The Long-Lost Jules

by Jane Elizabeth Hughes

  Suddenly feeling low, I followed Leo obediently and wandered aimlessly through the dead exhibits, while he stopped short in front of a grubby brown stone fragment. Prayerfully, he said to me, “Do you realize this is five thousand years old? Look, motek.”

  I looked. Grubby stone—that was all I saw.

  Most of the exhibits had come from graves. “Thank God for funerals,” Leo commented, and my nose wrinkled with distaste.

  I realized that this was my real chance to escape from Leo. His utter inability to bypass a single historical artifact was my greatest advantage. If I could just shake him for a few hours, I could get away, and maybe he wouldn’t bother to track me down again; he would have to tire of this game eventually. He moved among the ancient grave goods like a man in a trance, occasionally shaking his head in disapproval at something that didn’t meet his standards or in disbelief at the wondrous treasures he was viewing.

  “Jules,” he said in a low voice, “voyez-vous, these jewels were buried with the corpse of a six-month-old boy in the ninth century. Just imagine, those parents welcoming a healthy boy into the world. God be praised, a boy! And then having him sicken and die after he survived childbirth and those first dangerous months. They must have thought he was safe. They presented him with gold and jewels, and then . . .” His voice trailed off.

  The “jewels” just looked like more dingy brown stone to me. I commented, “At that time, parents must have expected to lose their children young.”

  He swung around to stare at me. “That’s a myth, you know. Parents grieved deeply when they lost their children. Why, the inscriptions on the graves of—”

  “Yes, yes,” I interrupted, losing interest. But as I looked more closely at the grubby lumps, their shapes began to emerge: tiny child-size gold bracelets and rings, brooches and pendants. Suddenly I too could feel the parents’ grief at the loss of a beloved child.

  I, who had always considered myself the most unsentimental of women, felt my eyes moisten. Horrified, I moved away from the case and reminded myself that this was the moment to escape. Leo would never be able to tear himself away from his grimy treasures in time to follow me.

  But it seemed unsporting, somehow.

  Instead, I took his arm and steered him over to a child-size suit of armor. “Tell me about this,” I said.

  He told me, at great length. At last we moved on, and Leo was momentarily rendered speechless by Vladislav Hall, the largest secular room in medieval Prague, which stretched for multiple football fields under great vaulted ceilings. His lips moved silently in some sort of intense internal colloquy, until I prodded him quite painfully in the ribs and he woke with a start.

  Next on Leo’s agenda was the monastery library, yet another huge chamber. Great stones formed the walls and pillars, and the coffered ceilings seemed at least a mile high. Yards of bookcases and cabinets, dotted by a few enormous portraits, were the room’s only decoration, and the dim lighting only emphasized the massiveness of this temple of books.

  Intimidated by the size and grandeur, I envied Leo his easy entry into the sacrosanct rooms. He showed his ID to the uniformed guard, who immediately pulled out his walkie-talkie. Within moments we were surrounded by a group of admiring academics. “This is Dr. Leo Schlumberger of Oxford,” one exclaimed to another.

  “The Dr. Schlumberger? The one who wrote Dialectic, Dissent, and Discourse in Medieval . . .”

  Leo’s fan club dispersed eventually, and tourists watched admiringly and enviously as he donned plastic gloves and strode over to a shelf of manuscripts. He pulled down a dusty volume and paged cautiously through it. I tried without success to peer over his shoulder.

  His eyebrows rose, and he grinned. “Well, well,” he said. “Who would have thought it?”

  I couldn’t contain myself any longer. “What? What?”

  Maddeningly, he closed the huge ledger and returned it carefully to its place. “Just a spot of philandering among the churchmen,” he said.

  I shrugged and moved on to gaze up at a portrait of a very grand lady. Her dress was dripping with lace and pearls and finery, her jewels shone with gold, and her face was set in the haughty stare of a person who knows herself to be of great consequence.

  “I wonder who she was,” I mused in spite of myself. “I wish they would label these things.”

