudin. He was patronizing her. She couldn’t quite figure him out. Although ghost-like and guarded upstairs, he was an entirely different animal underground. The basement aroused him. Now he was animated, and his body language was exaggerated. He was scary, like the figures in the first room. It was as if the sculptures and their protector were fused together. It made her think of Indonesian headhunters harnessing their enemy’s life force through preserved heads.

“Let’s go back upstairs,” she suggested abruptly. “I have to show you some photographs. They’re in the living room.”

“What photographs?”

“The three sculptures I need to find.”

“Three?” he said with a hint of worry in his voice, as if the number were more important than the sculptures themselves.

“You are well aware of the provisions of the will, aren’t you?”

“The estate attorney mentioned something, yes, but he didn’t specify a number.”

“Three, eight, ten. What’s the difference? Either way, I’m in a bind. No sculptures, no inheritance.”

~ ~ ~

Gaudin sat down on a caramel-colored velvet couch. Behind him was a pink marble fireplace with a fluted surround. There wasn’t the trace of an ember in the hearth.

“He hated the sound of wood crackling in a fireplace,” Gaudin said.

“He must have been the only person in the world.”

“I never liked it either.”

Ignoring his reply, she picked up her bag, which had been lying on the floor next to a large parquet table, handed him the three photos, and sat down in a chair across from him. It was as plush as the cushion lining a jewelry box. She exhaled at last. Gaudin could act cross if he wanted; it was more comfortable up here. But the instant she looked over at him she was struck by his alarmed state. His forehead was covered with sweat as he stared at the photos in his lap.

“What is it?” she asked, shifting in her seat.

Gaudin slowly straightened up, and she caught a not-so-reassuring glimmer in his eyes.

“What?” she insisted.

“I didn’t know he was looking for them,” he finally said.

Marion got up from her chair and moved to a closer one.

“Do you recognize them?”

He nodded.

“They’re exceptional pieces from northern Peru.” Gaudin cleared his throat before adding, “Very rare, from the Piura region. And they still have their emerald ornamentation. Tomb raiders usually sell the gems separately.”

“So you’ve seen them before? Do you know where they are?”

“They were put up for auction three years ago. It was in June.”

“Why didn’t Magni acquire them then?”

“He’s the one who sold them.”

“I don’t understand.” Marion stood up and started pacing in front of the couch. “I was told that I needed to lay my hands on three sculptures. The attorney didn’t say that Magni once owned them. I thought you said he saved everything, that he never let go of a single sculpture.”

“That’s true.”

“Except for these three. He could have sold others without you knowing.”

“Those were the only ones.”

“So why’d he sell them?”

Gaudin didn’t respond. Avoiding eye contact, he crossed and uncrossed his legs.

“Who was the auctioneer that handled the sale?” Marion finally asked, her voice rising.

“I don’t remember.”

“Of course you don’t.”

Marion sat down again and thought for a few moments.

“Do you happen to know who bought them?”

“The buyers remained anonymous. They can do that at auctions.”

“Do you think I’m new to this? Of course they can, but when you want something, you find it,” she said, staring at the personal assistant until he look at her.

“You have no idea who bought them?” she asked.

“No.”

“When did Magni initially purchase them?”

“In January of the same year.”

“What? He didn’t keep them very long—barely six months. That’s strange, isn’t it, for someone so attached to his artifacts?”

Obviously, Magni wasn’t exactly the man Gaudin was making him out to be.

“And who sold them to him?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Good God, you were his personal assistant.”

“Do you think that made me privy to all his secrets?” he answered in a voice so sharp, Marion was forced to release her glare and look away.

I’ll never get anywhere with this dude, she thought. And I still don’t know anything about my father. Where did his money come from? Did he work? Did he have any friends? The estate attorney had mentioned a stormy relationship with a woman that had lasted ten years. That’s all he could say. And this assistant wasn’t going to be of any help—he was more of a clam, and maybe even a scared clam.

Gaudin was withholding information. She was sure of it. This was going to be a tough match. He had good reason to keep his mouth shut. As long as those three sculptures remained at large, he would be master of the house and owner of everything in it. That was the second provision of the will. Evidently, this collection was also his. After thirty years of serving Magni, Gaudin would not back down so easily. And yet Edmond Magni didn’t designate him as the legatee so the collection could live on. How strange.