by Pieter Aspe
From that time on, Creytens had refused to invest good money in his wife’s culinary escapades.
When he was still a young lawyer, the examining magistrate had already been quite stingy. His wife had thought “stingy” was an exaggeration, but had resigned herself to the reality of the situation after a couple of months. She came from a prominent, but not necessarily wealthy, middle-class family, and marriage to a lawyer was about the only security life had to offer her. She ate in the afternoon at a modest restaurant on Ezel Street and then picked up a frozen dinner from the store, which she later served to him. That way she avoided arguments with her indiscriminate husband who was happy with anything, and everything, as long as it was cheap.
Creytens was aware of what she did and, like his wife, he accepted the armed truce. He even took a little pleasure in the fact that she had no idea he knew she ate out every day.
In his study now, Creytens put on an old-fashioned threadbare jacket and checked the thermostat. Sixty-five degrees was more than enough. He didn’t understand why his assistants looked like frozen rabbits half the time. The temperature in the courthouse was a tropical seventy degrees. It was little wonder that the judiciary had such a backlog. There was clear scientific evidence that cozy temperatures made people listless. Creytens blew warm air into his hands and sat down in his solid oak office chair. The thing creaked with a vengeance, its nasty springs protruding through its tattered leather upholstery.
Under the thin light of a sturdy floor lamp, he opened the file marked fiedle and leaned back. To help while away the long evening hours, he took a gilded box from one of the drawers in his old-fashioned rolltop desk.
A slender cigar from his deceased father’s stock was the only luxury he was willing to permit himself. Some of the boxes dated back to shortly after the war, when his father, deputy public prosecutor Edgar Creytens, had had half a truckload of confiscated goods delivered to his house.
Creytens filled his lungs with the fusty smoke.
“Dietrich Fiedle,” he sighed. “Isn’t it a small world.”
Joris Creytens had been only eight years old in 1944, but he still remembered Dietrich’s father Franz as if it had been yesterday. The black uniform, the angular SS runes on the lapels, and the highly polished boots had always fascinated him. Between November 1943 and May 1944, Der Franz had been a regular visitor.
Creytens’s father had idolized National Socialism, but had been intelligent enough never to side with the Nazis in public.
Der Franz always arrived a good hour after curfew. Creytens senior always made sure the door was slightly ajar. The SS officer usually stayed until late in the night, drinking superior French cognac and listening to Wagner. Their discreet friendship was never known to the public, and fortunately so: after the war, Franz had been condemned to death in absentia for crimes against humanity.
But Joris still had plenty of happy memories of the war years, including the chocolates filled with cherry liqueur and the fresh pineapple Der Franz frequently brought him as a treat.
The examining magistrate puffed sparingly at his sour cigar and relived the blissful memories.
He also remembered Ludwig Seiterich, a military adviser. In contrast to the more flamboyant SS officer, the reserved official wore a simple gray suit. When he visited, he and Creytens senior listened to Bach and argued about Hegel and Kant. He never brought chocolate bonbons. A simple handshake had to suffice. The only advantage of a visit from Seiterich was being allowed to stay up late. If he didn’t make a racket, they even tolerated him as late as ten, but then it was bedtime, no excuses.
His father and Seiterich spoke French, so Joris was able to follow the conversation without difficulty. Like the children of many middle-class families, he had been brought up speaking French. His father was a widely read man, and listening to what he had to say was always interesting.
Creytens leafed through the file and paused to examine the photos of Michelangelo’s Madonna. He remembered the conversation in question down to the last word.
It was early September 1944. The Allies had landed at Normandy three months earlier and were advancing toward the Low Countries. Seiterich had seemed nervous that sunny evening.
“I fear this will be our last meeting, my dear Edgar.”
His father had had a bottle of champagne brought up from the cellar and offered a toast to peace and justice.
“They plan to remove the statue the day after tomorrow,” said Seiterich after a couple of glasses.
