by Martin Rua
“What’s the matter with you? You don’t look well,” she asked in amazement.
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m not feeling any better. My stomach is still upset. I see you’re preparing biftekia… Shame.”
“Why a shame?”
“Because I think I’d better not eat.”
Àrt’s eyes widened. “What do you mean? You love biftekia.”
“Yes, I know, but I’m really not feeling well. In fact, excuse me a moment, I think I’m going to be sick.”
Without another word I went into the bathroom. I looked in the mirror, studying my face, and my tousled hair and beard. I took a deep breath and then did something disgusting: I put a finger down my throat and made myself retch. I had to look rough if I was going to put my plan into effect. All that I brought up was a bit of saliva, but when I examined myself in the mirror again, I did look very much under the weather.
I didn’t go back into the kitchen, but sat down in the living room by the fireplace, pulled a blanket over me and acted as though I was feeling terrible as I waited for Àrtemis to come looking for me.
“Ah, there you are,” she said a few minutes later, entering the room. “I didn’t know where you’d got to. So? How are you feeling?”
“I don’t know. I threw up, I feel rotten. Maybe it’s flu. That would explain why I had no appetite at lunch.”
“Ok. So you don’t want anything?” she asked, stroking my cheek and looking at me with those feline eyes.
“Maybe in a little while, if I feel better. I’m sorry, I’d love to eat your meatballs, you know how much I adore them—”
Àrtemis rose to her feet, looking slightly annoyed. “Ok, fine. I’m going to eat. You get yourself to bed.”
“Wait, I’ll come and keep you company.”
“No, no – if you’re sick you go to bed, don’t worry.” She returned to the kitchen.
The brusqueness of her attitude rekindled my suspicions, but I decided to do as she said. I got up and walked to the bedroom. As I walked past my study, my eyes fell upon a box placed at the centre of the rug.
“Àrt, what’s this box?” I shouted.
“Have a look if you feel like it – it’s old stuff, maybe you don’t need it anymore,” she shouted back.
I dug into the junk, finding old watches, key chains and other items of no value that I had accumulated since adolescence. But there were also things in there that I would never get rid of: my toys.
Futuristic soldiers, transforming robots, Lego bricks – all dear mementoes of my childhood. Àrt knew how much they meant to me. And in the midst of all those old toys, I found one of which I had been particularly fond as a child: a Spider-Man with magnetized limbs. As I picked it up, a sudden light dazzled my eyes – a light that disappeared a moment later, giving way to a dizzying array of images. I saw faces unknown to me emerge as from a fog, figures in old-fashioned clothes or in the military uniforms of the last war. One of these characters came forward out of the crowd. Unlike the others, his face seemed familiar. Raising a hand, he showed me a key. In place of the teeth, though, there was a strange symbol – a spoked wheel, like the sign used in alchemy to identify common salt.
A second later and the vision had gone, leaving me standing alone in the centre of the room, my eyes still on the toy.
As I continued to stare at the little plastic man, I had walked almost unconsciously into the bedroom.
I undressed and, clutching the toy like a child, I slipped under the covers and sat there for a moment in bed looking around me, with no idea of what my next move might be.
My bedroom was the same as always: the art nouveau furniture, the Gaillard wardrobe, my Bugatti desk, the extremely rare Privat-Livemont posters – everything was in its proper place. This could not all be the result of hallucinations.
While, with Spider-Man’s help, I tried to sort out the chaos that filled my mind, I heard footsteps in the hallway. I hid the toy under the covers and waited. Àrtemis entered the room with a cup in her hand. “So have you taken a look at that box?”
“Oh yes, but I’ll sort it out properly tomorrow, I’m not really feeling up to it at the moment. I’m sorry.”
“No problem. Here, I’ve made you some herbal tea for your stomach. It’s marvellous stuff, it’ll help.”
