‘What do you mean?’
‘The Director of Public Prosecutions is reviewing the case as we speak. You know, looking at the medical evidence, the legal angles and all that. I agree with you, I can’t see the trial continuing if he’s really that ill. And besides, it would seem that the political objective has already been achieved.
‘The important thing was to put him on trial. I think the Attorney-General would be quite happy to drop the whole case now without having to face the uncertainties of a long jury trial. Justice has very little to do with all this,’ Carrington lamented. ‘In the end, it all comes down to politics and expediency.’
‘What now?’
‘Well, if we’re right, it’s all over.’
‘Not quite, Marcus. Not quite. In some ways, this is just the beginning.’
‘What makes you say that – what else did he tell you? It’s those documents he gave you last night, right?’
‘That’s certainly part of it, but there’s more, much more. It’s all linked together like some complex riddle reaching out of the past with clues left along the way. We’re all ensnared, you know. It’s far from over.’
‘Come on, Benjamin, not the fickle finger of fate again – please?’
‘Newman told me something you should know. Something about the Defender of the Faith.’
When Carrington heard this, he sat down. This was going to be a longer conversation than he’d originally thought.
‘Apparently, the only reason Newman agreed to do business with him was this.’ Krakowski opened his briefcase and took out a sheaf of papers. ‘This is a copy with a translation. It’s an old papyrus written in French dating back to the fourteenth century. It’s only recently surfaced in Egypt and Newman’s been looking for it for years. You know, through dealers in all the right circles; that means the black market too. The terrorists offered it to him for sale, provided he was prepared to do business with them. It would appear that my father had been looking for it as well.’
‘What is it?’
‘I’m not sure yet, but, according to Newman, it’s some kind of missing link. I haven’t had a chance to read any of the papers yet. I’ll do it on the plane.’
‘You’re going to Switzerland?’
‘Yes.’
‘The deposit box?’
Krakowski shrugged. ‘I rang the bank and explained the situation. They’re expecting me.’
‘They must have been mighty pleased to hear from you. The international spotlight’s on them right now, you know. So many allegations of Nazi gold and misappropriated Jewish fortunes in their coffers.’
‘You can never tell with the Swiss – inscrutable, yes, but always proper and polite. What about you?’ Krakowski asked, changing the subject.
‘If the trial is over, I’m going to Egypt.’
‘Jana?’
‘Yes. Jana and the terrorists.’
‘And you question destiny?’ Krakowski shook his head. ‘Really, Marcus, you should listen to yourself.’
‘You’re right,’ Carrington conceded, laughing.
‘You’re going after the Defender of the Faith,’ Krakowski said, more a statement than a question.
‘Well, we’ve at least cornered one villain; we can’t just let the other one go free, can we?’
‘No, no. We certainly can’t. So, I have to get going. This didn’t quite turn out the way we thought it would, did it?
‘It rarely does. But before you go, there’s something I want to show you. Jack Rogan gave this to Jana just before she left for Egypt.’ Carrington pushed a copy of a photograph across his desk.
Krakowski looked at the faded image of the German officer standing in front of the castle tower. ‘Newman?’
‘It would appear so. Jack found it in Newman’s mountain cottage after the fire. He only just told us about it. Be that as it may, he did quite a bit of research; clever chap. Apparently it was taken somewhere in France, a place called Montsegur. It’s written on the back – well, partially.’
‘What did you say?’ Krakowski asked, his voice sounding hoarse.
‘Montsegur, the ruins of a Cathar fortress in southern France. The Germans did some excavations there during the War. All very hush-hush. Does the place mean something to you?’
‘More than you can possibly imagine. May I keep this?’
‘Sure. But you should really speak to Jack. He did a story on a French priest called Diderot a few years ago. Diderot lived somewhere near Montsegur at the turn of the century, I believe. There was some sort of controversy involving the Church. Jack seems to know a lot about it.’
Krakowski paled. ‘He mentioned Diderot?’
