The Collector of Dying Breaths

Chapter 26

THE PRESENT

SATURDAY, MARCH 22

UPPSALA, SWEDEN

Two days later, in Sweden, Melinoe, Jac and Serge began their search for samples of the ingredients in René le Florentin’s formula. A black limousine with tinted windows picked them up from the small airport in Berthåga. While they drove to Uppsala, Melinoe regaled Jac and Serge with stories about the wunderkammerns of the Middle Ages, the most famous of which they were on their way to visit.

“The Augsburg Cabinet of Curiosities was a gift to King Gustav II from the German city of the same name. In 1632 it held over five hundred precious objects both artistic and natural. It was the age of exploration and the beginning of the scientific revolution. Trade routes were open and merchants were bringing strange and wonderful things back to Europe.

“I’ve always been fascinated with these cabinets. They really were the precursors to our museums. Man has forever thirsted for knowledge and needed to examine the world in order to understand it. Dissect it in order to comprehend it. These cabinets are the era’s depositories of knowledge. Some cabinets were devoted to science, some to nature, others to the arts,” Melinoe said. “I read Peter the Great’s was filled with teeth that he had pulled. He thought he was a dentist.”

“I’ve seen the one in the Getty,” Jac said. “It’s really a work of art, but its contents were gone. Is the Augsburg cabinet more complete?”

“It holds about twenty-five percent of what it once had. Few cabinets weathered the tides of time very well. And when you think about the oddities that were collected along with the precious stones and artwork, it’s not surprising so many are gone. But imagine-once it held a mermaid’s hand, salt made from tears, a hatband of snake bones, a two-headed cat, a decanter of everlasting sadness, virgin’s milk, and the horn of a bull seal.”

“The milk would have certainly spoiled by now.” Serge smiled.

The fifteen-minute drive passed through fields and forests: lush countryside with long stretches of rolling hills dotted with picturesque houses and picket fences.

Jac thought of Griffin, whose plane was flying over the Atlantic. He had left for America that morning to be with his daughter for her birthday. Before he left, he’d finished translating Florentin’s papers, as they’d come to calling them, and started on the bells. But the silver containers were proving a more complicated task since so many of the symbols remained a complete mystery. He said he’d be coming back within the week to keep working on them. She wanted to believe him, but at the same time she was afraid to. The two nights they had spent together had shaken her. What tragedy was yet to come?

“Here we are,” Melinoe said, interrupting Jac’s thoughts. “The museum is just up ahead.”

Jac looked out the window at the Gustavianum, a stone two-story building facing a cathedral, nestled in the fifteenth-century university town.

“The museum houses one of the last astronomical theaters, lit by the natural light from the cupola.” Melinoe pointed up.

The copper cupola, now green, sat on top of the graceful rectangular building like a well-designed onion.

“It is one of the city’s landmarks and has a disturbing history since autopsies and vivisections were performed here in the 1600s, before they were commonplace and acceptable.”

It was not the first time Jac noted the woman’s fascination with the gruesome. What was it about disturbing events that ignited Melinoe’s interest?

“Have you been here before?” Jac asked.

Melinoe nodded. “With my father when I was a girl. We came to see the very object we will be visiting today.” Her voice hitched when she referred to her father. She looked over at Serge, who gave her a sympathetic glance.

The driver opened the door. As Serge got out and offered Melinoe his arm, Jac thought that Melinoe was very much like one of the objects she collected. Rare and unusual. Created, it seemed, out of base materials but greater than the sum of her parts. Intense, intrepid, determined-and sexual in an almost predatory way. She’d seen how Melinoe touched Griffin’s arm when she talked to him. Leaned into him. Serge had kept his eye on her when she did that, clearly not happy about it. And now he was watching her like that again as Melinoe spoke in the same seductive way to the gentleman who had come out to greet them.

Melinoe introduced Dr. Aldrick Ebsen, who then took them up to the room where the cabinet was on display.

