Florian's Gate (17 page)

Jeffrey nodded his understanding. “Is that why you never married? You never found someone to share your passion?”

Kantor took a long time to reply. “I lost my love in the war.”

“Oh. I'm really sorry.” Jeffrey hesitated, then added, “Nobody back in the States ever said anything about you losing somebody before coming to the West.”

“That is not what I said,” Kantor replied solemnly. “My love died in the war. What happens to the bodies after such an event is inconsequential.”

After a moment's silence, Alexander went on. “As a matter of fact, Jeffrey, there may be a way of my assisting your own affairs. It has to do with the purpose of this little discussion. You don't speak German, as I recall.”

“No. Some French, that's all.”

“But Katya does.”

“Fluently, so she says.”

The waiter approached their isolated corner, set down two linen napkins and upon them a pair of heavy crystal snifters containing ample portions of aged amber. Kantor paused to swirl the brandy under his nose, sipped, breathed out that first heady aroma, and said, “For a shop like ours, to sell well is only half the game. Some would say even less. I do not mean to belittle your responsibilities, however.”

“But we've got to have something to sell,” Jeffrey agreed. The excitement of possibly being partner to one of the antique trade's best-kept secrets added its own flavor to the evening. “Finding the right product at the right price is what separates the men from the boys.”

“Precisely. We have no guaranteed source of supply in this game, you see. Nor do we know from whence our next piece will come. There is only a limited number of quality antiques available, and a veritable fury of sharks seeking them out. All the major auction houses right the world around, shops who compete with ours from Tokyo to New York, many of our own customers who seek to lower their purchase price with a direct buy; they hunt for the same items as we do.”

Kantor lowered his silver-gray mane, and sought answers from the swirling brandy. He said to his goblet, “There are times when a risk must be taken in order for life to progress. But knowing that the time has arrived and actually taking the step can be two quite different matters.”

Jeffrey sipped from his own glass and held back on the dozens of answers that came to mind. No amount of pushing would help here.

“There are a few things which I have shared with almost no one. Were I to include you in this very small group, Jeffrey, the only gratitude I wish to receive from you, the only thanks, the only show of respect, is that you would keep my secret and guard it well.”

“I understand.”

“Excellent. It so happens that I have a supplier who has disappeared, leaving me with several unsold pieces—some quite remarkable antiques, really. All on consignment. Besides that, there is the matter of the money I owe him for those which have already been sold.”

Alexander paused as a pair of slow-moving elderly gentlemen ambled by their table, then said quietly, “Something over eight hundred thousand pounds.”

One and a half million dollars. Jeffrey gave a low whistle.

“This sum has been collecting in a special account for over a year,” Alexander said. “I have heard nothing from him since the one and only shipment was received.”

Jeffrey waited, decided it was time to ask the one impossible question. “Where did it come from?”

Alexander eyed him over the rim of his goblet. “You are aware of what you are asking.”

“Yes.”

“I see that you are. Very well, I agree. It is time to tell you.” Alexander sipped his brandy, then went on. “About two years ago I was approached at an auction in Geneva by a man I had never seen before. Which is a surprise, I assure you, especially considering the quality and the number of articles he had to offer. Were we speaking of only one or two antiques, it could be entirely possible that I was meeting a dealer new to the realm in which we operate. But he showed me photographs of over thirty antiques. Thirty, Jeffrey. All of them absolutely first rate, I assure you. It was an astonishing collection.”

Jeffrey understood Alexander's surprise. The number of dealers at such levels was quite small. It was part of any professional's job to know all the major players. Thirty world-class antiques was for any house an immense number; coming from a total unknown it was unheard of.

“The man told me he was an arts and antiques dealer from Schwerin,” Alexander said. “Have you ever heard of the place?”

“No.”

“It is the capital of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the northernmost state in what previously was East Germany. This contact came about two months before the Wall collapsed. Already there were rumblings, with street demonstrations and so forth, but no one imagined it would all move as swiftly as it did. In any case, I found it astonishing that a perfect stranger from such an unstable region would approach me with such an offer.”

Jeffrey snapped his fingers. “King Freddy's drawers!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The Kaiser's chest of drawers. That's how I always thought of it. Putting a nickname on a piece like that helps me not to get overawed by how much money we're talking about.”

“How remarkable. Well, it so happens you are correct. That was indeed one of the pieces included in this little collection.”

“We had a little trouble with the sale,” Jeffrey said, and related the story of the professor's arrival at Christie's.

“I am most sorry to hear of the hue and cry,” Alexander said when Jeffrey was finished. “Although I suppose it is not overly important who in the end acquires the piece, I thoroughly detest strong-arm tactics of any form. You must find me the name and address of the industrialist, Jeffrey.”

“You're going to offer him something at cost, aren't you?”

“I must seek to make amends. It is the least I can do.” Alexander eyed his assistant. “Why are you smiling?”

“No reason. You were saying about the East German dealer.”

“Precisely. I was most concerned that I not become involved with a thief. But his documents were impeccable, Jeffrey. Flawless. He had papers declaring him to be the director of Schwerin's official antiques store, which of course would make him a member of the Communist Party, but I have managed to do business with such people in the past. Never from East Germany, however. I had no contacts there whatsoever.”

“Which made it all the more suspicious,” Jeffrey added.

“Indeed. But he said that I had come highly recommended as a man whom they could trust. Honesty in these matters was essential, I was informed. In any case, he also had official export documents, and permitted me to telephone both the East German Embassy in Berne and the Department of Arts and Antiques in East Berlin to confirm who he was.”

Alexander waved his empty snifter in the direction of an attentive waiter. “What was more, the antiques were already in a bonded warehouse in Hamburg, waiting for me to pick them up.”

