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But that was over. I was here, in the hallway.
The thought that I had to walk forward, put one foot before theother, reach the living room, and look at that granite statue wassuddenly a little more than I could accept.
"It's not here," David said. He hadn't read my mind. He wasmerely stating the obvious. He was standing in the living room somefifty feet away, looking at me, the halogens throwing just a little oftheir dedicated light on him and he said again, "There is no blackgranite statue in this room."I gave a sigh. "I'm going to hell," I whispered.
I could see David very distinctly, but no mortal could have. Hisimage was too shadowy. He looked tall and very strong, standingthere, back to the dingy light of the windows, the halogens makingsparkles on his brass buttons.
"The blood?""Yes, the blood, and your glasses. Your violet glasses. A nice pieceof evidence.""Evidence of what!"It was too stupid of me to stand here at the back door talking tohim over this distance. I walked down the hall as if going cheerfullyto the guillotine, and I came into die room.
There was only an empty space where the statue had stood, and Iwasn't even sure it was big enough. Clutter. Plaster saints. Icons,some so old and fragile they were under glass. Last night I hadn'tnoticed so very many, sparkling all over the walls in the splinters oflight that escaped the directed lamps.
"Incredible!" David whispered.
"I knew you'd love it," I said dismally. I would have loved it, too,if I were not shaken to the bone.
He was studying the objects, eyes moving back and forth over theicons and then the saints. "Absolutely magnificent objects. Thisis ... is an extraordinary collection. You don't know what any of thisis, do you?""Well, more or less," I said. "I'm not an artistic illiterate.""The series of pictures on the wall," he said. He gestured to along row of icons, the most fragile.
"Those? Not really.""Veronica's veil," he said. "These are early copies of the famousmandilion梩he veil itself梬hich supposedly vanished from historycenturies ago. Perhaps during the Fourth Crusade. This one'sRussian, flawless. This one? Italian. And look there, on the floor, instacks, those are the Stations of the Cross.""He was obsessed with finding relics for Dora. Besides, he lovedthe stuff himself. That one, the Russian Veil of Veronica梙e hadjust brought that here to New York to Dora. Last night theyquarreled over it, but she wouldn't take it."It was quite fine. How he had tried to describe it to her. God, I feltas if I had known him from my youth and we had talked about all ofthese objects, and every surface for me was layered with his specialappreciation and complex of thoughts.
The Stations of the Cross. Of course I knew the devotion, whatCatholic child did not? We would follow the fourteen differentstations of Christ's passion and journey to Calvary through thedarkened church, stopping at each on bended knee to say the appropriateprayers. Or the priest and his altar boys would make the procession,while the congregation would recite with them the meditation onChrist's suffering at each point. Hadn't Veronica come up at the sixthstation to wipe the face of Jesus with her veil?
David moved from object to object. "Now, this crucifix, this isreally early, this could make a stir.""But couldn't you say that about all the others?""Oh, yes, but I'm not speaking of Dora and her religion, orwhatever that's about, simply that these are fabulous works of art. No,you're right, we cannot leave all this to fate, not possible. Here, thislittle statue could be ninth century, Celtic, unbelievably valuable.
And this, this probably came from the Kremlin."He paused, gripped by an icon of a Madonna and Child. Deeplystylized, of course, as are they all, and this one very familiar, for theChrist child was losing one of his sandals as He clung to his mother,and one could see angels tormenting Him with little symbols of hiscoming passion, and the Mother's head was tenderly inclined to theson. Halo overlapped halo. The child Jesus running from the future,into his Mother's protective arms.
"You understand the fundamental principle of an icon, don'tyou?" David asked.
"Inspired by God.""Not made by hands," said David. "Supposedly directlyimprinted upon the background material by God Himself.""You mean like Jesus' face was imprinted on Veronica's veil?""Exactly. All icons fundamentally were the work of God. Arevelation in material form. And sometimes a new icon could be made fromanother simply by pressing a new cloth to the original, and a magictransfer would occur.""I see. Nobody was supposed to have painted it.""Precisely. Look, this is a jewel-framed relic of the True Cross,and this, this book here ... my God, these can't be the ... No, this isa famous Book of the Hours that was lost in Berlin in the SecondWorld War.""David, we can make our loving inventory later. Okay? The pointis, what do we do now?" I had stopped being so afraid, though I didkeep looking at the empty place where the granite devil had stood.
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