“That’s a pity, Ludwig. But what do you want me to do?”
“Mensch. What’s the point? The war will be over in a couple of days. You’re the warden at the Church of Our Lady. Do something. The Madonna is too precious.”
“Let’s not exaggerate, Ludwig. Do you honestly think they’re worried about a statue at this stage of the game?”
“Nazis are capable of anything. They’ve looted half of Europe,” Seiterich retorted.
“That’s good, coming from you of all people,” said Edgar stoically.
Seiterich shook his head and sipped the superb champagne. “You have influence, Edgar. I don’t understand. How can you just sit there? Call the diocese. Have them hide the statue before it’s too late.”
“That wouldn’t be wise, Ludwig.”
“What do you mean?” Seiterich stared at his friend with suspicion.
“Because the order to remove the statue came from Berlin. Himmler doesn’t want the American Jews to get their hands on it,” said Edgar with a cynical smile.
The remark left Ludwig Seiterich pale.
“You’re probably asking yourself where I get my information,” said Edgar.
Seiterich nodded vacantly. The conversation was completely absurd. Who was the Nazi here?
“I presume you know Franz Fiedle,” said Edgar cautiously.
“Yes, natürlich. But I have nothing to do with the SS.”
“I know, Ludwig, I know. You are an intellectual, caught up like me in an insane war.”
His words seemed to calm Seiterich, to a degree.
“Fiedle belongs to a special section of the SS. His presence in Bruges isn’t coincidental. He was charged with the task of inventorying the city’s important art treasures for potential ‘repatriation.’”
“And you know all about this?” Seiterich sneered.
Edgar inhaled the acrid smoke of his cigar. He could see that the German was confused.
“The statue’s relocation has been postponed time and again for logistical reasons. And as I said: a formal command arrived yesterday from Berlin. Himmler wants the Michelangelo, whatever the cost. And if we refuse to part with it, he’s threatening to bomb the city with incendiaries.”
“Nonsense, Edgar. You can’t be serious. The war is lost. Himmler has other things to think about.”
Creytens pictured himself now as he’d been then, between a couple of armchairs, guzzling cherry bonbons left by Der Franz on his last visit. Eleven o’clock had come and gone, and his father had had no idea he was still listening in.
“Franz Fiedle is a good friend, just like you. I don’t think he’s bluffing. He loves Bruges, and that is why he begged me to tell him where the Madonna is hidden.”
“But the statue isn’t hidden at all. It’s where it has always been,” said Seiterich, throwing his hands in the air in confusion.
“Precisely,” said Edgar. “Then they won’t have far to look.”
“Mensch!”
Seiterich grabbed the bottle of champagne and unashamedly filled his glass. The military adviser was at his wits’ end.
“There’s one thing you need to understand, Ludwig. The Kriegsmarine has been ordered to point every gun, everything they’ve got in the direction of Bruges. Even the Resistance knows about it.”
Seiterich furrowed his brow. The truth was slowly beginning to get
through to him.
“Believe me, dear friend,” Edgar drawled. “Michelangelo’s Madonna will be safer in Germany, and after the war we’re certain to get it back.”
“If the facts of the matter become public, no one will believe your version, Edgar.”
“Don’t let that worry you. When all this is over, I’ll be on the right side of the fence.”
“I keep having to remind myself that we’re the occupiers,” Seiterich sighed. “I come to warn you that a unique work of art is about to be stolen, and you side with the enemy.”
“I trust Franz Fiedle,” Edgar insisted. He stubbed out his cigar and immediately lit another. “The city is worth more to me than a Michelangelo. History will be my judge.”
Seiterich sat on the edge of his chair. From where Creytens was hiding, he’d looked like a gray leprechaun perched on a dried toadstool. “Why don’t you believe me?” he protested. “I’m the military adviser here, and I assure you that the German Navy would never fire on Bruges. Never!”
