The Metropolitans Read online

  3

  GONE TO PIECES

  MADGE FELT BETTER as soon as she was inside the museum. She tilted her head back and looked up at the high domed ceiling. “Swank!” she said out loud.

  “I’m not sure that is the accolade Mr. Hunt had in mind for his classical Beaux-Arts design.”

  Madge turned toward the woman standing behind the information desk. She was tall and so thin she wouldn’t have had any trouble folding herself up in the Murphy bed. She looked like she’d been pressed and folded already, except when she turned to the side and revealed a bulge beneath her skirt that looked like it was made by some kind of bulky undergarment. Sheesh, someone should tell the old dame to get a better girdle at Gimbels! It wasn’t like the woman didn’t have any style sense. She had on smart alligator shoes and an enormous pin on her lapel of a winged lizard which, Madge figured, must have cost a mint, even if it was ugly as sin. She might have been good-looking, too, if she’d ever smiled and those round glasses didn’t make her eyes bulge out like a dead carp’s.

  “Who’s Boze Art?” Madge asked.

  “Not who, what. Beaux-Arts is the style in which the museum was built,” the woman drawled. Whatever press Dead Carp slept in had apparently squeezed her sinus passages so tight that she spoke in a nasal whine. “Here—” She grudgingly handed Madge a brochure. “That explains everything, including the hours of the cafeteria and gift shop and a map of the galleries.”

  “And it’s all free?” Madge asked, gaping at the number of rooms on the foldout floor plan. She could spend all day in here and not get to see everything.

  “Yes,” Dead Carp conceded in a tone of deep regret. “But contributions are always welcome.”

  “Oh,” Madge said. “Maybe when I make my first million. Where do you think I should start?”

  “Chill-drun”—the woman drew out the word as if she were referring to a lower order of invertebrates—“often enjoy the Egyptian tomb and the Arms and Armor exhibit.”

  “Arms and Armor? You mean like knights?”

  “Those are the individuals most likely to have made use of such accoutrements.”

  “My brother Frankie loves that stuff. Thanks, Miss—” Madge peered at the brass name tag to keep herself from calling her Dead Carp. It read MISS ENID FITZBANE, HEAD OF SECURITY. With a scowl like that on her face, Madge thought, it’s no wonder they put her in charge of scaring people away. “Thanks, Miss Fitzbane. You’ve been swell. Which way to the Arms and Armor?”

  “They are in the north galleries. Turn right upon entering—”

  But Madge was already gone, the worn soles of her saddle shoes scuffing over the marble floor. She walked between two massive white columns that looked like the picture on the back of the ten-dollar bill. There was an Egyptian tomb you could actually go into! Frankie would love this. Maybe she could get permission to take him and the twins to the museum one day. She hadn’t been allowed to take them out so far, because she wasn’t an adult.

  She walked past an Asian man and a girl about Madge’s age. The man was wearing a somber gray suit, and the girl, who was wearing a navy skirt and starched white shirt that looked like a school uniform even though it was Sunday, was carrying a large briefcase that obviously belonged to the man. Madge felt a pang, recalling how she used to walk with her father to the corner carrying his lunch pail when he still went to work, before he’d Gone to Pieces. Madge thought of it this way because after they had come home from her mother’s funeral, her father had sat down in her mother’s rocking chair. It was where she had nursed the twins through chicken pox and where she would sit at the end of the day darning socks. No one but her mother had ever sat in it, but when Madge’s father sat in it, the chair had fallen apart beneath him. It had gone to pieces and then he had gone—to the tavern down the street, where he started drinking and didn’t stop for three weeks. He might still be drinking as far as Madge knew, because after three weeks, the nuns came from St. Vincent’s and took Frankie and the twins away, and Aunt Jean offered to take Madge in.

  The man strode past her, the heels of his shoes hitting the floor like angry slaps, and went up a flight of stairs to a balcony. He was saying something in a loud foreign language and the girl ran up the stairs after him crying, “Otousan! Otousan!”

  Well, Madge thought, envy is ignorance. Still, she’d rather be fighting with her father than not know where he was.

