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Overview
When Diane Schwebe, the director of a major New York museum, is awakened in the early morning by a text message from the museum’s lawyer, it is the start of a twenty-four hour roller-coaster ride.
Diane has sacrificed many things in her life to help the fading institution stave off irrelevance and financial ruin. In this battle, she’s surrounded by her stalwart supporters: her enigmatic and tireless personal assistant, Chris; the museum’s trusty head of security, Shay; and its general counsel, Henry—a man whose ability to weasel his way out of a jam is matched only by his capacity to avoid learning anything from the experience.
Orbiting Diane is a motley assortment of museum employees, each on the precipice of collapse or revelation: among them a line cook staring down a huge opportunity he’s not sure he wants; a costume curator stuck in an inescapable rut; and the ambivalent curator of the museum’s film program, whose first day on the job might very well be his last.
On this day of the museum’s annual gala, every plate that Diane has kept spinning will fall and by daybreak, someone will be dead.
Wise, surprising, and darkly funny, Friends of the Museum is a kaleidoscopic tragicomedy that surges along to the unstoppable tick of the clock, leaving you on the edge of your seat until the final second.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781668031292 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Washington Square Press |
| Publication date: | 04/15/2025 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 480 |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
This was last night, you understand, by all accounts an ordinary night, no different from a random evening last summer or some Thursday in April and though they spoke on mundane topics, a new neighbor, an upcoming trip for work, there was a mysterious undercurrent to their conversation, as if everything Dominic said meant quite the opposite and all Diane’s comments had a double meaning. They sat across the kitchen table from each other and spoke while eating grapes from a metal colander, red grapes, grape after grape, barely pausing between them as if grapes were suddenly essential to conversation. It was in the middle of all this grape eating that Diane decided she would tell Dominic what had happened three weeks ago, on Saturday afternoon. You remember, Diane said, we’d decided to have a few people over for dinner. I set out around eleven, wandering around specialty shops, picking up various items or reeling at the prices, thinking about these friends we hadn’t seen in a while and wondering what they might especially like to eat. I’d heard about an exceptional florist way over on the East Side which was how I came to be standing on First Avenue not far from the United Nations. It was a crisp sunny day, the kind of beautiful day that people remark on after an atrocity occurs, as if the most difficult fact to grasp about a tragedy is that it can happen under a blue sky and white sun. The florist was unremarkable, I decided to try another. There was still cheese to buy, several kinds, all the way back on Amsterdam. Also fish, if we were going to have fish, I wouldn’t decide until I saw the selection, until I stared into those glassy eyes myself, checking for clarity. An unsettling enterprise, but the only reliable way to tell if fish is fresh. Here’s where it all got strange. When I came out of the flower shop and stood on the street I couldn’t remember what I was doing, why I was there, or which way to go. I had very deliberately set out with actual errands to accomplish but now I couldn’t decide which to tackle next, whether I should do something else entirely or, in fact, give it all up, cancel our dinner and crawl into bed. In front of me Forty-Third Street appeared insurmountable, it resembled a huge ascent on the scale of Matterhorn. I stood at the base of it, holding a bag of chestnuts. I didn’t need chestnuts, I don’t even know what you do with chestnuts, I’d bought them solely for their color. Gripping this useless bag, I looked straight ahead of me, then right, then left. The only choice I didn’t have was to walk east since that would have landed me in the river. But each time I decided yes, I’ll walk down the avenue and then west on a street in the thirties, I immediately decided that no, I would walk north for a while, but before I’d even finished that thought it seemed ridiculous and the better plan was to head straight up this daunting hill, which isn’t a hill at all, of course, but completely flat. I stood on the sidewalk, rooted there with my shopping bag, considering my options, at one point becoming distracted by an important-looking foreign delegation striding toward the U.N. For several minutes I wondered what sort of destructive global action these men might be on their way to unleash, then I returned to this decision I had to make about how to travel west, which appeared to be the most critical decision I had ever faced. I was starting to panic that I might stand there for the rest of my life holding a bag of chestnuts as my hair turned grey and tourists asked me where to buy water. Really, she told Dominic, my feet felt as if they were encased in concrete, my heart churned like the river behind me. But as Diane stood there astonished and also not astonished, since this ambivalence was only one component of the piercing restless uncertainty that had bothered her for a number of weeks, she happened to look up toward the crest of the hill where a tall building on the corner stood mantled in beams of sunlight. All of a sudden I felt at peace, she told Dominic. This hot star calmed my turbulent heart, it settled my stomach and there, while I basked in its light, the road ahead became clear. Diane finished her story and looked across the table that she once found uninspired but now appreciated for its Swedish practicality. She gazed into the eyes of her husband and asked for his opinion. Well, said Dom, it sounds like the story of a lost person. He got up for a glass of water, turned to lean against the sink and proceeded to say more than she cared to hear. Later, when she woke in the middle of the night, fresh from a dream about misplacing her passport, for she dreams about airports and travel almost exclusively, she lay next to Dominic as she had laid next to him for fifteen years. His expression as he slept was one of relief. And Diane thought back to their conversation in the kitchen, the details of which immediately began to distort, grow foggy and fade. At four twenty-something in the morning, her mind darting from thought to thought, trying to remember exactly what was said as they ate grapes from a metal colander, her phone lit up. Henry Joles. Urgent, he said. She was needed at the Museum.
