The Columbus Affair: A Novel (33 page)

“I’ve just been told that the two people caught earlier were taken to a house not far from here.”

He noticed the look of concern on the man’s face.

“What is it?” he asked.

“The Rabbi Berlinger was summoned. He is with them now.”

———

T
OM IMMEDIATELY CONNECTED THE DOTS
. A
BIRAM HAD MENTIONED
this man specifically in his last message.

“He also gave me a name. Rabbi Berlinger.”

“How old are you?” he asked, which he knew must sound rude, but he had to know.

“One hundred and two.”

He would never have guessed. Maybe in his eighties, but nowhere near the century mark. “Life’s been kind to you.”

“Sometimes I think so. Other times not. I asked you a question. Please tell me where you obtained these items.”

He saw that Alle was interested in that answer, too. But he wasn’t ready to cooperate. “They were given to me. I was meant to have them.”

This man would have seen the original writing, unedited, as that was all he’d had left in his pockets.

“I don’t know any such thing,” Berlinger said. “I only know that you have these items.”

“M. E. Cross was my grandfather.”

The old man studied him carefully. “I see him in your face. Your name is Sagan. I recall that your mother married a Sagan. Marc was your mother’s father.”

He nodded. “I called him Saki.”

The rabbi sat, laying the items he held and Alle’s bag on the table. “I must confess. I never thought I would hear of this subject again.”

———

B
ÉNE STAYED SEATED AS THE SHADOW ENTERED HIS STUDY
. O
UTSIDE
, mountain winds continued to stir the night. He’d been waiting for Frank Clarke. A call made earlier had brought a promise that his friend would be at the estate before ten.

“You like the dark, Béne?”

Not a light burned in the room.

“Mother is asleep and the help is gone for the night. Just you and me, Frank.”

He offered the plate of bullas, but the colonel waved him off. He
lifted another one for himself before returning the platter to the side table.

“What have you found?” Frank asked. “I could hear it in your voice earlier.”

“The mine is real. I know its location.”

Tre had called after dinner to say that a quick survey of what they’d stolen from Cuba, along with the deed and other items found in the Jamaican archive, had led him to a spot. He’d checked the latest topographic maps the university had on file and confirmed that a cave did exist in the vicinity of where everything pointed.

“And where’s that?” Clarke asked.

He did not have to see the face to know that he would be revealing something that was already known. Which he’d suspected all along.

“Why did you lie to me, Frank?”

“Because that mine must stay lost.”

“That’s not what you said in the cave. You told me to find it.”

“I told you to find the Jews’ wealth. If that still exists, then Maroons could make use of it. The mine? That’s another matter.”

The voice stayed in a near whisper, as if the words should not be spoken. But he had to know, “Why should the mine stay lost?”

“It’s a sacred place. Maroons have so little left. Places like that are ours, Béne. They must be guarded.”

“There’s little left of Maroons, anymore, except stories. Why does it matter?”

Silence passed between them. He listened to the wind.

“The night was once our ally,” Clarke said. “We made good use of it. Victory became ours, in part, because of the night.”

More stories, Béne thought. Not reality.

During the last Maroon war, in 1795, 300 Maroons held out against 1,500 British troops. A truce came only after the Cuban hounds had been brought in to hunt them down. But when everyone assembled at Montego Bay to conclude a treaty nearly 600 Maroons were herded onto ships and deported to Nova Scotia. There they lived in the cold of Canada for two years, then were sent to Sierra Leone. Only 60 eventually returned to Jamaica.

Some victory.

“You still have not answered me,” he said. “Why does this matter anymore?”

He watched the blackened form shift in the chair.

“There are things about us, Béne, you simply do not understand. Though you are of Maroon blood, you’ve been raised different. Poverty is rampant among us. Unemployment high. You live here, on this grand estate, in luxury. You drive whatever vehicle you desire. You never go hungry. You have money. You’ve always had money, Béne.”

“You sound as though you resent that.”

“I don’t. It matters nothing to me. You’re my friend. I’ve always liked you. But others feel differently. They take your money, take your favors. They smile, but never reveal what’s in their hearts.”

“That’s not what you told me yesterday. You said no one cares what I am.”

“I lied.”

He did not like what he was hearing. He’d always felt a closeness with the Maroon community. Like family. He had precious little of that himself. Only his mother and a few cousins. He should marry, have children, build a family of his own. But he’d never met anyone with whom he might want to do that. Was it because of who and what he was? Hard to say. What he knew for sure was that no one was going to tell him what to do.

Not now.

Not ever.

“I’m going to the mine,” he said.

“I feared this was what you wanted tonight.”

“Will you come with me?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Z
ACHARIAH WANTED TO KNOW,
“W
HO IS
R
ABBI
B
ERLINGER?”

“The former head of this community. One of the last alive who lived through the Holocaust.”

“He survived the Nazis?”

The mayor nodded. “He was taken to Terezín, along with many others. He served on the governing council in the camp and tried to look after people.”

The fortified town of Terezín had been a holding point from where tens of thousands of Czech Jews were transported east to death camps. Many, though, died there from squalid conditions.

“The rabbi is highly regarded,” the mayor said. “No one questions him. If he asked to speak to these two intruders, then that’s what would happen.”

He also heard what was unspoken. This man’s election depended on the support of such people. Though this man might be king, Berlinger was the kingmaker. But still, “I have to know why he is interested.”

“Would you tell me
your
interest?”

“The man caught at the synagogue has something that belongs to me. I want it back.”

“This must be something of great importance.”

“It is to me.”

He was choosing his words carefully.

Say enough, but not too much.

“I have sent someone to find out what is going on. How about
until he returns you and I pray. Look there, in the east window, the morning sun can now be seen.”

