by G S Eli
“And don’t tell me—you believe the paintings that were discovered in Munich have similar illustrations? Illustrations of this relic, right?” he asked. “Why horde them? What purpose does it serve?”
Deborah hesitated, and Morton could tell she didn’t want to answer his question, no matter how valid it was. She’s going to have to answer me if she wants my help, he thought. Then she pointed to the painting, drawing Morton’s attention to an inscription on the shaft of the nail. He squinted trying to make it out, but the old microfilm shot was too grainy.
“I have a working theory right now,” Deborah reluctantly said. “When I saw the scepter in the hospital, this section was blank. It looked like it had been filed off. I think this painting was made before that inscription was altered. I think what was inscribed on that face of the shaft of the relic before is valuable, or maybe it somehow makes the scepter more powerful. I don’t know for sure. Look, Hitler was raping the nations of the world searching for paintings that have this inscription, and now the True Nationalist Coalition wants them, too. It can’t be for nothing.”
Morton shook his head. She’s really gone off the deep end, he thought. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d seen an agent descend into a world of ridiculous conspiracy theories. It was all too common when a person worked in an atmosphere of constant paranoia. On the other hand, he couldn’t explain the outlandish story. The Mossad’s psychological screenings were intense. Deborah couldn’t just be crazy, and he knew she wasn’t the type to take drugs, so that ruled out hallucinations.
“The relic is real. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes,” Deborah insisted. “Look, if you can’t believe in the power, can you at least accept that these people believe in it and that they’ll kill for it?”
“Well, you’ve proven one thing to me: whatever this relic is, Victor wants it badly,” Morton said. He stood up and paced about the room. He had a million conflicting feelings waging a war in his heart.
Deborah rose to her feet and crossed her arms. “What if I told you I know how to find it?” she asked.
Morton kept pacing as she waited for a response. Finally, he came to a stop and looked Deborah in the eyes without blinking.
“I want to make this clear,” Morton said. “I’ll help you, but I’m not doing this for you or us, or for your employer, and I’m certainly not doing it because I believe in this magic end-of-the-world nonsense.”
“Not that I’m complaining, but why are you doing it?” Deborah asked with a smirk.
“Because I know Victor and this TNC party is up to something. I’ve been and I’ve always considered myself a good agent, and—”
He stopped mid-sentence, fearing he would go on a tangent. The frustration of the situation was getting to him, or maybe it was the drinking. He brushed his hand through his hair again, calming himself as he tried to get the right words out. “Look, this guy is up to something. My gut has been telling me that for years. But that son of a bitch always managed to outsmart me or outrun me, and I guess…” he stopped again for a moment. “I guess…I regret that we failed to put a stop to it all. I wish we’d killed him.”
“It’s not too late,” Deborah said.
XXIII
The Magi
Later that night, everyone slept soundly—all except for Mila, who tossed and turned, unable to get his mind off the stories Sabina had told earlier of his mother and father. Wonder turned into anger when his thoughts drifted to his aunt Nasta. Why didn’t she tell me? he wondered. Lying there and struggling in-between the sheets and blankets of his made-up bed on the floor of Sabina’s living room, he desperately tried to figure out the reasons why she had kept this from him. He hardly knew Sabina, yet she was the only one telling him the truth. She was honest, yet protective. She had even cooked them sarme, his favorite Romano dish.
Earlier over dinner, there had been a great deal of discussion of what to do next. They all had strong opinions on the matter. Mila listened while carefully chewing with his sore jaw.
“We have to go to the castle,” Jack insisted. “That’s the only place where there are answers. I found out about the curator on the phone. I’d show you but the battery is dead. Do you have a smartphone?”
“Yes, but I don’t know how to use it,” Sabina replied.
“We do,” the teens said in unison.
Sabina got up from the table and went to her bedroom that was off to the side of the kitchen and retrieved her cell phone. It was an older flip model, but it had the Internet. Jack opened the Internet and surfed for a bit. Then he held out the phone. Casey grabbed it and flipped through his research. It was all pages about Professor Solomon Hermann. “Wow, he’s written like six books,” Casey said. “Is this him?” She pointed to a picture.
“Yeah,” Jack said.
“How old is he?” Casey asked.
“Like sixty something,” Jack said.
“Wow, he looks amazing for his age!” Casey exclaimed.
“I’m glad you think he’s cute, but how do we know we can trust him?” Mila asked.
“I didn’t say he was cute—”
“Whatever! That’s not the point,” Mila interrupted. “Siegfried said Hermann mentored all the TNC people. He might even work for them.”
“He’s a professor. He’s taught all over the world. There’s no way he works for the TNC. He’s half Rom,” Jack said. “He’d have to help us. I mean, as long as you’re there. Right?”
The news of Hermann’s Gypsy ancestry didn’t stir much enthusiasm in Mila. “Half? It doesn’t really work that way,” he said.
“Why not?” Jack asked.