# 5:30 a.m. # —Could he be faking? —As the wife tells it he’s been up half the night with his head in the toilet. I’ll try again around nine, he can hold a goddamn bucket if he needs to puke. I don’t know who this wife thinks she is. —Let’s get started...Diane takes the armchair opposite...—We can wait on Kulap. Henry scoots to the edge of the couch, the briefcase open on his lap, and with great trouble leans forward to hand Diane a piece of paper...—Here. Printed from a digital file so the resolution’s not great. Taken in 2002. Staring down at the photocopy...—Where’s my? —Coffee, right here...Chris hands her a take-out cup. —Thanks...immediately setting it down, hot! returning to the blurry photograph...—Tell me what I’m looking at, Henry. —Dancing Shiva. Our Dancing Shiva. It’s a violent image. Diane has only ever seen Shiva in his current home down in Indian Subcontinent where the statue stands reverently bathed in a circle of soft light. In the photocopy Shiva lies tipped on his side in the back of a filthy van, surrounded by crumpled newspapers and encrusted with dirt. With the naked eye it’s impossible to make out the details of the newspaper print, but a sharper picture and a little magnification will reveal a date or some other identifying feature suggesting that if Dancing Shiva was stashed in a dirty van in 2002, the statue was not purchased from a private collector, not a deaccession from a museum, not stumbled upon in Pop-pop’s attic and, most essentially, not purchased before the Unesco Convention of 1970. It was looted. —There’s more...Henry holds out another sheet of paper. —Later...waving it off...—Start from the beginning. Is it only Kulap’s department? A nod, a sigh, a swift hoist of the belt and then, with his usual distaste for chronology, Henry shoots off on a narrative that includes a number of detours and hesitations, introducing brief asides on the history of India, as well as the pros and cons of colonialism, laying down immaterial clauses as if he’s building escape routes from an unsound structure. —Guy named Dixit paid a French couple to pose as photographers compiling a book on antiquities in India and Pakistan......he continues...—These two run around rural temples snapping photos of icons and sending him the pictures. At which point, like he’s browsing a catalogue for a pair of khakis, Dixit picks out his icons and a couple of local punks boost the statues. Guess they’re not fucked about karma. —Where did the pictures come from? —Dixit’s compound in Mumbai. IPS searched it, found a memory stick loaded with images of statues in their original locations, as well as objects in the process of being cleaned and boxed up. Not a whole lot of room for interpretation. Pictures got sent to Delhi where the cops called in a couple of antiquities experts. One of them is a guy of mine, Greek national. He recognized our pieces. —How many? —Three small objects and Shiva. So far. Four. Not great but not terrible. She watches Chris stooped over the coffee table unpacking white paper bags, assembling a bagel tower on a paper plate...—Any idea where...turning to Henry...—Kulap picked up dirty pieces? —From what I understand, Dixit slapped “Made in India” stickers on the bottoms of the statues, mixed them in with birdbaths and planters and labeled the whole shipment as lawn ornaments. With the help of a pal in customs he shipped it through Hong Kong to a garden center in New Jersey. I assume they ran up a bunch of bogus documents because the statues were sold through auction houses and legit dealers. I don’t know which dealers sold us the stuff and I won’t until Kulap gets his head out of the toilet and calls us back. —Diane? Plain or sesame? —Sesame. Placing the bagel on a plate, Chris passes it to her, along with a plastic knife...—Lox spread? —Maybe later, thank you...she watches him rip the top off a tub of cream cheese. He’s wearing a t-shirt tight enough to highlight a rich assortment of muscles in his chest and shoulders and arms. —I have a dress shirt in my office. —No worries...looking across to Henry slathering cream cheese...—And we have this contained? —We will. I mean, it’s five-thirty in the morning, so. —You’ll call State. —When it’s remotely possible Decker’s in the office. —But you left a message. —Yes, Diane, I left a message but, really, we have plenty of time. DHS lost a bunch of cultural property guys in the last budget cuts, they’re still playing catch-up. I’m not worried. It’s happened before, hasn’t it, and we’re still standing. —Yes, but right now, I mean, the timing’s a little. It’s hardly ideal. The current situation. I don’t need another you know, challenge, on my watch...Diane gets up and crosses to her desk, taking the uneaten bagel with her...—We need a solution in the works before the board gets wind of it. —There are hundreds of photographs to sort through. It will take them days to track the stuff to us. —But presumably more of our pieces could show up. —Correct...Henry sets his take-out cup on the table and leans back...—In the meantime we need to pull Shiva and the other objects my guy spotted...sighing, probing his sternum...—Who can oversee? —I’ve emailed the entire Asian department...Chris glances up from his phone...—Nothing. —Don’t people go to the gym any more? —There is a tech downstairs right now...thumbing his screen...—Ferris Finotti. But he works in Oceania— —Close enough. Grab him. —Can we really ask— —We can...Henry affirms...—Have him meet me in uh— —Rotmiller? —Right, and what about Shay Pallot? —Said she’d be here in...Chris checks the time...—Fifteen. Diane freezes. Halting the dry bagel on its ascent from her plate to her mouth, trying to identify. What is it? Not the vague vertigo she’s had for the past month, something else. A far-off rumble. —Diane? They’re both staring at her, concerned, phones parked mid-air. —Making a mental tally. Henry’s cell phone buzzes and he struggles up with an oof sound and moves to the window...