Belgium experienced the difficulties of the worldwide economic depression as so many countries throughout the world, and the queen wanted to do something about it. She genuinely cared about the plight of women, children, and the disadvantaged, writing about it in an open letter to the people titled “The Queen’s Appeal.”
Especially the young people in Belgium had found their idol in Queen Astrid. For Danya, she was extra special. Queen Astrid was more than just a queen. She had come to Belgium as a foreign princess that had married a Belgian prince ten years earlier. The queen was born a Swedish princess and Danya often wondered why the people of Belgium liked her as one of their own. Danya herself felt like a foreigner and was treated as an outcast in school. Jealousy often crept into the ridicule behind her back. Her loneliness caused her many restless nights. For sure, she was pretty with her curly dark hair and beautiful eyes. So, the queen was unique to her; how had she managed to become so adored by a foreign people? And so, she became Danya’s only friend. Someday she hoped that things would change in school and that she would be included in the circle of favorite girls.
She remembered the day her father received an urgent call from Dierk de Jong, adjutant to King Leopold. “I am contacting you as a global diamond trader. I wonder if you could be of help to the royal family. The king wants to surprise the queen with a beautiful diamond necklace for their anniversary.” Kadir was the right man to contact for such an order. He had the exclusive distributorship in Belgium with the world-famous diamond firm De Beers in South Africa.
Kadir immediately arranged for a dinner meeting at Restaurant Rubens in Brasschaat. He had invited the king’s adjutant and requested that he bring along a rendering of the necklace, embodying the wishes of the king. When Kadir mentioned how much Danya adored the queen, the adjutant insisted that she come along. In the back of the restaurant was a room reserved for private meetings.
Once they settled in, Kadir was eager to show the selection of diamonds from the vault at his firm. He retrieved an ornate leather pouch from his inner pocket and let the diamonds roll slowly from the pouch on the black velvet cloth, spread out under the bright light over the table. Large and small diamonds sparkled as they reflected the brilliance in each facet. Mixed in was a deep blue sapphire. For Kadir, this was like a ritual he had carried out so many times before, with the aplomb of an international diamond trader. de Jong was impressed with the display of glitter and glimmer. For young Danya, seeing her father at work as a global diamond broker was a first. Her eyes reflected the sparkle of the jewels displayed on the table.
“Can I take a closer look at the sapphire?” she asked, tilting her head and smiling. “May I pick it up and look at it more closely?” Her father nodded and placed the precious stone in her palm. She felt like a grown-up, no longer the child of yesterday. This particular moment in the relationship between father and daughter did not pass without notice by the adjutant. The jewel she held was destined to become the centerpiece of the queen’s necklace. de Jong gave his stamp of approval on the plan for the necklace design.
“The king will be pleased with the jewelry you are creating for the queen. Just imagine how the sparkle in the sapphire will match the beauty of the azure color in the eyes of the Swedish-born princess.” Danya could not take her eyes from the brilliance of the sapphire she had held in her hand minutes earlier. She must hold on to this experience forever; none of her schoolmates had such a memorable moment to relish for the rest of their lives. In this way, she could claim her own connection with the queen.
In August 1935, the king and queen left incognito on holiday for a trip to Switzerland. At the end of the day, they went for a ride in the mountains before returning for the night. While the king drove their Packard One-Twenty convertible, the queen looked at the map of Lucerne, where they were staying. She told the king to take a left turn in the road, destination Kussnacht am Rigi. The car swung around an unexpected large boulder that had fallen on the roadway. The king lost control as the vehicle careened off the road and down a steep embankment, where it slammed into a tree. During the fall, the queen opened the door to try to escape, but the impact ejected her with force. Her body collided with the trunk of a huge pine tree. The car rolled down the steep hill to plunge into the lake below. Despite his injury, the king managed to rush down to the queen, but it was too late. She had died instantly on impact. He knelt next to her, holding the lifeless body in his arms. The queen, pregnant with her fourth child, died from her injuries in Kussnacht.
