“The death masks aren’t on display. We store them up in the attic. They’re not available to the public.” She started walking out of the room.

Esther followed. “Isn’t there some way to apply for permission? I just want to look at them. It doesn’t have to be for very long.”

The attendant kept walking, unmoved.

Esther tried again. “I would be happy to pay… if it required extra staffing costs?”

The attendant stopped and turned around. She regarded Esther, biting her lower lip.

“How much?”

“I’m sorry?”

“How much would you pay?”

The question struck Esther as both rather crass and inappropriate. At a street market in Bangkok maybe, but here?

“For five hundred kroner, you can have a private viewing right now. We’re not exactly crowded today, so they can do without me on the floor for a bit.”

Afterward Esther had trouble recalling why she had said yes. A combination of surprise and embarrassment, she supposed.

“Okay. I’ll just run to the ATM when we’re done.”

The attendant nodded contentedly and held out her hand as if to seal the deal.

“Jenny Kaliban,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”

“Esther de Laurenti.”

“We’re going upstairs.” Jenny turned and started walking rapidly, emphasizing the sense that they were up to something shady.

Esther looked over her shoulder before following.

On the second floor, Jenny opened a panel that was hidden in the doorframe and typed in a code. A red metal hatch in the middle of the ocher-colored wall opened with a little click, and an automated ladder slowly unfolded.

“After you, ma’am!”

Esther forced herself to smile and climbed up the precarious-seeming ladder. After ten rungs, it led to a brick staircase that extended up beneath the roof of Thorvaldsens Museum.

“Watch your head!” Jenny warned. “We’re going to that bookcase over there. Can you see it?”

Esther saw rubble, crates of paintings, and exposed Rockwool in all directions. She ducked under a rafter with painted helmets sitting on it.

“From the war,” Jenny explained from behind her, “the resistance movement. The masks are over there, to the right.”

On the shelves of an old bookcase stood boxes made of wood and cardboard with either numbers or ornately handwritten cards on the front. There were about forty boxes in all, as far as Esther could tell. One right in front of her was very clearly labeled 27, and above the red number a name was carefully penciled in. She read A. GOETHE and then continued to another box. KARL XII.

“Is that… are these masks really of the people whose names are on the boxes?”

“Yes, crazy, isn’t it?” Excitement crept into Jenny’s voice. “Look at that one!”

Esther followed Jenny’s index finger and read NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

“Napoleon’s death mask is here?!”