The Stolen

by T. S. Learner

  Matthias rose to his feet, swept up with an overwhelming desire just to get out of the building.

  ‘Thank you, but it’s really not that important. And please pass on my condolences to the detective’s family. This is tragic news.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Engels also stood. ‘Would you like my assistant to escort you out?’

  ‘No, no, I can make my own way.’

  Matthias hurried out of the office, the briefcase with Christoph’s taped confession securely held under one arm.

  The lift doors were just closing when a young man, tall, blond and a little ungainly with astoundingly big ears, stepped in just in time. As soon as the lift was moving he reached across and jammed a matchstick between the controls. The elevator shuddered to a stop between two floors and he swung round to Matthias.

  ‘We have about four minutes before we reach the ground floor, Herr Professor.’ The young detective pointed to the ceiling. ‘No cameras in here.’ He handed Matthias his card. ‘I was Klauser’s partner, Detective Timo Meinholt. They’re saying he killed himself, that it was some dumb sex act gone wrong, and that’s bullshit. Helmut was a lot of things, but he wasn’t suicidal – they murdered him.’

  ‘Who are “they”?’ Matthias asked, noticing the man’s forehead was now beading with sweat.

  ‘I can’t be sure, but this case he was working on – the dead gypsy on Altestrasse – that was a lead to something far, far bigger. Your father is involved, but you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘An arms dealer called Janus Zellweger, probably a few others. With someone like that Klauser didn’t stand a chance. But I know he thought you did; why do you think that was?’ Timo Meinholt kept his voice down.

  ‘Maybe because I don’t have to answer to pricks like Johann Engels.’

  ‘Or maybe because he thought they wouldn’t dare silence an untouchable like yourself.’

  ‘I hope to hell he was right.’

  ‘There’s something else: a close friend of Klauser’s, the journalist Dieter Schwitters, was found hanging in his office last night. Another theoretical suicide. Herr Professor, I have a young wife and child; I love my job and I love my life, but I also know what’s right and what’s plain evil. Any help you want you let me know.’

  Matthias nodded and Timo pulled the matchstick out of the lift controls.

  ‘The funeral’s tomorrow. No autopsy – Engels insisted. Didn’t want the media coverage. They want to bury him like he didn’t exist at all.’ The detective’s voice cracked with emotion.

  The lift reached the ground floor and the doors slid open.

  ‘Viel Glück,’ Timo murmured as Matthias stepped out.

  Jannick glanced over at the envelope that had been lying on Matthias’s desk since that morning. It looked official but there was no stamped address on the back and it was impossible to see through. It was irritating – after all, Destin had said he was interested in all of Matthias’s activities. The door opened and Matthias hung his coat and scarf up then turned to his colleague.

  ‘So how’s it all going?’

  Jannick made a big play of looking up from his desk.

  ‘I’ve almost finished preparation for the next experiment. We’ll run the first tests tomorrow. You’re in late – trouble at home?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Matthias said cryptically. He was aware of a growing gulf between him and the Dane – an undercurrent of professional resentment that seemed to have worsened since the press conference – and he was finding it harder to trust his colleague. He glanced over at his desk. He knew immediately the metal desk calendar had been moved and a framed photograph of Marie and Liliane was in the wrong place.

  ‘Has someone else been in here?’ he asked Jannick.

  The Dane paused. Destin had visited a few days earlier and to Jannick everything appeared to be in exactly the same place, but then he didn’t have the same relationship to inanimate objects as Matthias, who, he knew, was acutely aware of the mathematical and physical dimension of the space between objects.

  ‘No, just me,’ he lied, ‘but maybe there’s a new cleaner.’

  Matthias frowned and picked up the thick envelope that was propped up on his typewriter. ‘When did this arrive?’

  ‘This morning. Anything interesting?’ Feigning a polite indifference, Jannick looked over.

  With a lurch of his stomach, Matthias recognised Klauser’s distinctive scrawl.

  ‘Perhaps.’ He picked up the envelope and left the office. After checking the corridor was empty he stepped into a supply cupboard and locked the door behind him. Sitting on a wooden crate, he carefully slit the envelope open. Inside was another sealed A4 envelope and drawn on the front of this in pencil were the four symbols for Water, Earth, Fire and Air. Underneath was written in case of sudden accident in the detective’s handwriting. Matthias felt a shiver go through him – had Klauser had a premonition of his own murder?

  Inside was a newspaper clipping on the entrepreneur Janus Zellweger and copies of four typed lists, each with its own swastika stamp on the top. With growing horror Matthias scanned the numbered plunder, each item detailed by the ethnic group from which it had been ‘confiscated’, the physical description of the actual object and then finally its destination. Where had Klauser found the list? And what was the association with Zellweger, and why the symbols?

  Matthias leaned down to read the article about Zellweger, who embodied everything Matthias loathed about the arms industry: immoral, charismatic with a cavalier attitude towards other human beings. He was also famous for having no moral qualms about his clients, openly exporting to dictators and democracies alike. Obviously Klauser had linked the weapons manufacturer with the missing gold, but how?

