On the Verge (5 page)

Shivering from the cold and not a little bit from the thrill of it all, she punched a finger at the doorbell once more, anxious as much to get inside and see the interior of Beldame’s famed mansion as for a chance to get warm.

Suddenly the door swung open on its noiseless hinges, and there before her, a look of derision on her extraordinary face, was Ophidia.

“You know it’s rather impolite to ring twice, my dear,” the Dionysian beauty purred.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Freya said. “It just seemed like some time had passed since I rang the first time and I thought maybe no one had heard the bell.”

“Rest assured we knew you were here the moment you stepped foot on the property. There are security cameras everywhere. You don’t amass a museum-worthy collection of art and artifacts without making a few enemies, and we’ve taken every precaution to protect Beldame and her property from those hoping to divest her of a treasure or two.”

She stood back and beckoned Freya inside.

“Just something to keep in mind,” Ophidia continued. “Ms. Beldame is from a different generation when etiquette actually mattered.”

“Right, okay,” said Freya, smiling weakly, but feeling slightly annoyed. She didn’t like to be corrected unless it was for a legitimate reason. An idiosyncratic focus on manners didn’t strike her as a particularly valid reason for a reprimand.

Freya stepped inside the impressive foyer where a massive chandelier composed of blown glass discs floated like a confection of light above the solidity of the wood floors and paneled walls.

“Follow me,” Ophidia said.

Freya dutifully trailed behind her as they passed through the foyer. Ophidia’s footfalls resonated against the polished mahogany floorboards. The sound, rich and deep, soothed her finely-tuned aesthetic sensibilities and provided a welcome respite from the cheap tiles of the School of Art. It was a tragedy in her mind that a school devoted to the study of things visually stimulating would forsake the very environment where its pupils were taught. She found the school to be spiritually oppressive; the exterior might have some promise, but the insides were a wasteland of institutional utilitarianism.

They continued on, skirting a massive staircase. Freya noticed that, rather drolly, the stair’s banisters were anchored on either side by caryatids. On the right the figure was a classic Greco-Roman beauty with bountiful exposed breasts and thick hips wrapped in artfully folded drapery. On the left was what appeared to be her cruel caricature, evil and malice carved into the still-sensual curves. Turning the figure from an ingénue to a seductress with only a few subtle changes took obvious woodworking skill, and indeed the details of each were so fine they seemed to originate from some classical temple rather than a modern staircase in Seattle.

“Remarkable, aren’t they,” Ophidia said, following Freya’s gaze to the unusual figures at the base of the banisters. “Just a few deft strokes and the same figure can embody a whole new personality.”

Freya nodded but remained silent, unnerved by the strange little figures.

“Ms. Beldame is fascinated by contrasts and comparisons,” Ophidia continued. “She is a great observer of the world and has devoted her life to the collection of objects that exhibit the diversity of human experience. Hers is a passion driven by a life lived as a spectator. Objects of pageantry and drama always find their way into her home.”

Visual confirmation of Ophidia’s characterization of the mysterious Beldame lay just beyond the narrow hallway they were currently traversing. The antechamber beyond was a room the likes of which Freya had never seen.

The square space was lined entirely with glass-fronted cabinets containing a mind-boggling array of curiosities artfully arranged in a display meant to dazzle the beholder not only with the aesthetic wonder of the collection but with the sheer number of oddities and artifacts the cases contained.

Freya’s own inner collector was filled with rapturous delight at the spectacle. She could have tarried in front of the display for the better part of an afternoon. As it was, she was only able to take in a few of the most striking elements of the collection, including a perfectly preserved albino peacock, its fan of diaphanous feathers fabulously unfurled, and a fantastic crystalline structure reminiscent of the delicate veins of the nervous system that Freya recognized as petrified lightning, a rare structure made from the glass that results from lightning strikes on silica-rich desert sands.