‘Yes, he spoke to Jana about him the other day. Why?’
‘My God, it all fits! Everything Newman said ...’
‘What do you mean?’ Carrington asked, surprised by Krakowski’s reaction.
‘Diderot was ... oh, nothing; another time perhaps. I really have to go, Marcus. Thanks for everything.’
‘Sure, Ben, another time,’ Carrington said, holding out his hand, ‘until then.’
This wasn’t the time to ask for an explanation.
70
Jana noticed her door was ajar as soon as she opened her eyes. Propping herself up on her elbows, she saw something lying in the doorway. The guard, she thought. Looking up, she noticed a dark shape – utterly still – next to her bed. The shape began to move slowly towards her.
‘If you scream, I’ll have to kill you,’ a voice whispered. Jana could see something glinting in the half-light. A blade, she thought, wide and curved; a sword.
‘Get up!’ hissed the shape, leaning over her then speaking some words in Arabic. Jana didn’t move. A sweaty hand was placed over her mouth from behind. Jana could hardly breathe. The sheet she was clutching to her breasts was ripped away and strong hands lifted her off the bed.
‘One sound, you die. Understand?’ said a voice from above. Jana nodded. The hand let go of her mouth. She gasped for air, but had the presence of mind not to struggle. A blanket was wrapped tightly around her. Someone in the corridor outside switched on a torch and pointed it to the floor. Jana followed the beam of light out of the corner of her eye and almost threw up. A severed head – glassy eyes wide open – lay in a pool of blood in the doorway. Then everything went dark as a pillowcase was pulled over her head. The executioner’s hood, she thought, blindfolding the condemned.
The man carrying Jana over his shoulders like a rolled-up carpet, moved like a cat; fast and silent. Staying in the shadows, he threaded his way through the dark alleys towards the Nile.
Jana could hear the splashing of running water. The river, she thought. The man stopped. She was lifted off his shoulders and could feel strong hands holding her from below. The sound of water came closer, so did the smell of mud and rotting fish. The hands supporting her let go and dropped her onto something hard. Rolling helplessly from side to side, she cried out in pain. A boat, she thought, we’re on a boat. She tried to move her arms to steady herself, but couldn’t. The blanket was too tight, so was the pillowcase covering her head. Breathing heavily, Jana noticed a new sound – sharp and whip-like – canvas flapping against a mast.
71
As soon as the plane began to taxi towards the runway, Krakowski relaxed. Sitting back in his comfortable first class seat, he finished his drink, reached into his pocket and pulled out the photograph. Newman, at Montsegur, he thought, looking wistfully at the young German officer smiling at him out of the past. Who would have believed it?
‘Another gin and tonic, sir?’ asked the stewardess. Krakowski nodded. He slipped the photo into his briefcase, closed it and placed it on the empty seat next to him. After a while he opened it again and pulled out the bundle of papers Newman had given him at the hospital. It was the first opportunity he’d had to examine them properly. He looked for Abbé Diderot’s letter to Madame Colbert – just as Newman had suggested – and began to read:
By the time you re
ad this, my dearest, I will be in the Lord’s hands ... you know of my son. You know where to find him ... My letter will explain everything ... one day he will understand ...
Krakowski’s head began to spin. He felt suddenly drowsy and closed his eyes. Had his father really been adopted? Were the Krakowskis – Alexander and Olga – not his real grandparents, he asked himself. And what about this mysterious French priest – Berenger Diderot – and Francine Bijoux; what did it all mean? Did Newman really know that much about his family? Why?
Dozing off, Krakowski saw his father sitting in front of the fireplace in his Warsaw study. ‘Do you know who Parzifal was?’ he heard him ask. ‘You’re named after him.’
‘He was a knight who went searching for the Holy Grail.’
‘Quite so. Everyone thinks the Holy Grail is a cup, but they are wrong ... all wrong. Wolfram von Eschenbach knew it wasn’t a cup; he knew it was ... a stone ... he called it the consummation of hearts’ desire ...’
