The Memory Painter: A Novel (21 page)

The possibility of her rejection now terrified him. He knew she was starting to question his sanity, and yet here he was sailing the northern Atlantic, believing he was a seafaring Viking who had almost discovered America. Bryan shook his head at himself and took out the foot-long wind instrument he had carved yesterday from a seasoned tree branch. It was something Bjarni liked to do—whistle on the water.

After Anssonno had been born, Bjarni would play his pipe softly to lull him to sleep at night. And when Anssonno had grown old enough to wield a carving knife, Bjarni had taught him how to make his own.

Bryan played his song, listening to it carry over the waves, and he wondered where Anssonno’s soul was. There were over seven billion people on Earth—did the likelihood of crossing paths with someone again boil down to random statistics? Or did a soul’s path adhere to a pattern, like the connecting lines on a mandala? Bryan seemed to be connecting with certain people again and again. He could only hope Anssonno would one day come back to him. Perhaps it would heal the loss that lived in his heart.

As the boat skimmed over the sea, Bryan sensed the ocean speaking to him. A whale breached in the distance, puffins dove into the water, and a lone iceberg floated to the west like a silent witness. He closed his eyes and prayed to Odin, Allah, Yahweh, Zeus, Shiva, and every deva and deity he had ever worshipped to bring him peace and understanding. This pilgrimage had to be for a purpose.

He opened his eyes and the shore loomed in the distance just as Bjarni had seen it. A national historic site now called L’Anse aux Meadows, Leif Erikson’s settlement symbolized the path Bjarni had not taken. If only he had brought Garnissa to the new land, how different their lives would have been.

Bryan’s head was still filled with these thoughts as he came to shore and wandered through the park, touring the reconstructions. It was a living museum, and the staff reenacted what it must have been like for Viking settlers. But it became too much for Bryan, and he broke away from the other tourists so no one could see his grief.

The journey had provided no answers, no glimmer of understanding. Before he got back on his boat, he debated calling Linz on a public phone but changed his mind.

*   *   *

Linz went to sleep every night wondering when Bryan would come back home.

Maybe he would just disappear. But she found that hard to believe. While he was gone, she tried to forget about him and get her life back to normal by immersing herself in her research.

Her latest round of candidate plasticity genes had begun to show promise. Using a multiphoton microscope, she had been imaging the same neurons in a group of mice and had finally identified a gene that showed a special ability to absorb synaptic proteins. Identifying a gene’s function was always a huge breakthrough, and it usually took years. In the lab, Linz’s photographic memory and obsessive tendencies worked to her advantage.

Normally she would have brought a bottle of champagne over to her father’s house so they could toast her success, but she limited the celebration to a formal e-mail to him and addressed it to the other directors as well. She did not reply to his congratulations, or his offer to take her out for dinner. He would only want to talk to her about Bryan’s file, which she had yet to open.

Her estrangement from her father did not sit well with her, and now that Bryan was consuming her thoughts, work didn’t fulfill her as much as it had before. Several times, she found herself cutting short her usual long evenings at the lab to stop by the gallery to visit Derek and Penelope—but really it was an excuse to see Bryan’s paintings. Looking at his work, knowing what it meant to him, made her feel closer to him somehow. Afterward, she would go home and work on puzzles, blasting Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons
until she couldn’t stay awake anymore. She had even wandered over to Harvard Square to play chess with the irrational hope that she might see him, even though she knew he was thousands of miles away. When she went to the symphony, for the first time, she felt the emptiness of the seat beside her. And every night when she fell asleep, she imagined that she was in Newfoundland with him.

*   *   *

Bryan knew it was time to return to Boston. He needed to get back and call this trip an honorable failure. He needed to repair things with Linz—and he needed to find Finn. Finn would have at least some of the answers he was looking for. Together they could confront Conrad.

His flight wasn’t until tomorrow, so after he returned the boat, he rented a car for a day to tour the area. He drove to Conception Bay and headed inland. Caught up in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the tire blow out until the whole car started to shake. Swearing, he pulled over and got out.

He was relieved to find a spare in the trunk, but there were no tools to change it. He was stranded in the countryside, and it was at least a half-hour walk back to town. Maybe there would be a house on the way, and someone would have a jack he could borrow.

