Bristol House (22 page)

“I thought your taste ran to tall brunettes.” Annie nodded toward the picture on the nightstand, the one of him with Emma, the dead wife.

“Oops. That shouldn’t be there just now, should it? I hadn’t planned—”

Her laugh cut off his words. “Don’t apologize,” she said. “Not planning speaks well of you.”

“Well, it did occur to me that if I could arrange to have your flat burgled and it was necessary to change the locks, you’d have no choice but to come sleep at my place. Then perhaps I could inveigle you into my bed.”

“Clever thinking,” Annie said, “but entirely unnecessary. All you had to do was ask.”

After that they didn’t say anything for a time, until about half an hour later, when Annie picked up the conversational thread as if it had not been on pause. “I like it that you keep her picture here.”

“Why’s that?”

“For one thing, it makes it special. It’s not downstairs on public view. Up here it’s just for you. Besides, I was curious about what she looked like.” Emma, Maggie had said, was too much a golden girl for her son, too large a personality, not someone who would admit, much less display, her need, not someone he could enfold. Was Annie, on the other hand, being too vulnerable to him?

Her hands were on top of the sheets, her bracelet in full view. Geoff touched it. “When were you divorced?” he asked.

“Ten years ago.”

“You had to have been pretty young.”

“Twenty-three,” she said. “If I tell you we’d been married five years by then, you’ll pretty much get the picture.”

“Way too young,” he said. “Stacked deck.”

“How old was Emma when she died?”

“Thirty-four. Two years younger than I. She was twenty-eight when we married.”

“Older and wiser.”

“Older certainly.”

“Geoff, I know she died in a car accident. I saw that online. But . . . who was driving?”

“Not me, if that’s what you’re thinking. Emma was alone. Which if you knew her wouldn’t sound particularly unusual. Anyway, seems a bloke on a motorbike pulled out to pass her. She swerved to avoid him and was broadsided by a lorry full of Christmas trees. Turned out the driver had been stopping periodically to imbibe holiday cheer.”

There was a rote quality to the explanation. It sounded like a practiced way to avoid what he didn’t want to say. Annie did not feel she had any right to probe further. “Awful,” she said.

“Yes, but in the past.” He kissed her again. On the lips this time, but softly, with no demands.

It made her want to give him more.

“When I was a kid,” she said, “I lived and breathed bikes and bikers. The speed, the noise, the craziness of it all, that’s what drew me. Bikers live in their own world and follow their own rules. Later they became my escape from my horrible Aunt Sybil, and the fact that my mom and dad were dead and my twin was three thousand miles away in California. Enter Zak Johnson. He was the toughest and the baddest among a very tough and bad group. And I,” she added, in a voice so low she almost could not hear her own words, “was an adoring groupie.”

“Groupies don’t usually marry the objects of their fascination,” Geoff said.

“Sometimes they do.”

“You had to have been what, eighteen?”

“Barely. And I was a sophomore at Wellesley College near Boston, on a scholarship that would have been canceled if I acquired a husband. We eloped and kept it secret. I stayed in school, and no one knew. It was fun at first, but you won’t be surprised to hear the novelty soon lost its charm. He left when I was twenty-one and just starting on my postgraduate work at BU.” Her right hand was clasped around the bracelet on her left wrist. She had gone right up to the edge, like a kid flirting with danger. There were tears prickling behind her eyes. Hopefully he hadn’t noticed.

Geoff had stopped hovering over her. His hands were clasped behind his head, and he was leaning against the headboard staring at the ceiling. “I suspect,” he said, “my baggage is heavier than yours.”

Okay, he had noticed. “I doubt it,” she said.

“Yeah, it is. Emma and I had a huge argument the day she was killed. Certainly not the first. I’d prepared what was supposed to be a festive pre-Christmas lunch. If it hadn’t turned into a shouting match, she wouldn’t have stormed out of the house and driven away, or been cut off by a motorbike and intersected with a drunken lorry driver.”

She did not ask what they’d been fighting about. Too many emotions this night, coming too fast. Her hand was still clasping her bracelet when she said, “I’m sorry. About Emma, the biker—all of it.”

“So am I. We’re all sorry, Annie. It goes with the territory.”

