The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [80]
“Sara’s point is sound, John,” the Doctor said. “For whatever reason, this was the Linares girl’s private playground. But what would bring a disgraced nurse here, I wonder?” He gazed around at the place, which seemed like a combination of a mausoleum and a menagerie. “What did Elspeth Hunter find so compelling in this room?”
The question hung in the air unanswered for a good fifteen minutes, until everybody acknowledged that they had no ideas and agreed to move on to the next spot we knew Nurse Hunter must have visited: the construction site near Fifth Avenue, where she presumably had grabbed her piece of lead pipe. As we got outside and wandered east I signaled to my fellow driver to let him know we wouldn’t be much longer. Then I fell in beside the Doctor and Miss Howard, who were following the paved path as the Isaacsons, Mr. Moore, and Cyrus fanned out and started sifting through the grass and debris that led to the actual building site. It wasn’t much more than a big hole in the ground at that point.
“Have you seen the drawings of the new wing?” Miss Howard asked the Doctor as we walked.
“Hmm?” he noised, his mind still fixed on other matters. “Oh. Yes, I saw the originals before old Hunt died. And I’ve seen his son’s latest editions, too—quite spectacular.”
“Yes,” Miss Howard said with a nod. “A friend of mine works in their office. It’ll really be something—a lot of statuary.”
“Statuary?”
“Decorating the façade.”
“Ah. Yes.”
“I know it sounds like a bit of a non sequitur,” Miss Howard said with a laugh, “but there is a connection to what we’ve been discussing and looking at, Doctor. All those symbolic statues designed for the façade—the four principal artistic disciplines, the four great ages of art—they’re all to be female. Did you notice that? Only the smaller stone medallions will be male—and they’ll be actual portraits of great artists.”
The Doctor drew closer to her. “I do sense a point, Sara.”
Miss Howard shrugged. “A tired point, I’m afraid. The symbols are all women—the people are all men. It’s the same with those statues in the hall back there. The occasional goddess or some nameless ideal of beauty and womanhood who generally sprang from a man’s head—those are the female forms. But the figures with names, the living humans of any historical note? Men. Tell me—what does that teach a young girl, as she grows up?”
“Nothing useful, I fear.” Slipping his hand affectionately around her elbow, the Doctor smiled, a bit apologetically. “And the cumulative effect of thousands of years of it only makes matters exponentially worse. Women on pedestals … Change is coming, however, Sara—though I grant you, it approaches with glacial speed. But it will come. You shan’t be idealized for ever.”
“But it’s perverse idealization!” Miss Howard said, kicking a leg out and holding her free hand up. “In fact, there’s as much denigration in it as worship. Listen, Doctor, I don’t mean this as a purely philosophical conversation. I’m trying to think of what brought the Hunter woman here. I mean, look at those statues in there. The Babylonians and Assyrians, with their Ishtar, mother of the earth—and, at the same time, she was the goddess of war, a cruel, punishing bitch.” She gave me a quick look. “Sorry, Stevie—”
I could only laugh. “Like I ain’t heard worse.”
Miss Howard grinned and ranted on: “And the Greeks and Romans, with their scheming, plotting goddesses. Or the Hindoo deity Kali, their ‘Divine Mother’ who dispenses death and viciousness. There seem eternally to be two faces.”
Dr. Kreizler’s eyes narrowed. “You’re thinking of the apparent contradictions in Elspeth Hunter’s behavior?”
Miss Howard nodded, but slowly. “I think so. Though I’m not precisely sure of the connection. But—Señora Linares said that when she saw the woman on the train she seemed to be genuinely caring for Ana. Yet she also said that the woman looked like a predatory animal. Now we find out that she was a nurse, working in one of the most difficult—and admirable—areas of her profession. The doctors think she