Vanesa smiled at him saucily, then stood up and walked to the west end of the street. She confidently approached the intercom at the building’s entrance, looked over her shoulder at Jonas, and rang the first buzzer she saw.
Like the fate of many great and grandiose long-term schemes before it, Jonas’s plan for a years-long expedition on Bilkova Street was cut dramatically short. In fact, it became obsolete after only thirty minutes.
He systematically rang buzzers in the entrance of number 12 Bilkova, having been unable to convince even one tenant of number 10 to let him in.
Vanessa made her way to the next building on the opposite side of the street, having actually been let into number 11, searched the hallways and basement, and found nothing of obvious significance.
Jonas was just talking over the scratchy intercom to a woman of indeterminate age, but obvious recalcitrance, when Vanesa’s urgent call rose from across the street. He quickly apologized to the woman, turned from the intercom, ran into the street and was almost run down by a passing taxi. Jumping back to the curb, he looked across the street toward Vanesa, who was standing by the dark grey double doors of the entrance to number 13, trying ineffectually to be discrete while pointing excitedly at the intercom and mouthing something he could not yet hear.
Jonas looked carefully both ways this time, and stepped into the street while glancing upward at the building’s moldering but clearly once glorious edifice. It had perhaps once been the home of a wealthy factory owner, he thought, based on the four industrially-inspired crests visible through the years of accumulated soot, and the motto Buh Zehnej Praci—‘God Bless Labor’—boldly emblazoned across its highest point.
Vanesa pointed excitedly at the panel holding the intercom’s black plastic buttons—an especially lovely work of iron filigree, its pattern intricate yet harshly geometric.
As he approached, Jonas glanced at it, then back at Vanesa in confusion. The intercom panel was a thing of calculated, passing beauty, not something one generally stops and minutely studies. She explained, and only when he turned back to the panel and actually scrutinized it, did he see what was concealed in the lower left corner of the complex pattern. He turned to Vanesa, smiling broadly in amazement. It was the symbol, cleverly camouflaged but unmistakable.
“Seek, and ye shall find,” she said.
Dostoyevsky pondered whether heroes originated “in obscurity or plain sight.” Perhaps heroes did not exist, bravery being contextual, not absolute. In any case, selfless action was only superficially selfless, driven by ego with dark and unfathomable, yet unquestionably self-serving, motives.
Thus, Vanesa and Jonas were not brave to persistently ring the intercoms of every unit in the building at 13 Bilkova Street until someone finally relented and let them in. They were not heroes to enter the rickety elevator, nor to press the button labelled “-1” for the basement, after gleefully discovering the symbol faintly scratched into the metal panel next to it.
They were not heroes because they had no choice.
Vanesa had no choice, in any case. The need to know had long trumped—or perhaps emanated from—her instinct for self-preservation. Either way, her actions constituted choice only in that she chose to roll the dice and accept the outcome, rather than waiting for someone else to do the same.
Perhaps the outcome should have been clear, for it was obvious that there would be danger. It was obvious that they would not be alone when the doors to the elevator opened onto the dimly-lit basement corridor, its pipes marching off into the gloom on wall and ceiling like infinite serpents, the air a miasma of old newspaper and rodent droppings. It was obvious that the two men with guns—Vanesa’s old friends Vodka and Garlic—would be waiting for them. It was obvious that two more men, strategically located on each side of the elevator, would step behind them and press the rags soaked with Kolokol-1, the incapacitating agent developed by Soviets, to their faces.
Most obvious of all was that Vanesa’s last conscious recollection before succumbing to the drug would be the heavy polished metal door embossed with the symbol she’d been chasing. It was the same door through which her father was never allowed to pass, the same door through which her grandfather had frequently passed. Now, it was the door through which she and Jonas were dragged by the shoulders of their jackets, two pairs of heels bumping rhythmically on the long downward-winding staircase. And it was the door that slammed tightly shut behind them with a finality as ominous as it was obvious.
