Read Online The Fracture Zone by Simon Winchester - Free Book Online
Authors: Simon Winchester
Ads: Link
morbid nature of the object—delighted.
It was pouring with rain when we arrived on the appointed Friday, and I was not altogether surprised to find that there was a problem. Dr. Mattl, who met us as she was shaking out her umbrella in the hall, looked grim. The Direktor, she explained, had had some communication—she could not say whether it was diplomatic, Turkish, academic—and had apparently changed his mind. He was waiting in his office and would see me immediately, to explain.
Dr. Düriegl inhabited the kind of comfortably untidy book-lined room that I remember from Oxford. Indeed, with his tweeds and his pipe and his air of studied calm, he looked just like a professor, wearily receiving a student to whose essay he would shortly be forced to listen. He was courtesy itself, explaining that it was with great regret that because a certain approach had lately been made, it would not be altogether—how to say?— prudent to show the grand vizier’s head at this time.
I must have looked more than expectedly crestfallen. The Direktor looked at me over his half-glasses, put his hands together as though in prayer, and asked me simply: “Why don’t you tell me exactly why it is you want to see the object.”
At this point I must have looked even more crestfallen, because he said, with measured amusement, “Don’t worry—this is not Oxford. This is not a tutorial. Just a brief explanation will do.”
And so I spluttered my way through what I felt was the symbolism of the article, that it was a powerful reminder of the kind of appalling carnage that was going on even at this moment, that my interest in it was not, as he might suspect, purely voyeuristic, and that seeing the head was a historically appropriate way to start a geographic progress through the Balkans, especially if I could find out where in Turkey his body might be buried—and then in an instant, like a weathervane in a squall,Dr. Düriegl changed his mind and agreed. “Very well, very well,” he said, with a sudden genial display of impatience. “Dr. Mattl? Will you take this gentleman down to meet—the other gentleman?”
Dr. Mattl took Rose and me down in the museum elevator. “As a precaution, and because I thought the Direktor might well eventually agree,” she whispered, “I took the decision to bring the grand vizier here from the warehouse last night. So he is downstairs. I’ll take you to him directly.”
And a moment later we were standing inside a locked room filled with the detritus—bottles, paints, knives, brushes, frames—of restoration and picture cleaning, looking down at a small cardboard box decorated with the logo of a furniture removal company, sealed with plastic tape. Marked in ballpoint pen on its lid, and in a handwriting that was more casual than perhaps the chief minister of the Ottoman court might have deserved, were the words Herr K. Mustafa. A large and gloomy assistant who had been on sentry duty outside the door, and who had followed us in to ensure that proper security procedures were observed, took an Exacto blade and carefully slit the tape. Dr. Mattl opened the box, took out some wrapping paper, then reached in, and gently lifted out into the light the vitrine that contained one of the most famous skulls in all Balkan history.
He had probably not been a handsome man. His skull was brown and mottled. The eye and nose sockets were large and deep, the eyes compressed into what must have been a permanent frown. There were five long teeth in the upper jaw, yellowed and rotten and widely spaced. The entire lower jaw was missing. A length of finely made burgundy cord had been wrapped tight around his neck, or the post upon which his skull was mounted. It had a tassel on one end. Might this have been the cord with which the court strangler choked the life out of him?
Sylvie Mattl grinned and shook her head. “They are not even a hundred percent sure this is his head,” she said. “ Ach! Thereare so many
It was pouring with rain when we arrived on the appointed Friday, and I was not altogether surprised to find that there was a problem. Dr. Mattl, who met us as she was shaking out her umbrella in the hall, looked grim. The Direktor, she explained, had had some communication—she could not say whether it was diplomatic, Turkish, academic—and had apparently changed his mind. He was waiting in his office and would see me immediately, to explain.
Dr. Düriegl inhabited the kind of comfortably untidy book-lined room that I remember from Oxford. Indeed, with his tweeds and his pipe and his air of studied calm, he looked just like a professor, wearily receiving a student to whose essay he would shortly be forced to listen. He was courtesy itself, explaining that it was with great regret that because a certain approach had lately been made, it would not be altogether—how to say?— prudent to show the grand vizier’s head at this time.
I must have looked more than expectedly crestfallen. The Direktor looked at me over his half-glasses, put his hands together as though in prayer, and asked me simply: “Why don’t you tell me exactly why it is you want to see the object.”
At this point I must have looked even more crestfallen, because he said, with measured amusement, “Don’t worry—this is not Oxford. This is not a tutorial. Just a brief explanation will do.”
And so I spluttered my way through what I felt was the symbolism of the article, that it was a powerful reminder of the kind of appalling carnage that was going on even at this moment, that my interest in it was not, as he might suspect, purely voyeuristic, and that seeing the head was a historically appropriate way to start a geographic progress through the Balkans, especially if I could find out where in Turkey his body might be buried—and then in an instant, like a weathervane in a squall,Dr. Düriegl changed his mind and agreed. “Very well, very well,” he said, with a sudden genial display of impatience. “Dr. Mattl? Will you take this gentleman down to meet—the other gentleman?”
Dr. Mattl took Rose and me down in the museum elevator. “As a precaution, and because I thought the Direktor might well eventually agree,” she whispered, “I took the decision to bring the grand vizier here from the warehouse last night. So he is downstairs. I’ll take you to him directly.”
And a moment later we were standing inside a locked room filled with the detritus—bottles, paints, knives, brushes, frames—of restoration and picture cleaning, looking down at a small cardboard box decorated with the logo of a furniture removal company, sealed with plastic tape. Marked in ballpoint pen on its lid, and in a handwriting that was more casual than perhaps the chief minister of the Ottoman court might have deserved, were the words Herr K. Mustafa. A large and gloomy assistant who had been on sentry duty outside the door, and who had followed us in to ensure that proper security procedures were observed, took an Exacto blade and carefully slit the tape. Dr. Mattl opened the box, took out some wrapping paper, then reached in, and gently lifted out into the light the vitrine that contained one of the most famous skulls in all Balkan history.
He had probably not been a handsome man. His skull was brown and mottled. The eye and nose sockets were large and deep, the eyes compressed into what must have been a permanent frown. There were five long teeth in the upper jaw, yellowed and rotten and widely spaced. The entire lower jaw was missing. A length of finely made burgundy cord had been wrapped tight around his neck, or the post upon which his skull was mounted. It had a tassel on one end. Might this have been the cord with which the court strangler choked the life out of him?
Sylvie Mattl grinned and shook her head. “They are not even a hundred percent sure this is his head,” she said. “ Ach! Thereare so many
Similar Books
