Chapter Twenty-Three #2
He bites back a grin. So do I. Still got it.
“Fine, but we have to be quick,” he says in a stage whisper. “And if we get caught, you told me that you’re a professor of art history from Northwestern, you have permission to look at our special collections, and I had no reason to think that you were lying, okay?”
“Got it,” I say.
We sneak up three flights of stairs and stop at a locked white door with the label “Special Collections.” Matt pulls a key ring from his hip, searches the area for any onlookers, then unlocks the door.
“Everything is bolted down and alarmed,” he warns me. “So if you’re secretly a burglar, you’ll have a really bad day.”
“I promise not to start my life of crime today,” I tell him. I squeeze his shoulder. “Thank you, Matt.”
Matt shrugs, and I can tell he already regrets his moment of insubordination.
“In and out,” he warns me, and then he hustles back down the stairs and I am alone.
The pieces in this room are eclectic in style, medium, period, and place of origin: pastel-toned Impressionist paintings set next to hyperrealistic works next to black and white photographs next to Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.
Even their presentation lacks cohesion: some of the pieces are mounted in elaborate gold frames, others plain wood, more than a few in glass, modern frames that wouldn’t look out of place in my condo.
I wander farther in, confused, until I find the decal introducing me to the space.
It is simple, nondescript, and contains far less information than I’d hoped for: From the personal collections of Robert E.
J. Conrad, William A. Harrison compared to the well-manicured, well-organized setup of Margaret’s exhibit, it almost feels like a glorified storage space.
Matt’s assessment of Harrison maybe she knew Alphonse as well. His features are striking; it wouldn’t surprise me if he modeled. But why would Margaret choose to depict him like this? As an incubus of all things?
Maybe, a voice in the back of my mind says, because that’s what he was.
A chill descends on my body despite the warmth, and I hold my coat to my chest as I circle the room.
Suddenly I can see Alphonse everywhere: he is Dionysus on a throne, surrounded by curling grapevines and reveling worshippers.
He is lupine and elegant in samurai armor as he slices through an enemy, their blood marked by an arc of red ink.
He is a pirate and a priest and a surgeon, appearing over and over again: a muse for an unknown artist—or artists—whose brushstrokes survived centuries.
I try to consider alternate explanations than the one that is pounding at the inside of my skull. Perhaps this dark-haired man is a mythological icon I simply have never heard of, like a golden-haired Achilles or white Jesus. Perhaps Alphonse just happens to resemble him—
In my panic, I’ve paced around the whole hall.
When I look up, I find that I’m back at the first painting: the one of Sisyphus.
Its label dates back to the 1700s, and it’s painted in the style of the old masters of the Renaissance, with obsessive dedication to the human form and a composition that shows both the agony and futility of his task.
I look more closely now at Sisyphus himself.
His straining muscles, his twisted expression, the mop of dark curls that stick to the back of his neck.
I know that face. I’ve examined it from every angle, closed my eyes to find it smiling at me across a blank canvas room.
“Jules,” I whisper.
I move through the room anew, like I’ve just gained sight.
There, and there, and there—the man I almost loved stands, sits, lounges, dances, fights in pieces that cross centuries—the 1700s, the 1800s, the 2000s.
Sometimes his hair is shorn as I know it to be now, other times long enough to be tied back.
His age varies too: here he springs for a ball with youthful delight, there he pores over documents with a quill pen and a full, gray mustache.
It’s not a pattern anyone who hasn’t spent the hours, days, months I have spent poring over his face might notice, but I would recognize him anywhere, and I recognize him now.
But what my eyes are showing me can’t be possible. Can’t be real. Because if it is, then I have to accept that Julian Conrad has been alive for a very long time.
Too long to be human.
I power walk through the exhibit, taking photos of the evidence I gather so that I can’t convince myself that I’ve imagined this later, talk myself out of this improbable truth that’s hit me like a gut punch.
It’s not just him I find, but Leila, and another woman who must be Rose.
The world feels like it’s tilting, transforming before my eyes from a place where every phenomenon can be explained to one in which immortality can exist—
“You shouldn’t be here, Dr. Sullivan,” a voice calls out.
I spin on my heel, lowering my phone. My adrenaline ratchets up so quickly that I’m almost nauseous with it, but it’s only a woman.
She’s prim and well-dressed in a black jumpsuit with a stylish, tousled French bob, and even from the entrance of the hall, I can tell that her expression is sympathetic.
It’s Julian’s assistant, Ritika. I’ve only met her once, at Margaret’s exhibition, but I’ve communicated with her a few times to coordinate schedules, and our interactions have always been pleasant.
“Oh. Hey, Ritika,” I say, breathless. My muscles still flex with tension as she approaches, the clacking of her heels echoing through the gallery.
“This exhibit is closed to the public,” she says. “Sorry. Matt is a bit green. He shouldn’t have let you in.”
Shoot. I hope I haven’t gotten Matt into too much trouble.
“That was my fault,” I tell her. “He was great. I bullied him into letting me up…”
Ritika’s lip quirks. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she looks impressed.
“I don’t mean to this exhibit,” she tells me. “You’re not allowed in the gallery at all, I’m afraid.”
It takes me a second to understand what she’s saying, and when I do, my stomach drops into my pelvis.
“Julian put me on a no-access list?” I say, astounded. “What? Why? I’m not a stalker.”
Ritika doesn’t offer me any reassurance on that point, just inclines her head.
“Unfortunately, I do need you to leave,” she says. “Or I’ll have to call security.”
One thing Julian will always be sure to serve me, it seems, is a platter full of humiliation. It was bad enough to not be good enough to fuck, but to be deemed unworthy of setting foot on any of his properties is a new low.
“Don’t bother. I’ll see myself out.” I shove my arms back through my coat and storm past her.
Ritika follows me all the way down. Her heels clack smartly behind me down the three flights of stairs, across the lobby where Matt sheepishly avoids my gaze, and even beyond the swinging glass doors and down the sidewalk to the street.
Annoyed, I spin to face her.
“You planning to escort me to my car?” I snarl.
Something shifts on Ritika’s face: a clenching of her teeth, a furrowing of her brow. Determination. She peers left, right, behind her, and just as I’m about to ask her if she’s good, wraps her arms around me in a hug.
“W-What—” I stammer. My arms are suspended in the air, but she squeezes me closer.
“From Rose,” she whispers.
I’m too petrified to process what she’s said, let alone respond, when she relinquishes me. She steps back, then lifts her chin haughtily as if I’m the one who just ambushed her with an embrace.
“Have a good day, Dr. Sullivan,” she says.
Then she turns on her heel and marches briskly back into the gallery, leaving me there at the side of the road to make sense of what just happened.
Something falls from my pocket onto the ground, glossy and the size of a postcard. I bend to pick it up, then suck in a breath.
Ritika has given me a clue.