The Maya Codex (14 page)

‘Senin bir ailen var?
You have a family?’ Roncalli asked the wizened driver.

‘Evet.’
The taxi driver’s dark face creased with a smile at Roncalli’s use of his native tongue, his smile punctuated by three missing teeth. ‘Two boys and a girl,’ he answered proudly. ‘And you?’

Roncalli smiled and shook his head.
‘Hayir.
Just me.’

The roadside was thick with traders, and the driver threaded his way past them with a practised ease. Tarpaulins were spread edge to edge with eclectic offerings of fish and chickens, leather and brass, shoes and shirts, and occasionally
uds
and
cümbüs
, Turkish lutes and mandolins. They reached
Refik Saydam Caddesi
and began the descent towards the Bosphorus, the long narrow stretch of water that connects the Black Sea to the Marmara. On the other side of the road, an old brown horse, ribs showing through his pitifully thin coat, nostrils flared and breath clouding in the cold, laboured to pull an impossible load up the steeply sloping hill. The rubber tyres on the rickety wooden cart had worn through to the canvas, and the hessian sacks of rice, spice and coffee, piled three metres high, defied gravity. Old men struggled past under the weight of big wicker baskets full of oranges, bananas and bread. Legless beggars sitting on small wheeled boards pushed their way between smaller carts, some supporting brass urns full of strong Turkish coffee, others containing braziers on which chestnuts and kebabs were roasting. Myriad smells of spices and meats wafted through the open window of the taxi.

‘Thank you, my friend,’ Roncalli said as they reached the Hotel Pera Palas. ‘A little extra for the children,’ he added, pressing more lire into the taxi driver’s hand.

Roncalli paused and took in the view of the Golden Horn. Across the harbour, the minarets of the great mosques of Istanbul rose like stone fingers towards the evening sky. Roncalli turned and headed towards the Pera Palas, an opulent rococo-style building on
Mesrutiyet Caddes
i. A young bellboy with dark curly hair, dressed in black trousers and a deep-purple military jacket topped with gold epaulettes, smiled broadly and sprang to open the brass-plated double doors.

Behind the dark polished wooden counter of reception, pigeon holes held the heavy brass room-keys. On one side of the desk stood a telephone with a black bell-shaped mouthpiece and a heavy Bakelite earpiece. To the right of reception, a wide, sweeping marble staircase carpeted in red wound its way around the steel pillars and wire mesh enclosing the lift well, where another young bellboy stood ready to open the heavy wooden doors.

Archbishop Roncalli made his way into the big chandeliered vestibule, the magnificent handmade Persian carpet soft beneath his shoes. At intervals down the centre of the room, tall pots were filled with flowers. Heavy carved wooden sideboards, gilt-framed mirrors and elegant Egyptian-styled vases lined the walls, but the Pera Palas was not all it seemed. Istanbul was on the Silk Road straddling Europe and Asia, and the city was ideally positioned midway between Eastern Europe and Palestine. As the world teetered on the precipice of war, the Turkish government was determined to remain neutral. But they had allowed the Jewish Agency, an organisation set up after the Great War to support the international Jewish community, to open an office in the hotel.

Mordecai Herschel was already waiting for Roncalli at one of the antique tables in the vestibule.

‘Angelo, thank you for coming.’ Herschel rose from his chair and extended his hand. Now in his fifties, but still lean and fit, he had been a major in the Haganah, the military wing of David Ben-Gurion’s Jewish Agency in Palestine, where he’d been wounded in a clash with the British. His face still bore the scar on his right cheek. Herschel had been selected to set up an agency in Istanbul as part of the Zionists’ desperate attempts to save their countrymen from the Nazis. In physical contrast to Herschel, Roncalli was a big bear of a man, not naturally inclined to exercise. He had thinning hair and a long oval face that was dominated by a large roman nose. They made an interesting pair, the fit-looking former freedom fighter and the rotund archbishop. Both were deep thinkers, bonded by a common devotion to justice and humanity.

‘Any news from the Vatican?’ Herschel asked.

