The Codex (48 page)

“She say her husband greedy, keep back many things from tomb. Hide them in cave behind village.”

“What things?” Broadbent asked sharply.

They spoke some more.

“She not know. She say Cah steal almost all treasure for tomb. He fill boxes with stones instead. He say he not want to put white man treasure in Tara tomb.”

“Wouldn’t you know it,” said Broadbent. “When I was in the tomb, there were some crates that seemed hollower than they should be, almost empty. I couldn’t get them open in the dark. That’s what I was doing in the tomb just before Hauser showed up, checking to see if I could solve the mystery. That damned tricky old Cah. I should have known. He planned this whole thing from the start. Christ, he was as greedy as I was!”

Broadbent cast his eyes back on the painting. It reflected the light of the fire, the flickering glow playing over the Virgins young face. There was a long silence as he looked at it. Then he closed his eyes and said, “Bring me a pen and paper. Now that I have something to leave you, I’m going to make out a new will.”

84

They brought a pen and a roll of bark paper to Maxwell Broadbent.

“Shall we leave you?” asked Vernon.

“No. I need you here. You too, Sally. Come. Gather around.”

They came and stood around his hammock. Then he cleared his throat. “Well, my sons. And—” he looked at Sally, “my future daughter-in-law. Here we are.”

He paused.

“And what fine sons I have. Pity it took me so long to realize it.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t have a lot of wind left, and my head feels like a pumpkin, so I’ll keep this short.”

His eyes, still clear, traveled around the room. “Congratulations. You did it. You earned your inheritance, and you saved my life. You showed me what a goddamn fool of a father I’ve been—”

“Father—”

“No interruptions! I have some parting advice.” He wheezed. “Here I am on my deathbed, how can I resist?” He took a deep breath. “Philip, of all my sons, you’re the one most like me. I’ve seen, in these past years, how the expectation of a large inheritance has cast a shadow over your life. You’re not naturally greedy, but when you’re waiting for half a billion dollars, it has a corrosive effect. I’ve seen you living beyond your means, trying to play the rich, sophisticated connoisseur in your New York circle. You’ve got the same disease I had: needing to own beauty. Forget it. That’s what museums are for. Live a simpler life. You have a deep appreciation for art, and that should be its own reward, not the recognition and fame. And I’ve heard you’re one hell of a teacher.”

Philip nodded curtly, not altogether pleased.

Broadbent took a couple of ragged breaths. Then he turned to Vernon. “Vernon. You’re a seeker, and now I finally see just how important that choice is for you. Your problem is that you get taken in. You’re an innocent. There’s a rule of thumb here, Vernon: If they want money, the religion’s bullshit. It doesn’t cost anything to pray in a church.”

Vernon nodded.

“And now Tom. Of all my sons you’re the most different from me. I never really understood you. You’re the least materialistic of my sons. You rejected me a long time ago, perhaps for good reasons.”

“Father—”

“Quiet! Unlike me, you’re disciplined in the way you live your life. I know what you really wanted to do was become a paleontologist and hunt dinosaur fossils. Like a fool, I pushed you into medicine. I know you’re a good vet, although I’ve never understood why you’re wasting your tremendous talents doctoring grade horses on the Navajo Indian reservation. What I’ve finally understood is that I must respect and honor your choices in life. Dinosaurs, horses, whatever. You do what you want with my blessing. What I have also come to see is your integrity. Integrity was something I never really had, and it upset me to see it so strongly in one of my sons. I don’t know what you would have done with a big inheritance, and I expect you don’t know, either. You don’t need the money and you don’t really want it.”

“Yes, Father.”

“And now, Borabay ... you are my oldest and yet most recent son. I’ve only known you briefly, but in a strange way I feel I know you best of all. I’ve scoped you out, and I realize you’re a little greedy like me. You can’t wait to cut out of here and go to America and enjoy the good life. You don’t really fit in with the Tara. Well, that’s fine. You’ll learn fast. You have an advantage here because you had a good mother and didn’t have me for a father, messing you up.”

