I didn’t run into any ghostly locksmiths, but halfway down the sloping U Lužického Semináře Street on the Malá Strana side of the canal, I found the gallery and went inside. The display room was roughly the size of a racquetball court only with much lower ceilings. A series of photographs was mounted on the walls. There were a couple racks of art books, and a postcard carousel sat near a front desk manned only by a box with a recommended gallery donation sign. I tried picturing Vera behind this desk. The top of her head would nearly have brushed the ceiling.
I dropped some coins into the collection box and wandered the floor, pretending to take in the photographs. The first picture featured a young man standing in front of a tank, his leather coat held defiantly open, as a soldier perched atop the tank’s turret half-heartedly aimed a machine gun at his chest. Another showed a gaunt old man dejectedly facing the camera, eyes sunk in heavy shadows, while behind him people sifted through broken furniture beneath a ruined façade of unglassed windows and walls mottled with bullet holes.
“Good morning,” called a man emerging from a staircase at the back of the room. He was somewhere in his sixties, had an oblong face framed by iron gray hair pulled into a ponytail, and was dressed in a brown sweater, loose corduroys, and Lennon spectacles. He looked like an old hippie who’d aged into uneasy respectability through no apparent fault of his own.
“Josef Koudelka,” he said, assuming a spot beside me.
“Nice to meet you, Josef.”
“Ah, no,” he chuckled. “My name is Gustav. Josef Koudelka is the man whose work you’re admiring. Famous Czech photographer. Our show features his work from 1965–1970, before he was forced to emigrate.” The man’s impeccable English was delivered accent free with a genial, avuncular air that reminded me of one of those professors in the movies, the kind who smokes pipes and quotes Shakespeare and helps inner city kids rise above their bleak circumstances through slam poetry or whatever. Even in my still mostly unwrinkled and expensive suit, curator Gustav had instantly sized me up as an English-speaking tourist with no clue what he was looking at.
None of which boded well for my plan.
“This is probably his most famous,” Gustav said, directing my attention to another picture. In the photo, the cameraman’s arm jutted into frame, elbow cocked, wrist turned to show his watch. A first person POV of someone checking the time, nothing out of the ordinary until you noticed the watch said noon, and the broad city avenue spread below was eerily unpeopled.
“August 21, 1968,” the man resumed. “Wenceslas Square just before the Soviets literally entered the picture. They’d taken over the airport in the middle of the night, shut down the borders, moved 7,000 tanks and half a million troops into our country. Not so much soldiers as kids really, ruddy cheeked, blue-eyed farm boys with guns and oversized uniforms and no idea where they were or why. We tried disorienting them even more by tearing down all the street signs in the city, rendering their maps unusable. They’d get lost, run out of gas, sit there sweating in the heat and begging for water. Lots of people here spoke Russian then, had to learn it in school, but you’d never have known it if you were a Russian T-55 tank commander. I’ll never forget those tanks. Massive, gray, loud as hell. Like antediluvian monsters assembled from scrap metal.”
Antediluvian? This was going to be worse than I thought.
“You speak English well,” I said.
“I lived in Canada for twenty-three years. Toronto.”
“Never been to Canada. Been to Mexico.”
“I’ve heard parts of Mexico are quite pleasant.”
“I’ve only been to Tijuana.”
He held a neutral smile in place. In the photo it was still noon, still no one on the street. Looking at the disembodied arm against the motionless backdrop, all I could think about was what Soros had said just before we parted. Ask what happened to your brother’s right hand.
“Well,” Gustav concluded, “enjoy the exhibit. Let me know if you have any questions.”
It was now or never. “Actually, I do.”
I passed him the card Soros had given me. “My name is Bob Hannah,” I said. “I work for The Stone Folio. Prague’s leading English language weekly. We’re working on a story about the flood and I was hoping to ask you a few questions.”
“About the flood?”
“Right. The one five years ago.”
“You must have very liberal deadlines.”
