City of Dark Magic (35 page)

“He’s stopping at the synagogue up ahead,” she said, hoping that it was still standing in Max and Nico’s time.

“Of course,” Nico breathed. “The Old-New Synagogue. It was rumored that Rabbi Loew placed the body of the golem in the attic in an iron casket. No one’s been in that room for four centuries. They say the rabbi cursed it so that no one would ever disturb the golem’s slumbers. A perfect hiding place.”

“Someone must have been up there at some point,” Max said. “A cleaning woman?”

Nico shook his head. “One Nazi soldier went up on a dare. Said it was a stupid Jewish superstition and he wanted to get whatever gold was hidden up there.”

“What happened?’ Max demanded

“He died an agonizing death. That scared the rest of ’em off. The Old-New was the only synagogue the Nazis left untouched.”

“He’s taking the casket inside the synagogue,” Sarah said. “Can we follow him?”

“It’s closed now,” Max said. “And there are masses of tourists still on the streets.”

“You think the driver was Rabbi Loew?” Sarah asked. “Shit, we have to follow him.”

“The stairs to the
genizah,
or attic storeroom, are around back,” said Nico.

They hurried around the back of the synagogue. There were so many strands of emotion surrounding the synagogue, she had trouble breathing.

“Lots of tourists,” said Max again. “Try to act normal.”

“We could climb up these stairs,” Nico said.

“Stairs?” said Max and Sarah together. They were, it seemed, looking at the same thing: a series of metal rungs ۀont>

“Boost me up,” said Nico. “Quick, before a cop or a rabbi comes by.”

Sarah watched as Max leaned over and Nico climbed on his shoulders, trying unsuccessfully to reach the bottom rung. Finally, under Nico’s precise instructions and on the count of three, Max actually heaved Nico up in the air, and on the third try the little man managed to catch the ladder.

Nico quickly scaled the rungs and began ramming his shoulder against the
genizah
door. A group of tourists gathered.

“What is he doing?” someone asked Sarah.

“It’s part of a historical reenactment,” called Nico. “Feel free to tip my partner.”

“It’s him!” Sarah shouted. The tall, thin figure was exiting the synagogue, and as he passed her he flung off his cloak and hat and threw them away. Underneath the rough fabric he wore a rich gold and white doublet and jerkin, a matching cape over his shoulders. His long, thin legs were encased in white hose. His brown beard and mustache were closely trimmed, as was his hair. The golden key was tucked into a panel of his hose. The man was young, he was handsome. He was . . .

“That’s no rabbi,” Sarah said. “That’s Ladislav. Brother of the 1st Prince Lobkowicz. A traitor to his country.”

FIFTY-THREE

M
ax, Nico, and Sarah walked slowly down Paris Street; across Old Town Square; past Týn church, where Tycho, who had seemed so alive and well this morning, had been buried for 410 years; and up Celetna. They had been up all night and even Moritz was exhausted, but Sarah kept walking. When they passed under Powder Tower, she was fairly certain she saw Mozart in a powdered wig, giggling. She had the urge to wave.

Max’s phone beeped. Something about the way he reacted made Sarah look at him.

“It’s from Elisa,” he said. “She booked us a cruise for our honeymoon. On some French actor’s yacht.”

“Text her back,” said Sarah. “Tell her you can’t wait.”

Nico had reported that the Old-New Synagogue’s attic had not contained anything like an iron casket, and nothing that a key would fit into. It was empty. The Fleece had been moved. Ladislav was nowhere to be seen. She tried concentrating on an iron casket and caught glimpses of it. This had drawn them on an exhausting ramble across the city, zigzagging, doubling back, hitting dead ends.

They trudged up Hybernska, passing under Wilson Highway, where the road began climbing uphill. The drug was definitely wearing off now. Max and Nico followed her in silence. Moritz panted. From Seifertova she turned slowly right into Nejedlo, then right into Mahler Gardens. Finally Sarah halted abruptly.

“What’s happening?” asked Max.

The drug was almost out of her system. Sarah was fighting to see what was happening.

“I’m at a cemetery. Two men are putting an iron casket in a freshly dug grave. Right over there.” She pointed and tried to walk to where two robed men were burying a metal box, but she felt herself physically blocked, grabbed by Max and Nico.

“What is it?” she said. “What’s here?” She put her hands out and felt something cold, hard, and impermeable.

Sarah shook her head and moved from the past to the present. She was facing a cement wall. She looked up. She and Max and Nico were standing at the base of a giant spaceship-shaped television tower with what appeared to be enormous black babies crawling up it.

“What the fuck?” asked Sarah.

“Žižkov Tower,” said Max. “Begun in 1985. Voted the second ugliest building in the entire world.”

Sarah moved back to the past.

“It’s not the Fleece casket,” she said. “It’s much smaller and a different shape. And it doesn’t . . . feel the same. I’m sorry.”

It was all fading away. The end. The last of the drug. Her last time seeing the past. She strained to see more . . .

“There are rumors that the golem’s body was moved to Žižkov cemetery,” said Nico. “You got your iron caskets mixed up. Oh, that Rabbi Loew. He was a sly one.”

