“Well, Lauren.” Mr. Clarke shook her hand. At the age of sixty-two, his hair and beard were sterling silver, his skin bronzed by theAfrican sun. She could well imagine him in a pith helmet. “Let’s see all the work you’ve been doing while the boys have been playing in the sand.”
She smiled in appreciation of his attempt to set her at ease. “How would you like to see the most recent artifacts they sent back?” she suggested.
“An excellent place to start,” Mr. Clarke agreed.
In the New Accessions room, Mr. Robinson began to relax, and Mr. Clarke’s energy for all Lauren showed him served to heighten hers.
After narrating some of the smaller pieces, she brought him to the coffin of Hetsumina, proudly describing how she was discovered and the hope of finding her twin. “They deserve to be together,” she said.
“Oh, undoubtedly.” Mr. Clarke’s eyes glinted as he slowly circled the coffin. “The race is on,” he said at last. “Are you a betting man, Mr. Robinson? Who will find Hatsudora first? Your team, or mine?”
Mr. Robinson sputtered until Mr. Clarke laughed. “Never fear, my good man. Even if my team should find it, and if by some miracle we’d be able to arrange with authorities to remove it from Egypt, I would direct it this way. Over my dead body.”
Clearly bewildered, Mr. Robinson laughed nervously.
“Whether she comes to us before or after your death,” Lauren jumped in, “it’s only right that the twins should be together again. I do hope you’ll come and see our spring exhibition on the Egyptian afterlife, Mr. Clarke. Hetsumina will have a prominent place in it. I guarantee that when her twin joins her here, the two will be treated as nobly as they were in life, their stories displayed for the world to see.”
At this point, Mr. Robinson reminded Mr. Clarke how many millions of people from around the globe visited the Met every year. The implication was clear: Clarke’s legacy and name would reach the most people by being enshrined at the Met.
“A pleasing prospect, for any collector,” Mr. Clarke agreed. “Buttell me, will you banish my collection to inventory as soon as you find a way to bring in pieces from King Tut’s tomb?”
“That’s not going to happen.” Mr. Robinson carefully addressed his insecurity, reminding him that Egyptian law declared that in the event of discovery of an intact tomb like King Tut’s, it all belonged to Egypt. Unless the government made exceptions, everything being moved out of it was only traveling as far as Cairo.
“But the names of Carter and Carnarvon have traveled the world over while mine has been erased.” Clarke’s voice was wistful. “Did you know, young lady, that under my direction, the tomb at KV 61 was found in 1910? It was the last tomb found in the Kings’ Valley for twelve years, before Tut was discovered at KV 62. My team stopped digging six feet from glory. Cairo’s Egyptian Museum had a Theodore M. Clarke room, devoted to my discoveries. It isn’t there anymore.”
Lauren knew. “Mr. Clarke, the body of your work stands on its own. Your discovery of the tomb of Yuya and Thuyu gave scholars objects to study that previously had been seen only in paintings on the walls of looted chambers. That was only one of your landmark contributions.”
His eyebrows lifted along with the corners of his lips.
“We also know that you employed Howard Carter during his season of poverty, having him illustrate many of your finds. If you hadn’t kept him afloat during those years, he may not have lasted long enough to dig for Lord Carnarvon. Even if others don’t know that, we do.”
Mr. Robinson’s nods were clipped but emphatic. “You earned your place as an honorary fellow of the Met, and nothing will take that away.”
Unless it was Lauren’s imagination, Mr. Clarke’s chest lifted as though an unseen burden dropped away. “Onward,” he said, the boom in his voice boding well.
Each passing room felt less like a formal presentation and more like a meeting of like minds. After the highlights in the maingalleries, they moved below ground to show him all the work that went on behind the scenes, from their receiving and conservation rooms to the workshops dedicated to creating display cases to show the artifacts to their best advantage. Lauren would never tell her father this, but despite her misgivings, it was easy to enjoy Mr. Clarke’s company.
By the time they’d circled back up to the Great Hall, the museum had opened to the public for the day, the eager crowd a fitting finish for the tour. Mr. Robinson offered to take their guest out for brunch next, and Clarke agreed. While her boss left to make a brief call to his secretary, Lauren stayed with Mr. Clarke, answering any last questions he had about what he’d seen this morning.
“Forgive me, Lauren,” he said. “But there’s something familiar about you. Have we met before? You must excuse an old man’s memory.”
“We’ve not met before today,” she assured him.
His narrowed eyes searched hers. “Do I know your parents, then? Mr. Robinson never told me your surname. I didn’t want to embarrass him by pointing that out, but please, tell me.”
She couldn’t ignore a direct question, and she wasn’t about to lie. “My name is Dr. Lauren Westlake,” she told him quietly. “I studied under Dr. James Breasted in Chicago.”
“Ah! James and I have been good friends since before you were born, I’m sure. You could not have studied with a finer, more brilliant man. A true pioneer among Americans in the field of Egyptology.”
Relief washed through her that her professor’s was the name he landed upon.
And then, “Westlake,” he said, voice softening. “Could it be that I have the pleasure of addressing Goldie Rediger Westlake’s daughter?”
Lauren’s heart skipped over a beat. “You knew my mother?”
To her great surprise, Mr. Clarke lifted her hand and brushed a whiskery kiss to her knuckles before folding it in both of his. “Once upon a time. Again, before you were born. Your hair is a rich walnut, while hers was a honeyed sunshine, but in your fair complexionand the charming dent in your chin, the resemblance is so strong I can’t believe I didn’t see it earlier. I was truly sorry to hear of her untimely passing. Forty-two was far too young.”
Shock tied Lauren’s tongue. Theodore Clarke loomed large in her father’s letters, and here he was, speaking about Mother like he knew her, from her maiden name to the shade of her hair to her age when she died. What had their relationship been? And yet he hadn’t mentioned a connection to Dad at all, though the two of them had worked together. Nothing about this made sense.