Outskirts of Prague, May 8, 1945
Hans Guenther grunted as the lorry passed, disregarding the muddy water it splashed in his direction; he could not possibly be wetter. He heaved himself out of the low weeds growing in the fetid ditch and slunk rapidly across Road 115. Panting, he took refuge in an identical ditch on the opposite side of the highway, brushing the mud from the yellow Star of David armband as he did so.
This is not how the plan was supposed to work! He cursed silently for the millionth time since leaving Prague in the unmarked staff car three days earlier. He was supposed to be in Italy already, or at least well on the way. The Red Cross papers were flawless, and they were all perfectly disguised as Jews—yet another use for the Jews, he had joked grimly to Ernst as they’d stripped off their SS uniforms. Such versatile human material! More than enough leftover Jewish clothing had been lying around the Central Office to clothe him, Ernst, Girzick, Guennel, Aschenbrenner, Weiszl, Fiedler, and Rolf. Rolf! Hans tried to forget the “I told you so” tone that tinged every sentence his brother had uttered that day.
Rolf had still blamed him for ignoring Eichmann’s entreaties to make early escape plans, but Eichmann had shown up to the meeting dressed as a Luftwaffe corporal. A corporal, for God’s sake! Who could have taken him seriously, back in February?
Now here they were in May. They needed to be careful to stick to back roads, hoping his knowledge of Hebrew would be sufficient to fake their way through the partisan checkpoints that were popping up across the countryside like poisonous mushrooms after a spring rain. Just a group of Jews escaping the evil Nazis in a stolen staff car, heading toward salvation and Allied lines….
Rolf had laughed at their predicament as they left Prague behind them, gunshots echoing ever louder from the city’s center.
What Hans had not taken into consideration was that not all Czech partisans were philosemitic. In fact, the two men manning the roadblock east of Hlasna Treban—just a large hay wagon next to an impromptu pile of sandbags, most only half closed and bleeding dirt—had opened fire the moment they saw the yellow armbands. Their angry cries of “Zabte zidy!”—‘kill the Jews’—was barely audible before the roar of their Mausers began. By the time their officer intervened, at least three of the eight Nazi-Jews had lain dead.
Hans had run, the bullets whizzing over his head as he dove through the underbrush and splashed into the Mies. He’d wished in passing that the river flowed in the opposite direction, back to Germany, and that he and Rolf could just float all the way home to Erfurt. He wiped the water from his eyes as he surfaced, and had enough time to glance back and see bodies hanging half out of the car, and to see his brother with hands raised, looking like the same scared little boy he’d been when the headmaster caught him stealing coffee from the teacher’s lounge, to give Mama a break from the ersatz coffee she so despised. Hans had dove under the water again, and had let the current carry him slowly but inexorably back toward Prague.
Now, three hungry and cold days later, he crouched on the outskirts of the city. He’d followed the Mies—the Berkouna, he corrected himself, consciously trying to think in the Czech in which he’d become so fluent—until it joined the Vltava. He’d slogged most of the way along the riverbank itself, eating stolen turnips and sleeping under bridges. This was far from Plan B in desirability. He’d taken to thinking of it as Plan X.
Going west, he decided, once he was sure the partisans were no longer looking for him, would be too dangerous. Best to use his dirty countenance and lack
of identification to his advantage—his papers had quickly dissolved in the waters of the Berkouna—and to blend in with the inevitable stream of refugees and work his way to… to where? He knew of the Bishop’s organization in Rome, which could help him get to South America, and he’d heard there was help in Spain for SS officers on the run. But both of those options meant traveling west past Allied lines—too risky. On the other hand, all the resources that he, like every other senior Nazi with a gram of sense, had been squirrelling away since the tide of the war had begun to turn resided to the west in Geneva. He could perhaps access those remotely from whatever safe haven he later found.
Preserving life, he thought with no small amount of irony. Preserving life.
Looking around from the ditch, he now removed the Star of David, his thumb pausing to stroke the rough stitching. So close, he thought, and yet the legacy of Usergasse afforded some comfort. He folded the star into a pocket for later use, gambling that German forces still controlled Prague and that being a Jew was not in his best interests.
