Milton Bar and Grill, Milton, New York
As Verlaine pushed his way through a crowded barroom, the pounding in his head dissolved in a wash of country music. He was frozen stiff, the cut on his hand seared, and he hadn’t eaten a thing since breakfast. If he were in New York, he would be getting takeout from his favorite Thai restaurant or meeting friends for a drink in the Village. He would have nothing to worry about other than what he should watch on television. Instead he was stuck in a dive bar in the middle of nowhere, trying to figure out how he was going to get himself out of there. Still, the bar was warm and gave him a place to think. Verlaine rubbed his hands together, trying to bring life back to his fingers. If he could unthaw, perhaps he would be able to sort out what in the hell he was going to do next.
Taking a table at a window overlooking the street—it was the only isolated spot in the place—he ordered a hamburger and a bottle of Corona. He drank the beer quickly, to warm himself, and ordered another. The second beer he drank slowly, allowing the alcohol to bring him back to reality little by little. His fingers tingled; his feet thawed. The pain of his wound lessened. But by the time his food arrived, Verlaine felt warm and alert, better equipped to sort out the problems before him.
He took the piece of paper from his pocket, placed it upon the laminate table, and reread the sentences he had copied. Pale, smoky light flickered over his weather-beaten hands, the half-full bottle of Corona, the pale pink paper. The communication was short, only four direct, unadorned sentences, but it opened a world of possibilities for Verlaine. Of course, the relationship between Mother Innocenta and Abigail Rockefeller remained mysterious—clearly they had collaborated upon some project or another and had found success in their work in the Rhodope Mountains—but he could foresee a large paper, perhaps even an entire book, about the object the women had brought back from the mountains. What intrigued Verlaine nearly as much as the artifact, however, was the presence of a third person in the adventure, someone named Celestine Clochette. Verlaine tried to recall if he had come across a person by that name in any of his other research. Could Celestine have been one of Abigail Rockefeller’s partners? Was she a European art dealer? The prospect of understanding the triangle was the very reason he loved the history of art: In every piece there lay the mystery of creation, the adventure of its distribution, and the particularities of its preservation.
Grigori’s interest in St. Rose Convent made the information all the more perplexing. A man like Grigori could not possibly find beauty and meaning in art. People like that lived their entire lives without understanding that there was more to a van Gogh than record-breaking sales at an auction. Indeed, there must be a monetary value to the object in question, or Grigori wouldn’t spend a moment of his time trying to hunt it down. How Verlaine had gotten mixed up with such a person was truly beyond his understanding.
Gazing outside, he searched the darkness beyond the pane. The temperature must have fallen again; the heat from the interior of the room reacted with the cold window, creating a layer of condensation on the glass. Outside, the occasional car drove by, its taillights leaving a trail of orange in the frost. Verlaine watched and waited, wondering how he would get back home.
For a moment he considered calling the convent. Perhaps the beautiful young nun he’d met in the library would have a suggestion. Then the thought struck him that she, too, might be in some kind of danger. There was always the chance that the thugs he’d seen at the convent might go inside looking for him. Yet there was no way they could possibly know where he had gone in the convent, and surely they wouldn’t know he’d spoken to Evangeline. She had not been happy to see him and would probably never speak to him again. In any event, it was important to be practical. He needed to get to a train station or find a bus that would get him back to the city, and he doubted that he would find either of those in Milton.