April 16, 2022 – Morristown, Maryland, USA
Scarlett’s trip home for her mother’s birthday was filled with catch-up visits to old friends and extended family members. Scarlett was also sure to visit Mr. Traiger at what she considered the most interesting place in Morristown – the Museum of Fakes.
While most museums prided themselves on authenticity, the Museum of Fakes was a fun, creative look at some of history’s lost and unknown treasures. Even though the place was not very big, it was filled to the brim with artifacts. The place stayed in business because it was on the road between Baltimore and Gettysburg. The area was crawling with tourists interested in history and some of them stopped for a walk through the museum.
TripAdvisor ratings were generally excellent, but occasionally a visitor would leave a review that showed they did not get the joke about everything being fake. Some of the confused visitors wondered why there was not more security and how the place could afford a sculpture by Michelangelo.
Scarlett had worked at the museum all through high school. The owner, Owen Traiger, always had a half-dozen teenagers taking money at the door, leading tours, or dusting exhibits. Scarlett always volunteered to lead tours with any kids in the group. She loved the look of complete wonder on their faces as they stared at huge, fake diamonds and piles of fake gold coins.
The Museum of Fakes inspired Scarlett’s studies at the University of Maryland. She had finished her master’s degree in Art History a year earlier and was now working at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
“It’s definitely not as fun as this place,” she said to Mr. Traiger after dropping in at the Museum of Fakes.
“I always knew you would go on to great things,” said Mr. Traiger, admiring Scarlett with his bright, smiling eyes. “How long will you be here?”
“I drive back to Pittsburgh on Sunday night.”
“Will you come back on Saturday after we close? I have something very special to show you.”
“You can’t show me now?”
“Not with other people around.”
The wrinkles in Mr. Traiger’s face had grown deeper since the last time Scarlett had seen him. She could tell the Saturday visit was hugely important to him. She agreed to cancel dinner plans with her cousins so she could return.
When Scarlett arrived back at the museum that weekend, two of its young employees were headed out the door, intending on locking it behind them. Scarlett slipped into the room that served as the lobby and souvenir shop. She chuckled when she saw they still sold the same T-shirt design which read, “I kept it real at the Museum of Fakes.”
Mr. Traiger shuffled up behind her, dressed in the same combination of khaki slacks, white shirt, and tie that he always wore. Scarlett suspected it was his attempt to look like an archeology professor. With a little encouragement, he surely could have pulled out a whip and fedora hat to complete his Indiana Jones costume.
“Thank you so much for coming back, Scarlett. I didn’t want any extra ears around when I tell you what I need to tell you.”
“It was no problem, Mr. Traiger.”
“Why don’t you call me Owen? You seem too grown up to call me Mr. Traiger anymore.”
Scarlett laughed. “I don’t think I can do that. Too much of a habit.”
“Whatever you want. I know all about habits.” Mr. Traiger motioned toward the door that led into the museum’s first display room. “I need to show and tell you something. I’ve been waiting to do it for a long time. Let’s take a walk through the museum.”
Scarlett followed Mr. Traiger along the path she knew very well. The museum was laid out so that visitors had to pass through each room to get back to the lobby. The first stop on the tour was a room called Relics.
Mr. Traiger tried to keep the museum clean and tidy, but he did not have a big budget for lighting or display cases. In the Relics Room, items sat in clear plastic boxes raised three to four feet off the floor. A printed poster hung below each item, explaining what it was supposed to be. Scarlett’s favorite relics were the gold burial masks imagined to have come from royal tombs in Egypt and South America. She also loved the green jade dragon, something which might have come from the palace of the first Chinese emperor. Next to the dragon was the Spear of Destiny, supposedly used at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, giving it supernatural powers.
Some relics hung directly on the walls instead of being held in plastic boxes. A thick rope strung between metal posts on the floor kept visitors from getting too close to anything. Scarlett remembered people complaining about being too far away to read the posters. When she was leading a tour, she would often need to stop and provide short descriptions of the objects.