  And then there was the book of clocks that Klauser had discovered hidden in the priest’s mattress, also once Nazi property. The clocks featured in the book represented the four elements, the very same book Christoph had told Matthias indicated the village where Ulrich Vosshoffner now lived as Pieter Schmidt.

  The book, the article about Zellweger and the list of the plunder were all linked, but how? One obvious connection was the repeated motif of the elements, seen both in the book of clocks and inscribed on the clocks themselves – Christoph’s prize possessions. Matthias looked back at the photographs and suddenly he saw the hidden elements on each individual list, cleverly constructed through the gaps between the typed words. But why would a list of illegal plunder be marked in such a fashion? And what about the statuette? He began looking for the entry. To his intense excitement he found it, the same entry at the bottom of each list: a description of an unusual statuette taken in 1943 in the Ukraine from a group of Kalderash. Drawn beside the entry was a small hourglass. Symbolising what… time? Matthias peered closer; he had seen it before, but where? Then he remembered: it had appeared under the description of eighteenth-century clock-maker Pieter Schmidt – it had been the centrepiece of the shield of the Watchmakers’ Guild of Saxony – the very same Pieter Schmidt Ulrich Vosshoffner had based his new identity on. Matthias’s mouth dried. It was imperative he found his blood father – he would be one of the last alive who would be able to answer the questions the list raised. Was it possible the symbols indicated the precise location where the statuette and plunder was hidden? Perhaps, but he felt sure there was something else that tied the elements to the holy relic, a theme that was more mystical, given the Third Reich’s obsession with both power and superstition.

  Matthias paced Helen’s study, too agitated to keep still.

  ‘The use of the symbols must be a cipher of some sort, maybe a guide to the location of these valuables? And then the last symbol, specifically marking the statuette, the hourglass. Suggesting what?’

  ‘Time?’ Helen said, leaning forward.

  ‘It is the centre symbol in the shield for the medieval guild of watchmakers,’ he told her, still wary of admitting the complete truth about his real father.

  ‘I suspect ther
e’s another, less literal connection; holy relics often have legends or myths attached that might relate to a certain era or an epic event in which they come into their own power. Usually this root myth is built around a catastrophic prediction or event. Like the 2012 Mayan calendar or Judgement Day. Cult leaders are forever exploiting such superstitions.’

  ‘And you think the Nazis would have had an inkling of this?’

  ‘Absolutely. They were fantastic propagandists. To own and be able to manipulate relics from across the world as a means of control would be a great investment for the future of the thousand-year Reich. Hitler, more than anyone, knew the influence of such artefacts. The symbol for infinity, standing on its end, might have a link to the myth attached to your statuette,’ Helen concluded.

  ‘How?’

  ‘The goddess Kali is considered to be the goddess of both Birth and Death – and the “blessing of Kali” alluded to in the historical records of the statuette is somehow ominous, don’t you think?’

  ‘I suspect that’s a deliberate ploy to deter people from seeking out the statuette. But then, I’m a non-believer, and it’s certainly not going to stop me finding it.’

  ‘Matthias, you should be careful. As an anthropologist I’ve learned that sometimes belief alone can empower an object – infuse it with certain energy.’ She pulled an open book towards her. ‘I quote from the Mahanirvana Tantra, a Hindu religious text: “At the dissolution of things…”’ she continued, ‘what Christians would know as doomsday… “it is Kala (Time) Who will devour all, and by the reason of this He is called Mahakala, and since Thou devourest Mahakala Himself, it is Thou who are the Supreme Primordial Kalika. Because Thou devourest Kala, thou art Kali, the original form of all things, and because Thou art the Origin of and devourest all things Thou art called Adya. Resuming after Dissolution thine own form, dark and formless…” In other words, Kali embodies the void before creation and the void after creation. This way Kali becomes both the goddess of energy, of change, destruction and time. She is beyond Time.’

  ‘Is there anything in the Kali myth that is predictive – a doomsday date, a future time when the goddess will unleash her deadly fury upon the world?’ Matthias was struggling for a connection, anything that might link the statuette’s location to something tangible.

  ‘Well, Kali is also known as the liberator of souls, a conduit to free oneself from one’s ego. A devotee of Kali would not be repelled by the traditional manifestation of the goddess with her necklace of severed heads and skirt of dismembered arms. Instead they would use this image to transcend the notion of their own mortality – to rise above the ego. But you could argue that because she is traditionally associated with battlefields or the edge of Hindu society she would be a herald of doomsday or the moment the world decides to hurtle itself into an end of time.’ As she spoke Helen had that distant look he recognised as a trait of his own – the ability to be transported by one’s own rhetoric. ‘But there’s something else – the manner in which the statuette has been written about and treated suggests that it might embody a great destructive power – and that would fit with the Kali myth.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I did a little research. Working on the theory that this statuette might actually be from the region the Roma started their great exodus, I started to look at any writings from Rajasthan from the third century onwards. I found nothing that early, but there was a later mention of such a statuette by the eighteenth-century Kali devotee Ramprasad Sen.’ She pulled out a sheet of paper. ‘He tells us there was a holy relic that was meant to have been housed in a temple of Kali in Rajasthan during the third century – it’s in English. Shall I read it for you?’

