Master
I've just been reached by a dispatch that the coffin has arrived at Riegersburg. The Black Friars have not returned yet, but at least for today the Brotherhood´s secret is out of danger. I profusely hope that the General Inquisitor Bellarmine and his brothers don´t get ahold of it.
Your humble servant,
Rome in the holy year of MDC
2
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
January 10
The first thing I thought when I saw her for the first time was that she was beautiful. Victoria Iacobi was beautiful, so much was true about her. It had probably been to her disadvantage a number of times because she probably first and foremost was beautiful and number two was an art historian, like Montgomery Clift who first and foremost was beautiful and second an actor, no matter how good he was.
I have both heard and read that some felt that it was money and not love that got Victoria to marry August Iacobi, wherever they got that from. It must have been August's enemies who said it and who they were is impossible to say for he had many = he collected enemies like shit collects flies.
A good example of how the world perceived them, at least those who did not know the couple, I remember a spread from an event in Vienna's high society circles, which a British tabloid published.
There were pictures of rich ladies in evening gowns and swanky men in tuxedos. The title of August and Victoria's picture was The Beauty and The Fat Man, which was aimed at August's business nickname and not his physical condition because he was in pretty good shape. Anyway, I remember that I thought it was pretty funny. And August probably didn´t give a flying jot about it.2
This Monday Victoria was in a hurry, more than she used to have the other Mondays. Her legs ached but she clenched as she always did.
She walked briskly through the Egyptian gallery at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Under her arm she carried a notebook, close to the black dress she was wearing. The sound of her heels bounced between the halls. In her dark hair she wore a barrette that shone in the subdued light in the Egyptian gallery. She stopped in the back of the gallery in Saal XIII where one of the museum's oldest objects was displayed.
The hall was empty except for the object which sat on a pedestal behind inch thick glass in the middle of the hall.
A group of twenty tourists crowded into the room. Victoria stepped aside while the group formed a crescent around the object. I could almost hear her sigh when she had to wait.
A guide stood beside the object and watched the tourists who took up their cameras. The guide smiled and pointed at the target, proud as if it were her own.
”Here it is what we are most proud of here at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. One of the world's oldest and most precious works of art. The world famous Sapphire Box of Edfu.”
The tourists took several pictures and expressed muted superlatives among themselves. After a few minutes the guide stepped aside and the group defiled past the pedestal, took close-up pictures and studied the box in every detail.
The Tourists' reaction was not entirely unexpected, the Sapphire Box of Edfu was special. From a distance one could easily be fooled that it was not so remarkable, but up close it was in a class by itself.
The Sapphire box looked like an old-fashioned jewel box. It was round, ten centimeters in diameter, not higher than a shot of tequila. It was richly adorned with blue sapphires which I guess is what gives the object its name. The Sapphire Box glistened in the subdued lighting in Saal XIII.
Its handicraft was a rare masterpiece. A Stradivarius in arts and crafts. In front of the pedestal was a sign that said:
The Sapphire Box of Edfu
3rd century BC
Egypt, Edfu
When the tourists had gone Victoria took out her notebook, pulled off the pen sitting on the side. She studied the box from all sides. The same thing that she had done the last four weeks. Despite the intensive study she never got tired of seeing it.
After a while, she felt the presence of another person in the room. She looked up at him, smiled, moved to the side so that he could get access to see the Sapphire Box closer. He stood there for a while, Victoria became impatient as she wanted to continue her research.
After a few minutes, he said.
”Beautiful, is it not?”
Victoria smiled again. Responded politely to his question.
”Indeed.”
The man moved closer to Victoria. His eyes were blank and he looked at her as if he was about to reveal a big secret.
”You've obviously heard the myths about the Sapphire Box?”
Victoria was surprised. She thought she was one of the few who knew. She tried to sound surprised, but she played it poorly.
”I have not. What are the myths?”
The man looked disappointed at her. He released his facade. The smile was gone. He said firmly, but not unpleasant.
”I am certain that you know.”
Victoria frowned. A week ago, another man asked her about the myths when she was in Saal XIII. It could not be a coincidence.