  Leo glanced up. “Oh, that’s one of Maria Theresa’s daughters,” he said absently. “They all looked alike. See the Hapsburg chin?”

  Impressed in spite of myself, I looked more closely.

  “One of Marie Antoinette’s sisters,” he added.

  Was there anything he didn’t know?

  “Actually,” Leo said, taking my hand and guiding me over to the opposite side of the room so we could sit, “there’s a funny story about Marie Antoinette and her brother, the Austrian emperor Joseph II. Her family was worried that after five years of marriage to Louis XVI of France, she still hadn’t conceived a child. Marie’s mother wrote to her every month asking if she’d gotten her period, and if so, was she having sex on the right day, and was she trying to entice her husband into bed?”

  “Well, was she?” I asked.

  “Probably. But poor Louis was just a boy when they married—fifteen and young for his age. He probably had no idea what to do with a pretty girl like Marie. They probably didn’t consummate their marriage for seven years.”

  I suspected that Leo had known what to do at fifteen.

  “Anyway,” he went on, “Maria Theresa sent her son, Emperor Joseph, to Versailles so he could try to figure out what was going on. He and Louis talked for hours. No one will ever know exactly what the two men discussed, but within months Marie Antoinette was pregnant.”

  “So, what do you think . . .” I trailed off.

  He shrugged. “All of France was gossiping in quite astonishing detail about the King’s impotence. One courtier wrote in a letter that poor Louis had a tiny penis; others speculated that he had some genital malformation that required surgery.”

  I winced, and Leo nodded. “Quite,” he said. “Joseph wrote to the Grand Duke of Tuscany that ‘it’s not a weakness of the body or spirit. . . . In his marriage bed, he has strong erections, he inserts his member, remains there for perhaps two minutes without moving, withdraws without ejaculating, and, while still erect, bids good night. It’s incomprehensible.’”

  “I’ll say,” I murmured.

  “Joseph added, ‘Ah, if only I could have been present once, I would have set him straight! He should be whipped until he discharges in anger like a donkey. My sister does not have the temperament for this, and together they make an utterly inept couple.’”

  “So the Emperor of Austria was Marie Antoinette’s Dr. Ruth,” I said, smiling.

  “Quite,” Leo said again. “You see how much fun history can be? It’s all about the people.” He stood up. “Shall we continue our tour?”

  I stood up too, and he took my hand. “Come,” he invited. “On y va.”

  We strolled out of the library into a darker afternoon. Storm clouds were threatening, and the day had turned from bright sunlight into a lowering gloom. I glanced around uneasily, noting that most of the tourists had disappeared and we seemed to be alone on the huge stone plaza. “Maybe we should head back to the hotel,” I suggested.

  “But we haven’t seen the—” Leo began to protest.

  And then a shot exploded.

  Chapter 19

  Well, not “exploded,” precisely, because the shooter had used a silencer. But the bullet whizzed past Leo’s ear with a nasty whine and struck the stone wall behind him with such force that small fragments of rock flew out in a lethal spray. I jumped back involuntarily, and Leo swore.

  “This way,” he snapped, grabbing my arm, and we broke into a run. Singularly handicapped by the uneven stone underneath our feet and the treacherous, dark shadows cast by the dying sun, I tripped several times in my useless shoes and was held upright only by the sheer force of Leo’s grip. We raced
around the corner of the monastery, dodged in and out of dark alcoves, and ran up and down staircases that led nowhere. The castle grounds were a maze, perfect for a game of hide-and-seek. Deadly serious hide-and-seek.

  Leo dragged me into an anonymous outbuilding, and we slipped behind some ancient, musty curtains as I pressed my hand to my mouth to hold back the sneezes. “Where do you think he is?” I whispered, proud of the steadiness of my voice.

  “I don’t know.” Leo’s voice was tight and clipped. I glanced at him and saw blood running down his cheek. One of the flying stone fragments must have cut him, I thought. Again. Again, Leo was bleeding, and someone was chasing us.

  He must have read my thoughts. “Being with you is very bad for my health,” he said dryly.