  ‘No, my English is good.’ From the style of the lettering Matthias guessed that the photocopy must have been taken from a fairly old book. He walked over to the window, holding the page up to the thin wintry sun that was filtering in from outside.

  Many centuries before, in the country known as Rajasthan, there was a temple dedicated to the great and powerful goddess Kali and it was within this house of the goddess that a statuette of power lay. The worshippers claimed that this statuette had been touched by the goddess at the beginning of time and that it was a physical manifestation of her own power and that this sacred object was as destructive as the goddess or as fecund as the goddess – to bless or curse the world if it is ever used. It was the very same worshippers who fled both their temple and village – a whole community vanishing overnight like mist, never to be seen again. It was said they ran on the fiery tongue of Kali’s breath. A very great mystery that still strikes fear into the hearts of the remaining populace.

  ‘Impressive research,’ Matthias said when he’d finished.

  ‘Thank you, but the people you should really be interviewing are the guardians of the relic itself, your Kalderash family. I’m sure your mother would have stories about its power, its history.’

  He studied her, the desire for a confidante who wouldn’t judge him now overwhelming.

  ‘What are you doing later?’

  Destin watched Matthias and his auburn-headed female companion cross the floor of the busy restaurant. They had that kind of smug oblivion of the outside world all lovers had – at least at first, Destin noted bitterly, the kind of tunnel vision sex and emotional projection induced – when all the hypocrisy, all the ugliness of humanity fell away. The original garden of Eden – a fool’s paradise. He had experienced it himself once: the only pure thing that had ever happened to him and he would have married the woman except a landmine had put an end to that. His lover’s pointless death had left him furious at the world, at Love itself. His reverie was interrupted by a peal of laughter from the woman. Matthias von Holindt’s patent naivety annoyed him – enough to make him want to wipe the scientist’s future away, the way his own had been wiped out.

  Matthias, cradling a whisky soda, sat opposite Helen. The meal had been superb and she, in an environment that was so much more luxurious than her usual one, had amused him with an unexpected bashfulness. She’d already told him about her past, how her early marriage had ended in bitter divorce and how, afterwards, she decided to run away and had applied for the post in Zürich. A new start, she told him, a new continent, a new hairstyle and a new identity, but then wryly concluded that it was impossible to escape one’s own history. There was a brittleness about her Matthias recognised; both of them were bad at hiding their grief. And, for once, he’d met a woman who shared the obsessive’s passion. He knew she would understand where he went in his mind, that particular absence of self, and would not be threatened by it. Not even Marie had understood that.

  ‘I was just thinking how familiar you feel, yet I hardly know you at all…’ he ventured.

  ‘Perhaps it’s because we are both observers, both a little guarded, a little deranged – maybe fanatical.’

  He laughed. ‘You make it sound so attractive. You sure you want this monster?’

  ‘Takes one to know one: my personal monster has horns and she’s going to circle and circle before deciding it’s safe to lie down and show her belly.’ It was a confession of sorts. Flushed, she poured herself another glass of wine.

  Matthias leaned closer. ‘You should know you’re the first woman who has even got my attention in three years, so I’m happy to keep trailing after you, horn, snout and tail at stiff attention.’ He grinned wickedly.

  ‘More dirty talk like this and we’ll be under the table, and dessert is still to come,’ she retorted, trying to regain some equilibrium. ‘So, Herr Professor, superconductivity?’

  ‘It’s my life’s work – to be able to offer the world a superconductive material that can function at standard room temperature. I’m only months, maybe even weeks away from reaching it. Helen, I feel it. There’s always a certain amount of serendipity. I love that. It’s like a kind of magic. Often you get solutions in the least expected ways – you might be pursuing one angle and the result of an experiment suddenl
y illuminates a whole other area that you hadn’t even calculated into the equation.’ He sat back, self-conscious of his own fervour.

  ‘And it must be so inspiring to be working in a material field, with results that are immediate. My subject is theory applied to fieldwork – research to support a hypothesis. Knowing the cultural ramifications of enforced settlement, particularly of the Roma, never seems to change political policy no matter how hard I campaign. No results there.’ Helen sounded both frustrated and a little sad.

  ‘But you’re chronicling events for future generations and that’s just as important, right?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Actually, I now think I was drawn into physics because, unconsciously, I was looking for a way of impressing Christoph by carrying his watchmaker’s obsession with minuscule engineering one stage further. It was hard having such an accomplished father, except he’s not my father, is he?’

  ‘Not your blood father,’ Helen answered carefully.

  ‘It was incredibly difficult confronting him – it wasn’t just the discovery of his Nazi background, it was the sense that he’d betrayed me.’ The words were a revelation that could either topple into an embarrassment or become another thread of familiarity between them, but it was a gamble Matthias was prepared to take. ‘It’s almost impossible to accept I’m the product of rape and there is no way of coming to terms with that, except, perhaps, understanding the tremendous courage it took for my natural mother to finally seek me out. I feel like her desire to acknowledge me legitimises my existence. It’s hard to explain. And so new it’s bewildering.’