“Can you really guarantee that, Ludwig?”
Seiterich blinked. Things had been fairly chaotic over the last few weeks.
“The glorious Wehrmacht is in tatters and on the run like a bunch of scared rabbits. Only the SS is offering any kind of resistance,” said Edgar dryly. “I’m a pragmatic man, Ludwig. If you corner fanatics like that, they can do more damage in twenty-four hours than a regular army in four years. The SS has even been known to execute senior officials for ignoring a direct command from Berlin.”
Seiterich snorted as if he was about to hyperventilate. “Then I hope history does indeed prove you right, Edgar. But I still have to follow my conscience. I hope you understand. If you refuse to cooperate, I’ll have to do what I can without you to prevent the theft of the statue.”
“Very commendable, Ludwig. But do you think they’ll believe your version of events? You are the enemy, after all.”
“So I can’t change your mind.”
“I’m afraid not, Ludwig.”
Seiterich got to his feet, bowed stiffly, and shook Edgar’s hand. “It’s getting late,” he said, “perhaps too late. I hope we meet again after the war … in better circumstances,” he added with a hint of melodrama.
Edgar embraced him. “Au revoir, mon ami,” he said sincerely.
“Auf wiedersehen.” Seiterich had arrived as a German and wanted to leave as a German.
Edgar accompanied the disappointed military adviser to the front door. Joris remained in his hiding place like a frightened rabbit. If his father discovered him now, there would be hell to pay. There were still a couple of bonbons on the tray. He would eat them first and then go up to bed as quiet as a mouse.
He cringed when he heard the door to the study creak open again almost immediately. His father never returned to the study as a rule, but now he was back. He picked up the phone and dialed nervously. A look of concern contorted his lips and he drummed the polished surface of his desk, fast and staccato.
“I know it’s almost midnight, Father, but tell the bishop it’s urgent.”
It took five full minutes for the bishop to come to the phone. Creytens’s impatient father puffed steel-blue clouds of smoke into the receiver. Suddenly he cleared his throat. The customary exchange of politenesses followed.
“Seiterich will definitely be contacting you, my lord. If we resist, they’ll reduce the city to rubble.”
There was a moment’s silence, an opportunity his father used to rinse his throat with some lukewarm champagne.
“Of course the order has been given. If they don’t find the statue, they’ll turn their heavy artillery on the city,” his father repeated, his patience now at its limits.
Another oppressive silence followed. Edgar stubbed out his cheap cigar and quickly lit a Camel. The bishop was probably consulting his vicar general.
“Thank you, Bishop,” he heard his father say with a sudden sigh of relief. “Fiedle is a wise man. Take it from me.”
Creytens clearly remembered the look of satisfaction on his father’s face as he returned the receiver to its cradle.
He then made his way to the buffet and served himself a large cognac. Joris sat hunched between the chairs. His eyelids grew heavy and when his father didn’t move to go upstairs, he finally fell asleep. The remaining cherry bonbons were left untouched.
Creytens stubbed out his sour cigar in an old-fashioned ashtray adorned with a skull and crossbones and the words memento mori.
Bruges had indeed survived the war intact, but neither Franz Fiedle nor his father had had anything to do with it. The city was only spared German artillery fire because a young Navy captain ignored orders from Berlin. Nevertheless, and on the bishop’s explicit request, Michelangelo’s Madonna was not taken to a place of safety. The Church of Our Lady was ransacked on the night of November 6–7, 1944 by a special unit. The Madonna was taken to the salt mines of Altaussee via the Netherlands and Mauthausen.
Both his father and the bishop had been under the illusion that they had saved the city from an inferno. The truth, however, was something else. Himmler had never planned to spare the city, with or without the Madonna. The naval captain who ignored his order only just escaped court-martial. His heroic actions remained a secret, and he died without recognition. The actual events surrounding the theft of the statue also never saw the light of day.
