by Paul Usiskin
Wolf concentrated on the road. He needed to, the surface of the dual carriageway was gouged where snow-plows had scraped too deeply at it, evidence of poor quality asphalting or poor maintenance or both. Their progress was interrupted by stretches of snow-covered ice, where Wolf reduced speed.
‘This has snow-tires and four wheel drive so we should be OK, but you never know, so I’m being careful,’ Wolf told Dov.
Dov took in the endless white countryside. A railway line with overhead cables paralleled them; it diverted to skirt a wooded hill and then disappeared in a straight line somewhere into the pale wilderness, as the road sliced through the hill’s right flank, tall trees, pine or aspen, lower branches silvered by icicles, climbing away on one side, a hamlet on the other, partly announced by snow covered signs. He considered taking a photo of the scene and sending it to Orli with a cryptic,’Guess where I am?’ text, but dismissed that as a potential breach of security, though he did chuckle to himself. He tried pouring tea from the thermos but the Volvo kept bouncing. He waited, tried again, only spilled a little and sipped. Sweet lemon tea.
‘I need to visit the Jewish cemetery in Valga and after that we’ll see. Do the local police know we’re coming?’
‘Yes, I informed them as soon as you told us where you wanted to go. About the cemetery, maybe we can combine a courtesy call with directions for its location by going straight to the police station?’
‘Good.’
He took a sandwich, dark rye bread filled with what tasted like spicy meatballs.
‘Excellent sandwich,’ he said.
‘It may not be strictly kosher; there’s a place near the consulate and I had them make up a couple of rounds.’
‘I won’t tell if you won’t.’ Wolf grinned.
They bounced over more gashes in the road surface as Wolf went on with his briefing, that Estonia was over two and a half times the size of Israel, but with only 1.3 million people, with a worrying percentage of those below the poverty line, that there were bi-lateral agreements on investments, telecoms, cultural, scientific and educational cooperation with Israel. Dov drifted off.
Snow was falling heavily when Wolf woke him. They were crossing a bridge over a frozen river and past a row of white houses along the bank, red tiles peaking beneath the snow from houses properly insulated. Pedestrians had trodden narrow paths along the main streets, bordered by the banked frozen white stuff. After a supermarket, the SatNav took them onto a street hemmed in enough to make Dov flinch. At one corner he saw an old wooden building, its architecture unfamiliar, its ground floor shop windows dark and empty. A wooden tower with one window ended the frontage, rotting wooden outer panels hanging loose. A small blue and white metal street sign tacked to the frame said Riia.
‘Riia?’ Dov asked.
‘Riga Street,’ Wolf said. ‘This is the town center, and the SatNav says the police station’s up there behind the town hall.’
Dov saw another old building, neatly painted brick-red clapboard, white window frames, furled flag above the entrance. ‘Town hall,’ Wolf said. They parked outside a yellow concrete building on a street up and behind the town hall, with POLITSEI in big blue letters on the wall.
The local police commander Cowan Mikser, who’s English was OK, greeted them but was preoccupied.
‘We have no border here between us and Valka our twin Latvian town, so smuggling is big business. Pack of cigarettes costs for the smugglers sixty cents not more and they sell for nearly six dollars.’
Dov warmed to Mikser; he was being professional to a fellow professional, formalities ignored. His accent reminded him of Dudik, his ‘a’ pronounced ‘eh’ and ‘i’ was ‘ee.’
‘Good profit, yes, even after transport costs? So I must to arrest suspects. Easy. We catch them with red hands, so you say it? Three lazy Estonians, one smart Lat, but it snows, not all roads are cleaned and … excuse please our small problems. I want to help but…’ the squat man with the blonde crew-cut and deep worry lines and tired eyes, gave an international shrug.
Dov decided to confide in him.
‘I’m here on an instinct, hoping it will help me catch a very big fish back home.’
‘Instinct?’
‘Instinkt,’ Wolf said promptly.
Mikser laughed in a warm bass rumble; he tapped his nose. ‘Is same word. Very good.’
‘So I need to get to the Jewish cemetery.’
