Please don’t let it be too late, he thought.
The child must have broken free, because the hallway was filled with the rapid patter of tiny feet.
“I’ll murder you!” screamed a female voice quivering with rage.
Anatol sped up.
“You’re dead meat!”
Then the child ran out in front of Anatol, and they almost collided. Anatol managed to dive out of the way, narrowly missing the curly-haired boy. The kid looked about two years old, and he wasn’t upset at all. He waved at Anatol and ran off, wobbling on his fat little legs.
A slender woman with long, straight black hair appeared. She had a murderous look in her eyes, and was holding a colored hat with a pompom.
“Come back here, you little brat!” she roared. Only then did she notice Anatol lying on the floor, panting and clutching the lamp he’d ripped from the wall.
Suddenly Lisa appeared, carrying the giggling child.
6
Serhiy ordered a four-shot espresso, as if trying to prove he was a tough guy who did everything to excess. Enough vodka to induce a coma. Enough coffee to prompt a heart attack.
He drank it in one shot.
“This is for you. The information you requested,” he said, pushing a sealed envelope toward Zofia. She nodded and put the envelope in her purse, without responding to Karol’s inquiring gaze.
“Look at this,” said Serhiy, placing in front of them a reproduction of an old black-and-white photograph, enlarged to an eight by ten.
The picture was undoubtedly taken before the war, probably in the 1930s. It showed three men, posing for the camera, looking very proud of themselves, either after climbing the mountain summit or after a successful descent; it was hard to tell, because the background was overexposed, perhaps because the sky was bright, or the sunlight was bouncing off the snow. The tallest and handsomest of the three stood in the middle with his head uncovered and his round sunglasses resting on his forehead, holding a pair of skis that must have been eight feet long. The men to either side of him were smaller, with classic Slavonic potato faces; one distinguished by a long nose, the other by a bald patch, surprising at such a young age. They all wore thick jackets on top of turtlenecks and pants with creases.
“I know that guy from somewhere,” said Karol, pointing at the man with the long nose.
“I should think so,” replied Zofia. “After all, you’re named after him, if the family legend is true.”
“Seriously? That’s Karol Estreicher? In all the photographs I’ve ever seen of him, he was an old guy in a suit. Here he must have been . . . what? Late twenties?”
Zofia caught Serhiy’s look and explained.
“Estreicher was a Polish historian who was in London during the war. He devoted all his time and energy to cataloguing Poland’s cultural losses, and after the war to recovering those losses. He was a very hard worker; when the Americans landed in Europe, Major Estreicher greeted them with a list of losses and said, ‘These items are out there somewhere, when you win, we want them back.’ Seriously, when other nations were only just starting to wonder how to count their losses and what to do, this man had a printed catalogue listing them all. He kept an eye on the Americans, searched for our treasures in the mines and other German hiding places, and never overlooked the slightest detail. There’s a famous photo of him, aged forty, in a British major’s uniform, holding up the Lady with an Ermine while standing in front of the train the Americans used to send the first tranche of recovered works of art back to Poland. Twenty-seven railcars.”
Karol stared at the photograph as if hypnotized, moving it back and forth and squinting, as if trying to see some hidden element.
“Dammit, the bald guy seems familiar too. I don’t know if—”
“The one in the middle interests us,” Zofia interrupted him. “Right, Serhiy?”
“What you can see in this photograph”—he pronounced it “foto-gruff ”—“is Christmas in Zakopane, the year of our Lord 1931. The Carpathian Ski Club outing, all the way from Lwów, as this city was then called. The handsome, smiling man in the middle is indeed the person you’re looking for, Dr. Henryk Aszkenazy.”
Henryk Aszkenazy, a spectral figure—most of the historians questioned his existence, because the few feeble leads found in the source material formed the picture of a legendary hero, rather than a man of flesh and blood.
In Sweden Zofia had told them everything about him that she could dredge from memory.
