The Book of Illumination (20 page)

The abbot nodded almost imperceptibly.

“I’m trying to help, here,” I continued.

“For which we are most grateful,” said the young monk, glancing anxiously at his abbot, who remained impassive. The Irish was something like
Your bounty is as the plenty of the fish of the sea
, but I got the general idea.

“Why don’t we sit down,” I suggested, trying to gauge just how friendly things were going to get. I had my answer when I saw the abbot pull himself up to a sterner and more erect posture. The young monk sucked in a deep breath, obviously fearing the worst.

“All right,” I said. “I get it. You don’t want to deal with me. That’s fine. I hope I’ll hear back from a friend of mine soon, and then maybe—”

“Who is he?” the abbot demanded.

“The person you called,” the young monk explained.

“He’s a monsignor,” I said proudly. “Monsignor Francis Xavier Dolan of the Diocese of Cleveland. We’re old friends.”

The abbot looked suspicious. He probably found it hard to believe that any legitimate member of the Church’s Royal Family would have much to do with the likes of me. Apart from forgiving my sins, that is, of which I’m sure he assumed I had many.

Well, I do. Who doesn’t?

Like the answer to a heavenly petition I hadn’t yet had time to compose, my cell phone rang.

So there
, I thought, letting it ring a second time for effect.
Ha!

“Anza!” came the voice of my old pal, the now-monsignor. “What a nice surprise!”

I activated the speakerphone and tried, but not too hard, to wipe the smug expression off my face.

“Father Fran,” I said warmly. People call him Monsignor Dolan now, but to me he’ll always be Father Fran. I’d tried to call him Monsignor once, just after he got the promotion, but he swatted that away like a pesky fly.

“How are you, dear?” he asked. “And how’s the young man? What is he now, three? Four?”

“Five,” I said. “We’re great. Really great. Anyway, I know you’re busy.”

“Not for you, my dear,” he said. “I’m never too busy for you. What’s on your mind?”

I took a deep breath and glanced at the monks. “I’m here with a couple of … friends. An abbot and a monk. From the twelfth century.”

“More ghosts?” asked Father Fran.

That got their attention.

“How did you know?” I asked.

“Because it’s the only time you ever call me.”

“I know. I’m awful. I’m sorry!” I said. “But do you have a couple of minutes?”

“I have exactly twelve minutes before I have to get onto a conference call with Bishop Zuchowski. Fire away.”

“Okay,” I said. “First of all, since I called you ‘Father Fran,’ I’m not sure they believe that I really am talking to a monsignor. Could you clear that up for me?”

“Have you got me on speaker?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

He launched in, in Latin. He couldn’t hear the monks, but they could certainly hear him. Within minutes they were answering him in Latin, joined across the centuries in some kind of conversation, followed by an antiphonal prayer that was as familiar to the monks as it was to the monsignor in Cleveland. There were bob-bings and bowings and eyes closing and a few soft knocks with fists over their hearts. Their eyes were damp and their expression faraway when silence returned to the room.

“How was that?” Father Fran asked.

“Great,” I answered.

“Good,” he said. “Is that all?”

“No. The thing is, they don’t want to deal with me.”

“Well, it would be hard for them,” he explained kindly. “That kind of thing—a straightforward relationship between a young woman and a monk, much less an abbot—it just wouldn’t have been done. They probably entered the order as young boys.”

“I know,” I said, “and I understand all that, but the thing is, we’ve got something pretty big going on here, and they’ll only share what they know with … someone like you. Or someone
above
you. You’re not going to be in Boston anytime soon, are you?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Do you know anyone here? Somebody I could call?”

“Hmmm,” he said. “Let me give that some thought. I’ll have Rosemary get back to you.”

“Is that your assistant?” I asked, and when he replied that it was, out slipped, “Oh, joy.”

I was mortified, but he burst out laughing. “I know, I know,” he said. “But she’s a good soul. Besides, you wouldn’t believe how many calls I get now. I couldn’t have someone like
you
answering the phone!”

This made me laugh, because he was right. I’d have his waiting
room filled to bursting with sad sacks and hopeless causes, all wanting to bend his ear about something or other. In other words, people like me.

“Thanks so much,” I said. “I really appreciate this.”

“Anytime, dear. Can they still hear me?”

I looked at the monks. They nodded. “Yes,” I said.

“Now you listen to me, you two,” said Father Fran. “This young woman has a heart of gold. She’s been awfully good to me, and even better to Holy Mother Church.”

I thought he was gilding the lily a bit, but I wasn’t about to interrupt.

“So I don’t want to hear about any more nonsense. I know I can rely on you to treat her with the respect she deserves. She’s a person you can trust.”

I was embarrassed now and staring at the floor. Father Fran and I said our good-byes and ended the call. I looked up.

Rather than treat me with the respect I deserved, much less trust me, the monks had flown the coop. And in the spot where they had just been standing stood Sylvia.

I was surprised that their hasty departure hadn’t at least messed up her hair. Sensing that she had just missed an occurrence of some importance, she asked, “What’s going on?”

“Oh,” I whispered wearily, “nothing much.”

V
OICES AND LOW
laughter spilled out of the bindery and into the basement hall. Sylvia shot me a puzzled glance. I shrugged. We stepped inside to discover Chandler at the central table, showcasing his current work in progress: an early-edition piano score by Rachmaninoff, with handwritten notes by the composer in the margins. Sam was peering at something Chandler was pointing out on the manuscript.

