The Hypnotist (20 page)

Shush, Persia, 1885

“You’re on my property.” The old man yelled at Fouquelle and waved his fist in his face. “Leave or you will be arrested for looting. My sons are on their way with help. They’re bringing the whole ghetto with them. If you don’t go, you’ll get hurt.”

“These give me the right to excavate here,” Fouquelle said, offering the second set of official documents that the minister of culture had given him. Hosh had ripped up the first set; he pushed these away, as well.

“This is my property, and I order you to leave. All of you.” He pointed to the nether end of the crypt, where Fouquelle’s band of Persian workers stood at alert in the flickering lantern light, all of them armed with knives, all focused on the frantic Jew.

“It’s you who is the thief,” Fouquelle argued, “you who are hiding ancient treasures here that belong to Persia, to history and to mankind.”

“Is that what you are going to do with them? Give them to mankind? Or are you going to sell them to collectors in Europe and America? Don’t think I’m a fool because I’m old. We all know what happens to the antiquities that are dug up in our land.”

Hosh shook his fist in Fouquelle’s face. “Whose law? What law takes away a man’s property?”

The Frenchman had had enough. He was going to profit greatly from the find and had no time for this feeble old man’s argument. Fouquelle’s countrymen had been here for years digging up the ancient cities and benefiting from the partage system, and now it was his turn. He’d been promised half of the half France was getting for all his hard work, and he had a wealthy American collector waiting by the docks for these broken shards of pottery and slivers of history.

“Step away, sir,” he said. “I would prefer not to hurt you.”

Hosh was as immobile as the giant sculpture.

Fouquelle turned to his men. “Move these pieces out of here. Now. You four take the sculpture and try to keep from breaking it. You two, the pottery. The rest of you take the smaller items. And I know exactly what’s down here. So if there’s anything missing I’ll know one of you has it.” He turned back to Hosh. “Get out of my way,” he shouted, aware he was running out of time. He didn’t doubt that the man’s sons were collecting a populist army from the ghetto to come and fight the removal of these works of art. Fouquelle wanted to be gone before they returned.

Hosh didn’t move. Not a single muscle in his hand or his neck twitched. Not even his eyes blinked.

“For the last time, get out of my way.”

Hosh pulled his knife from its sheath. The blade shone in the archaeologist’s lamplight.

“Is your life so worthless to you that you would throw it away on these objects?” the archaeologist asked in a gentler tone.

When Hosh didn’t answer, Fouquelle nodded at two of his men, who stepped forward. In their eyes was the assuredness of the very young and very strong.

“Get out of our way,” the younger of the two Persians said,
each of them taking Hosh by an arm, lifting him and tossing him to the floor.

Fouquelle watched the foolish man get back on his feet. With a burst of anger he lashed out, surprising the Persian on his right and nicking him on the arm with his blade. The wounded man looked down, noticed the trickle of blood and almost casually shoved his knife into Hosh’s ribs.

The man staggered and fell. He put his hand up to this chest as if his frail fingers could stop the flow of blood.

Out of the darkness, a bent and wizened woman came rushing at them, shrieking. She threw herself at Fouquelle, beating his chest with her small fists, cursing at him and crying at the same time.

He brushed her off brusquely and gave orders to his men to begin the removal, but the woman righted herself and threw herself at him again, spitting at him and scratching him with sharp, clawlike nails. First he tried to slap her away, and when that didn’t work he kicked her. Finally she collapsed, shrieking atop her husband’s body.

“Be quiet!” he yelled.

But her wailing only increased. The sound of sustained agony filled the chamber.

Fouquelle’s anger was building. Everything depended on his ability to get these treasures out of here before the neighbors arrived and the woman’s screams were paralyzing his men.

With a single sharp tug, the archaeologist yanked the knife from Hosh’s chest. Hesitating only a moment, the blood still dripping from its blade, he shoved it deep into the woman’s back.

“Hurry now. Hurry,” Fouquelle bade his men. In silence they set about removing the giant sculpture, the jewelry and the artifacts. The only things they left behind were the two bodies that lay still in the dust and debris of centuries.

Balthazar was a large and noisy bistro that could just as easily have been on the boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris as on Spring Street in SoHo. Ali Samimi watched Deborah Mitchell take in the smoke-stained room, bustling waiters and crowded bar, waiting to see if she was pleased or not with his choice.

“Ali, this place is delightful. I can’t believe I didn’t know about it. I definitely don’t come downtown enough.”

Samimi smiled and gave his name to the maître d’, who showed them a booth in the corner. They slid in and sat on the worn brown leather facing each other across the white tablecloth.

“There were a lot of people waiting. You must come here often,” she said, making him happy that he’d used up his lunch hour to come down here and slip the maître d’ forty dollars.

