The Columbus Affair: A Novel

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

ZACHARIAH FOLLOWED THE MAYOR FROM INSIDE THE OLD-NEW Synagogue out onto a street identified as U Stareho Hrbitova, a short incline that led to a building he knew as the ceremonial hall. The neo-Romanesque structure had served, in times past, as a mortuary, erected for use by the local burial society. Now it was a museum on funerary customs and traditions. He knew the long tradition of the Prague Burial Society, formed in the mid-16th century, its job to ensure that the dead received a proper farewell.

He and the mayor had prayed for fifteen minutes. In his previous dealings with the man he’d never thought him all that devoted. More pragmatic and practical, as evidenced by the contribution he’d managed to extort simply for an opportunity to view where the old documents were now kept. Anything being there was a long shot, for sure, but he was genuinely curious. In Vienna there was no shortage of sacred earth, and books and papers were reverently buried in several Jewish cemeteries.

Here, things were vastly different.

An iron gate adjacent to the ceremonial house led to another walkway that entered the cemetery. A uniformed attendant manned the gate, which he was told was actually the exit for visitors, the cemetery entrance a block over. The mayor was not stopped as they passed through. Zachariah followed the man into one of the most sacred spots in the world. Across a mere 11,000 square meters, as many as 100,000 people were buried in the mounds of earth, beneath wild growths of thin grass, which explained the tombstones—12,000 of them, if he recalled correctly—pressed close together, set at odd angles as if from some earthquake.

Forbidden to bury their dead outside their district, for 350 years Jews had been laid to rest here. New land had been impossible to come by and the Torah forbid the moving of corpses, so the solution had been to bring in more soil and raise the level, one layer at a time, until the Talmudic injunction that graves be separated by at least six handbreadths of earth was satisfied. Eventually twelve layers, each nearly sixty centimeters deep, rose within the walls. Burials stopped in 1787, and he wondered how many matsevahs had disappeared, decayed, or been destroyed, how many people forgotten.

His gaze raked the surreal sight.

Ash trees cast everything in shadows. A simple look prevailed on the thick markers, the simplest straight or two-pitched, most with decorations and sculptures that referred to the deceased’s name, family, marital status, and profession. He noticed the art—a tree of life, a menorah, grape clusters, animals. Some of the writing could be read, most could not. Here and there were four-sided tombs with high-fronted sides, each topped with a gable and a saddle roof, similar to his own father’s grave in Austria. Cemeteries were holy, where the dead awaited resurrection. Which was why they could never be closed.

A graveled way lined with more thin grass wove a path through the headstones. No one else was inside the walls that encased the tight space. He noticed closed-circuit cameras at various points.

“Is there still vandalism?” he asked the mayor.

“Occasionally. The cameras have deterred intrusions. We appreciate your generosity in providing funds for them.”

He acknowledged the comment with a nod.

“We bury the animals that are thrown over the wall in the far corner over there,” the mayor said.

Once the dead touched sacred earth they could not leave it, no matter whether human or animal. He appreciated this community’s adherence to Talmudic tradition. His own congregation, in Vienna, were not as strict. Progressive ideas had diluted what had once been a staunch Orthodox community. That was why he offered most of his prayers in a small synagogue on his estate.

“I had the attendant at the gate brought on duty early,” the mayor said. “This site does not open for another two hours.”

No one else was around. He liked the treatment he was receiving and realized it was all designed to open his checkbook. The mayor of this district had no clue why he was there, just that he was, and an opportunity like this could not be squandered.

The mayor stopped and pointed at a double set of metal doors in the far wall. “Beyond those doors is a ladder that leads down to an underground room, which was once used for tool storage. It has proven ideal as a place where paper can return to dust.”

“You’re not coming?”

The mayor shook his head. “I’ll wait here. You have a look in private.”

He sensed something with this man. Something he did not particularly like. But he knew Rócha was not far away, as he’d spotted him following them to the iron gate. So he made clear, “You do understand that I am not someone to be taken lightly.”

“That is beyond question. You are an important man.”