With him was a man I didn’t recognize. He was on the tall side, in his late fifties or early sixties, and he wore a suit so beautifully tailored that it had to have been made for him. His shirt was of the whitest white and his tie an elegant stripe of silver and cranberry. The silver matched his hair, which was fairly long, and his cheeks boasted a tinge of the tie’s cranberry, which I decided to attribute to a brisk, recent walk through the cool autumn air, and not a fondness for gin with his noonday meal.

“Sylvia!” Sam said. “We were wondering where you were!”

Chandler, deflated by our sudden appearance, didn’t seem to have been wondering. He looked as though he wished we would just go back to wherever we came from.

A flush rose to Sylvia’s cheeks, and I would have liked to have been able to say:
No
, Sam has no way of knowing that we were just talking about him and
no
, you did not betray him by telling me about Ben.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. I’m sure she meant to convey delight and warmth, but it didn’t come out that way.

“Well, we had to have our annual lunch at Locke-Ober’s,” Sam explained. “It wouldn’t be a trip to Boston without a bowl of JFK’s lobster stew, would it, Jim?”

“Certainly not,” the man said amiably. He had a posh British accent.

“James Wescott,” he went on, extending his hand warmly, first to Sylvia, and then to me.

“Oh!” replied Sylvia. It came out like a strangled little cry. As she glanced anxiously between Wescott, Sam, and Chandler, I tried to provide her with a little time to collect herself.

I introduced myself and asked, “How was Vermont?”

This appeared to startle the well-dressed man. He didn’t respond immediately.

“Oh, maybe I’ve got the wrong person,” I said, feigning confusion. “I’m sorry.” I glanced at Sam for help. “When we all had lunch on Saturday, with Julian …”

“Julian Rowan,” Sam clarified, apparently for James.

“Oh!” James said, smiling. “That’s right! Julian
is
here, isn’t he?”

“Boston College,” Sam said.

“Yes, of course!” This seemed to delight the Brit. My, he was a chipper fellow.

“We were talking,” I went on, “about someone—I
thought
his name was James—who was at the British Museum.”

“That’s right,” Sam confirmed. “You’ve got it right; that’s this James.”

Beside him, the handsome Brit beamed and nodded.

At last recovering her footing, Sylvia stepped in.

“You mentioned in your letter,” she said, addressing Wescott, “that you might go up to Vermont. After you were finished with the Harvard conference. I used to work with Finny Winslow. We wrote to you last winter about that illuminated manuscript that he had.”

Miraculously, I thought, Chandler’s phone began to ring, and he stepped away to answer it. I wondered if the monks were trying to give us a hand by stirring up a little electrical distraction, but no, we’d just gotten lucky. Chandler sunk into a sullen conversation with the person on the other end.

“Yes, yes, of course! I remember now!” James said, nodding. “Did you ever get to the bottom of that?”

“Not yet,” Sylvia responded.

“It’s not
here
, is it?” James asked, his eyes widening. “I would just love to have a look at it.”

Sylvia cleared her throat and then said firmly, “No. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure
where
it is these days.”

No!
I thought.
Don’t tell him it’s missing!

But on she went, calmly. “The executor’s not exactly—how should I put it?—well, books just aren’t his thing. There was some
confusion
, after he took over, about whether that particular title was one of the ones he sent over here with the rest of Finny’s collection. I assumed it would be, naturally, but when the time came for me to log it in …” She paused and shrugged.

Wow. That was good. She hadn’t even lied.

“So, you work for the Athenaeum?” James asked her. “I’m a little confused.”

“I’m a freelancer. I’m rebinding much of the Winslow Collection. Anza’s a bookbinder, too. She’s helping me. There’s a dedicated fund; it was established before Mr. Winslow died. I’m just working out of here until the job is done.”

“I see,” James said. “A shame about that manuscript, though. Is there a chance he might have sold it?”

“I suppose he could have,” Sylvia responded. “And one of his daughters, who lives out in the Berkshires, took some of the books. I mean, he gave them to her. I wasn’t close to his children, and toward the end, when he was very ill, there were a lot of family members in and out. You know what happens, when things get to that point.”

“The vultures descend,” Sam said sharply.

Sylvia nodded sadly.

I wondered what Sam was making of all this. He knew that the book had been stolen, and he knew that Sylvia was if not exactly
lying
to his old friend James Wescott, then at least obscuring the truth.

But what was she supposed to do, with Chandler right here? It was Sam who’d put her in this difficult position. Then again, he probably just missed the companionship of his former colleagues, and the familiarity of the bindery, where he’d spent much of his professional life. They’d been just down the street having lunch at Locke-Ober, we’d been talking about James during our lunch on Saturday, and probably on impulse, Sam had decided to bring him by. He probably didn’t stop to think it all through.

“Oh well, I imagine it’ll resurface one of these days,” James said reassuringly. “They always do.”

Not always
, I thought.

There was a moment of awkward silence. Turning to me, James skillfully restarted the conversation.

“To answer your question, Vermont was magnificent! They tell me the leaves were a little dull this year, but from what was still left on the trees, I can’t imagine their being any more spectacular.”

“Where were you?” I asked, grateful that we were now onto a
neutral subject. I suddenly pictured James Wescott in a Vermont commune, beginning to remove his remarkable suit.

“Near Woodstock,” he replied, and to the strange, spontaneous commune image, my brain now added mud, a beard, The Who, and a bong.

Not
that
Woodstock
, I said to myself.