  Thoughts of her father had dampened her spirits. The gloomy coffins and leering dog-faced statues didn’t help much to lift them. But then she walked into a lofty two-storied court filled with sunlight from a skylight. Brightly colored banners hung from poles suspended between the arches of the colonnade on either side. Four knights stood in the center of the hall in a diamond formation as if they were ready for battle. For a moment the walls melted away and Madge imagined herself on a green field, silk banners snapping in a brisk breeze, the sound of trumpets on the air—

  “They’re pretty keen, aren’t they?”

  The boy took her by surprise. Hadn’t she been alone a moment ago? But he had such an open, friendly face that she wasn’t frightened. He had reddish sandy hair that was cut too short over ears that stood out straight from his head, and freckles over the bridge of his nose. He was wearing an orange-and-blue-checked shirt under a forest-green sweater vest—Sheesh, he must be color-blind!—and carrying a sketch pad tucked under his arm.

  “They’re swell!” Madge said. “Are they supposed to be King Arthur and his knights?”

  “I like to think that the one in front is Arthur,” the boy said, his ears twitching, “and behind him are Lancelot and Gawain and the one in back is—”

  “Guinevere?” Madge asked. “It could be a girl under all that armor.”

  “I don’t think there were any girl knights,” the boy said doubtfully.

  “What about Joan of Arc?” Madge challenged.

  “I suppose. Do you like stories about King Arthur? I didn’t know girls did.”

  Madge started to say that Frankie had liked the stories, but then she would have to explain where Frankie and the twins were. “Sure, I did when I was a kid. I don’t really have time for that kind of malarkey now. They’re just stories, after all.”

  “Of course I know they’re just stories,” the freckled boy said, looking so crestfallen that Madge immediately felt sorry.

  “But they’re swell stories all the same. I’m Madge McGrory, by the way.” Madge stuck out her hand to shake the way her father had taught her to.

  “Walt Rosenberg.” He shook Madge’s hand, wincing slightly when she squeezed. “Would you like to see something really neat?”

  “Sure,” Madge said.

  They walked into a dimly lit gallery behind the main hall, where there were helmets, shields, swords, and other objects having to do with knights and armor. The case Walt led Madge to contained a single sheet of paper sandwiched between two panes of glass. The paper was yellow with age and torn in places, and yet the ink looked as fresh as if it had been penned yesterday. A large ornate capital A filled the top left-hand corner. It was painted in colors that glowed like jewels—sapphire, emerald, ruby, and amethyst—and outlined in glittering gold.

  “Oh,” Madge said, her breath misting the top of the glass case. “It’s beautiful. It’s like a prayer book the nuns showed us once.”

  “Yes! Only this is a storybook. It’s the last page of an adventure of King Arthur, one that isn’t in any of the other books. Isn’t that exciting?”

  Madge looked from the brightly colored page to Walt. His eyes, which had seemed an unremarkable shade of muddy brown a moment ago, were now speckled with flecks of gold, as if the gold paint on the page had been dusted across his face.

  “The last page? Where’s the rest of the story?”

  All the gold glitter fell away from Walt’s face. “Lost,” he said. “There were only a few copies ever made a
nd they’ve all been lost.”

  “Oh,” Madge said, looking back down at the beautiful page. A lost book wasn’t as sad as her mother dying or her father falling apart or Frankie and the twins being stuck at St. Vincent’s Home for Boys, but it suddenly seemed all of one piece. She had felt for a brief moment as if all she had lost had been restored to her—as it had been in her dream—and then cruelly snatched away. She squinted down at the page. “I can’t even make out what it says—”

  The sound of metal clattering, as if one of the knights had come alive, made Madge raise her head from the page. The noise came from a suit of Japanese armor at the back of the gallery. Madge peered into the gloom—and into copper-colored eyes.

  “You!” she cried. “Did you follow me?” The boy from the park stepped out from behind the suit of armor. He was clutching a book to his chest. “And that’s my book!”

  She felt Walt straightening himself up beside her. “Hand that book over,” he said, his voice cracking.

  The other boy regarded Walt with his still-watchful eyes and then handed the book to him. Then he looked from Walt to Madge.

  “I found it on the bench where you left the sandwich. I didn’t think you meant to leave it behind. Maybe you didn’t mean to leave the sandwich, either.”

  “Oh!” Madge felt her cheeks go red. “I meant to leave the sandwich, but not the book. Thank you for returning it.”