The commander became serious. ‘This easy, not my problem,’ he said a little twinkle in his eyes.‘Is not in Valga, but in Latvian Valka side. No Jews here. Was small number Juudi until Germans came ‘41, now no more. Holocaust. Koonduslaagris…’
Wolf translated, ‘Concentration camp.’
Mikser nodded and ran his finger across his throat. ‘Finished. No more Juudi in Valga. Records for cemetery in Valka, in municipal building. You will to talk with my Latvian colleague. Problem. He is big Latvian patriot, member of veterans club of the Arajs Kommando. You will must to be very formal. You will to need help for look in records. I will phone him. He is Martins Stepanovs.’
‘Arajs Kommando?’ Dov asked, seeing Mikser’s grim expression.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ Wolf said, ‘but there’s a diplomatic process we have to sort out, going into Latvia, so first I’ve got to contact the consulate, and they’ll have to call Jerusalem and…’
Dov dialed a number and after a few moments was speaking with the Man.
While he spoke, Mikser was marking a route in red marker on a photocopied map. Wolf talked with him and Dov detected a controlled urgency in his voice, and at one point, the commander stiffened. When Dov ended his call, the commander spoke with heightened respect, ‘I keep promise to help, yes? Here is map and way to Juudi cemetery, is not far. Maybe you go quietly while Mr Wolf makes his work in records office? Snow will be big problem if you want to look at gravestones. But is small cemetery.’
Dov thanked him. In the Volvo he asked Wolf what he’d said to Mikser.
‘I told him you were speaking to our Prime Minister.’
Their hotel was only a few minutes drive from the police station. It was a former wealthy businessman’s home off a main street in its own grounds. The original owner had enjoyed hunting, the walls were covered with animal heads, skins and trophy horns. The horns bothered Dov. A huge black bear skin spread above a fireplace, its head watched a stuffed fox on its haunches in a corner as Wolf registered them.
The rooms were pleasant, the furnishings a little arcane and ornate for Dov’s tastes. As Wolf joined him, both their cells went.
A Prime Ministerial aide called. The Man had spoken with his Latvian counterpart who was sending a senior official to Valka in the morning and to go ahead and meet the Valka police commander who’d been instructed to provide every assistance. The consul told Wolf the Estonian Premier was sending a personal advisor. Dov mused aloud about what possible incentives the Man could have offered. Wolf told him that at an upcoming security expo Israel would be running in Riga, a share in security systems advances with their hosts would be proposed. He said relations were more than cordial anyway, despite the annual SS commemorations in which the neo-Nazi Arajs Kommando veterans and younger supporters were prominent.
‘Arajs was a Nazi collaborator and SS officer who was involved in the murder of thousands of Jews in Latvia and Belarus during the Shoah. Arajs died in prison after being found guilty in Germany of war crimes.’
Dov chewed that over. ‘Did you see Shoah, the extraordinary documentary series?’ Wolf nodded. ‘There were Latvian guards, known as hell hounds, on top of the box-cars going to the death camps. We live pretty sheltered lives at home, plenty of reminders of the past, but the reality is there are still places in the world where hatred for Jews persists.’
Wolf’s mouth tightened and he nodded. Dov said, ‘Commander Mikser’s suggestion was very practical. In the morn
ing, let’s follow his map to the cemetery, you go on and do whatever you have to do with the Valka police and come back for me when you’re done.’
Wolf looked pensive. ‘I’m not sure about that Dov. It sounds just like those scenes in thriller films when the good guys split up and the audience knows that’s not smart. Obviously the cemetery is important to you, so give me the name of the person you’re looking for. I could have done some of this spade work in advance, especially the Valga-Valka arrangements. As Commander Mikser said, the Valka municipal records office would be the right place to start. Maybe there’s a list of who’s buried in which burial plot.’
‘I’m here now and I don’t have time to wait while you go through records, though it would be a great help if you got formal confirmation. The name I’m looking for is Gulkowitsch.’
‘There’s someone with that name buried in the cemetery?’
‘I know it sounds like a wild card, but...’ His cell went. It was Aviel. ‘Barry?’ Dov asked looking at Wolf, who mouthed good night and left.
