Origin (34 page)

While self-park was a standard feature on all Teslas—easily opening garage doors, driving straight in, and turning themselves off—Edmond had proudly hacked his Tesla’s system to enable the more complex route.

All part of the show.

Tonight, the spectacle was considerably stranger. Kirsch was deceased, and yet his
car
had just appeared, moving slowly up Carrer de Provença, continuing across the sidewalk, aligning itself with the elegant garage door, and inching forward as people cleared the way.

Reporters and cameramen rushed to the vehicle, squinting through the heavily tinted windows and shouting in surprise.

“It’s empty! Nobody is driving! Where did it come from?!”

The Casa Milà security guards had apparently witnessed this trick before, and they held people back from the Tesla and away from the garage door as it opened.

For Héctor, the sight of Edmond’s empty car creeping toward its garage conjured images of a bereft dog returning home after losing its master.

Like a ghost, the Tesla made its way silently through the garage door, and the crowd broke into emotional applause to see Edmond’s beloved car, as it had done so many times before, begin its descent down the spiral ramp into Barcelona’s very first subterranean parking facility.

“I didn’t know you were so claustrophobic,” Ambra whispered, lying beside Langdon on the floor of the Tesla. They were crammed into the small area between the second and third row of seats, hidden beneath a black vinyl car cover that Ambra had taken from the cargo area, invisible through the tinted windows.

“I’ll survive,” Langdon managed shakily, more nervous about the self-driving car than his phobia. He could feel the vehicle winding down a steep spiral ramp and feared it would crash at any moment.

Two minutes earlier, while they were double-parked on Carrer de Provença, outside the DANiEL ViOR jewelry shop, Winston had given them crystal-clear directions.

Ambra and Langdon, without exiting the car, had climbed back to the Model X’s third row of seats, and then with the press of a single button on the phone, Ambra had activated the car’s customized self-park feature.

In the darkness, Langdon had felt the car driving itself slowly down the street. And with Ambra’s body pressed against his in the tight space, he could not help but recall his first teenage experience in the backseat of a car with a pretty girl.
I was more nervous back then
, he thought, which seemed ironic considering he was now lying in a driverless car spooning the future queen of Spain.

Langdon felt the car straighten out at the bottom of the ramp, make a few slow turns, and then slide to a full stop.

“You have arrived,” Winston said.

Immediately Ambra pulled back the tarp and carefully sat up, peering out the window. “Clear,” she said, clambering out.

Langdon got out after her, relieved to be standing in the open air of the garage.

“Elevators are in the main foyer,” Ambra said, motioning up the winding driveway ramp.

Langdon’s gaze, however, was suddenly transfixed by a wholly unexpected sight. Here, in this underground parking garage, on the cement wall directly in front of Edmond’s parking space, hung an elegantly framed painting of a seaside landscape.

“Ambra?” Langdon said. “Edmond decorated his parking spot with a
painting
?”

She nodded. “I asked him the same question. He told me it was his way of being welcomed home every night by a radiant beauty.”

Langdon chuckled.
Bachelors.

“The artist is someone Edmond revered greatly,” Winston said, his voice now transferring automatically to Kirsch’s cell phone in Ambra’s hand. “Do you recognize him?”

Langdon did not. The painting seemed to be nothing more than an accomplished watercolor seascape—nothing like Edmond’s usual avant-garde taste.

“It’s Churchill,” Ambra said. “Edmond quoted him all the time.”

Churchill.
Langdon needed a moment to realize she was referring to none other than Winston Churchill himself, the celebrated British statesman who, in addition to being a military hero, historian, orator, and Nobel Prize–winning author, was an artist of remarkable talent. Langdon now recalled Edmond quoting the British prime minister once in response to a comment someone made about religious people hating him:
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something!

“It was the diversity of Churchill’s talents that most impressed Edmond,” Winston said. “Humans rarely display proficiency across such a broad spectrum of activities.”

“And that’s why Edmond named you ‘Winston’?”

“It is,” the computer replied. “High praise from Edmond.”

