The Map

by T. S. Learner

  Izarra rolled away from him in her sleep. Carefully, he shifted his leg from under her, making sure he didn’t wake her, then, after slipping on his trousers and a sweater, went to the desk. The chronicle still lay open atop it, the magnolia on the page. He began reading the text he had translated only hours before.

  We arrived in the Hanseatic port of Hamburg by means of a postal coach. It hath been a long and hard journey and I feared for Uxue’s health, for I knew she was with child. Once in the city, I sought refuge with a wealthy Jewish silk merchant who hath sought the services of a physic for his young son. The child had but a fever and, with the help of Uxue’s herbal remedies and my own skill, the fever broke within two days and the child was robust again. The merchant, a kind but illiterate man, whose intellect hath been swallowed entirely by his mercantilism, was embarrassingly grateful and thinking I hath saved the life of his only son, asked how he could repay me. When I told him I needed to construct a maze, the man was astounded, but after I explained the folly was to be in service of a great mystic power that would enhance his reputation as a pious man, to his immense credit he declined to ask any further questions but instead supplied me with both labour and a plot of land in a pleasant fishing village that was advantaged by being a great distance from the city gates and its harbour. Built on a steep slope along the banks of the Elbe, it was used as a point for the barges that ferried people across the river. It was well positioned and afforded a broad view of both the river and the pleasant industry of the passing Hanseatic League ships – pretty with their sails and painted hulls. The grounds the merchant hath offered up were themselves at the foot of the garden of his own summerhouse, a retreat he hath called the House of Sweet Water, as once it had a well famous for its sweet spring water. The gardens were of a generous size and I hath voiced my reluctance at such an imposition on his own private estate, but he hath reassured me he liked doolhof and hath seen such botanical labyrinths on his travels in the Netherlands, pledging he and his family would keep the maze safe and intact in its design. We began work almost immediately, as our passage for England hath been booked and our departure was now weeks away. These were happy times, for the city, used to foreigners through trade and shipping, welcomed both myself and my wife. Although one morning while at the market I thought I saw my nemesis again, the betrayer of my family, her long red hair and stature was unmistakable, but just as I had become convinced she hath followed me to the city, she disappeared from sight. Again, I found myself wondering whether what I’d seen was my terror made manifest or whether she really hath followed us from Spain. I could not sleep that night. I now am secretly resigned to leaving Europe altogether. I dare not tell Uxue.

  Izarra groaned faintly, momentarily distracting August from his reading. He got up and pulled the blanket over her shoulders, then went back to the chronicle. He stared down at the transcribed words, trying to remember the geography of Hamburg. A small fishing village on a steep slope once visited by ferries. Shimon’s description resounded in the silence of the cabin broken only by Izarra’s breathing. He unfolded the map Karl had left for them, tracing his finger over the Elbe to the west of the city. Othmarschen was too near; the next suburb along, Nienstedten, was a possibility, but it still felt a little close. Then he remembered Karl describing Blankenese as a place full of large country houses traditionally owned by the rich burghers of the city. Was it possible the physic’s maze still existed in the garden of one of those mansions? It would be extraordinary if that was so, but not inconceivable. Running his eye along the bank, he found the area, further along the river; the perfect location for a small medieval fishing village.

  After replacing the chronicle into the hollow of the desktop, he grabbed the Rolleiflex, the Mauser and the helmet Karl had lent him and stepped out of the cabin.

  Malcolm Hully looked out of his office window down across the rooftops. Sandwiched between two sections of guttering a blackbird perched on the edge of a nest was busy feeding a fledgling. With a jolt Malcolm realised somehow the season had changed without him being aware of it. August Winthrop had hijacked his waking hours and he had the unpleasant sensation that if the case were to end badly, it would fall on his head. He sighed, then paced the tiny office, two steps to the door, two steps back, thinking. Why was August obsessed with this Tyson character? He’d managed to glean some information from his friends in Washington, but after a few vague snippets the Americans had closed ranks. Tyson was either very high up or very embarrassing. Malcolm couldn’t get an indication either way. Ever since Burgess and Maclean, the Americans regarded the British Secret Service as little more than a bunch of upper-class buffoons playing at amateur hour. There were times that, frankly, Malcolm could only concur; even so, MI5 couldn’t afford this situation with August to become yet another international embarrassment. One thing Malcolm had found out was that Tyson had held close ties with Spain for over a decade and he’d been there in 1945, on what Malcolm was now beginning to believe was a black CIA operation the British knew nothing about. But how did this link to August? Had he known Tyson from the Spanish Civil War? August was out of Spain in 1945, and if he was KGB, why would the Soviets have been interested in such an operation?

  Malcolm stopped at the wall and rested his forehead against the plaster. He’d had the language department translate the Russian note they’d found in August’s apartment. He couldn’t get two stanzas of the poem out of his head:

  But I will go

  Though a scorpion should eat my temple

  But you will come

  With your tongue burned by the salt rain.

