Chapter 10 Another Stone Wall
ANOTHER STONE WALL
Of course, it wasn’t as easy as all that.
We started out straight away—at least once the remains of breakfast had been consumed, mostly by Ben and Ashleigh.
Five minutes after they’d started in on it, there was nothing but crumbs left, as if a plague of locusts had descended.
I’d forgotten how much young people can eat, maybe because when I’d been young, there’d been so little to eat.
Alix said, “I can’t find a phone number or a specific address, but the Dresden museums are run by something called the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden—why are German words so long?—and the only address seems to be the main entrance of the palace. Same place we were yesterday.”
“The State Art Collections,” I said. “That’s what it means.”
“I could look more for a phone number,” Ashleigh said, bright as always. She was clearly trying to be helpful so we’d continue to let her come along.
“No,” Alix said, “it’s too easy to say ‘No’ on the phone, and then where are you?”
“I agree,” Sebastian said. “We go in there and ask for the offices, is what we do. Simple.”
I said, “Let’s prepare, then. If we get anywhere at all, they’ll have many questions. We need to be able to answer them.”
Back across the street, eventually, and the long trek around the palace walls to the front.
I looked longingly at the Hofkirche—how comforting it would be to sit in the family pew again and look at the pipes of the organ, so beautifully ornamented with gold!
Later, I told myself, and walked up the steps and through the palace doors once more.
“Sebastian should ask,” I said, when we joined the queue at the information desk. “People respond more to men.”
“Oma,” Alix said with a sigh.
“Sigh all you like,” I said. “This is Germany, and I can’t believe it’s changed that much.
One person only must talk—we must be very polite, very orderly—and for this part, it should be Sebastian.
” I didn’t add, “Because he is definitely more polite and orderly than you.” Order, after all, is not the most important quality in the world.
How difficult it was, though, not to jump in once the dialogue began! How I wanted to explain, to insist, and from the tension in Alix’s form as she nearly quivered beside me, I wasn’t the only one.
Sebastian, to his credit, stayed absolutely calm.
“No,” he was saying now, “our query can’t be answered online, unfortunately. We really do need to see the curator.” Always best to ask for a specific person, or who knows who they’ll fob you off on? So far, I approved of his tactics.
“If you could explain, please, what this is regarding,” the middle-aged woman said, a familiar obstinacy having settled over her face. Nobody did “officialdom” as well as Germany. Even in their killing, they’d kept meticulous records.
Sebastian hesitated, possibly for dramatic effect, leaned a little closer, lowered his voice, and said, “We know of an artifact that was hidden here, in the palace, during the Second World War. We’d like to help find it again.” He didn’t add, “and take it away,” which was wise.
“The palace sustained major damage,” the woman said, “and was rebuilt. Nothing can have remained hidden.”
“Don’t you want to be sure, though?” Sebastian asked. “I can tell how much you care for the place.”
“Of course. It’s a national treasure.” Her voice was still stiff.
“Absolutely,” Sebastian said. “So how about letting us speak to the curator? If they’re not interested, they can tell us.
Who is it, by the way? Man or woman? I don’t want to keep saying ‘they.’ And what’s your own name, if I may ask?
I’m Sebastian Robillard.” He put out a hand, because he’d noticed after two days here that Germans shook hands at every possible occasion.
She took his hand, which was progress. “The curator is Frau Doktor Annemaria Bauer,” she said. “A very eminent scholar. I am Frau Schmidt.”
“Great,” Sebastian said. “That’s great to know.
Thank you, Frau Schmidt. I really do think the curator will be interested.
” There was quite a queue forming behind us by now, as you can imagine.
Sebastian smiled winningly—he has golden eyes framed by dark lashes, and those creases beside his mouth that are a man’s dimples, and all of it is most effective.
“Please,” he said. “My wife’s grandmother”—we were entering the ‘lying’ portion of the afternoon, as he and Alix weren’t married yet—“has come all the way from California for this, you see. She’s ninety-four years old and very frail, as you can probably tell.
This is the first time she’s returned to Dresden since she evacuated after the bombing, and this is what she’s come for, to help the authorities find this artifact.
It’s her dying wish, so I could really use your help. ”
Alix snorted a bit, and I elbowed her in the side, then remembered to look frail. Judging by my reflection in that dress shop, that’s not nearly as difficult a task as I’d imagined.
“I don’t see how this can be,” the woman said, “but I’ll telephone. If you’d like to have a seat over there and wait, please.”
