They walked on together until they came to a window that displayed a bronze sculpture of an Indian brave standing over a dead buffalo. The sign on the door read die ewigen Jagdgründe. She took out her smartphone and Googled it. The phrase translated to the Happy Hunting Ground.
“Geronimo,” she said, and pushed open the door.
The air was thick with the incense of desert sage and piñon and the plaintive sounds of a flute wafted through the interior. Colorful canvases of Indians adorned the walls—Indians hunting, Indians dancing, Indians riding horses, Indians contemplating the mountains and the plains, and ghost Indians looking down from the sky. She felt momentarily disoriented, as if she’d been teleported to Santa Fe in the blink of an eye.
“Guten Morgen!”
“God’s sake,” said Margaret, as an Indian loomed from behind a stack of fur throws and pelts. His red-painted dome was bisected by a brownish mohawk and a necklace of mottled grizzly claws curved against his bare chest. A painted black hand cradled his chin and mouth, the thumb jutting up on his left cheek and the fingers extending up the right side of his face to his eye. A diagonal line of white dots extended from above his left eye to the tip of the black thumb.
Dinah didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. Somehow, she managed to keep a straight face. “Good morning. We’re here to see Herr Florian Farber.”
His smile, in the context of all the war paint, appeared fierce, but his tone was friendly. “I am Florian Farber. Welcome to my gallery.” He shook both of their hands. “Please do not be alarmed. I am dressed for an event later tonight. How may I help you?”
“I believe my mother had an appointment with you today. Mrs. William Calms. Is she here?”
He beamed. “You are Frau Pelerin, Swan’s daughter? Yes, of course. I should have recognized you. She told me you had moved to Berlin and would be visiting the gallery. Willkommen. Come in. It is Dinah, ja? May I offer you a cup of tea?”
“Thanks, no.” She ran her eyes around the place. Interspersed among the paintings were intricately painted masks, Hopi, she thought. They looked like those worn during religious ceremonies. A glass display case with an assortment of artifacts and jewelry cut through the center of the gallery. In the southeast corner was an ordinary business desk. In the southwest corner stood a stone statue, a fearsome combination of lion and bear and lizard that would have looked more at home in the Museum of Cairo.
“Is the lady here?” demanded Margaret.
“No. I don’t anticipate that I will see Frau Calms until tonight at our powwow.”
“When do you anticipate that Mr. Hess will arrive?”
“Reiner Hess?” The name seemed to rattle him. “Reiner has not been to a powwow since…a while.”
Margaret scowled. “You mean since the police came after him for tax evasion?” She balled her fists on her hips as if she might clobber him if he didn’t say what she wanted to hear.
The light of welcome dimmed in Florian’s eyes, and the painted black hand that held his mouth, compressed. “I don’t know anything about that. Reiner is an acquaintance. A member of der Indianer club for a long time, but not active in our meetings. I know nothing of his business or financial affairs.”
Dinah laid a restraining hand on Margaret’s arm and smiled—disarmingly, she hoped. “We don’t know anything about Mr. Hess, either. We’re just trying to locate my mother. She left a note that led us to believe she would be paying you a visit this morning. It’s her first day in Berlin, she speaks no German, and I’m concerned that she’ll get lost and won’t be able to find her way back to her hotel. Do you have any idea where else she might have gone?”
The reference to Swan restored his obliging manner. “Yes, you would naturally be worried. I will of course be happy if she drops by the gallery today, but in her last communication to me, she said only that she looked forward to meeting me and the other club members at the powwow tonight.”
“Here at the gallery?” Dinah couldn’t picture a bunch of would-be Indians whooping it up in this crowded shop.
“No. It is held near the south shore of Müggelsee in the southeastern suburbs.”
“Where exactly is that? And when?”
“Seven o’clock. Take the S-bahn to Friedrichshagen. There is a ferry across the lake and we will meet at the top of Kleiner Müggelberg.”
