Authors: Roni Dunevich
The old man turned his back on the head of the Mukhabarat and walked away. The dog straggled along beside him, bumping into its master's feet and sniffing its way.
Hattab was already on the phone. Repressing his resentment, he clenched his teeth, barked orders excitedly, nodded, and disconnected. Then he loosened his blue tie.
A few minutes later, the old man returned and stuck his smile into Hattab's disfigured face. Hattab nodded, not hiding his disgust.
The old man pulled out a telephone.
Hattab marveled.
“I am old, not stupid,” the man said, his lips turning up in a cold smirk under his graying mustache. He brought the phone up to his eyes until it was touching his sunglasses, punched in a number, and turned his back to Hattab. He spoke into the phone and then turned around again, nodding vigorously. Returning the phone to his pocket, he reached out his right hand.
Hattab used his left hand to raise the prosthetic right one. Without flinching, the old man shook it and then twisted it sharply.
Hattab grimaced in pain and said indignantly, “Look at the ground you are standing on. It is Syrian soil. You are a guest here, a guest who has overstayed his welcome. Very soon, you are liable to discover that even our famed hospitality has its limits.”
The old man's jaw trembled. Muttering something to himself, he looked piercingly at Hattab's long neck. Then he let out another snort of contempt and hissed, “Omar, you should show respect for person who save you from the gallows.”
Hattab turned around and walked off, his bodyguards close behind. They were swallowed up by the black Mercedes and disappeared down Abdul Aziz Street with squealing tires.
“If the old man isn't Syrian, where is he from?” Orchidea asked.
“No clue,” Paris lied.
The old man exited Subchi Park onto Hafez Ibrahim Street, carrying his blind dog in his arms. Paris and Orchidea followed him to the Sha'alan Street bazaar, in the heart of the prestigious Abu Rumaneh district.
A young beggar in rags rattled a tin can. His corneas were cloudy.
The old man entered a shop with canaries in cages out front. The delicate chirping of the birds mingled with the melancholy trills of the Arabic music issuing at full volume from a nearby shop. Violins wailed, and a singer keened and moaned.
A dark, modern bus pulled up. Light-skinned tourists poured out into the bazaar, chattering in Dutch.
Paris took advantage of the wait to send the recording and photos they'd collected to the Brussels station via the satphone.
“How is the old man connected to the murder of the Nibelungs?” Orchidea asked in a low voice.
“It's weird, right?”
The old man left the pet shop and walked in their direction. Paris threw his arm around Orchidea's shoulder and pulled her into a shop selling pirated CDs.
The man walked past them, returned to Subchi Park, and settled himself on a cracked bench with rusty screws, sending a flight of pigeons into the air. The dog lay listlessly at his feet. He drew from his jacket pocket a fist-sized bundle wrapped in
newspaper. The headlines were in Latin letters. Unwrapping the bundle, he took a pinch of birdseed and threw it on the ground in front of him. The pigeons alit one by one, grousing and jockeying for space. The feeble dog didn't even bother to bark.
The park was crowded with local residents. A young boy came up and stamped his foot. The pigeons flew off in alarm, flapping their wings noisily.
Orchidea watched them fly away and perch on a nearby power line.
When she looked back down at the bench, it was empty. Her heart skipped a beat.
A few tense seconds later, she caught sight of the old man's shuffling stride in the crowd. They hurried after him. He crossed the park and turned right onto Hadad Street.
The old man walked with surprising agility. At the corner of busy Abdul Aziz Street, he stopped at a red light. The traffic was crawling and jittery. Horns honked in deafening frustration, and curses were spat through open windows. A man on a bicycle wound his way among the cars, a square wooden tray filled with pita bread balanced on his head.
Paris didn't speak. From time to time he touched her arm protectively.
The light changed. The old man continued down Hadad Street and stopped at a solid black iron gate in front of a yellow apartment building. From the top of the fence, a security camera peered down.
A buzzer sounded and the gate opened. The old man disappeared inside.
“He lives here,” she whispered. “The guard recognized him.”
