Life has to go on. In my mind, I wanted to make fun of myself for thinking in clichés, but yes, really, it does. That is what I had been telling Natalya, and that is the truth. My mind might be fogged with sympathy, and further fogged with my own memories, brought to the surface by Natalya’s tragedy, but Chris still needed meals, my advisor still needed me to edit some pages, and my boss still needed me to be nice to Dr. Flint.
My boss had confirmed this was my job for a few weeks. Maude’s story was still calling me. Chris was yet another puzzle, as usual. And Flint had dashed off another incomprehensible e-mail.
The question wasn’t: Does life go on? The question was: Which puzzle do I work on first? Today it was Dr. Flint’s marching orders.
“At Gwood talk to dr. Reade, use my name. photos no good. MUST HAVE detils. TODAY. Us beter camra. Ryan help. RE ltrs. Getting all about Tf? most crutchel!”
Ryan confirmed this was not a feeble attempt at text speak. It was Dr. Flint’s inability to type.
I gave in to the highest power, looked up a phone number, and called Dr. Reade, noting her title was director of art and history. Not exactly the same as assistant to an assistant. I wasn’t intimidated, not really, but I did start right off with the biggest gun and explained we worked for Dr. Flint. The voice on the phone said, “Give me one moment,” and returned.
“Dr. Reade is extremely busy today, but will make an exception for Dr. Flint’s work. She can spare a few minutes for you after lunch. Say, one-thirty?” She explained how to find the office, I took notes, and then I went back to my work. Later, I glanced over at what Ryan was doing, and then looked again.
He was cataloguing and digitizing the fat file of working sketches. Maude had drawn the same object from different angles, and in different colors. Some were pencil; some were watercolors. Most were easily recognized Tiffany designs, the flowers and butterflies and peacocks that said Tiffany anywhere, but today the designs up on the screen were a little different. They seemed to be forest animals. A graceful deer, a wild turkey, something furry that might be an otter or a beaver. It looked as if she wasn’t sure and was trying out both. I thought they looked oddly familiar, even though they were not Tiffany’s signature designs.
“You wait right here. Leave them up.”
I scrambled through the stacks of books on my shared desk to find the one I had used at Green-Wood and borrowed from the museum library. There it was, the Hudson River scene from the Konick chapel. And under leaves on the shore, there was a family of turkeys and deer peeping out.
“Look at this! This is what I saw the other day. Look familiar?”
Ryan’s eyes opened up wide and we shared a real smile. I think it was the first smile I’d seen on his face.
“The boss is going to love this. That is freaking cool. You sure it’s the same?”
“Ah, no. Not sure. The angles are different, and then this is so small. Are there any dates on the sketch? I’d like to see if we can match it up with anything in the letters.”
“No, no dates. She numbered them when they were a series, but that’s it. “
“You know what we need to do?”
He nodded. “Field trip. Go see those windows for real, sketches in hand.”
“How convenient, we already have to be there later. Let’s go do this now. Pack up the sketches and for God’s sake, do it carefully.”
He gave me the same look Chris would have. The one that says, “Thanks for the advice, cause I’m an idiot who would have done it badly otherwise.” He didn’t say it though. I’m his boss, sort of, not his mom.
The subway to the cemetery is one of the slower locals. It is slow, but that gave us more time to discuss what we needed to do. Ryan was carefully clutching the envelope of sketches the whole way. Good. An ounce of paranoia prevents a ton of problems. That was an old saying I made up on the spot.
I remembered how to find the Konick chapel, but Ryan couldn’t resist a little sightseeing, and we had enough time to make our walk a leisurely one. And I couldn’t resist a little sharing.
When I pointed out the elaborate chapel, and told him it was available for weddings, he said, “A wedding at a cemetery? That is so awesome,” and he took off, camera phone ready.
Walking briskly I soon found myself walking up Battle Path, which is not a fanciful name. An early battle of the American Revolution had been fought and lost here, the one when Washington famously said, “What brave men I must lose today.” I knew some of them were buried right here where they fell, long before it was a cemetery.
And there was Ryan, waiting for me at the foot of the impressive bronze memorial to the fallen soldiers. I touched his arm and pointed. “Look out over there. This is a statue of Minerva and she’s saluting her sister, the Statue of Liberty, out in the harbor.”
“Minerva, huh? That seems right. It’s the Roman name for Athena, the goddess of war and civic life, both.”
I must have looked surprised because he flushed and said, “Mythology comes up a lot in the comic-book world.”
“Okay. Now move your mind from Mt. Olympus to a Brooklyn factory. This statue was the dream project of Charles Higgins, who made a fortune manufacturing India ink.”
