Deadly Jewels

by Jeannette de Beauvoir

  I spread my hands. “Lecture away.”

  He nodded again, seemingly gathering his thoughts. “The children of Holocaust victims and survivors, the second generation, my father’s generation, have been studied at length,” he said. “His father survived the camps, he was at Buchenwald, he worked for the SS there.”

  “Yes,” I said, nodding. “Avner told me. He manufactured copies of the crown jewel diamonds out of—”

  “White sapphires,” finished Lev. I shut up; it was, after all, his story. Not to mention his family’s business. “The way that his parents lived, the way that they raised him, all had a tremendous impact on who he was and who he became.”

  I nodded. “That makes sense.”

  Lev sipped his coffee. “So. Studies of this generation have shown that they assume the role of victim and survivor themselves. Even though they weren’t the ones in the camps, they dream of the camps, and the experience is as real to them as if it had happened. It’s an ongoing sense of guilt, both guilt that it was allowed to happen, and guilt that they weren’t themselves the ones to suffer.”

  “It sounds complicated,” I said.

  He nodded. “It is. At first glance, the concept of transmission is difficult to grasp. It is like saying that someone’s headache is caused by the fact that his father was hit on his head by a stone some fifty years ago. But psychologists have long said that it makes sense … that emotions which couldn’t be consciously experienced by the first generation are given over to the second generation. So my father was brought up in an atmosphere of anxiety, tension, and fear. He did not hear the stories of his parents’ lives until he was in his teens. No one wanted to speak of it, but it was there behind everything, every remark, every thought.”

  I could imagine it: the elephant in the room, hiding in the shadows of every dinner table, looking over everyone’s shoulders. “What about you?” I asked suddenly. “How are you affected by it?”

  He smiled. “I am third generation,” he said. “There was a study done—actually, it was done here, in Montréal, about us. It found that we function extremely well.”

  We sat with that thought for a moment. “So,” I said finally, “I appreciate the history lesson, Lev, but I’m still totally in the dark about what all that means for your father here and now.”

  He rolled his cup in small circles on the table. “He feels guilt,” he said finally. “So this is something that he can do, you see. At long last, here is something that he can do something about. But he was not going to be able to do anything with the police watching him all the time.”

  I gazed at him in horror. “Lev—what is your father doing?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “You have to understand,” he said, “I only wanted to make him feel more involved. It was all he ever talked about, the moment that he met you, all he wanted to talk about was this—situation. The diamonds. His father, the journal. How it all seemed to lead back to him. He wanted to know more, he wanted to feel involved.”

  “And so you…?”

  “And so,” he said, “I hacked into a couple of e-mail accounts. I know that the police—Captain Levigne, I believe—follow the activities of local skinhead groups and neo-Nazis, but some of the rest of us, civilians, we do as well.”

  “It sounds like you’re doing more than just following their activities,” I said.

  He shrugged. “It is best to know,” he said. “And I can do things that the police cannot.”

  “Because they’re illegal.”

  He was unperturbed. “Because they’re illegal,” he said, nodding. “Listen, it’s not the activity—because to be frank, most of Montréal wouldn’t stand for overt anti-Semitism, not now. But the undercurrents, the writings … they’re still alive and well, and it’s important to understand what is happening. There have been a lot of publications, starting in the 1930s and continuing today, talking about a worldwide Jewish conspiracy—blaming us for everything from UFOs to global warming. We keep an eye on things, what new groups are forming, where the next leader is coming from.”

  There was a moment of silence. “And then you came across Aleister Brand,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “And you told your father about him.”

  He nodded again. “He assured me that he would be discreet. He wants the diamond back. The one that his father copied. He feels connected to it.” He smiled. “And, of course, to bring an anti-Semite to justice.”

  “Discreet?” I echoed in dismay. “Discreet? Lev, your father will stand out like a—a—flamingo at a Quaker meeting, out there. He won’t get within a kilometer of the warehouse before they’ll be onto him. And if they think he’ll get in their way—”

  “I know,” he said. “I know. But my father, he’s not easy to stop.”

