Read Origin for Free Online Page B

days ago, and now the night of their follow-up conversation had arrived.
    Alone in his
házikó
study, Rabbi Köves was growing anxious. Tonight’s scheduled call was now almost ten minutes overdue.
    At last, the phone rang, and Köves seized it.
    “Hello, Rabbi,” said Bishop Valdespino, sounding troubled. “I’m sorry for the delay.” He paused. “I’m afraid Allamah al-Fadl will not be joining us on this call.”
    “Oh?” Köves said with surprise. “Is everything all right?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to reach him all day, but the
allamah
seems to have …
disappeared
. None of his colleagues have any idea where he is.”
    Köves felt a chill. “That’s alarming.”
    “I agree. I hope he is okay. Unfortunately, I have more news.” The bishop paused, his tone darkening further. “I have just learned that Edmond Kirsch is holding an event to share his discovery with the world … tonight.”
    “Tonight?!” Köves demanded. “He said it would be a
month
!”
    “Yes,” Valdespino said. “He lied.”

CHAPTER 6
    WINSTON’S FRIENDLY VOICE reverberated in Langdon’s headset. “Directly in front of you, Professor, you will see the largest painting in our collection, though most guests do not spot it right away.”
    Langdon gazed across the museum’s atrium but saw nothing except a wall of glass that looked out over the lagoon. “I’m sorry, I think I may be in the majority here. I don’t see a painting.”
    “Well, it is displayed rather unconventionally,” Winston said with a laugh. “The canvas is mounted not on the wall, but rather on the
floor
.”
    I should have guessed
, Langdon thought, lowering his gaze and moving forward until he saw the sprawling rectangular canvas stretched out across the stone at his feet.
    The enormous painting consisted of a single color—a monochrome field of deep blue—and viewers stood around its perimeter, staring down at it as if peering into a small pond.
    “This painting is nearly six thousand square feet,” Winston offered.
    Langdon realized it was ten times the size of his first Cambridge apartment.
    “It is by Yves Klein and has become affectionately known as
The Swimming Pool
.”
    Langdon had to admit that the arresting richness of this shade of blue gave him the sense he could dive directly into the canvas.
    “Klein invented this color,” Winston continued. “It’s called International Klein Blue, and he claimed its profundity evoked the immateriality and boundlessness of his own utopian vision of the world.”
    Langdon sensed Winston was now reading from a script.
    “Klein is best known for his blue paintings, but he is also known for a disturbing trick photograph called
Leap into the Void
, which caused quite a panic when it was revealed in 1960.”
    Langdon had seen
Leap into the Void
at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The photo was more than a little disconcerting, depictinga well-dressed man doing a swan dive off a high building and plunging toward the pavement. In truth, the image was a trick—brilliantly conceived and devilishly retouched with a razor blade, long before the days of Photoshop.
    “In addition,” Winston said, “Klein also composed the musical piece
Monotone-Silence
, in which a symphony orchestra performs a single D-major chord for a full twenty minutes.”
    “And people
listen
?”
    “Thousands. And the one chord is just the first movement. In the second movement, the orchestra sits motionless and performs ‘pure silence’ for twenty minutes.”
    “You’re joking, right?”
    “No, I’m quite serious. In its defense, the performance was probably not as dull as it might sound; the stage also included three naked women, slathered in blue paint, rolling around on giant canvases.”
    Although Langdon had devoted the better part of his career to studying art, it troubled him that he had never quite learned how to appreciate the art world’s more avant-garde offerings. The appeal of modern art