Chapter 9 #2
“Mm,” said Olivia, continuing to study the second fragment. Celia could see what she thought must be entire phrases of writing,
maybe entire sentences.
“But what is it?” Daphne’s voice rose higher, as it did when she was frightened.
“Can you tell what it is?” Celia asked.
“At first glance, I’m not certain. The first page seems to be random words, possibly torn from the same papyrus but, again,
impossible to judge without further testing. But the second page. Several actual fragments. Let’s see. I’m rather rusty at
my ancient Greek, and this is particularly challenging to see. . . .” She held the magnifier over one of the fragments. “Let’s
see . . .” She moved the magnifier. “Stars, that’s definitely stars . . . near the . . . something . . .” She covered her nose and mouth with her hand and moved even
closer. Then she straightened up. “Stars near the lovely mo . . . probably moon. Stars near the lovely moon. I would say it’s lines from a poem or a song, or several of them.”
Celia moved away to let out a sigh of relief. Stars and moon. Didn’t sound like Margaret, if the papyrus hadn’t given that possibility away. Poetry, as long as it wasn’t dirty limericks, should be safe.
“Actually . . .” Olivia pinched her lip between her finger and thumb, an act of extreme concentration. Then wiped her hand
on her skirt and lifted out another page. “O crown . . . no . . . gold crowned . . . O gold crowned—” She paused, frowned.
“What?” both sisters prodded.
Olivia looked up, as if she were surprised to see them there. “Oh, I think . . . I really should take this upstairs to study,”
Olivia said.
“What does it say?” Celia and Daphne demanded. “Tell us.”
“I was just thinking . . . No, it couldn’t be. Just too farfetched.”
“What?” Her sisters cried again.
“Aphrodite. O gold crowned Aphrodite.”
“What’s farfetched about that?” asked Daphne. “It sounds like poetry.”
“I can’t be sure.” Olivia removed the next two sheets. On the last pages there was one fragment larger than the rest. Olivia’s
lips moved silently as she translated. Then slowly she looked up.
“A few months ago, I was reading about fragments of poetry found last year in the papier-maché covering an Egyptian sarcophagus.
They often reused papyrus that way. These particular fragments were carefully restored, then disappeared.”
“What happened to them?” Daphne asked.
“I have no idea. I didn’t follow up on the article. Things in Egypt are being discovered and disappearing all the time, usually
into some rich aristocrat’s art collection. After all, they finance many of the archaeological digs.”
“But they should have ended up in a museum, not in a throwaway box on Book Row in Manhattan,” Celia said.
“True, but if these are what I think they might be, they could be worth a fortune.”
Celia and Daphne waited, stuck somewhere between curiosity and dread.
“The new discovery was thought to be lines by Sappho, the ancient poetess from the isle of Lésbos. The most famous poetess
in history. And, unfortunately, banned. Since the first century AD. Even if it isn’t stolen, her subject matter would put
us in jail.”
The three exchanged looks. They were examining the stolen fragments of a priceless find. Something that would be worth a fortune.
Stolen poetry of a banned poetess. Just having it in their possession would send them all to prison.
“But how did it end up here?” Daphne asked. “Why was it in our box? First Yannis’s, then the postcard man, now this. Why is
this happening?”
“Why is it banned? It didn’t sound so bad to me,” said Celia.
“Mostly because of the jealous opinions of men of lesser talent.”
“What men? What subject matter?” demanded Daphne, her voice growing shrill.
“If you read more history and fewer shopgirl romances, you’d know,” Celia said.
Daphne stuck her tongue out at Celia then turned to Olivia.
“Evidently, the male playwrights of the New Comedy period satirized Sappho for her sensuality and her love of women as well
as men.”
Daphne blinked. “Oh.”
Which could easily make them the target of the next Suppression of Vice raid, Celia thought, in addition to the reason they
already had but didn’t know about. And yet . . . an ancient Greek poetess here in their shop. “Amazing,” she breathed.
“We have to give it back.”
Celia could hear the panic rising in Daphne’s voice. She looked at Olivia for help, but Olivia seemed to have forgotten they
were there.
“To whom?” Celia asked, when it was clear Olivia wasn’t going to answer.
“I don’t know. Just put it back in the box, maybe someone will come back for it.”
“The thief? That makes us abettors.”
“We don’t know it was stolen.”
Celia rolled her eyes. Sometimes Daphne could be so dense. “Even if it isn’t, the subject matter alone is such that we can’t
give it away.”
“Girls!” Olivia’s voice broke over their argument in a way it hadn’t for a long time.
“We don’t know that it’s Sappho or any other poet. It may be a fake. It could be a joke someone is playing. It could be something
else entirely. It will have to be studied more fully before we can decide what to do about it.”
“No,” said Daphne. “We should put it back in the box and pretend we’ve never seen it. Then we can’t be breaking the law. Let
whoever left it come back for it and take it out of our lives.”
“Daphne, darling, think. This is the discovery of a lifetime. We can’t just throw it back on the street, possibly to be destroyed.”
Olivia shook her head minutely. “That would be a crime.”
“Then we should turn it over to the police. Say we found it and don’t know anything about it.”
“Oh, don’t be so naive,” Celia said. “If we offer it to the police, even if they don’t arrest us for being accessories, they will confiscate it and either lose it in storage or sell it to one of their many contacts on the street.”
“Yes,” agreed Olivia. “We can’t do anything until we discover its provenance.”
“But how?” asked Celia. “If we consult another seller, they might accuse us of theft—or worse, we could be blackmailed by
an unscrupulous dealer to sell it to them for a pittance.”
“I would never consult an unscrupulous dealer about anything, especially not about something this important.”
How quickly “we” has turned to “I,” thought Celia. But she was glad to have Olivia take responsibility. Celia had her own responsibilities; hers also put them
in a precarious position, and she hadn’t even confided her activities to them.
“How can you find the provenance if you can’t consult other dealers?”
“I’ll think of something. Neither of you is to worry, do you understand? And you are to say nothing, nothing at all. As big
as this discovery might be, it’s just too dangerous to make it known to anyone . . . yet. I will lock it in the safe. The
one no one but us knows about. Mum’s the word. Do I make myself clear?”
They both nodded, but an icicle of dread skittered up Celia’s spine. She recognized the glint in her sister’s eyes, not the
cloudiness that usually dimmed them but something else. A light. A passion. A passion Celia herself felt toward women’s safety.
And she knew instinctively that it would be hard to wrest the fragments of papyrus from her sister once she locked them away.
If they were real, for Olivia it would be an opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to translate the most important female poetess
who ever lived. And before her eyesight failed.
But for Celia, she knew that its presence might eventually raise suspicions about her own activities, which could lead to the ruin and imprisonment not only of her family, but of a whole network of people.
“I agree. The safe is the best place for it. . . . For now, until we can identify and contact the original owners about its return.”
Daphne looked like she might burst into tears.
“Daph, it’s too important a discovery to leave to chance.”
Daphne slumped. “Okay, I won’t tell. But I wish you’d never opened it.”
In a way, so did Celia. It was like opening Ali Baba’s cave—or Pandora’s box.
“Now, tidy the carts and get ready to open the shop,” Olivia said. “And Celia, check the box thoroughly in case there is something
there that will lead us to the owner.”
Olivia gently gathered the papers and returned them carefully to the metal box.
Celia began searching through the throwaway box, this time looking for clues. She had more reason than provenance to search
for a message.
Daphne huffed, but she started rearranging the books in the cart, for once without grumbling.
And while they both were busy, Olivia carried the box and the papyrus fragments up the stairs and out of sight.