by Ranjini Iyer
Lars winced. Max let out a cry.
“You of all people should know that we mean business.” The man checked his gun and caressed it with his left hand. “Beautiful weapon, no?”
“Berliner,” Lars whispered.
The man chuckled. “Your disease hasn’t affected your brain. So how brave are you really?” He held the gun to Lars’s neck.
Max staggered back.
“The locker key,” the blond said. The gun made a clicking sound. “The safety is off now.”
Max began to sink to the ground.
“Or maybe she has it.” The barrel of the gun moved toward Max.
“All right, all right!” Lars yelled. “Here. Take it. It’s the key to locker number 53 at Waterloo Station. Now leave us alone.” He rushed to Max.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the blond demanded.
“She is not well.” Lars held a very grateful Max in his arms and smoothed her forehead. Max had lost all feeling in her limbs.
“Lars Lindstrom, leave the girl alone and come back here,” the blond shouted. “Now!”
Lars moved back to where he had been.
Max watched as the German meticulously searched every part of Lars, checking his briefcase, his pockets, his mouth, everything.
“I hope you aren’t trying to trick me, Herr Lindstrom.” The blond held his gun at Lars’s neck and pulled the trigger. There was a pfft sound like a champagne bottle being uncorked.
Max put a hand over her mouth. Why was she incapable of screaming the place down? Not that there was any point. There was no one close enough to hear.
“If I find out that you have tricked me, my aim shall improve next time.”
Max felt like she was being held under water. Lars put a shaking hand to the side of his neck and bent forward. Thin trickles of blood flowed down his hand and arm.
The blond strolled over to Max and brushed her cheek with a light sweep of his gun. “Consider this visit a warning to you too Fräulein,” he said.
The world around her went black. Max fell to the floor with a thud.
CHAPTER FOUR
Max opened her eyes. She was sitting on her bed with her back resting against several pillows. Lars was waving a white bird in front of her face. Her vision slowly cleared. Lars was fluttering his handkerchief at her. The side of his neck was bandaged.
“What happened?” she said drowsily. “Didn’t that beast shoot you?”
“He did, but it was meant to scare, not kill. The bullet grazed my neck, that’s all.”
“Did you call the police?”
Lars shook his head. His face was drawn. “I didn’t see the point,” he said. “That man is probably on a plane to Germany right now and I don’t have the time or patience to deal with the bureaucratic engine of the local constabulary.” Lars’s eyes were bloodshot. There were purple shadows under them. “Anyway, it’s done. I gave him a locker key.”
Max sighed. With relief or disappointment, she wasn’t sure. Some of both, she guessed.
Lars laced his fingers together. “You know what I think, given what happened tonight?”
Bile made a quick ascension up to Max’s throat. She swallowed it down and counted to ten. Twice. “What?” she said hoarsely.
“Hiram may not have committed suicide after all. In fact, I am convinced that he may have been killed for whatever it was that he was about to reveal in his research. I’d suspected it, but I thought Peter Schultz would never stoop to murder. Now I’m not so sure.” Lars’s head dropped to his chest. “I’m sorry, Max, so very sorry to have dragged you into this.”
“It’s all right.” Max shrugged. “We tried and we failed.”
Lars went to the window. “I said I gave him a locker key, not the locker key.”
Max blinked a few times as if it would help her fully comprehend what Lars was saying.
“I never intended to just hand you the papers. I told Hiram’s lawyer I would like to give them to you eventually. It was in the back of my mind the whole time that there might be trouble brewing. And so, before leaving London, I opened a second locker and filled it with some papers that looked similar to the ones Hiram had sent me.”
“Will they fool him?” Max asked. Every bone in her body felt rattled, shaken loose.
“The blond perhaps, but not Peter Schultz.” Lars went to her and took her hands. “Remember how I held you right before you fainted? In that commotion, I slipped the key under a shelf in your kitchen. That man searched you and the kitchen too before he left, but luckily he didn’t look too carefully.” Lars handed her a locker key. “This is the key to the locker where Hiram’s papers are. I’ve written the name of the bank and the locker number here.” He pushed a folded piece of paper into her hands.
