Angelology

The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fort Tryon Park, New York City
Verlaine and Gabriella stepped out of a taxi and ran up the pathway to the museum. A cluster of stonework buildings rose before them, ramparts lifting over the Hudson River beyond. Verlaine had visited the Cloisters many times in the past, finding its perfect likeness to a medieval monastery a source of solace and refuge from the intensity of the city. It was comforting to be in the presence of history, even if there was an air of fabrication to it all. He wondered what Gabriella would think of the museum, having had the real deal in Pans—the ancient frescoes, the crucifixes, the medieval statues that constituted the Cloisters’ collection had been put together in emulation of the Musée National du Moyen Age, a place he had only read about in books.
It was the height of the holiday season, and the museum would be filled with crowds of people out for an afternoon of quiet contemplation of medieval art. If they were being followed, as Verlaine suspected they were, such a crowd might shield them. He studied the limestone fa?ade, the imposing central turret, the thick exterior wall, wondering if the creatures were hidden inside. He had no doubt that they were there, waiting for them.
As they hurried up the stone steps, Verlaine pondered the mission at hand. They had been sent to the museum without any notion of how to go about their search. He knew that Gabriella was good at what she did, and he trusted that she would find a way to bring them through their part of the mission, but it seemed a daunting task. With all his love of intellectual scavenger hunts, the immense difficulty of what lay before them was enough to make him want to turn around, find a cab, and go home.
At the arched entrance of the museum, a petite woman with glossy red hair hurried in their direction. She wore a fluid silk blouse and a strand of pearls that caught the light as she made her way to them. It seemed to Verlaine that she’d been stationed at the door waiting for their arrival, but he knew that this was impossible.
“Dr. Gabriella Valko?” she said. Verlaine recognized the accent as similar to Gabriella’s and deduced that the woman was French. “I am Sabine Clementine, associate director of restoration at the Cloisters. I have been sent to assist you in your endeavors this afternoon.”
“Sent?” Gabriella said, looking the woman over warily. “Sent by whom?”
“Alistair Carroll,” she whispered, gesturing for them to follow her. “Who works on behalf of the late Abigail Rockefeller. Come, please, I will explain as we walk.”
True to Verlaine’s predications, the entrance hall overflowed with people, cameras and guidebooks in hand. Patrons waited at a cash register in the museum’s bookstore, the line curling past tables stacked high with medieval histories, art books, studies of Gothic and Romanesque architecture. Through a narrow window, Verlaine caught another glimpse of the Hudson River, flowing below, dark and constant. Despite the danger, he felt his entire being relax: Museums had always had a soothing effect on him, which may have been—if he wanted to analyze himself—one of the reasons he chose art history as his field. The curatorial feel of the building itself, with its collection of disassembled medieval monasteries—fa?ades, frescoes, and doorways taken from dilapidated structures in Spain, France, and Italy and reconstructed into a collage of ancient ruins—contributed to his growing ease, as did the tourists snapping photos, young couples walking hand in hand, retirees studying the delicate, washed colors of a fresco. His disdain for tourists, so pronounced just a day before, had transformed to gratitude for their presence.
They walked into the museum proper, through interconnected galleries, one room opening into the next. Although they didn’t have time to pause, Verlaine glanced at the artwork as they passed by, looking for something that might give a clue about what they’d come to the Cloisters to do. Perhaps a painting or piece of statuary would correspond with something in Abigail Rockefeller’s cards, although he doubted it. The Rockefeller drawings were too modern, a clear example of New York City Art Deco. Nevertheless, he examined an Anglo-Saxon archway, a sculpted crucifix, a glass mosaic, a set of acanthus-carved pillars—restored and cleaned to a polish. Any one of these masterpieces could hold the instrument within it.
Sabine Clementine brought them into an airy room, a wall of windows drenching the glazed wide-plank wooden floor with thick light. A series of tapestries hung on the walls. Verlaine recognized them at once. He had studied them in his Masterpieces of the World Art History course during his first year of graduate school and had encountered reproductions of them again and again in magazines and posters, although for some reason he hadn’t visited the tapestries in some time. Sabine Clementine had led them to the famous Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries.
“They’re beautiful,” Verlaine said, examining the rich reds and brilliant greens of the woven flora.
“And brutal,” Gabriella added, gesturing to the slaughter of the unicorn in which half of the hunting party looks on, placid and indifferent, as the other half drives spears into the helpless creature’s throat.
“This was the great difference between Abigail Rockefeller and her husband,” Verlaine said, gesturing to the panel before them. “While Abigail Rockefeller founded the Museum of Modern Art and spent her time buying up Picassos, van Goghs, and Kandinskys, her husband collected art from the medieval period. He detested modernism and refused to support his wife’s passion for it. He thought it profane. It’s funny how the past is so often judged sacred while the modern world is held in suspicion.”
