The Stolen

by T. S. Learner

  It was a bundle of notes lifted from a private investigation Christoph von Holindt’s name had been linked to years ago, and attached to these notes was a large envelope. He emptied it out on the desk. It contained four A4 black-and-white photographs, images he’d developed from a roll of microfilm he found on the private investigator’s body after he’d been fished out of the lake. Klauser was the first detective on the scene and, suspicious of the unusual indifference the rest of the department, especially the young, ambitious Engels, had displayed towards this private dick and the Jewish family he was representing, he had been monitoring the police radio that night. He got lucky and intercepted a call. The private detective, an intense man who’d approached Klauser only a week earlier as a possible ally, was splayed out on the foreshore, his skinny legs pitifully stick-like through the soaking trousers. His skin was bluish and there was a large bruise on one side of his head. He looked as if he were embracing the earth laid out like that, like a starfish. Klauser had liked the man; he’d liked his fearlessness.

  The memory of that freezing night in Zollikon still haunted him. Walking round and round the corpse, looking for clues, he finally noticed that one of the heels of the man’s ankle boots was built up. He waited until the others there were distracted before slipping off the shoe. Inside the heel, wrapped in watertight plastic, was the tiny roll of film. Later, alone in the chilly darkroom of HQ, he’d developed the microfilm. The four large grainy photographs were the result. They were lists of precious objects and, in true Nazi fashion, the record-keeping was faultless. On each page there was a series of headings: he saw Juden Geld, and Zigeuner Geld, this subdivided into Kalderash, Manush, Kale and Sinti – the four main Rom groups were clearly named. A variety of objets d’art, paintings and antiques were listed, with at least two Chagalls mentioned, as well as a Rembrandt and a Monet; jewellery and objects such as a Hebrew prayer book with a gold and silver cover, and a gold chalice for Passover, were listed on all four pages under Juden Geld while gold candlesticks through to gold coins, pendants, charms, hair clasps, gold jewellery, brooches, dagger sheaths – even charms and amulets – were listed under Zigeuner Geld.

  He reached the sub-heading Kalderash – the clan of his dead gypsy. One description caught his eye: ‘Unusual Statuette – confiscated 1943 Ukraine, of unknown metal, value indeterminable’. There was the symbol of an hourglass drawn next to this particular description and the exact same entry appeared on all four lists – the only repetition he could see. Could this be a connection to the gypsy’s murder? Yojo Stiriovic had been in the camps, and now he’d been found in Zürich, assassinated outside one of the most expensive watch stores in the world, as if looking for something – something that might have once belonged to him.

  Reflecting on a possible connection Klauser laid the photographs next to each other in a line. Then he began pacing the room, his way of tricking his mind into a lateral sensibility. As he walked past the photographs he noticed a hidden pattern in the way the words had been laid out in each list. He walked past again, deliberately using his peripheral vision. Now he could see there were symbols made from the gaps between the words, symbols that clearly stretched across each page as if defining that list. They were all triangles – four of them. Two were pointing down, one with the tip of the point marked off, the other triangle blank. Two triangles were pointing up – one also with the tip marked off and the remaining one blank.

  Then it came to him – the watermarks were the symbols for the elements Earth, Water, Fire and Air and their positions on the pages suggested some relationship to the confiscated objects themselves. But what about the Kalderash statuette and the hourglass symbol next to it? Why did it alone appear as an entry on all four lists and how did this hourglass symbol relate to the symbols for Earth, Fire, Air and Water? Was it suggesting Time as a fifth element somehow? He remembered the book of clocks. Four clocks commissioned to represent Water, Fire, Air and Earth. Coincidence? And was it a coincidence the book had once belonged to Christoph von Holindt and had been listed among the Nazis’ stolen treasures?

  He packed the notes carefully back into the tome, then replaced it on the top shelf. Back at the desk he took a sheet of paper and wrote the names he knew of the men who had been seen at Christoph von Holindt’s anniversary.