Apparently he was an orphan, raised in a Jewish children’s home. But was he a Jew? Nobody knew.
Apparently at a very early age he made a great fortune. This was soon after Poland had regained independence in 1918. According to one source, he made his money in commerce with the Russians. According to another, it was with the Germans. Another source claimed that he’d been the young lover and protégé of a great aristocratic lady, who had bequeathed him her fortune.
Either way, at some point a man had appeared on the prewar European scene as Dr. Aszkenazy. Or Aschkenazi. Or Ashkenazy. A man of the world. A financier. An art lover. Times on the continent were strange; statesmen appeared out of nowhere, financiers, rich men, businessmen dealing in lingerie one day, warships the next. The smartest of them knew that in uncertain times it’s better not to stick your neck out, not to be aloof, not to take part in political arguments, and not to flaunt property, just make money. And that’s what Aszkenazy must have done. He was certainly rich, and his grand townhouse in the heart of Warsaw was just a complement to his grand manor houses in Ukraine, Italy, and France. Supposedly he kept his art collection in one of them. But where? And what was in it?
Zofia had been interested in him a few years ago when the mysterious doctor’s name came up at one of the auctions in connection with the provenance of a painting. She’d tried to find out more through a journalist friend, but instead of casting light on the man, his research had only added to the mystery. From the limited number of documents that had survived the war, it emerged that before the war Dr. Henryk Aszkenazy had sat on the boards of thirty major Polish companies, and as befitted an éminence grise, never in the chairman’s seat—usually as deputy chairman or just a regular board member. What’s more, he’d been a big deal in Germany. Their documents were in better shape, and she’d found out that Aszkenazy had been employed by an infamous company called IG Farben, which had produced gunpowder and gas for the concentration camps during the war, willingly exploiting slave labor. Curiously, Henryk Aszkenazy—regarded in Poland as a Jewish aristocrat—was on the list of board members of IG Farben until 1938.
And yet nobody knew anything about him—what he looked like, when he was born, what he did, where he went, what happened to him during the occupation, or whether he survived the Holocaust. Nothing but question marks.
Now there is one question mark fewer, thought Zofia as she looked at the face in the photograph. It was surprisingly young; for some reason she’d always imagined Aszkenazy as a venerable old man in a three-piece suit. Meanwhile, the man in the picture was about thirty, with the gleeful look of an eternal schoolboy, not at all a financial shark.
“You found more than this, right?” Zofia asked Serhiy. “We need information. Residences, mansions, country houses, farms, places where he could have kept something or hidden something away.”
Serhiy smiled and took out another photograph, taken by a professional on the market square there in Lviv, in the days before the war when it was still the Polish city of Lwów. It was of the same man, at a similar age, this time in a suit, as handsome as ever, but this time he paled in comparison to his female companion. Dressed in a fitted skirt, jacket, and hat, she had her arms folded across her chest and was staring defiantly into the lens. She was beautiful, with the outgoing, uncompromising attraction of the young Elizabeth Taylor. Even in this old, official photograph, she was oozing sex appeal.
“So who’s the foxy lady?” asked Karol, tapping a finger on the girl’s low-cut neckline.
“That’s Olga Bortnik,” replied a woman’s voice behind them. “Not bad, huh?”
They all turned around to see a woman of about sixty. She looked like a retired schoolteacher, wearing a woman’s brown suit powdered with fresh snow, thick stockings, and low-heeled leather boots. Minimum elegance, maximum practicality. She looked ordinary, tired, with bags under her eyes. Zofia felt she was probably typical of her generation. Born in the mid-1950s, where her childhood and the best years of her adult life had coincided with the gray, hopeless Soviet era. Zofia glanced at her hands. No wedding ring.
“I’m sorry, who’s this?” asked Zofia.
“I’m their granddaughter,” she replied, pointing at Aszkenazy and his lady friend.
Karol and Zofia exchanged amazed glances.
