by Paul Sussman
'A terrible thing,' she sighed. 'Terrible thing. Murdered, you know. By Arabs. In the pyramids. In cold blood. Terrible.'
She clasped her hands together, the swollen protuberant knuckles giving them the look of some barky deformity on the side of a tree.
'Quiet lady. Kept herself to herself. Always said good morning, though. She had a . . .' She unlocked her hands and made a tapping motion on the inside of her left forearm. 'You know . . . the numbers. Auschwitz.'
The budgerigar broke into a sudden brief chorus of song, then fell silent and started pecking at its claws, head bobbing up and down like an angler's float on choppy water. Ben-Roi took another sip of his orange juice.
'The Egyptian police are reinvestigating the case,' he explained. 'They want us to get a few personal details about Mrs Schlegel. Job, family, that sort of thing. Just the basics.'
The old woman raised her thin, pale eyebrows and resumed her knitting, the needles working slower than before, the woollen circle of the yarmulke imperceptibly spreading beneath her fingertips like some strange blooming algae.
'I didn't know her well,' she said. 'It wasn't like we were friends. Just said hello occasionally. She liked to keep herself to herself. Most of the time you'd hardly have known she was there. Not like that Mrs Goldstein. You always knew she was there. The noises you used to hear! Oy vey!'
She wrinkled her face in disgust. Ben-Roi patted his pockets, trying to find a pen, realizing after a moment that he'd forgotten to bring one. There was a biro sitting in a glass vase on the dresser, but he didn't like to ask for it, worried it might make him look unprofessional. Fuck it, he thought, I'll just scribble some notes when I get back to the station.
'She was already here when we arrived,' the old woman was saying. 'That was 1969. We came up from Tel Aviv, me and Teddy. August 1969. He'd always wanted to live here. Me, I wasn't so sure. When I first saw the place I thought klog iz mir! What are we doing in a dump like this? Rubble everywhere from the Arabs, half the buildings fallen down. Now, of course, I wouldn't live anywhere else. That's him, over there.' She raised her needles, indicating a photo on the middle shelf of the dresser – a short, plump man wearing a trilby and a tallit, standing in front of the Western Wall. 'Forty years we were married. Not like today's kids. Forty years. How I miss him!'
She raised a wrist and dabbed at her eyes. Ben-Roi stared at the floor, embarrassed.
'Anyway, she was already here then. When we arrived. Moved in right after the liberation, apparently.'
Ben-Roi shifted in his chair.
'Before that?'
The old woman shrugged, squinting down at her knitting. 'I seem to remember her mentioning she lived up by Mea Sharim, but I can't be sure. She was from France originally. Before the war. She used to use French words, you know, talking to herself, when she came down the stairs.'
'And you say she was in Auschwitz.'
'Well, that's what old Dr Tauber told me. You know, Dr Tauber, from number sixteen.'
Ben-Roi didn't know at all, but said nothing.
'I saw her tattoo a couple of times, so I knew she'd been in the camps. She never mentioned it herself. Very private. But then one day I was talking to Dr Tauber – lovely man, passed away, what, four, five years ago, God rest his soul – and he said "You know that lady who lives above you, Mrs Schlegel," and I said "Yes", and he said, "Guess what?" – he was like that, you know, good at telling a story, building it up – "Guess what?" he said. "We came over together on the same boat. In 1946. From Europe." The British tried to turn them back at Haifa, apparently, but they jumped into the sea and swam ashore. Over a mile it was. At night. And then twenty years later they end up living in the same street! What a coincidence!'
There was an echo of thudding feet from the flat above, as if someone was running around. The old woman looked up at the ceiling.
'And this Dr Tauber told you she was in Auschwitz?'
'Hmm?'
'Hannah Schlegel.'
For a moment she looked confused, then realized what he was talking about.