Glad I asked
, Langdon thought, having imagined Winston’s name was an allusion to Watson—the IBM computer that had dominated the
Jeopardy!
television game show a decade ago. No doubt Watson was probably now considered a primitive, single-celled bacterium on the evolutionary scale of synthetic intelligence.

“Okay, then,” Langdon said, motioning to the elevators. “Let’s head upstairs and try to find what we came for.”

At that precise moment, inside Madrid’s Almudena Cathedral, Commander Diego Garza was clutching his phone and listening in disbelief as the palace’s PR coordinator, Mónica Martín, gave him an update.

Valdespino and Prince Julián left the safety of the compound?

Garza could not begin to imagine what they were thinking.

They’re driving around Madrid in an acolyte’s car? That’s madness!

“We can contact the transportation authorities,” Martín said. “Suresh believes they can use traffic cams to help track—”

“No!” Garza declared. “Alerting
anyone
to the fact that the prince is
outside the palace without security is far too dangerous! His safety is our primary concern.”

“Understood, sir,” Martín said, sounding suddenly uneasy. “There’s something else you should know. It’s about a missing phone record.”

“Hold on,” Garza said, distracted by the arrival of his four Guardia agents, who, to his mystification, strode over and encircled him. Before Garza could react, his agents had skillfully relieved him of his sidearm and phone.

“Commander Garza,” his lead agent said, stone-faced. “I have direct orders to place you under arrest.”

CASA MILÀ IS
built in the shape of an infinity sign—an endless curve that doubles back over itself and forms two undulating chasms that penetrate the building. Each of these open-air light wells is nearly a hundred feet deep, crumpled like a partially collapsed tube, and from the air they resembled two massive sinkholes in the roof of the building.

From where Langdon stood at the base of the narrower light well, the effect looking skyward was decidedly unsettling—like being lodged in the throat of a giant beast.

Beneath Langdon’s feet, the stone floor was sloped and uneven. A helix staircase spiraled up the interior of the shaft, its railing forged of wrought iron latticework that mimicked the uneven chambers of a sea sponge. A small jungle of twisting vines and swooping palms spilled over the banisters as if about to overgrow the entire space.

Living architecture
, Langdon mused, marveling at Gaudí’s ability to imbue his work with an almost biological quality.

Langdon’s eyes climbed higher again, up the sides of the “gorge,” scaling the curved walls, where a quilt of brown and green tiles intermingled with muted frescoes depicting plants and flowers that seemed to be growing up toward the oblong patch of night sky at the top of the open shaft.

“Elevators are this way,” Ambra whispered, leading him around the edge of the courtyard. “Edmond’s apartment is all the way up.”

As they boarded the uncomfortably small elevator, Langdon pictured the building’s top-floor garret, which he had visited once to see the small Gaudí exhibit housed there. As he recalled, the Casa Milà attic was a dark, sinuous series of rooms with very few windows.

“Edmond could live
anywhere
,” Langdon said as the elevator began to climb. “I still can’t believe he leased an
attic
.”

“It’s a strange apartment,” Ambra agreed. “But as you know, Edmond was eccentric.”

When the elevator reached the top floor, they disembarked into an elegant hallway and climbed an additional set of winding stairs to a private landing at the very top of the building.

“This is it,” Ambra said, motioning to a sleek metal door that had no knob or keyhole. The futuristic portal looked entirely out of place in this building and clearly had been added by Edmond.

“You said you know where he hides his key?” Langdon asked.

Ambra held up Edmond’s phone. “The same place where he seems to hide everything.”

She pressed the phone against the metal door, which beeped three times, and Langdon heard a series of dead bolts sliding open. Ambra pocketed the phone and pushed the door open.

“After you,” she said with a flourish.

Langdon stepped over the threshold into a dimly lit foyer whose walls and ceiling were pale brick. The floor was stone, and the air tasted thin.

As he moved through the entryway into the open space beyond, he found himself face-to-face with a massive painting, which hung on the rear wall, impeccably illuminated by museum-quality pin lights.