Scarlett noticed the worn walking path in the carpet and the stained overhead ceiling tiles. The room was not as brightly lit as those she had become used to at the Carnegie Museum. She chuckled to herself at how tightly the relics were packed together. Real museums would use a room ten times as large to display the same number of items.
“You were the best employee I ever had, you know,” said Mr. Traiger as he and Scarlett strolled through the Relics Room. “I kept an eye on you. You were always full of positive energy. And I could trust you with anything. Did you know I was testing you?”
“You were? How?”
“Sometimes I would leave money out on the counter where I knew you would find it. You always put it back in the cash register. One time I put too much money in your paycheck. You came right back and made me correct it.”
Scarlett laughed. “I remember that. That was on purpose? Why would you do that?”
“To see what you valued the most. From everything I know, you’re a person who says what she means and means what she says.”
Scarlett smiled at the compliment. “Thanks, Mr. Traiger. I didn’t know you were watching so closely.”
Mr. Traiger returned Scarlett’s smile and gestured toward the entrance to the next room, simply called Paintings. The room was the longest in the museum but quite narrow. Paintings, supposedly from the greatest artists in history, hung on both sides of a roped-off walkway. Missing or unknow pictures from Rembrandt and Leonardo da Vinci hung right next to those done by more recent painters like Monet and Picasso.
Coming face to face with all the paintings again, Scarlett was struck by how good they looked. She had examined real paintings by the same artists up close and from the rope line she could see no difference in quality. She had always wondered who had produced the fakes but had never felt it was something she could ask Mr. Traiger. It was all part of the magic of the museum.
“Another thing I know about you is that you have a true love of art and an appreciation for history,” said Mr. Traiger, when he and Scarlett were most of the way through the Paintings Room.
“It’s what I studied in college,” said Scarlett.
“And you don’t have any regrets?”
“Oh no. I love it even more now.”
They continued their slow-motion tour of rooms filled with sculptures crammed so close together they were touching. Then they reached a room called Lost Treasures containing replicas of Black Beard’s pirate hoard and jewels once worn by kings and queens. In the Books Room, they passed by what was supposed to be a first edition Gutenberg Bible and parchment sections from Dead Sea Scrolls.
Scarlett liked the next room, called Craftworks, best of all. Two chairs sat in front of the displays for her favorite objects in the entire museum – gold and diamond covered Faberge eggs. The rope usually separating visitors from the eggs was gone.
“I thought you didn’t allow chairs in the museum so people would keep moving,” said Scarlett.
“I’m making an exception. Have a seat.”
Scarlett perched on one of the plastic chairs, feeling nervous about what might be coming next. She had anticipated Mr. Traiger showing her a new fake item he was excited about, but now it seemed like he had something much bigger on his mind.
“I’m going to tell you a secret I’ve been keeping for fifty years, if you’ll promise me never to tell anyone else.”
Scarlett looked at Mr. Traiger as if he might be kidding. After a few seconds, it was obvious that he was deadly serious. “Okay, I promise,” she said.
“You have to mean it. Swear that you’ll keep the secret.”
“Is it something illegal? Something you’ll get in trouble for?”
Mr. Traiger smiled and shook his head. “Nothing like that.”
“Okay, then I swear.”
Mr. Traiger took a long, deep breath. “All of this is real. They aren’t fakes. They’re real.”
Scarlett smiled to show she appreciated his joke, but to her surprise, Mr. Traiger did not smile back. He simply stared and studied her face.
“What do you mean they’re real?” Scarlett asked. “How could they be?”
Mr. Traiger stood up and stepped to a clear box holding one of the Faberge eggs. He lifted the lid, picked up the egg, and handed it to Scarlett. “I know you’ve been partial to these. Take a closer look and tell me that one isn’t real.”