She remembered that her friend, the museum's curator Loretta Colonna, told her that there had been several attempts to steal the Sapphire Box recently and the museum had had special supervision over the room but when they investigated the matter further no suspect emerged.
”I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. I don´t know what you are talking about.”
The man appeared impatiently. He sharpened his tone but could not help but to sound a little bit clumsy.
”It is true that you investigated the Sapphire Box closer. I can see it in your face.”
Although it perhaps was not the man's intent the situation got unpleasant, almost intimidating. Victoria felt a discomfort in the body. She wondered how the man could know that she had studied the Egyptian box outside the exhibition case.
She pulled back the shoulders and said.
”I do not like your tone. Whether I investigated the Sapphire Box or not, either way it does not concern you.”
Victoria's forthright approach shot back the man's position.
”I apologize. My imagination is untamed. It happens that I'm jumping to conclusions.”
Victoria released the guard and smiled reservedly.
”It can happen to all of us.”
It was quiet in the Egyptian gallery, it was a few hours before closing and it became sparser between visitors.
They stood silent for a moment. Both looked toward the Sapphire Box´s exhibition case.
After a while the man broke the silence. He came closer to Victoria who stepped backwards. The man's intense eyes almost drilled holes in Victoria. He said.
”Excuse me for repeating myself, but my conclusion that you just now dismissed, I have a hard time ignoring it.”
”What do you mean?”
”I also have a hard time believing that you do not know the Sapphire Box´s myths.”
The atmosphere was again uncomfortable. The man continued.
”I think you know the myths very well. I also believe that you intend to remove the Sapphire Box from the museum and use it in the way that it was designed for from the beginning. It's something I cannot accept.”
”What on earth are you talking about? You just met me, you do not know what you are talking about.”
The man did not care about what Victoria said.
”Otherwise you would not have been here and studied the Sapphire Box for the last four weeks.”
Victoria's heart pounded. It was as if someone put a cold hand on her breast. The man came closer to her.
Just as he opened his mouth Victoria heard the jingling of a bunch of keys. She recognized the slow walking style of the museum's caretaker, Lukas Gruber.
She shouted at him.
”Lukas, in here.”
Lukas came into the room. Victoria walked towards him. She calmed down when she met him. She said with a trembling voice.
”You have not seen L
oretta today?”
Lukas had his hands on his keys. He said kindly.
”I think she is sitting in his office. Want some company going there?”
Victoria felt calm again.
”Yes, that's very kind of you.”
Lukas greeted the man with a short nod. Victoria did not turn around and went further down the hallway. Lukas left her at Loretta's office.
Loretta welcomed her in. Victoria sat cross-legged in one of her visits armchairs and went straight to the point.
”Loretta, my dear, old friend. I ask you. I need to investigate the Sapphire Box one last time. I've done it before. Who cares if I do it once more?”
Loretta fidgeted in her chair. She found it hard to say no to her friend, especially considering her situation. But the box was one of their most valuable items and those that had examined the box through the years were few. The museum was restrictive when it came to granting research on the Sapphire Box because of its age and possible fragility, not least because of its value. Loretta did not say anything but just smiled. Victoria continued.
”Given my situation, since August, please Loretta. You have to help me!”
Victoria became teary-eyed. She held back the tears as best she could.
Loretta could not resist.
She picked up the phone and made a call. She was sharp in the tone and hung up after a few minutes.
”Victoria. Now I risk my reputation here, but you have it for an hour tomorrow after closing and under the supervision of a conservator.”
Victoria stood up. She kissed Loretta on the cheek and thanked her friend.
Victoria picked up their coats from the museum's closet and wished the hatcheck boy a nice evening. She tied a scarf around her head, donned a dark coat and opened the door to the cold of winter.
The square between the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Naturhistorisches Museum was deserted.
The winter's cold wind had swept away all the people.
Left was an icy statue of Maria Theresa of Austria, who stood alone in the middle of the square, surrounded by barren plants well into hibernation.
Victoria walked her usual walk from the museum to the Hotel Sacher that she lived at the last month. When she got to the avenue at the Ringstrasse a car stopped in front of her. She recognized the driver from a week back, the man she had just met in Saal XIII stepped out.
”Allow me. We want to go somewhere and talk.”