'Oh, yes, yes. He said they got talking on the boat. I told you they came over on the same boat, didn't I? Two weeks they were on it. Six hundred of them. Squashed in like sardines. Can you imagine? To survive the camps and then have to go through that! She was pretty, he said. Very young and very pretty. Tough. Hardened. The brother didn't say a word for the whole journey, apparently. Just sat there staring at the sea. Traumatized.'
Ben-Roi didn't recall the Egyptian detective mentioning any brother. He chewed his lip for a moment, then, pushing his pride to one side, stood up, crossed to the dresser and took the pen from the vase, raising his eyebrows at Mrs Weinberg as if to say 'Do you mind?' She was lost in her own thoughts and didn't even seem to notice that he'd moved from his chair.
'Poor things,' she was saying. 'Couldn't have been much more than fifteen or sixteen. To have been put through something like that. What is this world, I ask you? What is this world that things like that should happen to a child? To anyone?'
Ben-Roi crossed back to his chair and sat down again, scribbling the biro on his palm to get the ink moving.
'Is he still alive?' he asked. 'The brother?'
The old woman shrugged. 'According to Dr Tauber he was . . . you know. . .' She lifted a hand and tapped the side of her head, the gesture conveying disturbance, madness. 'And what do you expect? Cut open like that, injected, like some sort of animal.'
Ben-Roi looked up, his palm covered with a scrawled cross-hatch of biro-lines.
'How do you mean?'
'Well, they were twins, weren't they? Didn't I tell you? I'm sure I did. Mrs Schlegel and her brother. And you know what they did to twins in the camps. The experiments. You must have heard.'
Ben-Roi's throat tightened. He had indeed heard: how Nazi doctors had used twins as human guinea pigs, subjected them to the most vile and excruciating genetic experiments, cutting them up, sterilizing them, stripping pieces out of them. Butchery.
'Dear God,' he managed to mumble.
'Is it any wonder the poor boy was a bit . . .' Again she tapped the side of her head. 'Not the girl though. She was tough. Strong. That's what Dr Tauber said. Thin as a matchstick, but strong as iron inside. Looked after her brother. Cared for him. Wouldn't let him out of her sight.'
She looked across at Ben-Roi.
'Do you know what she said? When they were all on the boat. "I'm going to find them." That's what Dr Tauber told me. She didn't cry, didn't complain. Just said, "If it takes me the rest of my life I'm going to find the people who did this to us. And when I find them I'm going to kill them." Sixteen years old, for God's sake. No child should have to feel those things. Isaac. That was the brother's name. Isaac Schlegel.'
She ceased her knitting and, with a sigh, laid the needles and wool aside, came to her feet and hobbled over to the bird cage, tapping at its bars with the nail of her finger. The budgerigar hopped along its perch towards her, levering its wings up and down, twittering.
'Who's a pretty, then?' she cooed. 'Who's a pretty boy?'
Ben-Roi had spread the page of notepaper taut over his thigh and was scribbling notes on whatever blank space was available.
'Do you know if this brother is still alive?' he asked, repeating his question of a couple of minutes earlier.
'I couldn't tell you,' she said, running her finger along the bars of the cage, the movement making a rhythmic tang-tang-tang sound. 'I never even met him.'
'Did he live with her?'
'Oh no. He was much too ill. Last I heard he was over at Kfar Shaul. That's what Dr Tauber told me.'
Kfar Shaul was a psychiatric clinic out on the north-western periphery of the city. Ben-Roi scribbled a note to himself.
'She used to visit him every day, apparently. Never spoke about him, though. Not to me at least. I've no idea if he's still alive. None of us are getting younger, are we?'
The budgerigar had hopped up onto a swing in the corner of the cage, rocking its
elf back and forth. She whistled at it tunelessly.
'And you say they were from France originally.'
'Well, that's what she told me. It was the only time we ever had a proper chat. In twenty years. Can you believe it? She came in with a load of shopping – it must have been Pesah time because she had a bag full of matzah boxes – and we just got talking. Right out there in the hallway. Can't remember how we got on to the subject, but she definitely said she was born in France. And there was something about a farm and a ruined castle. Or am I imagining that? I really can't remember the details. I can still see those matzah boxes, though, clear as if they were here in front of me now. Funny what you remember, isn't it?'