‘Under surveillance, on the Eliyon.’
‘Keep me updated.’
‘OK.’
34
After breakfast Wolf collected their overnight bags and coats and helped Dov into his.
‘You’re not my butler Ami,’ Dov told him gruffly. He buttoned up and they went out to the Volvo, cleared the snow from it and climbed in. Wolf produced a pair of snow and ice grippers for Dov’s boots, and gave him the screen scraper, ‘For the tomb stones.’ He also gave him a familiar Jericho handgun from his document bag.
‘Bears in the woods?’ Dov smiled, checking the Jericho, and slipping it into one of the deep coat pockets.
‘Who knows? Better safe than sorry.’
He switched on the engine and the heater.
‘You sure you’re just a consular staffer?’
Wolf smiled. ‘So to finish what I started yesterday,’ he said, ‘the Arajs Kommando was a Latvian volunteer auxiliary police unit that worked with the Germans, committing atrocities against Jews and gypsies. The Latvians also had an SS Legion. At their annual veterans’ march in Riga last year, Latvian leaders said they weren’t criminals, but heroes who fought the Russians.’
‘You said more than cordial, our relations with Latvia?’
‘Diplomacy is all about dealing with unpleasant matters in the politest way.’
‘You learn that during your Foreign Office cadetship?’
‘Kind of.’
‘Thanks for the gun.’
They drove from the hotel to Valka, along empty early Saturday morning streets, through the disused border checkpoint. More snow was forecast by mid-morning. The route out to the Jewish cemetery took them along Talavas Street, hemmed in by ugly gray apartment blocks, with barely enough room for two vehicles to pass each other. Wolf slowed at a corner and wanted to pull over when he saw a brick building with a narrow V roof and a lit POLICIJA sign over its entrance, Valka police station, but Dov told him to continue. Talavas Street became more rural the further north west of the town they drove. They reached a fork and bore right, according to the map and the SatNav, onto Varonu Street.
It was a narrow road with only one set of uneven ruts in thick snow, disguising ice beneath, but the Volvo’s hi-ride and snow tires dealt efficiently with it. Dov saw wooden houses, open land, and trees, the lower branches covered in snow and icicles, the tops bared by wind, very photogenic. Five minutes later the road widened out. On the left behind a hedge top heavy with snow was a house in the process of construction, gray breeze block walls, steep roof, something vaguely alpine about it, then they reached a crossroads. On the opposite corner was a heavy long-linked chain on stubby posts marking off a space dominated by a tall concrete cross, the tops of smaller ones poking up intermittently through the snow.
The map identified it as a German military cemetery. Mikser had marked the Jewish one on the other side beyond the corner.
‘That’s a nice piece of Baltic irony,’ Dov said glancing over Wolf’s shoulder to the hedge that continued up to that corner and then round it and down a smaller road. Wolf said, ‘That’s the Jewish cemetery behind the hedge in those trees.’
Dov took the map.
Wolf watched, as with fur hat flaps down, coat buttoned, collar up, trousers tucked into his snow-ready boots, Dov trudged round the Volvo towards the hedge, as Wolf u-turned to head back to town.
The dashboard temperature gauge had said minus ten, but Dov didn’t feel cold, crunching on slowly, following the hedge with the white stuff up to his boot tops. He looked for a gate, couldn’t find one, but spotted shapes that might be gravestones under the weighed down boughs of a tall fir tree. Looking closer he made out stones of different dimensions, and a mausoleum of brick, and another with a black painted wrought iron frame surrounding it.
He walked about a hundred and twenty meters with the hedge and the Jewish cemetery on his left. Half way along, a wooden fence replaced the hedge, down to another junction which Dov walked to. The fence bore left to follow another country road, bordering the bottom of the cemetery, with more houses and farm buildings further along. Looking back into the cemetery he realized it was not quite half full. It lay in a rectangle, Varonu Street on the right up to the first corner, Rujienas Street, from the map, running the length of the hedge and the fence, opposite the German cemetery, to Cesu Street at the next corner on the left, with more wooden fencing. Along the far side of the cemetery was another, more trees and the vague outline of a house. He imagined that when the Jewish community had first use of their cemetery, this was open countryside with isolated houses and unpaved, unnamed roads.