Another two men got out of the car and stood behind her.
Victoria looked around. It was pointless to resist. She stepped into the car.
The car rolled off the Ringstrasse and Victoria was hooked.
”I suppose you want to talk about the Sapphire Box.”
”That's right”, said the man from Saal XIII.
”Then I also assume that you are looking for the Theatre.”
”Just as I guess you do.”
Victoria ignored the question. She said.
”May I ask why you do it?”
”Who doesn´t want access to it? The reason is the same, as it has been for all who have searched for the Theatre through the centuries, it applies equally to us as it applies to you.”
”And that is?”
”You know very well.”
”Tell me.”
”It gives you power over the Creation. It can be used to ... ”
Victoria interrupted.
”You cannot be serious. It is dangerous to believe in those old myths.”
The man hitched eyes again in Victoria. She felt his breath, pulled away her face. He said.
”The last person who had that power was Jesus.”
Victoria snorted. He continued.
”You laugh, but I know that it is false. Both you and I know that people have been misled for a long time, just as the prophecy says in Revelations. With the Scripture in the Theatre, we will meet the second and final prophecy as it is written in the 20th chapter of the Apocalypse. Deception will drown with the false prophet and the beast into the lake of fire and brimstone. And then the Last Judgment is over us.”
Victoria shook her head. She sat quiet and fingered on her cell phone in one of her coat pockets.
Car traffic thinned out and they turned off the highway.
The darkness hid the landscape, she did not know where they were going.
The driver swung by another road. The car's lights lit up the name of the town as they were about to enter, Gablitz. A small village a few miles outside Vienna.
3
The Hall Institution, Södertälje, Sweden
January 11
I never got away from the idea that the bare cell was reminiscent of Frank Morris cell, the escapee of Escape from Alcatraz played by Clint Eastwood. It was a few square meters where they had crammed a chrome toilet, a small bed, a worn table and a stool.
The inmate who lived in the cell was Ludwig Norén. At the time he was 25 years old, normal build, had short semi-dark hair and was of medium height.
Compared to the other 157 lifetime condemned men in Sweden (they were mostly men, 4 women) Ludwig had a different profile.
The people who tested him at the national reception at Kumla, where everyone who was sentenced to more than four years in prison sent for tests, was mildly surprised, to say the least, when they met the young Ludwig Norén.
He was ahead of his judgment a top student in history at the University of Stockholm with stable socio-economic background and had, what one would think, a predictable future in a comfortable suburb somewhere.
But something had backfired.
He was never punished before.
Now he was sentenced for life.
Ludwig did not say a word during the entire test period and was placed at maximum security facility Hall in Södertälje a couple of miles south of Stockholm. He didn´t lift an eyebrow when he heard the news.
Ludwig sat in his cell and examined the artwork he had on his wall. It sat across from a poster of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks and a photograph by Gregory Crewdson where a man stood in the rain outside the diner in a small town in the U.S.. Ludwig had done the artwork itself.
The warders who conducted the sweeps and woke him every morning had many times looked at the painting and wondered what it represented but Ludwig never said anything.
He remained on his own edge in jail. There were some who was on top of him in the beginning when he was a rookie, but he never gave up. They were most at him the first few months but they ended it when Ludwig started playing poker with the Yugoslav Juro and his entourage. Nobody thought of the fact that he was depicted as a racist in the newspapers, and when someone said something about it Juro silenced them with a joke that they had common enemies.
Ludwig worked in the carpentry shop at Hall, it was his voluntary activity. For the work he got ten bucks3 an hour which enabled him to buy a Kexchoklad or two in the kiosk that was on the institution.
He glided through his zombie life within the walls of the Hall and not a fuck had any idea what he was thinking. If there was someone who thought about him at all, it was that they did not think the guy had the courage to walk up to four for him unknown guys and pull the trigger.
The clock struck six. Ludwig left the cell and went to the rec room. A TV blasted in the background. A guard asked an intern to take down his feet as he rested them on a chair. An old intern turned the page of a newspaper. Ludwig went to Juros table where he was sitting with two of his boys.