Borabay was about to say something, but Broadbent raised his hand. “Can’t a man give a deathbed speech around here without being interrupted? Borabay, your brothers will help you get to America and get citizenship. Once there you’ll become more American than the natives, I have no doubt.”

“Yes, Father.”

Broadbent sighed and cast an eye on Sally. “Tom, this is the woman I never met but wished I had. You’d be a fool to let her slip away.”

“I’m not a fish,” said Sally sharply.

“Ah! That’s just what I mean! A little prickly, perhaps, but an amazing woman.”

“You’re right, Father.”

Broadbent paused, breathing heavily. It was an effort now to talk; the sweat stood out on his brow.

“I am about to write my last will and testament. I want each one of you to choose one thing from the collection in that cave. The rest, if you can get it out of the country, I’d like to donate to whatever museum or museums you choose. We’ll go from oldest to youngest. Borabay, you start.”

Borabay said, “I choose last. What I want is not in cave.”

Broadbent nodded. “All right. Philip? As if I couldn’t guess.” His eyes strayed to the Madonna. “The Lippi is yours.”

Philip tried to say something but could not.

“And now: Vernon?”

There was a silence, and then Vernon said, “I’d like the Monet.”

“I thought that’s what you’d say. I imagine you could get fifty million or more for it. And I hope you do sell it. But Vernon, please, no foundations. Don’t give any money away. When you finally find what you’re looking for, maybe then you’ll have the wisdom to give a little bit of your money away, a little bit.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“I’m also going to send you back with a bagful of gems and coins so I can pay Uncle Sam.”

“All right.”

“And now, Tom, it’s your turn. What’s your pick?”

Tom glanced at Sally. “We’d like the Codex.”

Broadbent nodded. “Interesting choice. It’s yours. And now, Borabay, last but not least. What is this mysterious thing you want that isn’t in the cave?”

Borabay came over to the bed and whispered in Broadbent’s ear.

The old man nodded. “Excellent. Consider it done.” He flourished his pen. His face was beaded with sweat, his breathing rapid and shallow. Tom could see he did not have much lucid time left. And he knew what death from sepsis was like.

“Now,” he said, “give me ten minutes by myself to make out my last will and testament, and then we will gather witnesses and execute it.”

85

Tom stood with his brothers and Sally in a cathedrallike grove of trees, watching the great funeral procession winding up the trail toward the tomb, which had been freshly chiseled in the limestone cliffs far above the village. It was an amazing sight. Maxwell Broadbent’s body came at the head of the procession, borne upon a litter by four warriors. It had been embalmed using an ancient Mayan process. During the funeral ceremony the new chief of the village had transformed the corpse into El Dorado, the Gilded One of Indian legend—the way the Maya had once buried their emperors. They had smeared the body with honey and then sprinkled it with gold dust, coating it completely, to metamorphose it into the immortal form it would take in the afterlife.

Behind their father’s litter came a long procession of Indians carrying grave goods for the tomb—baskets of dried fruits and vegetables, nuts, ollas of oil and water, then a slew of traditional Mayan artifacts such as jade statues, painted pots, beaten gold dishes and jugs, weapons, quivers full of arrows, nets, spears, everything that Maxwell Broadbent might need in the afterlife.

After that, hobbling around the bend, came an Indian carrying a painting by Picasso of a naked woman with three eyes, a square head, and horns, followed by the massive Pontormo scene of the Annunciation, carried by two sweating Indians, then the Bronzino portrait of Bia de’ Medici, a pair of Roman statues, a few more Picassos, a Braque, two Modiglianis, a Cézanne, more statues—twentieth-century grave goods. The bizarre procession wound its way up the hillside and into the grove.

And finally came the band, if that’s what you could call it: a group of men playing gourd flutes, blowing long wooden trumpets, and beating sticks—with one young boy bringing up the rear, banging with all his might a shabby, Western-style bass drum.

