Nazi Gold

Chapter 11 — Curiosity

Sam looked around so he would not be discovered. It was past lights out in hospital ward C where he shared a room with a junior patient and one other man, older than Scotland, who never opened his eyes. If anyone in the room had farted, Sam would be convinced that the old man was indeed dead and beginning to reek. That was the extent of his inanimate existence, but Sam thought that perhaps the living corpse was awake whenever he was asleep, and vice versa. Nevertheless, it creeped the journalist out and he tried to never really look in the direction of the emaciated old patient.

Instead, the child intrigued him with his dark, exotic looks and his infatuation with the playing card he insisted on keeping with him at all times. Now Sam’s curiosity had gotten the better of him and it was well before his sleep threshold, so he got up and snuck over to Radu’s bed. Sam, always the professional, had cultivated the ability to remember names and therefore knew the boy to be one Radu Costita and something about the child told Sam to memorize his name. Somehow it seemed important. He came out of nowhere, had no relatives and spoke Romanian in his sleep. He was not German and he seemed to be homeless, two things that made Sam curious.

The corner of the large card protruded from under the boy’s pillow. Radu was sleeping soundly, although his breathing was so slight that Sam had trouble telling when he was inhaling and exhaling. In fact, he seemed to have adjusted his sleeping habits to fit in with the old cadaver in the other bed. Sam chuckled when he imagined the look on Radu’s face if he woke and saw the towering journalist standing over him in the dark. His thoughts always drifted to the worst scenarios when he was nervous or found himself in places he was not allowed to be. Sometimes his random ideas were horrific and sinister, other times they were filled with hilarity which provoked him to laugh at the most inappropriate moments.

Once more combing the room for shadows from the corridor, Sam reached out to the corner of the card and pinched it between his fingers. Very gently he pulled it out from under the pillow. It was hard to make out what it depicted in the lack of light, so he tip-toed on the cold floor to the small restroom. He closed and locked the door, before he turned on the light and sat down on the toilet lid.

“Whoah, this is special, laddie. A tarot card?” he whispered in the buzzing white light of the small cubicle. He propped up his arm on the thick silver support handle fixed to the tiling and studied the unique picture. Sam was no expert on the esoteric at all, but he had a basic knowledge of tarot cards. He knew that they were divided into Major Arcana and Minor Arcana. As far as he could remember, their suits were vastly different to ordinary playing cards. They were bigger, made of stronger material and their suits were divided into Swords, Cups, Wands and Pentacles or Discs. But there were no numbers on these types of cards and they were not for playing, they were meant for a more serious type of divination and their trickery a tad more devastating in its repercussions.

Sam frowned, the hard shadow of his dark brows consuming his eyes in its shade as he scrutinized the picture.

There were no wands, or swords, or any of those symbols. The picture did not represent any of the characters normally depicted upon the Tarot. He did not know them all, of course, but this card did not represent the Fool, the Devil, the Hanged Man, the Sun, the Moon and the others he knew of from watching bad horror films. As far as he knew, there was never any such tarot card as one with a maimed young boy wandering around with his eye plucked out.

“What a horrible fucking idea,” he scoffed quietly as the truly nefarious nature of the painting drilled through into his mind. Even his fingers began to tingle inadvertently at the touch of the strange card. He turned it to have a look at the back, but found only an unknown emblem in the center with a lavish purple background in patterns of lambrequin that felt a little bit like suede under the touch of his fingertips. Through his hands he could feel a distinct electrical charge, no more than the tingle of a light battery current, but evident nonetheless.

“Psychosomatic,” he reprimanded his senses in a whisper which sounded exceptionally loud in the quiet of the restroom. Sam was never one to just assume the paranormal when something had a reputation of having vaguely arcane or magical qualities. He could not, however, dispute the fact that the card had now quite the hold on his interest and suddenly he could absolutely understand little Radu’s fascination with it. It was not just the physical effects of what the item evoked, but much more the feeling of awe it held in that it felt almost alive in his hand, radiant with inexplicable energy. Sam thought of the tarot card as borderline conscious, as if it held locked inside it some sort of intelligence.

There was no indication of where the object was made or by whom, nor any name to credit the painter of the awful picture. It was certainly a guess as to the age of the thing, not that Sam could tell exactly, but it was obviously very old. Since he was not qualified to determine its age, he smiled at the idea he got as to who would be able to — Nina Gould. Although she was not an art expert, and although she specialized mainly in recent history, primarily German history, he knew she would be able to tell from what country it originated, at least.

He knew he had to show it to Nina the following day when she showed up to collect the camera from him. For a moment he reached for what was usually his jeans pocket to pull out what was usually his cell phone so that he could take a snapshot of the peculiar piece.

“Ag, goddammit!” he cussed under his breath when he realized just how inconvenient his life was without his phone. Sam had never been one of those super techy types who had the latest and the first in technology, whether it was information technology or communication gadgets. As a matter of fact, he could not care less what brand he was wielding at any given time, as long as it could send messages and take pictures, which was pivotal in his line of work.

Only now, here on the lid of the bog in the German hospital in the middle of the night, did he truly realize the value of his shitty Samsung. He liked his shitty Samsung. It worked effectively and was comfortable to handle, not those extra thin jobs where his strong hands would slip and slide, punching in two letters at once when he did not focus. Every time Sam would take his old phone people would look at him like he just whipped out his dick, but he did not care. He knew he had the means to buy the best, but chose not to fall for advertisements and status symbols.

Would Radu allow Nina to see it, though? Sam sat thinking on it for a bit, wondering if he should keep it with him until she arrived, but that would be common theft and he did not want the poor boy to lose his favorite possession again, dumping him into a torrent of frantic crying spells at his loss.

No, he would put it back and in the morning he would ask Radu if his lady friend could have a look. Why would the child refuse? He did not mind showing it off. In the quiet shadows he stalked back to Radu’s bed and with clumsy effort he pushed it back under the pillow without waking the lightly snoring Radu. Sam chuckled at the slumbering boy who grunted like a drunkard. Sam looked at Radu before he returned to bed.

Fuck, this would really awkward if someone had to walk in now, he thought to himself as he stared at the sleeping young boy, but the child intrigued him. He seemed to be completely alone in the world, even though the medical staff kept referring to his ‘aunt’, of whom he clearly had no knowledge. The whole thing did not sit well with Sam, so he vowed to keep a close eye on Radu to see if there was anything scaly about his dubious aunt. Inside Sam there was a distant longing to be a big brother, perhaps even a father. There was a sentinel heart in him, a need to right the wrongs and protect those who cannot see the wolves circling until it was too late.