Strangers in Venice

by A W Hartoin

  “Thank you very much,” said Nicky. “What’s the cure?”

  “Ginger and lemon to put in the hot water. It will help the upset.”

  Nicky thanked him again and tipping him generously before closing the door. “That’s lucky. Now we don’t have to put Earl Grey on your arm.”

  “I am trained in wound care,” said Bast. “Would you like me to take care of it?”

  “Be my guest,” said Nicky.

  Bast dunked the heavy linen napkin in the hot water and pressed it to Stella’s shoulder. “Does that sting?” he asked.

  “Not really,” she said. “Nicky, can you give me the suitcase?”

  He balanced it on her knees and she popped the little brass clasps. Inside, she found her new pajamas stuffed in with her French and German dictionaries, Babar, The Hobbit and Ivanhoe. She ran her hands over the books and a fresh pain encircled her chest, swirling like a tornado and getting more and more violent.

  “Interesting choices,” said Bast.

  Stella didn’t answer. Her hand was on Ivanhoe.

  “What is?” asked Nicky, leaning to look around the suitcase.

  “Your books.”

  “Oh, right. Have you read them?”

  “I have,” said Bast. “Have you?”

  Nicky frowned. “You sound doubtful.”

  “Your file didn’t indicate an interest in either author.”

  “My file. I forgot about that.” Nicky stood and put up the window shade, flooding the compartment with light. “You really know us.”

  “I do or rather I thought I did. You chose the books?”

  Nicky gazed out the window. “No. Stella bought the children’s book. One was a gift to her and the other…” He turned sharply. “Oh, my God.”

  Stella gripped Ivanhoe like she was about to fall and it was the only thing that could save her. “Yes.”

  Bast pressed the napkin to her shoulder again. “Did I miss something?”

  Stella opened the cover to reveal the ex libris, the identification Karolina and Rosa refused to remove.

  “Max Ladner,” read Bast.

  Nicky took the suitcase off her knees and tried to pry the book from her hands, but she wouldn’t let go. “It’s not your fault, Stella. You told them to strip it out. They wouldn’t do it.”

  “Ah, this is what the German found in your room and gave to Bartali,” said Bast.

  “They wouldn’t do it,” Stella choked out. “It was their past. They didn’t want to lose it.”

  “That was their choice,” said Nicky.

  “I should’ve made them.” She could barely get it out. All that death because of her. Because of her insistence. Because of her weakness.

  Bast peeled the silk from her shoulder and then deftly ripped the sleeve off. “I can tell you from experience that is a losing battle. They made their choice and they paid for it.”

  “How can you be so cold? Karolina and Rosa were lovely women. Innocent. They didn’t know what they were choosing.”

  He pressed the napkin back over the two-inch slice on her shoulder. “They did. Those lovely ladies stole from the Reich. They knew what that meant. Enough to change their names and run for it.”

  The tornado got hot, pressing the breath out of her lungs. “It was their property.” She pointed at the book. “Theirs.”

  “For the record, Mrs. Lawrence, I’m not cold. I couldn’t do the work I do if I was. I’m logical.”

  “This is not logical. Their books don’t belong to the Reich.”

  “They do if the Reich says they do.” He laid down the bloody napkin and dried his hands on another one. “May I see it?”

  With difficulty, she gave it to him. He examined the book for a moment and handed it back. “Did they have many similar volumes?”

  “Yes. Their room was packed with books,” she said.

  “This is a first edition and signed. It has worth. The Reich needs money and they’re also insatiable collectors. They are taking hordes of books, art, creative works of all kinds.”

  “They said there was a warrant out for their arrest,” said Stella. “And a reward.”

  “But they can’t just declare the von Bodmann property theirs,” said Nicky.

  “You underestimate them, Mr. Lawrence.” Bast went on to tell them what probably happened. Max Ladner died and the Reich imposed a death tax on his widow, one that couldn’t possibly be paid. Therefore the ladies’ property would be confiscated to pay the tax. He said it was insidious and quite common.

