The Cloisters(16)

Around the library, the curtains had been pulled against the Gothic windows, windows that usually filled the space with enough natural light that the table lamps felt like redundant accessories. I walked to the windows and began pulling the curtains back, letting in the weak sunlight and watching motes of dust dance across the room. Perhaps security closed them every night and I had simply arrived before their routine reopening? I cracked a window and the morning songs of birds sifted into the room, chasing away whatever I might have imagined in the dark library.

At the table where Rachel and I usually worked, I began to unpack my bag, setting down my computer and notebook, and pulling out a few texts I had been using as reference—monographs on medieval approaches to astrology and oracles, a thirteenth-century handbook on how to interpret dreams. But on the table I noticed smooth red dots. When I wedged a fingernail under one, it resisted. I pressed until I could feel it pinching the nail bed, when it released from the table with ease. I rubbed the red disk between my fingers. Wax. Wax drippings from candles? I pulled the drippings off the table and set them aside, a neat little pile on a sheet of paper.

I liked being in the library early and alone. At a time when the only sounds were my footsteps and the guards’, when the lighting was low and I could move around unnoticed. Alone, after all, was my default way of being, one of the main reasons that academia had appealed to me in the first place: the ability to be unchaperoned with captivating objects and ancient histories. This, I preferred to the idea of working in an office with small talk and endless meetings, the forced intimacy of team-building exercises. Academia did away with all that. And for that, I was grateful.

By the time Patrick arrived I had made my way into the storage stacks, cranking open two sets of shelves just wide enough that I could wedge my body between, hoping the book I needed wouldn’t be on a lower shelf, as I hadn’t left enough space to bend down. I heard his footsteps before I saw him pass through the sliver at the end of the stacks, like an apparition. And then, he paused, retracing his steps to where I stood.

“Looks tight,” he said, letting his hand rest heavy on the crank arm. The stacks inched closed. It was only a hair, but I instinctively put my hand up to brace against the movement. Tight spaces made me claustrophobic, and there was something about being squeezed while Patrick stood out in the open that caused my heart to kick up into my throat.

“I’m not going to crush you, Ann,” Patrick laughed. “I saw the sign-in log. Early morning?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” I said, plucking the volume I was looking for off the shelf and scooting out of the narrow confines of the stacks, back to the cart I had been filling with books.

Patrick used his finger to read the titles. “A very fine collection you’ve pulled together here.”

I held the book to my chest, embarrassed by how quickly my anxiety in the stacks had turned to eagerness. I longed desperately to please him, so much so that I lingered on his words, on his praise for the way I conducted research. As if all the books were for him, the early morning, too; I could feel the flush on my cheeks, the heat.

“Tell me, Ann,” he said, reading the last title, “did Richard talk to you about the divinatory practices of early Renaissance Italy?”

I was well versed in the essential role at least one divination—astrology—had played during the Renaissance. The way it had guided little decisions like when to shave a beard or take a bath, as well as big ones, like when to go to war. The way aristocrats and popes had believed that their painted ceilings—known today as celestial vaults, decorated with constellations and signs of the zodiac—could have as much impact on their fates as the stars themselves. I had even briefly worked on geomancy in Venice—the city’s passion for using a handful of thrown soil to tell the future. The courts of the Renaissance loved magic and occult practices, and they were surprisingly adept at fitting them into their Christian worldview. Lingraf, I knew, had a kind of soft spot for this work, a romantic and fanciful interest I had always attributed to personal passions, not academic rigor. And to a certain extent, he had encouraged it in me, and I had let it blossom.

“He did,” I acknowledged. But Lingraf had never been keen to share his work. He was avuncular. Encouraging. Never open.

“That’s right. You mentioned in Michelle’s office some of your work.”

I wondered again how deeply Patrick had gone through my application materials. If he had reached out to Lingraf to learn more.

“And what do you think of it all? This exhibition we’re working on?” he continued. “Broad strokes.”

“I think it reflects the extent to which, although the Renaissance is often considered an era of logic and science, it was easily seduced by ancient practices that didn’t include geometry and anatomy, but rather a belief in oracles and mystical traditions. In some ways it was also very”—I paused—“anti-science. Broad strokes, of course.”

“Of course,” said Patrick, looking at me.

I was struck again by how handsome he was. Even in the fluorescent light of the stacks, his jawline and cheekbones seemed to gleam with health. During my first week I had tried to figure out his age by looking up the date of his dissertation. He was, I had confirmed, in his late forties, maybe early fifties. Young to be a full curator anywhere, but particularly at The Cloisters.

“Why do you suppose,” he said, pulling out a volume I had selected on medieval visions and paging through it, “they were so seduced by these things?”