“Oh, thanks,” I said, feeling a shiver run down my spine. My wife was trying to get me to drink, after I had refused to eat. Still following Anna’s suggestion, I had decided that I would not eat or drink anything. I couldn’t keep refusing, though, otherwise it would look too suspicious, so I played for time. “Put it on the bedside table, I’ll drink it in a minute.”
Àrtemis did as I said, although she seemed unconvinced. “Anyway, are you feeling any better?”
“Yes, but I’m still a bit nauseous. That’s why I don’t want to drink it right away.”
She looked at me strangely for a moment, as if trying to work out whether or not I was lying.
“Ok, but drink it – it will help with the nausea too. I’ll be in the study. I’ll be back to check on you in a bit.”
“Take your time.”
As soon as she was gone I glanced at the cup as though it were an alien object. My first thought was to throw away the contents, but something stopped me. Anna’s words.
“Your home has a thousand eyes.”
Was it really possible that there were cameras in my apartment? That my every move and word were spied upon?
I was now in the grip of severe paranoia, and could do nothing to shake it off. I told myself that if it was all a joke, that nothing would happen – at worst, Àrt would think I was behaving a little more bizarrely than usual. That would be it. And if Anna was right? At that point – and the very idea set my heart racing – I would have to re-assemble the pieces of my life, and above all answer the question that I was still trying not to ask myself: where was Àrtemis – the real Àrtemis?
I looked around warily, trying to guess where the hidden cameras might be, then took the cup, lifted it to my lips and pretended to take a sip. The tea was not overly hot. Then I turned off all the lights and put in place my stupid plan.
When Àrtemis was finally in bed, she found the cup empty. She went to the bathroom, came back, put on her pyjamas and slipped under the covers. I had my back to her and was curled up in a foetal position, so she just stroked my head lightly and turned the other way.
After about two hours, during which I remained motionless, pretending to be asleep, the stomach ache I had been feigning had become real. Spasms, occasionally violent, and cold sweats seized me. My ears began to whistle and at times I could hear my pulse, as though my heart had leapt away from its natural location and set up shop near my brain. Stabbing pains, like long pins, ran through my head. I was alone, and couldn’t call for help because the only person who could help me was probably the cause of what had every appearance of being withdrawal symptoms. I couldn’t even get up to seek relief: if that woman, who until a few hours ago I had believed was my beloved wife, really was there to watch my movements, she would immediately become suspicious. I had to resist.
I opened my eyes and once again in the dim light saw my bedroom as I knew it. Everything was in place, but now, in the faint light coming from the outside, I could also see figures dancing like will-o-the-wisps, hallucinations of a mind which was fighting against the drug. It had certainly also been in the tea, but I had poured it over myself very slowly, trying not to get the sheets wet but allowing it to be soaked up by my pyjamas.
The figures continued to dance around the room, and, gradually, memories emerged clearly, memories of the recent past. I remembered that I really had seen Anna before that day, I remembered meeting her in the park of Villa Floridiana, as she had told me, I remembered a big black car, but couldn’t focus on the place where I had seen her, or why. Even more insignificant moments of my recent life resurfaced: the sweet awakening in the morning, the kindness of my wife, the order and precision of Bruno, Doctor Ciliento who
bought the Riesener console table—
“Just a moment,” I thought to myself, trying to remember clearly, “Bruno said today that Doctor Ciliento had written the first cheque for the purchase of the Riesener. But the same thing happened yesterday.”
With great effort, I tried to reach back with my mind at least two or three weeks before, but I found myself facing a blank wall. The closest memory I could recover went back to the summer spent in Greece with Àrtemis.
“But how’s that possible? If it really is nearly Christmas, that means that there’s a hole in my memory of at least three months.”
I spent three hours curled up in the same position, waiting for my pyjamas to dry. I was shocked: Anna’s revelations were proving well founded. My strength was about to fail, and my tiredness was getting the better of me.