Tom felt a great mixture of sadness and catharsis. It was the passing of an era. His father was dead. It was the last good-bye to his childhood. Passing before his eyes were the things he knew and loved, the things he had grown up with. They were the things his father loved, too. As the procession went into the tomb darkness swallowed it all, men and grave goods alike—and then the men emerged, blinking and empty-handed. There his father’s collection would be shut up, safe, dry, guarded and protected until the day when he and his brothers could return and claim what was theirs. The Mayan treasures, of course, would stay in the tomb forever, to ensure that Maxwell Broadbent lived a fine and happy life in the afterworld. But the Western treasures belonged to them, held in safekeeping by the Tara tribe. It was a funeral to end all funerals. Only the Mayan emperors had been buried like this, and not for at least a thousand years.

Three days after signing his last will and testament, Maxwell Broadbent passed away. He had had only one more day of lucidity before he sank into delirium, coma, and death. No death was pretty, Tom thought, but this one had had a certain nobility to it, if one could use that word.

It wasn’t so much the death but the last lucid day of his father’s life that Tom would never forget. The four sons had stayed with him. They hadn’t talked much, and when they did it was of minor things—little memories, stories, forgotten places, laughs they’d had, people long gone. And yet that day of small talk had been more valuable than all the decades of important talk about the big things, the lectures, father-to-son exhortations, the advice and philosophizing and dinnertime discussions. After a lifetime at cross-purposes, Maxwell finally understood them and they understood him. And they could merely chat for the pleasure of it. It was as simple, and as profound, as that.

Tom smiled. His father would have loved his funeral. He would have been delighted to see this great procession through the forest, the giant wooden trumpets bellowing, the drums beating, the bamboo flutes playing, the women and men alternating singing and clapping. A great tomb had been freshly cut out of the rock, inaugurating a new necropolis for the Tara tribe. The White City had been cut off by the burning of the bridge, leaving six of Hauser’s mercenaries behind. During the six weeks the new tomb was being built, the village buzzed daily with news of the trapped soldiers. They came down to the bridgehead from time to time, firing their guns, shouting, pleading, threatening. As the days and weeks passed the six had dwindled to four, three, and two. Now there was one, and he didn’t shout or wave or fire his gun anymore. He just stood there, a small, gaunt figure, saying nothing, waiting for death. Tom had tried to convince the Tara to rescue him, but the Tara were adamant: Only the gods could rebuild the bridge. If the gods wanted to save him, they would.

But of course they didn’t.

The boom of the bass drum brought Tom’s thoughts back to the present spectacle. All the grave goods had been heaped in the tomb, and now it was time to close it up. The men and women stood in the forest, singing a forlorn, haunting tune while a priest waved a bundle of sacred herbs, the fragrant smoke drifting past them. The ceremony went on until the sun touched the western horizon, and then it stopped. The chief struck the end of the wooden key, and the great stone door of the tomb slid shut with a sonorous boom, just as the last rays vanished.

All was silent.

As they walked back to the village, Tom said, “I only wish Father had been able to see that.”

Vernon put his arm around him. “He did, Tom. For sure, he did.”

86

Lewis Skiba sat in the rocking chair on the crooked porch of the battenboard cottage, looking out over the lake. The hills were cloaked in autumnal glory, the water a darkened mirror reflecting the curve of evening sky. It was exactly as he remembered it. The dock ran crookedly into the water, with the canoe tied up at the end. The scent of warm pine needles drifted through the air. A loon called from the far shore, its forlorn cry dying among the hills, and it was answered by another loon at an immense distance, its voice as faint as starlight.

Skiba took a sip of fresh spring water and rocked back slowly, the chair and porch both creaking in protest. He had lost everything. He had presided over the collapse of the ninth largest pharmaceutical company in the world. He had watched its stock drop to fifty cents before trading was suspended forever. He had been forced into filing Chapter 11, and twenty thousand employees saw their pension funds and life savings vanish. He had been fired by the board, vilified by shareholders and congressional committees, and made the butt of late-night television. He was under criminal investigation for accounting fraud, stock manipulation, insider trading, and self-dealing. Skiba had lost his home and his wife, and the lawyers had almost finished chewing through his fortune. Nobody loved him now except his children.