THE NIGHT AFTER JANE’S FUNERAL, Karl was scheduled to give a talk at the St. James Church in Watertown on Route 16, just past Mount Auburn Cemetery, in the part of town known as Little Armenia. Phil Kohl, who was staying with the Lamberg-Karlovskys, accompanied him. Karl spoke with his usual gravitas, and the effectiveness of his talk was aided by the pictures he had brought of life at the dig. He clicked through the images and paused on one. Jane was in the photo.
Karl stopped talking. He looked at the crowd. Phil was startled: Karl was tearing up.
Karl continued on with his talk as if nothing was wrong. But Phil could tell he was still choking up. How do you interpret a guy crying, he would ask himself, still, years later. Do you see that as genuine? Is it because he’s guilty of some nefarious act? Was it a performance?
That moment would remain for Phil an encapsulation of something—like the red ochre—that was perfectly ambiguous. A symbol that could be read a dozen different ways.
“You could give a negative interpretation of that if you so desired, I suppose,” Phil would later reflect, but “I think that the most likely explanation is the overt explanation: that he genuinely felt sorry. That they were genuine tears. It was a genuine feeling of regret.”