Paris nodded. There was a troubled look on his face.
“What's the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar,” she said, adding a smile.
He looked at her in silence and led her into a cool stairwell across the street. Without warning, he came closer and kissed her on the lips.
“Wait here. I'll get the car,” he said, his lips still glistening.
Before leaving, he fixed his eyes on the yellow building and then looked back at her.
Suffused with a delightful warmth, she smiled at the retreating figure. From within the darkness of the stairwell, she kept her eyes on the iron gate across the street.
Time passed slowly.
12 J
UNE
1944
A truck pulled up in front of the café. The barbarian invaders bayoneted the precious sacks of flour, emptied the wooden cases of dough, and toppled the proofing cabinet. The starter dough, the apple of my late father's eye, lay contaminated on the floor.
Evil paid a visit here today. Evil will return. When the avenues of investigation of the circumstances surrounding the deputy commandant's disappearance become blocked, it will return bayoneted and savaged.
10 J
ULY
1944
The ground is burning. I tried to persuade Jasmine. Once again, I pleaded with her to listen to me. In the end, the commandant will come. It will all come to an end, and my prayers will be of no use. I am crying now, and I did not cry when my father died or when my mother was taken.
12 J
ULY
1944
Jasmine is begging for help. Tonight the commandant drank until he was intoxicated, called her over, put his arms around her waist, and demanded that she caress him. She looked at me with gaping eyes. I averted my gaze and stared down at the floor. He touched the intimate parts of her body, and I was weak and contemptible and helpless. She fled to the kitchen in tears, and the commandant's eyes
flickered with the aroused look of a street dog smelling a bitch in heat.
I embraced her as tightly as I could. We both cried.
14 J
ULY
1944
I avoid my elongated image reflected in the side of the espresso machine.
15 J
ULY
1944
Tonight, at long last, I participated in a Resistance operation. We stopped a train heading east and saved 803 Jews. An entire transport!
16 J
ULY
1944
Jasmine has agreed to escape with the children, but only if I come with them. I cannot desert the battle. Not now. Not when the deputy commandant is on our side and we are rescuing full trains from death. I pleaded with her to escape with the children.
She wept and wept.
In the end, she refused.
“Where were you?” she asked his shadow in the entrance to the stairwell.
“Were you worried about me?”
She nodded.
“It's a long time since anyone was worried about me.
“I'm coming out,” she said.
Paris nodded.
She stepped out of the cool stairwell into the hot blinding sun and crossed the street to the iron gate in front of 7 Hadad Street. The worn head of a metal bell button gleamed in the bright light. There was no name beneath it. Orchidea continued down the street and crossed back to the cool stairwell. With Paris there, she felt safe.
“There's too much light and too much traffic. We'll have to wait,” he said.
“It could be hours.”
We can't stay here. Everyone knows everyone around here.”
“What do you suggest?”
Paris smiled. “Wait here.”
He left and came back a short while later carrying two yellow bags with Arab lettering she couldn't read. “This one's yours,” he said.
Paris put a bra on over his shirt and filled the large cups with rolled-up socks. Then they both pulled on over their clothes
musty black abayas that smelled of onions. They hid their faces behind black burkas. Paris looked like a Muslim woman, his face covered and only his eyes and thin eyebrows showing. She smiled, thrust her hand into her backpack, and felt around for the flat shoes she had packed. Her fingers encountered the gun and silencer. The feel of the cold steel gave her confidence. Paris hid his square hands inside black gloves.
“Check your phone and see how you say âfor sale' in Arabic,” he said.
“Why?”
“I'll be right back,” he said, his burka fluttering as he spoke.
Google Translate gave her what she was looking for. The Arabic letters looked like a family of earthworms pulled from rotting soil.
Paris returned. “Find it?”
Orchidea showed him the screen. He nodded. “Let's go.”
“Where?”
“I found us an apartment,” announced the French street cat.
They left the stairwell together, walking side by side. Two houses down, a tin sign was hanging from a balcony railing. Orchidea recognized the word.