  “That’s evil,” said Stella.

  “Agreed.”

  “But that can’t be why so many Jews are showing up with nothing,” said Nicky. “It can’t all be taxes.”

  “The Nazis are nothing if not creative,” said Bast. “Particularly, if you have something they want. They’ll charge huge amounts for visas to get out of the country so the target will have to sell. Their property will be valued well below market value and it will cost them everything to escape. Sometimes, people get arrested on trumped up charges and selling is the only way to get out of prison.”

  “And this is about books?” asked Nicky. “Just so they can burn them?”

  Bast picked the fabric away from the wound and pressed the napkin back to Stella’s shoulder. “There’s a complex and organized system in place for books. They’re funneling the best volumes into Hitler’s personal library and the libraries of high-ranking officials. The rest will either be sold or put into libraries for the people,” said Bast.

  Stella thought of the diary, but that wasn’t part of that plan. It was special. Its own particular target. “It wasn’t only books.”

  “You mean the scroll Sofia mentioned?” asked Bast.

  She told them about the Ripley Scroll in its box beneath Rosa’s bed. The ancient scroll was now in the hands of the Reich. The thought of Hitler touching it, claiming such a precious object as his own at the cost of the ladies’ lives made her ill enough to need the conductor’s remedy.

  Bast quickly made her a cup of steaming tea and pressed it into her hands like the good Englishman his accent proclaimed him to be. “They won’t burn it, if that’s what’s concerning you.”

  “No?” asked Nicky.

  “They do love a good bonfire, but that is always, absolutely always, for a purpose,” said Bast.

  “To put on a show.”

  “Yes and no. They’re burning books that don’t work for them. Books that don’t agree with their Aryan ideal. They don’t want those ideas out there. The scroll won’t serve that purpose and they have an interest in the occult. It’s a particular passion of Hitler’s. Or it might be sold to fund the coming war. They won’t burn it.” Bast bandaged her shoulder with her sleeve and asked Nicky to find another jacket to cover it.

  Nicky packed up the books into the first suitcase and found a jacket in another. While he was helping Stella put it on, Bast asked, “Now that we know about the ladies, who wants to tell me about the couple in the boat?”

  Nicky put away the suitcases and looked out the window. He had the stare again and Stella could wait all day, but he wasn’t going to answer. “Friends.”

  “Friends that you were searching for. But you didn’t know what they looked like or where they were staying?”

  Stella glanced at Nicky. He didn’t move. “What makes you say that?”

  “Mrs. Lawrence, I’m good at what I do and you know I wasn’t alone in watching you.”

  “You weren’t?” asked Nicky.

  “No.”

  “Why didn’t any of you help us?” asked Stella. “We could’ve used some help.”

  “That wasn’t the mission,” said Bast. “I was tasked to observe, evaluate the situation, and bring you in, if necessary. Who are the Sorkines?”

  “Why don’t you tell us, if you know so much?” Stella couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. It could’ve been different. Bast could’ve changed everything.

  “I only know what I gathered in Venice.”
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  “Go ahead. Lay it on us.”

  “You two decided to stay in Europe, with the SS looking for you, to search for a French couple whom you obviously don’t know. The Sorkines were also looking for you, going from hotel to hotel asking about the wealthy Americans and where they went. At some point, the SS became aware of their presence and began a hunt for them as well. We saw no indication that the Sorkines were aware of the danger they were in.”

  Nicky stared out the window and Stella sipped her tea, burning her tongue, but she didn’t mind. She deserved it.

  “All right then,” said Bast. “The couple was middle-aged and not wealthy. They have a daughter, but she wasn’t with them. She attends university in France, but she isn’t there at the moment. People do talk way too much to strangers.” Bast waited for a minute and then continued. “They own an import business that is thriving and plan on expanding soon. Mr. Sorkine has a bad back. Mrs. Sorkine suffers from lumbago. They enquired repeatedly about your tour guide, Abel Herschmann, whom we believe was arrested in Vienna on November ninth or tenth.”