“There is often good reason to be suspicious of modernity,” Gabriella said, glancing over her shoulder at the cluster of tourists, as if to ascertain whether they’d been followed.
“But without the benefits of progress,” Verlaine said, “we would still be stuck in the Dark Ages.”
“Dear Verlaine,” Gabriella said, taking him by the arm and stepping deeper into the gallery, “do you really believe we have left the Dark Ages behind?”
“Now,” Sabine Clementine said, stepping close to them so that she could speak softly, “my predecessor instructed me to memorize a clue, though I have never fully comprehended its purpose until now. Please. Listen closely.”
Gabriella turned to her, surprised, and Verlaine detected the slightest hint of condescension on Gabriella’s face as she listened to Sabine speak.
“‘The allegory of the hunt tells a tale within a tale,’ ” Sabine whispered. “‘Follow the creature’s course from freedom to captivity. Disavow the hounds, feign modesty at the maid, reject the brutality of slaughter, and seek music where the creature lives again. As a hand at the loom wove this mystery, so a hand must unravel it. Ex angelis—the instrument reveals itself.’”
“‘Ex angelis’?” Verlaine said, as if this were the only phrase of the clue to perplex him.
“It’s Latin,” Gabriella replied. “It means ‘from the angels.’ Clearly she is using the phrase to describe the angelic instrument—it was wrought by the angels—but it is an odd way to do so.” She paused to give Sabine Clementine a look of gratitude, acknowledging the legitimacy of her presence for the first time before continuing, “Actually, the initials E A were often imprinted on the seals of documents sent between angelologists in the Middle Ages, but the letters stood for Epistula Angelorum, or letter of angels, another thing entirely. Mrs. Rockefeller could not have possibly known that.”
“Is there anything else that might explain it?” Verlaine asked, leaning over Gabriella’s shoulder as she extracted Abby Rockefeller’s card from the case. She turned it over, looking at the reverse side.
“There is a drawing of some sort,” Gabriella said, rotating the card in an attempt to get a better view. There was a series of lightly sketched lines arranged by length, a number written next to each one. “And that explains exactly nothing.”
“So we have a map without a key,” Verlaine said.
“Perhaps,” Gabriella said, and asked Sabine to repeat the clue.
Sabine repeated it word for word.
“The allegory of the hunt tells a tale within a tale. Follow the creature’s course from freedom to captivity. Disavow the hounds, feign modesty at the maid, reject the brutality of slaughter, and seek music where the creature lives again. As a hand at the loom wove this mystery, so a hand must unravel it. Ex angelis—the instrument reveals itself.”
“Clearly she’s telling us to follow the order of the hunt, which begins in the first tapestry,” Verlaine said, stepping through clusters of people to the first panel. “Here a hunting party makes its way to the forest, where they discover a unicorn, chase it vigorously, and then kill it. The hounds—which Mrs. Rockefeller advises us to ignore—are part of the hunting party, and the maid—whom we should also bypass—must be one of the women hanging around watching. We’re supposed to ignore all that and look where the creature lives again. That,” Verlaine said, leading Gabriella by the arm to the last tapestry, “must be this one.”
They stood before the most famous of the tapestries, a lush green meadow filled with wildflowers. The unicorn reclined at the center of a circular fence, tamed.
Gabriella said, “This is most definitely the tapestry in which we should ‘seek music where the creature lives again.’ ”
“Although there doesn’t seem to be anything at all referring to music here,” Verlaine said.
“Ex angelis,” Gabriella said to herself, as if turning the phrase over in her mind.
“Mrs. Rockefeller never used Latin phrases in her letters to Innocenta,” Verlaine said. “It’s obvious that the use of it here has been meant to draw our attention.”
“Angels appear in nearly every piece of art in this place,” Gabriella said, clearly frustrated. “But there isn’t a single one here.”
“You’re right,” Verlaine agreed, studying the unicorn. “These tapestries are an anomaly. Although the hunt for the unicorn can be interpreted, as Mrs. Rockefeller mentioned, as an allegory—most obviously a retelling of Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection—it’s one of the few pieces here without overt Christian figures or images. No depictions of Christ, no images from the Old Testament, and no angels.”
“Notice,” Gabriella said, pointing to the corners of the tapestry, “how the letters A and E are woven everywhere throughout the scenes. They’re in each tapestry and always paired. They must have been the initials of the patron who commissioned the tapestries.”
“Perhaps,” Verlaine said, looking more closely at the letters and noticing that they had been stitched with golden thread. “But look: The letter E is turned backward in each instance. The letters have been inverted.”
“And if we flip them,” Gabriella said, “we have E A.”
“Ex angelis,” Verlaine said.