Krakowski opened his eyes and looked at the piece of paper in his hand. He hadn’t seen his father’s handwriting in years, yet he recognised it at once – small and precise. ‘The Grail is not a cup, but a stone,’ he read, and began to arrange his father’s notes into some kind of chronological order. He kept coming back to one particular page. Titled The Journey of the Ark – Conclusions it was pinned to a thick wad of faded notepaper tied together with string. The page was covered in his father’s handwriting, with many quotations and references scribbled into the margin.
The Puzzle
King Solomon (970–931 BC) builds the magnificent First Temple in Jerusalem as ‘a house of rest for the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord’.
The Ark disappears well before Jerusalem is sacked by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC and the Temple is burnt to the ground.
Where did the Ark go?
When the Jews return from exile in Babylon in 538 BC and build the Second Temple on the site of the first, the Ark is not mentioned. How can that be? How can the most precious object in the Old Testament suddenly vanish without a trace?
What happened to the Ark?
Kebra Nagast (Glory of Kings) – the answers?
The story of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba in this thirteenth century Ethiopian manuscript records a widespread oral tradition, which states that:
The Queen of Sheba travelled to Jerusalem to meet King Solomon. He was smitten by her beauty and charm, she by his wisdom. They became lovers. By the time she left Jerusalem she was with child. After she returned to her homeland, Ethiopia, a boy, Menelik, was born. At the age of twenty, Menelik journeyed to Jerusalem to look for his father, the king. King Solomon acknowledged him as his son.
The elders became resentful of all the honours bestowed on this stranger from a distant foreign land and, after a year, convinced the king to send him back to his mother, the mysterious black queen. Menelik left Jerusalem accompanied by the first-born sons of all the elders. One of them was Azarius, son of Zadoc, the High Priest of Israel. Without Menelik’s knowledge, Azarius stole the Ark of the Covenant from the Holy of the Holies in the Temple and convinced Menelik – after they had journeyed such a long distance it was impossible to turn back – that this was the will of God. The Ark had arrived in Ethiopia.
Krakowski’s eyes began to burn; the lines became a blur. Exhausted, he took off his reading glasses and closed his eyes. He ran his fingers over the crumpled pages of his father’s notes; perhaps touching them would help make sense of what he had just read. So much of it was incomplete, almost deliberately vague.
Despite all that, holding the very documents his father had hidden in the violin case – the trade for the lives of his sons – was profoundly moving. His father was speaking to him, guiding him.
The cryptic references to Dokumente in der Schweiz – documents in Switzerland – could only mean ‘the deposit box,’ he mumbled to himself. That’s the promise. It has to be! And, the Empress holds the key. Of course; it all fits, he thought. Krakowski pushed the papers carefully back into his briefcase. Tomorrow, he thought and let out a deep sigh. Tomorrow I will know.
72
‘This way please,’ the receptionist said and showed Krakowski to a private waiting room. ‘Dr Ulrich will be with you in a moment.’ Krakowski noted how the paintings and antiques gave an air of understated opulence; more like the Fifth Avenue apartment of a wealthy American industrialist than a waiting room in a Swiss bank.
‘We’ve been expecting you, Professor,’ said the director extending his hand. ‘You have a truly extraordinary story. Needless to say, we have followed the trial in the press with great interest.’ He motioned for Krakowski to sit again. ‘And thank you for keeping Ulrich Privatbank out of the papers. Our confidentiality is something we prize very highly,’ he added. ‘May I offer you some coffee?’
‘No, thank you. As you might understand ... I’m anxious to find out if my father’s deposit box is still here after all this time.’
‘No reason it shouldn’t be.’ The director’s tone changed. ‘My family has offered our valued clients world-class security and discretion for over two hundred years.’
Krakowski looked straight at the director. ‘Indeed. I appreciate that. As I understand it, my father’s account was opened before the War.’