Sarah kicked the concrete base of the seven-hundred-foot-high building.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t find the Fleece.” She felt sick, exhausted, and disappointed.

“At least we know where to dig for more golem dust,” said Nicolas.

“And,” said Max. “We know the key opens the place where the Fleece is hidden.”

“I suspect it is somewhere on the castle grounds,” Nico said.

“Well, that narrows it down,” Max sighed.

Everyone sounded exhausted and depressed.

“Nico,” Sarah said. “Tycho told you that he had made a copy of the key. Do you know what happened to it?”

“The master died a month after that night,” Nicolas said. “I never found the copy of the key. I had troubles of my own at that point.”

She sat down on the sidewalk in front of the TV tower, her head swimming with visions, with history, with secrets. She looked across the street to where a building was being renovated, just like hundreds of others all over Prague. The city was constantly erasing and writing over itself, an architectural palimpsest in action.

“I’m so tired,” said Sarah. Her eyes scanned the graffiti. More mysteries, more riddles, more stories. What was important in all this mess of history and scholarship and magic and more history? Letters and paintings and music and treasures and books and words and secrets and lies and
lives
. So many lives. What had meaning and what was just chatter? Maybe none of it had any meaning, she thought. Maybe all scholarship was a wi　ecrld-goose chase. We could never really know the past, even if (as in her case) you could see it right in front of you. Maybe it was a mistake to even try.

Time. Time didn’t really exist.

“Sarah?” whispered Max in her ear. “Sarah? Are you okay?”

And with that, it all went black.

FIFTY-FOUR

C
harlotte Yates leaned forward in her seat. Someone shouted “Shame!” and from the opposite side of the gilded neo-Renaissance theater came “Disgrace!”

Charlotte Yates did not turn a single hair of her caramel-sprinkled-with-silver bob. She knew the words were not directed toward her, although she had glimpsed anti-American-style banners here and there as her motorcade had wended its way through Prague today. No, the complaints were directed at the orchestra. Or, rather, where the orchestra should be. The stage was empty. The concert was to begin at 7:30 p.m. and it was 7:32 p.m. In Prague this counted as an almost unbelievably egregious delay, practically cause for rioting. Charlotte expected the delay was due to her own Secret Service corps, but it was nice to see the locals hadn’t lost their notions of punctuality.

Yes, here she was, back in Prague. Since announcing her intention to make a three-city sweep through Eastern Europe (Warsaw, Bucharest, Prague) to “discuss strengthening our shared global security agendas,” Charlotte’s sense of anticipation had reached an almost unbearable point. She had barely registered her stays in Poland and Romania, so intent was she on this last leg of the visit. The global security agenda had all been an excuse, anyway. As if Poland or Romania were going to help keep the world safe for democracy! Although it was sometimes good to make other countries feel like they were relevant.

But Prague was the key. Everything came down to the next twenty-four hours and a plan so perfect that she really wished she could tell someone about it. Brag a little. If only her father could have lived to see this.

Really, she had known from the start that getting the letters back wouldn’t be quite enough. Charlotte Yates was a doer. She didn’t shrink from the bold stroke.

She wished she could get away from everyone and savor the moment. Normally she didn’t mind traveling with her entourage—staff, security, journalists—but if there was ever a moment when a girl needed a little personal time it was now. And of course, she assumed there was a great deal of local scrutiny concerning her visit. If Americans (most of whom probably thought this country was still called Czechoslovakia and would not even be in guessing range of its location on a map) seemed indifferent to her past activities here, the same could not be guaranteed of the natives. Memories were long in this part of the world, and you never knew who might turn up where. Luckily everyone had more or less the same agenda, in which global security took a backseat to one’s own personal security. Still, she wouldn’t be absolutely certain of anyone’s fear of offending her until she was president. Fear made people so sweet, it was almost possible to love them.

Today’s schedule had run smoothly. Jauntily dressed in a lightweight coral Ralph Lauren pantsuit (there was something satisfyingly
fuck yo fau
about discussing terrorism while wearing pink), the caramel-silver bob sprayed into wind-resistant sleekness, Dr. Scholl’s inserts discreetly cushioning her Anne Klein pumps, Charlotte had controlled the meetings expertly. Of course, it was all really token “relationship building,” nothing historic, no real power to be brokered. She didn’t want to step on any toes at State—Todd was such a dear little lamb chop. Though when she returned as president, things would be different.

The orchestra was on stage now, and a few members of the audience continued to reprimand them happily as they quickly tuned up. The Minister of Culture, apoplectic with embarrassment over the dishonor of starting four minutes late, lost his presence of mind and offered Charlotte a mint. Her favorite Secret Service agent, Tad, leaned forward slightly and the Minister of Culture recovered himself in time.

“I think you will enjoy this program,” the minister said earnestly, pocketing the mint. “Of course, of the nine symphonies, the fourth is the least celebrated, and really more in sequence thematically with the second, but I think it a very great work. Complicated, almost perverse at times, yes, but rich and very profound.”

