by Scott Blade
She stared at it, and her jaw dropped.
Mr. Kobnhavn had opened the sketchbook to a faded drawing, identical to The Secret of Lions. A black lion, drawn to perfection, just like the real one that hung in the gallery. Barbara’s pulse raced. For a long moment, she could not find her bearings. She leaned her hand up against the wall just to stop herself from getting dizzy.
Her mind flooded with questions.
“You can’t tell anyone about this, Miss Howard. The artist of these drawings is the artist who painted The Secret of Lions. I can tell you what I know about him, and then you will understand why you can’t tell anyone. You see the artist of these paintings is a war criminal. He was involved with the Nazis during the war. And if he is caught, he will be tried and possibly killed. His real name is...” He paused for a moment and studied both ends of the hall to make sure that they were alone. They had walked a good ways and were now standing beneath a high skylight in the foyer of Professor Blake’s building.
“Are you sure you want to know this? If I tell you, you must vow to keep it secret,” Mr. Kobnhavn said.
“Yes,” Barbara answered. She couldn’t resist.
“Okay, his real name is Willem Kessler. I know little of him except that he was close to Adolf Hitler. We suspect that he may be a close relative. Some of my partners even suspect that he may be Hitler’s child. In certain circles, the rumors about him are staggering.”
Barbara walked to a chair that rested near a large, crystal clear window.
“I have to sit down,” she said.
“I understand,” Kobnhavn said.
“Wow,” Barbara said. “That is quite a story. That would explain all the secrecy, why he wouldn’t want to be known. Is he dangerous? I mean…is he safe to be around?”
“I have no idea. I’m not even sure how much of the story is true. The only thing that I know is that he is here.
“My clients wield considerable power. They are also great lovers of the arts. They don’t care for this man’s past. The parties I represent are neutral in matters of the past. Hitler was a monster, and he is dead. We only want to discover the truth of this painting.
“We feel that Kessler just wants to paint and live his life. My client respects that he wishes to remain silent. However, his art is unparalleled. It should be shared with the world.
“If he has more paintings, they should be shared. It is obvious from his talents that he is a progeny of art. We just want to provide him with a safe environment to paint. We want to give him a new identity. So, will you help me?” Kobnhavn asked.
“Yes,” Barbara said. “Of course.”
Chapter Two
Heart Sketch
22
Barbara awoke with a dry mouth. Her gums felt as arid as a desert. She sat up in bed; narrow slits of moonlight protruded through the blinds. She looked across the room, letting her eyes focus on the heap on the next bed. It was Lucy, fast asleep and snoring, as usual.
Barbara’s dorm room was on the fifth floor in the corner of the building. She rose from the bed. At least they shared a corner room. Most of the other dorm rooms were much smaller. The corner rooms had the most space, including bigger closets. She yawned and stretched her arms as high as her hands would reach.
Barbara felt her stomach rumble; she had not eaten much lately. She walked out into the kitchen, opened the cupboards, and searched for food. She didn’t see anything that interested her, so she decided to settle on coffee. She looked above the stove and pulled out a coffee mug. She went to the sink and poured water into it. She took a swig. The water was warm. It soaked right into her gums.
After making coffee, she moved into a common room and sat on a couch. The lights were still off. She sat down in her nightgown and drank some of the coffee. Her mind opened to the pages of the past few weeks, and she reflected. She thought about Kobnhavn and Evan.
She thought about the amazing opportunity that Kobnhavn had presented to her.
Barbara got up and opened the window. She went back into her room and brought out a sketchbook and some pencils. She sat in a chair by the window. The moon was full and the light trickled in, illuminating the room. She loved to draw in the moonlight. She had been trying to learn to sketch in the dark as she had seen Evan do.
Barbara opened her sketchbook and flipped through the pages. She looked at the details of Evan’s face. She already had strong feelings for him. Every day, she went out of her way to find him in one of his gardens or mopping the floors or repainting the fence near the stream where she ran. She was now running every other day, staying in top physical shape. Whenever she saw him, she’d stop and chat. Their friendship had grown into a real connection.
Her mother used to tell her, “A hero perishes, and a sparrow falls. You will find your hero in time, young sparrow.” She couldn’t help but wonder if Evan was her hero. He was all she thought about, besides her mysterious artist.
She stared at her drawings of Evan as if he really sat in them, listening to his music. She wondered what he would think if he knew that she watched him when he was buffing the floors. She wondered if he was the artist. The more she got to know him, the more she suspected that he was Willem Kessler.
She asked others, but no one really knew much about him. She wondered if people even looked at him as they passed. She wondered if anyone ever acknowledged him.
How long have you gone unnoticed, Evan?
Evan reminded Barbara of the sparrow she liked to draw. He was beautiful and quiet. Somehow, she could not seem to stop drawing or thinking about him.
She flipped to an empty page in her sketchbook. She started to draw when she suddenly heard a sound out in the garden near her dorm. She looked out her window and down to the street. Evan was out there. He was walking. He kicked a bottle along the sidewalk.