“Here,” he whispered under his veil. “Third floor.”
They entered the building and climbed the stairs. She prayed that no neighbor would come out and speak to them in Arabic.
Paris raised the skirt of his abaya and took a red Swiss Army knife from the pocket of his jeans. He stuck the midsize blade into the lock and followed it with a thin pair of tweezers, and moved them around gently.
The light came on in the stairwell. Footsteps on the stairs.
Paris twisted the blade, and the lock finally admitted defeat.
They hurried inside, closing the door behind them. Paris stuck his eye up to the peephole.
The apartment was empty. Dust and the sweetish smell of a dead animal hung in the air. Orchidea fought back a sneeze.
On the painted floor in the entrance hall sat an old telephone. The line was disconnected. The kitchen cabinets were bare. Dust bunnies rolled around on the floor where the refrigerator should be. They found the source of the stink: the half-gnawed carcass of a dead rat. Flies buzzed around it. They closed the kitchen door, blocking off the odor.
When they turned the faucet in the bathroom they heard distant rumblings, but no water came out.
The old wooden shutters were painted green. The slats were pointed downward, affording a view of the street. Perfect.
Somebody was blanching chicken necks in boiling water. The smell was nauseating.
“What happens if someone shows up?” she asked softly.
“We kill him,” Paris replied.
The hours passed, and their time in the hideout, their safe time, slowly ran down. Sooner or later someone would come. In the end, the illusion of safety would be shattered.
Orchidea stood quietly by the window, listening to the sound of her breathing against the green shutters. Her eyes were glued to the street.
All of a sudden she was startled by the sound of a frog croaking. Turning around, she was blinded by a red glare. She averted her eyes.
Paris was holding a bright green plastic frog. He pressed a button and the frog opened its mouth, a red light came on, and the toy croaked. There was a huge grin on his face.
“You can't fit candles into
kanafeh
or baklava,” he said. “Happy birthday.”
Orchidea touched his cheek, and his face glowed. She passed her fingers through his hair. “He's lovely, your frog.” A surge of passion inside her threatened to erupt.
They fell silent, absorbed in their thoughts.
“Get some sleep,” Paris said. He was holding his burka in his hand. His eyes were pinned on the spaces between the slats. Stripes of light ran across his face.
In the kitchen she found an old newspaper, brought it into the living room, and spread it out on the dusty floor. She sat down on it, her back against the wall, and gazed at the broad back of the dark figure who filled her with a sense of peace. A peace she'd never known.
She fell asleep instantly.
In the basement, Alex found a stiff aluminum case designed to carry small works of art. A steel handcuff was welded to the handle.
Just before four, he cuffed the case to his wrist, put the Glock back in its hiding place in the doghouse, and left. The bracing walk to the Grunewald S-Bahn station warmed his body.
The sign over the decaying platform read
GLEIS 17
, giving no hint of its use in Berlin's dark past. It was from here that fifty thousand of Berlin's Jews had been transported to extermination camps.
Alex took S-Bahn 7 in the direction of Wartenberg. During the ride, the German passengers remained silent, stern-faced, and distant. A few stole a glance at the aluminum case cuffed to his wrist.
Their fathers and grandfathers had built the dens of evil on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse: the headquarters of the Gestapo, the SD, and the SS. Members of their families had shot Jews in the head at close range.
He had no intention of forgiving or forgetting. As far as he was concerned, they would wear their ancestors' shame on their foreheads for the rest of time.
An elderly accordion player boarded the train at Savignyplatz, sporting a bowler hat and a weary smile. He started playing a begrudgingly cheerful melody. An old couple moved away to the end of the car.
Alex tightened his grip on the case. Nobody held out a single coin, and the air went out of the accordion and it fell silent. The voice of the conductor came over the loudspeaker: “Nächste Station, Zoologischer Garten.” He added in his guttural German, “Ausstieg: links.”
Outside the busy station, it was a rare sunny afternoon; the weather had drawn crowds to the stores on the Kurfürstendamm. Mounds of dirty snow lined the curbs.