  The boy shrugged and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his denim jacket. “Thanks for the sandwich.” He started to turn away.

  “It was just a leftover from the diner where my aunt Jean works. I could bring you more. My name’s Madge—and this is Walt.”

  The boy nodded at Walt but he kept his eyes on Madge. “Joe,” he said.

  Walt, looking embarrassed, was fiddling with the brown paper cover on the book. He had torn away a piece of the paper, revealing the book’s title. “Hey, I thought you said you didn’t read this stuff anymore—”

  Before Madge could explain that the book belonged to her brother, the sound of breaking glass behind her drew her attention. Joe, who had been facing that way, moved first, springing forward like Jesse Owens about to set another world record. Madge turned and saw the the man in the beige trench coat and gray fedora pulling the manuscript page out of its broken case.

  Joe said something that sounded like “Stone Giant!”

  “Thief!” Madge screamed. “Put that back!”

  The man lifted his head. His eyes were shadowed by the brim of his hat, but Madge could feel a coldness radiating from them the way she could feel the chill of the East River when she walked by it. Instead of putting the page back, he turned and ran toward the stairs on the other side of the court. Madge and Joe and Walt ran after him. The boys were fast, but years of playing ring-a-levio had made Madge even faster. She should have caught him. But when she reached him, he seemed to vanish into a fog.

  “Like the man in my dream,” Walt whispered.

  “You had that dream, too?” both Madge and Joe asked at the same time.

  The man had reappeared at the other end of the court and was running down the stairs. Madge, Joe, and Walt ran after him, Madge in the lead, taking the steps two at a time. She was right behind him. She saw a bit of trench coat vanish around the corner at the bottom of the stairs—but when she reached the bottom, the thief had vanished. Madge was facing a long corridor with three closed doors. At the end of the corridor was another door marked EXIT—ALARM SOUNDS WHEN OPENED.

  “Where’d he go?” Joe asked when he and Walt tumbled to the bottom of the stairs.

  “He vanished again,” Madge said.

  “He can’t have gone out the exit or the alarm would have sounded,” Walt said.

  A man who vanishes in a fog might not set off an alarm, Madge thought, but instead of saying that she turned to the door closest to her. “I’ll open this one and you two open the others so he can’t get away if we pick the wrong door.” She spoke in the commanding tone she used when giving orders in ring-a-levio, and the boys did as she said.

  “On the count of three,” Madge said when the boys were in position in front of the other two doors. “One—”

  “But what are we supposed to do if he’s behind one of the doors?” Walt asked.

  “Two,” Madge said, ignoring Walt’s question because she didn’t know the answer. She could hear a sound coming from behind her door—a hissing sound, like a snake.

  “Three!”

  As they opened their doors, several things happened at once. Walt screamed, “He’s here!” followed by the sound of something falling. Madge could hear the commotion, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sight in front of her. She had seen many strange things today, but this was the strangest. A short, rotund man in a three-piece tweed suit was standing on a footstool, holding a flaming blow torch up to a piece of paper hanging from a clothesline. As the man turned to Madge, she was horrified to see that he had the face of a huge pop-eyed bug. He gurgled something indistinguishable and flapped his hands around, which had the effect of lighting the paper and clothesline on fire. He became so agitated that, bug-man or not, Madge felt sorry for him. She ran forward to put out the flame, which she managed with a bucket of sand that the man was waving at. When she’d helped the bug-man to the ground, he took off the thing on his head, which Madge now realized was a gas mask, revealing a round pink face fringed with wispy white hair standing up like carpet fuzz.

  “My dear, you gave me quite a shock opening the door like that, although I suppose I gave you one in return.” He chuckled and put on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. “You must wonder what I’m up to, lighting the medieval manuscripts on fire.”

  “Is that what you were doing, Mister?”

  “I was trying, albeit poorly, to dry them,” he said. “And it’s Doctor. Doctor Dashwood Bean, curator of Arms and Armor, but everyone calls me Dash.”

  “I think I’ll stick with Doctor, Dr. Bean—but hey, unless you don’t care about any of your old books, you’d better come out in the hall. Some fella is trying to make off with that page that was under glass upstairs.”

  “The Kelmsbury King Arthur!” He looked more excited than upset.

  “My friends are trying to stop him.”

