Nazi Gold

Chapter 23 — The Reluctant Chosen

Heinz had left early to consult on a military base now used as a training academy for young troops to improve their physical and artillery training. He had been giving lectures on the advantages of discipline and knowledge, especially aimed at troubled teens and inmates at juvenile facilities. It had become a real problem with the stigma of Nazism, to maintain a balance between factions of young people perpetuating right-wing ideals while others were tipping the boat with their constant demonizing of all things in their heritage because of an education system that imposed guilt on modern generations for what happened in the Second World War. Heinz-Karl Heller would do everything in his power to correct this imbalance and he was only too happy to attend these seminars.

Greta made herself a cup of coffee, a strong one with lots of sugar, something she would never have done before. Since her collapse a few nights ago and her subsequent two day recuperation she had adjusted her habits somewhat to accommodate her new state of mind. In hindsight she sensed that the breakdown had been necessary for her to realize what was actually important and what her priorities really were. Starting with too much sugar in her coffee, she marched down the corridor to attend to her biggest concern right now.

No more was she going to kill herself for others. Yes, it was a good way to obtain much needed funding, but there were far bigger things going on that needed attention. Radu was first and foremost, but it was not because of Greta’s good nature or intentions. From the beginning he had never been her charge, regardless of all the trouble she went through to adopt him. Greta was happy that Heinz and Radu got along so well and perhaps that was one of the good things that came from her initial plan.

Holding her hand firmly on her abdomen, dressed in a long flowing dress instead of her usual suits or designer pants and shirts, Greta woke Radu for his day’s tutoring.

“Are you feeling better, Frau Heller?” he asked when he saw her sitting on his bed.

She caressed his forehead with her pale hands and smiled, “Yes, thank you, Radu. Now, hurry up and have breakfast so that we can begin, you hear?”

After his breakfast of toast and scrambled eggs prepared by the housekeeper, prescribed by Radu as being ‘the way Herr Heller makes it’, Radu made his way to Greta’s study.

She sat like a statue, looking straight ahead as he came in. Without looking at him she said, “Close the door, Liebchen.”

She did nothing to make him falter in his steps, but there was something amiss with her and Radu felt just a little afraid of his German mother. Never before has he had reason to feel this way, but on the streets of Cluj he had learned to trust his instincts.

“Sit. Arrange.”

Her voice was soft, but it didn’t sound warm, he found. She sounded soft in a weak and cold way, as if she was not entirely present, yet knew what she wanted. In front of him she had placed not one row of cue cards, but three, one above the other.

“How would you like me to arrange them, Frau Heller? From side to side or top to bottom?” he asked carefully and she picked up on his reluctance.

“Both, Radu. Make me an extraordinary story that would work in both ways,” she ordered, a frown forming between her eyes. Her left hand was on her stomach and the other was massaging the bridge of her nose. He proceeded to place the cards in different positions. There were pictures he had never seen before. No longer did he work with cars, balls and trees. Now the depictions were more sinister. There was a group of uniformed men in a row, each with his dress sword stuck in the next man’s chest. Another card boasted a green circle with bones strewn over the entire radius of it. Horses with red eyes quartering a king; an upturned plough in a field of dead crops and a card with a black circle and lightning bolts around it. The latter looked disturbingly familiar to the young boy. He remembered his own card, the one he stole from Greta Heller the first time he saw her. It depicted a similar black circle with tentacle-like tongues emanating from it.

A terrible feeling of iniquity crawled over Radu’s scalp. His little heart started pounding as he moved the bad cards into positions that would foretell a terrible fate, a tale of despicable events in sequence. By each placing the ominous oppression escalated, as if every card he laid out set something hideous in action somewhere in the world. Before he laid the final card his voice quivered, “Frau Heller, can I be excused for a moment?”

“Nein!” she snapped, her eyes dark and empty. “Finish!”

“But…I feel…” he tried to explain.

“I said finish! If you abandon the lesson now I will punish you severely, you little fuck!” she growled in her German accent. The young boy fell back in his chair, his hands trembling as much as his knees. Something dreadful swam through Greta Heller, like a Great White shark looking for prey.