I wondered what I would do the next morning and how I had ended up in that situation. But the biggest question pounding away inside my head was the same as before: who was the woman sleeping next to me?
4
Operation Sunrise: In the Heart of the Reich
From the testimony of Richard Douglas Morrison,
CIA agent under the command of Allen Dulles
Zurich, March 8, 1945 – Austin, Texas, 1976
The German was on the ropes. He couldn’t give Dulles what he was asking for. He stood still for a few moments wringing his hands, then raised his clear eyes and stared at his interlocutor. The thin line of his mouth slowly opened.
“More than a year ago now, on 15 February 1944, the abbey of Montecassino was bombed. A grave loss to the history, culture and artistic heritage of Italy and the world, but a great opportunity for the Abwehr – the secret services of the Reich – and the survivors of the Thule Society.”
Dulles snorted.
“The Thule Society… Not even Hitler was able to knock them out, it seems.”
Wolff smiled back, mockingly. “Hitler and Nazism, Mr Dulles, are a creation of the Thule. How could it be dismantled by what it had helped to create?”
“Go on.”
“In short, the German secret service, backed by the Thule, had a very different interest in the abbey, something that the bombing would not compromise: the archives hidden in the cellars.”
“Yes, we know of that theft. What did you call the operation? Archimedes?”
“Diomedes,” corrected Wolff, “Diomedes, after the Homeric hero turned into a bird by Venus.”
“Very poetic. Please, continue.”
“The secret services and the undercover Thule agents managed to gain access to the archive through the mediation of a Benedictine monk – a descendant of southern German gentry – and to find what they were looking for.”
“The Abwehr knew where to look, because one of the nine – the German – had betrayed his vows, and had sold the information to the regime.” Wolff shook his head. “Or better, to the Thule itself, Mr Dulles. In any case, the thing was found and the secret services managed to persuade the monks to move the contents of the archive to the safety of the Vatican.”
“But, of course, not all of the boxes containing the precious documents arrived at their destination.” Wolff held his interlocutor’s gaze, even though he knew his hand was weak. “The monks had done an excellent job of safeguarding the idol for centuries. When we recovered it, it was in perfect condition.”
“Just as well. And what did the Abwehr and the Thule do?”
“Admiral Canaris had strict instructions: the idol was to be preserved at all costs. He had no interest in that sort of thing himself, but since the request came personally from Himmler and the officials who were obsessive enthusiasts of esoteric archeology, Canaris carried out his orders with great care.”
“Very well, I thank you for the details about your endeavour,” said Dulles before, after a short, tense pause, asking again and for the last time the crucial question.
“Now, General, tell me, when you left Montecassino, where was the idol taken? I will not ask you again.”
Wolff hesitated once more, then, with a bitter smile, said, “To the city that until recently was the safest in Germany”.
The German revealed the hiding place, and Dulles’s face stiffened: this was extremely bad news. He had no idea how long he had to organize and execute a mission in the heart of the Reich. Maybe a few weeks. Maybe only a few days.
5
The Reawakening
Events reconstructed by Lorenzo Aragon
Naples, January, 2013
The sleep of my personal reason had been generating a reassuring, albeit fictitious, everyday life. A routine, made up of unvarying gestures and acts, always and inevitably the same, but which carried with it no worry, no pain, no problems to deal with. The perfect life.
That life, however, was a fiction. And the discovery of the fact was extremely painful.
That morning, like, from what I could remember, every morning, my wife – or the woman claiming to be her – got up before me. It had been late before I had fallen asleep, and was late when, bewildered, I awoke. I spent a few seconds in a semi-conscious state, unable to understand what was happening, and then comprehension started to dawn on me in all its horror.