  The gleeful look on Dashwood Bean’s face faded. “Oh dear, they shouldn’t do that—” Just then a loud alarm sounded from the hallway.

  “Oh no,” Madge said, “he must be getting away!”

  She ran out into the hall, followed by Dr. Bean. The sight that greeted her was almost as upsetting as the one of Dr. Bean setting pages on fire. Walt sat on the floor, his sweater vest unraveled and wrapped around his chest like a straitjacket. Joe, one eye turning blue and his lip swollen, was crawling around on the floor trying to gather something that looked like confetti.

  “What happened?” Madge demanded. “How did he get away?”

  “Thstone Giant,” Joe lisped.

  “I swear he kept vanishing,” Walt said, trying to undo a knot in the green wool, “and somehow he got me all tangled up! We kept him from taking the page, but—”

  “You did? Good for you!” Madge slapped Walt on the back. “Where is it?”

  Joe sat back on his heels and held up his hands cupped together. They were full of confetti and gold glitter. “Here,” he said. “We got it back, but I’m afraid it’th all gone to piethes.”

  4

  FROM THE AIR

  THE OLD GUY, whom Madge called Dr. Bean, did not look as upset by the destruction of a very old and very rare manuscript page as Walt would have thought he’d be. Instead he looked perplexed.

  “Why, you’re children!” he said, rubbing the top of his head as if trying to activate the brain cells inside. Then he turned to the tall woman who had just come out of the workroom “Ah, here’s my assistant, Miss Lake. Vivian, someone’s gone and stolen the Kelmsbury
.”

  “Just as we thought,” she said, straightening the hem of her sapphire-blue peplum jacket, which matched her eyes. She tossed her platinum-blonde hair, which curved over one eye in a perfect wave.

  Walt stopped unwinding his sweater vest to gape up at her. “What do you mean just as we thought?”

  “Yeth,” Joe said, “what do you mean? That fellow thocked me in the jaw. Did you know he’d do that?”

  Miss Lake tsked. “Let me get some ice for that, young man.” She turned on her three-inch heels, revealing perfectly straight stocking seams, and clicked her way into the Arms and Armor workshop. Madge helped Walt to his feet, and then he turned to help Joe up, which proved difficult because Joe wouldn’t put down the shredded manuscript. They all ended up getting tangled in the green wool and covered with the bits of gold paint from the torn page. We look like a third grader’s Mother’s Day card, Walt thought. But when they turned to walk up the hall, Walt felt linked to the two others by more than just glitter and yarn. What they had done was like something out of The Boy’s King Arthur or, another favorite of his, The Three Musketeers. All for one, one for all! But then his spirits sagged as he recalled that they hadn’t in fact saved the page. And, as Dr. Bean had said, they were only children.

  You’re only a child, Walt’s father had told him when he asked why he was being sent away, and Germany is no place for children right now. And then Walt had taken the train with a few hundred other children, all wearing tags with numbers on them, all crying about leaving their parents behind, to England, where his uncle Sol met him and brought him to America. He hadn’t seen his parents since—had it really been two whole years now?—and whenever someone said, “You’re only a child,” Walt knew it meant he was about to lose something.

  Walt’s frustration vanished, though, as he walked into the workroom. Although they were in the basement there were windows high on the wall letting in sunlight through wavy glass. Full suits of armor stood at attention as if standing guard. Miss Lake handed Joe an ice pack and then went into a little alcove to make tea. The strains of Sammy Kaye’s orchestra drifted from a radio. Dr. Bean cleared books and folders from five chairs surrounding a long table that was occupied by blank manuscript pages held down by stones, crystals, teacups, bronze daggers, and something that looked like a small meteorite. Walt gazed at the cluttered room in wonder, gaping at the suits of armor, tapestries depicting knights and ladies, and the vast array of swords and shields, helmets and breastplates, gauntlets and greaves piled on shelves and lying along a long low workbench. There was even an enormous anvil that looked like it had belonged to a medieval blacksmith. It was like an armory in here! There was a broadsword leaning against the wall that was almost as tall as he was. He wondered if anyone would notice if he picked it up—but then what if it were too heavy for him to lift? That would be embarrassing, especially in front of Madge, who had a grip like a stevedore. He turned away from the sword to a shelf that held wooden hat forms topped by plain rounded helmets.