“Philipp Hainhofer was the architect of this amazing gem,” Ebsen said. He spoke in English with a strong Swedish accent. He was in his early sixties, with a thick head of white hair and sparkling brown eyes that he didn’t take off of Melinoe. The museum director was falling for her charm.

“Hainhofer himself called this cabinet the eighth wonder of the world, and in the first third of the seventeenth century it was probably true,” he explained.

They were ascending an old stone staircase with a simple handrail leading up to the second story, and the curator continued to regale them as they climbed.

“It was a time capsule of its day, wasn’t it?” Melinoe said. “A symbol of the art, culture and science of its era. And it says much about the class system. Today museums are open to everyone, but then only royalty and the aristocracy had the time or the finances to indulge in studying the natural world.”

“Exactly. In examining the cabinet’s contents, you can literally travel back to the Middle Ages and see what enticed and enchanted the learned men of that time.”

Since she’d come to stay at La Belle Fleur, Jac had gone back to the Middle Ages a different way-taken a much more upsetting route. She was sure she’d prefer examining a cabinet.

They walked into a large light-gray room that glittered with dozens of different size cases holding antique globes, shining brass telescopes, rare books, silver and mapmaking instruments.

In the center, enclosed in a large glass cylinder, was the item they had come to see. The ebony, warm golden woods, semiprecious stones and gilt trim glowed. Over eight feet tall and half as wide, it was an imposing piece that seemed to soak up all the light in the room and outshine all the other treasures.

Jac’s eyes were drawn to the top of the cabinet. A dark-brown textured cup was encased in gilded silver and decorated with iridescent mother-of-pearl, twisting coral branches and crystal, all held up by an exquisitely sculpted silvered sculpture of Neptune, god of the sea, with his trident.

“That is a Seychelles nut,” Ebsen said, noticing Jac’s fascination with the crowning arrangement. And then he turned back to Melinoe.

“I’ve closed off this room so that you can view the cabinet in private. If you will allow me…” He gestured to the center of the room. Melinoe followed him, Jac went next, and Serge held back. He was acting strangely. Jac wondered if he was jealous of how Melinoe was treating the curator. Surely he’d seen his stepsister act out before. So what was bothering him?

“Your request was quite unusual,” Ebsen said. “We haven’t returned all the items to the cabinet since we took them out and put them on display.”

“And I do appreciate you doing it for me now. I just really wanted to be able to experience this marvel the way its maker intended,” Melinoe said.

Ebsen opened the glass case. The door swung out, and he was able to slide the cabinet forward so they all could stand around.

“It really is an architectural marvel,” Ebsen said as he rotated it. “This upper section of drawers and compartments rests on a ball-bearing device so those who came to view the cabinet could sit and watch it move. Down here…” He pulled out a drawer, which turned into a small stepladder. “This enabled visitors to reach the uppermost parts to view them. And here…” He pulled a fold-out table from the undersection. “A viewing table complete with a cushion. A luxurious respite for your arms if examining the masterpiece exhausted you.”

The marvel that was the cabinet was difficult to take in. There was so much to look at and examine at once. The insides of the doors were inlaid with semiprecious stones: agate, jasper, lapis lazuli, bronze reliefs, paintings, gold, more silver, all meticulously designed.

Jac was riveted to a glowing bowl filled with perfectly replicated ceramic fruit, all made of jewels.

Opening yet another door, Ebsen showed them what he called a virginal and explained it was a keyboard with a mechanism, which could be set to a clock to play automatically at a certain time, and a diorama with small wax-and-fabric men set up in a scene. There were several automatons-scenes from history and mythology-that especially interested Jac. One box displayed Apollo and Cyparissus, showing the latter’s transformation into a cypress tree that rotated, one side showing the grotesque boy, the other the fully formed tree.

“There are mathematical instruments and relics here. And what surprises many is that there are also games. It’s important to remember that this was a pastime and not just a treasure.”

Ebsen pulled out a board, which opened to reveal two halves.