“No way! I used that ink a million times. Funny, you never think about if there was a real Higgins. India ink built this goddess? That’s kind of…I don’t know…”
“Yeah. Incongruous? And how surprised do you think those colonial solders would be, if they could see this great big golden statue built in their memory? They were simple men, mostly—farmers and tradesmen.”
We looked around, finding it hard to move on. The view was seriously spectacular. We could see out over a mile or two of city streets, right across to the water and the great harbor. The endless space of the sky and the water brought with it a kind of peace. If there were ghosts—and I don’t for a minute believe in them—the colonial solders had quite a view of the city they helped create. They were indeed resting in peace, I hoped. Ryan sighed deeply.
One more bend in the path and a slight walk downhill brought us to the crumbling building I had visited the other day. We went up the front steps, stepped carefully over the broken marble, and looked at the massive closed bronze door. I pushed it, gently at first, and then harder, but it did not budge. When Ryan stepped in behind me, and leaned in, it still didn’t move. This time, it was locked up tight.
“I don’t get it. It was open the other day. We can’t do our job if we can’t get in. Damn. We’ll take it up with this Dr. Reade, that’s what we’ll do. Let’s see how far Dr. Flint’s name really takes us!”
I didn’t know if Ryan got the sarcasm but I thought I saw a tiny spark in his eyes.
“I’m exploring anyway, now that we’re here.” He went around to the other side, where we could see the massive main window, the small side window, and the boarded-up area. Meant to be seen with sunlight coming through, on the outside they were a blur of dull colors and grime.
“If I climbed up that fence, I’d be high enough to look in.”
“What? No, you can’t do that! The fence doesn’t look any too sturdy, you could get hurt or you could damage it. Either way, it would be…”
I should have saved my breath. He was already pulling up to the top of the wrought-iron fence.
“Ya, I can see in.”
“Is it useful?”
“Nope, windows are too dark and dirty. Complete waste.” He leaped off the fence, landing neatly on his feet with no obvious damage.
I repeated to myself that I was not his mother and there was nothing I should say.
We turned toward the admin building, discussing what we wanted to say to Nancy Reade. And how to say it appropriately. I explained carefully to Ryan that showing the exasperation we both felt would not get us results, no matter how satisfying it would be to express it. Good advice that I gave myself. I needed to be the one setting a good example. Even if I didn’t want to.
I led us toward the entrance. As we walked along I pointed out a gravestone to Ryan. “Did you grow up in New York? If you did, you should stop here and say thank you to this ghost.”
He looked at the name, and baffled, said out loud, “Frederick Augustus Schwartz?” and then, “Hey, I get it. It’s F. A. O. Schwartz?”
“The very one. He brought a lot of joy to a lot of generations of New York kids, including my own. There’s another ghost over there, though I guess he was responsible for equal amounts of joy and despair in Brooklyn.”
“Carl Ebbets. Ebbets Field? That Ebbets? The Dodgers?”
“Before my time, of course—it’s always been the Ebbets Field housing project to me—but my dad used to tell me about it.”
And how odd was I becoming anyway, to be sightseeing in a cemetery?
Yet I was not alone. Though I assumed this was an off-hour of an off-day, to my right were a few people laying flowers at a clean new stone, reminding me that this was still a working cemetery as well as a place of history, and to my left a group of young people walked, stopping to take notes, while an older man talked and gestured. A class, obviously.
We were still too early for our appointment so we went into the tiny, crowded shop. Ryan announced he would be back and purchased a map. He blushed when he spoke to the cute young girl at the register. Lord, he was so young. His aggressive style of clothing made me forget that.
I already knew there was nothing there I both needed and could afford, so I merely watched.
Some of the student group were perusing the art history books, discussing Upjohn and LaFarge and neo-Gothic styles. Some of the tourists were looking over the guidebooks, debating which ones offered the best photos. “Bernstein,” one older woman said firmly, “I must have one of Leonard Bernstein’s grave.”
The very young girl at the register looked overwhelmed.
Ryan had gone outside and now a young man was in heated conversation with the salesclerk. He looked like an ordinary young man, medium height and stocky. He had stylishly gelled hair, dark jeans and t-shirt and sneakers neither especially trendy nor especially sloppy. He looked familiar; I thought I had seen him here before. He did not look like a weasel but he sounded like a one. I couldn’t quite hear the words, but I heard the tone—pushy and wheedling. I could tell he was annoying her, perhaps trying to get a phone number.
I stepped up with an extremely firm, “Excuse me. I need to complete my purchases.” It was my look that said, “If you aren’t buying, get the hell out of my way, idiot.”
He stepped aside and she threw me a grateful smile while she rang up the random postcards I had snatched up. A few of the students were now right behind me, and there was no space in line for someone loitering.
