One thing that surprised him was the number of civilian bodies his troops were finding, men and women hanged or shot by their own soldiers. They were a barbaric lot, these Germans. Many years of warfare had taught him that one important statistic was missing and would always be missing. It was one of the universal tenets of conflict, over two thousand years old, that the women of the conquered belong to the conquerors and he knew that German women were being raped all over the city every day. He accepted the fact but he disliked the secrecy.
“Where’s that tank?” he muttered to no one in particular. “I should be out on the streets, in the battle. Not hiding down here in a bloody rat hole.”
There was a sharp rap at the door, and the young captain at the other desk looked up.
“Here it is now, General. Enter.”
The door swung open. It was a junior lieutenant. He looked both nervous and utterly exhausted.
“Excuse me, General. We have something I think you’ll want to see.”
Valentino’s cold eyes narrowed in anger. “Is it a tank?”
“No, sir, it’s not. But it is important.”
The general slowly pulled himself to his feet.
“All right, Andrei. I’ll come, but I warn you, it better be so bloody important you never forget it until your dying day.”
Willi Graf glanced up and went very white. The man mountain in front of him wore the insignia of a three-star general in the Red Army and was looking at him with keen interest in his pale green eyes. Graf shrank back into the frame of the metal chair. He felt very exposed in the bare room with nothing between him and the Russian officer.
“What is your name?” the Russian asked in perfect German.
“Helmut Becker.”
“Where are your papers?”
“I lost them.” He raised a hand to the graze on his cheek. “Some men attacked me in the street yesterday and stole them.”
“Where were you going?”
“Home. I live on the Weibberstrasse.”
The only emotion on the large face came from the eyes that bore relentlessly into his skull.
“You’re lying,” the general said simply.
“I’m a teacher, not important—”
“What do you teach?”
Graf hesitated then decided to take a risk. “Music.”
The officer smiled and nodded.
“Hence the violin.”
Graf raised his hands in a gesture of supplication.
“Please, sir, can I have it back? I need to be on my way, and I’ve done nothing wrong. I didn’t even like the Nazis. I’m a simple musician and my pupils call me the Violin Man.”
The general walked to the door and clicked his fingers briskly. “Bring it,” he ordered in Russian, and then he returned to the center of the room.
The junior lieutenant came in carrying a closed black violin case. He stood at attention. The general opened the case and turned the officer’s body so the case was facing Graf.
“Your violin, Herr Becker.”
Graf sprang from his seat, but before he reached the case, the general caught him in the chest with a massive hand and pushed him back onto the chair.
“Sit down!” he thundered.
Graf’s fear was palpable. He glanced from the men to the violin. Then the general picked up the instrument and inspected it closely. Surely the man didn’t know what it was; what were the chances of that? Graf’s brain was doing rapid calculations as he watched for a sign of recognition. The varnish glowed in the pale light coming from the corridor, and he longed to snatch it back.
“How long have you had this?” the general asked abruptly.
“Years.” Graf licked his dry lips repeatedly. “My parents . . . my . . . my father gave it to me for my birthday.”
“Where was it made?”
The Russian was studying the back, running his finger over the vibrant flame pattern in the wood grain. Graf didn’t answer immediately.
“It’s . . . I think my teacher said it, it was Italian?”
Finally the man put the violin back into the case and turned to gaze at Graf impassively.
“You think? You’re a music teacher, a violin teacher presumably, and you don’t know the make of your own instrument?”
“I do. It’s Italian, from Cremona.”
“Play it for me,” the general barked as he picked up the violin again and handed it and the bow to Graf. Graf stood up, tightened the screw on the heel of the bow, and played a couple of notes. His fingers slipped off the pegs as he fiddled with them. Then he put the violin to his chin and began to play some Brahms. He was a very average violinist, but the sound was luscious, dark, and melancholic. It filled the room and bounced off the walls. The Russian listened for a few moments, seemingly transfixed to the spot. Suddenly he held out his hands.
“Enough. Give it back.”
Graf reluctantly handed the violin and bow to the general and watched as he laid them gently in the case. The reverence in his movements was ominous.
“I ask myself some questions, Herr Becker. Why would a music teacher venture out on a day like this when there is so much danger everywhere? And without your papers? And why would such an insignificant man have one of the great violins of the world in his possession?”
Graf’s blue eyes opened wide in horror, and he ran a hand through his short blond hair. This was going very badly.
“It’s nothing like—”
“You’re lying to me again, Herr Becker.”
As he spoke, the general walked over to stand in front of him, several inches taller and much broader, his presence intimidating.
“And that’s very stupid. I will give you one final chance. My men arrest you on a Berlin street, in broad daylight, wearing a quality leather coat and carrying a genuine Guarneri del Gesú violin. Who are you and where did you get it?”
In a detached part of his brain, Graf recalled all the threatening conversations he’d held as he ripped possessions from their owners and he couldn’t help analyzing the emotion.