—Freddie...murmuring, hazily backlit by the garden spotlights...—You read my email? —Should you sit down? Diane? —Who’s Henry talking to at this hour? —London. You look pale. —No, I’m fine I need a...tugging at her shirt. —Arriving before seven. —What is? —A new blouse. I noticed you were wearing the one from yesterday and I— —Grabbed it, dressed in the dark. —assumed it wasn’t purposeful— —Dom was still asleep. —So I ordered you a new one. —At five in the morning? —Togz. Two hours guaranteed. Warehouse is in Queens, I think. —You dick...Henry, warmly into his phone...—You can fuck right off. —Quick run-through?...Chris spins around, finds her coffee and hands it over...—I’ve canceled everything I could. Diane waves him on with her cardboard cup. There’s a weather system making havoc in her stomach right now, a result, perhaps of eating grapes and only grapes for dinner. But she needs to keep her mind on the situation at hand instead of trying to recall exactly what took place last night at the kitchen table. —At eight-thirty we have... —I’m listening. —Digital. In case Jakob has something impressive we can bring to your five-thirty. —My hands are tied...Henry, louder. —Fine, but Chris, let’s keep it short, twenty minutes at most. —We parsed the contracts a thousand times. —At ten...raising his voice, Chris shoots Henry a scathing look...—A meeting with Goldfarb & Hernandez. —God no, kill that, tell them I, whatever, set it for next week. —They’re hoping for a decision about the brunnel. —The brunnel is not happening. That is the decision. How many ways do I have to? We need to close shop on this, we’re...she catches Henry’s warning glower...—Oh, please...she turns to Chris...—As if you don’t know everything. —Sorry, what do I know? —About the new wing. —I know we ran out of money. —We didn’t run out of money. —We didn’t? —No, we did, but...she sips her coffee, electing not to finish the sentence...—Reschedule the architects. —Listen to me...Henry into his phone, beginning to pace...—I’ve told you exactly where we’ve stood from the beginning. —They’re flying to Sydney tonight. Ten days. —Then we’ll do a call. Chris bends his head to his phone, tapping the screen. —Freddie, Freddie, calm down, this is all negotiable...Henry, for some reason still in her office...—I’m there next week, we’ll go to Bocca, order that scrappy Barolo you like. Taking a bite of dry bagel in the hopes of quelling her nervous stomach. As she chews she can feel her jaw making a figure-eight motion that can only be described as bovine. —Eleven-thirty, Diane, Diane? —I’m listening. —Quick check-in with merchandising. Shouldn’t take long. We’ve canceled a couple of times now, so. Noon is a tour with the Khan brothers. —Tuesday. Abu Dhabi’s Tuesday. —It was, it was, but Momo hated Paris, there was a snubbing and they left early. —Okay, well...tearing at the bread...—Drum up someone impressive to bring. —Clive Hauxwell? —God, no, not today. And postpone our visit to Walter Wolfe. We’ll go next week. —Christ on a cross...Henry, call ended, throws his phone on the couch. Then he picks it up, glares at it. —About the Khan brothers, Diane, I thought maybe a brief walk-through of some galleries? They’re hoping to simulate the guest experience. —Fine. Let’s keep it brief...reaching for her coffee. The Khan brothers unsettle her with their exquisite tailoring, the fine British manners that convey respect and contempt. —Now, after the tour, I’m afraid back in July I agreed to lunch with Ambassador Ichimonji...Chris starts tapping...—Let me change it to a coffee. —No...Diane tilts her cup, staring into it...—Coffee’s not enough. —We hosted that big lunch last spring and he’s coming to the gala tonight. —The Samurai show. —I heard he gave it to D.C. —Unconfirmed. Chris taps his phone...—Okay, so a super speedy but lavish VIP lunch and maybe a zip around B24? Everyone loves storage. —Good, yes, that’ll work...getting up from her chair...—But, Chris, preemptively warn— —Him, yes, how busy you are, the gala and so forth. Directly after, Sutton will prep you for your three o’clock with Lucas Boone. —Boone doesn’t care how much I know about armor. In fact let’s reschedule Boone...finding herself by the window, looking into the darkness onto the lit-up landscaping below...—What is happening...tapping on the black glass...—With the Van Gogh maze? It was supposed to be ripped out last week. —Tomorrow. —Before the gala, I thought. —No, after the gala. —At this point it feels downright pathological. Are we living in Grey Gardens? Henry says ha ha, not actually laughing, from where he sprawls on the couch holding his phone in one hand and jabbing at it with a finger. —Sorry, Diane, could we go back? About Boone, he seems committed and I wonder if delaying your meeting could possibly— —You’re sure he’s committed? —Positive. —Because if he wants groveling and, uh— —Not the case. —Fine. —So we’ll keep Boone...Chris taps his phone...—Restaurants go dark at four o’clock, at four-thirty Security begins moving visitors toward the exits. Museum doors close at five on the dot. At five-thirty we have Silicon Valley. —That’s Zed Willington?...Henry looks up, curious but not particularly invested...—How much is he talking about? —Twenty, twenty-five. —Nice, help get you out of your jam. —Oh, my jam. Thanks. —So, uh...Chris coughs, his anxious cough, she knows all the coughs in his range. —What? —Yesterday a small news item popped up. Seems like Willington is, or was, was invested in a firm currently under investigation— —For what?...Henry, alert now and lawyerly. —Violating child labor laws. —Child? No. Sorry but child labor? Kill the meeting, Diane, please. The optics. —Wait...Chris, with a calming motion of his hand...