There were dazzling hunks of multicolored gemstones, skulls with the exaggerated features of humanity’s primordial ancestors, an ornate box of gold and silver that might contain some holy relic, glass canisters of sparkling powders and dried leaves of uncertain origin, along with whole Greek pots, deadly medieval weapons, twisted pearlescent horns, enormous tortoise shells, and a whole trove of other artifacts that merged together into a cabinet of curiosities that would have been at home in some esoteric alchemist’s workshop from centuries gone by.

Ophidia walked swiftly through the space without giving the wonders around her a second glance, the heels of her stilettos making tiny craters in the sumptuous Persian carpet. She stopped in front of an arched door that Freya had failed to notice among the visual cornucopia of the glass cabinets and knocked three times in quick succession.

A delicate voice that barely penetrated the thick wooden portal granted them permission to enter. Ophidia opened the door to Imogen Beldame’s office, ushered Freya inside, and then stepped out. She closed the door behind her, leaving the girl alone with Seattle’s most elusive and controversial figure.

Freya noted that the mysterious recluse’s office was large and comfortable, with intriguing objects arranged artfully here and there. A parson’s-style desk built of simple gray wood stood in one corner. An armless, red leather chair was pushed up against it. Bookshelves lined the walls, tidy rows of texts side by side like little soldiers ready to march off into intellectual battle. But the centerpiece of the room was a large fireplace framed by a massive mantel. It was currently in use, filling the space with warmth and making the ornate divan in front of it look especially welcoming.

Beldame was seated on one side of the low couch, looking at the blaze contemplatively. She turned her head slowly when Freya walked in, greeting her with a smile, her apple cheeks rosy from the heat. She gestured for Freya to have a seat, and she complied, perching tentatively on the opposite end of the formal settee.

“Welcome, Freya,” Beldame said. “I’ve been most anxious to meet you. I’ve heard from our friend Ophidia that you are quite a promising recruit.”

“Thank you,” Freya said. “I’m very flattered that you would even consider me for a position on your team.”

“It has very little to do with flattery, my dear, and everything to do with collecting,” Beldame said through a smile.

“I understand you need me to find some special colors you’d like to present at the opening night gala for the upcoming Frye exhibition.”

“Indeed,” Beldame said. “That is the job I will be asking you to do. It’s simple enough, is it not? I have a list here of the colors I need,” she said, retrieving a business card from the side table and handing it to Freya.

Freya looked at the front of the little card. Shiny black lettering on a velvety background of dark burgundy proclaimed Imogen Beldame the Proprietress of Constellation Art and Antiques. She flipped the card over where a list containing three names was neatly hand-printed over an embossed constellation of four stars, their sidereal skeleton fleshed out in old-timey sepia tones to illustrate a bird with a long neck and round body.

“The constellation Apus,” Freya said, proud that she could actually name the configuration of astral bodies on Beldame’s card.

“Very good,” Beldame said, impressed.

Freya pressed her lips together in a modest grin. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m a bit of a collector myself. I’ve always been fascinated by the way humans, from our earliest origins, have tried to make the stars knowable, graspable objects by giving them names and stories. It struck me as great hubris, to claim the stars in this way.”

“Eloquently said, Freya,” Beldame mused. “I, however, have a rather different take on the nature of collecting.”

“I’d love to hear it,” Freya said.

“I suppose you know the origin of the constellation emblazoned on my card,” said Beldame.

Freya nodded but Beldame continued as though she hadn’t noticed.

“As you rightly noted, its name is Apus, a word of Greek origin meaning
no feet
. The four stars in the constellation are meant to represent a bird of paradise, and hint at another venerable collecting tradition, taxidermy.

“You see, when European explorers first reached New Guinea centuries ago they were fascinated by the wide variety of amazing creatures that inhabited the exotic locale. They caught these creatures and had them preserved so that their beauty might be appreciated back home. However, these early preparations often removed the feet, discarding them as unnecessary and even unsightly. This led to a wonderful mythology back home in Europe regarding these footless, beautiful birds. Stories abounded that they never touched the ground but remained always aloft. They became representatives of the celestial and the godly rather than the common and terrestrial.”

Beldame paused for a moment and then stood and walked to the fireplace where she clasped her hands behind her back and gazed into the bright blaze.