“There’s only one thing that will save you. If you know of other . . . items of interest, and can show us where they are, we will spare you. Otherwise you will be shot as a German spy.”
By now the menace in the Russian’s voice was plain, and the threat spurred Graf into life. He was no spy. He snapped his heels together and saluted.
“I am Stabsmusikmeister Willi Graf, of the army of the Third Reich.”
The Russian smiled broadly.
“Better, much better. A music captain, well, well, that explains everything. And when and where did you acquire the del Gesú?”
Graf looked over at the case and licked his lips again. Perhaps if he shared some of his loot with this man, they could make a deal; he had quite a bit to trade.
“I’ve had it since 1939, General. It belonged to a Jewish family, a wealthy banker in Berlin. I was present when their house and possessions were reclaimed.”
“And you stole it. As an insurance policy.”
Despite his predicament, Graf felt his anger burn at the insinuation.
“I’d never sell it! It’s the most magnificent instrument I’ve ever held, and believe me, over the last seven years I’ve handled some truly extraordinary examples. I was told that Guarneri himself said that the sound was like the tears of an angel. . . .”
The Russian was staring at him, and Graf’s voice trailed off. What was the man thinking? Why was he so impossible to read?
“And what else have you kept?”
“One or two other things, some wonderful art, some silver and jewelry. I have it hidden but this I had with me—”
“While you desert your post and your country?”
Graf remained silent; he was admitting to nothing more than the obvious.
“In
Russia you’d be shot for such insubordination. So where is the rest of your treasure housed?”
The Russian’s voice was dripping with contempt, but Graf could hear his interest.
“Not far from here. I’ll show you.”
The general stepped back and surveyed him one last time, then he turned away. Over his shoulder he barked at Graf. “You will show my soldiers where this is, and then they will bring you back. When I’m convinced you’ve told the truth, we’ll talk again. Bring the violin.”
The officer picked up the violin case, followed him out, and banged the door behind them. Graf sank back onto the chair and rubbed his hands over his face.
The truck rumbled to a stop outside a row of deserted, bomb-damaged houses. Willi Graf and Junior Lieutenant Andrei Malenskvia climbed out of the back, and two Russian soldiers joined them from the front of the vehicle.
“Down there.”
Graf indicated the ground floor of the second house. The soldiers exchanged glances and raised their rifles to cover him. Malenskvia withdrew his pistol from its holster and waved it in the direction of the house.
Graf led them to a wooden door and down some stone steps into a dark, dry cellar. One of the soldiers lit his cigarette lighter, and a small flame of golden light split the darkness. Two squares wrapped in cloth and a long metal box leaned against the wall. Malenskvia pointed at the squares.
“What are those?”
“Paintings.” Graf couldn’t keep the hatred out of his voice.
“Give me that and take them up,” ordered the officer, and the soldier handed him the lighter and picked up one of the squares. Somewhere in the distance a rat scuttled across the stone floor. There were a dozen wooden boxes stacked over by a far wall.
“Is that it?”
“Yes, that’s all,” Graf replied dully.
“What’s in those boxes?”
“Wine, I believe, or scotch. I didn’t put it there.”
“Upstairs, and keep your hands where I can see them.”
The men loaded both squares, the metal box, and the wine onto the back of the truck while Graf watched them, aware that Malenskvia’s pistol remained trained on him. He wasn’t exactly sure what he’d hidden where but, with the contents of their stop at another cellar, it should be enough to bargain with. He knew two paintings, silver, and jewelry from the house that his violin had come from—what he’d considered restitution for his broken nose—were probably in the truck by now; perhaps the Russian oaf had a mistress at home.
Finally Malenskvia waved his gun in the direction of the street. “Run,” he ordered.
Graf was confused and didn’t move.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Run! You have sixty seconds, starting now.”
“But the general said—”
“Now you have fifty-eight seconds. Do you want to escape or not?”
Graf took a last look at the shapes in the back of the truck, then began to pick his way through the rubble as quickly as he could. Malenskvia raised his pistol and shot him once in the back. His body jerked and he slumped, face forward, into the mud.
“Too late, time’s up.” The Russian grinned at his fellow soldiers. “He really shouldn’t have tried to escape. That wine’ll be a nice surprise for the general.”
Chapter 31
Sochi on the Black Sea, Russia
Summer 1947
The early morning sun sparkled off the waters of the Black Sea. Keen sailors were out already, making the most of the first breezes of the new day. The almost deserted beach was quiet and still, as the fine white sand awaited the next invasion of bodies and buckets and spades. Halfway along the beach a path disappeared into the lush vegetation and broke out again onto a lovely, manicured lawn. Perfect lavender hedges and colorful semitropical plants competed for space around its periphery as the grass swept up to a beautiful, two-story home. Large windows and French doors, surrounded by delicate wooden fretwork, opened out onto the gardens. A wide balcony enclosed the upper story of the house, and in one corner a young woman stood gazing out at the sea. She wore a cotton nightgown and wrap, her feet were bare, and her long chestnut hair was piled up on top of her head. She heard a door open and close on the level below her, and she watched as a large man, in a blue silk robe with a towel over his shoulder, strode across the damp grass.
