The Cloisters(33)

If Rachel had noticed any of this, she didn’t say. We had, at this point anyway, our own secrets to keep together. It was true; the transcriptions I had shared with her didn’t reveal anything radical, but they did reveal that the conversation around Renaissance tarot was more robust, or at least more nuanced, than that of a simple card game. But I held one paper back, even from Rachel—the page that contained the language I couldn’t decipher, that nevertheless seemed to be part of the same collection of translations that bore the partially visible eagle insignia. That one I kept for myself.

I had already been in the library for two hours when Rachel arrived and looked at the door to Patrick’s office.

“Is he in yet?”

I shook my head.

“I was hoping he’d be able to help get us out of this docent tour with Moira.” Rachel looked around, searching for something. What, I wasn’t sure. A second later, Moira pushed past Rachel into the library.

“Oh good. You’re both in. The tour starts in five minutes, so you should probably wrap this up.” Moira looked at me, bent over the table, papers spread around. “For now at least.”

“Moira—” Rachel said, but Moira turned on her heels and left before we could protest further.

Docent tours were funny things. Usually staffed by retirees, the docent program at The Cloisters worked with the Education department to offer tours to schoolchildren and visitors alike. But it was never the collection the docents were most interested in seeing—it was always behind the scenes. When we led them through the offices, they lingered longest against doorjambs and at windows, each committing the private topography of the museum to memory. And when we took them through Storage and Security, we fielded more questions than we ever did standing in front of the Mérode Altarpiece or the twelfth-century sarcophagi.

When we arrived at Storage, a woman, a scarf whipped around her neck despite the summer heat, asked, “How many pieces do you keep in here?”

Rachel pulled out a tray, where bits of fragmented stonework and small enamels were numbered and catalogued. “There are over five thousand works like this in The Cloisters’ storage. Works we can draw on to support exhibitions or rotate into the main galleries.”

“There are even more at the Met,” someone next to me whispered, and I smiled politely. “Have you been on the tour of their storage?” she asked me, placing a hand on my arm.

“I haven’t.”

“Oh. You really should. Not to be missed. You can see the way they hang paintings on wire racks.”

Rachel and I were used to these kinds of comments, the way the docents saw fit to tutor us on our own material. And later, after the docents had all dispersed into the galleries, Rachel and I would sit at the table and laugh, rather cruelly, in fact, about their condescension and imparted wisdom.

So while I hadn’t been through the storage facilities on Fifth Avenue, I knew from my brief time at The Cloisters that precious items were stored in all sorts of ways. So long as the room was climate controlled and protected from harsh sunlight, very little else mattered. But of course, visitors to museums don’t see works of art in that way, as functional objects to be rotated and deployed to create meaning. They see each one as a treasure, something they imagine finding in their attic, among their family storage, something they give immense value to out of sentimentality and lack of true research.

At Security, Rachel introduced each of the guards by name.

“We’re excited to have you join us,” said Louis, a bank of television screens lighting up the back of his head.

“Do you have camera footage everywhere?” asked one of the women, raising her hand somewhere in the back.

“Almost,” said Louis.

“But don’t you need every angle in the event of a robbery?”

“Museum robberies are incredibly rare,” he explained patiently. “And we have staff on twenty-four hours a day to ensure the security of the collection.”

“Which areas don’t have cameras?” the woman asked.

“You planning a theft?” Louis asked. He was jovial about it. Most of the artworks at The Cloisters were impossible to move—frescos, massive tapestries, statues fixed into niches, art that weighed several hundred pounds.

The woman drew out the word noooo a little too long, clearly a bit offended by the implication. At the front of the group, Rachel caught my eye, and we both did our best to repress the smiles that were trying to work their way across our faces.

“The interiors of the offices, the library, and parts of storage are not fully covered by video,” said Rachel.

“And most of the gardens and work sheds,” added Louis. “We have a lot of the garden on camera, but not all of it. After all, plants are replaceable.”

“I don’t know if that’s true,” said Leo. He was attempting to make his way, coffee mug in hand, through the knot of women, some of whom eyed his outfit with concern.

“Leo,” said Rachel, “please introduce yourself to our new summer docent class.”

“Hey,” he said, lifting the empty cup.

“Leo is one of our gardeners,” Rachel continued.

“In case you couldn’t tell from the mud stains.”

“If you have any questions about the types of things we grow in the garden, he is a great resource.”