The Jewels of Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page A

kept.”
    “The archives?” Caterina asked.
    “The letters,” Roseanna said. “But Dottor Asnaldi always called them the archives.”
    “Where are they?”
    Roseanna raised her eyes and gazed at the ceiling, reminding Caterina of the holy cards of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux so often found lying on the tables in the back of empty churches. The hair snakes on her head, ironed flat, would have looked just like the saint’s black veil. “Upstairs.”
    The unsummoned images came to Caterina of Ugolino imprisoned in the tower, Vercingetorix in the Mamertine—quickly canceled because that prison was underground—Casanova escaping from the Piombi. First there was the Director’s office and now there were the archives. How many other things were hidden away on the next floor?
    “Upstairs?” Caterina repeated unnecessarily.
    “It’s in the same room, but it’s only a simple wall cabinet with a key.”
    “What’s kept in the archives?”
    “Some scores that Dottor Dardago collected,” Roseanna explained.
    “Are they part of the endowment?” Caterina asked, wondering why, if they were, they had not been sold to continue with sponsorship or, at least, alleviate some of the misery around them.
    “No. Dottor Dardago left them to the Marciana, to be given if the Foundation ever ceased to function. I suppose he didn’t want things ever to be sold off, piece by piece. The Foundation merely has the use of them for as long as it’s in existence. That’s always been very clear.” But then, in a lower, more confidential voice, she added, “It’s only a few things, really, a printed copy of an opera by Porpora and some musical scores.” Before Caterina could ask, Roseanna said, sounding sad to have to say it, as if she were confessing to some minor vulgarity on the Foundation’s part, “No, only copies, and not even from the times they were written.” Then, after time enough to decide she could say it, she said, “I’m afraid Dottor Dardago was an amateur.”
    To Caterina, this amateur’s collection hardly sounded like something that belonged under lock and key, but her work did not concern the archive, and so she asked nothing further about it.
    “How do you get there?” Caterina asked.
    Roseanna’s glance made her confusion obvious. “The stairs.” For a moment, it looked as if she were going to add something, but she did not.
    “Can a person go up there?”
    Roseanna made as if to push away Caterina’s question. “I don’t know if you can go up there yet.”
    Like most people, Caterina disliked being told she could not do something. Like most professional women who had risen in a male-dominated profession by dint of skill and tenacity and superior talent that was never acknowledged and seldom could be admitted, she had learned to stifle her instinctive desire to shout at the source of the prohibition, though she had never learned to control the pounding of her heart that resulted from unexplained opposition.
    After a few moments, Caterina asked, in a voice she managed to make sound entirely normal, “Sooner or later, I have to go up, don’t I? If I’m going to be working there.” As if suddenly recalling something, she added, “You mentioned that you receive letters. Would it be possible for me to have a look at them?” When Roseanna did not respond with an immediate negative, she continued, “It’s possible that people who contacted the Foundation in the past—with musicological information or questions, that is—might be the sort of amateur a researcher dreams of finding.” The only dream researchers had about amateurs and their suggestions were nightmares, but Roseanna need not be told this.
    “We never know what will be useful,” Caterina added with a broad smile meant to include Roseanna among that we . “Whose rule is it, anyway?”
    Roseanna thought about this for a moment and then said, “It’s not a rule, really. It’s just that the cousins are rather . .