“What now?” Max was feeling like she might faint again.
“I’m going back to London. We have two, maybe three days at most before Berliner realizes what we have done. Here’s the difficult bit. For you, I will remain in London three days—no more. I do need to finish the sale of my business and wrap up my life there. I’ve made plans to leave for France to be with family.”
Max looked at him with wide eyes.
“It’s going to be up to you now,” Lars said. “I’ve lost my nerve, I’m afraid. I plan to die fighting my disease, not by a bullet. I’m so sorry.”
“You’re abandoning me?” Max asked.
Lars squeezed her hands. “I wish it hadn’t been like this. I wish I could have been the one to take the lead, but I can’t. You have a choice. You can let it sit. I’ll add you to my will so you get Hiram’s papers when I’m gone. Or in the next three days, do some digging. If you find something useful, come to London. We can talk. And even then, if we decide to do nothing, I can add you as a joint holder so you can access the locker without me whenever you choose.”
Max let out a sob. This was so unfair. What the hell did she know about decoding research papers and dodging clichéd blond German villains with guns?
“You keep the key.” She shoved it toward him.
Lars shook his head. “Bring it with you. That way I’ll be forced to help. It sounds awful, but that’s the way it is.”
He stood up. “Now, do you think Samuel’s diary might be here after all?” He was suddenly all brisk and business-like. “It’s just as well that it wasn’t in your kitchen, otherwise that monster would have burned it too.”
Max slowly slid out of bed. She went to her living room. The door of her safe was still open from when the German had searched it. There were books everywhere, papers strewn all over the floor, drawers open and emptied.
Dully, she began picking books off the floor and putting them back on shelves. One was a red notebook. It was her mother’s journal. Max opened it. She sometimes thumbed through it when memories of Mama threatened to fade. She opened it now and felt her throat tighten at the sight of her mother’s flowing handwriting. On this page she had written about the blueberry pie she had made to celebrate Max’s birth. Max turned a few pages. There were recipes and drawings. She had written about her routine with a young Max, games they had played, crafts they had done. There were tidbits of gossip about neighbors and friends. The handwriting began getting illegible as her mother’s illness progressed.
“Samuel’s diary, do you see it?” Lars’s voice was laced with impatience. He pulled a few books off a nearby bookshelf.
Max put her mother’s notebook away. Her eyes stung with the promise of tears. She pulled out a few books that sat askew on the shelf.
And there.
Buried between two thick pastry books, she found it. Opa’s thick, brown, leather-bound diary. The one she had found as a child.
“It’s here,” she said.
Max opened it, her unsteady hands fumbling with the sepia pages.
A plastic bag was taped to the back of the diary. In it was the ancient Indian cylindrical seal Opa had shown her. On the front page was the seal’s embossment—looking as red and candy-like as
ever. Below the embossment was some text in Sanskrit—written like a verse. No translation was provided.
Max turned the page.
Opa had started journaling in India. Max read the first few entries about his role at Berliner and his trip to India.
There must have been something heavy bearing on Opa’s mind around the time he had burned his papers. There were days Max remembered Papa and Opa having heated discussions. Some days there had been triumphant smiles accompanying their discussions—they had filled chalkboards with flowcharts and frenzied writing that she had looked at with detachment. But more often, there had been arguments and sulking sessions.
Once Opa’s health deteriorated, the discussions had stopped. During his last days, Opa’s seal had often been in his hands. She could see him now, turning it over, looking at it as if he was willing it to speak to him. Console him. Poor Opa had spent those days lying on the couch, staring out at the lake alone. Whatever was burdening him, he had kept it buried inside.
“If this diary has nothing, we have nothing to go on,” Max said. She took the Indus seal out of the plastic bag. Why was it Opa’s lucky seal? The pills were from the Indus Valley. The seal was from the same place. Did that mean something, or was the seal simply an old souvenir?
“I must go now.” Lars touched her arm. “I cannot stay and read the diary with you. I’m done in.” He tried to laugh. “Besides, my flight leaves first thing tomorrow.”