“Mostly for breakfast meetings. Lately it seems as if I have been too busy to go out to dinner as much as I would like to.” He didn’t want her to think he was a player. “Would you like to have a drink? Or perhaps some wine?”

“Wine would be great.”

Samimi perused the list, then motioned to the waiter and, when he approached, ordered the Morgon Lapierre 2006. The
waiter recited the specials, then left to get the wine, and while Deborah read the menu, Samimi studied her over the rim of his glass. She caught him looking, and a faint blush rose on her cheeks. He smiled in a way that he hoped suggested he found her charming without it being a come-on.

“How is the renovation of the Islamic wing progressing?” he asked.

She shook her head sadly and he almost regretted the question. The last thing he wanted to do was cast a pall on the evening, but he was supposed to find out what was happening inside the museum from the curator’s side, not just what they knew from the workmen.

“Did you read about what happened?”

How to answer? He wasn’t sure. If he said he had, would he appear too interested in the doings at the Met? “No. I must have missed it. I hope nothing bad?”

“The head of the construction crew was killed.”

“What a terrible thing. May I ask how?”

“He fell onto the subway tracks on his way home from work.”

“Could it have been a suicide?”

“The police have been investigating and don’t think so. I knew him. He was a wonderful man…”

“Was it possible he was pushed? I have heard of people with mental problems doing things like that to perfect strangers.”

She shuddered. “Anything’s possible.”

“I am so sorry for your sadness and loss. How long had he been working for the museum?”

“Technically, he doesn’t—didn’t—work for the Met but for Phillips Construction. They’ve done all the renovations at the museum for the past sixty years. He’s worked on eight renovations.”

“Did Keither have a family?” he asked just as the waiter
returned with the wine and glasses and set to uncorking the bottle. Samimi was furious with himself. How could he slip up like that, using the man’s name before she’d said it? Had she noticed? Would she realize it later?

“Yes. Two sons. A wife. I’ve met them all. The workmen are bereft. Aside from the tragedy, it’s also a problem for the museum. No one wants this to slow down the work on the wing, but it’s inevitable that it will.”

He appreciated that she’d used the word
bereft.
Her intelligence was part of her appeal.

The waiter poured Samimi a taste of the wine. He took a sip and nodded. As the waiter filled both glasses, Deborah and Samimi were quiet for the moment and ambient noise filled the void. The silence between then was neither forced nor uncomfortable.

Once the waiter was gone Samimi picked up his glass and held it out, suggesting a toast. “To the new wing without any more tragedy,” he said, keeping the evening on work terms for now.

“Thank you.” She took a sip. “Good choice, it’s excellent.”

He nodded. “I’m glad that you like it.”

She put her hand out, resting her fingers on his arm. “Thank you for tonight. It’s so nice. I haven’t had much of a social life for a while with the renovation going on.” She blushed again.

Samimi was touched by the intimate gesture and the words. “My pleasure. And while I’m sympathetic to you working too hard, I must say that I still envy you your job.”

“What do you do at the mission? Don’t you enjoy it?”

“I do,” he said, answering only half her question. “But it’s not as esoteric and interesting as your job. To be able to spend your life in the Metropolitan among treasures, masterpieces. No matter how ugly the world gets, you have your refuge.”

She seemed to disappear for a moment, and he let her drift, gave her a moment to deal with her thoughts. He was being
sensitive to her needs.
It was an expression one of his first girlfriends in New York had used when he’d asked her what she wanted most from a man. She’d told him it was even more important than how a man performed as a lover. Samimi tried to pick up at least one lesson from each of the women he dated. He’d started out as an awkward rube when he’d first come to New York three years ago, but the last woman he’d bedded had called him
debonair.
He’d had to look up the word but was inordinately pleased by what it meant. Yes, he wanted to be debonair.

“The museum is a refuge, but sometimes that has its downside. You get tricked into believing that there are people devoted to art who aren’t all about commerce and power.”

“But there are, aren’t there?”

She shrugged. “A small handful. Not enough.”

“God said one was enough.”

“Quoting the Bible?”

“Are you surprised?”

“A little, but I shouldn’t be. Please forgive me…you’re very well educated and I should have expected you’d have read the Bible.”

“Is it impolite for me to ask you where your ancestors were from?”

She laughed. “No, not impolite, but let’s talk about the present, not the past. Tell me more about this mysterious man who wants the Met to put his cup on display.”

Samimi’s father had once told him that nothing was more appealing than a woman who kept secrets. He’d never understood what he meant, but now, sitting across from Deborah, he had his first “aha” moment. This woman probably had a lifetime of disappointments, interests, frustrations and hopes that Samimi couldn’t even guess at, and the idea of them fascinated him as much as her full hips, heavy breasts, her dark hair and shyness.