—There’s more— —We cannot accept money from someone who exploits or or or even facilitates the exploitation of kids in Dongguan or Dhaka or— —Petaluma? Henry flops back on the couch and stares at Chris. —The company was using local sixth-graders to code after school. Called it a computer club, only the kids went home at night clutching their hearts and tossing back Zoloft. Parents investigated. Feds got involved. —The Feds, lovely. Day at the goddamn beach. —Apparently Z was clueless. According to his website, he considers himself an ethical steward. —A billionaire with ethics, good one. Now I’ve heard it all. I’m finishing the lox spread. —We’ll keep the meeting...Diane returns to her coffee...—Hair and make-up is at six? —Yes, arriving at six along with your dress. If you need the full hour and a half it will only give us forty minutes with Willington but his assistant was, well kind of a b, to be frank. She wouldn’t budge on the time. Five-thirty was the earliest I could get. —But Zedekiah— —Z, he goes by Z now. —Okay, but he’s definitely coming to the gala? —As far as I know. —Then we’ll manage. —Trustees and special guests arrive at seven-thirty...Chris squints at his phone...—Doors proper open at eight. Which is when you, Anton Spitz and the team from Noizy— —Not Noizy. —No? She shakes her head. —Okay, uh, so then, eight p.m. just you and Anton greet arriving guests. Security promises everyone out of the building by two. —And this morning? Party installers get here at what? —Seven-ish. —Set a courtesy call to Conrad around nine. Chris types rapidly into his phone. —Needs we can assist with and so forth, likewise a call to Anton. Looking forward, blah, blah. Don’t mention his dog. —Don’t mention his, okay, and the Ambassador? Should there be some sort of formal toast this evening? Might nudge him in the right direction. Henry looks up from piling papers into his briefcase...—What do you need from Japan? —Their Samurai show. Made a small fortune for the British and was headed to San Francisco before their water pipe disaster...that fluttery feeling in her abdomen again...—We’re offering to host, begging really, but Ichimonji loves D.C. so— —Or the Met. They awarded him some kind of medal. —Medal? What medal? —I don’t know, some honor they invented. —God they are legendary suck-ups, aren’t they? I mean, kudos. Why didn’t we think of a medal? In his hand Chris holds his paper cup which he waggles as he talks. She doesn’t hear a word, distracted by his cup. The undulating motion is making her seasick. Diane jumps up and starts for her private bathroom, no...—Back in a sec...across the office and out the door, racing down the hallway so they won’t hear. # 5:47 a.m. # —What the hell?...Henry turns to Chris for a translation...—Why’d Diane sprint out of here? But the kid stays glued to his phone, thumbing the surface with chilling speed. —Think she’s puking? —What?...Chris glances up. —Diane. Her skin looked clammy...reviewing his empty plate, the mess of crumbs and schmear, Henry considers another half bagel...—Pregnant, maybe. Chris now looks truly alarmed...—I mean, she probably needs more sleep or, anyway, isn’t she too...searching for the word...Advanced? —Forty-four, forty-six? Not impossible. —Mr. Joles, I’m pretty sure that’s too old. —Trust me, friend. Happened to my cousin at fifty. Thought she’d hit menopause. Fuck was she surprised. Now she’s sixty-five with a kid in high school. Chris blinks several times. —Sorry, is that, maybe— —I should uh...Chris points to the door...—You’ll wait here for Shay Pallot? —I will. —Need anything...gathering bagel bags, plates and cups...—I’ll be at my desk...Chris slips out the door. And Henry drops back onto Diane’s cushy sofa, settling into the grossly expensive linen or shantung or pongee or whatever. What he needs is an antimacassar. There’s no hair oil anymore, there’s no hair, but he remains one of the great moisturizers. Both wives remarked on it. His grandmother had them on every seat in the house. She also had false teeth that rattled in wind storms. Of which there were many, she retired to the south of France, home of the mistral. He closes his eyes. Dirty sculptures will be a headache, but not much more. The right phone calls, some diplomatic arm-twisting, a few veiled threats and one or two outright bribes. Henry used to live for this kind of thing. The thrill of war, the rush of high stakes. Not these days. He’s without his old sense of purpose. Become ambivalent, evasive. Not indifferent but capricious. And Diane can tell. He’s caught her watching him, her expression quizzical. A month ago she breached his office with a bottle of Blanton’s. Her ominous smile and two extremely heavy pours put him into a panic. So she’s discovered my shenanigans and come to fire me, he thought. But the business was personal. A minute for the bourbon to hit, then: I love my husband but I dream about running away. Henry wanted to be the trusting friend she’d mistaken him for, but her admission came too quickly, too freely. He had little intention of spilling his own secrets and this appeared to be a set-up for mutual confessions. He stared into his drink wishing for an ice cube. The longer Diane spoke the greater Henry’s desire for ice became until his need was so overriding and intense he could barely understand a word she was saying. It was his usual response to a personal disclosure of any kind, a focus on the pettiest issue at hand. Diane’s computer screen turns black and the word peregrinate swims across the screen followed by its definition. Next to the keyboard three mechanical pencils lie in precise parallel lines. Henry watched her laboriously position them as Chris took her through her day. She’s been taken by a scrupulous drive lately, squaring stacks of imperceptibly uneven papers, raking her skirt with the blade of her hand. —Mr. Joles? He looks up. Shay Pallot. Sharp in her black jacket and red tie, trousers sadistically tight at the hips. The uniform’s crisp cut and faux-military details would have excited him once, the prospect of discipline and authority in a curvy woman. But Henry has no energy left for such things. And