Killers of a Certain Age(59)
One photograph in particular has captured Billie’s attention. It is poor, black-and-white and blurred—no doubt a fourth-or fifth-generation photocopy—and inked around the border are the words The Queen of Sheba Arising by Sofonisba Anguissola. The notes say the photograph was taken in 1931, the last known image of the painting. The subject is a common one in Renaissance and Baroque art. Claude Lorrain, Tintoretto, Lavinia Fontana—all have painted the Queen of Sheba garbed in elaborate clothing contemporary to their time, rich brocades and heavy velvets giving witness to her legendary wealth as she makes her first appearance at the court of King Solomon.
But Anguissola has chosen differently. To begin with, she has painted a woman with dark skin, Billie sees. Where other artists have chosen to depict the queen with the fashionable blond tresses of the Renaissance ideal, Anguissola depicts her as she would have been—an African queen. And where others have painted her arriving at the court of Solomon, received with fanfare and lavish ceremony, Anguissola has chosen to portray her rising from her bed after her tempestuous night with the king, grasping a white sheet for contrast against her skin. Her hands and wrists are hung with gorgeous jewels, rubies and emeralds, Billie guesses, although it is impossible to tell from the black-and-white reproduction. One enormous pearl hangs from a tiny chain threaded through her curls, resting voluptuously on her brow. There is a knowingness in the eyes that says she understands and knows you do too. Behind her is a stately bed, gilded and hung with swags of velvet draperies. And just visible in the tangle of tousled bedclothes is the bare thigh of a sleeping man, his luscious robes and hastily discarded bits of armor strewn about the floor. The queen’s heavy-lidded eyes say it all. She hasn’t slept because she has been too busy conquering a king. It is sensual and yet domestic, an intimate moment of grand people, and Billie is glad that her job will be helping to restore the painting to its rightful owners.
She does not think about the baroness or the Volkmars as they make their preparations. They are camping at the clove plantation in the ruins of the overseer’s house, planning to use the punishment cells beneath to access a tunnel that runs from the main house to the area that once housed the enslaved farmworkers. Vance has explained that the original owner, not wanting his gardens spoiled by workers coming and going, ordered the tunnel dug to keep them out of sight. It has been decades since the tunnel was in use, but they will have a week to shore it up and surveil the baroness. Carapaz will take care of dispatching the Volkmars while Vance has reserved the baroness for himself. She is the first Nazi the Museum has targeted in over a decade, and taking her out will ensure a promotion. Money, status—these are important to Vance, but nothing means as much as going down in the history of the Museum as a Nazi killer. It is the reason the Museum exists, and it is a demonstration of the board’s faith in him that they have assigned him leadership of the mission. The women are to give weight to the cover story as a student expedition and to secure the paintings and that is all.
Their duffel bags and backpacks are full of nondescript clothes from charity shops, dull reference texts from university presses—purchased new but carefully aged—and excavation tools. There are no weapons, no liquor, no pills. Even Natalie’s copy of Scruples has been surrendered. Zanzibar is an Islamic country and they do not want to attract any attention from the authorities.
They are traveling cheaply, as any academic group on limited funds would do. Their tickets have been purchased in bucket shops and they route them through Naples, connecting on to Cairo and then Mombasa before the bus to Dar es Salaam and the ferry to Zanzibar. By the time they arrive, they look like college kids, wrinkled and dusty and smelling rank. But the sea air is fresh and they have a night booked at a hostel in Stone Town before they have to camp out. In his dual role of mission leader and dig supervisor, Vance gives them a few hours to play tourist. They explore the Zanzibari markets and admire the Gujarati doors throughout the town, carved of teak and heavily embellished with engraved brass ornaments. They take photos of the House of Wonders and bargain badly for souvenirs, coming away with leather slippers and sarongs. Mary Alice buys a handful of colorful beaded bracelets, one for each of them, and helps Vance find a present for his bride—a tiny star sapphire on a thin chain.
The next morning they are up and packed before the first call to prayer. The drive to the former clove plantation where they will be based takes two hours, the last half over bumping, pitted roads that wind north and east, away from the coast and into the interior of the island. They pitch camp with practiced ease, erecting three tents—his, hers, and mess. In case anyone happens by, they set out survey equipment and dig a few test pits, marking them carefully with a string grid.
The days drag by, long and mercilessly hot. They are sick of the waiting, the fitful hours, and the pests. Carapaz has read up on them, taking great pleasure in detailing all the things a yellow sac spider or red-clawed scorpion can do.
“Would you shut up already?” Natalie demands over dinner the third night.
“Come on,” he says, poking an elbow into her ribs. “Don’t you want to hear about the baboon spider? What about the spider wasp? Do you know it has the most painful sting of any insect except the bullet ant?”
Natalie dumps the rest of her food into the fire and stalks off. They are getting on each other’s nerves, tired of the bush bathroom and the nights of broken sleep. And worst of all is the endless waiting, the hours of poking listlessly in the trenches they have dug, pretending to excavate. They casually watch the Volkmars move around the property, the old man clipping listlessly at a clump of ginger lilies, the wife pegging out laundry on a sagging clothesline.