‘They’re sending a papal envoy, although that could be a delaying tactic. I’m afraid Rome can be somewhat removed from the problems of the real world.’ Cardinal Pacelli’s silence in response to Roncalli’s pleas for help for the Jews had been deafening.

Herschel nodded. ‘I understand. Closer to home, one of our biggest problems is communications, Angelo. Finding native speakers with all the qualities we need has not been easy, but I’ve now got an agent in Romania and one in Hungary, and another two will leave next week for Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. I’ve also managed to infiltrate the Austrian concentration camp at Mauthausen.’

‘If you need secure transmission of messages, I have some people I can trust in our embassies and we can use the black bag.’

‘Won’t the Vatican object?’

‘Only if they find out.’ Roncalli smiled broadly, immensely pleased with himself. ‘God won’t object, and he holds a lot of the votes.’

‘Thank you, Angelo. I’m very grateful. The Turkish Post Office has been helpful, and we’ll continue to use them for contact with ordinary citizens, but it’s good to know there’s a more secure line.’

Roncalli leaned closer. ‘And,’ he said quietly, ‘I was thinking, too, of the children. If we were to produce Certificates of Conversion to Catholicism with the appropriate stamps of approval, would that help?’ It was not the first time the elegant Pera Palas hotel had been host to a conspiratorial plot. The Mata Hari had drunk in the Orient Express Bar, as had Alfred Hitchcock and Ernest Hemingway; and after Agatha Christie’s crashed car had been found abandoned, amidst false rumours she had drowned, Christie wrote
Murder on the Orient Express
in room 411.

‘That would be an enormous help, Angelo. We’re going to try to funnel as many of our countrymen as we can through here and on to Palestine, although the double-dealing British are preventing us from landing the refugee boats, so we’re having to do it on the beaches at night.’ Herschel raised his eyebrows ruefully.

‘Will other countries take them?’

‘We’re looking at Central and South America.’

‘At least that gives us more options.’

‘Although for some, time is running out. Have you ever heard of Professor Levi Weizman?’

‘The distinguished archaeologist?’

Herschel nodded. ‘We’ve received some intelligence from one of our agents inside the SS: Weizman and his family are in grave danger.’

14

VIENNA

A
dolf Eichmann stood at the podium of the ballroom of the recently commandeered Rothschild palace on the
Plosslgasse,
bringing to a close an address to SS officers, Gauleiter and Kreisleiter, the district and county political leaders who had bubbled to the top of the Nazi party in Austria like scum to the top of a drain. Obersturmbannführer von Heißen, now promoted to lieutenant colonel and newly appointed commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp, was sitting in the front row.

Eichmann gripped the sides of the lectern, his SS cap at a rakish angle. ‘The Jew, gentlemen, is a rank parasite. Apart from making money, his only other aim in life centres on the destruction of the German people and the Reich. But we Germans are a compassionate people and this filth will be encouraged to leave of their own accord.’

‘And if they don’t want to leave?’ The buttonholes on the brown uniform of the Kreisleiter of Vienna’s Third District were scalloped, straining against their fastenings. Kreisleiter Schweitzer was as ruthless as he was obese.

Eichmann smiled thinly. ‘As of now, all Jewish businesses are to be boycotted. Any Viennese who patronises a Jewish store will be guilty of a crime against the State. Their names and addresses will be published on the streets of Vienna. In fact, no Austrian is to speak with a Jew unless it is absolutely essential.’ Eichmann paused for thought and then decided against any further disclosure. His program to recruit young female clerks to work in Jewish stores and compile lists of the names of their customers would remain on a need-to-know basis.

‘It will not be long,’ Eichmann continued, ‘before their wretched blood-sucking money-making ventures are on the market at rock-bottom prices, so that decent Austrians can buy into those businesses and run them fairly and honestly. In addition, by order of the Führer, all civil servants who are not of Aryan descent are to be sacked. That includes university staff. Universities are to be closed to anyone of Jewish blood. This is to apply to schools as well. Jewish lawyers and doctors are to be struck off. In the case of physicians, they are to be reclassified as “Jewish Healers”, and they are to restrict their foul practices to their own kind.’

