“Translation, please,” said Miranda, not in the least embarrassed for not knowing what the officer meant. “You honoured in art history, I take it.”
“Yeah, art and art history.”
Morgan took it on himself to explain Rachel Naismith’s esoteric phrase, perhaps to prove he understood. He seemed oblivious to the possibility of appearing pedantic.
“Entropy is a measure of inefficiency, say in an organism or engine where heat is wasted rather than being transformed into energy. A perfect trope for suspended passion.”
Rachel smiled, indicating she liked Morgan, pedantry and all.
“That’s more or less where I was going,” she said. “Rodin apparently had Dante in mind when he sculpted ‘The Kiss.’ There’s a passage in The Divine Comedy about lovers locked in a perpetual clinch, having been dispatched in flagrante delicto by the woman’s husband, who was the man’s brother. They fetch up in Hell, an inferno of their own making. Sentimental inversion: they are doomed to hold the posture of their passion forever.”
“That’s what ‘The Kiss’ is about?” exclaimed Miranda.
“That’s what Rodin apparently had in mind. It was supposed to be part of a tableau of Heaven and Hell; it was his unfinished masterpiece.”
“Beauty becomes horror,” Morgan mused in quiet astonishment. “And horror becomes beauty.”
“Becomes, both ways,” Miranda offered.
He looked at her quizzically.
“Beauty becomes, transforms horror; beauty becomes, complements horror. Change, no change.”
Miranda sometimes spoke in a kind of syntactical shorthand. He nodded approval. She turned to Officer Naismith, who seemed to be playing with the verbal permutations in her head.
“You’re right,” Rachel Naismith continued. She wasn’t sure who was right about what. She lapsed into silence, apparently not wanting to sound like a gallery brochure or an academic treatise.
Miranda gazed at the ghastly sensuality of the corpses intertwined at their feet, who now seemed part of something infinitely more sinister. Rachel’s comparison was anachronistic, of course. These lovers had been here long before Rodin translated Dante’s words into sculpture. But they certainly embodied an unholy paradox. Beneath the sad drape of their clothing, the absolute stillness of articulated limbs conveyed a haunting absence of life. But, as Rachel had suggested, without heads, they were not individuals. The true horror, Miranda realized, lay in the extinction of their personalities.
Morgan had seen one of the original marble versions of Rodin’s sculpture in the Tate Gallery when he lived in London after graduating from university. The plaster at the Royal Ontario Museum seemed more real, though, perhaps because it was shaped by the hands of the master, and the stone and bronze versions were done in large part by artisans. Or perhaps it was because London was another life.
Miranda pictured “The Kiss” in her mind. Although she had only seen the plaster, she now imagined the image in bronze. The lovers were naked; the bronze seemed alive, flesh trapped in illimitable torment. “I like it better, knowing the story,” she said. Unable to resist sounding like a brochure herself, she continued, “It anticipates the age of irony and the death of romance.”
“Oh,” said Rachel. “I thought romance was dormant, not dead.”
“Only for some of us,” said Morgan. “For these two it’s the other way around. Death is romance.”
“From the ring and the cross, I’d say they were doomed from the moment they met,” said Miranda.
“Some lines aren’t meant to be crossed,” Rachel proscribed with an edge in her voice.
Miranda looked over at Morgan but his attention had shifted to the small cabinet leaning on its side near the gaping wall. It was three shades of bluish-green, with a diamond pattern on the door and an exposed bottom shelf between scooped sides. Across the top was an exaggerated cornice, a minor oxymoron of comic austerity.
Anticipating her query, he explained. “It’s a Waterloo County hanging cupboard, mint condition — it might have belonged to your ancestors. German vernacular, Pennsylvania Dutch, made a couple of generations after they’d resettled as Loyalists. What’s unusual, really, is that salvagers had to rip it out with enough force they opened the crypt.”
“It seems out of place.”
“It is, in a sense. There couldn’t have been much of a market this close to town for country furniture. I’m guessing people, here, travelled up to Berlin, a century before it was renamed Kitchener, way before trains, to visit relatives or take the mineral waters in Preston. The cabinet is small enough to be brought back by wagon or carriage. Wagon, I’d say, given the modesty of the house. But why was it attached so securely, and why wasn’t it painted over with the rest of the woodwork?”
“Listen!” said Miranda. All three held their breath.
“There’s somebody downstairs,” she whispered. “It’s either ghosts or forensic anthropologists! I thought academics slept through the night…”
The clatter and absence of voices seemed ominous, until a hauntingly beautiful woman suddenly appeared in the doorway, followed by a man with quick eyes and a portly physique. Morgan, Miranda, and Rachel Naismith exchanged amused glances, while the dead stirred uneasily as floorboards beneath them shifted from the combined weight of the living.
“Good to see you,” said the woman with a tired smile, while the man moved directly to the bodies on the floor as if courtesy were superfluous.
“We’re the investigating anthropologists,” she explained. “That is Professor Birbalsingh.” She nodded toward the man hunkered over the corpses, examining them like specimens. “I’m Dr. Shelagh Hubbard from the Royal Ontario Museum.”
Miranda introduced Morgan and the officer, and then herself as an afterthought. The woman nodded at Rachel, then took Morgan’s hand and her countenance warmed from weary to sleepy. She was very blond. Surprisingly, when she took Miranda’s hand, the sensuality did not subside. This woman has a sexual relationship with the world, Miranda suspected, wondering whether Rachel received short shrift due to race or, more likely, to her status in uniform.
“We got an evening call from police headquarters. Somebody named Rufalo,” the woman continued with a congeniality that was apparently meant to counter her colleague’s brusqueness. “It sounded intriguing. Professor Birbalsingh phoned me several times through the night. He couldn’t sleep for thinking about it, and I couldn’t sleep without disconnecting the telephone and putting my bid for university tenure in jeopardy. So here we are.”
“Me too,” said a voice from the stairs. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Ellen Ravenscroft, the medical examiner, stepped into the room, forcing the other four to realign themselves in relation to the bodies and the man on his knees who was engrossed in the details of wizened flesh and uncommon apparel.
“Surprised to see you two here,” said Ellen.
“Just ghoulish curiosity,” said Miranda. “It’s not official.”
“Not official?” Rachel Naismith exclaimed. “You’ve been drinking my coffee! And you’re tourists! For me, it’s a crime scene.”
Miranda introduced her to Ellen Ravenscroft. The two women did not exchange courtesies, beyond nods of recognition for their professional roles.
“I’m surprised they’d send a medical examiner on a case like this,” said Miranda. “I’d have thought the academics had it covered.”
“If it’s dead and there’s a chance it was human, it’s ours,” Ellen responded. “Just a formality, love, so I can fill out the papers.”
“No autopsy?”
“Not likely,” she said. “Excuse me.”
Morgan watched with admiration as the ME shunted the academic experts aside and squatted down to examine the bodies. “I’ll take a look here before you two start messing about.”
Professor Birbalsingh rose to his feet, harumphing with indignity, eyes flashing, muttering something about forensic anthropologists, but said nothing more. He hovered like a raptor tracking its prey until Ellen Ravenscroft glowered up at him and muttered “forensic pathologist trumps anthropologist,” backing the professor away.
“Did the police get pictures?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Officer Naismith