  Stella’s hands were shaking. All she could see was Mrs. Sorkine’s terrified blue eye looking at her. “That’s enough.”

  “Tell me who they are.”

  They didn’t answer so he continued in a monotonous voice that somehow felt ruthless. It was certainly unrelenting. “Since they have shown interest in your tour guide, they may be connected to him, not you. Possibly relatives, although Abel is Jewish and they are not. They’re—”

  “Dead,” Nicky hissed at him. “They’re dead. Nothing else matters. Don’t you see that? I got them killed and that’s it. Shut up about it.”

  Bast folded his hands in his lap. “The question remains.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “Who they are is why they’re dead or most likely dead, as it were.”

  Nicky spat out what happened. He’d changed his mind about the order of the search, prioritizing the money before going out to the telegraph shop. He went straight to the Bella Luna to get it from Daniel and found out that the Sorkines had been there not an hour before. Daniel told them Stella’s message, but they weren’t satisfied. They insisted that they had to see Stella and Nicky before they left Venice. Daniel sent them back to their hotel near the Doge’s Palace to wait to be contacted. Nicky went there and convinced them to leave the city immediately. It took some time. They didn’t want to go. They thought they’d be safe staying where they were.

  “If they’d ignored me, they’d be alive,” he said.

  “If I’d listened to you and left Venice, like you wanted, they’d be alive,” said Stella. “It’s my fault.”

  Nicky shook his head and turned back to the window. “I just hope that this doesn’t touch Daniel. Getting involved with us can be a death sentence.”

  Stella held her breath and looked at Bast, who only nodded. Of course, he knew. He was there.

  Nicky turned to Stella, his eyebrows jutting up. “What?”

  She couldn’t say it so Bast did it in that unfeeling factual way of his. “The SS Peiper shot Daniel Burgess when he wouldn’t tell him where you were. He’s dead.”

  Nicky didn’t say anything. He banged open the compartment door and walked out.

  Stella watched Nicky leave the first-class car, heading who knows where. She wanted to follow him. She wanted to change it. But there was no changing anything.

  “Let him go, Mrs. Lawrence,” said Bast. “He’ll walk it off.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  He pulled a battered suitcase off the rack and sat with it on his knees. “He has to. Close the door. We need to talk.”

  “I don’t know when he’ll come back,” said Stella.

  Bast opened the suitcase and took out a pipe. He clamped it between his teeth and said, “He’s not part of this conversation.”

  “Then I’m not interested.”

  “You will be. Close the door.”

  She didn’t close the door. She didn’t care. Nicky was probably headed for the club car. She’d wait until he’d had a drink and then go down. Whiskey was calming and he deserved a double.

  “Don’t you want to know why I was sent for you and not him?” asked Bast.

  She looked back and nearly jumped out of her skin. Bast had transformed back into the old him, an overweight, myopic writer, sporting a mustache. He still had hair though.

  “Impressed?” he asked with a smile.

  “How did you do that?” she asked, closing the door.

  He pointed at the suitcase. “Take a look.”

  Stella sat next to him and saw a collection of glasses, little pots, brushes, wigs, and what looked like skin. She looked closer at his face. He’d applied some of the skin to his face, creating a double chin and adding quite a bit of weight to his profile. But now she could see the edges between the real and fake.

  “Obviously, were I to go out as Leonard Bast the writer, I’d finish the application to be seamless.” He peeled off the chin and pulled a thick pad out from under his shirt that gave him an impressive belly.

  She poked a bulbous skin-colored dome in the suitcase. “Is that your bald head?”

  “It is. And this is all easier to master than you think.”

  “You forgot your mustache.”

  He chuckled and ripped off the fringe of hair on his upper lip. “A mirror is helpful.”

  “I don’t understand. What does this have to do with you coming for me?”