“We’re a very liberal paper.” When that landed with a thud, I continued, “Actually, our story is more like a five years follow-up piece. A revisitation. Where are they now, human spirit triumphing over adversity, time heals all wounds, water under the bridge. We’re considering that, title wise. Water Under the Bridge.”
Discs of light reflected off the lenses of his glasses, obscuring his eyes beneath as he inspected the card before tucking it the front pocket of his jacket. “I suppose you’ll want to see the window?” he asked.
I had no idea what he meant but nodded anyway. He moved toward the same door he’d emerged from earlier, and I followed. On the way we passed another Koudelka picture, this one not of the Soviet invasion but a creepy shot of a masked figure clad in a black robe and flying through the night sky. The placard said it was taken to promote a play.
“Mluvíte česky?” said the curator over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry?”
“I asked if you spoke Czech. I have reams of printed matter about the Rudolf Complication, but most of it is in Czech. The Complication is really what you’re interested in, right? The break-in, the big heist. How much do you know about the exhibit?”
“Only what was in the brochure.”
“Some background then.” He took off his Lennon specs and wiped them with his jacket sleeve. “The watch, as you know, was the main attraction. The only other object of any real interest was a certain chalice made from a unicorn’s horn. Rudolf used it on the advice of his court physician, an Italian who thought it had great healing powers. Of course, being enlightened, modern people, we now know unicorns don’t exist, and that their horns hold no magical properties. The chalice was actually fashioned from a narwhal tusk. We had some artwork as well. And a handful of his majesty’s bezoars and a few alrauns. You’re familiar with them?”
“I’ve seen some of their early work.”
He gave me a cockeyed look and replaced his glasses. “Bezoars are gallstones. Mass accretions in the gastrointestinal system.”
“Right. Accretions. Misheard you.”
Like I was supposed to know what bezoars were. I was already starting to dislike being Bob Hannah. I curled my lips between my teeth and pocketed my hands. I couldn’t let this encounter slip out of my control.
“Alrauns are mandrake roots, mandragora, prized for their uncanny resemblance to the human form and a mainstay of witchcraft and alchemy. Rudolf especially cherished those sprouting beneath the gallows. Homunculus roots thought to grow when semen dripped from the corpse of a hanged man and into the soil below, impregnating the earth. The Emperor was known to order the skeletons of executed criminals exhumed so that moss growing upon their skulls might be scraped off and used in various elixirs and alembics.”
“Kinda like a medieval wheat grass shot?”
The curator grunted, no sense of humor. I followed him up the stairs, past the second story landing, across the third floor hallway, and through a doorway on the left until we arrived inside an empty room. An opened window looked out over the Čertovka canal, across at the buildings on Kampa Island less than twenty feet away. A breeze carried in the damp smell of the water below as the curator moved toward the window. I thought of how the canal got it’s name—the Devil’s Stream—and wondered which of the nearby houses the superstitious medieval villagers had painted all those devils on.
“See that line there?” He pointed to a diffuse, chalky white mark about three inches wide that ran horizontally across the length of the building opposite, just above the second story. “That�
�s the watermark. Floodwaters reached nearly four meters in this area. Happens once every hundred years or so. Despite official warnings, people were slow to believe it was really going to be a centenarian.”
“A what?”
“Hundred-years flood.” The guy grinned, showing off again. “Czechs of my generation have a natural distrust of authority, I suppose. A shame considering once every hundred years or so, the authorities get something right.”
Glancing out the window, I saw trees rustle on the other side of the Devil’s Stream, throwing fitful shadows over the narrow channel of dull water below. “Transportation was already a mess by the time we got moving, and our only option was to shuttle objects to the upper floors. The Rudolf exhibit, books and postcards, computers, office equipment, rugs, chairs—everything was moved to the room you’re now standing in. Five years ago, we had locks on the door, motion detectors, sensors on the windows. Any breach of the system generated a phone call to a private security firm. Cost a fortune. At the time I saw it as a good long-term investment.”