  Christoph von Holindt, Johann Engels and two unidentified men.

  He stared at the paper. Von Holindt and the two unknowns looked like they could be of the same generation, but Engels was much younger – perhaps it was some connection in their past. Suddenly Klauser remembered the description Celine had given of one of the men in the orgies – the individual she described as the ‘bull’. The reaction to the thickset man who’d entered Holindt’s private study later than the others, as witnessed through Klauser’s binoculars, had indicated he had power over the other men, power enough to terrify. Was this the bull himself, the actual leader? Klauser picked up the phone and instructed Timo to collect the names of all the members of the various exclusive clubs and societies of Switzerland – particularly Zürich. If there was a pattern there, Klauser would find it. Patterns gave logic to an irrational and unfair world, which was why he liked them.

  In the corridor outside he could hear a couple of the other detectives arriving for the day – loud and boisterous. He needed to think. Standing, he slipped the list into his breast pocket. It would be quieter at home, and he knew no one would miss him.

  ‘A holy relic, you say. Do you mind being more specific?’ Helen said, hovering behind the safe barrier of her desk, trying not to feel dwarfed. Matthias was, she estimated, a good six foot three next to her five foot, but again his undeniable attractiveness was a further irritation. Somewhere down by the desk her fingers found a paperweight and curled themselves round it, as if seeking an anchor. Small comfort. Worst of all was the fact that Matthias’s query – unlike a lot of the banal amateur ‘gypsyologist’ requests she had to deal with – was actually informed.

  Matthias, awkward in the proximity of this feisty woman, glanced round the room shyly.

  Tucked away in a backroom of the anthropology department of Zürich University, sandwiched between Indo-European studies and the Nordic centre, it was a large room flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. A simple wooden table served as a desk. On one corner, as if holding back the sea of paper scattered over it, sat a cluster of figurines: Buddha, the Virgin Mary, a Sphinx and a mermaid – a curious collection of deities and mythological creatures which, Matthias surmised, probably reflected the eclectic beliefs of their owner. With her wild, shoulder-length auburn hair and propensity for long, beaded necklaces, she herself appeared a little diverse in her dress sense.

  ‘I believe it was known as Sara la Kali’s statuette, Frau Professor Thorton,’ he said.

  Helen started at the name of the object and Matthias noticed immediately. ‘You’ve heard of it?’

  ‘Perhaps. And it’s okay to call me Helen; I won’t bite,’ she said, wondering how much the physicist knew. ‘Unless, of course, you ask me to,’ she finished, joking. At the innuendo Matthias turned pink with embarrassment, to Helen’s amazement. It was only then that she realised his social skills did not match his scientific abilities, and that he was completely oblivious to his own attractiveness, an observation that left her bemused and a little more trusting.

  ‘Well, Helen,’ he stammered slightly over her name, ‘at the time of its theft it was in the protection of a Kalderash family.’

  ‘A Kalderash family?’ Her hands were still worrying the paperweight.

  ‘Yes. The object was confiscated during the war,’ he continued, aware that he should be careful not to reveal too much information; if Latcos had told him the truth it would be wise not to trust anyone.

  ‘Yes, many artefacts were lost at that time.’ Her reply was measured, neutral.

  ‘Harvard?’ he asked, making a stab at the origins of her accent.

  ‘The other place – Yale, class of seventy-two. Margaret Mead was sti
ll news then. Everybody who was anyone was off to New Guinea. I chose India, Hungary, Romania and the Ukraine. My parents thought I’d grow out of it; they’re still waiting.’ She smiled at him and something passed between them as sublime as the brush of a bird’s wing, then evaporated. It was only at that moment Helen realised she was actually holding the paperweight.

  Turning her back to him she reached up for a large book on the top shelf. He went to help her, but she shrugged him off. ‘Thanks, but I can manage.’