“This is the game of Goose, where the player advanced based on a throw of the dice.” He withdrew another board game. “And this is roulette.”

It was numbered from I to XII, with markers in between. Fruits and scrollwork decorated each corner.

“We have four decks of playing cards.” He withdrew one to show them.

Jac thought of Malachai and how much he would have enjoyed seeing those late fifteenth-century cards. He collected them and had more than forty antique decks, but none this old.

“At the time memento mori was quite popular.” He showed them a seemingly ordinary portrait that upon closer inspection revealed a grinning skull. “Quite a curious preoccupation of the era. Art to remind you that you must die. Perhaps they believed that collecting itself staved off death.”

“Yes,” Melinoe said, her voice laced with determination and sadness. “Amassing beauty that outlives you keeps you immortal,” she said.

“Do you know what items are missing from the cabinet?” Serge asked.

“Not all of them, no. But we do have several receipts for things that were removed. King Gustav’s widow took out a sculpted wax image, an ivory perspective, a step counter, a book of birds, a small ring and two opals.”

At the mention of the stones, Melinoe’s eyes narrowed.

“That’s what I’d really like to focus on. The natural objects that are in the cabinet.”

“Ah yes, so you said on the phone. Let’s all have a seat back here. It will be easier to examine the items.”

He showed them to a small wooden table with four folding chairs that clearly had been placed there for their visit alone.

The three of them took their seats. Ebsen opened a green felt coverlet and placed it over the tabletop.

One by one he brought over precious stones, pearls, shells, nuts and small unrecognizable rocks and told them as much as he knew about each. He pointed to an uneven gray-black rock the size of a child’s fist. “Ambergris,” he said. “Do you know what it is?”

Jac started to speak but under the table felt Melinoe’s hand touch her lightly on the upper thigh.

“No, I don’t think I do,” Melinoe said.

Ebsen explained: “This substance consists of mostly cholesterol secreted by the intestinal tract of the sperm whale. It’s usually found floating in the sea or washed up onshore. It has a foul odor at first but, after aging, is one of the most precious ingredients in fine perfumes-and has been since the sixteenth century. It’s outlawed from being traded now in many countries, I believe.”

Jac stared at the large lump of hardened wax. She’d worked with ambergris but never seen this large a chunk of it. A piece this size was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. There was no finer ingredient to fix a scent and add richness and roundness to a perfume. In America, where it was banned, niche perfumers who didn’t sell their creations in bulk bought it on the black market and used it anyway. A piece this old would have its own wondrous odors. The longer ambergris aged, the more unique its properties. Jac’s hand itched to reach out and touch it, but it was Melinoe who picked it up and felt its heft.

“Is it all right if I hold it?” she asked Ebsen, too late for him to object.

“I think it will be all right.” He smiled.

Serge chose that moment to stand. “Can you show me how the drawers that held these objects were made? I’m an architect, and while the inventory is fascinating, the construction is even more so.”

Ebsen nodded, and the two men walked back to the cabinet.

Melinoe looked at Jac. “The ambergris appears right to you?”

“Absolutely, it-”

Melinoe interrupted her. “Perfect. Let’s see what Ebsen is showing Serge.”

Jac stood up, and so did Melinoe. As she did, her handbag fell and spilled its contents; she bent to pick them up.

“I’ll be there in a moment,” Melinoe said.

Jac joined Serge and the curator who, with delight, was in the process of pointing out and explaining the different joints and closures, hinges and other aspects of the cabinet that they hadn’t yet discussed. After a few seconds Melinoe joined them.

“Well, this has been an amazing treat,” Melinoe said when Ebsen finished. “And now we have another appointment. I can’t thank you enough, Dr. Ebsen.” She took the curator’s hand and held it in her own for longer than seemed normal. The pale man blushed and became flustered and told her that the pleasure had been all his.

“The pleasure,” Melinoe said as she smiled at him intimately, “is truly all mine.”