But Alex wasn't here to shop. He found the building easily. On the green marble facade was a polished copper sign with black letters reading:
BERGHOFF BANK
SEIT
1882
The guards at the entrance were dressed in black uniforms and armed with H&K submachine guns. They had a cold, distant look in their eyes. Inside, facing the door, were three well-preserved antique oak counters.
A scrawny, somber clerk escorted Alex to the manager's office, his sharp nose leading the way. Wood paneling ran halfway up the walls, and thick carpet absorbed the sound of their footsteps.
The manager had a shrewd smile on his face, although he seemed to be mistakenly wearing a silver-coated pet terrier on his head. He immediately began sniffing and licking, complimenting the new prospective client and playing with a large square gold ring on his finger. He asked to be called Herr Berghoff and requested Alex's passport.
Herr Berghoff examined the fake Italian passport, paging through it and wrinkling his brow before looking back up at Alex. “May I inquire as to the gentleman's occupation?”
“I'm a winemaker in the Chianti Classico region.”
Nodding, Berghoff said, “If you wish to open an account with us, you must deposit fifty thousand euros, yes?”
Alex drew from a brown paper bag five packets of bills neatly held together with rubber bands.
The cash on the desk seemed to cause the German discomfort.
“Do you understand where you are, sir?” Berghoff huffed condescendingly.
“I've brought a valuable artwork I wish to leave with you. Is your basement vault room secure?”
Berghoff seemed amused. He studied his manicured nails and said, “Herr Visconti, Berghoff Bank has been through the worst possible times, and it is still standing. No one has ever succeeded in breaking into our vaults, not even in November 1943, when countless tons of bombs fell on this street. The Alliesâas you are Italian, I can speak freelyâthe Allied bastards showed no mercy to the area of the zoo and the Ku'damm. The same horrific bombs that destroyed the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church landed on the zoo, sending wild animals out onto the Ku'damm. They also turned this building into rubble. And what happened to the vaults?”
He looked expectantly at Alex like a pedagogue waiting for a slow pupil to answer his question. Alex nodded, impatient for the entertainment part of the program to be over.
But Berghoff wasn't finished. “A concrete beam fell on the door of the vault room. First the Americans and then the Soviets tried to blow the door open, but they could not get inside. They used hundreds of pounds of explosives, but it did not work.”
Herr Berghoff brought the tip of a finger to his pink tongue
and then reached out and trapped an errant speck of dust on the gleaming cherry wood desk separating the two men.
Nodding gravely, Alex said, “In this country, a distinguished history is a rare commodity.”
“Tell me about Florence and the wine business,” the German said, leaning back in his black leather chair.
“Florence is paradise. I would be happy to invite you to dinner and offer you a taste of some fine wines. Are you planning a trip to Italy in the near future?”
The German smiled, picked up the phone, and spoke into it quietly. Alex wondered whether he had even heard his invitation. The door opened and a clerk in a conservative gray suit entered, then reached out to shake Alex's hand.
“My name is Adolf,” the man said with a smile, revealing horse teeth.
They made a fine pair, these two: Berghoff with a terrier on his head and Adolf with a horse's mouth.
Adolf glanced at the pile of cash as if the money had come from trafficking in children. “Would you like to follow me to the vault?”
Alex stood up and shook Berghoff's hand. “Do you happen to have a free vault with the number seven in it? It's my lucky number,” he said.
Berghoff typed something into his computer with circumspection.
“Seven seven seven?”
“Perfect!”
“That is most interesting,” Berghoff said. “The number is of significance in the Jewish kabbalah, yes?”
“Is it?” Alex asked quizzically. “What's the kabbalah?”
“The vaults that begin with the number seven are the largest ones,” Berghoff said, resuming his pedagogical tone. “They measure thirteen feet by two and a half feet. You appear to have brought a miniature.”
“I plan on bringing more pieces, including a life-size bronze sculpture.”
“In that case, Adolf will show you the way, yes?”