  It had everything to do with it. When Lord Bickford found out what happened to his son, he told the British government about Stella and Nicky and asked that they be quietly located and brought in. Bast’s bosses at something called the SIS set about doing just that. Although they were unable to catch up to them since events were unfolding too quickly, they did get a rough idea of what happened from paid informants, opponents of the Reich, and newspapers. The fact that they were still alive and had not been run down by Peiper and his infinite resources intrigued them and they decided to wait and see what would happen next.

  “How did you know we’d gone to Venice?”

  Bast shrugged. “I was informed of my destination, not how we got the information.”

  Stella took a breath and held it before asking, “Is Abel alive?’

  “I have no information on his situation.”

  She waited, but he wasn’t going to say another thing about that. “What was the point of coming here? You didn’t help us.”

  “I beg to differ,” he said.

  She crossed her arms and leaned back. “Not until the last minute.”

  “As per my instructions. I was to observe, evaluate, and bring you in, when and if necessary.”

  “Evaluate what?”

  “Your abilities, your character and hopefully figure out how you escaped the SS,” he said, pouring himself some tea. “Frankly, I had my doubts.”

  “That we escaped?” she asked incredulous.

  “That it wasn’t just luck.”

  “It was.”

  He smiled. “No, it wasn’t. You have an interesting set of skills, Mrs. Lawrence.”

  The swirling tornado reformed around her chest and she could see the Sorkines in the water, the blood bursting from Daniel’s skull. “Like the ability to get innocent people killed, I suppose.”

  “That is an unfortunate side effect, but hardly your fault,” he said.

  “I’m the reason. I wouldn’t give up when Nicky wanted to. I wouldn’t leave.”

  “You didn’t kill anyone. Peiper made those choices, not you.”

  Stella stood up and went to the window, watching the sunny Italian countryside rush by. “I bring misfortune with me wherever I go.”

  “You are a natural mimic. A keen observer and imitator. I watched you transform into several different women and you did it without a mustache or a fat pad.”

  “I used glasses,” she said.

  “A nice touch, but you didn’t need them. You can do it with the power of
your personality.”

  “A fat lot of good it did me.”

  “We can use you.”

  She turned and looked at him lighting his pipe. “That’s always been an ambition of mine, to be used.”

  “Make no mistake, Mrs. Lawrence. There is a war coming. Hitler’s troops will be marching over Europe in a matter of months.”

  “That’s got nothing to do with us,” she said, wanting very much to believe it.

  “If you think Peiper is bad, he’s nothing compared with his leadership. They intend to wipe out the Jewish race.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “They’ve been very open about it. In Das Schwarze Korps last week they said, ‘We root out criminals from our orderly state: with fire and sword. The result will be the certain and absolute end of Jewry in Germany; its complete annihilation!’”

  “I don’t know what you expect me to do about it,” said Stella although she was shaken.

  Bast closed his suitcase, having transformed back into the younger, thinner Bast, and put it on the shelf. “I wasn’t to approach you until I was absolutely sure you would be able to do this.”

  “What? Be a spy? What makes you think that I would or could do that?”

  “I wasn’t sure until I heard the name Gabriele.”

  Apparently, Gabriele Griese’s body had washed up several miles downriver from Paris. French Central Intelligence had identified her and passed the information on to the British. There’d been speculation that Nicky killed her, but it was felt more likely that a foreign operative, perhaps Czech or Polish, had done the deed. No one suspected Stella, except Peiper.

  “Why do you care about her?” asked Stella. “She was horrible.”

  “I don’t care about her. I care that you killed her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you have the ability to do it. That’s essential in my line of work.”

  Stella frowned. “Wait a minute. You heard Peiper say that I killed Gabriele? You heard the whole thing?”

  “I did and it was very illuminating as I said.” Bast puffed on his pipe. He couldn’t have looked more satisfied.

  “Peiper said it to get that kid to kill me.”

  “Correct. He’s a real bastard that Peiper.”