Radu pushed the last card into its place, completing a most horrendous row of cards. Suddenly his body started to convulse and he fell from his chair. On his knees the poor child threw up all over the carpet in front of him, but Greta did not even stir. Her eyes only saw the formation of cards in front of her. She studied them as they progressed, shaking her head. Radu puked profusely, jolting his small frame backwards and forward as the spasms took his ribs. The housekeeper came rushing in to help him, but still the lady of the house sat motionless.

“Mein Gott! What is happening?” the housekeeper screamed as the boy vomited up blood when he ran out of stomach contents. She swept him up in her arms and raced through the house to summon the security people and asked them to get the Heller’s’ doctor while she called Heinz immediately.

In the meantime Greta remained inanimate in her chair. Her eyes welled up with tears, but she could not cry like she always did. Sorrow, regret and darkness filled her as she looked at the atrocious events in the cards Radu made for her. Under her hand the cancer sat in a hard mass on the under her skin, a manifestation of her own deeds. Through her lips a forlorn whine emanated, but she could not move for the excruciating pain that slithered through her. Tears trickled down Greta’s cheeks and fell on the cards of the first row. On the table the most terrible things were depicted, fraught with an old evil that had survived the Second World War and gripped current times. Greta choked on her tears.

Radu was ready.

Heinz rushed home at the news of the boy’s suffering. There was no time to ascertain exactly what ailed him, because Heinz elected to first get home. When he arrived the housekeeper and doctor were seated next to Radu on his bed. His wife was nowhere to be seen. Charging into the child’s room, Heinz thundered at the doctor, “What is wrong with him? Tell me!”

In his bed Radu lay with his eyes shut, hardly breathing. Hands folded over his abdomen, the young boy slept, but he was sweating profusely so that his clothing clung to him and his hair stuck to his temples.

“Honestly, there is no sign of any fever or serious illness the likes of which could make him throw up blood, Her Heller,” the doctor reported. He shook his head and started putting away his equipment.

“Then how could this happen? Vomiting is one thing, but if there is blood in it…” Heinz contemplated.

“It does not make sense, unless he had an ulcer of sorts. But even that is a negative. I must admit that I am confounded by this,” the doctor said. “The good news is that he has no serious infirmity, no infections or viruses. His immune system seems strong too. I have given him something to sedate him for a few hours, after which I suggest you do not allow him to do any strenuous activities.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Heinz replied and shook the man’s hand. Knowing that Radu was now resting he approached the housekeeper to determine what exactly happened leading up to the episode. For some reason Heinz knew his wife would be of no help, if not the cause of the problem. Her strange behavior of late was enough to make him keep an eye on her; he did not want to provoke her suspicion as well about his distrust of her secretive phone conversations.

After the housekeeper informed him of what happened, he was furious. He was all for tutoring and schooling, but if it led to a violent spell like this there had to be something more to it. Greta would never have done anything aggressive to anyone in her life, he knew. If she had beaten the boy or hurt him in any way, there would be hell to pay.

When he entered her study, he found two of their cleaning ladies working to clean up the mess on the carpet.

“Girls, do any of you know where my wife is?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant as not to alarm anyone to the state of affairs in their employer’s home.

“No, sir. But we did see her leave with the Volvo a few minutes ago, although she did not tell us when she’d be back,” one of the women told him.

“Oh, okay,” he smiled slightly, “thank you.”

He did not leave yet. At her main desk he saw that the server of her computer was still active. Heinz sat down at the machine and punched in her password. She had no idea that her husband was trained in Internet security. Quite a few weeks ago he hacked into her files to see what her ridiculously secret conversations were all about. He found nothing at all then, but this time she was in too much of a hurry to effectively erase her e-mails. There was an email she received the very same morning, marked to erase, but with Radu’s trouble she probably forgot to delete it completely.

Heinz frowned.

The mail was from Igor, Greta’s son. Why would she hide an e-mail from her son? He opened the message and found a suspicious revelation, yet he had no idea what it was all about.

Heinz clenched his jaw. He still did not know what was going on, but the mention of Radu in such a demeaning way, coupled with the coincidental incident this morning infuriated him and compelled him to get to the bottom of it, no matter what. He was certain it all had a stake in Greta’s little secrets and one thing he hated more than being lied to, was to be betrayed and made a fool of. He memorized the details as his training dictated. There was an old army pal he knew near Weimar. Maybe he would agree to help Heinz find out what happened at this bunker. He picked up the phone and dialed, while the cleaners finished up.

“Hello? Mueller’s residence?”