Creytens’s father kept silent for the obvious reason that in those days fraternizing with a highly placed German official and an SS officer would have damaged his career, to say the least. The church at the time answered to no one.
Edgar Creytens was appointed public prosecutor in 1951 and was promoted four years later to prosecutor general at the Court of Appeals in Ghent.
Ten years later, Joris Creytens graduated from the University of Leuven. It took him seven years to get his law degree, and without his father’s prestige he would never have reached the finish line. His short career as a criminal lawyer could be summed up in a single word: pathetic.
Edgar Creytens renewed his efforts, throwing all his weight into the balance. His youngest son was appointed Belgium’s examining magistrate on his thirty-second birthday, an office he still held almost thirty years later.
When Edgar died, he left his incompetent heir an enormous fortune. Creytens knew where his father’s money had come from, and that is why he was obliged to sweep the Fiedle affair under the carpet.
He closed the file and dialed Georges Vandekerckhove’s private number.
“Hello, Joris.” Vandekerckhove automatically grabbed the TV remote and pressed the mute button.
“It’s about Fiedle. Complications, I fear.”
“Nonsense, Joris. No one will try to connect us with Fiedle. I have a watertight alibi and you’re unimpeachable.”
“But I’m still concerned, Georges, and not just a little. That Van In has a nasty reputation.”
“So what? We didn’t kill Dietrich, did we?” Vandekerckhove laughed loud and hard. “And don’t forget we have Leitner on our side. Dietrich was a risk factor. He drank too much, and that idiotic story about Michelangelo’s Madonna might have had a damaging effect on the Polder Project in the medium range. He blabbed about it right and left the last couple of months. We’re a respectable organization, Joris. Dietrich was a threat to the organization, a threat we couldn’t tolerate. The sucker really believed that I had fallen from grace and that he had to lure me to Bruges. He was the one who had to die, not me.”
“So it was a planned operation,” said Creytens, carefully sounding his friend out.
“Of course, Joris. Don’t let it worry you. Take care of the file and I’ll do the rest.”
“I can only hope it all works out, Georges,” Creytens sighed. “We’re already up to our necks in it.”
“Apropos, now that I have you on the line. I was zapped last week by a tra
ffic cop on the E40. My chauffeur was in a hurry. He was doing 120, I believe.”
Creytens took a bone-dry cigar from the box on his desk. “I’ll see what I can do, Georges.”
“I appreciate it, Joris. See you next week at the club.”
14
VERSAVEL ALMOST HAD A HEART attack when he opened the door to room 204 at eight-thirty that morning.
“Is Carton dead?” he asked, acting the fool.
Van In was staring at the word processor, playing its keyboard like an amputee concert pianist.
“Nothing of the kind, Guido. Life is a beautiful thing and I’m enjoying every minute.”
Versavel hung his jacket neatly on the coat stand and stared at the commissioner with suspicion. “Did Vandekerckhove offer you a job?”
“You’ll never guess,” Van In laughed.
Versavel stroked his moustache. He’ll be depressed again in a minute and I’ll have to pick up the pieces, he thought. “Good news?”
“Excellent news, Guido. I’ve been to the doctor.”
“Now I get it. When you didn’t come back yesterday, I figured you and Vandekerckhove had gone on a spree.”
Van In grinned like a satisfied baby. He saved his document with the F7 key and folded his arms.
“There’s nothing wrong with me, Guido. My heart’s okay and my lung capacity is six liters, no less.”
“Smoke or air?” Versavel sneered.
Van In got to his feet and crossed to his desk. He had shaved and was wearing a clean shirt for once in his life.
“Shame I can’t offer you a drink to celebrate this joyous moment,” he said in an upbeat tone.
Versavel pulled a face when the commissioner hauled a bottle of rum from a secret drawer.
“So there’s nothing wrong with you?” asked Versavel incredulously.
Van In opened a bottle of Coke and mixed himself a lukewarm cocktail.
