Chapter 4
Rome
Via Nazionale
Evening
MANFRED KESSEL looked around the cheap Rome hotel room with its shoddy and basic furniture. A shortage of funds made this place the only sensible option on his rare visits to Italy.
He sniffed in disgust at the sight of young Karl Bretz sitting on the end of the bed, listening to loud music on lightweight headphones. The youth was carefully cleaning the outside of a black Makarov handgun he had brought from Düsseldorf. The brash, disrespectful neo-Nazi must be twenty-two now.
The boy was always playing with a stupid knife. It had started out as Rüdi's paperknife. The word "big" described the son of his dead friend Rüdi Bretz perfectly. Young Karl was tall and overweight, and his appearance and manner seemed designed to intimidate. The shaved head was probably a deliberate attempt to shock. Even though he was nothing more than an overgrown kid, young Karl did have one point in his favor: he was popular with his group of friends in Düsseldorf. Karl and the youngsters in the ADR gang could prove useful here in Rome -- if violence was ever needed.
Kessel tried to detest young Karl, but felt captivated by things he wanted in his own life: a lack of fear, and a lack of concern for the future. Rüdi would probably have been proud of him. Rüdi had always been proud of his son, unheeding of the boy's many failings. It still hurt to recall Rüdi's death from a brain tumor.
Kessel sighed. To be here in Rome was bringing back too many memories of his childhood. Born to an Italian woman in a backstreet a few months after the liberation of Italy by the British and American forces in June 1944, he was given the name Enzo Bastiani. It had not taken him long to sense something different about his physical appearance. As he floundered into his teens he became aware of a spiritual inner difference, and the face in the mirror told him he undoubtedly belonged to a race far to the north.
At first his mother Renata merely passed off his queries about his birth, but after an increasing bombardment of questioning she had reluctantly explained about his father. Two men seemed to be contenders for the privilege -- an SS officer and a British soldier -- although his mother believed the German SS officer to be the responsible party. She had told him about it as though it were a matter of shame, as though she had something to hide.
Kessel recalled how as a boy he had constantly brooded about his unknown father, all the while drawing away from his family. He remembered his mother and his brother Bruno telling him they could stand his sullen behavior no longer, so he left home. The only clue he had to his father's existence was a creased photograph that had belonged to his mother. It showed a group of soldiers holding an effigy of a man's head, painted white. His mother had apparently snatched some of his father's papers when she learned of his sudden death in the Via Tasso.
The head was small and distant in the photograph, and the white paint made it impossible to see much in the way of detail. His father had written on the back that it was the head of Jesus Christ, that it had once been seen by Eusebius, and was probably made of bronze. He'd written that it was his property, but it had subsequently been stolen from him by a Jew who then took it to the Vatican. He had never recovered it.
Manfred Kessel remembered how by 1965, when he was twenty-one, he'd managed to convince himself he was the son of a German officer of noble birth. A Jewish mother and brother in Rome were too much for him to stomach, and he was interested in learning first hand about racial purity. So he went north to try out German living, still using the name Enzo Bastiani.
"My father was stationed here in the war. He'd have been proud of me," said Kessel suddenly.
Karl mouthed the word "What?" and pulled off his headphones. Kessel repeated the statement.
"If you say so, Herr Kessel." Karl picked up a black balaclava from the end of the bed and tried it on.
Kessel opened his wallet and removed a small photograph, the colors muted and slightly browned over the years. "Karl, this is your father," he said. "I took it eighteen years ago outside Saint Peter's. Your father Rüdi and I were in Rome to recover the relic. I still miss him."
"Yes, Herr Kessel." Karl didn't even bother to look at the photograph. He pulled on the balaclava and blew across the end of the barrel of the handgun. Then he looked at his watch.
"Take that thing off your head, Karl!" snapped Kessel.
Karl fired two imaginary shots at the cracked and stained washbasin, but he left the balaclava on.
"Karl, before the war, the Church in Germany taught that Christ was Nordic." Kessel ignored the disobedience. "Unfortunately we don't hear the teaching now. A pure religion for a pure world. We could have such a religion again."
Karl ignored this valuable insight into the past and the future. He studied his watch once more. "What time does the TV Roma program start, Herr Kessel?"
Kessel looked at his own watch. "Nine o'clock." He reached across the table. "I have a friend at TV Roma. A film editor. He's arranged this pass to get you into the building and up to the studio on the fourth floor." He handed a bright red staff pass to Karl. "Clip it to your shirt before you go in. I want you there exactly one hour before the program starts, before they let the studio audience in. This notice has to be read out live tonight." He showed Karl a sheet of paper.
"You've already told me all this," Karl complained.
"So remember everything I've said," retorted Kessel. "Don't go making a pig's ear of things once you get inside. Canon Levi was going to sell that relic to me a long time ago, but your father foolishly killed him too soon. This is your opportunity to redeem your father's name, Karl."
As he spoke about the past, a tremble of excitement ran through his body. The note was sheer genius, printed by computer on an inkjet printer using a German typeface. The youth must slip past security and into the television studio, remove the relic, and leave the note. With nothing else to show on the live broadcast, the presenter would be sure to read it out to the bewildered viewers. The wording said that the ADR had reclaimed the property of the German people. It mentioned the proposed Shrine of Unity in Germany where the pure could come to worship.
"Just think of it, Karl," Kessel said breathlessly. "The two great Saviors of the world -- Adolf Hitler and Jesus Christ. If that bronze head is the likeness of Jesus Christ, then we can put an end to false teaching of his Jewish ancestry. A pure God for a pure people. Again, the Fatherland has an opportunity to cleanse Europe. Your father's visions in the hospital are turning into reality at last."
Karl pushed the handgun into his pocket. "I don't care about religion, but everyone knows Jesus Christ was Jewish. You're crazy, Herr Kessel. My father hated you by the time he died."
Kessel jumped up angrily. "Watch what you say, Karl Bretz. I knew your father for a long time."
Karl yawned, but it was a forced yawn. "It's six-thirty and we ought to be going." He peeled off his balaclava, stretched it, then pushed it into his pocket.
"If you don't pull yourself together, I'll put you on the next train back to Germany," Kessel snapped angrily.
Karl laughed. "Don't push your luck, old man. You need me to snatch the relic."
Manfred Kessel felt his stomach go tight at the prospect of Karl screwing things up. "There can be no possibility of failure tonight, Karl."
Shout in the Dark Page 6