I looked around me and a spasm gripped my stomach like a vice: the room I was in was completely alien to me. There were a few pieces of cheap furniture, peeling paint, the roof was falling in and on the walls were absurd posters of mountain landscapes. I got up and had to work hard not to fall down, as my head began throbbing so violently that it left me almost breathless. I leaned against the wall, clenched my teeth and waited for the pain subside. The first thing I noticed was that the cup that I had placed on the bedside table was gone. The second and most shocking thing was the thought that until a few hours before, that room had seemed in perfect condition and, above all, that to my eyes it had looked like my bedroom. Up until that moment, something had possessed the power to distort my vision of reality.
I took a deep breath and prepared myself to go out and face whatever unknown now lay before me. Peeping out from under the bedcovers was a little red and blue leg. I bent down to look and found the Spider-Man toy. It felt like the only real thing in that hellish world of lies.
Before leaving the room, I slipped it into the pocket of my pyjamas and checked that there were no tea stains visible, then went out and began to roam the house of horrors. As I walked down the hall, I had complete confidence that this was not my house. And not only that. That it was not even a house, but a hovel – an apartment in ruins. Outside the room in which I had awoken there was a dark corridor, where the paint was peeling off the walls and the floor tiles were loose. I noticed a light coming from somewhere at the end of the hallway and another room, from which there came the noise of crockery. A kitchen probably. I walked slowly, hesitantly and preparing for the fatal moment when I would meet that woman again. I had to keep a cool head and try to feign naturalness.
I entered the kitchen and saw that it looked just as seedy as everything else: an old, rickety table in the centre, two battered chairs and a sink, which had once been fine marble, were the only furniture. Her back to me, a female figure in a dressing gown and with hair similar to that of Àrtemis was stirring a cup of coffee with a teaspoon.
“Good morning, darling—” I said as I approached the table.
“Good morning,” she replied, in a hoarse voice that I did not recognize, before slowly turning around. I managed to stay calm, even though in the exact moment my eyes lit upon her face, a chill ran up my back to the nape of my neck. At that moment, I had the proof that everything Anna had told me was true. This woman was not Àrtemis. She wasn’t ugly, but her face certainly didn’t possess any of the sweetness of my Àrt. Her features were more pronounced – more vulgar, you might say: her skin was a beautiful olive colour, her eyes large and dark, her full lips, held sensually parted, revealing white teeth. Her figure too – from what I could see through her robe – was shapely and sensual, and seemed to have nothing in comm
on with Àrt’s lithe body.
I somehow managed not to lose control, but for a moment I must have let some of my tension show, because the woman’s face took on a worried look.
“Is something wrong? Do you feel ok?”
I had spent half the night developing a strategy as to how I would behave. If the drug wiped the short-term memory and recreated a fake reality day by day, then it was impossible that I should remember not having been well the day before. But my body would still be affected by the illness, so I pretended that I was still not feeling well, making sure to mention nothing about the day before.
“I don’t know, I feel a bit nauseous. Only a bit, but it’s a pain.”
“How strange,” said she in a hoarse, sing-song voice and in a tone that seemed to imply she was making fun of me.
“Yeah, it must be indigestion—” I said, shaking my head and giving my best performance. “That thing we ate last night… What did we eat? I don’t remember.”
“Nothing special: vegetable soup and a little cheese.”
“Of course. Very strange, then – we didn’t eat anything heavy.”
“No, we didn’t. Do you want a little tea, perhaps, instead of coffee? Or a camomile?”
What was I supposed to do? I tried to follow Anna’s advice and stay cool.
“I don’t know, to be honest. Let me go to the bathroom first and get ready.”
“Do you think you can face going to work?” she asked, sounding more caring than she had a few moments before.
“Yes, I don’t think it’s anything serious.”
“All right, do what you like,” she said at last, embracing and kissing me. I felt her large breasts pressing against my chest, and stood there frozen. Because it was not Àrtemis. That was not her body. But the anguish of that embrace was linked to an even greater concern: where was Àrtemis? What had they done to her?
I wanted to hurl the woman to the ground and beat her, yes, beat her, just to make her tell me what had become of my wife and where I was. I wanted to with all my soul.