He glanced up the wall to the narrow slit that blazed with the day’s first light. He realized that Jews for 700 years had watched that sight. Everything he was about to do, everything he’d planned, he did for them. 100,000 of his brethren had been exterminated during the war, the Czech president simply handing the country over to Hitler as a German protectorate. Immediately laws were implemented that forbid non-Aryan doctors from caring for the sick. Jews were forbidden from public parks, theaters, cinemas, libraries, sporting events, public baths, and swimming pools. They could not serve in public office and were forced to use only certain compartments at the rear of trains and none of the public facilities at stations. Shopping was allowed only at designated times. Curfew was 8:00
P.M
. No telephones were permitted and none could change their residence without approval. The list of restrictions had been endless, all eventually leading to arrest and extermination.

But the Nazis had not razed the Jewish quarter.

The synagogues went untouched, including the Old-New. Even the cemetery had not been overly violated. The idea had been to transform everything into an elaborate open-air exhibit.

The Exotic Museum for an Extinct Race.

But that never came to be.

Russia liberated the country in 1945.

Coming to Prague always seemed to strengthen his resolve. Throughout history Jews had respected strong leadership, clear motives, and unflinching action. They appreciated decisiveness. And that was what he would provide. But the mayor was right. Time to pray. So he clasped his hands behind his back, bowed his head, and asked for God’s help in all that he intended.

“There is one thing,” the mayor quietly said.

He opened his eyes and stared down at the man, who was a third of a meter shorter.

“You asked about documents that were once stored in the loft. We do, as required, bury them from time to time. But we have developed a different way of accomplishing that obligation.”

He waited for an explanation.

“Space in the old cemetery is gone, and no one really wants to dig there anyway. There are too many unmarked graves. So we have a crypt in which the writings are placed. They have been stored there since the war. It’s a system that works. Our problem has been the upkeep of that crypt. Most expensive. Labor-intensive.”

He caught the message.

“We fight every day,” the mayor said, “to reclaim our property and restore the cemetery and the synagogues. We try to manage our lives, recall our heritage, restore the legacy. To do that, we encourage outside investment.” He paused. “Whenever we can.”

“I believe one of my foundations could make a suitable donation to assist with those costs.”

The mayor nodded. “That is most generous of you.”

“Of course, it would help if I could see this crypt, so as to gauge the appropriate amount of the contribution.”

The head nodded again. “I think that would be entirely reasonable. We shall do that. Just after we pray.”

———

T
OM WATCHED THE OLD RABBI, LEERY OF EVERYTHING THAT WAS
happening. He had no idea if this man was who he claimed to be. What he did know was that the unedited message had been read, its contents now known to a third party.

The smug messenger from Barnes & Noble came to mind, along with his warning.

“You’ll never know if it’s the truth or us.”

Like right now.

“When did you hear about any of this the first time?” he asked Berlinger.

“Your grandfather came in the 1950s. His mother was Czech. He and I became friends. Eventually, he told me things. Not everything, but enough.”

He watched Alle as she listened. He would prefer to talk to this man in private but realized that was impossible.

“Marc was a fascinating person. He and I shared many times together. He spoke our language, knew our history, our problems. I never understood all that he knew, only that it was important. I came to trust him enough to do as he asked.”

“Which was?”

The old man studied him through tired, oily eyes.

“A short while ago I was awoken from my sleep and handed these things here on the table. The writing contained my name, so it was thought I should be advised. I read it, then asked where it and the rest came from. I was told that a man was caught trying to enter the synagogue loft. Immediately I thought of another time, and another man, who’d tried the same thing.

“Get away from there,” Berlinger yelled
.

The man who supported himself on the iron rung ladder attached to the Old-New Synagogue simply stared down and shook his head. “I’ve come to see the golem, and that I will.”

Berlinger estimated the climber to be about his age, midfifties, but in better condition, the hair salt-and-pepper, the body lean, the face full of life. He spoke in Czech, but with the distinctive hint of an American, which he appeared to be
.

“I mean it,” he called out. “There’s nothing up there. The story is foolishness. A tale. That’s all.”

“My, how you underestimate the power of Jehuda Leva ben Becalel.”

He was impressed with the stranger’s use of Rabbi Loew’s proper name. Not many people came to Prague any longer, and of those that did none knew the great man’s correct name. After the war the communists seized control and shut the borders. No one in or out. How this American had made it in he did not know. He watched as the intruder shoved open the iron door adorned with the Star of David. It had not been locked since long before the war. The man disappeared inside the loft, then his head popped from the open frame
.

“Come on up. I need to speak with you.”

He’d not climbed to the loft in a long while. It was where the old papers were kept, stored away until buried, as the Torah commanded. Someone had left a ladder propped against the synagogue’s east wall, making it easy to reach the first iron rung. He decided to oblige the stranger and climbed to the door, entering the loft
.

“Marc Cross,” the man said, extending his hand
.

“I am—”

“Rabbi Berlinger. I know. I came to talk with you. I was told you are a man who can be trusted.”

“That’s how we met,” Berlinger said. “From there Marc and I became the closest of friends, and remained that until the day he died. Unfortunately, I saw little of him in the decades after, but we did correspond. I would have gone to his funeral, but the Soviets would not allow Jews to travel abroad.”

Tom reached over and lifted the key from the table. “This does not open the loft door.”

“Of course it doesn’t. The lock on that door is new, placed there when the loft was reengineered and repaired a few years ago. We kept to the old style simply for appearances. But there is nothing now up there of any importance.”

He caught what had gone unspoken.

“But there was at one time.”

Berlinger nodded. “We kept the old papers there. But those are now stored underground in the cemetery.” The rabbi stood. “I’ll show you.”

He wasn’t ready to leave just yet and pointed to the key. “There are markings on that. Do you know what they mean?”