“Let me explain,” Sabina said. “You see, children, what I share with your new friend and what makes us Gypsy isn’t just our bloodline and our language, it’s something more, something deeper. In Gypsy, we call it padimos; you would call it ‘a burden.’ We Gypsies carry a burden no other race can understand. To say it simply, it is a burden of centuries of oppression that Mila and I experience in our own lives. This Professor Hermann, although he may share some of our blood, although he may speak the language, he does not carry the padimos; he does not share the burden, and therefore he may not be loyal to us.”
Jack and Casey looked over at Mila, and he looked back at them. He knew this knowledge changed how they saw him. Those few words told them more about who Mila was than all their adventures thus far.
“We Rom feel an obligation to one another because we share a common plight,” Sabina went on. She held up the phone showing the man’s picture and pointed to his eyes. “I can see from his eyes that he does not know our plight, and that means he is not a Rom.”
Jack and Casey sat eating in silence for a moment.
“It’s not wise to find this professor over at that castle. We must head back to Romania with this object,” Sabina said. “I made some calls before dinner. I could not reach anyone in Berlin, so I called our family members in Romania.”
“Is the family OK? Did they find Stephan, Rosa, or maybe Petre? Are they together?” Mila asked with excitement.
“No, Mila,” Sabina said. “The only news is that the buses carrying the family did not arrive yet. Simon was seen being arrested. However, the police say they don’t have him in custody.”
“What about Korey’s and Nasta’s funerals? And Simon, he would have surely warned them not to get on the buses, of course! That’s why they did not arrive yet,” Mila said confidently.
“No, Mila, I’m sorry. I was told the buses will arrive in the morning. Our kin in Romania are awaiting their arrival. As I said, Simon was seen getting arrested and Stephan and Petre are missing, along with Rosa. They’re not with the family. There are people we can stay with. We can hide there, be safe while we find out more about this—”
“Sabina, I am not going to run away and live in Romania! My uncle would kill me!” Casey said insistently.
> Naturally, this started another argument. Jack was convinced the castle was still the answer. Mila could tell Jack was winning Casey over with his argument. Casey even noticed that Hermann lived on the grounds of the castle. Mila, on the other hand, found himself agreeing with his aunt insisting that they had to go back to Berlin and find Stephan, Rosa, and Petre. He never should have agreed to come out here. He began to argue that it was all a mistake and that the castle was the last place they should go. The discussion went on until they couldn’t stand it anymore. In the end, they agreed to sleep on it. And that’s exactly what Mila was trying to do now.
Maybe Jack is right, Mila thought. Simon must have squealed to the police where we were going. With that realization, he yawned and his eyes closed.
“The guardians of evil,” he whispered as he drifted off to sleep.
Suddenly, Mila felt a hand grab his shoulder. He awoke in a fright and grabbed the hand, trying to push it away.
“Shhh, it’s me, Sabina. Don’t be afraid! Come into the kitchen, and don’t wake the Americans,” she whispered.
Sabina walked into the kitchen, stepping carefully over Jack. Mila stood and began to feel a little sore from his wounds. Fortunately, it was not as intense as before, but that might have been the painkiller.
Shifting the drapes to one side, Mila discovered the kitchen had been turned into some kind of séance room. The place was lit by half-melted candles scattered about the table. A single, unlit candle sat in the center of the table, surrounded by scattered pieces of gold jewelry flowing from velvet Crown Royal bags. There were a few earrings, a bracelet, and even a shot glass full of a brand of vodka that was filled with gold flakes.
What the hell? Mila thought. “Where is Casey?” he whispered.
“I put her in my room,” she said, pointing to another door on the opposite end of the kitchen. “She’s been sleeping for hours, and that damn dog won’t leave her side.”
Sabina waved to him to enter. Then she placed her finger across her lips reminding him to keep quiet. Mila stepped into the kitchen, looking back to peek over at Jack. Fortunately, he was sound asleep and the door where Casey slept was shut tight. Mila knew they wouldn’t understand such unusual Gypsy customs.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” he asked.
“I’ve been here in the kitchen all night. Sit down,” Sabina whispered as she pulled out a chair at the table and lit the center candle.
“Huh, I guess you and Nasta are true sisters; she used to keep all of her treasures in her leftover Crown Royal bags, too. But what’s with all the old jewelry?”
“It traps evil. You should know this.”
“You really are a Gypsy—thinking gold solves everything,” Mila joked.
“Doesn’t it, though?” Sabina joked back.
“Why are you using jewelry? And…is that vodka with bits of gold in it? Aren’t you supposed to use nuggets or coins?”
“I had to sell a lot of stuff, OK?” Sabina admitted. “Telling fortunes ain’t going so good, and arm wrestling doesn’t exactly pay the bills. Now sit down so we can get this show on the road.”
Mila sat and noticed a stack of tarot cards on the table surrounded by the candles. Sabina took a seat across from him. “We must finish the reading of the dark dream you had back in Berlin before all this started. Shuffle the cards,” she instructed.
“How do you know about the dream and my reading?” Mila asked, puzzled.
