by Magnus Flyte
“And Rudy’s gay,” said Sarah.
“Oh yes,” said Nico. “Big time.”
“Okay,” said Max. “Not that I’m not enjoying ‘Real World: Rockin’ Prague,’ but the drug won’t last forever and we need to find some clues here. Sarah, do you see a golden key anywhere?”
“I don’t.”
“We’re not far off,” Nicolas said. “A few days. I remember the painting. Soon after that the master gave me the key and told me to take it to the emperor. Rudolf wanted to lock the Fleece away in some kind of safe. The master had designed a special lock that could never be picked and would answer to only one key. But Rudolf didn’t tell the master where he put the safe.”
“And you think Rudolf wanted the key to lock up the Fleece?” Max asked.
“I think it likely. I was bringing the key to the emperor when I was attacked on the way to the castle and the key was stolen. If Sarah can go to this time, perhaps we can trace the key to the Fleece.”
“Just a little bit further,” Max urged Sarah. “Or wait, is that backward for you?”
Sarah took a deep breath, shifted her focus to the window, where she could now see a giant red swastika banner hanging off Cernin Palace.
“Shit, I see Nazis,” she sighed. “I just jumped about four hundred years.”
“Cernin Palace was the headquarters for the SS,” said Max. “My grandfather’s friend Masaryk was defenestrated there.”
A woman with a 1940s updo walked past the window carrying a paper heart. “Valentine’s Day,” Sarah said.
“Oh dear,” said Nico.
A bomb hit the building. Sarah screamed and dropped to the floor.
“It’s not happening,” said Max, grabbing her arm. She could barely see him through the smoke. “Sarah, listen to me, you’re okay, it’s not happening now.”
“February 14, 1945,” said Nico. “Not the best Valentine’s I’ve ever had. But then again, not the worst.”
“I thought the Allies didn’t bomb Prague.” People were screaming, air-raid sirens blaring.
“A couple of American pilots got lost on the way to Dresden.”
“Jesus!” said Sarah as the building collapsed around her. People screamed. The woman with the Valentine reached a bloody hand out of the wreckage. Sarah reached for it, but she was just energy, energy visible across more than sixty years of time. And suddenly the building re-formed underneath her and she was back with Tycho.
But it was fading. “We have to hurry,” said Sarah. “The drug is wearing off.”
Bits of modernity were creeping into the vision. A school desk. A trash can. She must focus. Max was counting on her.
“He’s writing,” said Sarah. “He has . . . I think it’s the journal in his lap. And the key! I see the key!”
“Am I there?” Nico leaned in to see, as if he, too, could see across time.
“You are,” Sarah reported. “He’s giving you the key. Shut up a second.”
“The emperor is becoming paranoid about his treasures,” Tycho was saying. “Deliver this key to him. Assure him that I destroyed the mold to the key. He will not believe you, and he will be right, but where he is wrong is in thinking that Iۀsay do not suspect where he intends to hide his precious Fleece. I have marked the spot.”
“The master is very clever,” said Jepp.
“You will then return to me. Kepler is coming this afternoon and we will be in the laboratory.”
“Yes, Master,” said Jepp. “I will come to you there.”
“Not there,” thundered Brahe. “You make Johannes nervous. Wait for me here, later. I have a little something I want you to taste. Something I need to try. An experiment.”
Uh-oh, thought Sarah. The potion.
Jepp tucked the golden key into his sleeve.
“Nico,” she said. “It happened that night. Tycho poisoned you that night.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” the little man said, sadly. “It is four hundred years too late.”
Getting out of the palace/grammar school was a nightmare, with Sarah running and colliding into walls and Max and Nico shouting at her while Sarah struggled to stay on the heels of the quick-moving Jepp. On the street it was Max and Nico who struggled, as it was now very dark in their Prague, and a brilliant afternoon in Jepp’s.
Sarah watched as the little man was loaded by a servant into the back of a hay cart. “We’re going to have to run,” she shouted.
But the cart had traveled only a few narrow streets when it turned a corner into a tiny alley and stopped. Jepp leapt down from the cart.