He was about to set off on foot when a white truck slowed down and pulled over. A young woman jumped out from the passenger side and hurried toward him. She had a pixie haircut and was dressed in a colorfully woven skirt, a tunic-like blouse, and was wearing dramatic stone jewelry. The first thing Bryan noticed was her smile.

She saw the rental sticker on the car and gave him a sharp appraisal. “You have a flat tire? We are happy to help.” She spoke in English but with a French accent. “I am Claudette. That is my husband, Martin,” she said, waving to the driver. “Martin!
Vite!
”

A man—towering well over six feet, with a powerful build and a shaved head—got out of the car. Bryan gaped at him. He looked like Zidane, the retired pro soccer player.

Martin joined them and gave Bryan a nod. Claudette turned to him, “
Chéri,
this poor man has a
pneu
problem.”

Martin headed to the truck bed and got out his tools. Within minutes, he had jacked up the little Mazda and was busy unscrewing bolts. Claudette had a hundred and one questions for Bryan and was thrilled that he spoke perfect French. What was he doing in St. John’s? What did he do for a living? Was this his first visit? Bryan tried to keep it simple and as close to the truth as possible, explaining that he was a painter and here for inspiration. Claudette became even more animated and wanted to know everything about his art. For some reason, Bryan didn’t mind. He found her charming.

In the time it took Martin to fix the tire, Claudette also informed Bryan that they were from France and had been invited to teach at Memorial University in the graduate Archaeology Department. It seemed they were specialists in ethnographic fieldwork techniques. They had only just settled into their new house, which happened to be just a few kilometers away, “and it was very lucky for him because this road got very little traffic,” Claudette bounced on. Bryan found himself nodding quite a bit as he tried to keep up.

After the tire was fixed, Claudette surprised him by inviting him to their house for dinner. Without waiting for an answer, Martin threw the tools into the truck and the two of them tore off. Bryan fumbled to start his car and zoomed down the road to catch up.

Martin’s car turned onto a long winding drive, which ended next to an old farmhouse. Up close, the building looked to be in serious neglect with its stripped paint, shuttered windows, and tattered roof. Bryan got out of the car and joined them at the porch.

Claudette seemed to sense what he was thinking. “We spent all our energy fixing up the inside.”

“No, it looks nice,” Bryan replied, bending the truth

Claudette said, “Martin, the porch lights, vite, s’il te plaît!”

Martin vanished inside, and within seconds the porch sprung to life as decorative lights transformed the exterior into something more like an enchanted cottage at twilight.

The minute Bryan walked into the house, he understood Claudette’s comment about the outside being misleading. The floors shone with rich mahogany wood, and two sofas were angled around a mammoth stone fireplace. Beautiful artifacts—framed papyrus, a gold scarab collection, Egyptian bowls, glasswork, and a statue of a sphinx—hung on the walls and were displayed on futuristic chrome-and-glass bookcases. Bryan took it all in. What were the chances that his car would break down, and he would be rescued by a couple who had an ancient Egyptian sphinx in their house? “Amazing,” he said, speaking his thought aloud.

“
Merci
.” Claudette beamed at him. “My hobby is restoring homes such as this.” She stationed herself in the open kitchen. A whirlwind of energy, she continued to talk while she cooked dinner and checked e-mail. Meanwhile, Martin had lit the fireplace and was opening a bottle of wine.

Bryan studied the framed pictures on the back wall. They were all of pyramids. He glanced at Martin, who gave a new meaning to “the strong, silent type.” He had yet to say a word. Bryan cleared his throat and pointed to a photo. “Excuse me, where is this?”

Martin put on huge tortoiseshell eyeglasses, looking even more eccentric. “China, the White Pyramid.”

“I didn’t know China had pyramids.”

“Oh, they have hundreds,” Martin replied. “The White Pyramid is one of the oldest and largest in the world. I was there in ’94. The government has closed the entire region now.”

Bryan moved to the next photo, a step pyramid with Martin and Claudette pictured in the foreground. “Is this Mayan?”

“Good guess, but no.” Martin poured the wine. “Cambodia, the great pyramid of Koh Ker.”

Bryan studied the photograph. “It looks so similar to the ones the Mayans built.”