“Have you decided what to order?” the waiter asked, appearing at the table, pad and pen in hand.

While Samimi listened to Deborah order the French onion soup and then the roasted chicken, he wondered if it was a good thing to allow himself to feel anything for her: if the plan failed and they were forced to set off the explosives, he’d be responsible for her death.

“We’ve found invitations from Trevor and Davenport Talmage to Frederick Law Olmsted, Bronson Alcott, Walt Whitman and other transcendentalists to come and dine in this very room. There is one box with nothing but handwritten menus prepared by the Creole chef who worked for the family for over twenty-five years and thank-you notes for the meals that include references to spirited discussions on ancient reincarnation beliefs. Elgin even found the bill for our Tiffany wisteria chandelier.” Malachai Samuels glanced up at the lavender and green stained-glass lamp. “The entire history of our first hundred years is chronicled in the correspondence.”

Once a week the senior staff of the Phoenix Foundation met for lunch to discuss their patients, share insights and keep abreast of developments in the field. Now, as Malachai continued to describe the new librarian’s discoveries, Iris Bellmer and Beryl Talmage listened and ate the sesame chicken salad that had been served with soft potato rolls and tall glasses of lemon-and peach-infused iced tea.

“We have the receipts for everything in this room,” he said, gesticulating toward the matching stained-glass windows on
either side of the fireplace. Also created by Tiffany, the jeweled interpretations of an elaborate trellis intertwined with more wisteria prevented anyone outside from looking in but allowed for soft daylight to filter in, casting the room in a luminous old-world glow. “You know, if not for our clothes we could be sitting here in 1889. It’s not only the visible aspects of the room that have changed so little but we lament the same issues that plagued our intellectual ancestors. According to the letters, they also debated how best to present their astounding findings to the public and scientific societies in order to be taken seriously.”

Olga, the woman who cooked their lunch every day and kept the kitchen stocked, came in and removed their plates. Malachai was still talking about Elgin’s discoveries when Olga returned with a silver coffee service and plate of cookies. As Beryl poured for each of them the conversation moved on to a discussion of their individual caseloads, starting with Iris, who began by talking about James Ryan.

“I’m convinced that each of the women he’s drawing is someone he harmed in a previous life.”

“How many lives have you touched on?” Beryl asked.

“So far two.”

“And how do they relate to his drawings?”

Iris recounted the story James had told her about Telamon and then moved on to Fouquelle. “He discovered a cache of treasures under a home in the Persian ghetto in the late 1880s and was responsible for the death of the man who owned the house and his wife. He killed her himself.”

Malachai pushed his coffee cup away and the china clattered noisily. “In Persia?”

“Yes. Shush.”

“Are you sure?”

“What is it?” Beryl asked her nephew.

Malachai was leaning toward Iris. “This story that James Ryan told you about the old man and his wife in the crypt. Did he tell you their names?”

“Yes, they were—”

“Wait,” Malachai interrupted. From the inside pocket of his jacket, he withdrew a silver and lacquer pen, uncapped it and wrote down two words on a pad by his place setting.

“What are you doing?” Beryl asked.

“I don’t want there to be any questions afterward about who said what and when they said it.” Tearing off the sheet, Malachai folded it and handed it to his aunt.

Malachai looked back at Iris. “All right. What were their names?”

“Hosh and…”

“Bibi,” Beryl read the name Malachai had just written at the same time as Iris said it.

“How did you know?” Beryl asked.

Malachai stood up, walked over to the window and stared into the glass that offered no view. In his calm, elegant voice, he proceeded to tell the two women about Nina Keyes’s granddaughter, the seven-year-old who had been coming to see him since Beryl had asked him to take on her case a few weeks before.

“She has a lot of unresolved guilt about what happened to her in her previous life when she was a Jewish woman living in Persia with her husband and four sons. They had a crypt under their house full of ancient treasures her husband’s family had safeguarded for centuries.”

“Are you saying…” Iris asked, incredulous, “that in a past life your patient was a woman killed by a man who in this life is my patient?” She shook her head. “It’s not possible, is it?” She looked over at Beryl.

“Why not? We come back in the same soul circles.” Beryl poured herself more coffee. “So you each have patients who were connected in a prior life. This will make for an amazing case study but brings up a few ethical issues.”

Malachai glanced over at her warily. “Let’s table the ethical issues for the moment. This is an astonishing development. Our patients aren’t just connected, Beryl. The archaeologist killed Bibi and was responsible for her husband’s death.”

No one spoke for a moment. Then Malachai asked, “Do you know his name, Iris?”

“His name is James Ryan.”

“His name in his past life. Did he tell you the archaeologist’s name?”