Verlaine stepped so close to the tapestry that he could see the intricate patterns of threads composing the fabric of the scene. The material smelled loamy, centuries of exposure to dust and air an inextricable part of it. Sabine Clementine, who had been standing quietly nearby, waiting to be of assistance, came to their side. “Come,” she said softly. “You are here for the tapestries. They are my specialty.”
Without waiting for a response, Sabine walked to the first panel. She said, “The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries are the great masterpieces of the medieval era, seven panels woven of wool and silk. Together the panels depict a courtly hunting party—you can see for yourself the hounds, knights, maidens, and castles, framed by fountains and forests. The precise provenance of the tapestries remains something of a mystery, even after years of study, but art historians agree that the style points to Brussels around the year 1500. The first written documentation of the Unicorn Tapestries emerged in the seventeenth century, when the tapestries were cataloged as part of the estate of a noble French family. They were discovered and restored in the mid-nineteenth century. John D. Rockefeller Jr. paid over one million dollars for them in the 1920s. In my opinion it was a bargain. Many historians believe them to be the finest example of medieval art in the world.”
Verlaine gazed at the tapestry, drawn to its vibrant color and the unicorn that reclined at the center of the woven panel, a milk-white beast, its great horn raised.
“Tell me, mademoiselle,” Gabriella said, a hint of challenge in her voice, “have you come to help us or to give us a guided tour?”
“You will need a guide,” Sabine replied pointedly. “Do you see the block of stitches between the letters?” She gestured to the E A initials above the unicorn.
“It looks like there was pretty intensive restoration work,” Verlaine replied, as if the answer to Gabriella’s question were the most obvious one in the world. “It was damaged?”
“Extensively,” Sabine Clementine said. “The tapestries were looted during the French Revolution—stolen from a chateau and used for decades to cover peasants’ fruit trees from frost. Although the fabric has been lovingly, painstakingly restored, the damage is apparent if one looks closely.”
As Gabriella examined the tapestry, her thoughts appeared to take a new turn. She said, “Mrs. Rockefeller was given the enormous challenge of hiding the instrument, and according to the clue she gave as instructions, she indeed chose to hide it here, in the Cloisters.”
“It would seem that way,” Verlaine said, gazing at her expectantly.
“To accomplish this she would have needed to find a location that was well guarded and yet exposed, safe yet accessible, so that the instrument could eventually be recovered.” Gabriella took a deep breath and looked about the room—crowds had gathered in clusters before the tapestries. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “We can see firsthand that hiding something as unwieldy as a lyre—an instrument consisting of a large body and crossbars, which are generally of sizable proportions—in an intimate museum like the Cloisters would be almost impossible. And yet we know she has managed it.”
“Are you suggesting that the lyre isn’t really here?” Verlaine asked.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all,” Gabriella said. “It is exactly the opposite. I don’t think Abigail Rockefeller would send us on a wild-goose chase. I have been thinking over the dilemma of there being four locations for one instrument and have come to the conclusion that Abigail Rockefeller was extremely savvy about hiding the lyre. She found the safest locations, but she also put the lyre in its more secure form. I believe that the instrument may not be in the form we expect.”
“Now you’ve lost me,” Verlaine said.
Sabine said, “As any angelologist who has spent a semester in Ethereal Musicology, the History of the Angelic Choruses, or any of the other seminars that focus upon the construction and implementation of the instruments would know, there is one essential component to the lyre: the strings. While many other heavenly instruments were fashioned from the precious celestial metal known as Valkine, the lyre’s unique resonance arises from its strings. They were made of an unidentifiable substance that angelologists have long believed to be a mixture of silk and strands of the angels’ own hair. Whatever the material, the sound is extraordinary because of the substance of the strings and the way they are stretched. The frame is, for all intents and purposes, interchangeable.”
“You have attended the academy in Paris,” Gabriella said, impressed.
“Bien s?r, Dr. Valko,” Sabine said, smiling slightly. “How else would I be entrusted with such a position as this? You may not recall, but I attended your Introduction to Spiritual Warfare Seminar.”
“What year?” Gabriella asked, studying Sabine, attempting to recognize her.
“The first term of 1987,” Sabine responded.
“My last year at the academy,” Gabriella said.
“It was my favorite course.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” Gabriella said. “And now you can repay me by helping me solve a puzzle: ‘As a hand at the loom wove this mystery, so a hand must unravel it.’ ” Gabriella watched Sabine as she repeated the line from Mrs. Rockefeller’s letter, searching for a spark of recognition.
“I am here to assist in the unraveling,” Sabine said. “And I now know what it is that I’m meant to free from the tapestry.”
“Mrs. Rockefeller wove the strings into this tapestry?” Verlaine said.
“Actually,” Sabine replied, “she hired a very adept professional to do the work for her. But yes, they are there, inside the Unicorn in Captivity tapestry.”
