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facets. Given to me for cleaning in ’31 by the Naples firm of Sidney Luzzatti & Sons. Set in one of those headpieces—what do you call them, Harry?”
    â€œA mitre. The Mitre of Gregory.”
    â€œYes. Years later, of course, some thief pried the stone out of the mitre and walked out of the Vatican Museum with it. That was the last I heard of it. Until now.”
    â€œIt was stolen from the Vatican in ’46,” Akiva said, “and purchased without publicity in 1949 by Farouk of Egypt.”
    â€œAh,” Alfred said.
    â€œThat fills in the history,” Harry said to his father. He thought that Alfred appeared dazed. “Pa,” he said. “Are you all right?”
    â€œYes, yes. Of course.”
    â€œIt wasn’t listed by the Egyptian government as part of the estate Farouk abandoned when he fled his throne,” Harry said. “I’ve studied the records of the Farouk auction. Some of the items were wonderful but most of it was
shlock
, he had terrible taste. The only outstanding collection was the pornography.”
    â€œFor little boys,” his father muttered. “A man can do several things with a woman, all the rest is contortion.” Alfred closed his eyes. He was kneading his cheek. “My God,” he said.
    â€œNo, it was not on the auction inventory,” Akiva said. He looked at Harry. “We want you to get the diamond.”
    â€œYou’ll have to stand in line,” he said.
    Essie, carrying a pastry tray and preceding a maid with the coffee service, stopped in her tracks and screamed.
    Following her gaze, he saw that the left side of his father’s face was composed of dough mixed with insufficient flour, the eye drooping shut and the mouth sagging deep toward the chin.
    â€œPa?” Harry whispered. He didn’t know what happened within the human body when it suffered a stroke, but he knew his father had begun to have one.
    Alfred swayed and he caught him. A slice of cake had fallen from the tray and for some reason Essie knelt to pick it from the rug. “Stop that!” Harry said to the plump, frightened face. “Call the doctor.” He held his father tight in his arms and rocked him.
    Arrogant old bastard.
    Beneath his lips the white hair tasted depleted. One of them, either he or his father, had begun to tremble.

4
    ALFRED’S NOTEBOOKS

    They placed his father in a room at the end of a corridor in which cardiac monitors squatted. Alfred no longer appeared arrogant to his son. The left side of his body was paralyzed. He was not wearing his dental plate; he yawned a lot and when he exhaled, his upper lip puffed and fluttered in a way Harry couldn’t stand.
    A woman resident came in and leaned over the bed. “Mr. Hopeman,” she said loudly, but he remained comatose.
    After she left, Harry tried.
    â€œPoppa.”
    His father’s eyes opened and gazed without seeing him. “
Doktor Silberstein, ich bitte um Entschuldigung
, I ask your pardon.” Why did his father beg forgiveness with terror in his voice, and who was Silberstein? Alfred drifted and dreamed, holding one-way conversations in unintelligible German.
    His lungs filled with fluids that bubbled when he breathed, and people came and stuck a nasty little hose down his throat and suctioned out the poisons.
    Afterward his eyes opened and found Harry’s face. They searchedhungrily. “I …” Alfred tried to whisper something but no sound came. His eyeballs bulged, his hand fluttered on the sheet. He was trying desperately to tell something to his son. Harry lifted his pillow and held a water glass to his lips, but he was too weak to drink. Still, the moisture gave him his voice.
    â€œ … should have told you …”
    â€œWhat, Pa?”
    â€œ …’ quisition diam …”
    â€œDon’t talk. Just rest, Pa.”
    â€œFlaw.” Alfred strained to speak. Failed.
    â€œThe diamond is