His watch said 08.10. His cell had full signal bars. He wondered if the Valka police commander and the official and the advisor had met Wolf yet.
There was low cloud and mist at tree top height. It was very still. He knew he would leave tracks as he climbed over the fence on Cesu Street, and made his way across the unused ground to the first line of gravestones. The land the Jews had bought for their cemetery had never been filled up because the life of their community had ceased in 1941.
The oldest graves were at the rear of the cemetery backing onto Varonu. Dov counted fourteen plots in the front line. He bent and began gently brushing the snow away from the base up, on the first gravestone in the first line. He knelt and his trousers got soaked, and as he worked with the scraper, his leather gloved hands became damp things. His nose and cheeks were numbed, but he ignored that.
He couldn’t read the inscription, it was in Cyrillic, but the date read 1941. The next forced him onto all fours, it was low on the ground. Its letters were in Hebrew and were for a man named Kyril Sohn, who’d been nineteen and had died in 1940. Those next in line reflected changing styles of headstones: Two pages of an open thick black book, a husband and wife’s names in faded white on each page; an oblong headstone with the name in Latin and Hebrew letters, three members of the Jakobson family; one dark marble chunk where the front was polished and a name in Cyrillic and the date 1976, suggesting someone who had survived the Holocaust and wanted to be buried in their home cemetery; another, heavy, tall, broken edged, told of a tragic life ending for Pesakh Kaplan in Latin and Cyrillic. One in Hebrew, Hannah Rosenbaum, gave the dates of 1928-1941 and it read, ‘Her life was so short and so cruelly ended in murder by the Nazis. We brought her home.’
Dov tried to imagine how this had played out, where the body had been found, how it had been identified, how the funeral had been arranged, how many people attended, what the locals had made of it.
Many of the stones on the front line had pebbles on the top edges, traditional symbols of family visits, and he was careful not to disturb them.
He was on the ninth stone, square, black marble, his breath in little puffs, brushing snow away from the bottom up and from left to right, looking for details. A face, etched in, appeared, a w
oman’s face against a white background, then her first name in Hebrew, Sarah and then her family name, Gulk… Dov took off his glove and used his fingers to reveal the rest, … ovitsch. The dates were 1925-1981. Then came the words ‘My Beloved Mother,’ and beneath that ‘Murdered,’ and under it ‘May the Almighty.’
There were only a few centimeters separating this from the stone next to it which was identical, the name first, Elkhanan ‘Eli’ Gulkowitsch, and his etched face, then his dates 1923-1981, and below them ‘My Beloved Father’ and ‘By Their Own’ beneath that. The sentence from his wife’s stone continued, ‘Revenge Their Blood.’ The last words under this chilling demand were, ‘Mourned by your loving daughter Sophia. I am far away but you are always in my heart.’
Dov shook his head. He stood up and stepped back and took several photos of the stones on his cell camera and downloaded them to e-mail and sent them to himself and Amos. He didn’t need them to be convinced that from the etched faces on the gravestones, Barry Hareven and Sophia resembled their parents strongly.
What he needed now was supporting documentary evidence, family data and police records. He called Ami Wolf.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Hi Dov, yes good thanks,’ Wolf’s polite tone in English suggested it wasn’t going too well, away from the phone he announced, ‘It’s Dov Chizzik at the cemetery.’
Then he said, ‘I’ve entries for the births of a Boris and a Sophia Gulkowitsch. Have you found anything, anything at all?’ He made it sound like he hoped Dov hadn’t found anything.
‘So they’re being difficult?’
‘Yes, yes, I’ll come and collect you and we’ll be on our way back to Tartu, snow provided of course,’ he laughed, for his audience. It sounded hollow.
‘Sorry Ami, but we’re looking at murder. I’m sure you’ll find a diplomatic solution for us to stay on a little longer.’
‘Excuse me for a moment please,’ Wolf said, away from his cell, followed by the sound of his feet and then, ‘Murder?’ in a whisper.