  He was convinced the stanza was code for a mission – but what mission and what code? How was August going to sabotage the defence pact? Would it be violent? A surprise bombing of the US Embassy in Spain? An assassination attempt? It was a horrific thought. Malcolm repeated the stanza to himself. The pattern matched nothing they knew of the code the KGB was currently using. Perhaps the fact that Lorca had been a Spanish Republican poet murdered by the regime was symbolic to the mission somehow?

  One thing was certain, August was on an operation to either destroy or sabotage the US cash for military bases deal with Franco. The question was, how and when would he hit? They had no idea where the American was now, but sooner or later he would have to go to Switzerland.

  Malcolm picked up the phone.

  ‘Maxine, get me Upstairs, I want to know who we have in Geneva, preferably in the UN itself.’

  The sun had just started to streak its thin way through a violet-grey dawn. Winding his way along the Elbe on the BMW, August left behind the built-up areas of Hamburg and the streetscape widened into leafy suburbia, the neatly sloped roofs of the Teutonic middle classes. The river, a broad grey band running along the left side of him, seemed also to have changed character the further he rode from the port itself, taking on a gentler more rambling nature as the river traffic thinned to the occasional ferry. August had packed the map, his gun and his Rolleiflex before leaving Izarra, still curled up and sleeping. Looking down at her, he’d tried to stop a great wave of tenderness that shot up from the soles of his feet. It was something about seeing such defensiveness and strength momentarily at rest, the childlike way she had bent her arms above her head, laid out on the pillow, an unconscious gesture she’d probably made since a baby. Her face was devoid of the sorrow and the air of acerbic brittleness she always seemed to carry with her and it was profoundly moving to see her looking so unmarked both by time and experience. For a moment he’d been tempted to lean down to begin to make love to her while she was still sleeping, if merely to observe that flush travel across her cheeks again like some sudden aberrant sunrise, but he knew he should leave and this time without her. So he’d walked away from the steel bunk and, after carefully closing the cabin door, left the U-boat, ensuring that the entrance was securely locked behind him.

  A rabbit darted across the road, jolting him back into the fresh morning air. Already the day was heating up. Twisting
the throttle, he tried to lose his emotions in the icy wind. I must not get involved, I must not. His hair streaming back, the sun burning his face, the thought beat on like a tattoo and he realised Izarra, her taste, scent, the echo of her body, had fastened hold, sending tendrils through him like strata in a rock.

  Behind him he thought he heard the sound of a car backfiring. He looked over his shoulder – there was nothing but the lane receding behind him in the morning haze. He hadn’t encountered another vehicle for at least twenty minutes and the road felt eerily deserted. Unnaturally so, and he couldn’t shake off the sensation of being followed, or watched, like prey in an open field. Was Izarra right? Was Tyson three moves ahead of him? Did he know about the existence of the mazes and if he did, why hadn’t he attempted to assassinate August and steal the chronicle yet? What was he waiting for? For August to do the groundwork for him? Had he been unwittingly leading Tyson to exactly where he wanted to go? Was he just a pawn in a bigger game? August couldn’t shake off the niggling sensation that he might be.

  He arrived at a fork in the road and following a sign came to the crossroads of what must have once been the village of Blankenese, now swallowed up by suburban surrounds. He parked the BMW against a tree and glanced around for someone who might know the area. It was still early, the shops had just pulled up their shutters and he saw only a few pedestrians on the street. He walked around for a good ten minutes before he saw an old postman delivering letters from a large sack across his back, and went up to him.

  ‘Excuse me, sir?’ he asked, in German. The old man turned around, his long face thin-skinned, his forehead bulbous with knotted veins, the eyes, pale blue and red-rimmed, peered out suspiciously.

  ‘Ja?’ he retorted, brusquely.

  ‘I am looking for an old house in Blankenese, which was once known as the House of Sweet Water, a long, long time ago. I’m sure no one would know the area as well as a gentleman like yourself. Have you heard of it?’ August hoped that his schoolboy German didn’t sound too ridiculous. The postman, obviously concluding August was a foreigner, crossed his arms defensively, his eyes narrowing.

  ‘I’m not a gentleman, I’m a postman,’ he told August, firmly, in that candid German fashion.

  ‘Exactly,’ August replied, having decided the best tactic was to reply with similar bluntness. ‘Which is why you are the best person to ask.’

  ‘Funny, because you’re the second person to ask about that house in two days.’

  August tried to hide his surprise. Feigning casualness, he joked, ‘Really, you must be getting sick of us. Was he an American perhaps, like me?’

  ‘No, a woman, not a young one either. But there was something about her eyes …’ The postman’s voice trailed off for a moment, then his focus came back. ‘Maybe someone has published something about this house in a tourist guide?’

  ‘No, nothing like that, just coincidence,’ August reassured the German, who he felt was less likely to volunteer information if that was the case. August’s mind whirled. Who was the woman? The same one who followed him to Irumendi?

  ‘Well, you’re lucky, because I have also spent my entire life in Blankenese. Of course, back then it wasn’t even considered part of Hamburg. There wasn’t even a bus you could catch to get here —’

  Frightened he would ramble, August interjected: ‘The House of Sweet Water?’

  Deliberately ignoring him, the postman looked closer at August’s jacket. ‘Are those American cigarettes?’

