Nia had agreed to translate four labels. Then the museum found her surname in a register of displaced families, and the invitation became a consultation.
They offered the same fee.
Mr. Vale met her at the staff entrance after closing. He wore a little gold replica of the museum above his breast pocket.
"We want the descendants to feel involved."
"Most of them would like their things back."
He smiled as though she'd translated something amusing.
Before they entered the gallery, he gave her a blank card and a pen.
"You can try your own label in the display. We'll photograph it for the consultation record."
The founder's collection occupied a room upholstered in dark green. Behind glass, a face hung above an empty space. Its mouth was slightly open. Along the lower lip ran a fine vertical groove.
Nia stopped.
Her grandmother had that groove. In the photograph her mother kept in a biscuit tin, sunlight caught it like a thread.
"This is the piece we especially hoped you'd help with," Vale said.
The label read: CEREMONIAL MASK. UNKNOWN MAKER. PAINTED WOOD ON METAL SUPPORT.
A noise came from the case.
Three notes, then the beginning of a fourth.
Nia put her bag down.
Her grandmother used to sing while combing her hair. She always stopped before the high note, cleared her throat, and started again. Nia remembered waiting impatiently beneath the comb. She'd wanted the rest of the song.
"Does it have a speaker?"
"No electronic components."
The face had closed its mouth.
Vale laid several old catalog cards on the consultation table.
"Classification has been difficult."
The earliest described a painted face. A brown stain still edged the cheeks. A later card called it a wooden sculpture, and there were knots at the temples. The metal support appeared on a label dated nine years ago. Two narrow struts now descended from the throat.
"Was the support added then?"
Vale examined his cuff.
"That's when it was documented."
Nia took out her phone. She enlarged the photograph until the woman beside her mother filled the screen.
The same lip. The same right eyebrow, interrupted by a little bare place where she'd fallen as a girl.
"Mara Venn," Nia said.
The wooden eyes strained toward her.
Vale looked from the photograph to the case. He didn't ask to see it more closely.
"Your family resemblance is quite striking."
"She stayed to look after her brother. When we were expelled. My mother went back for her."
"There are many painful histories in the collection."
Nia stepped close enough to see her reflection over the face.
"Grandma?"
The struts clicked against the back of the case. The mouth worked without opening.
Nia looked from the old cards to the blank one in her hand.
"Does it have to go in that slot?"
"That's the official classification holder."
"And what happens if it's wrong?"
He put his hand on the edge of the table.
"The terms require care."
She uncapped the pen.
In the space reserved for the name, Nia wrote MARA VENN. Below, she wrote: A woman taken from her home. Mother of Sela Venn. Held here against her will.
Vale reached for the card.
"We can't establish all of that."
She slid it into the brass holder.
The face softened around the mouth.
A breath fogged the glass. Beneath the chin, the thin metal bars spread and joined, covering themselves with a skin that looked translucent where it stretched. Shoulders pressed sideways against the case.
Nia heard a rib crack.
"Open it."
Vale stood with one hand hovering above the label.
The woman's knees unfolded into the space beneath her. She was hunched and naked, her cheek flattened against the glass. A gray hair adhered to the inside.
"Sela," she said.
"She's alive. Grandma, she's waiting."
"Where's my little girl?"
Nia pressed her palm against the case. Her grandmother lifted a hand to meet it, with a dark stain still running around the nails.
"Open it," Nia said again.
Vale pressed a button underneath the table.
"You have to understand what this would mean."
"She's suffocating."
"For the collection."
Nia reached for the keys at his belt. He jerked away and pulled the label from its holder.
Her grandmother's hand stiffened against the glass. Nia could still see the pulse in her neck.
"Put it back."
Vale took Nia's pen from the table. On a fresh card he wrote quickly, his neat capitals losing their shape.
"You heard her," Nia said.
"I heard a voice."
Two guards entered. Nia seized the brass holder, but one guard caught her wrist and the other pulled her away from the case.
Vale inserted the new card.
INTERACTIVE REPRODUCTION. SYNTHETIC VOICE. WOOD ON METAL SUPPORT.
Her grandmother tried to follow Nia with her eyes.
The skin around them tightened into grain. Her open hand shrank, fingers drawing through the palm as though pulled from behind. A clicking came from her chest. Nia saw the place where a collarbone had been become the edge of a bracket.
The woman took a breath that continued after the ribs were gone.
The guards carried Nia through the staff door. One returned her bag. Her phone was still open to the photograph.
She sat on the pavement calling her mother, trying to find a first sentence.
By morning she'd sent the pictures and a statement to everyone she could think of. She returned with her mother before the doors opened.
Through the glass entrance, they could see a new board beside the ticket desk.
HEAR THE COLLECTION SPEAK.
Inside, a woman buying two tickets asked what the sound was.
"Our new interactive exhibit," the attendant said.
Nia's mother gripped her arm.
From the green room came a voice they both knew, asking someone to open the door.