“I was in the Middle Room, Mila. I saw Nasta there. I hope she appears to you some day. She wasn’t as you knew her, but young and beautiful as she was when I knew her. We were in such a beautiful fortune-telling tent, the kind she always wanted…”
Sabina’s face took on a far-off look for a moment. Then she snapped back to reality. “We’re running out of time. Please shuffle the cards.”
Mila shuffled the cards and handed them back to Sabina. She started to place them on the table. However, she laid them out differently than Nasta, placing them in the sign of the cross. “This is the Celtic cross spread,” she explained. “It’s more telling and the one Nasta should have used on you in Berlin.”
After laying the cards out, Sabina began to examine them thoroughly. Mila, still tired and sore from the night, waited for her interpretation. He yawned, then rubbed his good eye in a desperate attempt to wake himself up. Sabina turned over the first card. Her tarot deck reminded Mila of his great-aunt’s. The cards weren’t the ordinary illustrations that could be found in any bookstore or mystic shop. They were more ornate, like ancient drawings from the Far East. The paper was tan with age. The first card was a heart pierced by swords.
“You’re in love,” she said.
“No,” Mila retorted.
“You are, and she loves you,” Sabina debated him. “But that’s not the issue here.”
She flipped another card, revealing a tower stretching toward the heavens. Lightening was striking the top of the tower, and people were plummeting from it to their doom.
“The one you love has been touched by evil. It has tainted her and is growing within her. All those around her are in grave danger,” Sabina explained. “This is why Nasta gave you the chukrayi back in Berlin. She knew this evil was near, that it would cause great destruction and death.”
Mila tried to hear Sabina’s words. However, his thoughts kept drifting back to the phrase “and she loves you.” As much as he tried, he couldn’t focus on anything besides those words. Without thinking, he blurted out a question: “Does she love another?”
Sabina paused for a moment, then looked up at him from the tarot deck. “Really?” she said in a scolding manner. “That’s what you want to know right now?”
“I have to know,” Mila insisted.
Sabina sighed and turned over another card. This one was far less impressive. It just showed eight wooden sticks.
“It’s difficult to tell. The cards are focused on your destiny and your truth,” she said, clearly annoyed with Mila.
They both heard a noise from the front room. It sounded like something being dropped. Mila walked over to the curtain to see if anyone was listening. He saw Jack was still sound asleep, and he assumed it was nothing. He walked back and sat down. “It’s nothing,” he said.
Sabina ordered him to listen and pay attention. She pointed to the Magician card on the deck. “Do you know what this card means? Did anyone ever tell you why the tarot cards can predict someone’s life?” she asked.
Mila looked at the card more closely.
“Well, when the Magician came up in Nasta’s reading, she said it was a Gypsy. So, does it mean poor nomads or something?”
“Mila, don’t be silly. This is serious.”
“OK, what does it mean? Nobody told me,” he said, frustrated.
“You are aware of Bible scripture, are you not?”
“A little—I mean, the main stuff, sure.”
“The story of the power of the tarot begins about two thousand years ago, just before the birth of Christ,” she explained. “The three wise men in the Bible story, they were from the east. They followed a star that led them to the city of Bethlehem. The Bible called them ‘kings;’ scholars called them ‘astronomers.’”
Mila nodded.
“The word wise in ancient times often meant ‘foreteller,’ not educated or a person of scholarly knowledge,” Sabina went on. “They were certainly not astronomers because they didn’t study the stars, but instead used them to predict the future, which would make them astrologers. The number of days that it took them to travel from the east into Bethlehem puts them in the region where the Gypsies originate from in northern India. The word magician originates from the Magi order, which are people that believe in spiritual power and used magic to combat evil. That is the Rom, Mila. The Magician card in the deck is our people.”
“So, what does it have to do with the pow
er to predict the future?”
“Look at the card closely,” she instructed.
Mila peered closer, but he was not sure what he was looking for. He saw a man in a red robe holding a stick and making a sign with his other hand. I’ve seen this a million times, he thought. He noticed nothing out of the ordinary.
“This is no ordinary deck. Its illustrations are ancient. Only a few drabarni have a deck like this,” Sabina explained.
“I don’t see anything special. Can’t you just tell me?” Mila asked.
Sabina sighed. “Kids these days. No patience,” she said, shaking her head. “Nasta told me she gave you one of her cards before she died. Do you still have it?”
Mila’s eyes widened. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the card. It was almost ruined. It had been soaked by rainwater. It was bent from miles of walking. Even drops of his blood had managed to get on it. The magician figure was faded, almost unrecognizable, but miraculously, one detail remained perfect. The golden scepter in the magician’s hand was there clear as day. With the rest of the image faded, Mila could tell exactly what it was, but Sabina said it anyway: “The man in the illustration is holding the Fourth Nail of Christ.”
It became clear to him that the nail had powers and even a depiction of it carried that power—just like the painting in the train station. That was why people were so intrigued or fascinated by paintings or illustrations of the nail.
“All Rom are kin to the Magi, but Garade are their direct descendants. There is something about true Garade blood that separates them from others,” Sabina said. “Mila, I lied earlier, because this is knowledge the gadje should not know: the Garade tribe is not extinct.”
