CHAPTER 6: India Ink
I spent the afternoon in the National Gallery with the Stations of the Cross, staring from several vantage points and occasionally yanking my attention back to the paintings in front of me when it wandered to the research I'd been doing. Once I left the gallery I gave up on the battle and strolled, thinking about the shroud.
I'd gleaned this: the shroud Dr. Foley referred to was in Germany, but the story of the lady with the ring ricocheted around medieval Europe for decades. Some other places had competing shrouds as well. Here's where it gets interesting. All were worked in a series of scenes that told the story of transformation from life to death and back to life again. And all the tapestries contained massive quantities of copper thread in the segments of the story surrounding the moment of reawakening.
There was copper thread in the elephant tapestry from the woman's home. That's enough for a noncommittal shrug, or a dismissive nod. It's not enough for much more than that. I mulled. I wandered around Washington. My feet led me to the National Cathedral, where I fell in behind a group of cub scouts. They were walking around squinting, with their chins tilted high in the air. At length, one of the boys started jumping up and down. He'd found it. The other children gathered around him, and they all craned their necks to stare at the gargoyle of Darth Vader, children's choice for the newest gargoyle at the National Cathedral in Washington. I stood behind them and looked at it as well.
It isn't tough for me to imagine why the shroud of a not-quite-dead petty noblewoman would get a place in a local church. Those cub scouts would never be so animated if they weren't looking for something that had a story they liked. Star Wars or the woman with the ring, I guess. I wandered farther from the kids and took a seat in one of the chapels. St. Jude tilted his eyes toward the gilded wooden rays issuing from upper reaches of the altarpiece. "The patron of hopeless cases," I muttered. "Saints!"
My exclamation made a woman near the altar turn and peer at me. I stood and walked into the next chapel while I tried to bring the images of the saints on Karne's wall into focus in my mind. Which ones were they? I had to know. I had to look. I went back to the hotel and my laptop as quickly as dignity allowed.
I wrote an email to Karne that night while I finished the hotel's signature cocktail. It was a mixture of gin, lemon juice, and some especially volcanic sparkling mineral water. I wasn't so sure about it, but I kept at it. There ought to be a saying about drinks that's sort of like the French saying "all cats are gray in the dark." If there were, I'd use it to refer to that house cocktail, and the way it was treating me.
I chased it with a peaty scotch. There ought to be a saying about scotch that's sort of like the fairytale phrase "all the better to see you with, my dear." If there were, I'd apply it to most of the good scotches I've ever met. When it comes to drinks, I like wolves more than I like cats.
So I was a little drunk when I wrote Karne, and a little curt. I like to think I was also on to something. The images of the saints all contained copper thread, according to what I could look up online. Even better: each of the saints had some connection to interrupted or reversed passages between death and life. I was excited enough to be demanding:
Karne,
I need to know if the estate team found any other art. Look for anything containing copper.
--AC
In the small hours of the morning I heard my email program's alert sound go off. Instead of ignoring it, or wishing I'd had the presence of mind to shut my laptop or mute it, I got out of bed to take a look at my new mail. I neglected to either get my glasses or disentangle my feet from the clingy sweater-like hotel blanket before I started walking, so it was an arduous process. I found this:
Connell,
You are thinking of the tapestry I was barbaric enough to nail to my wall. I will refrain from making a joke about the Carthaginian elephants in the Alps. The images of saints also contain copper work. That is why I grouped them; I understand copper is unusual. You'll have noticed the copper walking sticks in each of the landscapes.
You remain at work. Think of what you're doing, Amy.
--Karne
I must have read that email five times over. But there it was, plain as day: he called me by my first name. I even picked up my phone to call him and check on him, but I set it down in the end. After all, anyone but Karne would call me Amy all the time. Still, it took me a few moments to settle back to sleep after I shut my laptop down.
Later that morning I returned to the library with a tracing of the tattoo all the hands had in common. I started with a general reference on body art, and kept winnowing until I had one large book of flash on my table.
Before I dove into the encyclopedic collection, I took a minute to think about my research question. What exactly did I know, and what exactly did I want to know? I had the design. I knew it was monochromatic, only moderately dark, and crudely done. The repetition suggested it was a meaningful sign. I looked at the index of the book of flash. There it was: prison tattoos. It lined up: coded meaning, crude execution, and poor materials. I flipped the section of the book open and set to work.
It only took an hour to find what I wanted. There, toward the end of the section on criminal ink, was a section on a couple of Russian anthropologists who studied prison tattoos. They'd produced a taxonomy, which was reproduced in simplified form in the flash book. Sure enough, my mathematical-looking sign was in the catalog. The symbol sometimes came in larger form on the torso, or as a mutation of a Christian cross. By itself, between the knuckle and first joint of the forefinger, it meant "in life, count only on yourself." The darkness of the ink suggested that the tattoos on the hands were Siberian. Other regions tended to have slightly more blue ad hoc inks. There it was.
I photocopied the page and stepped out to the sidewalk to call Karne. The phone rang three times before he picked up.
"Connell. You're working." As usual, Karne didn't waste time with greetings.
"Hello to you too," I teased.
"Well?" I could hear him let out a long exhalation. He must've been smoking.
"I've found something."
"Clearly." I took a moment to control the urge to snap at him. He was in one of his moods, and I knew it wouldn't help. I must have interrupted his train of thought. Great.
"The tattoo symbol on all the hands is from Soviet-era prisons. It means 'in life, count only on yourself.' The ink color suggests it's from Siberia."
"Siberia." His voice was a bit lower and significantly calmer when he repeated my answer. I must've hit on something he was already pursuing.
"Yes, the placement is right, and the ink color is right."
"Well done, Connell." There was a pause, then the sound of keys clinking against one another. "Yes, that does make sense."
"How?"
"No, no. I'll tell you when you are no longer on vacation." The phone went dead then. I ground my teeth for a bit, and then indulged in a grunt of annoyance when the grinding didn't make me feel any better. The grunt didn't work either. I settled for stalking down the street at a faster pace than necessary, in the end, and I resolved to give Karne a piece of my mind once I got back to LA.