the hunger he once had for Black women, what they call exoticization, he understood years later. Not good. —Ready to go? —Let’s do it...Henry gets to his feet, sucking in his gut and hitching his pants. # 5:53 a.m. # Nikolic yanks the blender jar off its base and tips it over the trash, watching the pureed goosefoot surge over coffee grounds and yesterday’s sticky rice. Pesto was a mistake. It’s an amateur move, even made with weeds. He needs a second coffee, stronger. He fills the kettle, sparks the gas. His mental state is not good. Too many sleepless nights have made mincemeat of his sanity. For a while he tried smoking pot before bed but it made mornings groggy. Took three espressos just to get dressed. So, a new approach. Springing out of bed the minute his eyes open. Three, four, the sky still dark. Wonderful, he says to himself, his inner voice facetious, more hours to spend experimenting. On sleepy legs, Niko snaps the sheets in a parody of efficiency, splashes cold water on his face and charges into the kitchen like the cuckold in a bedroom farce. Starts banging around with tongs and sheet pans, setting out bottles of asian condiments. The relentless drive to develop a new dish could be mania, he thinks, knowing nothing about mania. Or, a sad attempt to matter. If Nikolic can come up with a dish so delicious that Emerson adds it to the menu, he’ll really be someone. The upstairs neighbors complain about waking to the smell of garlic or fried smelt. Niko doesn’t care. Or he does but he overrides it. By six his eyes feel like clay marbles. The water in his body has been replaced by coffee. And to what end. Garbage cans of green slurry. Burns and broken bowls. Across the room, row after row of mason jars stand empty on the shelving unit. They need refilling. Soon, before winter, he’ll collect sumac, maitake, black walnuts, paw-paw. But not from Central Park. A bigger trip, upstate. If Nikolic can make it past Poughkeepsie. # 5:55 a.m. # Diane stops in the hallway, pressing her forehead against the cold window, staring down at the lit-up rings of rotting sunflowers. It isn’t the Mumbai issue that’s turning her stomach. Even today, facing PR crises on two fronts, as well as potential termination at the hands of the board, she remains irrationally positive. Which means the reason for the nausea must lie in —You okay? her marriage...—Grand...she watches a cardinal take several hops, red feathers glossy in the spotlights. —What are you doing? —Looking out the window...she can hear Chris stabbing the elevator call button with his usual excess. —Something about the maze? —No, just like, looking. —Perfect. I’m running down to meet Togz. Forty-five minutes. Can you believe these guys? She turns around...—Very impressive. And then we’ll need to...suddenly exhausted...—What do we need to? —Draft the announcement of Tindall-Clark’s gift. —Tindall-Clark, right. The bing of the arriving elevator. The doors sweep open, Chris steps inside, raising his phone as the doors close. But how predictable to blame your marriage. That nettlesome fritz, that whisper, the pressure in your head when you wake in the middle of the night, why should that count as confirmation? Everyone from time to time, while married and going about their business has thought, what if I were not married and going about an entirely different business? # 6:00 a.m. # In early summer the train pulled into Beacon and Niko fell apart. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t go on. He wept, shaking, a child’s fit. The passengers around him openly stared. Pathetically, he tried to hide his wet face, tucking his head into his armpit like a napping duck. The train continued toward Poughkeepsie and Niko continued to cry. Someone tapped on his arm and he withdrew his head, opened his eyes. Reaching across the aisle with an extraordinary wingspan, was a soldier dressed head to toe in woodland camouflage, pants tucked into a pair of sand-colored boots. In his hand the man held out a small plastic packet of tissues. He nodded sharply at Niko to take it as if they were participating in an illicit exchange. It was likely, Niko thought as he blinked back his tears and accepted the Kleenex, that the soldier did not wish to be seen in possession of such a prissy item. As Nikolic wiped his face he kept thinking I’ll just use one more, as if the man might want half his tissues back. But he ended up using every single one, trumpeting his nose, mopping up all the snot, shoving the balled-up tissues into his jacket pocket where he would no doubt run across them later and thoroughly disgust himself. The soldier never again looked his way, staring ruggedly at the seat-back in front of him. Niko got off at New Hamburg and took the next train back to Grand Central. Was he managing? It was unclear. But on the subway home sometimes, or standing in a bodega ransacking the freezer for an abandoned pint of banana ice cream, a voice inside his head screams, I AM FUCKING MANAGING. # 6:03 a.m. # —Curator’s out sick so a tech from Oceania is helping out. The items are small, shouldn’t take long to remove them but as I said before, discretion is uh— —Paramount?...placing her hand across the door’s sensor, Shay waits for the lawyer to exit the elevator. —Exactly. The word of the day. —Nothing to worry about, I hope...together they set off down the dark hallway...—Nothing too...too what...—Unpleasant? —No, no, the usual. A misunderstanding. Needs a few phone calls. The last time she saw the lawyer he was dressed drably, all grey but today his suit is blue, the silk poking from his blazer pocket flames a brilliant fuchsia and as he walks, flashes of purple sock burst out above his shoes. Larry? Percy? His last name is Joles, that she remembers. In stark contrast to his wardrobe, the man’s skin is the color of custard. —Assume you’re uh...the lawyer appraising, as they pass, a gallery through its doorway...