He gestured mock grandiose at the naked walls enclosing us, where nothing was left of the security apparatus. “At the risk of sounding sentimental, I will say this for the Communists—they kept a lid on crime. Granted they were all arch criminals. With wolves guarding the hen house, you may not have hens for long, but at least you don’t have to worry about foxes.”
“Is art theft a big problem here?”
He shrugged. “Walk down Wenceslas Square and ask one hundred people about big problems, and not a single one will mention anything to do with art. But yes, in the early post-Soviet years, democracy and freedom first manifested themselves in a criminal free-for-all. Didn’t help that our then-playwright president all but emptied the prisons. Having spent so much time locked up himself, I suppose he could be forgiven. And yes, this transitional lawlessness extended to the art world. Works forgotten for decades under the Soviets suddenly began disappearing from churches, museums, galleries, homes. Seven years after what your foreign journalist brethren dubbed the Velvet Revolution, former members of the secret police staged a heist at the National Museum and walked out with some two-dozen important works. Just a couple years ago, rare pistols from the Napoleonic Battle of Three Emperors at Slavkov were taken in broad daylight. The culprits were caught trying to pawn them off on a local antique dealer just around the corner from the exhibit. Hardly The Thomas Crown Affair. Your average art thief, thankfully, proves no smarter than your average car thief.”
“Was the Rudolf Complication insured?”
The curator shook his head. “Publicly owned pieces seldom are. Traveling exhibits like Rudolf’s Curiosities are only covered while in transit from one gallery space to another. Nail-to-nail, in insurer’s vernacular. It’s a great disappointment for thieves hoping to ransom against an insurance policy, but not much of a deterrent.”
“How much do you think the watch was worth?”
The question was slow to reach him as he stared out the window, watching the water move below. “Priceless,” he said at length. “But art is only priceless until it’s on the market. Van Gogh’s Sunflowers was priceless before it was auctioned for $39 million. A priceless Picasso then fetched $100 million. Priceless has lost its meaning. Egypt would sell the pyramids if the right offer came along.”
“So are we talking Picasso-level priceless, or . . . ”
“As a commodity, the Rudolf Complication has disadvantages.” He enumerated them on his fingers as he spoke. “One, it’s not a painting. Sculptures, textiles, ceramics, jewelry—even the best rarely fetch as much as minor paintings by major artists. Two, the Rudolf Complication wasn’t created by a major artist. Credit for the piece is generally ascribed to one Edward Kelley, court alchemist of Rudolf II. Reputedly also a forger, adulterer, duelist, necromancer, bad credit risk, accomplished liar—but not, despite such an obvious wealth of qualifications, a famous artist. Three, and perhaps most importantly, the Complication has no provenance. No documented trail of ownership. The watch surfaced only a short time before it disappeared, and only then under dubious circumstances. Many believed it to be a forgery.”
Now we were getting into Paul territory. I had a hard time imagining him involved in a sophisticated European art heist, but getting himself killed over something worthless, something fraudulent? It was somehow easier for me to swallow. Which probably said as much about me as it did about him.
“Obviously, its questionable legitimacy was not something the Ministry of Culture flaunted in promotional materials,” said Gustav. “But the story about how the watch suddenly surfaced after being lost for centuries stretched the bounds of credulity. Those half-dozen people who care about such things were highly skeptical. I don’t suppose you’re familiar with the name Martin Novotny?”
The curator explained Martin Novotny was the last private owner of the Rudolf Complication—although for only a few hours, if Novotny’s story was to be believed. An alcoholic, gambler, occasional burglar, and small-time grifter, he was already familiar to the police. After celebrating what must have been a particularly successful break-in, Novotny passed out drunk on some tram tracks in a neighborhood called Malešice. The police arrived before the tram did and discovered him with the watch around his neck and knew there was no way in hell he was the legitimate owner. He eventually admitted stealing it, though he refused to say from whom. They released him. A week later Novotny came to an unfortunate end when his body was discovered thrown in through a fourth-story window in Strašnice.
