The Columbus Affair

The word once stung. “Still am, and that woman knows the truth.”

“I know, and if you could prove that you were not a fraud?”

“Then things would change.”

“I don’t know any more than I told you. She was most mysterious, but also most persuasive.”

“What do you know?”

“Only that with most things in life, there is more to the story.”

His spine stiffened. “Why would you say that?”

“And I suspect there is but one person you care to be vindicated with.”

He noticed that his question had gone ignored, so he decided to return the favor.

“During the war,” Berlinger said. “I was forced to do things that no decent man should ever be forced to do. I headed the council at Terezín. We had to decide life and death every day. Thousands perished, many because of the decisions we made. Only time has brought what happened there into focus.”

Memories seemed to have captured the old man’s attention.

“My own son. May God rest his soul.”

He stood silent.

“I have to tell you something,” the rabbi said. “In the war, many were sent to camps. Before I was sent, something happened. Marc and I talked of it. May I share it with you?”

They kicked down the farmhouse door.

Berlinger stood back as two men and Erik, his fifteen-year-old son, rushed inside, dragging the house’s sole occupant out into the night. Summer had brought warmth, and the man was barely dressed. He was called Yiri, a Czech whom Berlinger knew from before the war. A simple, quiet man who’d made a huge mistake.

“What do you want?” Yiri said. “Why are you here?”

He was shoved to his knees.

“I have done nothing. I work my fields. I bother no one. Why are you here? I told the Nazis nothing.”

Berlinger caught the last part. “You speak to Nazis?”

They were all armed, even Erik who’d learned to handle a pistol with great skill. So far, all four had avoided detention, escaping into the forest and resisting. He wished more Jews could join them, but their number was dwindling by the day.

Yiri’s head shook. “No. No. I talk to no Nazis. I tell them nothing about the Jews in the forest.”

Which was why they’d come. A family had escaped Prague and managed to hide in the woods outside of town. Yiri had been supplying them with food, a good thing, what should be expected from a countryman. But when the family’s money ran out, Yiri had turned them in for the reward. He wasn’t alone. Others had done the same.

“Please. Please. I had no choice. They would have killed me. I had no choice. I helped that family for many weeks.”

“Until they couldn’t pay you anymore,” one of the men spit out.

Berlinger saw the hatred in his compatriots’ eyes. Even Erik’s were filled with disgust. He’d never seen that in his boy before. But the war was changing them all.

“What do you want me to do? You Jews have no chance. There’s nothing that can be done. You have to—”

A shot echoed in the night.

Yiri’s head exploded, then his body smacked the ground.

Erik lowered his gun.

“Yashar Koyach,” one of the men said, and the others joined in slapping Erik on the back.

May your strength increase.

What was said after reading from the Torah.

Now it had become a salutation for murder.

“We had not come to kill the man,” Berlinger said. “Or at least that’s what I thought. To do that would be no different than what the Germans were doing to us.”

“So why did you go there?”

“To hold him accountable, yes. But not to murder him.”

He considered that a bit naïve, given the circumstances.

“I was sent to Terezín shortly after that,” Berlinger said. “My son escaped that fate. He became part of the resistance and fought the Germans for another year, until they finally killed him. He and I never spoke to each other after that night. He was proud of what he’d done, and I was ashamed. A division came between us, one that I regret to this day.”

“And what has time taught you?”

“That I was a fool. That man deserved to die. But I had yet to witness the horror of Terezín, and all that came after. I had yet to see how barren men’s souls can be. I had yet to realize how much I could come to hate.”

“It’s been only eight years for me and little is in focus. All I can say is that the past few days have changed everything.”

“For the better?”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Marc would have liked you.”

“I only knew him for a short while as a boy.”

“He had a spirit about him. So adventurous. He was a good Jew, though not devoutly. Maybe it was the world in which he lived. I know my own beliefs were strained to the breaking point. Or maybe it was his profession. An archaeologist studies the past almost to the exclusion of the present. Maybe that clouded his mind. Still, he was a good man who did his duty.”

“As the Levite?”

Berlinger nodded. “I would have so liked to have seen our lost treasures. What sights they would have been.”

“You might get that chance. Saki changed the rules of this game. That means it’s okay to do that. So I’m going to change them again.”

“Are you not simply going to end the game?”

He stood silent for a moment, realizing the implications. Five hundred years this secret had stayed hidden.

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

Berlinger walked toward one of

the display cases, this one containing a pair of silver candlesticks, a Kiddush cup, an elaborate silver spice box, and another rectangular container, about a foot square. No decoration adorned its silver exterior. An internal lock sealed the lid. Just as Berlinger had described.

He found the key in his pocket.

“That,” the rabbi said, “opens the lock. I shall have the box removed and taken to one of the side rooms, where you can examine it in private.”

The old man extended his hand and they shook.

“My duty is done,” Berlinger said. “The rest I leave to you. I wish you success and will pray for your soul.”

And the rabbi walked away.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

ZACHARIAH KEPT ALLE CLOSE, THE TWO OF THEM JUST OUTSIDE the quarter at a busy restaurant called Kolkovna. He’d decided a strategic retreat was in order until he could ascertain exactly what was happening. Rócha was following Sagan and had reported that he and Berlinger had entered the Maisel Synagogue. With no choice, Rócha had entered, too, careful to stay back as Sagan knew his face. Berlinger had directed Sagan to a silver box, which had been removed from its display case and taken to another room. Berlinger was gone, but Sagan was there with the box. Rócha was still in the synagogue—Sagan behind a closed door.

“What’s happening?” Alle asked him.

“I wish I knew. Your father is doing something. For a man who wanted to die, he is most active.”

“For a long time, he was good at his job.”

“I’m surprised to hear you say that. He was caught fabricating a story.”

“I know that. I just attacked him a little while ago with that fact. But that doesn’t mean that everything he did was a lie. I remember reading his stuff when I was in high school. He was on television all the time. I hated him for what he did to me and my mother, but he seemed to be a good reporter. His job actually meant everything to him. More so than his family.”

“When I checked his background I learned that he was respected in the Middle East. People feared him. He left a lasting impression on many in power there. I would imagine they were glad to see him fall.”