When he’d left the city, the battle around the Czech Radio building on Schwerinstrasse had just begun, after those damn Czechs had broadcast their pathetic call to arms, despite Karl Frank’s clear warnings of bloody retribution. He’d seen the Junkers bombers circling the city, had seen the plumes of smoke, their lazy upward drift belying the inferno below. SS-Obergruppenführer Frank was not a patient or understanding man, and his back had been to the wall with the Russians closing in from the East and the Allies from the West.
Hans hoped the Waffen SS had shown the Praguers that Germany was still not to be trifled with, even on the eve of her certain defeat. Personally, he’d have been pleased to see Prague turned into another Warsaw.
He estimated it would be half a day’s walk back to Usergasse, what the Praguers knew as Bilkova Street. He’d be there by late afternoon if all went well. He’d left a large contingent of his own men surrounding the site, with strict instructions to hold the position and ensure that the staff continued working, no matter what. He was banking on them still being there, and on their recognizing him before opening fire. Once safely inside, he would gather his resourceful Jews, his keys to escape. He would convey his plans, seal the basement, and leave under cover of darkness.
Preserving life, he thought again. This time, my life.
He stood, trying to ignore the rough wet pants that chafed his every step. He’d need to get used to simple Jew clothing, he supposed, at least for the foreseeable future. He straightened his cap, tucked his hands into his pockets, and began walking east along the dirt road that hugged the Vltava, toward the center of Prague.
Prague, June 1992
Awareness returned to Vanesa calmly, almost comfortingly. Her head rested lightly on the smooth cold surface, and she started at the realization that it was a polished marble floor. The room, too, was cool. It felt large, the echoes of little sounds bouncing toward her from afar: a pipe clanking, a light bulb buzzing, faint footsteps from above.
She opened one gummy eye, then the other, and sat up groggily. The familiar tug of the knife wounds grounded her, speeding her return to full consciousness and jogging her memory of the events leading up to that moment.
Jonas was already sitting up, straining to see past the boundary of the single spotlight under which they sat—their island in a sea of darkness.
Footsteps sounded, closer and sharper now. They circled the island of light like a shark before a feeding frenzy, menacing from a safe distance.
Without warning, a deep gravelly voice sounded. “Welcome, Dr. Jakobovits and Dr. Neuman, to Galerie.”
She recognized the voice immediately—the voice from the scratchy international telephone line; the voice of the man who’d never shown up for their meeting under the marble statues of the Church of the Holy Savior; the voice of the man Uncle Tomas had called “a friend.”
Two more spotlights clicked on in quick succession, revealing the voice’s owner. The darkness behind him, however, remained impenetrable. A tall man with an erect bearing that belied his obvious advanced age, he projected an aura of unquestionable authority. Standing directly under one of the spots, his heavy brows overhung eyes that, when shaded, looked like the empty black sockets of a corpse. His white hair, strictly parted on the right side and combed over his obviously bald pate, capped an angular face whose narrow cheekbones slid downward toward the chin, creating a permanent derisive scowl. He wore a grey wool suit, and carried a wooden cane with a shiny gold handle that was tucked under one armpit, leaving his hands free—powerful-looking yet thin and bony with unusually long fingers. He held his palms together at midriff-height, rapidly and rhythmically tapping the fingers of one hand against those of the other, pinky to thumb, and back. Tap up. Tap down. Tap up. Tap down.
When he finally spoke again, his voice was softer, a voice clearly practiced in assuagement but lacking the sincerity that a discerning ear sought for comfort.
“We have been expecting you, of course, Dr. Neuman. Your persistence is, shall we say, admirable. We are not used to uninvited guests discovering our unique showcase. I must say, you have presented us with a dilemma.”
The man began circling them again, this time in the splash of light and more thoughtfully, but with equal menace. He continued tapping his fingers. Tap up. Tap down.
Finally, he spoke again. “But I am being rude. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Josef Weiszl, but you probably know me as SS-Oberscharfuhrer Josef Weiszl, yes, Dr. Neuman?”
Vanesa nodded slowly, still recovering from the effects of the drug. She tried to speak, and found her throat too dry to produce anything more than a croak.
