Seven Kinds of Hell (21 page)

I’m not really a thief. I’d stolen before, in minor sorts of ways when things were tight. Paper from a copying machine, a couple of pens from a bank. Once or twice, when things were very bad, I would find a hotel catering to families, and when the kiddies were put to bed, I’d go through the hallways like a ghost, checking the trays put out in the hall after room service. Maybe it wasn’t nice, but as a teenager I was always hungry, and I didn’t want to put any more on my mother’s shoulders, especially after she’d given me the bigger of two scanty portions for dinner.

Taking the figurine from the museum didn’t count, because I was paying for that momentary lapse with my cousin’s life.

When I was dressed, I pulled out the wallet. There wasn’t much money in it, a few euros. So while I was no newcomer to a few shortcuts here and there, abuses of hospitality at most, I was always aware of people who didn’t have much. And the woman’s clothes and wallet did not say “wealthy” to me.

I stared at the wallet for a long time, not looking at the license or other cards. Finally I threw it as far from me as I could. I wasn’t going to take advantage of someone who might be as bad off as I was. Then I scattered the rest of the things around to make it look like a dog had stolen the bag and gone tearing through it.

The last thing to go flying was the cell phone, and that brought my other troubles into focus. The phone Dmitri had given me, my one link with Danny, was in my jeans pocket.

Back in the clearing. Where Will was.

Sweating with fear, I thought hard. OK, I’d have to find Claudia and Gerry soon, if only to snatch my things back—oh dear God, the figurines. In my backpack, along with everything I needed to save Danny, including my passport. Imperative, then, to find them, or rather, let them find me. I had no doubt they would.

Then it occurred to me—they had no idea who Will was. He hadn’t said a word, had he? Not my name, nothing that I could remember. Perhaps he hadn’t even seen me, and if he had…well, that’s what Claudia was there for, to make him forget.

I sighed with relief. Maybe I’d be OK.

They’d find me. And maybe Will would be out of my hair even before they knew he was a problem.

But as I heard a clock toll, I realized I was now running late to my meeting with Professor Schulz. I scooped up about four euros of loose change and ran for the station.

I found my way to the Oranienburger Strasse stop and walked from there, across the “Museumsinsel,” or Museum Island, where several of the most important collections in a city stuffed with fantastic museums were situated on a small island in a river.

For me, if you couldn’t find “Cupcake Island”—and I hadn’t stopped my search—“Museum Island” was the next best thing.

Down along the canal, past the Pergamon Museum, I found the place. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but the exterior of the Altes Museum was impressive. The museum formed one edge of a wide, square green space, with the Berlin cathedral on the next side and a line of trees along the canal. It was busy, a well-used space, even at midafternoon. The museum facade was lined with columns, and dramatic bronze sculptures of mounted hunters flanked the staircase leading to the central entrance. I was suddenly reminded that so many of the finest classical antiquities were now to be found in repositories outside their native lands. The nineteenth century had brought a gold rush for the best sites, and Germany, France, and England had gotten busy.

As I introduced myself at the desk, I was given a badge and directed to the main gallery. Row upon row of cases of the most exquisite ancient pottery were showcased by category: sacrifices, everyday life, women, warfare.

Clearly being a colonial power had its benefits.

“Miss Miller?”

He was every caricature of an aging professor. Untidy tweed jacket, tufts of gray hair poking out in a tonsure, smudged glasses. Folded papers stuffed in one pocket and, surprisingly, an Asterix comics mug nestled in the soft fabric of a basket from which he’d just taken a vessel that looked like a sort of vase with handles. He put the brake on the trolley he was using and held out his hand.

“I had an e-mail from Dr. Jenny Kelner, who told me you might be in touch. I’m so pleased you were able to stop by.”

“Thank you for taking the time to see me.” I shook hands, a little apologetically. “I’m afraid my bag was snatched, so I don’t have my notebook. But I do remember my questions.”

He tutted over my fictitious loss and nodded. “I was just replacing this kalyx krater. Mid-third century BCE from the Greek colonies in southeastern Italy. It depicts the release of Prometheus from his torture by Hercules, who killed the eagle feasting on his liver. It’s such a painful story, Prometheus sacrificing himself for having gifted humanity with fire. I look at this and feel happy and relieved for him; it’s a hopeful story about the end of pain and suffering.”

He smiled at his silliness. “But to the matter at hand. You have an interest in pottery decorated with three-dimensional figurines? I think I can help. Have you seen my recent paper on the subject? I happen to have an offprint, if you would like.”

He made one appear as if by magic. I took it and glanced over it. “Thank you. Mine…was in my bag.”

“My specialty is Greek pottery, which seems very dull, until you realize it tells you of the movements of people, trade, and whole civilizations. The rise of nations and democracy. And,” he nodded to the vessel he’d just replaced, “some of them tell wonderful stories, not only of myth, but of daily life.”

“I’m not sure if you can help me,” I said. “The object I’m interested in is clay, but not a pot. Though Jenny said it might be a pottery decoration, not a votive figurine as I first thought.”

“May I see it?” Then he shook his head. “Of course. Your bag was stolen. Perhaps you can describe it for me?”

I turned the offprint over and sketched out the object I’d taken from the museum back at home, but without enough detail to indicate specifics.

“I think Dr. Kelner is correct. You see the little roughness at the bottom? A peg might have been there once. It would fit in a hole in a ridge around the vessel. There would be a half dozen or
a dozen of them, and all together, it would make a very decorative piece. Unusual. I’ve just seen a reference to such a thing in, of all places, northern Britain.”

“Oh? Where?”