***

The next day at Bristol House, while they were waiting for the locksmith to finish fitting the new locks, they tied together the quail egg stories. “Bingo,” Annie said when the information flashed up on her computer screen. “Radio Netherlands English service, review of Dutch newspapers. Tuesday, May eighth, this year. From
De Telegraaf.
The byline is Harlingen.”

“In the Frisian Islands,” he said.

“‘His Eminence Cardinal Ruud de Boer,’” Annie read aloud, “‘was found dead early this morning in the farmhouse he’d been living in since retiring from his post as Archbishop of Utrecht. As a young man, De Boer was active in the Dutch Resistance and was captured and tortured by the Gestapo.’ There’s a lot of stuff about his career,” she said, quickly scanning the words. “And they say his was one of the most respected voices in the post–Vatican II church. Wait, here it is. ‘It appeared that Cardinal de Boer may have choked to death on the egg of one of the quails he had raised since retiring to this isolated community. Neighbors found his body after the birds became unnaturally noisy, presumably because they had been without food for three days.’” She looked up. “What do you think?”

“I’m not sure. I have some Dutch contacts. I’ll get them to check, and I’ll ask my mate in Jerusalem why his paper didn’t run with the quail egg part of the story.”

Both excellent ideas. So how come at that exact moment the only thing Annie wanted to analyze was the shape of his hairline, and the way he looked at her every once in a while with a special, secret grin? And whether she was mad to think maybe this might last? Cue Sidney.
Everyone talks about living in the moment, Annie my girl. For us it’s more than talk, it’s survival.

***

Three days later her cell phone rang while she was on the last lap of her morning run. She might have let it go to voice mail, but it was Geoff. “Maggie has summoned us to dinner tonight,” he said. “Early, because that’s when Rabbi Cohen can get away.”

Annie stopped running, forgetting even to jog in place. “He’s coming too? They must have broken the code.”

“I think they have. Sort of.”

“What does that mean? How can you sort of break a code?”

“I’m not sure. But Maggie said not to get your hopes too high.”

Annie didn’t think she had any hopes. Or if she had, exactly what they were. She definitely had, however, a supersize quotient of curiosity. The rest of the day passed in what felt like slow motion.

***

Finally it was six p.m., and they were seated at Maggie’s round table eating Chinese takeaway, and Simon Cohen was explaining his menu choices. “It’s a modern interpretation of
kashrut,
‘keeping kosher,’ as people call it. I eat no pork or shellfish, and I don’t mix meat and milk. The rest of it, the business about different dishes and such . . .” He waved a dismissive hand.

“Are quail eggs kosher?” Annie asked. Geoff had told the quail egg story while he was helping his mother in the kitchen. Maggie tossed out the restaurant’s foil containers and insisted on arranging their dinner in pretty serving dishes.

“Quail eggs,” Cohen said, “are
pareveh,
neutral, neither dairy nor meat. I don’t think any of the ancient rabbis thought of them as a lethal weapon.”

Maggie made a small circle of her thumb and forefinger. “No bigger than a small walnut,” she said. “How many would it take?”

“To choke,” Geoff said, “only one.” He gestured to the remains of their dinner. “Hell, you can choke on a bite of General Tsao’s chicken if it goes down the wrong way. But the cardinal in Jerusalem had six of those little spotted eggs lodged in his throat. According to my reporter friend, the autopsy indicated death by suffocation. The quail eggs were shoved down his throat after he was dead.”

“So,” Cohen said, “a sign of some sort?”

“Has to be,” Annie said, “but of what or who . . .” She looked pensive.

“The official Israeli word,” Geoff said, “is that the story got bumped from the next day’s paper for space reasons. Unofficially, it appears some Vatican higher-up requested it be killed. Something about the dignity of a prince of the church.”

“And this particular prince,” Cohen said, “had been connected to the notorious Secret Archive?”

Annie nodded. “But De Boer, the Dutch cardinal, never held any Vatican post, wasn’t a scholar, and had nothing whatever to do with any of their archives, secret or otherwise.”

“But he was in the Resistance and captured by the Gestapo.” Maggie shivered.

“My contact in The Hague,” Geoff said, “tells me he was missing the middle and ring fingers of both hands. And that before the war he’d aspired to be a concert pianist. Gave him a great deal of cred with his peers.”

“But,” Annie said, “so far I find nothing like that in the background of Cardinal Falcone, though it appears he was also an influential man.”

