Ioannes folded the pages carefully and placed them in the envelope. They would open the way for him, he had to believe. In the beginning was the word. In what direction these words of Theodoros would push the boy, he could not guess, but something must be attempted. One voice had now separated itself from the rest, and it had become more and more adamant about the need for decisive action. He had decided to surrender to that voice.
After studying the map, he took the PATH train in from New Jersey, became lost in the bright tunnels and plazas beneath Penn Station, but finally found the platform for the number one train, which carried him to Columbus Circle. From there, he walked diagonally through Central Park toward his destination. He got lost here too, on the twisting paths and roadways, but he did not mind so much. The park was alive with growth this early May, faded yellow daffodils, just-blooming red tulips, sweet white and pink apple blossoms, cherry trees, lilac. He had not known the place could be so beautiful. And he understood that he was meant to appreciate it, even now, especially now, in this time of turmoil. It was always this way, moments of great beauty accompanying darkness of the soul. It was a gift not to be despised or ignored, and Ioannes drew breath deeply and smiled at everything around him.
He had dismissed the useless investigator Jimmy, had stopped taking calls from Bishop Makarios. He had even left a call from the secretary of the Holy Synod in Greece unreturned. They had all made a mess of things. All those involved in the matter had been thinking only about themselves-small, mean plans. A bolder vision was required, and Ioannes had some sense of what he must do, though very little sense at all of how to accomplish it. He only knew that the boy was the key.
The broad stairs of the museum were thronged with the usual students, tourists, homeless people, smoking and drinking soda and enjoying the day. Ioannes weaved through them and passed in the central door, through the grand hall of a foyer and over to a little alcove he had spied out on his last visit. The elevator was at the end. A key or card would be required to operate it, and so the priest merely waited by the doors, as if he were precisely where he ought to be. Within ten minutes a woman appeared beside him, trim, middle-aged, with glasses and a name tag hanging about her neck: Carol Voss. She smiled at Ioannes.
“You realize that this is a staff elevator?”
“Yes.” A whole world of corridors and rooms existed behind, beneath, between what the common visitor saw, he knew. As in a cathedral or monastery. The inner sanctum. “I am meeting one of the curators.”
“They’re supposed to come down here and escort you in. Who are you meeting?”
“Matthew Spear.”
“Oh, Matthew’s a friend of mine. We’re in the same department. But I’m sorry to say that he isn’t here today. In fact, I’m not sure exactly when he returns.”
“Really. How unfortunate. You say you are a friend of his?”
“That’s right.”
He had cut himself off from all investigative assistance. He could not hope to find the boy on his own, and must depend now on the greater design. There would be a purpose to whatever happened. The voice spoke quietly but firmly: trust her. Ioannes reached inside his jacket pocket and withdrew the envelope, held it out to her.
“You will give this to him when you see him, please?”
“Um, sure, I don’t see why not.” She took the envelope.
“It is extremely important that he receive it. As soon as possible. And also very important that no one but Matthew should see it. I pray that you understand me.”
She was a quiet soul, like him, and she sensed his urgency in his stillness.
“I promise to keep it private. I don’t know when I’ll see Matthew, though.”
“I am confident that he will return here soon. I place my hopes in that, and in you. Bless you.” He turned and moved away before she could say anything in return, but he had made his impression. She was not the kind of woman to shirk the duty he had placed upon her.
The sky above the avenue had grown strange. Still blue to the south, fierce gray clouds to the north. Ioannes could not tell which way the clouds were moving, or what the evening’s weather held. It did not matter greatly. He would walk in the park once more, extract some sweetness while he still might, before the terrible task beckoned again.
There was something both touchingly intimate and maddeningly claustrophobic about her forced captivity with his family. His father was ill, though less so than she had expected, and still quite handsome, in a harsher way than Matthew. He stayed in his study, reading or sleeping, accepting the occasional visit. The mother had left Ana alone at first, when they arrived the night before, but had been at her all this next day. Trying to feed her every ninety minutes. Asking all sorts of questions about Matthew, as if Ana were a wife or girlfriend of long standing, instead of someone who had met her son only a few weeks before, someone who felt that she might already love him without really knowing him at all.
“She likes you,” Matthew said, when they were alone for a while, his mother shopping, his father asleep.
“Is that why she keeps scowling at me?”
“That’s just her normal expression. She likes talking to you.”
“She’s plying me for information about what’s going on.”
“Don’t worry, she doesn’t really want to know.”
“Anyway, what difference does it make if she likes me?”
“None at all, but she does. Trust me.”
“Would I be sitting here in your parents’ kitchen, after everything that’s happened, if I didn’t trust you?”
He put his lips to hers and her body responded immediately, despite their exertions during the last two nights. They barely made it upstairs to the guest room, his old bedroom. There was something vaguely taboo about doing it in the afternoon in his parents’ house, with his father asleep below. She understood very well that there was a good deal of seeking for relief and comfort mixed in with the lust, but it didn’t make the sex any less intense or satisfying.
Matthew fell asleep minutes after they finished, still making up for lost time. Ana waited a little while, watching his chest rise and fall, stroking his arm, and breathing in his scent. Her friend Edith insisted that you could forget about good looks, intelligence, and all the rest; attraction was about scent. Ana wondered if it wasn’t true. Then she crawled from the bed to her travel bag, digging out a box of Marlboros and a lighter. Sitting in the window seat, she pulled up the sash several inches, lit a cigarette, blew smoke into the breezy air and tried to set her mind in order.
What she really needed was a day or two alone, away from everyone, including Matthew, to think all this through. They had promised each other to let the icon go, yet details had nagged at her for days. The name in the diary, del Carros’ hints, his fear of her knowledge, which made him say more then he should. Eight years earlier, during another terrible illness of her grandfather’s, he had raged semiconsciously about being responsible for her father’s death. This was not a new thing, and she had tried to calm him, but he had been inconsolable. It was supposed to be me, he had insisted over and over. As if the death had not been random, but that someone was meant to die. She had chalked it up to guilt and the delusions of fever, but like these later details, it had stayed with her.
What to do about it? She could try to set up another meeting with del Carros, but that would be madness, and he would surely never go for it. She could leave it alone and hope that he would be caught, that the truth would come out some other way. Was she prepared for whatever the truth might be? Would it be better if he just vanished again, if it all remained a mystery?