What? What is he doing out there? Where is he going? She thought. She was certain that it was Evan. He carried a knapsack over his shoulder. She saw his long, blond hair.
Barbara wanted to follow him to discover where he was going so late at night. She knew that she should’ve left him alone. She also knew that it would look bad if she got caught snooping around campus at night. Yet, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She had to confront him about the painting. She was so sure that he was the artist. It had to be him.
So she hopped up and went to her closet. She pulled out a pair of loose pants. She put them on and slipped her feet into some sneakers. She grabbed a dark scarf and pulled her hair up in it. The top of her gown was still exposed, but she didn’t have time to change into a shirt. She grabbed an old coat from a chair in front of her desk. She neared the door and wrapped herself up in the coat.
Barbara walked out of the building and onto the street. She looked in both directions. She spotted Evan going toward the far north corner of the campus. She followed him.
Barbara stopped at the corner of a building and peered around it. She saw Evan standing next to a tall statue, a monument to an archaic, university alumnus. He didn’t seem to notice her and he walked out to the road.
Barbara followed him as he walked off the campus. She was close behind. She stopped and looked back at the campus, feeling slightly afraid. Then she kept following him.
They ended up in a cemetery. She started to get worried. She wondered what he was doing in a cemetery in the middle of the night.
Evan was sitting on a tombstone. He stared at another headstone across the path from him. He held a pencil in one hand and his sketchbook in the other. He was drawing.
Barbara watched him. She watched his pencil strokes. She watched him switch from pencil to pencil. When one edge lost its point he would retrieve another from his bag. Barbara wanted to get a better look, so she snuck to a spot just a few tombstones away from him.
She could see him brush some of the hair away from his face. She thought of how she was always doing that. As Evan did it, she noticed that the bottom of his hand was stained with lead markings from the pencils.
&nb
sp; She moved her eyes across his face. He stopped moving. He knew that he was not alone. Barbara sidestepped and hid behind a tall grave marker. After a brief moment, she peeked out from behind the tombstone and saw that Evan was standing. He looked alert and was holding a black, metallic object in his hand.
A gun! It’s him! Who else would carry a gun? He is Willem Kessler!
She lowered herself all the way to the ground; her back leaned up against a tombstone. She remained there for some time before she dared to move again. She was afraid of him now. Kobnhavn had hinted that he might be dangerous.
After a long time, she finally summoned the courage to stand up.
Evan was gone.
Barbara looked around the cemetery. He was nowhere in sight. She went over to look at the tombstone where he had sat. A name was engraved in it: Solomon. She wondered why Evan had been sitting on it. Then she glanced over at the tombstone across from it. It was marked:
Unknown Soldier
“U.S.,” she muttered under her breath. He was definitely the artist that she had searched for.
Her first instinct was to tell Kobnhavn, but then she thought about confronting Evan. She didn’t know what to do. She wondered what she would say if she confronted him.
Just the day before, Kobnhavn had made it known to her that his clients were growing impatient and wanted results. Her thesis deserved to be written. Her findings deserved to be known. This was her life. Her future depended on this thesis.
She needed to think about it.
Her mother would have wanted her to finish it. On the other hand, if her mother had lived, she may have liked Evan, but that wouldn't have stopped her from telling Barbara to do what was right for herself first.
Evan was the one she had been looking for. It was time to make a decision.
23
Another night passed and she wondered if Evan even wanted protection. Maybe he was perfectly happy without anyone knowing who he really was. She started to worry that she had made a tremendous mistake by telling Kobnhavn. Guilty feelings crept up on her and she lamented her impulsive move.
Kobnhavn’s promises had certainly enticed her into revealing Evan’s secret in the first place. Her greed and ambition had gotten the best of her. She had to find the courage to tell Evan. Tonight would be the night to tell him. Perhaps he would be grateful or perhaps he would resent her.
She looked across the room. Lucy was gone, but some boy was sleeping in her bed. Lucy snuck back out to meet her sorority sisters and left him sleeping in her bed.
Their dorm mother was a nice middle-aged woman. She must have been completely oblivious to the night time activities of Lucy and her sisters.
Barbara decided that drawing would make her feel better. It would relax her nerves. She got out of bed and pulled her sketchbook from underneath it. She gathered some pencils and went into the living room. It was a little hot in the dorm, so she cracked opened the window.
The night was almost completely clear and the moon was out again, not full just bright. She had continued to practice drawing in dark areas ever since she’d watched Evan do it. Tonight, the moon was so bright that it would provide just enough light for her to draw. Cold air blew in and chilled her skin. She went back into her room and pulled a blanket out with her.
She sat in the chair once more and opened her book. Her latest drawing, made after she had followed Evan to the cemetery a few nights before, was a sketch of a sparrow and a lion.
It was the best drawing that she had done in a long time. She could close her eyes and imagine it next to Evan’s in the gallery. In fact, she had sketched his painting so many times while trying to learn his style that her style of drawing had evolved to mirror his own. Evan’s style had become hers.
With a pencil tightly clenched in her hand, she began to shade in areas around the lion’s mane. She was making it a black lion.