“What is this?” he called out. “Your orders were to take me to the castle!”
The driver was very tall and lean. He wore a ragged burlap cloak and a roughly made cap that covered most of his face. He came swiftly around the cart and pulled a large white handkerchief out from his cape and shoved it against the little man’s face. Jepp struggled for a moment, and then fell forward, unconscious. The driver placed Jepp’s body back into the cart with surprising gentleness and began searching his clothes until he found the key, which he tucked under his cape.
“Do you remember this?” Sarah asked Nico, in a whisper.
“Have we stopped in the alley?” Nico asked. “I remember that. Nothing more. Can you describe the driver?”
“Tall and thin, but I can’t see his face,” said Sarah, watching as the man reached under a stack of hay and retrieved a large iron casket. He lifted the lid just slightly and Sarah jumped back. The energy coming from inside the box was like nothing she had ever experienced. The blood raced through her veins, her throat closed up, her eyes swam. She saw her father, an icy road, her mother’s face, her first violin, an explosion in deep space, a star, Beethoven’s hands on the piano, Pols’s arms around her tightly, and through it all, a sudden understanding of how it all worked, a system of grids, overlapping, energy transferred; there was no such thing as time. She fell to her knees.
The driver slammed the lid shut and slumped over it, breathing hard.
“Yes! Yes! The Fleece! He has it in the cart! I can feel it. He’s leaving you in the alley,” Sarah reported, pantinۀ>
“I didn’t tell the master,” whispered Nico. “I was ashamed at my failure.”
“Max,” Sarah said. “I don’t think we should . . . I think it’s better if we . . .”
Maybe John Dee was right. Maybe there were some things we weren’t meant to know. Sarah thought of Mephistopheles’s lament: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.
“Follow the cart,” Max said grimly. “Sarah, we have to finish this.”
• • •
They were crossing the river on Jiraskuv Bridge. The cart was just ahead of them. Max and Nico were on either side of her, murmuring in her ear. There’s a step here. We can’t turn left, we’ll have to walk around. Wait, there’s a car.
Sarah tried to block out the sights and smells of all that was happening around her and concentrate on the cart. At the same time every nerve in her body was fighting to stop, turn back, get away from the power inside that casket. They ran on. They were in Josefov now, and the energy of a population so long persecuted was nearly choking her.
“He’s stopping at the synagogue up ahead,” she said, hoping that it was still standing in Max and Nico’s time.
“Of course,” Nico breathed. “The Old-New Synagogue. It was rumored that Rabbi Loew placed the body of the golem in the attic in an iron casket. No one’s been in that room for four centuries. They say the rabbi cursed it so that no one would ever disturb the golem’s slumbers. A perfect hiding place.”
“Someone must have been up there at some point,” Max said. “A cleaning woman?”
Nico shook his head. “One Nazi soldier went up on a dare. Said it was a stupid Jewish superstition and he wanted to get whatever gold was hidden up there.”
“What happened?’ Max demanded
“He died an agonizing death. That scared the rest of ’em off. The Old-New was the only synag
ogue the Nazis left untouched.”
“He’s taking the casket inside the synagogue,” Sarah said. “Can we follow him?”
“It’s closed now,” Max said. “And there are masses of tourists still on the streets.”
“You think the driver was Rabbi Loew?” Sarah asked. “Shit, we have to follow him.”
“The stairs to the genizah, or attic storeroom, are around back,” said Nico.
They hurried around the back of the synagogue. There were so many strands of emotion surrounding the synagogue, she had trouble breathing.
“Lots of tourists,” said Max again. “Try to act normal.”
“We could climb up these stairs,” Nico said.
“Stairs?” said Max and Sarah together. They were, it seemed, looking at the same thing: a series of metal rungs ۀont>
The door to the genizah was about forty feet up and made of what looked like very sturdy wood with no lock or handle on it.
“Boost me up,” said Nico. “Quick, before a cop or a rabbi comes by.”
Sarah watched as Max leaned over and Nico climbed on his shoulders, trying unsuccessfully to reach the bottom rung. Finally, under Nico’s precise instructions and on the count of three, Max actually heaved Nico up in the air, and on the third try the little man managed to catch the ladder.