“In through a fourth-story window?” I asked.
“As opposed to out of, yes,” the curator said. “Either very dodgy police work or an unsolved case of reverse defenestration, take your pick. Meanwhile, no individual ever stepped forward to claim the watch. The government declared the Rudolf Complication to be state property. They organized a unique traveling exhibit, one which would first make the rounds of Prague galleries, then galleries throughout the Czech Republic, finally the world, before settling back at the National Museum. But of course, it never got farther than the west bank of the river. Did you bring a camera?”
“Not today.”
“Unfortunate,” said the curator. “Because we’re now standing before The Most Photographed Window in Prague. At least during the two months immediately following the flood. Place yourself, if you will, in my shoes, and imagine it’s mere days after the flood. The waters have at last subsided enough that you are finally permitted to return to your beloved gallery. You open that door behind you to find glass strewn across the floor. An iron grappling hook is wedged in the window frame. Attached to it, a nylon rope. Two computers, one security camera, a lockbox with petty cash, books, the alrauns and bezoars, the narwhal chalice—all have been left behind. Thank God, you think. And then you discover the Rudolf Complication is gone. And with it, you understand in an instant, any chance of your gallery co-hosting any further prestigious state-sponsored exhibitions. And you chastise yourself for your selfishness in the face of a crime not just against your gallery but art and history itself. But still.”
I gazed at the watermark scarred on the building opposite and tried to picture how it all went down that night five years ago. The best my jetlagged imagination could conjure was a cheesy America’s Most Wanted–style recreation. Camera pans down from a CGI-enhanced moon to find a lone figure clad like an urban ninja in cliché black hoodie and ski mask. He’s drifting down the shadowy canal in a canoe, a rowboat, a kayak—nothing with a motor because of the noise, and he hardly would have swum. Police patrol the nearby streets on motorized rubber rafts, flashlight beams moving across the dark water, sweeping over the walls, bouncing off the windows. On this night the Little Venice moniker is for once fitting, with not just the Čertovka canal but all the narrow lanes and twisting byways of lower Malá Strana submerged in floodwaters. Electricity out, buildings vacated, no sounds but the water, perhaps the odd bullhorn or siren in the distance. Our figure navigates by moonlight, drift
ing silently down the streets until he merges with the canal. Gliding to a halt beside a pale blue building, he breaks the third story candy glass window with the hook and expertly ties the rope to the boat to keep it from floating away. The water is so high it’s no climb at all to reach the window, and in one fluid, stuntman-enacted motion, he hoists himself inside.
He searches the room, locates the watch, and carefully wraps it in a plastic shopping bag, a nylon sack, something waterproof. This he slips it into a small backpack. He lowers himself back into the boat, cuts the rope with a cinematically large and shiny bowie knife, and drifts away, leaving the hook still lodged in the window frame. At some point north, between say the Charles Bridge and the Mánesuv Bridge, he goes silently to ground. A sinister looking man with slicked back hair emerges from the shadows, greeting my brother with an oily smile. In the final shot, the abandoned get-away vehicle washes downstream, and the camera pans up and fades on the moon. My father plays the tanned and vengeful studio host who steps forward and gives the audience a number to call if they have any information about Paul Holloway, considered highly dangerous to himself and those who by birth or misfortune care about him. In the background, Vera wears a telephone headset, manning calls on the tip line and then we go to commercial break.
Aside from piloting the boat, there was virtually no risk involved. The gallery was empty, alarms useless without electricity, all potential witnesses in the neighborhood had been evacuated, and the city was in a general state of emergency. Stealing copper wiring from a construction site was probably more dangerous. If my brother really had been a part of this, it was among the most well-thought-out actions in his entire life. Which made me suspect he wasn’t the one doing the thinking.
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