Before he could inquire further, the mayor turned and left. He almost called out to stop him but decided against it. Instead, he left the graveled path and wove his way through the matsevahs until he came to the outer wall. He realized that this portion ran parallel to U Stareho Hrbitova, the street they’d walked earlier. Ten feet above him another section of cemetery stretched beneath more ash trees, the earth supported by the wall. The double doors before him would lead beneath that section.

He opened them.

Rakes, shovels, and brooms were propped against one wall to his right. A metal ladder led down into a dark square in the stone floor.

He gazed down the chute.

A light burned below.

Apparently, he was expected.

He stepped onto the rungs but, before descending he reclosed the double doors.

He climbed down, realizing that he was literally descending through time. Every sixty centimeters meant another layer of graves.

When he reached the bottom he would stand where the burials had begun 700 years ago.

He glanced down beyond his feet and saw the ground approaching.

A few more rungs and he found stone.

He was perhaps seven to eight meters belowground. The lit room that stretched before him was about ten meters square, the ceiling not much above his head, the black earthen floor damp. Books and papers were stacked against the walls in haphazard piles, most nearly rotted away. The stale air was scented with decay and he wondered about the source.

Standing in the center of the room, beneath three bare bulbs that burned bright, was the same woman from Vienna who’d met him at Schönbrunn.

Israel’s ambassador to Austria.

“You and I need to talk further,” she said to him.

———

ALLE WAS LISTENING TO THE RABBI AND HER FATHER TALK. BOTH men knew things she did not. Especially her father, who’d obviously withheld far more than he’d revealed.

Like the key, which resembled something that might open a pirate’s chest, except that one end was adorned with three Stars of David. The other markings they were discussing were too small to be seen from her vantage point.

Hearing the story of how Berlinger and her great-grandfather had met moved her. She’d never known Marc Eden Cross or his wife, as both died long before she was born. Her grandmother had told her about them, and she’d seen photographs, but knew little except that Cross had been an archaeologist of some renown.

“What was my great-grandfather like?” she asked the rabbi.

The old man smiled at her. “A delightful man. You have his eyes. Did you know that?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never been told that before.”

“Why are you here?” Berlinger asked her.

She decided to be coy. “My father brought me.”

Berlinger faced her father. “If you are indeed the Levite, as the message says, then you know your duty.”

“It’s time for that duty to change.”

She saw that the old man was puzzled.

“Such a strange choice in you,” Berlinger said. “I sense anger. Resentment.”

“I didn’t make the choice. All I know is that my daughter and a man named Zachariah Simon are up to something. I don’t know what and I only care about any of it because a man died yesterday for it.”

“Yet you brought her here?”

“What better way to keep an eye on her?”

She resented his tone, but kept her words to herself. She was here to learn and arguing would not accomplish that goal.

Berlinger lifted the key. “I made this a long time ago. My contribution to Marc’s endeavor.”

“What was his endeavor?” she asked.

The rabbi apprised her with a stiff gaze. “He was the chosen one, called the Levite, to whom everything had been entrusted. But he lived at a time of great upheaval. The Nazis changed everything. They even searched for what he guarded.”

“In what way?” her father asked.

“They wanted our Temple treasure. They thought it the ultimate prize in destroying our culture, as the Babylonians and the Romans had done.”

“The Temple treasure has been gone for nearly two thousand years,” her father said.

“But they’d heard the stories, too,” Berlinger said. “As I had. That it survived. That it was hidden away. And only one person knew.” The old man paused. “The Levite.”

“Three days ago I would have said you were insane,” her father said. “Now I can’t do that. There is obviously something going on here.”

Berlinger pointed to the note. “Your father was the Levite. He knew the secret, or at least as much of it as was revealed. Marc was a cautious man. Understandably. So, for the first time in hundreds of years, he changed everything about that secret. He had to, given the times.”

She could only imagine what it had been like to be Jewish in Europe from 1933 to 1945. What horrors those people had experienced. Her grandfather had told her some, things his relatives had described to him. But here, standing before her, was a man who’d seen it firsthand.

“You said that you plan to change things,” Berlinger whispered. “What kind of things?”

“I’m going to find that treasure.”

“Why do such a thing?”

“Why the hell not?” Her father’s voice rose, the anger clear. “Don’t you think it’s stayed hidden long enough?”

“Actually, I agree with you.”