Nico quickly scaled the rungs and began ramming his shoulder against the genizah door. A group of tourists gathered.
“What is he doing?” someone asked Sarah.
“It’s part of a historical reenactment,” called Nico. “Feel free to tip my partner.”
“It’s him!” Sarah shouted. The tall, thin figure was exiting the synagogue, and as he passed her he flung off his cloak and hat and threw them away. Underneath the rough fabric he wore a rich gold and white doublet and jerkin, a matching cape over his shoulders. His long, thin legs were encased in white hose. His brown beard and mustache were closely trimmed, as was his hair. The golden key was tucked into a panel of his hose. The man was young, he was handsome. He was . . .
“That’s no rabbi,” Sarah said. “That’s Ladislav. Brother of the 1st Prince Lobkowicz. A traitor to his country.”
FIFTY-THREE
Max, Nico, and Sarah walked slowly down Paris Street; across Old Town Square; past Týn church, where Tycho, who had seemed so alive and well this morning, had been buried for 410 years; and up Celetna. They had been up all night and even Moritz was exhausted, but Sarah kept walking. When they passed under Powder Tower, she was fairly certain she saw Mozart in a powdered wig, giggling. She had the urge to wave.
Max’s phone beeped. Something about the way he reacted made Sarah look at him.
“It’s from Elisa,” he said. “She booked us a cruise for our honeymoon. On some French actor’s yacht.”
“Text her back,” said Sarah. “Tell her you can’t wait.”
Nico had reported that the Old-New Synagogue’s attic had not contained anything like an iron casket, and nothing that a key would fit into. It was empty. The Fleece had been moved. Ladislav was nowhere to be seen. She tried concentrating on an iron casket and caught glimpses of it. This had drawn them on an exhausting ramble across the city, zigzagging, doubling back, hitting dead ends.
They trudged up Hybernska, passing under Wilson Highway, where the road began climbing uphill. The drug was definitely wearing off now. Max and Nico followed her in silence. Moritz panted. From Seifertova she turned slowly right into Nejedlo, then right into Mahler Gardens. Finally Sarah halted abruptly.
“What’s happening?” asked Max.
The drug was almost out of her system. Sarah was fighting to see what was happening.
“I’m at a cemetery. Two men are putting an iron casket in a freshly dug grave. Right over there.” She pointed and tried to walk to where two robed men were burying a metal box, but she felt herself physically blocked, grabbed by Max and Nico.
“What is it?” she said. “What’s here?” She put her hands out and felt something cold, hard, and impermeable.
Sarah shook her head and moved from the past to the present. She was facing a cement wall. She looked up. She and Max and Nico were standing at the base of a giant spaceship-shaped television tower with what appeared to be enormous black babies crawling up it.
“What the fuck?” asked Sarah.
“Žižkov Tower,” said Max. “Begun in 1985. Voted the second ugliest building in the entire world.”
Sarah moved back to the past.
“It’s not the Fleece casket,” she said. “It’s much smaller and a different shape. And it doesn’t . . . feel the same. I’m sorry.”
It was all fading away. The end. The last of the drug. Her last time seeing the past. She strained to see more . . .
“There are rumors that the golem’s body was moved to Žižkov cemetery,” said Nico. “You got your iron caskets mixed up. Oh, that Rabbi Loew. He was a sly one.”
Sarah kicked the concrete base of the seven-hundred-foot-high building.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t find the Fleece.” She felt sick, exhausted, and disappointed.
“At least we know where to dig for more golem dust,” said Nicolas.
“And,” said Max. “We know the key opens the place where the Fleece is hidden.”
“I suspect it is somewhere on the castle grounds,” Nico said.
“Well, that narrows it down,” Max sighed.
Everyone sounded exhausted and depressed.
“Nico,” Sarah said. “Tycho told you that he had made a copy of the key. Do you know what happened to it?”
“The master died a month after that night,” Nicolas said. “I never found the copy of the key. I had troubles of my own at that point.”