“Morning, Papa,” she called cheerfully.
He stopped and turned, searching the house until he saw her, then his face was split by a huge smile and he raised one hand.
“Morning, my precious! Sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you. The sea looks wonderful.”
His voice boomed in the stillness. “I’ll wait for you if you want to join me.”
“You go on, I won’t be more than a few moments.”
He acknowledged with a wave of the hand and turned back to his journey. She smiled as she watched him disappear into the undergrowth, leaving two lines of large footprints on the dewy lawn. This was their time, a time to heal the wounds of the past few years and be a family again. A summer of golden days and laughter, of being grateful, and, as a family, they had a lot to be grateful for.
Ten minutes later Yulena Valentina stood on the beach, searching the water for her father. General Vladimir Valentino was a huge, powerful man, but in the sea he looked like a little black dot, bobbing in the silver-blue water. She slipped off her wrap and ran into the cool welcome of the waves.
As the day wore on, the temperature rose and the entire Valentino household took individual measures to combat the heat. Everyone was aware of how stifling it would be back in Moscow and how lucky they were to have this seaside dacha, bestowed on the general by a grateful Motherland after his faithful service to Marshal Zhukov during the Great Patriotic War, but it was still ridiculously hot.
The general himself took refuge in the summerhouse with his pipe and his papers and a tall glass of rye kvass, a nonalcoholic malt beverage that he found quenched his thirst admirably, and a plate of beef- and cheese-filled piroshki and fried khvorost cookies just to see him through until supper.
Born the same year as Zhukov, Vladimir came from humble beginnings; his father worked in a St. Petersburg printing shop, and his mother was a laundress. He fought in World War I in the Imperial Army and then joined the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army in 1918. His path to major was swift, and after the Manchurian campaign of 1939, he became a much-trusted Zhukov confidant and a two-star general. He was there during the defense of Leningrad in 1941 and Stalingrad in 1942/43, the Battle of the Kursk in 1943, and the sweep through the Ukraine and Belorussia and then into Berlin in April 1945.
When Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov rode a white horse out of the Spassky Gate in the Kremlin for the Victory Parade on June 24, 1945, the now three-star general Vladimir Valentino was in his accustomed position, right behind him. Comrade Stalin seemed to like Valentino too, perhaps because of his lowly origins or more likely because of his earthy sense of humor, and he’d fit into the Red Army headquarters in Moscow quite easily. Now he had an unusually spacious apartment close to the diplomatic quarter, a car with driver, and the lovely dacha in Sochi, not far from Stalin’s own holiday residence.
A few yards away, his wife of twenty-nine years, Nada, busied herself preparing for the evening celebrations. It wasn’t official Party policy to employ servants, so she arranged for a couple of the local babushkas to come and help and gave them some food for their trouble.
Nada was Ukrainian, the daughter of two teachers from Kiev, and had gone to technical college herself. She was a quiet woman, educated and wise, and many in the Party agreed that General Valentino had been blessed in his choice of spouse. Occasionally she even wrote Party tracts, and they were generally well received.
When all was ready, she took her cross-stitch upstairs, for a rest and a nap. She was looking forward to tonight. Yulena wo
uld play for them, and they could have a good, old-fashioned sing-along. Music was Nada’s greatest passion, and the talent of her daughter was the one thing of which she was enormously proud. Nothing would have tempted her to publicly admit to a belief in God, but she still thanked “something” every day for Yulena’s safe return from her war adventure. And, of course, she was grateful that her husband and son had been spared as well. Many of her friends had lost some, if not all, of their families, and she’d come through unscathed.
She was a strong woman, mentally and physically, and she didn’t tolerate weakness easily. Her brown hair was peppered with streaks of gray and there were lines around her hazel eyes, but her skin was still exquisitely soft and translucent. Her husband thought of her as Rubenesque and womanly. She reminded him of those magnificent paintings he wasn’t supposed to look at, in the books he kept hidden in the summerhouse.
The birthday boy was their son, Koyla. He was twenty-four today, and this family gathering would celebrate, yet again, their completeness.
Koyla had finished his schooling before serving as an assistant to a zampolit, a political officer in the Red Army, responsible for the philosophical and political health of the soldiers as they defended the Motherland. This had brought him to the fringes, but not the heart, of combat; and his promotion to zampolit proper had coincided with the Great Victory. Since the war he’d worked in the Party’s central office as an information officer. He was completely committed to the “cause” and chose to believe wholeheartedly in the utterances of Comrade Stalin. He was proud of his father’s war record and enjoyed the way that people he was in awe of always took notice of him when they learned his father’s identity. However, he’d watched the acquisitions of the past two years with growing concern and had even considered declining the invitation for a summer holiday. It was too easy to become “corrupted” by the rewards of the State and he didn’t want to be labeled a hypocrite. But his mama had convinced him that they were still true believers.
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