‘We have of course made enquiries since you called. You will be pleased to hear that your understanding is correct. There is a deposit box and your access steps are, as you know, very specific.’
Krakowski looked up, unable to hide his excitement. ‘It’s here?’
‘Yes,’ said the director. ‘I assure you, we always honour our obligations. The passage of time is not an issue.’
‘So ... where to from here?’
‘Your father’s instructions, according to our records, contain several ...’
‘Two passwords and an identification number,’ interrupted Krakowski.
‘Quite. We have the latest technology here to facilitate those checks. If you would care to follow me.’
Moving quickly and silently through three stories of concrete and steel, the express elevator took only moments to reach the vault. ‘Through there,’ said the director, pointing to a massive, round steel door at the end of a brightly lit corridor.
‘As you can see, everything is computerised. Much more secure than people, don’t you think? All the information has to be entered on the keyboard here. Let me show you.’
After the director had left, Krakowski took off his jacket, hung it over the back of the chair and sat down in front of the computer. He carefully punched in the letters R, O, H and A and pressed ‘Enter’. A button labelled ‘Next’ appeared and, still holding his breath, he entered ‘PARZIFAL’. A red flashing ‘error’ appeared on the screen, followed by ‘Try again’.
Krakowski stared at the screen, his heart racing. He was sure his middle name was the second password. Yet, something was obviously wrong. But what? Krakowski loosened his tie. ‘Think, man, think!’ He, tried to calm himself. The spelling, he thought, taking a deep breath, it has to be the spelling. Parzifal, Parzifal, he read over and over.
Then he remembered he’d read something on the plane. He opened his briefcase and searched for the copy of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s epic he had bought in Sydney. Of course, he thought, PARZIVAL, the original spelling’s different! He punched in ‘PARZIVAL’, pausing before he typed the ‘v’, and held his breath. ‘Next’ said the screen.
Krakowski sat back, looked to the heavens and nodded. Thank you, thank you, he was saying to himself. Only the number to go.
He opened his wallet and took out a small piece of paper with the number noted on the violin’s sound post. He slowly typed in the long number. Before pressing ‘Enter’, he compared it several times with the number on the paper.
‘Access granted’ said the screen.
Krakowski was exhausted, but now all he had to do was wait. His thoughts drifted back and the first image was of his father looking at him with love and with
pain as they stood together at Auschwitz. He remembered the promise he made to the man he’d loved so dearly, but known so little. And here, now, something momentous was coming towards him from the past, something that had been waiting for him for a long time. A loud beep broke the silence. The black glass door in the wall slid open and a steel box appeared on a conveyer belt.
This whole procedure, thought Krakowski, is exactly like a cremation, only in reverse. This coffin was not leaving the world through the furnace, it was being returned from deep within the earth.
Krakowski lifted the box and found it surprisingly heavy. He placed it on the table and noted a keypad on the top right hand corner. He punched in the access code, the indicator light flashed green and the lid clicked open. Inside another, smaller, metal container sat his father’s original deposit box. The lock, the final obstruction, had been removed.
Krakowski, hand shaking, applied a little gentle pressure and prised it open.
The contents have been methodically arranged, he thought, just like Father would have done. On top was a bundle of neatly folded letters tied with ribbon. Then came several larger documents with tissue paper in between; old parchments looking brittle and faded. At the bottom – taking up most of the box – was a long, rectangular object wrapped tightly in linen, like a shroud.
Krakowski untied the ribbon and reached for the top letter. The documents were assembled as a trail to the past; the most recent on top, the oldest at the bottom. He sat down, trying to calm himself, and began to read. The first letter, written in French, was dated January 1917.
My beloved son, what you are about to read will no doubt cause some anguish and pain. Yet, I hope and trust that once you learn the truth, you will understand ...
Diderot’s letter to his son – my father, Krakowski thought. How extraordinary. This is the one referred to in the note to Madame Colbert – ‘my letter will explain everything’.
The Empress Holds the Key Page 31