24
Barbara had closed the window earlier after cold air filled the dorm. Her sketch was so close to being complete that she hadn’t realized that she’d drawn for two hours straight.
Barbara sighed heavily and finally looked up from her drawing.
Suddenly, she saw someone staring at her through the window. She was being watched. At first, she saw him in the corner of her eye and dismissed it as mere shadows. However, she slowly raised her head and realized it was Evan.
He sat on a scaffold outside her dorm room window. Barbara froze. She thought about screaming but then felt a strengthening sense of safety with him watching her. She trusted him. He stared at her. She felt as if he was looking through her eyes and into her thoughts. He slowly put his hand up to the window. Barbara stood and walked to the window. She touched the glass. She could feel the heat from his hand emitting through the window. He smiled at her. She smiled back and unlocked the window, letting him enter her dorm.
“Evan,” Barbara said. “What are you doing out there?”
Evan crawled into the room. He shook off the cold air and looked up into her eyes.
“I’m sorry to trespass like this, but I had to see you,” Evan said.
“What are you doing here? Watching me like this?” she asked.
“Barbara, we have both watched each other. I know that you followed me the other night,” he said. “I have to tell you something. I can’t bear to hide it from you anymore. I am the artist you’re looking for. And I think that you already knew.”
“Evan, how do you know that? How did you know that I knew?” Barbara asked.
He reached out to her and gently took her sketchbook. He flipped it open to a sketch of him.
He looked at her dark, brown eyes. They were glossy. He grabbed her tightly. They kissed, holding each other in a rapturous embrace.
“Evan, I want to go somewhere with you,” Barbara said.
Evan nodded and took her hand. They started to walk to the window.
“Wait, Evan. Let’s go out the regular way,” Barbara said. They stopped at the front door to her dorm room and she put on a pair of warm slippers. Then they snuck out of the dorm.
Barbara looked up at the moon as she held onto Evan’s hand. He took her through the courtyards and down a maze of buildings and alleys.
He took her through a privacy fence and down a stairwell. He stopped at a door at the bottom of the stairs. He looked directly into her eyes and smiled as he opened it.
Inside, Barbara could see that it was his apartment. It was rather spacious and slightly plain, except for all of the artwork. In the corner was a small drafting table with paints covering it and piles of drawings behind it. Beautiful paintings littered the apartment. Only a few hung on the walls; most were leaned against the walls or stacked in the corners. Other than the drafting table, the only furniture in the room was a small sofa. A staircase led up to the loft where his bed was.
Barbara could see that he was definitely the mysterious artist. One of the stacks was all drawings of lions. Another stack was of paintings of various other animals, a wolf and an eagle among them.
“Wow. You’re the best painter I’ve ever met,” Barbara said.
Evan shook his head.
“Why are you shaking your head? Are you modest? Who is the best painter here if not you?”
Evan pointed at her. He walked over to her and looked at her.
“Da Vinci, Monet, Rembrandt, they’re the best,” he said.
“They’re dead,” she responded.
“So am I,” he replied.
She was speechless.
He continued, “I have a confession.”
“Tell me,” Barbara whispered.
Evan wondered how she’d feel about him if he confessed.
Barbara could see that he was scared to tell her. She reached out to him and rubbed her fingertips down his arm.
“Evan, you can trust me. Tell me,” she whispered again.
“I want to tell you everything. I want you to know who I really am, Barbara,” he said.
“I want to know all of
the details,” Barbara said. “I’m not scared to know the truth, Evan.”
Evan paused for a moment and said, “Okay. First, let me get something that will help us.”
He left her for a moment and walked up the staircase to his loft. Quickly, he returned to her with a frayed, old journal.
Evan took her by the hand and led her to the sofa. They got cozy and he opened the journal.
“I'm going to read to you from Willem Kessler’s journal. Everything that I have written here is from several sources: my parent’s journals and letters, my journal, evidence that has been brought to me by the British government, and even Hitler’s private journal. This isn’t his story. It belongs to Willem Kessler. It is Willem’s story. It is my story. This is how I imagine it to have happened. From all of the sources that I have read and remembered, this is the way that fits,” he said.
Part Two
The Eagle Circling
Chapter Three
The Blood Mile
25
My father’s name was Heinrik Kessler. And I only know him from my mother’s descriptions, her journals, evidence that a friend has given me, and my imagination. My mother’s name was Gracy Kessler. Heinrik worked at a prison in Landsberg, Germany in 1923. He was a captain in charge of the prison guards. My mother said that even though he was of average build, he had the heart of a lion.
Inside the prison, the cells smelled of death and decay, even to the nostrils of the guards, who had smelled the same stench night and day. The smell never left them. When they finished for the day and returned to their homes, they could still smell it. Often, my father would shower twice a day.
The cell doors were small and wooden, each with a circular spy hole in the center. A number was engraved at the top of every cell. The engravings were archaic and barely legible. The outside of every door glistened with a wet-brownish color, like the color of the trees in the harsh, hot rains that swept up from the Mediterranean Sea during the summer months. Storms gathered over the great sea.