“Incredible,” said Zofia. “Is there a chance you’d tell us about your grandmother? And her husband? Fiancé?”
For quite a time the woman looked at them without speaking.
“You can ask her yourself,” she finally said.
“Sorry?”
“I can’t put it any clearer,” said the woman, a note of irritation in her voice, and Zofia had the unpleasant feeling that she was looking at herself thirty years from now.
“So your grandmother is still alive?” said Karol.
“She is. You can come meet her if you wish.”
“Today?” asked Zofia, eager not to delay.
“Tomorrow. Today Granny and I are watching movies.”
Her tone suggested they wouldn’t be watching comedies.
“It’s great she likes the movies at her age,” said Karol to break the silence. “A classic perhaps, the days of her youth, maybe Gone with the Wind? Or Casablanca?”
The sixty-year-old granddaughter sighed.
“The days of her youth . . . more like Metropolis—by the time Casablanca came out she was middle-aged. But today we’re watching Lord of the Rings. Granny likes to reminisce in front of The Hobbit . . . she likes fantasy.”
7
They were invited into the enormous hotel restaurant, where they sat at a table by the wall, transformed into a provisional buffet, with several packets of tea, instant coffee, milk, an electric kettle, and several books. Wendy, the woman they’d met in the hallway, poured tea for everyone and added milk.
“Oh dear, sorry, I’m not used to guests. I can make it again.”
Of course they said no, no need to make it again; they loved tea with milk.
Wendy was British, the mother of two-year-old Charlie and wife of Croatian writer Željko Violić. Slender, ethereal, and moderately attractive, she looked permanently absorbed in her thoughts and slightly divorced from reality. Which could have been her usual character, or the result of having spent two months stuck in a ghost hotel on an island in the Adriatic with a rather . . . special little boy and a mysterious husband, whom she repeatedly said was working and shouldn’t be disturbed under any circumstances.
At first Anatol wondered why Wendy didn’t take them to her apartment, where it must be cozier than in the big, empty rooms designed to serve hundreds of guests. In the restaurant he understood—here Wendy had organized a corner for herself, and transformed the rest of it into a large enclosed playpen for Charlie, made of tables turned on their sides.
Wendy explained that ever since she’d built the prison yard (she really did use that term), her life had been much easier. Before, she’d had a choice of either being cooped up with Charlie in the small apartment, which was driving them both nuts, or chasing him through the hallways.
“He’s a cunning little brat,” she whispered, as if Charlie, busy playing with blocks, could hear her. “Once I caught him hiding behind a potted plant—he’d sat down and stayed there without moving for half an hour so I wouldn’t find him. Can you imagine? Half an hour! What sort of child is capable of that? Later he crept out, went across the hotel to the kitchen, found a package in the fridge, opened it, and took out a piece of raw meat.”
“And did he eat it?” asked Anatol.
“Don’t be silly, he’s a child, not a zombie,” said Wendy, looking offended. “He threw it on the floor, then started throwing everything else out.”
“Ba, ba?” they heard beside them. Anatol and Lisa cringed.
“Yes, Charlie, Mummy’s telling them what a sweetie pie you are. Go and play with your animals. Where’s your elephant? Where’s the troo-too-too? Where is he?”
Charlie gazed at them for a while with the eyes of a world-weary adult, then spread his little hands, cried “Wheredego, wheredego,” and ran off to look for his elephant.
They told Wendy about Count Milewski, his adventures, his mansion, and the collection of Polish paintings, though, just in case, they left out the French Impressionists. Wendy listened with fascination, occasionally commenting with some oohs and ahs. Unfortunately, when they said they were looking for traces of the Count’s presence, she shrugged. She wasn’t aware of any attics, cellars, or archives of old documents. No pictures either. The walls in the rooms and halls were decorated with picture-postcard photographs of Croatia, and somewhere she’d seen some charcoal drawings, too. But definitely no paintings.