“Did he tell you how he had obtained them?”

“An excellent question. One, I might add, which is not always possible to ask. However, in this case I positively insisted on being informed. It appeared that a number of very senior officials within the East German Communist Party had read the writing on the wall, and were seeking to unload items that they hoped would help ease their own personal transition to a new capitalist empire.”

“Amazing,” Jeffrey breathed.

“Indeed so, but also most believable. And an explanation which could not be checked up on, I might add. My calls resulted in nothing but confirmation of everything that the man had told me—everything, I hasten to add, which could be confirmed.”

“And you want me to go find him.”

“Or find out what has happened,” Alexander replied. “There is always the risk that our gentleman has been swept away in the tide of change. If that is the case, then we must try to find which of the actual sellers is still around and seeking his due.

“You should not need to stay for more than two days,” Alexander continued. “If it requires more time than this, you will need to return later. There are some pressing matters that cannot wait, a shipment which must be seen to. Do you think Katya could mind the shop for a week by herself?”

“Without a doubt. There's a lot she doesn't know, but she is very honest with the clients, and is careful to write down their questions for me to answer. Sometimes it actually works out better that way, because we then have their addresses on file, and the clients like her a lot. Her classes are over for the summer, so I don't think it'll be a problem, but I'll have to ask.” Jeffrey felt like dancing on the table. A shipment. He was going to be taken along on a buying trip.

“Then I want you to pack for a week's voyage,” Alexander instructed him. “Longer, perhaps. It is hard to know before we arrive. I will meet you at the airport in Hamburg after you
have checked on this, and we will continue on from there. But you must not under any circumstances take more than two days for this Schwerin business.”

He nodded, resisted the urge to ask where they were going. It was Alexander's secret, and he would have to choose the time. “Why won't you go yourself to East Germany?”

“You are no doubt aware that World War II began with the Nazi invasion of Poland. After five years of Nazi occupation, Poland then suffered the tragedy of the Warsaw Uprising, where the Soviets stood across the Vistula River and watched almost eight hundred thousand Poles be massacred by the Nazi forces. Once our own forces were decimated, the Soviets then rolled into Warsaw and took up where the retreating Nazis left off. We suffered under their iron grip for over forty years.” Kantor paused while the waiter returned with a new drink. “Wild horses could not drag me to Schwerin. A land that is both Communist and German is a land with one devil too many.”

“They're not Communist anymore.”

“The shadow still lingers across the land, I assure you. No illness that grave can vanish overnight after having been around for forty years.”

Jeffrey waited, and when nothing more was forthcoming, said, “I'm not sure I understand.”

“No,” Alexander Kantor sighed. “I suppose not.”

He reached into his coat, extracted his wallet, and drew out a yellowed black and white photograph. He handed it over. “This was my sister.”

Jeffrey examined a lively smiling face who missed being truly beautiful by having a little too much of Alexander's strength. There was no doubt of their being related. “I didn't know you had a sister.”

“Svetlana was much older than I. In 1939, after the Germans invaded Poland, she and her husband started a clandestine anti-Nazi newspaper. They were caught.” His voice took on a toneless drone. “He died in a concentration camp.
She was imprisoned. Unfortunately she was three months pregnant, and the prison guards beat her badly. Svetlana gave birth in her prison cell to a crippled baby boy. She died nine months later, spending her time until then trying to keep her baby alive within the prison.”

Alexander reached over and extracted the photograph from Jeffrey's numb fingers. With slow, deliberate motions, he inserted the picture back into his wallet. “To travel to a Germany frozen for five decades, occupied by the same Russian invaders who have stifled my homeland since 1945—” He shook his head. “No, my good man, that combination is simply too much. This trip you and your young lady will have to take on your own.”

CHAPTER 7

Katya asked, “So the two of us would be traveling to Schwerin together?”

Late afternoon sunlight spilled through the shop's front window, turning the gauze curtains surrounding the dais to burnished gold. Alexander had left to take care of some personal business, and to let Jeffrey broach the issue with Katya in solitude.

“Alexander will take care of the shop. He doesn't want . . .” Jeffrey hesitated, then decided it was Alexander's secret. “He can't come with us. It's not possible.”

“So you're saying you want me to go off with you for a sort of long weekend?” She shook her head. “I don't think so.”

“I need you, Katya,” he insisted. “Alexander says almost nobody speaks English over there. The second language is Russian, the third Polish or Czech. And I have to take somebody we can trust.” He softened his voice. “I trust you.”

“It just wouldn't be proper.”

“What is there to be proper or improper about? We really need your help on this. I need it.”

“Just a business trip?”

“Well, yes and no,” Jeffrey was flustered. “I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say how much I'd like to do this with you.”

“So this is a business trip and you want to enjoy my company.”

“This is a special time in Germany, especially in the East. You're studying about it. I'd have thought you'd leap at the chance to take an all-expense-paid trip over there.”

“It's not the trip.”

“I want to understand what's going on over there,” he persisted. “I can't do that without you.”

She was silent for a long moment. “For how long?”

“Two days. We leave together, have one night in Schwerin,
then you come back to mind the shop while I travel on with Alexander.”

“When?”

He took a breath. “Tomorrow. Alexander says there is another trip which he and I have to make immediately afterward.”

“What about Ling? Who will take care of him?” Then she answered it and gave her assent at the same time. “I'll ask Mama. Will you come with me this evening?”

He was already up and moving. “Let's go. I just closed up.”

Coventry was a charmless town located about an hour from London. Katya's mother lived there because of the company that bought her ceramics. Katya refused to discuss the ceramics, which left Jeffrey to imagine that her mother made bowls and sold them on the sly, supplementing what was probably a meager monthly relief check.