Her companion was not with her that day, and I gather that’s fairly unusual, seeing the two of them apart. I wouldn’t meet her until the evening of the gathering.
“I know your work,” Dr. Marquardt told me. “Your article in Acta Archaeologica on the Septuagint’s account of the destruction of the idol in the temple of Dagon in Ashdod. I read that. Fascinating stuff.”
Now, if you wish to flatter me, Ruth, and gain some measure of my trust, you have only to claim a passing familiarity with my research. I’m easy that way, as, I suspect, are most academics laboring in obscure and esoteric fields of study.
“I have something I’d very much like you to see,” she continued. “A piece I’m told was recovered from the ruins at Ras Shamra during Claude Schaeffer’s excavations there in 1929. It’s been hidden away in a private collection for decades, so you won’t find it in the literature anywhere.” She told me that no one seemed to know why the artifact in question hadn’t gone to Strasbourg with the rest of Schaeffer’s material.
“If it’s genuine,” said Marquardt, “it’s very important, indeed.”
I told her I looked forward to seeing it, thanked her for the invitation, and we parted ways. I spent most of the next week up at Harvard, at both the Semitic Museum and the Peabody. My department’s endowment is modest (some would say meager), and it isn’t often I have the opportunity to visit institutions back East. As is always the case when I can travel, I was determined to make my stay as productive as possible, wringing the most from every waking hour, even if it meant wearing myself down to a frazzle. Which I promptly did. By the evening of Dr. Marquardt’s gathering, which was Friday the 29th, I was exhausted, and I very nearly begged off. Of course, in hindsight, heeding the wishes of my exhausted mind and body would have proven the most fortunate course. I’d not now be writing you this letter, and my sleep would not be so frequently interrupted by bad dreams. My nerves would not be always on edge. Hindsight, though, is rarely more than a cruel voice, taunting us from the shadows.
I showered, got dressed, and walked from my room at Miller Hall to an old slatboard house at 135 Benefit. It’s built partway into the steep hill, with the basement opening out onto the street, and has been painted a ghastly shade of yellow. I’ve read it was constructed in 1763 by a Providence merchant named Stephen Harris, who fell on hard times almost as soon as the house was completed. Therefore, naturally, it has a reputation as a cursed house. I’d been told to arrive at 6 p.m. sharp, so the sun was well down by the time I reached the address. A housemaid greeted me at the door, and I found to my surprise that the gathering was already in full swing.
The maid took my coat and ushered me from the foyer down a narrow hallway to a spacious drawing room. The air was smoky and redolent with the commingled odors of cigarettes, cologne, and perfume. Adelie Marquardt spotted me almost at once, and I was immediately introduced to her companion, Ecaterina, for whom I never got more than a first name. She was a very pretty woman, dark-eyed and her hair black as coal, and I must confess that she and Marquardt made quite a dashing couple. She’s from Bucharest, the companion, and she spoke with a heavy Romanian accent.
“I trust you had no trouble finding the house?” asked Marquardt, and I assured her that I’d had no trouble whatsoever. “Good,” she said, “good. I don’t yet know Providence well myself, and I confess I still get turned around from time to time.”
“Am I late?” I asked, looking about the crowded room.
“No, no. You’re right on time,” she said. “You’re fine, my dear.”
Another servant arrived, this one with a silver tray of fluted glasses, and she offered me champagne. I took a glass, though I’ve never much cared for the taste.
Marquardt had begun explaining how she and Ecaterina had met in Paris, four years earlier, but I was, at best, only half listening. My attention had been drawn to the other guests, of whom there were at least fifteen or so. Ruth, when I say that they were an odd lot, I’m not exaggerating. I know that I have a reputation for being something of a prude; I’ve never kept company with Beatniks and Bohemians and whatnot, but I think even your beloved Kerouac and Ginsberg would have been taken aback by this outré bunch. Most were women, and there was a definite effeminacy about the few men in attendance, both in manner and appearance. I would say there was a conscious, purposeful outrageousness to the way these people dressed and carried themselves. They reminded me of a flock of some peculiar species of songbird, birds whose feathers are far too gaudy to be beautiful and whose bodies are so ungainly that one wonders how it is they manage ever to fly.
“Well, would