Kadir saw his little girl happily hopping down the staircase, as she did every morning. Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks and looked at her father, seeing a tear trickling down his cheek. She had never seen him like this before. He was always the influential figure in her life, not quickly giving in to emotion.
“What’s wrong?” she asked with widened eyes. Arms outstretched he approached her. He wanted to hug her, but she gently pushed back. She looked into his eyes and asked in a worried tone of voice: “What happened, Father? Tell me.” Thoughts of bad happenings started to uncontrollably spiral through her young mind. Without speaking, he took her hand and gently guided her to the kitchen table with the newspaper spread out. When she read the headline, embossed with the heavy black border, she understood immediately why her father was so distraught. He lifted the paper from the table, where it fell limp, damp from the rain. He tried to stretch out the newspaper, but it tore in half. The headline jumped off the page like a thunderbolt. There was no doubt about the graveness of the tragedy. Danya only saw the headline. She turned away from the kitchen table, covering her face with both hands.
“Why is she gone? Where did it happen?” she stammered, sobbing. It felt like a boulder had crushed her. In a flash, she turned around, heading for the stairs; she wanted to flee the scene of the accident. “I will never see her smiling face again!” she screamed angrily at the top of her lungs. She rushed upstairs to the solitude of her room. Lying in bed, looking through the window, Danya stayed awake with the memories of Astrid’s sapphire spiraling through her mind. She wished desperately that it could be different. All she wanted was to be alone in her room with her grief and anger. It was raining outside. If the sun had been shining, she would have been mad. She jumped up from her bed, and angrily stomped to her dresser where she kept a picture of the queen. With both hands, she firmly grabbed the frame with the photo of the queen. She raised it to smash it on the floor. Before doing so, she took a final look, to bid her goodbye. With her eyes glazed over, she spoke to her queen for the last time with a simple word, “Goodbye.” Why keep this picture? I will never see her smiling face again.
At that moment, her mother entered the room. Danya felt ashamed about what she was planning to do. Her mother hurried over and took the picture from her. When her mother looked at Danya, she saw anger she had never seen before. Danya had hoped that her parents would never see her like this. Her mother placed the picture frame back on the dresser.
“Just tell me it is not true. I do not want to hear anything else,” Danya pleaded. Her mother seated herself on her bed. Deeply concerned with Danya’s reaction to the sad news, she tried to embrace her, stroking her hair as if she were still a little girl.
“Everything is going to be okay,” her mother soothed. However, Danya did not hear her words; nothing eased her sorrow. At last, she dried her tears and found a few words to explain her grief.
“It is so difficult to tell you how I feel. The queen was my world, my idol.” Looking away from her mother, Danya started to talk about her schoolmates. “I am looked at as different,” she said in a low voice. “When I am alone I cry a lot.” She explained the connection she had felt with the queen.
“I loved the queen because she was my only hope that things might change at school,” Danya shared. Fatima felt the bitter hurt her daughter had been enduring since the queen had died; she wondered if they should not have hidden their Circassian heritage.
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br /> Fatima mentioned the funeral service in Brussels. However, Danya was too absorbed in the tragedy of the accident to listen to her mother. Royalty and dignitaries from Europe and around the world attended the funeral service at Sainte Gudule Cathedral in Brussels. Kadir, Fatima, and Danya sat in reserved seats behind the rows of dignitaries. The choir performed the famous “Missa Rosa” composed of four voices. At the end of the mass, eight men carried the flag-covered coffin to the hearse as the choir sang “In Paradiso.” It was a fitting tribute to a queen adored by all. The hearse, drawn by six Brabant horses, carried the coffin through the streets. The Flemish and Walloon people, often at odds over politics, stood shoulder to shoulder in unison. In silence, heartbroken, six deep, they tried to catch a glimpse of the funeral procession as they wiped away their sorrow.