Juro lit up and greeted Ludwig with a firm handshake with his big, fat hands. After a few months in prison Juro had invited Ludwig to play poker because he thought he resembled his brother who died in a gang fight a few years back. Unwilling at first, Ludwig finally accepted as it was a way to escape reality for an hour a day.
Juro handed out the cards. They played Texas Hold 'Em. They played for matches and honor. The pot was built up. No one was in a hurry. Each participant was allowed to think about their choices. In the end, everyone folded except
Juro and Ludwig.
They did not know if it was due to prison but after a while their poker games started to follow certain procedures as tightly structured as life in prison. Juro and Ludwig always were the last men standing and Ludwig won forever.
”Now you fucktard, Smiley. Eat these cards”, Juro said and laughed.
Juro´s card showed a full house. Without showing any emotion Ludwig turned up his cards showing a royal flush.
”What the hell. How the hell do you do it, Smiley?”
Ludwig did not answer, he just gathered the matches. A fat Colombian slid up behind Juro. Asked what the situation was. They shook hands and hugged each other with the handshake in between. The Colombian crouched and pulled Juro to it. He whispered.
”Juro, how the hell can you hang with Smiley, he's damn crazy like a fucking Pablo on Chiquita Cocaina, have you not heard what the fucking ward-asses are saying -”
Juro flew up from his chair, grabbed the Colombian’s collar and pushed him up against the wall. The warders looked the other way, did not intervene.
The Colombian raised his arms up. Juro stared at him without blinking.
”Okay, okay ... Come on, Smiley,” the Colombian watched Ludwig. ”You know I'm just driving the Willy wedge.”
Juro released him and sat down. Nervously said the Colombian.
”Juro, how the hell is it going?”
As if nothing had happened Juro said.
”What do you think Cali? What is that, like six months ago Smiley started playing with us, and since then none of us have won. We are trying only cupping his style and compete to be the first loser.”
Juro pointed with his hand on a chair. Cali sat down and joined the game. An hour later, Ludwig had all the matches. The gang broke up. Ludwig went to his cell.
On the way back a corrections officer stopped him and asked him to come to his office. He sat down behind the table. Ludwig stood in the doorway. The Prison nurse looked at a piece of paper and said.
”You have a visitor.”
”Who?”
”It is a journalist again.”
The Prison nurse showed the note of the journalist's name. Ludwig remembered his name from the newspaper he had read earlier that day, he was some kind of hotshot journalist with a couple of pounds of Pulitzer-prize ego.
”I guess you do not want to see him.”
Ludwig nodded.
”Ok, well, that was all. You can go now.”
Ludwig lay in bed and waited for extinction.4 He thought of what he had done, he did that almost every day in prison whenever he leaned back and shut his eyes.
When he closed his eyes he would always talk, sometimes just in his head but sometimes he talked quiet, so quiet you could barely hear him.
But I listened.
I always listened to Ludwig.
And I heard every word.
The pillow was Youtube and the head pressed play every night.
He saw himself sitting in his shabby car parked at Mosebacke Square on Södermalm in Stockholm. He saw himself shaking in the driver's seat.
It was shortly after midnight, one o´clock. It was the Payday weekend and Friday. Everyone was tired after the work week but had new money in the account which meant bullshit, beer, tanning, shots, Blackjack, cocktails, dance floor, snogging.
Ludwig was stone sober and shook with rage. The veins on his forehead, arms, neck and legs were outside and were about to pop. The gun was in his lap. The guy he bought it from, a shadowy guy whom he had met through Flashback online, had shown how to do it.
Ludwig had never held a gun before.
And what I understand he never wanted to hold one again but fate wanted otherwise.
When the people began to stumble out of the nightclub Daily's next 7-Eleven on Götgatan a few hours later Ludwig scouted after the monkeys.
Despite the cold January night, a crowd formed outside the 7-Eleven on Götgatsbacken. It was lit inside the nightclub and a half moon shimmered over the people instead of some broken street lights.
Some guys stood and pissed in the gateways across the store.
A couple had a fight, the girl had black splash of mascara around her eyes and her boyfriend was vulture stuffed5.
He was lying on the asphalt barely moving and didn´t care a shit about what she said.
Ludwig spotted the ape heads. He reacted instantly. With the gun tightly at his side, he went to the nightclub. The four boys he wanted to get at were scattered, with ten feet apart. When he was near he shouted, raising his gun.
