Part 5 (2/2)
He laughed. ”You sound surprised.”
”No, I just . . . I guess I thought you were a lawyer . . .”
He didn't say anything.
I stumbled on. ”Because of your connection to . . .”
He watched me curiously. I had to stop talking.
He finally spoke, breaking the tension.
”Chemistry is a hobby of mine. But I didn't mix this myself. This bottle, like all the objects in this room, has historical significance.”
He lifted the bottle off the shelf and held it up to the lamp. It sparkled through the light.
”This was recovered from the n.a.z.is. All the failures of the human mind, the n.a.z.is. The l.u.s.t for power, the desire to be led. Delusions of superhumanity, put toward the lowest acts of b.e.s.t.i.a.l murder. Tell me, Jeremy, have you ever seen a n.o.bel Prize?”
”No, sir.”
”They're quite beautiful.” With his right index finger, he traced a circle the size of his palm. ”Two hundred grams of 23-carat gold. The front features an engraving of Alfred n.o.bel and the dates of his birth and death in roman numerals.”
He took the sc.r.a.p of paper from my hand and wrote on it: NAT--MDCCCx.x.xIII.
OB--MDCCCXCVI.
”The back displays the prizewinner's name, above a picture representing their field of endeavor. The medals are handed out each year in Sweden by His Majesty the King.”
His eyes drifted off, as if he were picturing a king clasping his shoulder and pressing the medal down into his palm.
”Do you know what the poet Yeats said when he accepted his medal?”
”No,” I answered, for the fiftieth time that night.
”He saw his engraving: a young man listening to a beautiful woman stroking a lyre. And he said, 'I was good-looking once like that young man, but my unpractised verse was full of infirmity, my Muse old as it were; and now I am old and rheumatic, and nothing to look at, but my Muse is young.'
”Now,” he smiled, ”to answer your question. In 1940, the n.a.z.is invaded Denmark. Until that point, the Inst.i.tute for Theoretical Physics had been a haven for German scientists fleeing the n.a.z.is, including the n.o.bel Prize winners James Franck and Max von Laue. Suddenly, they had just hours to hide their medals before the n.a.z.is stormed the inst.i.tute. They had to hide the gold, or the n.a.z.is would use it to fund their horrors. But where to hide it? The Hungarian chemist de Hevesy suggested burying the medals, but Neils Bohr argued that the n.a.z.is would just dig them up. Then de Hevesy came up with a brilliant idea: he would quickly mix together some aqua regia. He dissolved the medals into a beaker--this beaker, actually--and placed it on his shelf among hundreds of identical beakers.
”The n.a.z.is raided the laboratory and walked right by the beaker, G.o.d knows how many times, over the years. When the war was over, de Hevesy returned to Denmark and found the beaker untouched. He distilled the gold, and in 1952, the n.o.bel committee presented Professor Franck with a new medal.”
He paused and smiled at me kindly.
”That's amazing,” I said. ”How did you find the beaker?”
”I purchased it at an auction in Copenhagen. I had to have it. What a magic trick! Good dissolves itself, pa.s.ses right through evil, and reforms on the other side. Flawless. Come. I don't want you to be late.”
Late for what?
We walked through a door behind his desk, into a dimly lit room. All at once I smelled a clean, pungent, hollow smell. The first thing I noticed was the strange chandelier hanging above me, and in a moment of revulsion I realized that its twisting, interlocking shapes were bones, tied and fixed together. It swayed gently as fresher air breezed in from the study. Candles rose from the empty sockets, spilling wax over the bones and illuminating the room with a dull amber glow. The shadows flickered and revealed other shapes in the room: above me, cloaked angels made from skeletons were suspended from the ceiling, giving the impression of flight; bony wings b.u.t.terflied out from their spines. The walls and ceiling were covered with hideous designs: lines and circles of leg bones, wrists, vertebrae. Then I saw the worst thing of all--a fireplace composed entirely of hundreds of skulls, stacked into a macabre mantel.
”It's a reproduction,” he said from behind me. ”The Capuchin Crypt, in Rome, under the church of Santa Maria della Concezione.”
”What is it?”
”An underground tomb, decorated with the remains of four thousand monks who died between 1500 and 1870. Five rooms, all filled with bones. And when you leave, they hit you with the kicker.”
He pointed to the far wall, where a sign was illuminated over a row of skulls. It read: What you are now, we once were.
What we are now, you will be.
”Anytime I start taking life for granted, I come sit in here for a while.”
”Oh,” I mumbled. I wondered how any sane person could sit in here without being chained down.
”Come,” he said.
He placed his hand on my back and led me into a long hallway. On both walls, I saw tall gla.s.s cases filled with knives, rifles, swords, spears, clubs, maces, crossbows, tomahawks, battle-axes--all mounted to the wall and illuminated with bright lights.
”What's the story here?” I asked.
”No story,” he said pleasantly. ”I just like weapons.”
We came to the end of the hallway. He turned to me, and there was a black cloth in his hands.
”I need to ask your permission to blindfold you.”
”Really?” All of a sudden, Miles's goat seemed a few steps closer to being a frightening possibility. ”Are you serious?”
He half-shrugged.
”I'm afraid so, if you'd like to go further.”
Something told me he wasn't kidding.
Well, I thought, I've come this far.
I nodded.
He moved behind me, and the world went black.
I was suddenly aware of my other senses. I heard the dragging of a heavy door and felt a draft of air.
”One or two steps more,” he said quietly.
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