  “The timing’s awful,” I said, pulling out my smartphone and hitting Julian’s contact button. Voice mail. “Listen, Julian, it looks like you were right, Avner’s gone out to Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. I don’t know where, exactly, but Lev Kaspi says that’s where his father was heading.” I looked up. “How? Does he have a car?”

  He shook his head. “Public transport. The bus, probably.”

  “Oh, God. Julian, he’s gone out on the bus, which means he’s going to be wandering around, and he’s wandering around with a target on his back, for all we know. I think we should go find him. We can’t wait until tomorrow. Call me back.”

  I clicked End and met Lev’s eyes. “What is happening tomorrow?” he asked calmly.

  “Nothing, if we have anything to do with it,” I said, standing up. “Thanks for telling me this, Lev. I have to go. If you hear from your father, please get in touch with me or détective-lieutenant Fletcher, okay?”

  “Yes,” he said. He still seemed so unaware of the danger, I wanted to shake him. “We’ll get him back,” I said.

  He nodded. “Yes,” he said again, but his mind was clearly elsewhere.

  As I needed to be.

  * * *

  It should have gone smoothly.

  He’d practiced it enough in his head, lying on the extra mattress on the floor since Kurt had taken his bed. Practiced what he would say, and how he would say it.

  He had no idea how it had gone so incredibly wrong.

  Livia caught sight of him through the plate glass of the dressmaker’s, and gestured excitedly for him to come in. Good, he thought; he’d made sure he wasn’t being followed, but best not to tempt fate, stay off the street. Kurt was at the cinema. Or supposed to be, anyway.

  “You’re back!” She threw herself into his arms. “I missed you so much! I am so happy! So very happy, my darling!”

  Hans kissed her. And then again. “I couldn’t wait to see you,” he said.

  “Me, too!” Her eyes were shining. She was the most beautiful woman in the world.

  “I have to talk to you, my love,” he said finally. “Are we alone here?”

  “Yes, yes, of course, but we can go to my room—”

  “Later,” Hans said. “You know what happens when we go to your room.”

  “Yes,” she said, and giggled. “This is why I want to go to my room.”

  “Later,” he said again, taking her hand, leading her to the small fainting couch where by day women sat and looked at different dresses for sale. “Livia, you know that I love you—”

  She kissed him. “I love you, too, my darling.”

  He pulled away. “I have to ask you how much. How much do you love me?”

  “What a silly question! With all my heart!”

  “Would you,” he asked carefully, “do anything for me? Anything that I asked of you?”

  Her smile faded. “What is it, Hans?”

  He cleared his throat. “Livia. Tomorrow I want you to stay home from work. I want you to pack a suitcase—anything that is important to you, that you cannot leave behind. Like your mother’s candlesticks.” He smiled. “We are going away to start our life together. We are going away tomorrow.”

&nbs
p; “I cannot go tomorrow! There is the dress for Mrs. Goldstein—”

  “It does not matter. Mrs. Goldstein does not matter. This is our life.”

  She looked disturbed. As well she should be, all things considered. “But why, Hans? Why so suddenly? Is this about your trip to Toronto?”

  He inclined his head. “A little, perhaps.”

  “And how will we live? We have saved no money! We are not even yet married!”

  “We will have plenty of money. And we will get married, I promise you that, my love.” He stroked her hand for a moment, then looked up into her face. She was troubled, and he would have given anything not to say what he was going to tell her. “My love, my Livia … you have always thought that I am from Holland, and that I am Jewish.”

  She nodded. “Yes. Yes, this is what you are, this is what you’ve told me.”

  “It was not the entire truth. I said it—I said it because I wanted you to love me.”

  “But of course I love you!” Now she wasn’t looking anxious; now she was looking frightened. “This is what you are, Hans!”