“I very much look forward to it,” Charlotte said. What the hell was he talking about? Oh, the music. She glanced down at her program. Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony. Christ, she was in for a boring hour or two. A line from the program notes caught her eye. The Fourth had premiered in 1807 at Lobkowicz Palace, in Vienna.

Lobkowiczes, Lobkowiczes, everywhere Lobkowiczes. Charlotte was sick to death of the name.

And tomorrow night she would be attending the opening of Lobkowicz Palace Museum. The last time she had set foot in that place had been the day Yuri was murdered.

Charlotte half-shut her eyes, permissible since she was ostensibly listening to the racket on stage, and shifted through her memories.

She remembered the last night they had made love. She hadn’t known then it would be the last time, obviously, or she wouldn’t have elected to do it in a chair covered in cheesecloth at Nelahozeves Castle. They had argued that night, too. Yuri had deliberately incensed her, in his maddeningly Russian way, by lording over some secret knowledge that he had. He had dangled a trinket in front of her, a golden key that was presumed to unlock a treasure. She had immediately assumed he was presenting her with one of the seven keys that unlocked the chamber of the Crown Jewels of Bohemia. This chamber, located in St. Vitus Cathedral, was famous for its door, which had seven different locks requiring seven different keys. The Crown Jewels included the actual crown of St. Wenceslas, a royal scepter, a fabulous jeweled apple, a crucifix, and royal vestments, including a belt and some kind of cloak. The jewels were almost never seen, and legends had grown up around them, the usual bad-luck-and-curses type of thing.

But Yuri had insisted the key had nothing to do with the Crown Jewels. He had even tried to throw her off the scent by insisting the key opened something entirely different, and gabbled on about the Order of the Golden Fleece and a door that must never be opened. Their lovemaking had been more violent than usual, and they had parted almost angrily.

A few days later she had received a strange phone call from him, using one of their many secret codes, asking to meet “as if by accident” in the middle of the day. When he gave the location as St. Vitus Cathedral, she felt sure뀀face="Mini that she had been right about the Crown Jewels. She was hoping he had managed to collect all seven of the keys. Superstition be damned, she wanted to get her hands on the Crown Jewels. Not to steal them, of course. That wouldn’t be ethical. But would anyone really miss a golden apple that only a handful of people had seen in the course of six hundred years?

It was winter, bitterly cold, and with her cover as a humble art historian she had only a thin coat. In Prague, in the 1970s, practically everyone had only a thin coat, although at certain kinds of parties women would display their furs. She arrived at the cathedral half-frozen and irritable, and Yuri was nowhere in sight. She loitered about for fifteen minutes, then stepped inside. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a dark shape darting up from the steps that led to the Royal Vault. She walked quickly over to investigate. She thought she could smell Yuri’s cologne.

She peered down the nave and caught sight of the figure. Yes, it was Yuri. Charlotte caught up with him at the south doorway. He pulled her into sunlight and kissed her fiercely, although anyone could have seen them.

“I need to see you,” he said, into her ear. “Go to the palace and wait for me. It’s important.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but he shook his head, frowning, and stepped back into the cathedral, where the gloom seemed to swallow him whole.

And Charlotte had gone to the palace, and waited for her lover for hours, but he never came. The next day’s paper included an announcement that the director of the National Museum, Yuri Bespalov, had returned to important work in Moscow and his successor would be named shortly. Her division chief at the CIA was the one who showed her the photographs of Yuri’s lifeless body being pulled from the Vltava River.

“Suicide,” sniffed the chief. “They’re trying to cover it up, of course. Not only is he an embarrassment to the Party, we now think he is pretty high-ranking KGB.”

“Was,” Charlotte corrected, stonily. “Was KGB.”

“Right. Well, I guess we’ll never know for sure now.”

“No, I guess not.”

She waited for someone from the KGB to get in touch with her, but no one ever did. She left Prague a few months later, covered in commendations from her chief. She was a credit to the Agency, an exemplary agent. They predicted she might go far.

They were right about that. She had gone very far.

Not far enough. Not yet.

•   
•   •

A
fter the concert, Charlotte returned to her suite at the Four Seasons Hotel. She paced, unable to sleep, and made lists, chewing viciously on the straws Madge had thoughtfully packed, and reviewed tomorrow night’s timeline. Not the official version, of course. That was simple enough. She was attending a private event, honoring Czech national heritage by gracing a museum opening with her presence. She would go, pose for pictures, and come home.

Unofficially, of course, things were going to go quite a bit differently.

How many birds could you kill with one stone? Quite a few. One little bomb planted in one little museum and you not only destroyed dozens of annoying loose ends, sent what were probably some not very nice people to whatever afterlife God in His wisdom had reserved for them, but reminded the world of the perils of terrorism and the need to devote large amounts of the budget to fighting it. You could spend a lot of time making fancy plans and mucking about with subtle twists and turns, or you could blow something up. Sometimes it was just better to blow shit up.

There was something romantic, too, about destroying the place where she had waited for her murdered lover. That day she had waited with fear in her heart, but now the fear was gone. Soon she was going to be beyond fear. And then, perhaps, everyone would see what a caring and compassionate person she really was. Brave, brilliant, steadfast, patriotic, and decisive. A true American. A true American hero.