  “Being with you is very bad for mine,” I retorted. We exchanged suspicious glares.

  “We can’t stay here,” Leo muttered, and he twitched the curtain aside for a cautious look.

  Following his nod, I eased out from behind the curtains and stood looking about. We were in a weapons armory, and I recognized the irony. Leo was probably itching for a gun at his waist. I knew I was. None of these ancient, rusted, dull weapons would serve us now, however.

  “Come on,” he whispered, and we began to edge our way out of the building.

  A dark figure appeared around a corner, and another whipped out from behind a stone pillar. The two men were advancing slowly, their weapons drawn, and Leo was poised on the balls of his feet, ready for action. What kind of action, I couldn’t even begin to imagine. We were pretty badly outgunned.

  Gun. That gave me an idea.

  “Bloody hell,” Leo said clearly. “Stay back, Amy.”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. I edged back into the armory and looked around frantically. Then I saw the old blunderbuss.

  Without taking the time to be scared, I flung off my sweater and wrapped it around my hand and then smashed the glass of the exhibit case and grabbed the blunderbuss.

  Alarms rang out. Good, I thought.

  Staggering under the weight of the heavy weapon, I ran back to the half-open door and threw it to Leo.

  I prayed that I was right about the blunderbuss.

  Leo seized the weapon in his hands and fired.

  Or misfired, I should say. As I had hoped, there was enough gunpowder in the ancient barrel to produce one hell of a ball of gray, choking smoke. The two attackers retreated in haste, and more alarms rang out. In the distance, I heard cars revving up and police sirens beginning to blare.

  Leo dropped the blunderbuss and grabbed my arm once more. “We have to get out of here,” he said.

  So we ran again. Down and up the staircases, in and out of blind alcoves, back and forth among the winding alleyways, until, at last, we found ourselves at the top of the Golden Lane, a charming little shopping street built into the ancient stone of the castle grounds. Leo ducked into a public WC to wash the smoke and grit from his eyes and the blood from his face, while I, seized by an inexplicable desire, plunged enthusiastically into the tiny shops.

  Leo found me drooling over a gorgeous porcelain doll wearing a hand-sewn Czech traditional costume and had to drag me away.

  “Are you crazy?” he snapped. “Shopping for souvenirs when we’re running for our lives?”

  “We’re not running now,” I said. Couldn’t he understand that just for a moment, I wanted to be an innocent tourist?

  “This game isn’t fun anymore,” Leo said.

  “It never was,” I retorted.

  Our eyes met, and suddenly I was brimming with fury again. “You bloody idiot!” I threw at him. “You got us shot at again!”

  “Me?” he retorted. “You’re the one hiding behind a fake name! It’s you they’re shooting at!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped.

  “I thought maybe it was an abusive boyfriend, but spurned boyfriends don’t shoot at strangers in the darkness! Who the fuck are you, anyway?”

  “Who the fuck am I?” I hissed back. “Who the fuck are you?”

  We glared at each other, practically panting in our mutual rage and suspicion. Then the fight went out of me, and I almost sagged, drained of energy and anger.

  “Let’s have something to eat,” Leo suggested, more pacifically.

  As the adrenaline burst subsided, I was suddenly hungry. Again. So I agreed and let him lead me into a very chintzy, flowery teashop that reminded me of the porcelain doll he had made me abandon.

  After we’d ordered, Leo leaned back in his chair and studied me again. “Tell me more about your sheikh,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because. Maybe he’s the one behind these attacks.”

  My chubby, grandfatherly Sheikh Abdullah? “No,” I said firmly. “Besides, I have to maintain client confidentiality.”

  “Well, that’s helpful,” Leo said sarcastically. “It’s just that when people try to kill me, I tend to take it personally. I’d like to know who and why.”

  “Tell me about your work with Mossad,” I returned sharply.

  We scowled at each other.

  Leo sighed. “I do not work for Mossad. Never have and never will. After my time in the military, I don’t want anything to do with war or politics again. I want to study long-dead queens and live a long, peaceful life.” He studied me for a moment. “Can you say the same?”