—Handling security this evening. —I am, yes. Could hardly leave that to someone else. —Not one of your managers? He appears to be making conversation and Shay smiles enigmatically. Most security managers are holdovers from her predecessor, placed in their positions by nepotism, backstabbing or calling in favors, and as a group, fairly useless. Also, almost impossible to fire. —But you’ll get a break at some point, not work straight through. —Yes, of course...does Joles really think she has time for a break and what, to head home and take a nap? These people. They all think she’s old-school live and die for the place but not any more. If she ever was, that is. Was she? Way back when? But of course she can’t remember. Not of course because it’s not all lost. Every so often, a few times a day, a memory will arrive that has nothing to do with anything, of Tasha, say, next to her on the school bus, finger dug into the yellowing foam that erupted from rips in the vinyl seats, glaring out the window, pissed about breakfast. Tasha was always pissed about breakfast, she wanted the kind white people ate on TV with pretty waffles and table settings. Or a memory of Ma on a Saturday afternoon, sitting at the kitchen table, shaking a bottle of nail polish, the metal ball inside clacking away. And if she can, Shay will open up her notebook, try to fix in place this snap from the past. —Chris? Didn’t see the lawyer getting out his phone. —Make sure the tech from Oceania brings appropriate packing material and what-not...they lawyer continues talking. One day you’ll read your journal like a book you’ve never seen, said the doctor. One day you won’t know how your life was. You’ll be greedy for the details. Not to mention the ending, Shay thought, all those loose ends tied up. Through the galleries that contain Egypt. Floor-to-ceiling arched windows. Glass cases choked with clay heads. Minuscule profiles on the coins of Ptolemy III. A child’s necklace in the shape of a snake. It was the doctor’s suggestion, the notebook. Shay saw him three months ago at his office uptown. Delivered the news in a clinical torrent, couldn’t get through it fast enough. And what did it matter whether patient #4567 was or was not losing her mind? To the doctor Shay was twelve minutes between lunch and an epileptic. She hated his round eyes and rigid hairline, the rectangular smile that looked like a letter slot. It was too much geometry for one face. A notebook, he imparted, will help when your memory begins to flicker like an iffy bulb. When it’s far from reliable you’ll read these notes and memories and it will help. Help what? Shay didn’t ask. Carl picked up a pocket-sized diary from the drugstore and she started jotting down the memories that popped up over the course of a day. Moments that at the time were simply minutes. Unexceptional fragments you never noticed, unaware that one day your mind would start to falter and your memory would go about ignoring notable events like weddings and graduations, choosing instead to recall an ordinary summer day when you waited at a midtown crosswalk staring at the sky with the sun on your face. Or the way your father looked walking down a flight of stairs. A wheezing cough from the lawyer as they cross the statue court outside Greek & Roman, thumping his chest with a fist. Is it simply the early hour? Or something more serious? —Mr. Joles? Doing okay? He turns to her, astonished...—Yes, of course. Don’t I seem okay? —Oh, I thought. You seem a little unsteady...boldness seems called for before he pitches into one of the Athenian warriors defending the hallway. —Actually...he presses his chest...—Is there somewhere to sit? Doubt the tech will be there yet— —We have time. She follows Joles into the smallest Roman gallery where he heads for the folding chair Shay leaves out for Astrid and her bunions. —I should call someone. —No, no...his bulk overwhelming Astrid’s spindly chair, Joles breathes heavily. She can’t tell whether the labored breathing is purposeful, like a yoga thing...—Get you a glass of water? Joles shakes his head...—Minute to catch my...hands gripping his thighs, Joles hunches his shoulders and whooshes air noisily through his mouth. —These used to be my galleries, Greek & Roman...Shay puts on her most soothing voice...—First summer I worked here. —That was a while ago...whooshing again. —Right before my junior year. I was studying economics out West. Came to New York for a summer to stay with my big sister...crossing to a glass case, it was the summer Tasha got tested. Two shelves of terracotta objects are picked out in tiny lights...—Grave goods were always my favorite. Imagine spending all that time making one little vessel only to go and bury it. Combs and perfume and coins to pay the ferryman. I always thought, uh...crossing to a new vitrine, hands clasped behind her back, is he still watching her?...—There’s so much personality in the small objects, the toiletries and such, how you get a real sense of the person behind it, a shot into his or her life but of course they’re long dead. —Long, long. —In my mind there’s a sadness that, uh comes from...why is she still talking...—How brief our lives are. And how, for most of us, our lives will go uh. Unremembered or. —Unrecorded? —Uh-huh...trying to gauge, is all this too much for an ill man so early in the morning. —For me...the lawyer leans forward, hands still clenching his knees...—Do you have children? I mean if I may ask? As always the question makes her stomach corkscrew with pain. She peers into a case where a small cat yawns....—Children?...Shay doesn’t lift her head...—No. I wasn’t. I wasn’t able. —Shouldn’t have asked, I apologize. —No need, Mr. Joles— —Henry, please. —My sister has a bunch of kids and we’re close. In a lot of ways I have all the worry of children— —But none of the pleasure? —No, I have the pleasure. —Sorry, I thought that was the second half of the phrase. Anyway, worry’s the right word. I suppose I ask because. When I was younger I assumed that by having children, my life would be, that there would be a lineage. I would be a father, grandfather, great-grandfather. I wouldn’t disappear. But, of course— —We all disappear. —Yes. Only a few, Picasso and so forth. —Otherwise...she points to a case...