The Mandraskit family left Brussels in their Minerva automobile, returning to their home near Antwerp. Danya sat in the backseat, and her mother glanced back at her from time to time to see how she was doing. Nobody spoke. Danya watched the raindrops trickling down the window.
Back home and exhausted, Danya could not fall asleep. She searched for something to take her mind off the sadness of the day. Her eye fell on the wooden box holding the bottle of fragrance from her mother. She heard the voice of Satanaya whispering not to open the box and smell the distinctive fragrance. Would she open the bottle of enchantment tonight, in defiance of her mother? Danya held the bottle, careful not to drop it. She put it back in the box and placed it on the dresser in the corner of her room. She was proud that she had found the courage to resist the temptation.
She desperately needed somebody to share her worries in a trusted way, like a brother. Sadly, the only family she had were her parents, who wanted her to be a real Circassian girl. Yet, she felt she must break away from the traditions and customs of Circassian life. Walking over to the poem hanging in a frame on the wall, she read the words her father had written for her sixteenth birthday. She heard her father’s voice speaking to her as if he were there:
“I did not realize
How fast that time would fly by
I turned around to touch you
And heard you say goodbye
Our days of parent and child had come to an end …”
Had the time fallen upon her already when she must face the reality of moving away from her family? She fell into a restless sleep, trying to come to grips with being separated from her parents.
Later that day, she tried to organize her thoughts on how to make the best of her lost world. She was still a Circassian girl, but she realized she must be strong and show she was more than just a little girl. She would be a real daughter of the Mandraskit family. That she carried in her DNA the gene for the courage she now needs, she could not know. She thought about it for a while and returned her mind to the image of the Circassian queen. It was like a flashback to her meeting with Satanaya in her father’s studio. Had she not promised to stand by her in difficult times? She needed a source of courage and found it in her.
She reached for her book with drawings and looked for the sketch of Queen Astrid she had drawn months ago. Walking to the window and opening the curtain slightly, she saw the full moon shining into her room like a crack in the window to her future, bringing a ray of hope that she would find the courage to overcome the hurt she had endured for so long.
An absurd idea flashed through her young fertile mind. She should create a statuette of Queen Astrid to keep with her forever.
Fatima and Kadir were unsure how to bring Danya out of her state of dejection. Fatima had seen Danya’s drawings in her bedroom but had not told Kadir.
“Last night, when I was with her, she surprised me. She showed me her drawing of Queen Astrid. I was astounded at the fine artwork she created. You should have seen the incredible resemblance to the picture in the newspaper. She even included the beautiful necklace and sapphire. You know how she talks about it all the time. Do you know what she told me? I am going to make a statuette of the queen.”
“I am confident she will grow up as a Circassian girl,” Kadir said, as his eyes misted over. Fatima told him that she had already contacted her sister, Althea, an instructor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Mill, Holland. She’d spoken to her about Danya’s interest in sculpting. Her parents agreed that Danya should move in with her aunt in Mill and enroll in the Academy. Her mother broke the news that evening.
“I talked to Aunt Althea, and if you like the idea, you can stay with her to get your degree at the Academy in Mill.” Danya was shocked and thought of the poem foretelling her separation from her parents. Now she understood the meaning of the last verses of the poem.
Rumors about the loss of the beautiful necklace circulated widely, particularly among the young girls. Weeks later, on the second page of the newspaper, Kadir saw a picture of the pendant dangling from a branch in a pine tree near the lake where the accident had happened. When he recognized the necklace, it impaled him like a dagger of sorrow, further tearing open the wounds caused by the tragedy. When Danya saw the picture, she felt a ray of hope. The necklace had not been lost in the lake as was first believed. When she returned to her room that morning, sunlight lit up Queen Astrid’s picture on her dresser. For the first time in a long time, Danya felt happy; her pouty little mouth stretched into a charming smile.