“Yes,” Martin agreed, “fascinating when you consider they’re over six thousand miles away from each other.” He motioned to the next two photos. “These of course are Mesoamerican—at Cholula and Teotihuacán—the largest pyramids in the world next to Cheops.”

Bryan moved along the wall as Martin ticked off more sites: Greece, Italy, Russia, Peru … He was beginning to reevaluate his first impression about Martin. The man had plenty to say.

“So pyramids are your specialty,” Bryan said, beginning to feel the mechanics of destiny at work.

Claudette answered, “Pyramidologist is a bit of a dirty word in our field, but
oui,
when we’re allowed…” She trailed off, muttering to herself, “Sometimes people can be pigs.”

Bryan looked questioningly to Martin, who grimaced. “Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities has denied our latest research request.”

Claudette called out. “Let’s not discuss it. It will ruin my dinner.”

“You brought it up, chéri.”

Bryan studied a picture of Claudette and Martin at the Great Pyramid in Egypt. Its scale and grandeur took his breath away. The photo had been taken with the sun low on the horizon and the light hit the stones in a particular way, creating a prism-like affect.

As Bryan sipped his wine, he was overcome by a sudden feeling of déjà-vu. He knew this pyramid. “How do you think it was built?” he asked Martin.

Martin shook his head with a slight smile. “We don’t know. Many of the stones weigh over two hundred tons each. Few cranes could pick up that much limestone.”

Claudette joined in, “There has been fierce debate over studies that show some of the rocks are not natural and are made of nanoscale spheres of silicon dioxide.” She shrugged. “Je ne sais pas. Maybe some were cast with cement—and the Egyptians did create concrete thousands of years before the Romans.”

“Even if some were cast,” Martin added, “there are still thousands of chiseled stones that would have had to have been lifted, and those are perfectly positioned. You can’t even fit a hair between the cracks.” He turned back to the photograph. “And, just as important—why was it built? Again, we don’t know. Traditionalists maintain the tomb theory, but there are over eighty pyramids there and not a single one houses an original burial. All the bodies that have been found were placed there years after the structures had been built—not to mention that the tools that supposedly built these structures have never been found.”

Somehow, Bryan knew all these facts on some level, and he found himself weighing in. “The three pyramids at Giza were also built to perfectly mirror the three stars from Orion’s belt. And the Sphinx was positioned to face Leo on the eastern horizon. Those stars would have been visible in the statue’s eyeline in 10,500 BC.…” He trailed off.
Where in the world had that come from?

Colette and Martin looked surprised and impressed. “You have an interest in archaeoastronomical theory?” She brought grilled steaks and salad out to the table. “It’s a small field, but it’s gaining momentum.”

Bryan had no idea what she was talking about. He shrugged. “I wouldn’t say interest. I think I remember reading about it somewhere.”

“It’s a fascinating idea … a little outside the box.” Colette winked. “But that’s the best place to be, I’ve found.”

Bryan and Martin joined her at the table, and they all ate in companionable silence. Martin put away not one but two steaks. “How much longer are you here?”

“I fly back tomorrow,” Bryan answered. “I’d planned on touring around a bit and then finding a hotel in town.”

Claudette attacked her salad. “You must stay the night. We have a spare room.”

Bryan opened his mouth to decline the offer—he didn’t want to impose. But Claudette held up her hand. “No, you stay.”

Martin chuckled and refilled Bryan’s wineglass. Dinner lasted well into the night. Bryan couldn’t remember the last time he had enjoyed himself so freely.

Sometime after midnight they declared the meal over. Bryan barely managed to climb the stairs and close the door to the guestroom. Stripping off his clothes, he crawled beneath the goose-down comforter and fell into a bottomless sleep.

*   *   *

The fine mist stayed constant, muting the world around him. Bryan took a deep breath of air, smelling its lushness as he stood on a plateau. A green valley stretched before him.

He knew he was dreaming. The immense pressure in his head made him feel as if he had pushed against the tide of time to have this vision. He looked out at the Great Pyramid of Giza, and he could see no cars, no buildings, no pollution or trace of modern man, just endless green meadows. Whatever memories lived here felt as elusive as the air—all around him and yet untouchable.