I sank down gratefully on the sort of black padded bench beloved of art museums everywhere and said, “Pity I didn’t bring a cane.”
“What?” Alix looked alarmed. “You always say you refuse to use a cane, that it just weakens you more. I knew we overdid it yesterday.”
I sighed. “No. I meant that if I had a cane, I’d look older and more frail.”
“Oh,” Alix said. Her mouth opened, then closed again.
Ben said, “I don’t think that’s exactly a problem.”
“Oh?” I asked. “Didn’t you hear Sebastian, then?”
“Yes,” Ben said, “but you already do look really old. I mean, you’re dressed really well and everything, like you said, but …”
“Thank you,” I said, as Alix snorted a bit and Sebastian struggled to control his mouth. “I will accept your comment in the spirit of pragmatism.”
“What?” Ben asked.
Ashleigh, who’d finally stopped filming once we’d sat down, said, “She means she isn’t exactly happy to be told she looks ancient, but she guesses it’ll help if people feel sorry for her.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Very perceptive.”
“You do look really good, though,” Ashleigh went on.
“For an old lady,” I said.
“Well, yes,” she said, “but you are an old lady, so … That’s a great suit.”
“A St. John knit,” I said, touching a black button on the short raspberry tweed jacket, worn with its matching skirt.
“My mother told me that it was better to buy one beautifully made piece that would last decades than twenty flimsier garments. Prescient of her, really, as she owned an entire roomful of beautiful clothes and I’m sure never imagined things turning out as they did.
I have had this suit for decades, though, so you see? Her lesson worked.”
“The pearls are a good choice, too.” Ashleigh said.
“Really?” That was Ben again. “Don’t you think that if she looks too rich, they’ll think, “Why do you need another piece of jewelry? Don’t you have enough stuff?”
“No,” I said. “They’ll think—subconsciously—that I am who I say I am, and have no need to swindle anyone.” At least I hoped so.
We sat there for nearly twenty minutes longer. Alix said, after fifteen of them, “What the heck are they waiting for?”
I said, “To see if we’ll go away, possibly. We are very polite, very respectful. And immovable, because it doesn’t occur to us that we will be refused.”
“Well,” Alix said, “you’re the right person for that.
” I didn’t address that—I was, possibly, a bit more arrogant than I believed—but sat some more, until a severe-looking woman in a tweed suit—a gray one, and all wrong with her coloring, making her look drab and older than her years—came to a stop before us and said in English, “I’m Dr. Bauer, curator of the museum. And you are?”
I got to my feet. I put my hand on Alix’s arm to do it, and it wasn’t entirely acting. “Good morning, Frau Doktor Bauer,” I said, and held out a hand. “I am Marguerite von Sachsen Stark.”
Her eyes went wide, then narrowed. She took my hand, shook it briefly, and said, “Let’s speak in the conference room, as you are so many.”
The offices were down a corridor. I said, passing one of them, “The gun room. My father’s spaniel got so excited when she came through that door with him.
And the flower room next door. Interesting that you’ve taken these rooms rather than using the grander apartments on the first floor.
Doesn’t part of you long for a bit more elegance? ”
Frau Dr. Bauer looked startled again, but showed us into a windowed room that looked out onto the Chiaveriegasse, the street that ran between the palace and the Hofkirche, and also, of course, the Hofkirche itself, which was as comforting as always.
My bedroom and the nursery both had looked out on the towering spires and Baroque ornamentation of the cathedral, and its presence now was as comforting as an old friend.
I said, “I notice the streets around the palace are closed to pedestrians now. Very wise, especially as people don’t look where they’re going when they’re distracted.
You’d have a view of endless pedestrian fatalities otherwise, I expect. ”
I took my seat at Dr. Bauer’s right hand and, once we were settled, introduced the others. I didn’t continue Sebastian’s charade, but introduced him as Alix’s fiancé. Always better, I find, to tell the truth when you can. So much less confusing, and easier to keep track of, too.
“All your relations,” Dr. Bauer said, “except Miss …”
“Who, me?” Ashleigh asked. “Ashleigh Finnegan. I’m the videographer.” She held up her phone. “Do you mind?”
“I’m afraid I do,” Dr. Bauer said. “This isn’t for some sort of a television program, is it?”
“No,” Ashleigh said. “New media.”
Dr. Bauer’s lips tightened. “No filming is permitted in the museum for commercial purposes without prior approval.”