“So you might say,” she continued, “that the practice of collecting elevated the bird. By ridding the creatures of their unattractive parts, by bringing them someplace where they were no longer common but special, and by taking their short, earthly lives and granting them a new life as an object, they made them into little devotional objects, bodies of beauty and distinction, revered by a society that enshrined them in institutions devoted to the preservation of knowledge and wonder, where they persist to this day.”

As she spoke, Freya couldn’t see her face, but she could see Beldame’s body stiffen, and she could hear the intensity that suffused her voice where there had been only calm restraint before. She wanted to believe that it was only the passion with which she regarded collecting that animated her in this way, but there was a starkness to her speech that made Freya’s pulse quicken and her nerves jangle.

“It’s the same with all collecting, you see,” Beldame said, her back still turned. “When you take a piece for your collection, you give it a life it never would have had otherwise; you make it exceptional. You divest it of the ugly parts and all that’s left is the specimen, perfected. In that way, we humans can become gods, the ultimate creators of a collection of perfected things that will live forever in the glass worlds we have so carefully fashioned for them.”

“I—I’ve never thought about it that way,” Freya said, feeling more uncomfortable as the conversation progressed.

“Oh, but you have, haven’t you?” Imogen Beldame asked her, suddenly turning to face her. The petite woman’s kindly visage seemed to have melted away in the interim and a harsher version had taken its place. Freya shifted in her seat. She didn’t like the way this conversation was going.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Freya replied.

“I mean,” Beldame said, “that you are smart and resourceful and that will get you far. But you are also a collector yourself and all collectors know, deep down, the sweet feeling of possession and of dominion. Even if they deny it, it’s there in the dark recesses of their primitive brains. So you understand my motivations, even if it’s only on a visceral level.”

“That’s not really how I look at collecting,” Freya said quietly, but Beldame’s sharp words had exposed an ugly truth hiding in Freya’s healthy self-concept of her collecting impulse. The uneasy connection that collecting shared with ownership and desire was ever present, even if it was repressed, and Beldame had unearthed those difficult truths from the depths of Freya’s subconscious and made the student feel as though she were looking at her once-familiar reflection in the crazy convex waves of a funhouse mirror.

Beldame’s eyes sparkled with the cruel shine of a magpie tending its nest of treasures.

“Come over here a moment,” she said as she crossed the room with short, frantic steps to where a series of brilliantly colored photographs hung on the wall.

Freya stood reluctantly and followed Beldame to the pictures. At first all she could see were colors and lines, a visual bounty of perfect composition. But then as she stared at the mesmerizing photos, she began to realize they were actually portraits based on famous paintings.

There was one that Freya noted was obviously inspired by Gustave Klimt’s portrait of Adele Block-Bauer. The photo’s subject wore a dazzling byzantine mosaic of a dress just like Adele’s, with little tesserae jewels scintillating against a sumptuous gold background such that it was difficult to tell the difference between body and wall. Emerging wraithlike from this opulence was the pale, aristocratic face of the new Adele, with limpid eyes and livid cheeks.

The photographic reimagining of Klimt’s masterpiece was undeniably beautiful, but there was something off about the woman posed as the turn-of-the-century aristocrat. Freya stepped closer, hypnotized by the impressive detail of the photo. The obvious effort that had gone into painstakingly reproducing the intricate particulars of the original could not be denied, but the woman, whose face swam out of the resplendent background, seemed eerily static, and not only because she’d been captured for eternity in a single moment in time, but on a much more fundamental level, as though even after the camera clicked she would have remained motionless.

With a sickening wave the realization crashed through Freya’s consciousness that the woman was not just uncannily still but dead, and newly so, based on the Snow White quality of her still perfectly preserved beauty. Freya felt queasy and swayed a bit on her feet. The other images swam in front of her face, refusing to be ignored. There were travesties of Frederic Leighton’s
Flaming June
, Gustave Moreau’s
Goddess on the Rocks
, and John Everett Millais’
Ophelia
, among others. All told there were more than a dozen photographs, each a faithful recreation of a masterwork from the period surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, and each a portrait of as yet uncorrupted death.