  A long, peaceful life? No, I was my father’s daughter. I demanded, “Aren’t you still in the reserves? Don’t you have to serve when Israel goes to war?”

  “Well, of course. That’s true for all Israeli men.”

  “And don’t you carry a weapon?”

  “Again, most Israeli men who are in the reserves carry weapons when in Israel. Motek, this all means nothing. I am an academic, plain and simple.”

  For a moment, I pictured a world in which aging, stooped professors dueled with swords and pistols in wild conflict. One graying academic would parry a blow from another, proclaiming, “Never will I agree to a textual discourse on the Devonshire Papers! Never, I say!”

  Ridiculous.

  I studied Leo closely until he squirmed with discomfort. Tall. Strong build. Quick as a cat. Probably comfortable with any manner of weapons. Multilingual. Cool under pressure. Of course he was a spy. A Perfect Spy, as my favorite author, John le Carré, would say.

  We sat in silence as the waitress brought us a massive tea service of scones, clotted cream, jams, cookies, and tiny finger sandwiches. I dug in hungrily, and Leo followed suit.

  “I have an idea,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Let’s do some more sightseeing tomorrow. Let’s see if they follow us. Maybe we can trap them and figure out what they’re after.”

  “Are you crazy?” I demanded. “We’re not armed, and they are. How do you think you can take on—”

  “I don’t think I can,” the gentle and peaceable university professor said. “I know I can.”

  Chapter 20

  Well, I knew I could too.

  So the next morning, ostentatiously armed with a guidebook and map, we set out to do more sightseeing. Our first stop, chosen by me, was the KGB Museum. I was amused to realize that it was just a few doors down from the US embassy—conveniently located for clandestine meetings, I thought.

  Leo, who had wanted to visit the ancient-history museum, was sulking. “Why are you obsessed with spies, anyway?” he asked me as we waited by the entrance.

  “I love spy books,” I told him. “And spy movies.”

  “But why?”

  I shrugged. “Who knows? My father turned me on to them when I was little.”

  Leo said, “Tell me again what your father did?”

  “He was an international energy consultant,” I recited.

  “For whom?”

  “The same company I worked for when I first moved to London. International Development Consultants, IDC.”

  “But what exactly did he do?” Leo persisted.

  Honestly,
I had no idea. My father’s work at IDC was the least interesting thing about him. I knew he was trying to make the world a safer place; that was what he always told me when I asked about his work.

  I shrugged, and Leo would have pressed me further had the doors not opened. It was a strange, strange place—a small, dark series of rooms filled with glass cases and indeterminable objects. The guide and owner, who spoke in a thick Russian accent and never gave his name, struck me as an intriguing character at the beginning. But very soon I was shying away from him whenever he passed too close to me, and I was glad of Leo’s solid bulk behind me.

  As with the Spy Museum in Berlin, there were more gadgets and more of Leo’s disparaging comments; he actually laughed out loud when the owner pointed to a Maxwell Smart–style shoe phone. I wasn’t finding any of it funny, though. The owner—I had nicknamed him Vladimir in my head—certainly knew how to handle a firearm, as he brandished machine guns and Glocks with equal relish. In his thick accent, in the dark, gloomy room, he told hair-raising stories about interrogations gone wrong and assassinations gone right.

  Then we got to the swords and knives. I hid behind Leo and absolutely refused to touch any of the lethally sharp weapons our guide passed around so casually. I cringed when Vladimir demonstrated martial arts moves that ended in garroting or stabbing or both.

  When we emerged into the fresh, sunny outdoors, I shook myself as if awakening from a bad dream. “That was creepy,” I said to Leo.

  “You see? I told you we should have gone to the ancient-history museum.”

  I tucked my hand into his arm, enjoying the feel of hard muscle under my fingers. Leo smiled down at me. “Where to next, motek?”

  “Someplace not creepy and not tragic.”

  “Well . . . I was going to take you around the old Jewish Quarter.”