breathed a sigh of relief and said as unemotionally as I could, “I know he doesn’t like these big events.”
“It’s not that. It’s parent-teacher night at the school, and he obviously can’t miss that. He has some real problem kids in his classes this year.” She paused. “I thought I might bring Sean. Would that be okay?”
“Absolutely. I would have invited him, but was discouraged from inviting too many friends and family.” I was always happy to see my brother Sean. “I do have to run, Mom.”
“Okay. See you Sunday.”
I sat back, my anger at Philen now sidetracked by worry about Eric. I pressed speed dial and waited. After three rings the call went to voicemail, and I knew that he’d seen it was me and turned off his phone.
Nothing I could do about Eric. I’d tried. And nothing I could do about Caleb. Clearly he wasn’t going to budge about canceling Philen’s trip. I could only hope that not enough people signed up to make the trip viable.
There was one thing I could do, though. I leaned forward and Googled eBay. I could lighten Tyler’s workload and buy him that bowl.
6
When I stepped out of my little backyard cottage, the sun wasn’t yet visible, but pale pink clouds supported the gray dawn. If I hurried, I could take the rise of White’s Hill as the sun burst over the East Bay hills. If I really hurried.
I hadn’t planned on riding this morning, but I’d woken early with monkey mind. Choose wall colors for the exhibition gallery; speak with the designer about the didactic panels, which seemed to me to be too small and overdesigned; go with the head preparator to look at fabric for the cases and finish writing labels.
Thank goodness the galleys were off and I didn’t have the worry of the catalogue hanging over me. I needed to treat myself, and what better way than an early morning ride out to West Marin. Not too far, just a short ways through Samuel P. Taylor Park, back to my favorite San Anselmo café for a latte, then a shower and work.
The kitchen light was on in my landlady’s house, but Rita wasn’t in her usual spot by the window. I stopped and double-checked the money in my pocket—I had enough to buy my latte and her mocha, a ritual usually followed on Saturday morning, but I thought she’d be agreeable to sitting and chatting on a Tuesday. That is, if she didn’t mind my sweaty self.
I thought of Philen, then pushed the thought of him out of my mind. Best to concentrate on the exhibition tasks rather than the trip to Cambodia, the confusing stone head. And I did until I got to the top of White’s Hill.
What is it about sunrise that sets the heart beating faster? The canvas of the horizon—in this case a horizon that included Marin, the San Francisco Bay, and the hills to the east—painted in huge, saturated strokes. Today in pink and an ever-so-subtle orange. Clinically speaking, maybe it was my fast ride through the barely trafficked streets and my acceleration up the hill that had my heart beating so fast. But you’d have a difficult time convincing me of that.
As I stopped for a drink of water, I thought of Radha. I’d printed a photo I’d taken of the sculpture of Radha and Krishna—her head still in place—and hung it across from my desk. If the head in the lab was a copy, it was a darn good one. The photo reminded me of my thoughts when I first saw the sculpture. I’d wondered why it had been identified as Radha and Krishna rather than some other Hindu couple—Parvati and Shiva, to whom the Baphuon temple is dedicated, or Vishnu and Lakshmi.
I realized, after I’d thought about it, that this was as good an identification as any, given the Krishna vignettes carved in the narrative reliefs of the temple. Since the majority of the relief carvings at the Baphuon are scenes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, other identifications are equally possible. But people are enchanted by the stories of Krishna, and there was a precedent for his popularity in the Khmer region, where sculptors had carved larger-than-life-size images of the youthful figure as early as the seventh century.
The story of Krishna, one of the avatars of Vishnu, exalted his boyhood and the amorous adventures of his youth. Women, particularly the gopis or young cowherders, swooned before him and took every opportunity to watch him, coyly trying to entrap him, a task finally achieved by Radha. I had to admit that the sculpted Radha looked pleased with herself.
Four men pulled up beside me, two of them saying hello. One drank from the straw attached to his camelback, while the others pulled out their water bottles. A fifth man was still toiling up the hill, his head down. He could have been my brother Eric. He was his size, his build. Except I’d only succeeded in getting adult Eric on a bike once. And getting him on the bike turned out to be different than getting him to ride farther than the coffee shop at the corner of my street. He waited for me there while I rode. When I came back he was chatting up an attractive blonde, with whom he then had a six-month relationship. A long time for him.
“Hi,” I said to the men. They were all buff, all about my age, late twenties, early thirties.
“Perfect spot for the sunrise,” one said as he nonchalantly repositioned his bike a little closer to mine.
“Yes,” I said, turning again toward the east. But the sunrise was giving way to morning, and the pink that had permeated the clouds had faded to a color so subtle that it no longer held interest for me. And though the man pulled me a little, my year without men was not yet up. Soon, but not yet.
I mounted my bike to continue my journey. I’d dawdled long enough, and once again I’d let my mind wander to the stone head rather than concentrating on the exhibition or the lecture that I was scheduled to give the docents at the end of the week.
“Have a good ride.” I wasn’t leaving because they’d arrived, though I did want to get down the west side of the hill before them. I didn’t need the race this morning that the curving west hillside invited. I huffed up the remainder of the incline as I thought of the Baphuon, the Angkorian temple where the sculpture had been found. Now largely collapsed, the gargantuan temple was built by King Udayadityavarman II in the mid-eleventh century.
Why is it that the brain so often doesn’t follow one’s commands? I succumbed to the mystery of the head, mulling it over all the way out to Samuel P. Taylor Park. On the way back, I thought about Tom Sharpen’s head. I’d found a photo of him online. I pieced together the little I knew. His identification of a head as fake, his anger, his threats to a Bangkok dealer, Grey saying he’d flown to San Francisco to talk with him.
I thought about that murder that I wasn’t going to try to solve right up until the moment that I ordered my latte and Rita’s mocha. I was running late now and wouldn’t be able to sit and natter with her, but she would be appreciative when I dropped it off.
THE morning thus far had been peaceful. After my ride, I felt much more centered. But then Breeze hurried into my office, shaking her head as she came, disaster in her mouth. A minor disaster, I imagined, but a disaster nonetheless. It wasn’t a big leap to assume it had something to do with Arthur Philen. How he got to be deputy director I would never know.
“Now what has he done?”
“The man is unbelievable. He’s announced that P.P. has the head of the famous Radha and Krishna sculpture.”
I searched among the papers on my desk for the list I’d written yesterday. “In the trustees meeting this morning?”
“No. I shouldn’t say he announced it. He sent