—There’s this spoon. —A person behind that spoon. Someone’s mouth once on it. Memory isn’t the only casualty of Shay’s illness. There are other discombobulations. This, for example. Idling in a darkish room, hands in pockets chatting about what, lineage, with no concern for security measures to be double-checked for this evening or any one of thirty pressing items to be crossed off her list. And how is she supposed to feel? Because she is locked out of feelings, or at least, locked out of describing them to herself. It’s a failure of recognition, as her own mother now fails to recognize Shay, gazing at her with the distant expression of someone trying to place a familiar person in a new context, the mailman waiting at an ATM or a sitcom grandpa popping up in a black and white movie, twenty years old and disturbingly handsome with full lips and an unlined face. —Okay...Henry stands, a bit shakily to her mind...—Good as new. —Sure? —Yes, yes. Shay leads the way out of the gallery and through the next, her mind back on Tasha and the kids, thinking, this lawyer could be the ideal candidate, the person she’s been looking for to shepherd Malcolm, glancing back to make sure Joles is following, straightening her jacket with a quick downward yank as she considers how to phrase it, wondering would he even be open to it. When Shay reaches the arched doorway she turns to the lawyer, smiles encouragingly and together they. Wait. Shay stops, confused. In the hallway in front of her is a marble lion she’s never seen before. The air goes dead, as it does just before you faint. She walks toward the statue and her ears start to burn. The lion, poised to pounce, is squashed and out of proportion, with a concave chest and dopey face, a pair of hyperthyroidic eyes. Joles catches her expression...—You’re unimpressed. —Where um...forcing herself to breathe...—Did it come from? —Trustee. Tindall-Clark. Jerked us around forever and finally gave up half his collection. The less valuable half. If he approves of how we handle it, we’ll get the rest. Ergo...Joles points...—Pride of place, bang in the middle of the goddamn hallway. Some fuckwad’s going to knock into it and lose half his teeth. —Interesting...Shay’s leaning toward the lion, smelling it for whatever reason, then standing back...—The preservation is uh— —Shit. She looks up. Joles is staring at his phone. —I have to...typing with a pudgy finger...—Uh, what the...shaking his head...—Sorry. I’m getting Chris to shoot you the relevant details so you can explain the situation to, I’m being summoned. There appears to be a...waving his phone. —Of course. —The tech’s name is Ferris Fanotti, he can call if he needs additional...Joles walks back the way they came, stabbing at his phone and shaking his head. Before she continues on to South Asian Shay takes one more look at the lion’s label. Greek, (Attica), ca 325 B.C.E. Marble. No. Maybe it was thirty years ago that she spent all those weeks in Greek and Roman and maybe two out of five times she can’t pull up the name of her own husband but no. No, no, no. There’s no doubt in Shay’s mind that the lion is fake. # 6:18 a.m. # —Doubt is a luxury you don’t have, my friend. Hesitate, you lose the confidence of your crew. When that happens, pack up and go home. You’re finished. So make a choice, any choice. —Sorry, Victor, could we go back? —First, please, tip your screen down. This angle gives you a double chin and skinny eyes. —I may actually have a double chin. —No, Benjamin, you don’t. Next time we talk about lighting. This lamp next to you is not nice. As he adjusts the screen of his laptop, Victor’s hand reaches out of frame and returns holding a small espresso cup. Benjamin snaps off the lamp next to him, the one he spent twenty minutes arranging, tilting the shade microscopically back and forth until it threw off what he believed to be a flattering light, framing out the bare walls and broken blinds. —Okay, better. Stop fiddling now. —I wanted to ask, Victor, about your decision to shoot almost exclusively with either an eighteen or a twenty-five. As far as I can tell you never shot with long lenses. Victor cocks his head. Can anyone possibly be that stupid? is how Benjamin first interpreted this look. He’s learned to ignore it. —Was that an aesthetic choice or because you had difficulty finding lenses or... —Think about it, Benjamin. —Right, yes. I mean, I have. —It was a paranoid time. Everyone so suspicious and afraid. Come in close at this time of dislocation? No. Today, sure, I’ll use long lenses, depending on perspective. Am I inside your head or here...palm a foot from his face...—What’s the point of view? Back then, no. —But we never, in both Maria’s, or uh, El Ultimo Baile de Maria and Panóptica, in addition to the distance, we only ever see the protagonist over the shoulder of another person or through a doorway. Like, even though we never leave Maria and go entirely objective, at the same time we definitely feel detached from her. In your early films there’s this like voyeur perspective. It’s unsettling, the contradiction, I mean. Victor laughs, a staccato fusillade...