“I found mention of a former Roman soldier to his brother, who was stationed at Vindolanda, on Hadrian’s Wall, in the north of England. You’re familiar with the wax tablets found there, the way that they were inscribed? How the marks were scratched onto the wooden holders so that when the wax disappeared, it left a more permanent record, capable of surviving in the archaeological record? Good. Well, we don’t know who this ex-soldier Secundus was, but he wrote to his brother claiming to have found a pot decorated in this fashion in what is modern-day Turkey.”

“Oh,” I said. I’d heard of the tablets, but didn’t really know how they could help me. I didn’t need to know the whole history of these things, just the specific importance of the ones in my possession.

Schulz was on an academic tear, though, and hadn’t noticed my lack of interest. “But most peculiarly, he described this vessel as an ‘unbreakable,’ perhaps of metal, at what is now the site of Notion. Clearly that wasn’t where it was supposed to be, as something as different and important as that should have been in the temple of Apollo in nearby Claros or at the temple of Artemis near Ephesus. A pithos of metal. From the temple of Apollo.”

He looked at me as if I should get the importance of that.

I didn’t. I cleared my throat. “Um, how old was it?”

“The letter dates to the end of the first century CE. The Apollonian temple at Claros probably dates to the second half of the seventh century BCE, but there was almost certainly a much earlier presence of the worship of Cybele there, two centuries before that. No one knows how old the jar is, because it was never found.”

I was missing the point. He kept looking at me so hopefully, wanting me to get it.

“The temple of Apollo. I mean, that makes sense to find a metal jar there, doesn’t it? As a special offering to the god or something?”

He nodded, giving me a chance to work it out.

“Metal jars…not all that common, right? I mean, they’re mostly always clay, right? Maybe some of carved stone?”

“Hesiod describes the ‘box,’ really a jar, given to Pandora as unbreakable,” he said, unable to keep it to himself any longer. “Therefore, a metal jar. Though the description of this one is unusual, ornate and small, not your usual storage vessel.”

It took me a minute to work it out. “You think a Roman in first-century Asia Minor found Pandora’s Box?”

“Well…” Academic habit made him cautious. “No, no, of course not. But this description stood out as unusual in the letters, and, naturally, I couldn’t ignore the Hesiod translation. Whatever Secundus found was rare enough, and certainly he was excited enough about it to write to his brother and give him a description of it. I am going through the letters exchanged between the brothers.”

I thought of the figurines in my possession. In his last breath, Grayling had said something about Pandora, but I thought it was only a way of saying how untrustworthy Dmitri was. But Clean-head had also mentioned the Box in Paris…“Is there a description of the Box? Jar?”

“Metal, I suspect. Decorated, Secundus mentions, but he is circumspect. He did mention that there were four spaces, perhaps slots for adornments, along a flange around the belly of the jar. I think he believed he’d found something very, very important. Very precious. I suspect it also originated from the same region as this kalyx krater, for instance, in Apulia.”

“Do you know where either of the soldiers ended up?” I asked. Four spaces jibed with what Grayling had told me, that there were four figurines or keys, each from a different temple.

“I believe Tertius died in the army, not long after this letter was received. This is no surprise; there was a great deal of disease
at the time. A shame, because another letter from Secundus might have brought more information. I think he was trying to leave his brother a clue. Because Secundus became a merchant after his stint in the army, I suspect he would have lived in one of the major cities in the area, Ephesus, perhaps. But it’s also possible he could have moved on.”

And be anywhere in the Roman Empire, which at that time spread from Britain to Syria. “Do you have their letters?”

“Oh my, no. They’re all at the British Museum.”

“Oh.” Just my luck.

“I have spent a long time studying them, though, and have included several very clear, very detailed photographs of the fragments in my forthcoming article. I have a copy, if you’d like to see an early draft.”

“Oh yes! Thank you very much!”

“I would, of course, appreciate you not citing it until after the publication date this fall.”

I stared at him, then finally remembered: I wasn’t a student, researching a paper. I was working for a deranged thief who’d kidnapped my cousin. Intellectual primacy was not even on my radar. “No, I promise, I won’t.”

He pulled out the thick sheaf of papers from his pocket.

I took it.

“Interestingly, another party, an amateur from the States, has just contacted me with a similar question about decorated Greek pottery.” He noticed his glasses were smudged and began to polish them.

I had never heard of this stuff before Dmitri, and suddenly it seemed as though Pandora—and interest in my figurines—was everywhere. This couldn’t be a coincidence. “Oh yes?”

“I’ve never spoken to a real senator before,” he said in an excited, reverent whisper. “It was rather exciting.”

Given the context, it took me a minute to realize he wasn’t talking about Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. “Senator? As in a US senator?”

“Oh yes. Your Mr. Edward Knight, from New York. Apparently he’s an enthusiast, helping to organize a museum show to visit his state.”

A woman in a severe skirt and blouse approached, caught his eye, and handed him a note, which he read. “Oh dear. A phone call I absolutely must take. If you’ll excuse me? I won’t be long.”

I nodded, and he left, trailing in the wake of the woman. I gazed at the pot, remembering what I knew of Prometheus: His brother was Epimetheus, and they were responsible for doling out attributes to the animals. Epimetheus, or “hindsight,” believed he had nothing left for humans. This prompted Prometheus to steal fire from the gods in order to let humanity develop culture.

Prometheus, who, in return for this sin, was tortured and given Pandora for a sister-in-law.

I didn’t like to think how often Pandora, and her Box, and all the trouble it contained, kept popping up in my investigation. If chaos had followed the last time the Box was opened, I truly didn’t want to see it happen again.

A susurrus behind me. I turned, expecting Professor Schulz, and was startled to see Gerry and Claudia, with my backpack over her shoulder. At least there was no sign of Will. I sighed with relief.

“Have you met Professor Schulz?” Claudia said.

I nodded. “He’s taking a phone call. Should be right back.”