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“I’ll go see her at a decent hour. After she’s had a chance to take the kids to school. She’ll be glad we got these guys, but it’ll be tough for her to hear, too. She’s still a wreck.”
“I’m sure,” I said. “I’ll go see her and the boys when I get back from France. If you get a chance, tell everybody I said ‘good work.’ I’ll do my part at the trial.”
“Thanks, Doc. Stay safe.”
I laid the phone down and picked up my tea. The sun was bright and the day would get hot, but not for another hour or so, and the warm mug felt good cradled in my hands. I took another breath to reground myself in the garden, in Avignon, in the case at hand. “Sorry, where were we?”
“The Institute for Biblical Science. Newman, the scientist.”
“Oh, right. Can you tell if he’s an actual, for-real scientist? Not some charlatan who bought a Ph.D. online?”
Descartes shrugged. “I don’t know where he got the Ph.D., or how good it is, but he’s a molecular biologist. So he’s trying to make the perfect red cow for Israel, using DNA from the cow that was almost perfect. He—”
“Wait. They’re not just breeding cows, they’re cloning cows?”
“Oui. Cloning. Trying, but they do not succeed yet.”
Alarm bells were tolling like crazy in my head. “And he’s working with this preacher, Reverend Jonah — the guy who wants to switch on the doomsday machine? And these guys want the bones from the Palace of the Popes? Why?” But I already knew the answer, even before I finished the question. “Good God, they’re hoping to get DNA from the bones. They want to clone Jesus. The high-tech Second Coming of Christ.”
“Sure,” said Descartes. “If you can clone a cow, why not Jesus?”
I set down my cup and raised my arms. “Because it’s crazy and impossible,” I sputtered. “There can’t possibly be undamaged DNA in those bones — not nuclear DNA, not the kind you’d need for cloning. Maybe, maybe, there’s mitochondrial DNA, but that’s just little pieces; it’s not the whole set of blueprints.”
“You are sure of this?”
“Very sure. Besides, it’s not unique to individuals. It gets passed down from mother to child, generation after generation. Your mitochondrial DNA is identical to your mother’s, Inspector. And to her mother’s. And her mother’s mother’s.”
Descartes considered this. “Jesus had the same mitochondrial DNA as his mother, oui?”
“Oui, Inspector.”
“So: the same as the Virgin Mary.” He raised his eyebrows. “Another virgin birth, then, n’est-ce pas?”
“But mitochondrial DNA can’t be cloned into a human being,” I practically shouted. “It’s scientifically impossible.”
He shrugged. “All it takes is another miracle, et voilà.”
I wanted to take him by the collar and shake him. “Damn it, Descartes, these aren’t even the bones of Jesus!”
“Ah, you are wrong, Docteur — they are the bones of Jesus. There is scientific proof, remember? The carbon-14 report from Miami. The bones are two thousand years old.”
“That was total bullshit, Inspector. Stefan faked that. You know that.”
“But the preacher, he does not know. He has faith in this report. If we tell him it is bullshit, he won’t believe us. He will say we are controlled by demons.”
Despair clutched at my heart, and I found myself thinking the unthinkable. Is the crazy preacher right about the end of the world? Is it time?
CHAPTER 32
AVIGNON
1335
Is it time? Simone counts the strikes of the bell ringing in the Carmelite church — ten — and realizes with despair that he has another hour to wait. To wait for her.
He sets to work tidying the studio but quickly realizes that it’s hopeless. The place is a mess; it is, after all, a workshop, crammed with brushes, boards, fabric, pigments, solvents, and a thousand other implements and ingredients. He uncovers the small portrait, then covers it again, so he can watch her face as he unveils it. Realizing he has no chair to offer her, he rakes brushes and tools off the worktable, shoves them underneath it, and drapes the rough boards with a clean drop cloth. He paces, then perches restlessly on the table, then paces again. Sixty minutes is an eternity.
Finally the bell begins to toll eleven, the hour of Mass, through the iron latticework of the steeple. By the second peal, he knows that she will not come. She should not come, he realizes — it could compromise her, and he would not wish to add that to her troubles. But then there is a knock at the wooden door, which he has left slightly ajar, and his heart surges when she calls his name.
“Yes! Please come in! I feared you would not come.”