  He shook his head. “No, it is not. But you have to know, I came here for my work, and I am giving it up. I am giving it all up, because of you.”

  “What are you saying to me?”

  “I did not tell you the truth. I did not know that I’d fall in love with you.”

  She pulled her hand away from his, hunching her shoulders, defensive. “Tell me.”

  He took a deep breath, let it out. “I am German,” he said. “I am a soldier in the German army, and I have been sent to Montréal to work for the army.”

  She was staring at him; her hand went to her throat. “No.”

  “Ja. I told people I was from Holland; no one knew the difference. And there is more—I am not Jewish. I was taught that Jews are evil, but I know now that is not true. I am not Jewish, my love, but for you, I will be. I will convert. I will do whatever is necessary to make you happy.”

  He reached for her again, and she recoiled. “Do not touch me! If this thing is true about you, then I don’t know you!”

  “Of course you do. I am the same person I was a few minutes ago, Livia.”

  “Don’t say my name!” She was on her feet. “You are a Nazi!”

  The words were meaningless. Nazi was meaningless. She alone held meaning for him now. “I am a member of the Party, ja. But that does not matter. It is nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing to me!” Her eyes grew rounder. “Oh, my God. You are a Nazi, and I went to bed with you!”

  “You love me, Livia,” Hans said, trying to sound reasonable. How could she not see? How could she not understand that love like theirs cancelled out everything else? His face was flushed, his anxiety almost overwhelming. He stood up, his hands out in supplication. “We love each other. Do you not see? I am giving it all up for you. Everything. It is only you that matters now. I will love you forever.” The words felt stiff, his mouth dry with fear. He couldn’t lose her now.

  “Get out.” He felt the slap before her hand even connected with his cheek. “Do you think I am that stupid? I know what your people think of Jews! I know what they do to Jews! And you think—you want me to—it is unthinkable!”

  “But it is not me!” cried Hans. “That is not me! Livia, listen—”

  “Get out! Get out, or I will start screaming, and they will arrest you and shoot you as a spy! Get out now!”

  He moved unwillingly toward the front of the shop. “Livia, think of what you are doing. We could be so happy together. We could—”

  She strode past him and opened the door, leaning on it. “Get out,” she said again, and her voice was trembling. When he reached the doorway, she said, without looking at him, “Do you know why I am sparing your life? Why I’m not screaming for them to come and get you?”

  Miserable, Hans turned to her. “Why?”

  “Because,” she said, and wiped her tears quickly with her sleeve, “because I had news for you today as well. Because whatever I do in my life, whatever happens, I cannot cause the death of my child’s father. Now, go!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  There was a text from Élodie.

  MEET ME AT THE HOTEL. NOW.

  Grand. Possibly the worst place in the city to find a parking place, and my budget didn’t stretch to valets all the time. I opted for the Métro instead and was calling her mobile as I came out at Victoria Square. “Meet me in the lobby?”

  She was starched and official-looking, in a dark blue skirt suit and white blouse, her briefcase in her hand, her eyes on her watch. “You look awful,” she pronounced when she saw me.

  “Thanks. Always happy to have a compliment,” I said.

  “De rien. Have a seat. I have a story to tell you.”

  Why did everyone, it seemed, have some sort of story to tell me? I felt the pressure of the minutes ticking away, closer and closer to whatever was going to happen out at the warehouse. Avner might already be out there. We were wasting time. “What is it?”

  “Well,” she said, arranging herself on the sofa, “the first thing you need to know is that they know.”

  “Who knows?”

  She looked surprised. “The English, of course. At only the highest levels. They’d already made the decision to keep it private. The substituted diamonds are part of a piece that isn’t usually on display in the tower, and certainly when it is, none of the tourists gaping at it would know the difference, anyway. And it’s not like that’s never been done before. In fact, apparently it used to be quite usual for the regalia to be set with jewels hired for the coronation only. Afterwards, the stones were returned to the jewelers and the regalia reset with crystals or paste and put in the jewel house for display.” Élodie shrugged. “So, in some ways, it’s not as big a deal as we thought it might be.”