  To his chagrin, Matthias found himself staring at the length of thigh exposed by her mini-skirt as she lifted the tome down, sensations now igniting into life that had been dormant for years – since the death of his wife, in fact. I don’t have time for this, and neither does she – probably… Thrusting his hand deeply into his pocket he tried adopting a sterner demeanour and failed. A second later Helen was back at the desk, flicking through handwritten notes and diagrams.

  ‘My own field notes – ten years’ worth,’ she explained before arriving at a page that had the letter K at the top. ‘One day I’ll have it published – there are few reliable sources in this field; you really have to do the footwork. Sara la Kali is, of course, the gypsy saint of the Camargue. Unusual for a Kalderash family to worship her. Most of them are Orthodox – Russian, Ukrainian or Romanian.’ She looked up for a moment. ‘The literal translation of “Sara la Kali” is “Sara the Black”. She was a woman who was meant to have been involved with the rescue of the three Marys at the small French fishing village Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Mary Magdalene, Mary Salome and Mary Jacobe were said to have arrived on the French coast after the crucifixion. There are several versions of the legend. One is that she was a black Egyptian child slave who begged to come on the boat that the Marys, fleeing the Romans and Palestine after Jesus’ death and resurrection, sailed on and that she helped the three women to shore by walking across water. The second is that she was the actual child of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and the third – and most relevant to us – is that she was the queen of a local gypsy camp who supported the three Marys through begging alms as they spread Christianity. All of which makes no sense at all as the Roma did not leave India until the third century, which makes a nonsense of the dates.’

  ‘So all gypsies came from Northern India?’

  ‘Most likely, but you have to understand the mythology that has sprung up around the origins of the “gypsies”, due to the lack of written records and the lack of historical continuity migration brings. There are several legends circulated both in the Roma and non-Roma communities – one is that the gypsies are the remnants of the Egyptian army who chased Moses across the Red Sea; the soldiers that survived the drowning went on to form the diaspora. But there are also more theoretically “historical” explanations. One, found in the Shah-nama, an epic poem that relates the mythical and, to some extent, the historical past of the Persian empire from the creation of the world, tells of ten thousand musicians who were given to the Shah by the Indian Maharaja of Sindh, and how after a year those musicians disappeared, the inference being that these were the core of what were to become “gypsies”. It is not an explanation I put much faith in.

  ‘Another theory is that the Roma were originally the non-Aryan mercenaries used by Mahmud of Ghazni from about AD 1001 to AD 1027 to attempt to defend against the invading Islamic troops. They were given honorary status under the Kshattriya or Warrior caste, but they came from a disparate grouping. Some would have been Rajputs, some were Lohars and Gujjars, some Tandas and some possibly from the East African coast – Siddis, mercenaries who fought for both Hindus and Muslims. The invading Islamic forces pushed this army out of India and into Persia, but the way Romanes has picked up certain Hindi words informs us that the original speakers did not leave India until around the third century and that some of these words were associated with the military. Indeed, you can trace some of the language to a tiny area of mountainous passes in Northern India.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Meaning that these passes were some of the places the Roma travelled through to leave India. So basically we’re looking at a third-century migration from India westwards, through Persia and on to Armenia, then through to the Balkans ahead of the Ottoman Turks. The real key is in the language – there is a community of Indian origin living in the Middle East called Doms and until recently it was assumed these were the earlier incarnation of the Roma, but although the two languages have shared Indian characteristics the specifics don’t add up. The earliest written record of gypsies is in the text on St George Mtacmindeli prior to 1100 in Constantinople. But it isn’t just the language that reflects the Indian connection; there are also the remnants of Kali worship in their religious customs, as well as some Islamism.’

  ‘You mean Kali the goddess?’