”Hey!”
The boys recognized him immediately. They froze and became terrified.
The people around them cried when they saw the gun and Ludwig's mad, glossy eyes.
He urged them away.
Drunken party girls and even drunker high school boys ran like dizzy chickens away from the site. The guards brought a bunch into the club and locked the door.
When they were almost the only guys left Ludwig pointed the gun at them and fired on all four until the gun clicked.
4
The Arcadian, Broadway, New York City
January 12
The owners of the IT Company 2Bird CLD, childhood friends Larry and Sergio, stood in the elevator of The Arcadian skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, near Times Square.
I have seen and heard of many nervous people in my life but Larry and Sergio is probably among the most nervous I've encountered.
They stood in silence, looking at how the digital board listed the floors. The elevator plinged and a voice announced that they reached the 40th floor.
They step into a stripped lobby which was decorated with a crescent-shaped desk and a few armchairs. An artwork by Giacometti depicting a skinny naked man stood in a corner. The receptionist waved them to visit the chairs. They settled down. Larry struck his fingers on his legs, took deep breaths. Sergio felt the sweat running down his back. He had put on a T-shirt under his polo shirt, which he normally didn´t do but he did it so he wouldn´t stain the shirt.
After a few minutes the receptionist said that Mr. Iacobi could receive them. The men stood up, pushed back the shoulders to cast some artificial courage into the spinal cord.
Although the deal was basically done, they were just in the office to sign the agreements, they could not help but be nervous for the meeting with the great business man Mr Iacobi.
Mr. Iacobi had lived up to his reputation in their eyes. He was a temperamental man, a full-blooded capitalist, who had a stable of big business behind him, a man who loved bargaining, who lived for them. Their first and only meeting had resulted in the company sold to Iacobi Investment Group instead of HP and Dell, although the two outbid Mr Iacobi.
In an airy conference room on the 40th floor sat the 65-year-old financial mogul August Iacobi and stared out over the Hudson River. Far away he saw the Staten Island ferry that took people to and from Lower Manhattan. On the horizon was the Statue of Liberty with her torch, wrapped in a cloak of sea mist.
The Arcadian who was a few steps away from Times Square, he had bought for small change a few years ago when the banks fell like skittles in the recent financial crisis, faithful to Baron Rothschild's words of wisdom: it's time to buy when there is blood in the streets. With the purchase, he moved parts of his headquarters of the powerful investment company Iacobi Investment Group from Vienna to New York City.
With eyes fixed on the horizon, he hardly noticed Larry and Sergio coming into the room. He turned to them and greeted. August nodded to one of his lawyers who sat in on the meeting.
They listened to a brief presentation of the business of the counsel. They signed the contract.
Larry and Sergio seemed relieved when all signed, as if they expected a final negotiation. To Larry and Sergio´s surprise Mr Iacobi was unusually dimmed.
Somewhat timidly Larry suggested that they would celebrate the deal with a swanky lunch at Adour Alain Ducasse at the St. Regis.
August press
ed forward with a smile but firmly refused.
They left him.
August turned again to the window.
The counsel gathered the agreements of the Company's purchase of America's largest digital storage company, 2Bird CLD, which would get them to eat themselves firmly into the global market for cloud computing services. The lawyer said nothing as he walked out, afraid to make August upset.
August saw all the life down on Times Square. Yellow Cab Cos. yellow dots, sausage stalls, suits who hurried away on a business lunch, the naked cowboy, an activist group that gave out free hugs for the lonely. Advertising billboards for Kodak, Buick Lacrosse, Phantom of the Opera, Corona Light next to news on big screen.
He didn´t think it but he knew it: in spite of the life down there, there was no life in him.
He was a dead shell that somehow miraculously still lived.
Negotiations used to give him goose bumps, when the ink slowly dried on the contracts he always had a Caesar-feeling swelling within him. He had denied it for Victoria, but she had just shaken her head and he knew she was right somewhere.
But now his soul was incorruptible, impervious, as skinny and stiff as Giacometti man out in the foyer. He saw but did not record what was happening on the street.
He could see but was blind.