Max looked at the floor and nodded.
“Read it, give this some thought. Then decide if you want to come see me. Remember, three days from now I’ll be gone.”
“Okay,” she managed to say.
“I hate leaving you here by yourself.” Lars squeezed her shoulder. “Can I drop you off somewhere before I return to my hotel?”
Max started to shake her head no, then stopped. “I should probably see Uncle Ernst and tell him about all this. Maybe he could help us, too.”
Lars frowned. “I didn’t know Hiram or your mother had siblings. Wait a second, not Ernst Frank.”
Max looked at him. “Yes. Opa’s old friend from Germany.”
Lars’s eyes widened. “They were at Krippenwald concentration camp together. Goodness, Ernst must be well over eighty! How is he?”
“Ridden with problems, sadly—Parkinson’s, senility, paranoia. He’s the only family I have left. He’s the only one I can tell.” Max’s voice broke.
“I’ll take you to his place. He lives in Chicago, I take it.”
Max wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “When the liberation happened, Opa and Uncle Ernst came here together.”
“I’ll get a cab.”
“No need. He lives on the fifteenth floor.”
They walked to the elevator together. Lars and Max stood side by side, not speaking.
At the fifteenth floor, the elevator doors peeled open.
“Max, one other thing. The only way these people would have known my intentions about coming to Chicago is by tapping my phone. We must assume they may have tapped yours, too. So don’t call me. I’ll contact you.”
With a dull nod, Max started to get out.
Lars put a hand on her arm. “I’m so very sorry, child,” he said. “About everything.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Max walked down the corridor and slammed her fist against the familiar door of 1502 once, twice, her head hanging down, her throat ready to explode, eager tears waiting to spill.
The door opened tentatively. “Is that you?” Uncle Ernst said. “So late?”
Max took one look at his dear, ruddy face and could hold back the tears no longer. He took her in his arms and rubbed her back.
Dear Uncle Ernst. With his soft, watery brown eyes and sagging cheeks. Snug in his faded yellow sweater and moss green pants. Max had often begged him to wear different colors, offered to buy him new clothes—all to no avail. “But I like zis,” was his response every time.
Max couldn’t imagine life without Uncle Ernst. He had become a father figure to Papa after Opa’s death and to her, after Papa’s passing. Uncle Ernst had one daughter, Sally. Once a successful entrepreneur, founder and owner of a weight loss company, Sally had committed suicide many years ago. The reasons for her death were still a bit fuzzy to Max. All she knew was that Sally had suffered from paranoia. Towards the end, she had feared that her company was in danger of going under. And she couldn’t handle it.
Above all others, this was the bond that held Max and Uncle Ernst—the untimely death of a fiercely loved one.
Uncle Ernst held her face with his trembling hands. Max closed her eyes. His touch felt like cheesecloth swaddling her cheeks. “You work too hard. Come with me to the driving range tomorrow.”
Max put her hands on his shoulders. “I need to speak to you about Papa—”
“Your father,” Uncle Ernst interjected, his eyes animated, his voice growing unnaturally high. He was going swiftly into the past as he often did these days. “His shots improved after he had a few drinks under his belt.” Uncle Ernst shook his head with a brittle laugh, then instantly, as if he had been slapped, his expression changed to one of dismay.
Max was torn between screaming in anguish and shaking him out of his reverie.
Uncle Ernst began spluttering through bubbles of saliva. “I’m so sorry, liebchen, darling.” He slurped and swallowed. “Hiram and his golf clubs were inseparable. And the drink…oh dear, I’m an idiot.” His hands were shaking more than ever. His head began bobbing. His face had turned pale in places and bright crimson in others. “I cannot believe he is gone. I sometimes wake up thinking he will knock on my door, asking me to hit a few buckets of balls. Or invite me to breakfast…make his delicious poached eggs.”
Max raised her hands with a cry and settled down on the couch. Her tears had miraculously stopped. She waited for Uncle Ernst to be done.