  ‘Gypsies, like many diaspora, tended to pick up the local religion of the region they migrated into. That’s why you find Catholicism in the Gitan and Islamic-style practices in some of the Sinti. The Roma strict laws about the impurity of menstruating women, the separation of men and women and some foods are very similar to Kosher laws – some Roma even believe that the Indian demography they formerly belonged to might have, in fact, originated in the Middle East, possibly Palestine itself. But the worship of black Madonnas or female saints by the Roma is widespread across Europe. The rituals are another giveaway – nearly all of the pilgrimages and processions involve taking a statue or depiction of the black Madonna down on a platform strewn with flowers to a body of natural water – the sea, a river, a pond, carrying her into the water then bringing her out. This is remarkably similar to the Hindu ritual of Durga Puja. But overwhelmingly the Roma traditions resemble many of the Hindu religious practices. And the presence of Sanskrit words in the language is undeniable.’

  She looked back down at the page. ‘Ah, this is the first reference I was looking for. I was interviewing a Kale woman in Spain about amulets, holy relics and their powers, and she mentions “a relic that was rumoured to be looked after by a Kalderash family, an ancient heirloom that had been with the Roma since the time of puro cheeros (old time) and came from the Baro Tem – the land of five rivers from whence all Roma came…”’ She looked up and grinned at Matthias. ‘Sounds like one might be the Indus to me. She goes on to talk about how the statuette was so powerful it was dangerous for any marime – impure – person. Only the pure of heart and soul would not suffer from its powers, as it carries Kali’s blessing’ – she looked up at Matthias – ‘whatever that means. Kali is an interesting deity, both vengeful and benevolent.’ She looked back down. ‘Here it is – she calls it “the statuette of Kali”, which could just translate as “the black statuette”. She does, however, mention its strange colour and the unusual metal it is made from. It was stolen, you say?’

  Matthias hesitated before answering, wondering how much he could trust her. ‘There was a raid on a Kalderash family and a young SS officer confiscated it, along with the family’s gold. The head of the clan was shot trying to protect the statuette, the rest of the family murdered shortly after.’

  ‘The usual scenario. Do you know how many stories I’ve listened to about such atrocities? But you know what, you’re the only gadjo —’

  ‘Gadjo?’

  ‘Non-gypsy, who’s ever walked into this office and asked any questions about the Romanes holocaust – the massacre of at least seven hundred thousand Roma – not to mention the horrors inflicted upon their children by that mad sadist Doctor Mengele. But what I want to know is why a well-known physicist with no known connections to the Roma would be interested in such a subject.’

  ‘I needed to verify that the statuette actually existed.’

  ‘But why do you care?’

  Perhaps it was the candour of her demeanour, perhaps it was the overwhelming need to share the tremendous internal confusion he was experiencing – either way, the words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to think twice about trusting her.

  ‘
I believe the statuette might be hidden somewhere here in Zürich.’

  Helen studied him thoughtfully.

  ‘Perhaps. I know there is gypsy gold that the Nazis kept in Swiss bank vaults, which has been quietly reappropriated by the banks. I suppose the statuette might have met the same fate, if it hasn’t been secretly sold into the antiques or objets d’occult market. But you still haven’t told me why a man like you would be interested.’

  He held her gaze but switched into English, his pronunciation clipped and surgically correct. ‘I want to return the statuette and the stolen gold to the family they belong to. My mother’s family – my real mother.’

  She stared at him amazed, but now the more she looked the more she recognised a certain narrowness to his skull, his high cheekbones, the dark heavy eyebrows despite the blond hair, the golden sheen to his skin and the almond shape to his green eyes. Now his unusual looks made perfect sense.

  ‘How long have you known?’ she asked softly.

  ‘For about three days, but I think on some level, perhaps my whole life.’

  Klauser stood in the doorway of his flat. The postman had only just been, and the doormat was scattered with mail. He bent down: bills mainly, a postcard from an aged aunt in Zermatt, nothing exciting. As he stood up he noticed a slight chip in the paintwork just below the door lock. It was barely visible, but he knew it hadn’t been there earlier that morning. Immediately he knew something was wrong, terribly wrong. For a start, by this time Erasmus should be miaowing on the other side of the door. Instead there was nothing but silence.