I joined Ryan and we were off to our meeting. The modern administration building was ground-hugging, set into a low-lying spot on the edge of the property, well planned to not intrude into the historic setting. We were greeted by a security guard at the front desk, signed in, and got visitor badges. It seemed like a lot of security for a cemetery. I wondered if they were plagued by terrorists or criminal gangs looking for drugs? I whispered the thought to Ryan, who appeared to appreciate my snarkiness.
Then we were there at the right office, being greeted by the tall blonde I remembered from my visit with Dr. Flint. She was not as welcoming to us, peons that we were, but she seemed more harassed than hostile.
“I do truly only have a few minutes today, and I stole that from more important problems, but Thomas and I go back a long way. Just what is that he sent you to do?”
“He needs photos of some Tiffany windows. Apparently they are crucial for a presentation he is doing.”
Her look was incredulous. “He wants that? He is such a fussbudget.” Boy, was that the truth.
“I was here with him a few days ago and one of the buildings he wanted to see—the Konick chapel? Or is it mausoleum?—was closed, so we skipped that. When he sent me back I was able to get in and took some photos he finds inadequate.”
“As I said, fussbudget.” She sighed.
“So now I am back, with Ryan here, who is his assistant. We found the door locked! Dr. Flint told us to talk to you, so we already had this appointment. And thank you for that, by the way.”
She was a shade paler when I finished, and a shade more frazzled. Her words were poised but her voice was not.
“Ah, the Konick mausoleum. Yes, there was a…a…badly needed repair for one of the windows. In fact, I am dismayed that you were able to get into the building at all. It has been off-limits all week. Give me the time you were there. I must have security find out how that happened.”
She jotted a note on the pad in front of her.
“Was there danger in going inside as I did?” The question was a devious attempt to find out what happened there.
Ryan surprised me by jumping in. “So can we see them or not? I looked at the window from outside but it didn’t mean a thing. One window is gone and I couldn’t see anything of the other. And Dr. Flint especially wanted me to redo the photos because he thinks I know how he likes things…” Ryan trailed off after that last confusing sentence, then came back with, “If you know what I mean. And yes, he is fussy.”
He stopped abruptly, red-faced. It was a long speech for him.
She took a deep breath and said very carefully, “We removed a window because the frame was looking very insecure. We wanted to take care of it before there was real damage to the glass. Or, of course, before someone was hurt. That is all. And no, you cannot have access to it now. We are, um, concerned about the other windows and are testing them for safety.” She swallowed hard and ended, “I am sorry not to oblige Thomas, but that is all. No access until the work is done.”
“When will that be?”
“We do not know. These kinds of things are unpredictable “
I remembered my visit to the stained-glass studio and had an idea. “That missing window? Is it somewhere we could see it? Is it here? Or a local studio? Even is if is down, we could get a look, see what Dr. Flint needs? It would only take a minute.”
She stood up quickly. “That is impossible. And I must ask you to leave now. I already have another meeting scheduled for right now. “
We had no choice but to stand ourselves. Ryan surprised me again. He looked right at her and said, “I still don’t see why someone couldn’t escort us into the mausoleum. We only need a few minutes.” His eyes darted nervously, but he held his ground. I guessed he was more afraid of Flint than of Dr. Reade.
I brought up reinforcements. “We could pass-on your helpfulness to Dr. Flint and he would certainly thank you and any boss you’d care to name.” I smiled, I hope reassuringly.
“Impossible to both requests.” She was shooing us toward her door. With a final smile as fake as any I have ever seen, her last words were, “I am truly sorry.”
We founds ourselves in the corridor, Dr. Reade’s door firmly closed behind us. We walked and talked.
“I don’t get it. And I don’t know what to tell Dr. Flint. He’s, uh, kind of used to getting what he wants.”
“Very strange. Very. I have no idea what’s next. He’ll just have to manage his speech without those details. Do you think they were actually that important?”
“Doubt it. He is a fussbudget, just like the lady said.” Ryan’s voice and expression were equally gloomy. “But he will have a fit.”
“Stop.” I looked up and saw that we were in a strange corridor, nowhere near the lobby as we had intended to be. “We are lost! There’s an exit arrow up ahead.”
We turned, followed the sign, realizing that the building was a circle plan around a small garden and we had gone the long way around. We passed offices relating to the cemetery business, and then offices relating to the historic landmark function. Something that looked like an archive, with steel shelves and acid-free storage boxes. I certainly knew those. And another that was filled with metal files, color-coded. A door that said, Chaplain, a sign pointing to Chapel. Another to Maintenance Services. At last we found ourselves pointed toward the lobby.