The Memorist

Chapter 30

Polanka, Czech Republic

Monday, April 28^th-11:14 a.m.

At frequent intervals on the tree-lined road David drove by shrines to Christ or the Virgin or other saints that he didn’t recognize. If only the painted plaster effigies really could protect from danger or assuage pain the way so many believed. He’d been something of an observant Jew before, but now all he believed in was the presence of evil.

Arriving at his destination four hours after leaving Vienna, he parked the rental car, got out, stretched his long legs and looked around. It was dreary under the gray sky. The lush countryside had given way to spindly trees, footprints of long-dead gardens and a looming chateau that appeared to be in desperate need of restoration. This place must have been impressive at one time but now yellow paint flaked off the outside of the building and dozens of the sienna roof tiles were missing.

Hidden in the middle of the southern Moravian countryside, an hour’s drive from the closest town, Moravsky Krumlov was an unlikely museum for the most valuable artwork in all of the Republic and an even less likely place to meet with a liaison from an underground terrorist cell.

Inside the entryway, where it was even damper than outside, the walls and floor were in worse shape than the building’s exterior. After buying a 50 Kc ticket, David followed the signs to a staircase that creaked as he climbed it. Before he was allowed to enter the first gallery, a woman wearing a red kerchief handed him two dark brown felt bags. Without speaking, she demonstrated that he should put them over his shoes, which he did. They made walking slippery. Inside the first gallery a group of children all in stocking feet sat cross-legged, listening to a young woman who lectured to them in Czech. Surprisingly, they didn’t fidget or whisper as they stared at the heroic canvas that took up the whole wall. His eight-year-old, Ben, wouldn’t have been able to sit there so still, with his socks on, he would have been impelled to go floor skating across these wide wooden planks.

Opening the English version of the flyer he’d picked up at the ticket booth, David read about the painting the children were engrossed in.

Twenty feet wide and thirty-two feet high, this mural illustrates the first chapter in the 1000-year-old history of the Slav nation.

In the center of the canvas, under a starry sky, the figures of Adam and Eve cowered and hid from ghostlike, fearsome figures atop horses, spears at the ready, galloping toward them. Deep in the background a village burned, the orangered flames glowing like sunrise. According to the pamphlet, there were twenty of these heroic paintings on display, all created by the Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha.

As instructed by his contact, David walked through the galleries, examining each of the paintings as if they indeed interested him. He was not to approach anyone. At the right time, they’d find him. He’d reached the second to last room without anyone making contact and was about to walk out when the lights flickered off. Then, just as quickly, flickered back on.

David entered the last exhibition room where, dwarfed by its size, he regarded the only remaining mural: a triumphant ensemble piece, full of victory. His older son Isaac would have wanted to dissect the symbolism, discuss the ways in which the artist had created the sense of hope with specific colors and explore every inch of the painting with his father. Ben would still be off, sliding across the room.

David wanted to put his fist through the canvas as if it were the painting’s fault he was thinking of his children. This was just a romanticized picture of war, and peace, of death and triumphant life.

Behind him he sensed someone had entered the gallery and turned to see a young man walking toward him holding a black nylon knapsack.

“I think you left this in the other room.” His accent was thick but the words were clear enough.

“How stupid of me,” David said out loud. It might very well have been any man’s reaction to leaving his pack behind. “The lights…?” he offered by way of explanation but it came out as a question.

“Yes, the lights.” The other man was about twenty with acne on both cheeks and stringy black hair hanging to his shoulders. His jeans were ripped, his gray sweatshirt rumpled but his trainers were clean. “It was just a fuse, they said. You must have been worried to have left this.”

“Yes.” Reaching out David took the proffered knapsack. It was light. He knew from his research how potent Semtex was and how little he needed. All it took to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 was 200 grams. At least in the paintings here at the castle the enemy was painted in dark tones and came at you with brandished swords so you had a clue who was who. David shifted the backpack to his right shoulder. Everything that was wrong in the world weighed less than a pound and was in this backpack.

“You should be more careful,” the messenger warned.

Was there subtext to this? A message? David couldn’t translate the inscrutable expression on the young man’s face. He was waiting, his eyes challenging David, his smirk admonishing him. Naive amateur, the look said. The transaction, David realized, wasn’t completed yet.

“I want to give you a reward. For finding my bag.”

“I won’t say no.” The man smiled sincerely as if this was all very normal.

David had prepared the bills the way he’d been instructed; four one-hundred-euro notes enclosed in ten-euro notes. There were no cameras but in case anyone happened to be watching they’d only notice a ten. So little money to destroy so much. “Please accept this as a thank-you.”

While the young man stuffed the money in his pocket in front of Mucha’s last heroic mural, David walked out of the gallery thinking how the painting’s gargantuan shadow cast the messenger in darkness, and that he could use that image in the article he was writing about this saga. He even knew where it would appear: at the beginning of the end.

It was drizzling outside and David dreaded the long drive ahead of him on unfamiliar roads in the rain in a rental car that should have been retired ten thousand kilometers ago. Opening the door, he slid in behind the steering wheel and gingerly put the knapsack on the passenger seat. This wasn’t the time to look inside the pack in case he was being followed, but he couldn’t hold back.

David didn’t know what he’d expected. Brown wrapping paper? A manila envelope? Anything but navy foil imprinted with frosted cakes with white candles. The irony wasn’t lost on him. It was a birthday party that had started this journey, and explosives wrapped up like a birthday present that would end it.