It was the first time Scarlett had actually handled any of the items in the museum. She had assumed the eggs were only plastic shells covered in gold paint and glass beads, but what she was holding was very heavy. She leaned her eyes close. Everything she had learned about art told her the egg was made from real gold covered in real diamonds. The designs over the surface were so intricate that only a master craftsman could have made them.
“This is impossible. How could this be here? It’s worth millions and millions of dollars.” Scarlett’s voice trailed off as she stared at the egg.
Mr. Traiger nodded his head. “Think of what a Rembrandt painting is worth.”
Scarlett was too stunned to say more than, “But how?”
“When I was your age, this museum and this building were a lot different. My dad started it to preserve local history. He put me in charge, and it was barely surviving. Then one day the strangest old man I ever met walked in. You might think I’m eccentric, but I’ve got nothing on him. He had a room in a hotel but preferred to sleep in the woods. He came in every day for a month, quizzing me on history and asking if I was a man of my world.
Finally, he told me his secret. He was fabulously wealthy and had traveled the world, collecting its greatest treasures. He would give it all to me instead of a big museum under one condition. I had to keep it all together and I couldn’t sell any of it.”
Scarlett was still clutching the egg. She had a million questions but the only one she could manage was, “Why you?”
“I don’t know. I’ll never know. But it was too good of an offer to refuse. I gave him my promise and I’m a man of my word. Suddenly I had the greatest museum in the world. It’s all still together. Nothing’s been sold.”
“Then why tell everyone it’s fake?”
“I realized I couldn’t keep it safe if everyone thought it was real. I would have had a robbery every night. I didn’t have money for security guards or locking vaults. But no one wants to steal a fake. It was the only way to protect it while showing it to the world.”
“You never told anybody else?”
“Never.”
“So why are you telling me?”
“I don’t have many years left. I don’t have any children. This museum is like my child, and I need someone to take care of it. I was hoping that someone would be you.”
“Oh Mr. Traiger, I don’t know what to say.” The initial surprise of the secret was beginning to wear off and Scarlett’s mind raced with all the possibilities for the collection. “If I was to take over, maybe we could sell a few things without you breaking your promise. And then we could build a huge museum with state-of-the-art security.”
Mr. Traiger frowned and shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ve gotten attached to all of it, just like the strange man who passed it on to me. If I give it to you, you’d have to promise to keep it all together. No sales allowed.”
“Okay, well there’s a lot of things we could still do. Maybe borrow some money. We could sell a lot of tickets once people found out. This would go viral for sure.”
“I’m afraid big museums survive on big donations and endowments, not ticket sales.”
“We could find people to help. I know we could. Any one of the things in here would be the centerpiece of any other museum in the world. It’s like we’re surrounded by billions of dollars.”
Mr. Traiger nodded. “It is amazing and an amazing burden. I want you to think about it before giving me your answer. But don’t think too long. I’m an old man without a lot of time to figure out a Plan B.”
Scarlett’s whole body shook as she walked out of the museum and into the surrounding twilight. Her immediate impulse was to agree to anything Mr. Traiger wanted. She had already decided to devote her life to art and history. Why not surround herself with the greatest history collection in the world?
The farther she walked along the abandoned streets of Morristown, the more she felt the burden Mr. Traiger had warned about. She could make all kinds of grand plans for the collection, but there was a good chance they would not work out. She could end up an obscure slave to the collection, surrounded by a crumbling building, just like Owen Traiger. Was that better or worse than being an obscure employee at the Carnegie Museum?
Scarlett walked alone a good chunk of the night and throughout Sunday. She did not drive back to Pittsburgh. By Monday morning she had reached a decision and wanted to tell Mr. Traiger right away. She arrived at the Museum of Fakes before he had opened the door.
“My life has never reached a fork in the road like this one,” Scarlett said to him.
“No, it hasn’t,” he replied. “What’s it going to be?”
Scarlett summoned the courage to give him an answer and then said, “I think we better talk inside, away from any listening ears.”
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