A dozen people stood in front of CNN's big screen down on Times Square. Adjacent stock prices ran around on an elongated coiled digital display on a house like old ivy.
Iacobi´s communications department had been quick to wiring the news of the acquisition. The midday broadcast rolled on. After the vignette CNN anchor Anderson Cooper came in the picture. To his right a caption popped up:
Top Business News: Iacobi Investment Group acquires Cloud Services Giant
The Teleprompter rolled and Anderson Cooper talked about the day's news:
Iacobi Investment Group buys 2Bird Cld and further increases its dominant position on the global market for digital services.
Iacobi Investment Group, an old investment company with its core investments in industrial tooling and equipment has differentiated its portfolio by moving in to telecommunications in the last ten years, becoming a mayor player within that field. Iacobi Investment Group trades on the New York Stock Exchange and founder Mr August Iacobi currently owns 73% of the shares.
In the weeks leading up to the acquisition of 2Bird the Iacobi Investment Group stock price has surged and is now the fifth most valued company in the world behind Walmart, Apple, Shell and Exxon.
August had worked hard with the deal, argued against the Department of Justice who initially did not want to approve the deal when they found that Iacobi Investment Group as owner would achieve an overly dominant position in the market.
But now that everything was settled, he felt nothing.
A few days later August sat in the backseat of his black Mercedes S-class. He called his CFO and announced that he was taking over the operational responsibility for Iacobi Investment Group until further notice.
With empty eyes, he stared out over the Ringstrasse in Vienna when his chauffeur drove past a tram.
Snowflakes fell on the barren trees in the avenue, dissolved and flowed like water over the branches.
August pushed his wedding ring back and forth over his finger.
The corners of his mouth sloped sharply. The empty eyes filled up with tears.
He tried to hold back but couldn´t.
They had promised each other that they would face death together even though they realized the impossibility of this promise. Everyone goes into death alone. As uncomfortable as it was, nothing in the world could change that.
40 years of marriage. The memories came over him, dinners with friends, loving glances across the table. How he watched her in the garden, how she behaved in the company of others. How she made him think of other thoughts in his stubborn thickhead.
He remembered the tears in the car on the way home from the hospital when it was established that they would get a childless marriage.
The silence in the home after.
The emptiness in the months that followed.
The friendship that led them to start talking to each other again.
The love that made them crave each other.
The spellbinding life that followed.
August had always said that he was the most selfish of them and he was probably right too. He said that if they would get the idea to break the promise to meet death together, he would definitely be the one who died first. When he said it, she would always smile at him and whisper that she would not go for it.
August said he would never be able to endure the sorrow of dying before her.
Living with the loss and wake up every morning with the emptiness and the silence.
August tried but he could not get out of the car.
The driver rushed out into the snowstorm and into the police station at Schottenring in Vienna. When he returned, he announced that they would go out to a small village outside Vienna, and a medical facility that was close to the village.
When the driver pulled up to the village Gablitz a few miles outside Vienna August realized that he would never wanted to see her dead. When the car stopped outside medical facility August cleared his throat. He leaned forward and told the driver that he had his permission to confirm the identity.
The driver hesitated, but then opened the door. He met some policemen outside. They went inside.
Ten minutes later the driver came out noticeably moved by what he had been through. He sat in the car without turning the key.
August squeezed out some words.
”Was it Victoria?”
The driver turned and nodded.
August swallowed.
”What did they say?”
”Do you really ...?”
”Tell me.”
”They said they had found her in a ditch not far from here.”
The driver was lost for words. He did not know if he would reveal all the details. After a few seconds he added.
”Shot in the head.”
It was like an arrow to the heart. August closed his eyes and gasped for breath.
He whispered unconsciously.
”Oh, my God.”
The driver announced that the police would telephone him the next day.
With a cracked voice August said.
”Drive back to Riegersburg.”
The police phoned the next day and announced that they had initiated the investigation and dedicated some of their best investigators. They asked some routine questions about August, if he thought Victoria had any enemies, what she had been doing lately, if he noticed something that deviated, changed behavior or started hanging out in new circles.