  Taking the hint, August offered him one. The man lit up and sucked gratefully. Exhaling, he continued: ‘I suppose you are one of those ghoulish tourists who collects war memorabilia? Looking for something to take back to the folks back home, a souvenir of the monster Hitler to put on the mantelpiece?’

  Confused by the man’s aggressive tone, August stepped back. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The Well House. You’re after the Well House, isn’t that right?’

  ‘It should have a large garden – grounds, even, at the back. Are we talking about the same place?’

  ‘We’re talking about the same place all right. The House of Sweet Water used to be known as the Well House. There was an old story that a miracle happened there many, many years ago, maybe hundreds. A young priest vanished into thin air. My grandfather once told me it used to be visited by pilgrims, but we’re talking about the same place only in this century. As I was saying, before the war it was known as the Well House, then after that the Well Academy for Hitler Youth. The original owner was a Jew, you see, and the Führer, in his wisdom, “confiscated” the building in 1939. After that it was used to train Hitler Youth, and then, when they started to send them to the front, some as young as fourteen, the boys I used to see training in those gardens, they were getting younger and younger, lambs to slaughter they were. Not that I’m saying it was wrong or right. But it happened, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.’ The postman paused, finished his cigarette with one long drag then ground the butt under his heel. As he looked up his face clouded over with some distant terrible memory. ‘When the Russians came everyone, everyone who was still standing that is, surrendered, except for the academy. They might have been boys but they still knew how to use a gun. They held the Soviets off for two nights and two days, until there were fewer than twenty boys left shooting. When the Russians finally got in, the place looked like an abattoir. When they found that some of the boys were as young as six it was said that even the Russian soldiers wept. No one has gone into the house since. On a quiet night they say you can still hear the boys singing their patriotic songs. And now here you are, a souvenir hunter.’ He spat into the gutter.

  ‘My friend, trust me, I am not here for souvenirs. I am interested in the architecture of the building itself, and it is old, isn’t it?’

  ‘Over a hundred years old and there has always been an estate there. The gardens are even older, now all overgrown.’

  ‘So can you direct me?’

  ‘If I do, I can’t vouch for your safety. It is haunted, you know.’

  ‘I can take care of myself.’

  Reluctantly, the postman pointed to a small lane.

  ‘It’s toward the Elbe in the Treppenviertel. It’s like a rabbit’s warren down there. I will draw you a map. But if you meet an eight-year-old ghost called Werner, say hello. He was my sister’s boy.’

  The Treppenviertel turned out to be a labyrinth of narrow lanes and steps set on a steep slope that ran down to the bank of the Elbe. They wound down between the mansions and houses, all of which were set on large plots of land that broke up the hillside in a series of terraces. Following the postman’s handwritten map, in pencil on the back of an old envelope, August found himself in a lane flanked by high hedgerow, the glistening flagstones underfoot slippery with morning dew. He followed the path down to another set of stone steps, the vista of the Elbe and the flat horizon beyond dipping tantalisingly in and out of view like some distant paradise below, with each new twist of the path. Finally, he arrived at a high iron gate, the footpath beyond almost entirely overgrown with linden and chestnut trees. The gate, white paint peeling and rusty, was fastened with a heavy lock and chain. It looked like it hadn’t been opened for years. A wooden sign, part of it vandalised beyond repair, proclaimed ‘Die Akademie für die Jugend von Hitl —’. Careful not to catch himself on the spike railings, August climbed over the gate. Under a canopy of branches and accompanied by the sound of creaking tree trunks moving with the wind, he followed the path, barely visible through the weeds that poked up between the paving stones, down to a terrace. Heavily overgrown, the area looked as if it had been deliberately planted to conceal the path and the top storey of the large stone three-storey mansion that now appeared, visible on the next terrace down. Beyond the house lay yet another terrace further down the slope towards the river. This, August could see, was once tended grounds – landscaped and manicured – now overgrown like a sharp photograph that had lost focus. And it was at the far edge of this terrace that
he thought he could see the high topiary of a small maze.

  She leaned against the cool red brick, gazing out over the grounds below. The mansion was noisy to her. There were the more recent whisperings that seemed to reach out to her like arms extending down the long whitewashed corridors that reminded her of a hospital. She knew it had been a school of some sort during the war. There were the rows of iron bunk beds lining a once-grand room that must have been a ballroom – the proletarian utilitarianism startlingly ugly against the peeling gilt grandeur. And there had been children. She’d come across a crumpled football, hopeful in its faded chequered expectancy, waiting like an obedient dog, by a door, lost in time. But what disturbed her most was the faint singing, strange patriotic songs she half-recognised, that rose up like reeds wrapping themselves around her ankles. Still, she knew she was in the right place, the place where he would come, soon. She felt him. She’d followed him and now she was waiting.

  She glanced back down at the overgrown lawn that sloped back towards the next terrace. She wouldn’t even have to go looking for him – he would find her and then she would save him, from himself, from the obsession that had hijacked him like so many before him and hopefully from the malevolence she was certain was shadowing both of them. The only question was, was she too late?