She whistled at the budgerigar again, slipping one hand into the pocket of her housecoat.
'Did she have any other family that you know of?' asked Ben-Roi. 'Husband, children, parents?'
'Not that I ever saw.' She was fiddling in the pocket, searching for something. 'Lived all on her own, poor woman. No family, no friends. Completely alone. At least I had my Teddy, God rest his soul. Forty-four years we were together, and never once a cross word. I still wake up thinking he'll be there.'
She craned her neck to one side, peering down at the pocket, hand still groping.
'What about work?' asked Ben-Roi. 'Did Mrs Schlegel have a job?'
'I think she did something up at Yad Vashem. Filing, or something like that. She used to go out early in the morning and come back late in the afternoon with arms full of papers and files and God knows what else. She dropped some once, in the hall, and I helped her pick them up. Something about Dachau, it was, with a Yad Vashem stamp on it. God knows why she'd want to bring something like that into her house after all she'd been through. Ah!'
She withdrew her hand, some sort of seed or small nut clasped within the gnarled pincer of her thumb and index finger. She waved it about in front of the cage as if to say, 'Look what I've got!' Then, clasping her wrist with her other hand to steady her arm, she pushed the seed through the bars. The budgerigar let out an excited trill and hopped down from its swing.
Ben-Roi stared at his notes, wondering if there was anything else he should cover. He noticed the name the Egyptian detective had given him.
'Does the name Piet Jansen mean anything to you?' he asked.
The old woman thought for a moment.
'I knew a Renee Jansen once,' she said. 'Lived on the next street but one to us in Tel Aviv. Had a hip replacement, and a son in the navy.'
'This is Piet Jansen.'
'Him I didn't know.'
Ben-Roi nodded and glanced down at his watch. He asked a few more questions – Did Mrs Schlegel have any enemies that she knew of? Any unusual interests? Did any of the other neighbours know her at all? – but the woman wasn't able to provide any more information and eventually, feeling he'd done as much as could reasonably be expected, he folded his sheet of notepaper, returned the biro to its vase on the dresser and said he wouldn't need to trouble her any further. She made him finish his orange juice – 'If you don't drink you get dehydrated!' – and led him back through the flat and out into the building's entrance hall.
'You know, I can't even think where they buried her,' she said as she opened the front door. 'Twenty-one years we were neighbours and I don't even know where her grave is. If you find out, will you let me know? I'd like to say a kaddish for her on her yahrzeit. Poor woman.'
Ben-Roi muttered something noncommittal and, thanking her, stepped out into the street. He took a couple of paces, then turned again.
'One final thing. You don't know what happened to Mrs Schlegel's possessions, do you?'
The old woman looked up at him, her eyebrows lifting slightly as if she was surprised by the question.
'They were burnt, of course.'
'Burnt?'
'In the fire. You must have heard about the fire.'
Ben-Roi stared down at her.
'The day after she died. Or was it two days? Some Arab kids climbed up the drainpipe at the back, covered everything in petrol and set it on fire. Destroyed the lot. If old Mr Stern hadn't raised the alarm the whole block would have gone up.' She shook her head. 'Poor woman. To have survived the camps, and then for her life to end like that, murdered, her home destroyed. What is this world we live in, I ask you? People killed, children sent into the army. What is this world?'
She sighed deeply and, raising a hand in farewell, heaved the door shut, leaving Ben-Roi standing on the street, his craggy brow cut with deep, uncertain furrows, like plough-marks grooved across a rocky hillside.
JERUSALEM
Bloody Castelombres. The night before Layla had been euphoric about the new lead, convinced it was the breakthrough she needed to solve the William de Relincourt conundrum. After a day of scratching and digging, however, she now felt almost as confused as she had before she'd even heard of the bloody place.