When Langdon saw the work, he stopped dead in his tracks. “My God, is that … the
original
?”

Ambra smiled. “Yes, I was going to mention it on the plane, but I thought I’d surprise you.”

Speechless, Langdon moved toward the masterpiece. It was about twelve feet long and more than four feet tall—far larger than he recalled from seeing it previously in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
I heard this was sold to an anonymous collector, but I had no idea it was Edmond!

“When I first saw it in the apartment,” Ambra said, “I could not believe that Edmond had a taste for this style of art. But now that I know what he was working on this year, the painting seems eerily appropriate.”

Langdon nodded, incredulous.

This celebrated masterpiece was one of the signature works by French Postimpressionist Paul Gauguin—a groundbreaking painter who epitomized the Symbolist movement of the late 1800s and helped pave the way for modern art.

As Langdon moved toward the painting, he was immediately struck by how similar Gauguin’s palette was to that of the Casa Milà entryway—a blend of organic greens, browns, and blues—also depicting a very naturalistic scene.

Despite the intriguing collection of people and animals that appeared
in Gauguin’s painting, Langdon’s gaze moved immediately to the upper-left-hand corner—to a bright yellow patch, on which was inscribed the title of this work.

Langdon read the words in disbelief:
D’où Venons Nous / Que Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous.

Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

Langdon wondered if being confronted by these questions every day as he returned to his home had somehow helped inspire Edmond.

Ambra joined Langdon in front of the painting. “Edmond said he wanted to be motivated by these questions whenever he entered his home.”

Hard to miss
, Langdon thought.

Seeing how prominently Edmond had displayed the masterpiece, Langdon wondered if perhaps the painting itself might hold some clue as to what Edmond had discovered. At first glance, the painting’s subject seemed far too primitive to hint at an advanced scientific discovery. Its broad uneven brushstrokes depicted a Tahitian jungle inhabited by an assortment of native Tahitians and animals.

Langdon knew the painting well, and as he recalled, Gauguin intended this work to be “read” from right to left—in the reverse direction from that of standard French text. And so Langdon’s eye quickly traced the familiar figures in reverse direction.

On the far right, a newborn baby slept on a boulder, representing life’s beginning.
Where do we come from?

In the middle, an assortment of people of different ages carried out the daily activities of life.
What are we?

And on the left, a decrepit old woman sat alone, deep in thought, seeming to ponder her own mortality.
Where are we going?

Langdon was surprised that he hadn’t thought of this painting immediately when Edmond first described the focus of his discovery.
What is our origin? What is our destiny?

Langdon eyed the other elements of the painting—dogs, cats, and birds, which seemed to be doing nothing in particular; a primitive goddess statue in the background; a mountain, twisting roots, and trees. And, of course, Gauguin’s famous “strange white bird,” which sat beside the elderly woman and, according to the artist, represented “the futility of words.”

Futile or not
, Langdon thought,
words are what we came here for. Preferably forty-seven characters’ worth.

For an instant, he wondered if the painting’s unusual title might relate directly to the forty-seven-letter password they were seeking, but a quick count in both French and English did not add up.

“Okay, we’re looking for a line of poetry,” Langdon said hopefully. “Edmond’s library is this way,” Ambra told him. She pointed to her left, down a wide corridor, which Langdon could see was appointed with elegant home furnishings that were interspersed with assorted Gaudí artifacts and displays.

Edmond lives in a museum?
Langdon still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it. The Casa Milà loft was not exactly the homiest place he had ever seen. Constructed entirely of stone and brick, it was essentially a continuous ribbed tunnel—a loop of 270 parabolic arches of varying heights, each about a yard apart. There were very few windows, and the atmosphere tasted dry and sterile, clearly heavily processed to protect the Gaudí artifacts.

“I’ll join you in a moment,” Langdon said. “First, I’m going to find Edmond’s restroom.”

Ambra glanced awkwardly back toward the entrance. “Edmond always asked me to use the lobby downstairs … he was mysteriously protective of this apartment’s private bathroom.”