Having so far not traveled much beyond the Mitte, Dinah had no idea where this Müggelsee might be. She racked her brain. Where could Swan have gone? Her note was vague as to time, but stated clearly that she was going to meet Farber. Had she taken the wrong train? What and where were the other “errands” on her itinerary? Or had she been kidnapped? Was she locked up somewhere in this gallery? In a secret chamber behind one of those paintings, perhaps? She scanned the walls and display cases.
Farber said, “You will of course be most welcome at the powwow tonight also.”
“Thank you. Do you by any chance sell Indian dolls?”
“Dolls? No, I seldom see a doll worth acquiring, although I once had a very nice Inuit doll made in eighteen-twenty.” He smiled. “While you are here, you must come into the courtyard and meet some of our other members.” He gestured them toward the rear of the shop.
Margaret vented a succession of impressive sneezes. When she could speak, she said, “You go. I need to sit down and rest for a few minutes. If there’s a chair.”
“Ja, ja. Durchaus!” Florian fetched a folding chair from behind the desk and seated her. “Are you ill?”
“Just tired.” She cut her eyes at Dinah. “My young friend sets a mean pace.”
“I’d like to meet the other club members,” said Dinah.
“Very good. Come.”
She followed him past the desk, which was almost as cluttered as hers, and out the back door. A lanky man wearing long braids and a fringed buckskin shirt and leggings stood in front of a yellow tepee decorated with red zigzags and black buffalo heads. His face had been colored with tan makeup, but his hands were white. He wore a silver Indian head ring with a teal enamel headdress on one hand, and a Zuni ring with multicolor stone inlay on the other. A youngish blonde in a beaded deerskin dress squatted in front of a charcoal fire tending a tin kettle. She looked up at Dinah and smiled. “Moin.”
“Dinah, this is my assistant, Drumming Man, and his wife, Little Deer.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” said Dinah. Drumming Man shook hands with her, which was the usual manner of greeting strangers in Germany. His wife didn’t offer.
“And I am Baer Eichen,” said a silver-haired man sitting cross-legged on the ground. He reached out and shook her hand. “Forgive me if I don’t stand.”
“He has an artificial foot,” said Farber, which brought a look of frank displeasure to Eichen’s face.
“I am not disabled,” he said, and pushed himself to his feet. He wore a tan suit, blue shirt, and a braided leather bolo tie secured with a turquoise clasp the size of a duck egg. His blue eyes assessed her from behind avant-garde black wooden eyeglasses. He spoke perfect English with no discernible accent. “I’m in my banker’s mufti, but tonight I will don leggings and a tattered ghost shirt and become Takoda. It is a Sioux name meaning Friend to All.” His eyes twinkled. Flirtatiously, she thought.
She said, “You obviously take your hobby very seriously.”
“It is more than a hobby,” said Drumming Man. “It is our spiritual quest.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make light.”
“Don’t apologize,” said Eichen. “Drumming Man has a sensitive ear and is constantly on the defensive against mockery.”
“As am I. I wouldn’t like to think that your imitation of American Indians was a send-up.” She softened the comeback with a smile.
The group apparently favored the dress of the Great Plains tribes, although it appeared to be a mix-and-match affair. Little Deer wore her b
lond hair in a perky mushroom bob with a plush scarf coiled around her neck like every other woman in Berlin.
“I assure you our admiration is sincere,” said Eichen. “We Germans live pragmatic, prosperous lives, but we feel an absence. We have become alienated from nature and der Indianer club is an outlet for our nostalgia. One might say, a nostalgia for the forest.”
“We dream a past that is innocent of the lust for conquest and the industry of murder,” added Drumming Man, his face somber and spookily earnest. “We put on the simple garments that your Indian ancestors wore and harmonize our thoughts with the music of the drums, which is the heartbeat of life. In dreaming, we transcend this soulless time. In drumming, we are forgiven.”
Little Deer giggled. She looked a lot younger than her husband and Dinah inferred that she wasn’t entirely on board with his desire to transcend this soulless time.
Farber looked uncomfortable. It was an awkward moment between husband and wife, but Dinah got the feeling that Drumming Man’s painful earnestness embarrassed Farber. He said, “Swan has told me that her Seminole ancestors are the only tribe that did not surrender to the United States Government. Is that true, Dinah?”