  “But there’s more to the story.”

  A quicksilver smile. “There’s always more to the story,” she said. “So listen up. You’ve been thinking about this for a while, you know the stories, that King John lost them in some quicksand someplace—”

  “—at the Wash River,” I supplied. “Hence the phrase of something getting lost in the wash.”

  That didn’t even rate a smile in passing. “Right. And then when they abolished the monarchy, nearly all the jewels were destroyed by Cromwell, who thought that everything to do with kings or queens was detestable—his word, by the way, not mine.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Hurry up, Élodie.”

  “Well, there was one thing that was saved. Hidden in an abbey somewhere godforsaken like Northumberland. Saved because it was more than just a crown.”

  “Here it comes,” I said.

  She nodded. “Your diamonds come from a circlet that was probably forged in the thirteenth century in France,” she said. “By the Templars.”

  “No,” I said. “No. Not The Da Vinci Code. Not Dan Brown. Please, anything but that.”

  “Dan Brown didn’t actually invent the Templars, you know,” Élodie chided me. “They were very real. Warrior monks who got way too rich. The king of France got the Templars suppressed so that he could claim their wealth. And that included a number of jewels that they’d—well, not to put too fine a point on it, stolen—from the Holy Land when they were out there busily hacking off heads and plucking the riches of the infidels. Jewels that had belonged to a caliph, so the story goes. Centuries of being in courts of richness and power.”

  “We’re sensing a theme, here,” I said.

  “You said it. The king stole them and had them made into a circlet for the queen. But once they were suppressed, the Templars who hadn’t been killed went underground, and a few of them more than dabbled in black arts. Suddenly the queen found that she couldn’t wear the circlet anymore; she claimed that it burned her.”

  Right. The famous curse.

  “The king’s daughter Isabelle was married off to Edward II of England, and the circlet went with her. But it was gone by the time Cromwell seize
d the jewels, and reappeared once the monarchy was restored. Like magic. But no one seems to have ever been very comfortable with it, and it’s never been worn at any state occasion that I can find any record of. Or that my assistant can find any record of; he’s been snooping around for me. The next people to really handle it at all? Princesses Margaret and Elizabeth. In 1938 they dismantled all the jewels, put them in hatboxes, probably a big joke to them at the time, they were kids, and shipped them off to Canada, and you know all about that story.”

  “So you’re saying that they’ve always carried a curse. And that no one in London really even wants them back.”

  “That’s the unofficial line,” Élodie agreed. She stood up.

  I blinked at her. “Where are you going?”

  “Back to Ottawa. My work here is done. We’ve successfully averted an international incident. Champagne all around.”

  “An international incident,” I said, “may be the least of our problems.”

  “Your problems, chérie,” said Élodie. “Sorry, and all that, but officially speaking, there isn’t a problem here.”

  And if Élodie said there was no problem, there was no problem.

  Except that there was.

  * * *

  By the time I got home, my nerves were frayed. Too much was happening too quickly. A month ago I’d sat in my office one afternoon contemplating how bored I was. I’d give a lot for that boredom now.

  The afternoon had been successful, apparently, and Margery looked relaxed and contented. I wondered if the trip wasn’t partly to ascertain that she could in fact leave the children here in good conscience. Apparently their attachment to Montréal was winning her over.

  Ivan and Claudia were already in the kitchen cooking dinner when I got in. Lukas was enduring a time-out in his room (“he’s tired,” said Ivan when he told me, “and called Claudia some nasty names”), and Margery was leafing through a copy of the Gazette in the living room. I brought a bottle of Médoc and two glasses in with me. “Wine?”

  She glanced up and smiled. “Lovely, thanks.”

  I poured and sat down next to her. “So you enjoyed the tour?”

  “It was spectacular. I haven’t had that much fun in a very long time.” She sipped her wine reflectively. “The kids seem to like it here.”