The Cloisters(63)

“I knew you would,” she said.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


Patrick’s memorial took place on a cloudy Saturday afternoon, an hour after the doors of The Cloisters had closed to visitors. I didn’t know who arranged it, but everyone was in attendance: not just staff, but the curator of the Morgan, the staff of the Frick, faculty from Columbia, Yale, Princeton, and Penn. And there were tables of tasteful charcuterie and glasses of champagne, extra chairs arranged under the shade of the quince trees. I overheard Moira saying that they had planned the memorial before they learned that Patrick’s death had been a murder, information that was still only selectively shared—a trustee of the Metropolitan had been successful at keeping it out of the press. At least for now.

Guests wandered through the gardens or took their flutes of champagne into the galleries to escape the late-afternoon sun that had finally decided to make an appearance. I marveled that there was no security on hand, no one to remind them not to spill on the frescos or altarpieces, not to leave hors d’oeuvres on the windowsills. Later, when I walked through the galleries, I picked up paper napkins with half-eaten bits of charcuterie and carried them to the trash in the staff kitchen.

Rachel wore black. A shift dress with a long gold chain that ended in a painted enamel pendant, all green and red. I had borrowed a demure and appropriate dress from her, but it was clear from others in attendance that I could have opted for something more expressive. Everywhere there were splashes of color and texture.

We had changed in Patrick’s office. Peeling off the clothes we had worn to work and sliding into our dresses together, as if it were a high school locker room, not the place where Patrick’s body had lain almost two weeks ago.

“I don’t want to do this,” Rachel had said, turning so I could zip her up.

“None of us do.”

“I still expect to find him in here.”

“I know.”

“I really mean it. Almost like he never left. Just his body left.”

She grasped my hand, hard, before we bunched our clothes into our bags and walked out into the fading sunlight of summer. And in facing Patrick’s memorial, I realized that The Cloisters, perhaps even Rachel, had given me one thing—it had given me a fresh start, away from Walla Walla, from the memory of my own father’s memorial, from the old instabilities I had faced over the last year. And in that, I found some comfort.

Under one of the architraves at the back of the Bonnefont Cloister, I noticed Leo standing, the top half of his body in shadow, the bottom in sun. His worn jeans brightly stained with bits of green, his face hidden. He hadn’t bothered to change for the event. I wanted to go over and stand with him, on the periphery of all this, but when I took a step away, Rachel grabbed my arm, the other hand shielding her eyes from the sun. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered.

And so, Rachel and I stood together, shoulder to shoulder next to the flowering yarrow, listening to Michelle de Forte speak, and then the curator of the Morgan. Aruna told stories about Patrick, her eyes fixed, almost the entire time, on Rachel and me. When the final eulogist was done, a string quartet that had been set up under the loggia began to play, and for the first time I realized how wonderful the acoustics of The Cloisters were, even outside.

Prior to the memorial, Michelle had told us that they would have a replacement for Patrick in place by the end of August, which was only a week away, and as I watched the figures move around the paths of the garden, I wondered who among them was already planning where to host their first farm-to-table trustee dinner, how to design improved signage in the galleries, when to start proposing their own exhibitions, after, of course, they saw if Patrick’s loans could be undone, our research put to other use. I was sure there was no shortage of interest in The Cloisters’ curator role.

Aruna joined us with a flute of champagne in her hand. “?‘God keeps all things in order,’?” she said.

“Boethius,” I responded. “Patrick would have found that fitting.”

“?‘My fate circles on the shifting wheel, like the pale moon’s face that cannot stay,’ Headlam,” said Rachel in response.

“I think Patrick’s fate is no longer on the wheel, Rachel. He has fallen off.”

“But ours still spins,” she replied, looking past Aruna at the gathering of curators clustered around a bed of herbs that included henbane and mandrake.

“We are all obsessed with our fates,” said Aruna, dreamily. “For they are the one thing we cannot control. The one thing we are blind to. Wouldn’t you agree, Rachel?”

I glanced at Rachel, who had refocused her attention on Aruna.

“There are ways of seeing,” I said.

Aruna raised an eyebrow. “Do you think there are ways of knowing how the wheel of fortune might turn, Rachel?” Aruna spun the olive that dipped low in her drink and cocked her head. “Perhaps you have found some already?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Aruna.”

“You should be careful what you put your faith in, of course,” she continued. “Humans have a tendency to be easily romanced by the promise of knowledge.” Aruna didn’t wait for me to respond but lifted a hand in greeting and said, “I’m sorry, I must say hello to someone.” She backed out of our circle and moved on.