“Are you sure? I could have sworn Ankara was in March . . .”
At 2:28 an old green Bulgaralpine coasted into the turnaround and pulled to a stop on the lawn. A lanky woman in granny glasses and a beret climbed out, saw them on the porch, and waved. “Sdrawei!” she called.
“Sdrawei!” Sam and Remi replied in unison. “Hi, there!” and “Do you speak English?” were two phrases they tried to commit to memory whenever they visited a new country.
Sam now used the second phrase as the woman started up the porch steps. She replied, “Yes, I speak English. My sister, she lives in America—Dearborn, Michigan, America. She teaches me over the Internets. I am Sovka.”
Sam and Remi introduced themselves.
Sovka asked, “You have come to see the museums?”
“Yes,” said Remi.
“Good, then. Follow in, please.” Sovka unlocked the front door and stepped inside. Sam and Remi followed. The interior smelled of old wood and cabbage, and the walls were painted in a similar tone as the exterior: faded butter yellow. After hanging up her coat in the foyer closet, the woman led them into a small office in the converted front room.
“What brings you to this museums?” the woman asked.
Sam and Remi had discussed their approach on the way to Kutina and had decided on directness. “We’re interested in Father Arnost Deniv. Someone at the Bulgarian National Library in Sofia suggested you might have some artifacts related to him.”
Sovka’s eyes widened. “The Methodius? They know about our museums at the Methodius? In Sofia?”
Remi nodded. “Indeed they do.”
“Oh, I will be putting this into our soon news flyer paper. What a proud moment for us. To answer question: no, you are mistaken. We do not have some of Father Deniv’s personal matters. We have all of his personal matters here. May I ask, why are you interested with him?” Sam and Remi explained their book project, and Sovka nodded solemnly. “A dark time for the Church. Good that you are writing about it. Come.”
They followed Sovka out of the office, down the hall, then up a set of switchback steps to the second floor. Here the walls had been torn down, turning what looked like a thousand square feet of bedrooms into an open space. Sovka led them to the southeast corner of the house, where a cluster of glass display cases and hanging tapestries had been arranged to form an alcove. Ceiling pot lights shone down on the cases.
Remi saw it first, followed a moment later by Sam. “Do you see—”
“I do,” he replied.
Sovka asked over his shoulder, “Pardons me?”
“Nothing,” Remi replied.
Even from ten feet away, the curved edge of gold seemed to leap out at them from the case near the wall. Hearts pounding, Sam and Remi stepped into the alcove. There, on the top shelf, resting on a folded jet-black cassock trimmed in burnt orange, was the Theurang disk.
Sovka spread her arms with a flourish and said, “Welcome to the Deniv Collections. Everything in his possessions at the time of death is here.”
Sam and Remi tore their eyes from the disk and looked around. In all, there were perhaps twenty items, most of it clothing, grooming tools, writing instruments, and a few scraps of correspondence mounted in shadow boxes.
“What’s this item here?” Remi said as casually as possible.
Sovka looked at the Theurang disk. “We are not to be certain. We believe it is a keepsake of sorts, perhaps from within his missionary quest in savage lands.”
“It’s fascinating,” Sam said, leaning closer. “We’ll just have a look around, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course. I am over here, if help is needed.”
Sovka wandered off but never strayed out of eyesight.
“This complicates matters,” Remi whispered to Sam.
Relieving Besim Mala of his Theurang disk had been an easy decision. Here, however, Arnost Deniv’s disk was a part of recognized history. Breaking into the museum after hours would be easy enough, they knew, but neither Sam nor Remi felt good about that option.
“Let’s confer with our experts,” Remi suggested.
They told Sovka they would be back shortly, then stepped out onto the porch. They dialed Selma, asked her to conference in Jack Karna, then waited through two minutes of squelches and clicks as she made the appropriate connections. Once Karna was on the line, Sam explained their situation.