She sat down on the sidewalk in front of the TV tower, her head swimming with visions, with history, with secrets. She looked across the street to where a building was being renovated, just like hundreds of others all over Prague. The city was constantly erasing and writing over itself, an architectural palimpsest in action.
“I’m so tired,” said Sarah. Her eyes scanned the graffiti. More mysteries, more riddles, more stories. What was important in all this mess of history and scholarship and magic and more history? Letters and paintings and music and treasures and books and words and secrets and lies and lives. So many lives. What had meaning and what was just chatter? Maybe none of it had any meaning, she thought. Maybe all scholarship was a wi ecrld-goose chase. We could never really know the past, even if (as in her case) you could see it right in front of you. Maybe it was a mistake to even try.
Time. Time didn’t really exist.
“Sarah?” whispered Max in her ear. “Sarah? Are you okay?”
And with that, it all went black.
FIFTY-FOUR
Charlotte Yates leaned forward in her seat. Someone shouted “Shame!” and from the opposite side of the gilded neo-Renaissance theater came “Disgrace!”
Charlotte Yates did not turn a single hair of her caramel-sprinkled-with-silver bob. She knew the words were not directed toward her, although she had glimpsed anti-American-style banners here and there as her motorcade had wended its way through Prague today. No, the complaints were directed at the orchestra. Or, rather, where the orchestra should be. The stage was empty. The concert was to begin at 7:30 p.m. and it was 7:32 p.m. In Prague this counted as an almost unbelievably egregious delay, practically cause for rioting. Charlotte expected the delay was due to her own Secret Service corps, but it was nice to see the locals hadn’t lost their notions of punctuality.
Yes, here she was, back in Prague. Since announcing her intention to make a three-city sweep through Eastern Europe (Warsaw, Bucharest, Prague) to “discuss strengthening our shared global security agendas,” Charlotte’s sense of anticipation had reached an almost unbearable point. She had barely registered her stays in Poland and Romania, so intent was she on this last leg of the visit. The global security agenda had all been an excuse, anyway. As if Poland or Romania were going to help keep
the world safe for democracy! Although it was sometimes good to make other countries feel like they were relevant.
But Prague was the key. Everything came down to the next twenty-four hours and a plan so perfect that she really wished she could tell someone about it. Brag a little. If only her father could have lived to see this.
Really, she had known from the start that getting the letters back wouldn’t be quite enough. Charlotte Yates was a doer. She didn’t shrink from the bold stroke.
She wished she could get away from everyone and savor the moment. Normally she didn’t mind traveling with her entourage—staff, security, journalists—but if there was ever a moment when a girl needed a little personal time it was now. And of course, she assumed there was a great deal of local scrutiny concerning her visit. If Americans (most of whom probably thought this country was still called Czechoslovakia and would not even be in guessing range of its location on a map) seemed indifferent to her past activities here, the same could not be guaranteed of the natives. Memories were long in this part of the world, and you never knew who might turn up where. Luckily everyone had more or less the same agenda, in which global security took a backseat to one’s own personal security. Still, she wouldn’t be absolutely certain of anyone’s fear of offending her until she was president. Fear made people so sweet, it was almost possible to love them.
Today’s schedule had run smoothly. Jauntily dressed in a lightweight coral Ralph Lauren pantsuit (there was something satisfyingly fuck yo fau about discussing terrorism while wearing pink), the caramel-silver bob sprayed into wind-resistant sleekness, Dr. Scholl’s inserts discreetly cushioning her Anne Klein pumps, Charlotte had controlled the meetings expertly. Of course, it was all really token “relationship building,” nothing historic, no real power to be brokered. She didn’t want to step on any toes at State—Todd was such a dear little lamb chop. Though when she returned as president, things would be different.
The orchestra was on stage now, and a few members of the audience continued to reprimand them happily as they quickly tuned up. The Minister of Culture, apoplectic with embarrassment over the dishonor of starting four minutes late, lost his presence of mind and offered Charlotte a mint. Her favorite Secret Service agent, Tad, leaned forward slightly and the Minister of Culture recovered himself in time.