Verlaine stared at the weave skeptically. “How in the hell will we get them out?”
Nonplussed, Sabine said, “If I am informed correctly, the procedure was skillfully performed and will leave no damage whatsoever.”
“It is odd that Abby Rockefeller would choose such a delicate piece of art as a shield,” Gabriella noted.
Sabine said, “You must remember that once upon a time these tapestries were the private property of the Rockefellers. They hung in Abigail Rockefeller’s living room from 1922, when her husband bought them, until the late 1930s, when they were brought here. Mrs. Rockefeller had a very intimate knowledge of the tapestries, including their weak spots.” Sabine pointed at a heavily repaired patch on the weave. “See how it is irregular? One snip of the repair thread and it will open in a seam.”
A museum security guard stationed at the far side of the room walked casually over to them. “Are you ready for us, Ms. Clementine?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you,” Sabine responded, her manner becoming crisp and professional. “But we will need to clear the gallery first. Please call in the others.” Sabine turned to Gabriella and Verlaine. “I have arranged to block off the area for the duration of the procedure. We will need complete freedom to work on the tapestry, a task that would be impossible in such a crowd.”
“You can do that?” Verlaine asked, looking at the congested hall.
“Of course,” Sabine said. “I am the associate director of restorations. I can arrange repairs as I see fit.”
“What about that?” Verlaine asked, nodding to the security camera.
“I have taken care of everything, monsieur.”
Verlaine gazed at the tapestry, realizing that they had very little time to locate the strings and remove them. As he’d originally suspected, the repaired fabric above the unicorn’s horn, located in the upper third of the tapestry, contained the largest defect. It was high off the floor, perhaps six feet. One would have to stand upon a chair or a stool to reach it. The angle wouldn’t be ideal. There was every possibility that the seam would be too difficult to open and that it would be necessary to remove the tapestry from the wall, spread it flat on the floor, and work it open there. This, however, would be the last resort.
A number of security guards entered the gallery and began directing people from the room. Once the space had been cleared, the guards stood watch at the door.
With the gallery emptied, Sabine escorted a short, bald man past the guards and to the tapestry, where he placed a metal case on the floor and unfolded a stepladder. Without so much as a glance at Gabriella or Verlaine, he climbed the stepladder and began to examine the seam.
“The glass, Ms. Clementine,” the man said.
Sabine opened the case, revealing a row of scalpels, threads, scissors, and a great magnifying glass, the last of which collected a bright swirl of light from the room and condensed it into a single ball of fire.
Verlaine watched as the man worked, fascinated by his confidence. He had often wondered at the skills of restoration and had even been to an exhibit that demonstrated the chemical processes used to clean fabrics such as these. Holding the magnifying glass in one hand and a scalpel in the other, the man worked the tip of the blade into a row of tight, neat stitches. With the slightest pressure, the stitches split apart. He opened one stitch after another in this fashion until a hole the size of an apple appeared in the tapestry. The man continued his work with the concentration of a surgeon.
Standing on tiptoes, Verlaine peered up at the unbound fabric. He could see nothing but a fray of colored threads, fine as hair. The man requested a tool from the case, and Sabine handed him a long, thin hook, which he inserted into the hole in the fabric. Then he slipped his hand directly between the A and the E. He tugged, and a bright spark caught Verlaine’s eye: Twisted about the hook, there was an opalescent cord.
Verlaine counted them as the man handed him the strings. They were capillary-thin and so smooth that they slid between Verlaine’s fingers as if waxed. Five, seven, ten strings, limp and sumptuous, draped over his arm. The man climbed down the ladder. “That is all,” he said, a look of sobriety upon his face, as if he had just desecrated a shrine.
Sabine took the strings, rolled them into a tight coil, and zipped them into a cloth pouch. Pressing it into Verlaine’s palm, she said, “Follow me, madame, monsieur,” and led Gabriella and Verlaine to the entrance of the gallery.
“Do you know how to attach them?” Sabine asked.
Gabriella said, “I will manage, I’m sure.”
“Yes, of course,” Sabine said, and with a snap of her finger the security guards collected around them, three on each side. “Be careful,” Sabine said, kissing Gabriella on each cheek in the Parisian manner. “Good luck.”
As the security guards escorted Gabriella and Verlaine through the museum, pushing past the ever-present crowd, it seemed to Verlaine that the studies he had undertaken, the frustrations and fruitless searches of academic life—somehow, all of it had delivered him to this moment of triumph. Gabriella walked at his side, the woman who had brought him to understand his calling as an angelologist and his future—if he dared to hope—with Evangeline. They passed under archway after archway, the heavy Romanesque architecture yielding to the light trelliswork of the Gothic, the pouch containing the strings of the lyre held tightly in his hand.