“You’ll have to talk to my husband,” she said. “I have to mind the little imp, but when Željko gets writer’s block, he walks around the halls—he’s probably been in every corner of this place, even in the empty pool. If there’s anything here, he’s seen it. Besides, I’m still rather bad at speaking Croatian, but he can call the owners. Maybe they know something.”
“So could we talk to your husband?” asked Lisa.
“He’s working now.” Wendy avoided eye contact, and Anatol felt uneasy.
“Will he have a break at some point? We won’t take up much of his time. Please understand, we’ve come a really long way, and if we could just—”
“Charlie!”
She leaped up and sprinted across the dining hall. The child had managed to move one of the tables aside and break free.
A little later she came back, holding the wriggling toddler, who was desperately screaming his head off because once again his plans for world domination had been foiled.
“I have a suggestion,” she said. “Željko works in the other building and has a daily break from nine until noon. That’s when I take him his food for the day. Why don’t you stay the night? We have about three hundred guest rooms here, so there’s plenty of space. The kitchen is well stocked; I’m afraid the bar is closed, but I do have a rainy-day bottle of scotch. In the meantime you can explore the rest of the island. What do you say?”
They agreed, even though this reminded them far too much of all the horror movies they’d ever seen.
“On one condition,” said Wendy, in a tone that even made Charlie stop wriggling. “That you won’t go into the old house on the hill or anywhere near it. Promise?”
They promised, though it crossed both of their minds that it might be better to go back to Rovinj for supper and to stay the night.
But they relented and stayed put.
8
She was on a real downer. At supper she ordered another slice of Sacher torte. She thought it would improve her mood, but it didn’t. As she stabbed at the cake with her fork, she couldn’t stop thinking how terribly old, lonely, and useless she felt. The long, old-fashioned dining room at the Hotel Vienna was deserted, except for her and a bored waitress behind the bar. The only thing to look forward to on Christmas Eve was going to see a hundred-year-old woman. In a foreign country, in a foreign city, in the company of that rat, who should have been the love of her life and whose presence only intensified her painful awareness of everything she’d lost or failed to achieve.
They hadn’t finished their conversation yesterday. Karol had gone to see friends, and she had stayed behind, excusing herself with a headache. She didn’t know why. Maybe she was just terrified that they might actually finish that all-important conversation.
It was Christmas. She couldn’t even call her
parents, but in fact she didn’t have the strength to face up to them. Especially since their complaints about her were justified—she was just as hopeless a daughter as she was a girlfriend. She’d probably be a lousy mother too.
The people she liked best were mute figures on old canvases, always willing to express their silent approval from under the varnish. Just the sort of friends she needed.
She reached for the envelope Serhiy had given her and took out a sheet of paper. It was a photocopy of a page from the Polish Daily dated May 1946. She knew the article well from the family archives. She read the text, though she knew it by heart. Should she share this with Karol? She hadn’t admitted to him that she’d insisted Lisa and Anatol go to Croatia to be rid of them. She didn’t trust the Swede or the major, and by now she had come to fear them both.
Now she had to decide whether or not to trust Karol.
9
Lisa and Anatol went for a walk, found the “house on the hill,” and realized that this must have been the Count’s actual residence. They had made a careful tour of the hotel and were sure no part of it could have been built before the 1970s. They’d searched storerooms, filing cabinets, and offices, but found absolutely nothing.
Inspecting the surrounding area hadn’t brought any revelations either. Part of the park looked like an old formal garden; in one spot they’d found a small grotto, and in another a few mysterious gravestones. They skirted the old house hidden among the trees, and although they were itching to ignore Wendy’s instructions and go inside, they refrained.
Instead they spent the rest of the night chasing each other down the hotel hallways in the nude and having sex in various bizarre locations—the weirdest was the huge chrome prep counter in the hotel kitchen. Every move made the whole thing vibrate, so what had started as a slight jingling of brass pots and pans hanging from the ventilation hood changed as they climaxed into an entire kitchen symphony of frenzied rattling and clanging.
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