‘Herr Obersturmführer, how can we be sure to identify every one of them?’ Kreisleiter Schweitzer asked.

‘With the help of their leaders, you are to compile a list of Jews for each district, and they will all be required to wear the yellow star,’ Eichmann replied. ‘The Law of Jewish Assets has now been passed, and Jews are to surrender all gold, platinum and silver objects as well as any precious stones, pearls and jewellery.’ Von Heißen nodded in approval. ‘Political prisoners, as well as those deemed to have information valuable to the Reich, are to be interned in a camp we have constructed at Mauthausen.’ Eichmann nodded towards von Heißen in acknowledgement of his position as commandant.

Back in his office, once one of the Rothschild living rooms, Adolf Eichmann stood at the window overlooking the
Plosslgasse
with his hands clasped behind his back. He knew the measures he’d announced this evening would not be enough. A final solution would be necessary, and with that would come the opportunity to carry out some much needed medical research to improve the quality of life for members of the Reich. His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

‘
Kommen Sie!
’

Eichmann’s deputy entered and clicked his heels to attention. ‘This cable’s just arrived, Herr Obersturmführer. It’s marked most urgent.’

Eichmann read it impassively.

FOR: OBERSTURMFÜHRER EICHMANN

By direction of Reichsführer Himmler, Jewish Professor Levi Weizman (55 yrs), Ramona Weizman (40 yrs), Ariel Weizman (10 yrs) and Rebekkah Weizman (8 yrs) all of 4/12 Judengasse, Stephansdom Quarter, Vienna, to be arrested immediately. Mauthausen Commandant, Obersturmbannführer von Heißen, will be coordinating search of Weizman’s apartment and surrounds and is to be given every assistance.

Brigadeführer Heinrich Müller

Kommandant

Geheime Staatspolizei

Eichmann initialled the cable and signed an authorisation for von Heißen to assume temporary command of a special detachment of SS Sonderkommandos.

‘Give this to Obersturmbannführer von Heißen,’ Eichmann ordered, handing over the authority. ‘You’ll find him downstairs in the ballroom.’

‘Jawohl, Obersturmführer!’

15

VIENNA

T
he banging on the front door was unrelenting.

‘Öfnen Sie, Jude!’

Ramona sat up with a start. ‘Levi! Have they come?’

Levi put a finger to his lips. ‘
Shhh
. I’ll deal with them.’ He threw on his dressing gown, suddenly remembering the two bark maps he’d left beside the model of the Mayan pyramids in his study. He rescued them and went back to the bedroom. Rebekkah and Ariel, both wide-eyed and fearful, had run in to their mother. On an impulse that the Nazis might not suspect a child, Levi gave the maps to Ariel. ‘Look after these for Papa,’ he said. ‘It will be all right, I promise,’ he added reassuringly.

‘Open up, Jew, or we’ll break the door down!’

When Levi opened the door, the Sonderkommandos, supported by a group of young Brownshirts, knocked him to the carpet and stormed into the apartment. Levi struggled to his feet to find von Heißen standing in the doorway, tapping his knee-high boots with a leather cane.

Von Heißen shoved the point of his cane under Levi’s chin. ‘Going somewhere, are we, Jew?’ he asked, seeing the Weizmans’ suitcases in the corridor.

Levi knocked the cane away. ‘How dare you come barging in here like this!’

Von Heißen whipped his cane across Levi’s face. ‘Where is the figurine?’

The pain was excruciating.

‘I have no idea … Somewhere in the jungles of Guatemala, I should imagine.’

Von Heißen slashed Levi across the face again. ‘Where is it?’

Levi’s eyes watered and he gritted his teeth, but said nothing.

Von Heißen fought to control his fury at the Jew’s defiance. ‘
Scharführer!
Sergeant! Arrest them, and then search this place. We’re looking for a jade figurine about thirty centimetres high.’