Neil Olson - The Icon

“What a careful answer.”

“I write them down on my sleeve for quick reference.”

“In case you get grilled by some rude creature like me,” she laughed. “I’m sorry, I’m just trying to get to know you better. And I guess I’m stalling.”

“If you’re not comfortable doing this now, we can make another appointment. I confess I’d be disappointed, but-”

“No, it’s fine. You are being incredibly patient.”

“Please call me Matthew, by the way.”

“Matthew. Good. I usually answer to Chris.”

“Usually, huh?”

“Usually.”

“Is that what I should call you?”

He could take her long stare so many ways that he decided to ignore it. She carried both mugs to the sink and stood for awhile with her back to him.

“No, I guess not. Call me Ana.”

“Ana. All right.”

“Follow me, Matthew.”

The chamber was not large, maybe twenty feet deep by twelve wide, the darkness within accentuated by the brightness elsewhere in the house. The only illumination came from scattered streaks of blue, red, and yellow light from six small stained-glass windows. Matthew could make out a bench, candelabra, square panels on the walls. Details were visible on several of the near panels, figures in a crowd scene, a leaning cross against a gray-blue sky. Of the larger panel, directly opposite the arched entry, he could make out no details until his companion turned a dial in the room behind, and the Holy Mother of Katarini slowly emerged from darkness.

The icon, about twenty-four by thirty inches, was badly chipped and at first glance appeared nearly abstract: a luminous gold field with a maroon wedge emerging from the bottom and covering most of the panel. The wedge soon revealed itself as a robe wrapped about the torso and head of a woman. Her forearms were raised before her chest, her long hands raised in prayerful supplication. The shape of her hood could be made out clearly, but the details of her face were murky. Except for the eyes. The eyes drew you in, and Matthew realized that he had walked more than halfway across the chamber without any awareness of moving. Not even the photograph had prepared him for these eyes floating within that cowl. Large, dark brown almost to black, and almond-shaped, in the favored Eastern style. Penetrating, all-knowing, forgiving, or rather ready to forgive, but requiring something of you first. Matthew held the gaze as long as he could and then had to look away.

“Are you OK?” She spoke softly behind him.

“Yes.”

“They get to you, don’t they? The eyes. I can never look at them for long.”

“They’re very expressive.”

“A little frightening, I think. Beautiful, but judgmental. The way religion feels when you’re young.”

“I suppose religion was a much more primal experience when this was painted.”

“I think of all those Renaissance masterpieces.” She was beside him now, speaking quietly, almost into his ear. “Aesthetically, they’re flawless. Mary is always serene. Yet there’s something so much more powerful, or vital, about this. She looks menacing. Godly. Not that Mary is a god, technically.”

“To the Greeks she is.”

“I’m sorry, I’m babbling. I’d blame the coffee, but the truth is I get nervous standing here.”

“Guilty conscience?”

“Could be. I just find the work very unsettling. My grandfather could sit in front of it for hours, I don’t know how.” He felt her breath on his neck as she exhaled deeply, calming herself. “He died in here, actually.”

“Really.”

“Simultaneous heart attack and stroke. Diana, his nurse, found him just exactly where you’re standing.”

He resisted the impulse to move.

“No wonder it bothers you.”

“So is it good work, Matthew?” she asked.

“It’s a shame about the damage, though it only seems to add to the mystique. I’d say it’s excellent work, and very old. Possibly pre-iconoclastic, which would make it quite rare. I’ll know better when I look at it more closely.”

“I guess we should take it off the wall.”

“I’ll do it, if you like. I’m experienced at handling these things.”

She pulled her hair back with both hands and nodded.

“It probably violates the insurance policy, but I would prefer that. We just need to turn off the alarm.”

“How do we do that?”

“I’m not exactly sure. Come help me figure it out.”

Andreas had left a message for Morrison in Washington the night before, and the agency man had called him back at the hotel the next morning.

“What brings you to the States, my friend?”

“My son is ill.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

No doubt he was, but the tone of voice made it clear that he had more pressing business than chatting with a retired Greek operative. Andreas could picture the man, trim, regulation hair and that shifting, nervous gaze, determined to miss nothing while missing everything. Impatience. That was the reason, despite all its resources, that American intelligence was always getting things wrong. They were good at reading satellite photos, but not at reading faces. They could not gauge the mood of a people, or even a single man.

“I have a request,” Andreas continued. “It is a rather delicate matter.”

“I’m sure this line is secure.”

“I would prefer to meet. I believe you are here in New York?”

“Why do you say that?’

“A guess.” One had to become good at guessing when one had no resources. “You often come here. Besides, there are no secure lines in Washington.”

Morrison laughed. “Probably true. OK, but it has to be brief, and it has to be soon. Like right now, this morning.”

“That suits me well.”

Morrison chose a generic coffee shop near Herald Square, the kind of place he always preferred. The man had an encyclopedic knowledge of every faceless, tasteless eatery in every northeastern American city. Morrison’s predecessor, Bill Barber, had taken Andreas to wonderful restaurants where they ate, drank, told stories, and traded information almost incidentally, as if none of it were about business. But Barber hadn’t been much for protocol, and Andreas had been useful then.

He arrived early and chose a booth in back, too near the hot, musty stink of the deep-fryer. Morrison arrived a few minutes later in his trademark blue suit and gray raincoat, the uniform, though today it was appropriate to the weather-windy, and threatening rain.

“You look well.”

“I look terrible, and so do you,” Andreas shot back, as much to unsettle the man as to state the truth. It had been years since they had last met, and the years had not been kind to Morrison. He had gotten heavy; gone gray at the temples; and his gaze no longer darted so much but had a set, glazed cast about it. Perhaps there had been some unpleasant fieldwork. Perhaps family. Andreas could empathize, but the other man was certain not to speak of whatever it was.

“I’m OK, not enough sleep is all. I am sorry about your boy. Alex, right?”

“You went to the trouble of checking my file. I am honored.”

“Jesus, Andy, I happened to remember. You always insult people you need favors from?”

“Yes, it’s a Greek custom. We hate to be in anyone’s debt, so we offend them right at the start to let them know they do not own us.”

Morrison shook his head, appeased or amused.

“Is that true?”

“No. I am an uncivilized old man, my apologies. Yes, Alex.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“A blood disorder. You would know the name if I could remember it. Such illnesses are rare in my family, but for one so young…I do not understand.”

“There’s no understanding these things. God works in mysterious ways, the shit.”