At the royal palace, starting his work as a spy for the Adyghe Intelligence Organization, he needed to find a way to work with de Jong. He was not exactly comfortable with this game changer, creating credibility as an intelligence officer, but he had a plan. He was going to present himself as part of a secret European Intelligence Organization in defense of the German threats of war. This way, he gave himself a chance to gain the confidence of the Belgian military. He was confident that by mentioning the Intelligence Service in Holland he would garner the trust of de Jong.
Kadir lifted the phone and wasted no time initiating a discussion about his role as an intelligence agent. “I have become the Charge d’Affairs for the European Intelligence Organization in Belgium. We are starting a Western European Defense Program against Germany’s aggression. In Holland, the military has already installed its intelligence network. Yesterday, I spoke with my counterpart in Holland, van Lansfoort, who works closely with Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. He briefed me on the news that Goering, Germany’s Minister of the Air Force, is concentrating aircraft, especially heavy bombers, near the border of Belgium.” Until then, de Jong had remained silent, but when Kadir mentioned the aircraft concentrations near the Belgian border, he became agitated.
“The King raised his concern about this danger to Colonel de Greef, Head of the Belgian Intelligence,” he said. “I will set up a meeting with de Greef as soon as possible. King Leopold is in close contact with Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, and he would not object to a collaborative effort between the countries.”
Kadir was proud of his progress, establishing his role as an intelligence officer. However, he had to make sure his work with Adygha Intelligence remained top secret. Following his telephone contact with the Belgian authority, he contacted Voroshilov in Sochi to deliver his first report of success and receive further orders.
Chapter 6
The Death Mask
Today was no different than any other day. Manus walked around with a frown on his face. He could not wrap his mind around a career in sculpting. Then, suddenly, an unexpected opportunity arose, despite the fact that creating “death masks” was the last thing on his mind.
With just three days before Mrs. Moller’s funeral service, Manus had to find a handbook showing how to make death masks. The only place in town to see such a guide would be in the library. The problem was that a couple weeks prior, he had returned two long overdue books for which he had no money to pay the fine. He decided to secretly leave the books without paying the fine. She had yelled at him as he fled on his bicycle. The incident had le
ft a sour aftertaste with the old woman. She was a disciplinarian. Someday she would get him for it, and that day came soon enough.
Manus had no choice; he returned to the library. Upon entering, he walked up to the reference desk, where the same old woman with a wrinkled face and owl-like eyes peered through her thick glasses. At first, she stared at Manus, then shook her finger at him.
“I believe we have met before. You still owe money from the last time you were here.” Manus pretended he did not hear her and asked where to find information about making death masks. Still angry, she leaned forward and gave him a stern look. She thought that Manus was playing some ghoulish joke. “What is going on?” she asked with a frown. “You are the third person today inquiring about this subject.”
Manus had no clue why anyone else would be asking about death masks. He noticed the gruff librarian’s glasses had slid down to the tip of her nose as they fogged up. Perhaps reading his feelings, she squinted over her glasses. Manus had walked away before she could give him a response.
“Go to the letter ‘D’ on the shelves and look under death masks!” she shouted at his back. She mumbled: “Move on, you oddball, with your long hair and bushy sideburns. I hope this is the last time you show up here. You give me the creeps.” She had an inkling that the other youngsters from the Academy of Fine Arts, who had visited before Manus, were playing a game with her.
Manus found a booklet with a detailed description of the subject, titled, The Art of Making Face Masks. On the cover, he noticed the face mask of Henry III, reportedly the oldest mask displayed in the state museum in Amsterdam. He began reading: “A death mask is a plaster cast of a mold taken directly from the face of a dead individual.” He cringed at the idea and hesitated to continue. Somehow, the more he read, the more captivated he became with the subject. He learned that the mask serves as a memento of the living and commands high reverence; the face is symbolic and perpetuates the final impression of the human spirit. Manus found himself captivated by the mystery of the mask, standing between two phases of man’s very existence: life and death. He found it a noble undertaking that he wanted to explore.
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