March, 2016
Pau, France
Zari
Zari had finished a freelance job that evening, building a website for an organic cosmetics company based in San Francisco. Now she sat in the dark, clicking link after link on her laptop, combing through the archives of auction houses in search of unsigned Renaissance-era portraits painted in the Flemish style. It had become a habit. And it was needle-in-a-haystack ridiculousness, she knew. But she was fueled by a buzz of anticipation, a searing curiosity, and—most of all—desperation.
It could be worse, she told herself. I could be up all night watching cat videos.
The refrigerator hummed in the tiny kitchen. She got up and flicked on the kitchen light, rummaging in the cupboards for a teacup and a packet of crackers. Waiting for the kettle to boil, she stared at the photo taped to the refrigerator. It was a selfie she and Wil had taken in front of the cabin at Christmas. Their cheeks and noses were pink from cold. Her head was tucked under his chin, and they both looked radiantly happy.
If Zaragoza hadn’t ended so badly, she probably would have another adorable selfie to tape alongside this one. Instead, Zari could barely remember saying goodbye to Wil when she boarded her train back to San Sebastián. Both of them had been dazed, nauseous, sallow-faced wrecks at the time.
She poured boiling water over a chamomile tea bag, watching the steam rise from the cup. Now Wil was in Indonesia on a sourcing trip, searching for reclaimed teak wood to use in his furniture design business. Soon after returning from that trip, he would head to Croatia with Filip. The connection Zari had made between Filip and her brother’s disabled friend had blossomed quickly into a friendship. For the first time since his accident, Filip was preparing for an adventure again, and Wil would be at his side.
All of this travel meant that the conference in Bordeaux—two months away—was the next time she would see Wil. Zari traced a fingertip over their smiling faces in the photo. She felt completely at ease with him, absolutely herself. She had never longed for someone so hungrily before, which exhilarated her. But the aching loneliness she experienced when they were apart was terrifying. It made her feel trapped, locked into something she had no control over.
Tears blurred her vision and she blinked them angrily away. She had never been much of a crier. She became an expert at tamping down her emotions during the long years of fighting between her parents, and then even more so when her brother Gus struggled with addiction. Yet somehow since Mira and Wil came into her life, tears had become a regular—and irritating—occurrence.
She smiled, tossing her tea bag in the trash. How weird was that? Mira was as real to her as Wil. She had formed a deep attachment to someone who’d been dead for centuries.
Back in her seat, Zari could hear the sounds of her own eyelids lifting and lowering every time she blinked. The familiar shuffling steps of her nocturnal upstairs neighbor made muffled creaking noises overhead. She sighed, rubbed her eyes, and leaned back in her chair. Just a few more clicks, she promised herself.
Maybe ten more.
There was a tremendous crash from above, a heavy, ominous thud that sent the light fixture on the ceiling reverberating, and then—silence.
Zari sprang up. She walked swiftly to the front door, slipped out and climbed the stairs to the floor above. The crash had come from his apartment.
She stood at the door, hesitating, looking up and down the corridor. No one else had come out. She felt foolish for a moment. Then she knocked.
There was complete silence.
She knocked louder. Then called out, “Monsieur! Bonsoir!” She felt somewhat ridiculous saying ‘good evening’ at three in the morning, but nothing else came to mind. “Monsieur!” she called again.
A neighbor poked his head out his door, eyeing her in bleary annoyance. He was tall and pale and wore light-blue pajamas that looked like something Gregory Peck might have sported in a circa-1940 movie.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I heard a loud noise,” she said.
He did not look impressed.
“Very loud. From this apartment.”
The man frowned. He moved out from the doorway, adjusting his pajama top, and came to stand next to her.
“Monsieur Mendieta,” he called, rapping on the door with his knuckles.
There was no response.
Mendieta? He has my mother’s last name. Zari turned the thought over in her mind, staring dumbly at the door, willing it to open.
The man wheeled and headed to his own door again.
“Where are you going?” Zari asked, feeling abandoned.
“To call for help,” he replied over his shoulder.
“We’re getting help, Monsieur Mendieta,” she said through the door. “You’ll be fine. We’re getting help.”
When the paramedics left, after wrestling Monsieur Mendieta onto a stretcher and navigating him down the stairs, they thanked Zari for checking on him. He had collapsed due to dehydration, they said. He was not critically ill or badly hurt by his fall, but they would take him to the hospital anyway and keep him under observation for the night.
“Does he have any relatives?” she asked the neighbor who had first come to her aid. His partner, a sinewy man with russet-brown skin clad in a tank top and running shorts, had emerged from their apartment during the commotion and stood beside him, rubbing his eyes.
“I don’t know.” He turned to his partner. “Have you ever seen any?”
The man shrugged. “No one ever goes in there but him.”
Before they returned to their respective apartments, they introduced themselves and promised to check up on Monsieur Mendieta once he returned home.
The next day was Sunday. Zari slept until noon. When she awoke she set the kettle boiling, fixed a pot of Irish Breakfast, washed her face, and settled back in front of the computer, which still sat open on her desk. She hadn’t shut it down properly last night after Monsieur Mendieta’s crisis. Taking a sip of tea, she scrolled through her e-mails and saw one from an unfamiliar sender with the subject heading “ADL.”
The brief note, accompanied by several attachments, was from a man named Andreas Gutknecht who said he had been in the audience at John Drake’s presentation in Amsterdam last fall. When he saw a painting at auction in London that had the ‘ADL’ stamp on the back of the panel, his interest was piqued. He searched online using the hashtag ‘ADL’ and found Zari’s posts about Mira de Oto on various social media platforms. He concluded the note by wishing Zari luck with her research.
Zari sat up straighter in her chair. She leaned closer to the screen and clicked on the attachments. The first was a small image of a portrait listed in an auction catalog. The subject was a wealthy woman dressed in luminous blue, her hair concealed by a jewel-studded veil. Behind her was a window that was open to a courtyard dominated by a pink brick tower. Zari zoomed in on the accompanying text. The work was oil-on-panel, a circa-1500 portrait of a merchant’s wife. Artist unknown.
The last sentence made her catch her breath: “The reverse side of the panel bears the mark ‘ADL.’”
Zari slid to the very edge of her seat, zooming in on the image until it was a pixelated blur. She adjusted it again and again, trying to get a clear view of the details, of the woman’s eyes.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” she said firmly. “Verify first, celebrate later.”
She drank the entire pot of tea while writing to the auction house, explaining her interest and requesting access to high-quality digital images of the painting.
Then she began typing an e-mail to John Drake, hesitated, and hit ‘cancel.’ In just a few days she would see him in St. Jean de Luz. They would have ample time to discuss this new find—unless she had a major surfing wipeout and was sucked under the waves to a watery grave. It had been years since she’d climbed on a surfboard.
It’s like riding a bike, she told herself, attempting to dislodge the pit of worry in her stomach. Your body will remember what to do. Trust it.