“The Florida Seminoles were never officially defeated. Like the rest of the Indian nations, they lost anyway.”
Drumming Man said, “We are anxious to meet your mother. Her profile in the Native American registry says that her name was shortened from Suwannee, a river of wild black water and deep channels. She must be geheimnisvoll.”
“Mysterious,” Eichen translated with a twinkle. “If she is anything like her daughter, she is a most attractive woman.”
Not sure how to respond, she said, “Tell me about Chief Winnetou. I understand he’s practically deified in Germany.”
“Not deified,” said Farber. “The stories of Winnetou are fairy tales, good against evil. It was Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show in Munich in eighteen-ninety that gave rise to clubs like ours.”
“The Indians are a tragic people,” said Drumming Man, sounding tragic. “They were vanquished from their land and murdered, just as Winnetou was murdered by the Yankees who lusted for Indian gold.”
“And what a fine time we had last year searching for the burial mound of the great chief,” said Little Deer, the bite of sarcasm unmistakable. “In Wyoming I understood what it feels like to be buried.”
Eichen clapped an arm around Drumming Man’s shoulders. “Karl May made many mistakes in his books about the Indians, but with Winnetou and his German blood brother Old Shatterhand, he evoked a spirit of loyalty and comradeship. Like the knights of legend, they rode through the wilderness, fighting off enemies and righting wrongs.”
The kettle whistled and Little Deer lifted it off the fire and stood up. She was as tall as her husband, with an athletic body and a goading smirk. She smirked at Dinah and asked, “Did the Seminoles take the scalps of white people as trophies?”
“In rare cases,” said Dinah, staring pointedly at her blond bob.
Drumming Man looked as if he might strike his wife, but Eichen intervened. “We each have our view of the Indians and their history. It is not required that we believe the same things in order to enjoy a shared general interest.”
Dinah didn’t perceive an excess of congeniality among these Indians, but she hadn’t seen or heard anything to suggest they might have shanghaied her mother. If what Farber had said about Hess was true and he hadn’t participated in the club’s powwows for a long time, it was possible that Swan’s interest in this group was incidental to her dealings with Hess. In any case, Dinah was back to square eins. “It was a pleasure to meet you all, but I need to check on my friend Margaret and find my mother.”
“We look forward to seeing the three of you this evening at the powwow,” said Eichen, shaking her hand again.
She said good-bye, shook hands again all around, even with Little Deer, and Florian Farber ushered her back through the shop. The chair where Margaret had been resting was empty.
“She must have gone out for a breath of air,” said Farber.
Suckered again, thought Dinah. Another of Cleon Dobbs’ geheimnisvoll ex-wives was in the wind. She wondered if Margaret knew all along where Swan had gone and was on her way to meet her, or if she’d had a brainstorm. Either way, Dinah ruled out abduction. She almost felt sorry for Reiner Hess.
Chapter Eight
Dinah stormed out of the Happy Hunting Ground and collided with a woman encumbered with too many shopping bags.
“Pardon,” said Dinah.
“Ist nicht,” said the woman, summing matters up better than she knew. “Nothing,” as in nothing good. As in, nothing but clouds.
The first fat drops of rain splashed onto the pavement and umbrellas began to go up. Dinah ducked under a construction scaffold and considered her options. She could A, stake out the gallery and hope that her mother eventually turned up; B, call the friendly cop she had promised to call and report her missing; C, hang around with the Indians and try to cajole some information about Hess out of them; or D, go home and prepare for her class next Tuesday.
Arguing against Option A, there was no guarantee Swan would turn up ahead of her heralded appearance at the powwow tonight. In light of the note she’d left, Option B seemed premature. Why would the police waste manpower scouring the city for a ditzy American tourist who’d been missing for only a couple of hours? There were factors that might galvanize them into action. She could show them the mutilated Indian doll. Germany had laws against hate crimes based on ethnicity or national identity. But something about that doll, or Swan’s reaction to it, smelled fishy.