“Mein Gott, my God,” he cried, “I’m a schwein. I should just—just stop talking altogether. I have become a fool.” He turned away.
Max hated it when Uncle Ernst got this way. Maybe it was senility. Or maybe it was how he coped with her father’s death.
Uncle Ernst was watching her from the corner of his eyes like a chastised child, holding one shaking hand over the other.
He went into the kitchen and returned minutes later with a cup of hot chamomile tea. He handed it to Max and sat beside her. “You came here to see me and I’m going on like an idiot. Tell me love, what’s the matter?” He widened his eyes and pursed his lips like he always did when she had a story to tell.
Max took a deep breath to gather strength. “Today I met Lars Lindstrom, Opa’s former lab assistant.”
Uncle Ernst looked puzzled for a moment, but quickly his eyes brightened. “Oh yes, Samuel mentioned him a few times.”
“He told me—” Max stopped. “How did Papa die?” she asked softly after a while.
Uncle Ernst’s shoulders shrank, his cheeks sagged. The bags under his eyes seemed to grow larger than ever. Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. Max bit her lip, regretting her abruptness.
“Oh darling,” he said. “He committed suicide. Just like my foolish Sally. Sure there had been the threat that her company might have to shut down or change direction. But it was all in the future. Nothing was going to happen right away. I had been assured. I told her the same, but she was afraid of things all the time. And so she went and killed herself. She was sick and a fool! But she was my daughter. My only baby, and I could do nothing for her. Nothing!” Uncle Ernst’s voice was angry, but his eyes had a glazed look about them. “But now Alex, my grandson, you know, he runs her company. I’m so grateful he took over—”
Max pressed her temples with her forefingers. “Yes,” she said, “I know all that. But Lars said…he said Papa might have been pushed to commit suicide, maybe even killed. Because of some research he had done based on Opa’s work.”
Uncle Ernst turned pale, his jowls shook, his lips quivered. Max thought he might collapse onto the f
loor. He merely turned his face to the ceiling and said something she didn’t understand and smacked his lips a few times. He kept shaking his head, looking like a large, wrinkled child who has been told his toy is broken and beyond repair.
Max leaned forward and told him about Lars, the Indus health pills, Papa’s research, and its possible connection to Opa’s work during the war. Uncle Ernst seemed to get more and more befuddled as she spoke. She decided not to mention the visit by the German or her home being searched. For now.
“I need to find a way to decode this research,” she said.
Uncle Ernst got up and began dusting bookshelves with a bare palm. “I wish I could help. But my body has become a trap, my mind lets me down when I need it most.” He sighed.
“Did you know about Papa’s research?” Max said.
“Not much. But I was supposed to take care of it,” Uncle Ernst said in a fierce voice. “Hiram didn’t trust anyone else.”
Max rubbed his back. “I think he wanted to protect you and me.”
“Yes, yes.”
“I have to look into this. I thought I’d start by reading Opa’s diary. Do some digging at the university library.” Max wondered if she should ask Uncle Ernst to go with her.
Uncle Ernst’s bushy eyebrows bunched up like a small hairy animal on his forehead. “I could go with you,” he said.
If he went with her, despite him being so feeble, she would end up depending on him to take charge of the situation. Besides, it would be cruel to take him along.
She shook her head. “I must do this alone.”
“Ya,” he said. His eyes had a faraway look.
Max picked up her bag. She shouldn’t have come here. It had done neither of them any good. No, that wasn’t entirely true. Telling Uncle Ernst had made her feel, if not better, at least not all alone in her adventure.
“Whatever you do, be careful,” Uncle Ernst said unexpectedly. “If Berliner is involved, they will make sure they get what they want. They’re probably watching us, even me. Samuel told me all about them.” Max frowned. He sounded quite lucid. It was rare these days, but she could imagine how sharp he might have been as a younger man. “And if you want me to go with you, I will. I wasn’t there for Sally when she needed me, but for you I’ll be here. You know she called me right before she took those damn sleeping pills. She asked me to help her. She begged me. I thought it was her paranoia talking and I did nothing.”
