She didn’t reply.
“Well, if we did, the world could certainly use it about now.”
“He also believes,” she said, “that the box might have contained the spirit of something evil. Something the saint had captured.”
That revelation comported eerily with what Lucas had experienced in the past hour. Putting his glass down on the tiny table between the two chairs, he thought of the dreadful and annihilating sadness that had coursed through him once he’d lifted that strange skull from inside its alabaster prison. No believer in ancient spirits or trapped demons, he nonetheless remained at a loss to account for such a sensation. Even in the worst of the war — the night he’d discovered the bodies of the parishioners all locked in a church that had been burned down around them, or the day he’d watched the blond boy blown to bits by the land mine — he’d felt nothing like it. Those ordeals had been traumatic, but at least he could grasp why they had been so disturbing — he had seen the carnage, he had smelled the death. Anyone in his right mind would have been rocked back on his heels. But this time, he had observed nothing concrete, nor had he sustained any physical damage.
So why did his insides feel like that bleak and empty desert Simone had adverted to?
“What else can you tell me?” Lucas asked, and in a low, almost perfunctory tone, Simone told him all about her father’s research, their expedition into the cave hidden below the spitting cobra, the scorpion attack on young Mustafa, the theft of the box from the Cairo Museum. Everything. As she did so, he began to put together a picture — a picture that might explain why the Reich had been so intent on retrieving the ossuary, and why the OSS was equally determined to hold onto it and exploit it. The Axis powers and the Allies were fighting over what amounted, in his view, to a magical talisman. He might have utterly discounted such an idea days before, but not anymore.
Not with the echo of that wind in his ears and the icicle in his heart.
Without even being aware of it, his hand had bridged the table between them and taken hold of hers. Despite her proximity to the fireplace, her skin was still cold, and he clutched her fingers to warm them. Her fingers squeezed his back, though she never averted her gaze from the leaping, crackling flames. It was as if she were looking back in time, back at the events she had been describing. When the waitress returned to see if they wanted another round, Lucas said no, paid the bill, and led Simone back up to the elevator bank in the lobby.
“I would ask you to come up and meet my father, but he might have gone to bed already.”
“Another time.”
“Yes.”
Still, he was reluctant to let her go. “What about tomorrow?” he said suddenly. “I’m pretty much required to attend the Columbia football game, and I have extra tickets.”
“A football game?”
As he said it, he’d warmed to the idea. Maybe a day in the sunshine and fresh air was precisely what they all needed. What better way to dispel the pall that had descended upon them that night, even if it was only for a few hours? And if he was completely honest with himself, the idea of spending an afternoon with this lovely young woman carried its own appeal. “You owe it to your father, too,” he said, “to show him something other than the inside of a library or an art museum.” Gradually he could see her come around. A small smile creased her lips, and for a moment, he thought she was going to stand on her toes and kiss him.
And she might have, had it not been for the heavy paw slapping him on the shoulder, and the tipsy conventioneer saying, “Aren’t you the new sales rep from Hartford?”
He might have returned such a kiss, eagerly, if she had.
Instead, the moment passed, the elevator arrived, and she stepped inside. As the doors closed, it was all he could do not to duck inside with her.
“You shouldn’t have let that one get away,” the conventioneer had said before stumbling off. “She’s a keeper.”
The phrase had stuck with him, and he thought of it even now, as he watched her tenderly guide her father, one hand at his elbow, into the football stadium. From what she’d whispered to him when Dr. Rashid was out of earshot, getting him here had not been an easy sell.
“He thinks we’re all insane to be wasting time on this when we could be working on the ossuary.”
“But you got him to come.”
“It’s all because he wanted to size you up.”
Lucas had laughed. “What’s the verdict?”
“Still out.”
A student usher, in an orange blazer and straw boater hat, studied their ticket stubs, then led them down to their seats in the section reserved for faculty and special guests. Dr. Rashid made sure to place himself between them on the bench.
The stadium was only half full, but everyone had congregated down front and in the center. The Princeton side of the field was a sea of orange and black, while the Columbia fans were decked out in the school’s blue and white. The two mascots — a Princeton tiger and a Columbia lion — were gamboling about their respective sidelines in tatty costumes, stirring up the crowd. On the far side of the aisle, and several rows back toward the bleachers, he spotted Taylor from the boardinghouse wolfing down a hot dog and a beer.
Taylor glanced his way, too, but didn’t so much as alter his chewing to acknowledge him.
“You know that man?” Simone asked.
“He lives in the same boardinghouse I do, but I can’t say I know him. I’m not sure anybody does.”
“And how long do these games generally last?” Dr. Rashid interjected, resting his hands atop his ebony cane.
“A couple of hours,” Lucas said, “with a break at halftime.”
Rashid snorted, and Simone leaned forward just enough to exchange a glance with Lucas.
“That’s when the band plays and puts on a show.”
Rashid looked even unhappier, until Simone plucked at his sleeve and said, “Look who else is here.”
She directed their gaze a few rows down, where, to Lucas’s surprise, he saw a cloud of white hair, billowing like a dandelion, above a brown overcoat and loose orange scarf. It was Professor Einstein himself, merrily chatting with President Dodds and three other men sitting with them. One was Professor Gödel, recognizable to everyone in town, but the other two Lucas recognized from the papers. The first was the famous Hungarian physicist, Leó Szilárd, who was now conducting his research at Columbia University— nobody knew exactly what he was up to, but it could be surmised to have something to do with the war effort. The other was the world-renowned English philosopher and mathematician, Bertrand Russell. Lucas had seen a poster on campus, advertising a speech he was to give that morning to the Whig-Clio debate society.
“I saw Russell give a series of lectures at Cambridge one summer,” Simone said. “On pacifism.”
“Pacifism is all well and good when the world is at peace,” Dr. Rashid scoffed, “but it is of very little use when it’s not. He should stick to his mathematics. When a butcher is threatening to slaughter half the world, Mr. Russell and his high-minded philosophy are the last thing we need.”
“I do believe that he has tempered his views in light of recent events,” Simone said.
“Tempering them isn’t enough. He needs to keep silent altogether.”
Lucas was in full agreement. Russell’s ideals were lofty and desirable, but in practical terms, impossible. He watched now as the Englishman, thin and elongated as a stork, bent forward, smiling and sharing some story with his compatriots. It looked like they were all having a very congenial reunion.
As Lucas watched, a couple of fans timidly approached the group and apparently asked for Einstein’s autograph. The professor obligingly scrawled his name on their programs, as Russell, plainly pretending offense at being overlooked, protested. The fans extended their programs, and Russell, too, signed them with a honking laugh and a grand flourish. Gödel simply immersed himself in deep conversation with Szilárd. Dodds had departed to glad-hand others in the crowd, though not before noting, with a nod of approval, Lucas’s presence in the stands.