As for Option C, Florian Farber had seemed none too eager to discuss Hess, and if he did tell her where to find him, what could she do? Telephone for an appointment? Ask him if he’d taken a potshot at the Golf? Demand money—Swan’s and Margaret’s just desserts for time they spent married to Cleon? The more she thought about that scheme, the nuttier it sounded. No, Option D was the only one that made sense. D as in delay. D as in don’t make matters worse. D as in denial, which had always been her strong suit. Like mother, like daughter.
***
She climbed the stairs to the apartment just as her across-the-hall neighbor Geert poked his head out the door to retrieve the Berliner Morgenpost. He worked from midnight to six or seven as a bartender at the White Noise Club on Schönhauser Allee. His stubble of yellow beard was always the same length and his gaunt face was perpetually wreathed in cigarette smoke. It was impossible to tell if he’d been to bed yet, or if he ever went to bed.
He took the cigarette out of his mouth. “Moin, Dinah.”
“Moin, Geert. Did you notice anyone suspicious in the hall last night as you left for work?”
“Only myself. Why?”
“Someone left an effigy of a dead Indian in front of my door.”
“Saublöd.” His eyes pinched tight as paper cuts and he blew a mare’s tail of smoke down the hall. “Bloody stupid. No fascist punks around here. The faules in boots and donkey jackets live in Lichtenberg and Marzahn. Where is Thor?”
“Oslo. On business. I’m spending the week with my mother and a friend.”
“Don’t worry. I will test the downstairs lock. And I will kill this Dummkopf if he comes back. I will rip out his eyes.”
“Thanks, Geert. Will you get his name first?”
“No problem.” He put the cigarette back in his mouth and vanished like a fume into his apartment.
Dinah confirmed that her apartment door was locked before inserting her key and pushing inside. Everything appeared normal. Aphrodite had ignored the scratching post and continued to shred one end of the new sofa. Dinah fed her, fixed herself a grilled cheese sandwich, and sat down to sort out her feelings. Anger, fear, aggravation, guilt, and a feeling of ambivalence about the make-believe Indians. The romanticization of the “noble savage,�
� uncorrupted by civilization, had been a common theme since the sixteenth century. It was simplistic and patronizing, although preferable to attitudes of racial and cultural superiority. But what was that slam about scalpings? Maybe Little Deer had been thinking about an episode in one of Karl May’s books.
As a matter of fact, American tribes weren’t the only practitioners of scalping. The Germanic tribes of yore were enthusiastic scalpers. In the ninth century, the Visigoths scalped their victims, as did the Franks and the Angles and the Saxons. During the Crusades, lopping off the entire head was all the rage. But during the colonial and French Indian wars in North America, the British and European colonists offered bounties for Indian scalps, including those of women and children, and conducted scalp-hunting expeditions.
The subject was not one to dwell on. She finished her sandwich and rummaged in the freezer for the tub of Mövenpick Swiss chocolate ice cream. She had gained five pounds since moving to Berlin, but so far she hadn’t opened the pack of Pall Mall filters stashed away in the pantry for emergencies. In fact, cigarettes were losing their psychological appeal. Back in the States, smoking had a subversive, outlaw cachet. In Berlin, it was commonplace. Although it was verboten to light up in public buildings, the streets reeked of smoke and when Geert was at home, smoke leaked from under his door and invaded this apartment. The odor lingered in spite of regular applications of Febreze.
She grabbed a spoon and dug into the ice cream. She ought to call the Wunderbar to see if either Swan or Margaret had returned. She ought to call her mother’s cell again, or Margaret’s, or Farber’s gallery. She ought to take the Golf to the repair shop. She ought to compartmentalize this Hess farrago and concentrate on her class prep. She ought…
The buzzer sounded. Terrific. The wanderers had returned. She stuck the lid back on the ice cream and chucked it into the freezer. What kind of a story could she concoct, or what kind of threat, that would motivate them to get the hell out of Dodge? If she told them she had it from a reliable source that Hess had moved to Argentina, would they believe her?
Where the Bones are Buried Page 5