“I feared you would not be here when I did.” Laura de Noves smiles. “What a lot of worry we’ve both wasted, Master Simone.” She is wearing a black shawl around her shoulders and a black scarf over her head; they mute her beauty and the elegance of her dress, but even so, she must surely have been the most striking woman in the streets of Avignon.
“Was it difficult for you to get here?”
“Not very. I only had to poison my husband and strangle my maid.”
Again he is startled and delighted by her humor. He wishes he could spend hours learning her habits of conversation, of mind, of movement. But he knows this will likely be his only chance to indulge his curiosity.
She points a silk-gloved hand at the small covered rectangle on the easel. “Is that it? Is that me?” He nods. “And did you fix my eyes?”
“I think so. I hope so. And did you bring your looking glass?”
“Of course. I said I would, didn’t I?” She pulls a small silver-handled mirror from some inner pocket, some secret fold of the dress.
“I didn’t know if you really meant it.”
“I don’t always keep my promises, Master Simone, but I do try.” She smiles, though the smile has sadness in it. He sees the poignancy in her expression at the same moment he hears the poignant chanting of the Carmelite nuns. She lays the mirror on the worktable, then unties the scarf and folds it, setting it on the table, too, followed by the shawl. Picking the mirror back up, she inspects her hair, adjusts the cloisonné comb in some infinitesimal way Simone can’t detect, and then walks to the easel. “Show me, Master Simone. How did you describe what you’ve painted — my ‘own true self’? Show me my own true self, Master Simone.”
Nervously, as if unveiling his very first painting for the very first time, the grizzled artist takes the cloth by the upper corners and lifts it. As it slides slowly up the picture, the threads catch now and then on the textured paint; the slight rustle of the moving fabric is the only sound in the room. Then he hears her breathe — a quick intake, almost a gasp. He dares to breathe now, too, and risks a glance at her.
He is shocked by what he sees. He’d hoped she would smile, perhaps even laugh o
r clap her hands in delight. Instead, she looks like a mother who has just witnessed the death of her only child. Her eyes are filled with anguish; her right hand flutters across her lips and chin and neck; her left hand, still holding the mirror, drops to her side. She closes her eyes and hangs her head, and her shoulders begin to shake.
“Oh, my lady, I have displeased you. I…don’t know what to say. Forgive me. Oh, forgive me, please.”
“You have deceived me, Master Simone,” she whispers. “This is not…my own…true…self. Perhaps it once was. But not now. I am not that woman now. Perhaps I never was.”
“What do you mean? Tell me, I beg you — I cannot bear this.” Never in all his years of painting has his work inspired such hope followed by such despair, and never in these years has he been brought to tears by a critic. Yet Simone of Siena, Knight of Naples, is crying now, too, and the chanting nuns seem to give voice to his pain. “Where is the fault? What is untrue? How have I disappointed you so badly?”
“You’ve put flesh and blood on your canvas, Master Simone. You should have painted stone instead. Marble, covered with words. I am nothing but stone and verses now. Even my heart has turned to stone. My husband prefers his mistress; the man who claims to love me sings my praises to everyone but me.” She turns away and steps behind the easel so she will not have to see the portrait any longer.
Simone does not speak for some time. Finally he shakes his head. “Oh, poor woman. Oh, foolish man — what has he done to you?”
He takes a step toward her, looks closely at her face. “Perhaps you are right; perhaps I have not portrayed you faithfully. It was difficult to see your features well in the dim light of the church, from so far away. I should take a closer look, in this light.” He is an arm’s length away now — closer than he has ever been to her, except for that brief conversation in the cloistered garden. He reaches out, tucks the stained knuckle of his index finger beneath her chin, and lifts her head slightly. He leans closer, adjusts his hand so that he holds her chin lightly between thumb and index finger, and then turns her head slowly from side to side, scrutinizing the planes and highlights and hollows of her face. “I did my best,” he says at last, “but you are right, I must confess. I did not capture your true self. Here, for instance.” Lifting his other hand, he brings his index finger to a spot just above the right corner of her mouth. “You have a little mole right here.” He grazes it with his fingertip — perhaps he strokes it lightly, or perhaps his finger is simply trembling. “I failed to see this mole. I’m sorry. I should have included it — it punctuates the line of your mouth.”