Beside the fact that Victoria spent much of the last month in Vienna because one of their close friends, originally Victoria's friend, was seriously ill, August had nothing to notify the police. They promised to keep him informed. They were hopeful that they would get the murderer.
August had thought several times about what he would do the days after Victoria's death. He had effortlessly foreseen that he would not give a damn about what happened to his business. Even when she was alive, as soon as they were together the business were not more than a game he played when he was not with her.
A game he certainly was a world player in but nonetheless a game.
A game that paled in significance when he compared it to her.
As he lay next to her in bed, heard her breathing, kissed her over her shoulder, his thoughts occasionally wandered.
He could not imagine the emptiness but not the totally immersive nothingness. He had never felt so poor.
The weeks after her death he was just sitting in the lounge in one wing of his castle and stared straight ahead. He moved only when the housemaid served food on a table nearby.
He did not get it. Victoria, gone forever.
He could not think of anyone who wanted to kill her, she was a li
ght in the dark night that lay upon the goddamn earth.
The only thing he could think of was that she was possibly too good but that were no reason someone got killed. He repeated to himself quietly, she was shot in the head. She was shot in the head.
August spoke with the police a few weeks after Gablitz. The man on the other end was not as hopeful. The witness who they had in Gablitz proved to be full of shit. For now they had nothing to go on.
After a month, the situation was the same and the police as well as August began to despair. The police delivered the leaden6 fact that if they did not have any to go on in ten to twenty days after a serious crime, it was unlikely that it ever got solved.
For August's sake, I wish I could say otherwise but there was really no light in the darkness, and it would remain that way a while longer. Then a flash of light would come, but in a different manner than August intended.
August began pace back and forth in his castle. He wondered what she could have done in Vienna. He asked his housemaid Laura. He called Karl Feigl, the sick friend in Vienna, but got no good answer. He tried with some other friends that he knew she visited. All were equally surprised and horrified as him.
Unconsciously August began following a ritual to fight off the panic wave of knocking him over completely. He felt the wave the first time when he was told about Victoria and he knew how it was built up every day, every day he needed to get out of bed.
He sat in his salon most of the day. Laura served all his meals there, where he sat and stared at the TV.
Each time the wave struck he stood up, trying to chase it away. It used to occasionally stop when he took a few steps.
He remembered the first time he knew of it. It was not as strong as it was now but it was the same species of ammonites.
That was when the family celebrated Christmas in southern Germany, in an old mansion that had been in the family for several hundred years. He was very young, he could not remember how old he was, maybe seven years.
His grandfather, with his wolf grin, had come at him with his dark double-breasted suit. August always got the creeps when he saw him, and when he was heading for him to play. His grandfather had called on him, ”Little August come, and I'll show you something.”
August's mother and father watched.
Grandpa stood August up and grabbed his ankles and turned him upside down. August flopped back and forth and wanted down, Grandpa said that he needed to be still otherwise it would be difficult. August stopped wriggling and hoped that it would soon be over.
When he was completely still grandfather tucked him in a bag and sealed it.
Then he started shaking the bag.
Grandfather laughed and thought in his sick way that August would think it was funny. But he was great howled and kicked and struck against his grandfather from inside the bag. August's father jumped up from his chair and ran and snatched the bag from his grandfather's hands. August kicked and struck in his father's arms.
August beat away the memory.
One day August was down in the castle library, which consisted of a vast number of rooms. He went to Victoria's office and sat down in the chair behind her desk. While he balanced a penknife in his hand he thought again about what she could have done in Vienna.
As he sat and stared in over an hour, he found a key in the writing stand that he had not seen before. He picked it up and studied it. It did not fit in any of the drawers. The key seemed to go to a door. He left the room with the key, went up and asked the housemaid but she had no idea. He went into the library again.
He walked around the library for a while. He knew he was in search of a four-leaf clover, which probably would not reveal anything to him.
At the end of a long corridor he discovered something that he had not seen before in the library.
A closed door.
He was eagerly looking forward to it and pushed the key. It fitted. He turned and opened the door.
August hardly recognized the room. The last time he was there, it was fairly anonymous, a few bookcases and an older, patinated chair. Now there was a table in the middle of the room.
The table was full of books that lay helter-skelter.
Some were opened as if someone recently read them.