world.”
“Because it’s directed by an export porcelain person?”
“Sad, isn’t it? And a man like Roger Caldwell, with so much to offer. I’m given to understand that he feels his professional career to be rather stymied.”
I thought about Roger Caldwell, stymied and growing bitter in his beautiful office in his Upper East Side townhouse; and about Nora, dreaming and planning and working late into the night in her vinyl-floored room with the peeling paint.
“Oh.” Dr. Browning suddenly turned away from the cabinet.
“Oh, but you haven’t come here to talk about my little ones, or the intricacies of the museum world. I’m so sorry. Youhave questions for me. Why don’t we …” He looked around helplessly, taking in the book mounds, the magazine hillocks, the paper snowbanks.
I was at a loss, unsure what proper etiquette required of a guest when the host can’t produce a chair; but Bill walked smoothly into the room, moving around precarious-looking piles as comfortably as though he’d put them there himself. He lifted books and magazines off one side of a tiny sofa, didn’t react at all to the clouds of dust that puffed from them as he placed them neatly on the floor. He repeated the performance with a leather armchair and settled in that.
Dr. Browning beamed a grateful look at Bill and gestured me to the sofa.
“May I use your bathroom first?” I asked.
“Oh, my, yes, of course. It’s right through there.”
I thanked him and made my way through there, leaving Dr. Browning to turn to Bill with a flustered smile.
The bathroom was fairly tidy, though obviously the domain of someone unused to guests: a threadbare bathrobe hanging behind the door, towels damp from a morning shower. I spent the bare minimum of time in it that modesty demanded. Then I left it silently and I slipped into the small, dark bedroom, poked quickly into the closet and under the bed.
When I returned to the living room, Bill had Dr. Browning absorbed in a serious conversation about the changes in university education in the city since Bill’s college days.
They both looked up when I came back, and ended that discussion, apparently on a note of agreement. I sat on the sofa I’d been offered before. Dr. Browning, sitting straight in the desk chair, knees and ankles pressed together, looked at me expectantly.
“Dr. Browning,” I began, removing my jacket carefully, laying it across my lap, “what can you tell us about the pieces from the Blair collection that were stolen from CP’s basement?”
“Tell you about them? Well,” he looked at his shoes forinspiration, “well, they’re really quite wonderful. The entire collection is quite wonderful, quite special.”
“Can you be more specific? Is there anything about them, for example, that would make anyone want to steal them particularly, rather than anything else in the collection?”
“Do you mean, are they perhaps worth more? Can one sell them for a higher price?” A strange overtone echoed in Dr. Browning’s thin voice, something that, in a context where it made sense, I might have called resentment.
“Yes, I suppose that’s what I mean.”
“It isn’t likely. I haven’t gone through the entire collection yet, of course, but all of Mr. Blair’s pieces seem to be of very high quality. The stolen pieces were marvelous, but most of the collection is equal to them.”
“Were they all somehow the same?” My newly acquired knowledge of porcelain was leaving me flat; I couldn’t think of very many ways in which porcelain could be the same. “From the same kiln, or made for the same patron, or something?”
“Oh, I doubt it. They appeared to represent quite a wide range of periods and styles, as far as I’d examined them.”
“What about,” Bill asked, “from the same source? The same seller, I mean? These were all the new acquisitions, weren’t they?”
Dr. Browning pursed his lips. “Yes, they were, but from the same source? I wouldn’t
“Because it’s directed by an export porcelain person?”
“Sad, isn’t it? And a man like Roger Caldwell, with so much to offer. I’m given to understand that he feels his professional career to be rather stymied.”
I thought about Roger Caldwell, stymied and growing bitter in his beautiful office in his Upper East Side townhouse; and about Nora, dreaming and planning and working late into the night in her vinyl-floored room with the peeling paint.
“Oh.” Dr. Browning suddenly turned away from the cabinet.
“Oh, but you haven’t come here to talk about my little ones, or the intricacies of the museum world. I’m so sorry. Youhave questions for me. Why don’t we …” He looked around helplessly, taking in the book mounds, the magazine hillocks, the paper snowbanks.
I was at a loss, unsure what proper etiquette required of a guest when the host can’t produce a chair; but Bill walked smoothly into the room, moving around precarious-looking piles as comfortably as though he’d put them there himself. He lifted books and magazines off one side of a tiny sofa, didn’t react at all to the clouds of dust that puffed from them as he placed them neatly on the floor. He repeated the performance with a leather armchair and settled in that.
Dr. Browning beamed a grateful look at Bill and gestured me to the sofa.
“May I use your bathroom first?” I asked.
“Oh, my, yes, of course. It’s right through there.”
I thanked him and made my way through there, leaving Dr. Browning to turn to Bill with a flustered smile.
The bathroom was fairly tidy, though obviously the domain of someone unused to guests: a threadbare bathrobe hanging behind the door, towels damp from a morning shower. I spent the bare minimum of time in it that modesty demanded. Then I left it silently and I slipped into the small, dark bedroom, poked quickly into the closet and under the bed.
When I returned to the living room, Bill had Dr. Browning absorbed in a serious conversation about the changes in university education in the city since Bill’s college days.
They both looked up when I came back, and ended that discussion, apparently on a note of agreement. I sat on the sofa I’d been offered before. Dr. Browning, sitting straight in the desk chair, knees and ankles pressed together, looked at me expectantly.
“Dr. Browning,” I began, removing my jacket carefully, laying it across my lap, “what can you tell us about the pieces from the Blair collection that were stolen from CP’s basement?”
“Tell you about them? Well,” he looked at his shoes forinspiration, “well, they’re really quite wonderful. The entire collection is quite wonderful, quite special.”
“Can you be more specific? Is there anything about them, for example, that would make anyone want to steal them particularly, rather than anything else in the collection?”
“Do you mean, are they perhaps worth more? Can one sell them for a higher price?” A strange overtone echoed in Dr. Browning’s thin voice, something that, in a context where it made sense, I might have called resentment.
“Yes, I suppose that’s what I mean.”
“It isn’t likely. I haven’t gone through the entire collection yet, of course, but all of Mr. Blair’s pieces seem to be of very high quality. The stolen pieces were marvelous, but most of the collection is equal to them.”
“Were they all somehow the same?” My newly acquired knowledge of porcelain was leaving me flat; I couldn’t think of very many ways in which porcelain could be the same. “From the same kiln, or made for the same patron, or something?”
“Oh, I doubt it. They appeared to represent quite a wide range of periods and styles, as far as I’d examined them.”
“What about,” Bill asked, “from the same source? The same seller, I mean? These were all the new acquisitions, weren’t they?”
Dr. Browning pursed his lips. “Yes, they were, but from the same source? I wouldn’t
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