She'd called Cambridge first thing, hoping to speak to Professor Magnus Topping, only to be informed by a blandly officious college porter that the professor possessed neither a phone ('The ringing disturbs him, madam') nor an email address ('Prefers his typewriter, madam').
'So how the hell do I get in touch with him?' she had asked, picturing some crusty, pipe-smoking academic closeted away in a book-filled study, wholly oblivious to the outside world.
'Well, madam,' the porter had replied – he seemed to insinuate a polite-but-patronizing 'madam' into every sentence – 'you could write to him, although between you and me he's never been very good at answering his letters. Or you could simply turn up and knock on his door, which is generally the best way of getting hold of him.'
'I'm calling from Jerusalem.'
'Ah. Well, then, that's going to be a problem, isn't it? Madam.'
With the Topping option closed to her, she had gone back to the internet. Unlike William de Relincourt, Castelombres had barely figured on the web, half a day of careful searching and cross-referencing failing to add to the six brief matches she had turned up the previous night (of which the sixth had turned out to be for a Castelombres Sanitary Porcelain company in Antwerp). Of the other five, one was the truncated genealogy that had given her the Esclarmonde de Rolincoeur connection; one a rather bad translation of a French academic article on the troubadour tradition of twelfth-century Languedoc; one a site devoted to the history of the cabbala and Jewish mysticism; one a footnote to an article about a medieval Jewish scholar called Rashi; and one a passing reference in the 'Haunted Ruins' section of a site titled 'Hidden France'.
From these she had picked up various scattered shards of information, random glimmers of some wider mystery. Not, however, the revelation for which she had been hoping. On the contrary, far from helping to clarify the whole William de Relincourt thing, the Castelombres lead had only seemed to cloud the waters further, adding new and confusing angles to a picture that already resembled some obscure and muddled Braque composition – a jumble of disparate elements all hinting at something significant without ever fully resolving themselves into a form she could recognize.
She hunched forward and stared at the notepad in front of her, wondering what to make of the whole thing, where on earth it was leading her.
Castelombres
'The Castle of Shadows'. Seat of Comptes de Castelombres. Castle destroyed Cathar Crusade 1243 – only few ruins left (ghosts!) Arriege Dept. Castelombres village 3 km away. Esclarmonde de Rolincoeur (Relincourt). 'Esclarmonde the Wise' 'White Lady of Castelombres'. Married Raymond III of Castelombres c. 1097. No extant biog. details. Renowned for intelligence, beauty, charity etc. Popular figure in troubadour tradition. Bona domna Esclarmonda, Comtessa Castelombres, Era bella e entendia Esclarmonda la blanca (Good lady Esclarmonde/Countess of Castelombres/She was beautiful and she was wise/Esclarmonde the White). Jaufre Rudel (1125–48) Occitane language. C. important centre of learning. Renowned for religious tolerance. Many Jewish scholars. Cabbala. 'Lo Privat de Castelombres' – The Secret of Castelombres. References in tro
ubadours. Esclarmonde the 'protector'. No-one certain what secret actually was.
The thing that made it so frustrating was that she knew she had made a significant leap forward. The links were too tight, the similarities too sharp, for it to be mere coincidence. In her mind there was no doubt that this Esclarmonde the White was the same Esclarmonde to whom William de Relincourt had addressed his coded letter, nor that 'C and the castle of Castelombres were one and the same. And if those pieces fitted it was a pretty fair guess that William's 'ancient thing . . . of great power and beauty' was in some way bound up with this mysterious 'Secret of Castelombres'.
Beyond that, however, she didn't seem able to progress. She had contacted a couple of experts at the Hebrew University, including the Gershom Scholem Professor of Cabbala, who added a few extra brushstrokes to the overall picture: Castelombres had not merely attracted Jewish scholars, he had informed her, but, from the mid-twelfth century, seemed to have been a specific site of Jewish pilgrimage. Why, however, and what, if anything, that had to do with William de Relincourt or the so-called 'treasure of the Cathars' remained wholly unclear. It was as though she had leapt across a chasm only to slam straight into a rock wall.