—Because when you have neighbors, friends, colleagues, everyone spying on each other you become so, uh...he searches for the word. —Self-conscious? —Yes, you begin to see yourself from the outside. You are sort of spying on yourself. Do you understand what I’m explaining? —Sure, yeah. —It’s not only intimacy with other people that is missing but also with yourself. —That’s fucked up. Again, Victor laughs, hu-hu-hu-hu. It’s still incredible to Benjamin that he’s speaking to Victor Robledo, asking any question that comes to mind, sometimes even teasing him, well once, when Victor was wearing his t-shirt inside out. In grad school Thackeray worshiped Robledo, spoke of him in terms reserved for Bresson, Kiarostami and Oshima. A master of the quotidian, Thackeray called him in his introductory lecture, memorable for Ted Fuentes falling asleep and ripping a giant slumbering fart. A painter of the banal, a director who made the ordinary transcendent. Benjamin loved Robledo as he loved Tarkovsky and Bergman but there were greater loves. Wilder, Lubitsch, Capra, Hawks. Despite being acclaimed by cinephiles the world over, and regardless of Benjamin’s exhaustive arguments, directors who set out to entertain were not respected by his peers. Too easy, was the criticism, corny, sentimental. It was that type of program. The students might not have sat around smoking unfiltered Gitanes, tapping their ash into Badoit caps, but that’s the way you’ll remember them. —Could you tell me, Victor, how you avoided the censors or went around them? —Why? We were not successful. Forty years of practice and nothing. People get tired. Those early films of mine, they were never shown in Spain, not as I intended, until many years later. Our culture suffered, as so many cultures suffer from the stupidity of their politicians, the self-appointed moral authorities. —Yeah, we’re lucky in that way. —What, in America?...again that laugh hu-hu-hu like the shelling of a machine gun...—You think there’s no censorship in America?...Victor’s eyebrows find this incredulous...—Oh my god, Benjamin. —I mean, you can’t show explicit sex or male— —What about censorship coming from a, uh, financial, what...he swivels away from his laptop, speaking rapid Spanish to someone offscreen. Sofia, probably. Victor listens, turns back...—Marketplace. Your films must be acceptable to the marketplace. Is that not a form of censorship? —No, because a movie has to earn back its cost. That’s just common sense. —But, Benjamin, a censor’s first job is to convince you that censorship is common sense. —Yeah, but we don’t have public funding to— —Sure, so then it’s fine not to cast Black actors because China does not like movies with Black people? No, you stand up, you say, China fuck you, this is what, two thousand-and-ten, get fucking used to it. You don’t pretend there’s no Black people in the United States. Capitalism is a form of censorship, Benjamin, open your eyes. But you know...Victor softens suddenly, as if realizing the person he’s addressing is a lost cause...—This is why I’m poor, probably. What time is it there? You look tired...turning to profile...—Sofia! Come say hello. Sofia appears next to Victor, chewing, squeezing onto his chair...—Benjamin, how are you?...she waves some type of roll or pastry...—Victor is right, you really look ill. Get some sun. How is your book coming? —Plodding along. —Are you giving the other directors hell or only my husband?...but Sofia’s smiling at him affectionately, parentally. —Definitely giving Victor the most hell. This seems to delight them. —Benjamin, I’m honored. —Don’t stop, he deserves it...Sofia winks broadly, elbowing her husband. How in love they are, the Robledos, after all these years. They exchange pleasantries and close their laptops, ending the call. And Benjamin switches the lamp back on. How is that light not flattering? But you have to defer to Victor Robledo on the subject of light. For three decades Victor fought to make movies, living in an apartment with no heat, scraping to get by. A flogging from Franco’s thugs left him deaf in one ear. Proving Benjamin was right to abandon his dream of directing. He wasn’t cut out for the cost of art. Sacrifice his hearing just to make a movie? Never. Benjamin heads for the bathroom. A hair elastic belonging to Caroline remains looped around the door knob. It’s been there for months. # 6:27 a.m. # You say you hear I’ve been having wild nights, Katherine writes, propped up by a mountain of pillows, stationery laid out on a cookbook she’s never cracked, a gift from an ex whose ambitions for Katherine were not her own. Sure, if lying on your belly eating crackers bought on special counts as wild, then I’m really going nuts, Mimi, really raising hell. Why do you listen to your daughter’s delusions? At night I break open a pack of Wheat Thins and eat my dinner staring down at the street. Katherine takes another sip of tea. Until about eighth grade she was a committed correspondent with multicolored inks and stationery she bought from a place that sold paper by the pound. Cerise, Mint, a shocking shade of yellow. Sending chronicles of her nine year-old life to girls from camp, a French pen pal, a neighbor she never much liked who moved to Boston. Nobody wants letters anymore. Except Mimi. At eighty-five, she has no patience for computers or information that shoots through the air. Picking up her pen, she continues: I know Mom told you I shaved my head. Sammy will say I did it to upset her or because I always do the stupidest thing I can think of at the time I’m thinking it. But it’s been crazy hot here, ninety on October 1st. I don’t have A/C and my brain felt cooked. I walked six blocks to a barber shop, the kind with a linoleum floor and a comb suspended in blue liquid. Old men waiting in a row, paging through crispy sun-faded magazines. On the walk over I had enough time to snap out of it, change my mind. But it’s the inaction and double-guessing I’m sick of. In my head I was going to emerge all Mia Farrow circa Rosemary’s Baby. Too late I found out you need cheekbones for that. I don’t come across as sexily boyish, like some wide-eyed gamine, more like I’m being prepped for my eleven-thirty electroshock. I don’t care. Guess who does? Sammy. She made a surprise visit and I think the sight of my shaved head along with my shoebox apartment gave your daughter heart palpitations. Oh, Katherine, she whispered, gripping a wooden ladder-back chair so hard I thought it would snap.