“So, many mysteries remain,” Cohen said, looking at his watch. “But just now we do not have time for the quail eggs. Only the code.” He reached for his briefcase. Geoff began to clear the table. Maggie put on her rimless glasses. Annie waited.

“The Torah,” Cohen began, “contains six hundred and three
mitzvoth,
commandments to righteous behavior. Rabbinic stipulations have been added for a total of six hundred and thirteen. In English we translate
mitzvoth
as ‘laws,’ but in Jewish thinking they are not restrictions but enhancements of Jewish life. The first hundred and sixty
mitzvoth
relate to the manner of the Divine service in the Temple.”

“
Korbanot,
” Annie said.

“Ritual sacrifice, yes. Which, as you know, no longer exists. Some of the Orthodox say the Temple cannot be rebuilt until the Messiah comes. Others insist we are obligated to rebuild as soon as we can. A small but vocal minority are making active preparations for that rebuilding, getting ready to restore the ancient forms of worship. Your Shalom Foundation, Annie, is in that latter group.”

“On the outermost fringes of it.” Geoff had returned from the kitchen with a tray containing four mugs. “Has to be tea,” he said, “because the only coffee available is instant. My German-born mother has been corrupted by her English upbringing.” He leaned down and kissed Maggie’s cheek. “Weinraub and his crowd are considered total nutters even by most of the ‘rebuild the Temple’ crowd.”

The papers Annie had delivered to Geoff’s mother the first day they met were now spread on the table. Maggie reached for one of them. “Maybe, but in terms of the papers the Shalom Foundation gave Annie, they provided an accurate translation from the German. These documents are exactly as advertised, information about five rare pieces of Judaica that are reportedly gifts from the Jew of Holborn, given in 1535 to synagogues in Offenburg, Metz, Gerstheim, Breisach, and”—she hesitated—“and Freiburg.”

Annie was about to explain about the note from Frau Wolfe in Breisach, the old woman who didn’t remember any questionnaire from the Shalom Foundation, but Geoff spoke before she had a chance. “Hang on, Maggie,” he said. “That’s where you always told me you were from. Freiburg im Breisgau. Capital of the Black Forest.”

“Yes,” Maggie replied. And to Annie and Rabbi Cohen, quietly: “I’ve never been back and never taken Geoff for a visit.” She shivered. “They destroyed everything. I never wanted to see it like that.” Her voice became more matter-of-fact. “There were Jews in Freiburg since at least the thirteenth century. I don’t know exactly when our family came, but I know my father’s business went back hundreds of years. They shipped decorative silver pieces all over the world. In 1936 the Nazis took over our factory. Papa wasn’t allowed to work there or anywhere else. Two years later, during Kristallnacht, the old Freiburg synagogue was blown up by the storm troopers. I was eight years old and I could see the flames from my bedroom window. A few minutes later a gentile friend came and got me. I remember my father holding me and saying good-bye and whispering in my ear.”

“You never told me that,” Geoff said. “What did he whisper?”

“It was a long time ago, Geoffrey.” Maggie shook her head. “A little later the Gestapo came for my parents and took them away. I never saw them again.”

“On that one night,” Simon Cohen said, “ninety thousand German Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Immediately afterward Britain inaugurated the Kindertransport.” He put his hand over Maggie’s.

Geoff’s face was dark with fury. This, Annie realized, was the origin of his interest in current affairs. Politicians had screwed his family. He’d devote his life to making the bastards give an accounting of themselves. It was as Maggie had said—righting wrongs was part of Geoff’s DNA. She looked from him to his mother. Maggie was studying Annie, not her son.
See,
her eyes said.
What did I tell you?

Geoff leaned forward and tapped the papers. “I’m not getting something here. Weren’t virtually all the synagogues of Europe destroyed by the Nazis?”

“Not all,” Annie said. “For one or another reason, some of the old buildings escaped. But anyway, that wasn’t the issue in terms of survival of the treasures. By the time of Kristallnacht, Hitler had been chancellor for five years. Plenty of Jews had seen what was coming and had hidden their most precious things, ancient Torahs and things like the items mentioned here.” She pointed to the documents.

“That,” Cohen said, “is definitely in the Jewish DNA. There’s a legend that King Solomon, who built the First Temple, created numerous secret tunnels and passageways in the bowels of the earth. Now the original Torah and Ark of the Covenant are supposed to be hidden there, waiting to be reclaimed when the Temple is restored.”