“Your throat is painfully dry, is it not? That’s a known side effect of Kolokol-1. The Soviets never did manage to work out all the kinks in that drug, I’m afraid. Yours too, Dr. Jakobovits? Yes? Well, perhaps we can alleviate your pain, if not yet Dr. Neuman’s. You’ve already met Andel, I believe. Andel, can you please give Dr. Jakobovits something for the pain in his throat?”
Weiszl smiled knowingly as he made this request, and the rhythm of his tapping increased as if in expectation. Tap up. Tap down.
Andel, whom Vanesa recognized as Vodka, stepped into the island of light in which she and Jonas were now standing, both having risen unsteadily to their feet when Weiszl first started speaking. Andel stood momentarily in front of Jonas, as if assessing, and then, in a fluid movement clearly born of intense practice, he reached one hand behind his back while simultaneously stepping forward. A large knife, one side evilly serrated, appeared in a flash, then disappeared again behind his back.
Jonas looked surprised. His hands flew up to his neck even as the blood flowed from his severed carotid. He made a sound somewhere between a gurgle and a hiss as he sunk to his knees, his hands desperately yet ineffectually clutching at his neck, trying to staunch the bleeding.
Vanesa unconsciously stepped back from the horror in front of her, her eyes darting to Weiszl’s fingertips, which were tapping ever more urgently. Tap up. Tap down.
Within seconds, Jonas keeled over onto his side, lying motionless save for one leg that twitched like a marionette operated by some drunken puppeteer.
It was this scene, this vision of Jonas in the throes of violent death, which finally elicited the hoarse, desert-dry scream from her throat.
Prague, May 8, 1945
Hans Guenther served as a senior military officer in the greatest military conflict—if any military conflict could be considered “great”—in the bloody history of humanity, yet he had never seen combat. He was a killer who’d never, until three days ago, been forced to face the mortal anguish of being hunted himself. He was a bureaucrat, a powerful pencil pusher, but also an avowed yet pragmatic ideologue. Ideology, he’d learned in the past seventeen years since he’d first joined the Sturmabteilung, the precursor of the SS, was a cloak that could protect him from the inclemency of the outside world, no matter what truths lurked within.
; Which is not to say that Hans Guenther lacked truths of his own; he was, after all, a child of Erfurt, home of Welt-Dienst, one of the world’s most prestigious anti-Semitic publishing houses. He had dedicated himself with youthful enthusiasm to his role as “the soldier of an idea,” the defender of Aryans from the scourge of the untermenschen—the ‘sub-humans.’ He had believed—still believed, on some level—that Jews were the embodiment of the untermenschen. He had been, in his heyday, unhesitant in exploiting his power to curb their verminous spread.
Yet this power, he now recognized, would soon become a thing of the past. Luckily, he thought, it ultimately mattered little, because the least celebrated and most prevalent of motives had always lurked beneath his ideology: ambition. National Socialism had been the life raft that saved him from Erfurt’s provincialism and promise of unemployment, conveying him to a new and glorious future.
He’d ridden that raft until its leaks could no longer be plugged, and now, as it sank fast, he had no intention of going down with the ship. Hans Guenther was superior, resourceful, strong, and committed. Whether he donned this ideological cloak or that, he thought, was unimportant. Perhaps it was simply time to throw off the old cloak. He smiled inwardly, for there were certainly plenty of other cloaks for the taking.
Did this make him a traitor? Was he betraying his country, his family, the people he’d commanded and who had believed his fiery words?
He pondered this as he peered around to ensure he was unwatched. The street remained barren. He turned back to watch as Prague’s still-smoldering Old Town Hall gave an audible groan, and a northern section of roof collapsed with a satisfying crash. Then it was silent again, save the echo of an occasional gunshot, caught and tossed back and forth by the looming buildings above him like children playing ball.
Was there a scale that could measure the needle’s steady climb from free thought, through dissension, and into the zone of betrayal? Where did betrayal start, and where did it end? Was his willingness to imagine a new path for himself after the demise of the Third Reich a betrayal? If indeed it was, did not the legacy he was leaving, the legacy that would remain secret perhaps for generations, somehow compensate for his actions?
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