The Stolen (41 page)

‘Herr Professor Hatiwais?' he asked. ‘Herr Professor von Holindt recommended I contact you. I'm a journalist from
La Recherche
; you've heard of it, naturally? Good… We're doing a piece on meteorites, focusing on crater sites on the Indian subcontinent and I was wondering if you were available for an interview this afternoon? Short notice I know, but Matthias spoke very highly of you and I believe you're a man who is normally hard to pin down?' On the other end of the line Destin could hear the academic's ego winding up like a clockwork doll. ‘Oh, I have the address, so shall I see you at four?
Merci beaucoup
, Herr Professor.'

 

 

Matthias stood in his living room, orientating himself; everything seemed so familiar and yet alien, as if the events of the past twenty-four hours had transformed him so much he was a stranger in his own house. Everything appeared to be in acute focus: the edge of the white leather couch where it met the gleaming steel of the leg; even the cat lifting its sleepy head from a chair in the corner was in such sharp detail it seemed to him he could see each individual strand of fur. Rationally he knew it was the effect of complete exhaustion but emotionally it felt as if he were seeing the value of his life and the world he'd constructed for the first time. A great elation and a great sadness filled him, as if he finally understood the inherent transcendence of that world. Just then he heard the door, Liliane returning from school. She appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Without saying a word, he walked over and swept her up in an embrace.

‘God, you're squeezing me to death!' she complained. It felt to Matthias like years since he'd held her and suddenly all he took for granted seemed incredibly tenuous. ‘Papa, I'm not going anywhere. Can I breathe now?'

He let her go, a little abashed at his emotional intensity, then threw himself down into the armchair. Liliane joined him on the armrest.

‘Are you okay? You look exhausted and you didn't come home last night.' She took in his hollowed cheeks and unshaven chin, the deep shadow under his eyes, and found she wanted to protect him but didn't know how. Matthias took her hand and stroked it.

‘Listen, Liliane, you and I will have to be very, very careful over the next few days; in fact I'm thinking of sending you to Grandma's for a while —'

‘But why? You need me here.'

‘Liliane, I'm okay, really. More than that, I feel more alive than I have done for years.'

‘Since Mama's accident?' It was a challenge as much as a question.

Listening, Matthias decided to be honest.

‘Yes, since Mama's accident.'

‘Is this to do with Opa, and those men at his funeral?'

‘Some of your grandfather's wrongs I'm trying to make right, as much as I can within my power – one man can't change history,' he continued, aware that he was rambling, perhaps telling her too much.

‘No one's expecting you to, Papa.'

‘Sometimes life offers up a clear moral duty. Not often, because most of the time life ends up being a series of compromises, but when it does, it's important to take a stand, become your own hero. Maybe that's what you need, Liliane: to believe in yourself.'

‘Papa, you're tired, you're not making sense.' She tried pulling him to his feet to lead him upstairs to his bed.

‘No, this is important. Listen, I spent all night in the laboratory. I've had a real breakthrough, perhaps the biggest of my life, and I'll need to go away again. And if I find what I'm looking for I will be able to make history…' His whole body was racked by a yawn.

‘You're not going anywhere but bed. C'mon,' Liliane scolded, and so she ushered him up the stairs as if she were the parent and he the child.

 

 

‘So how long have you known Herr Professor von Holindt?' Jorges Hatiwais had warmed to this enthusiastic French journalist despite the oddity of his appearance – most journalists he knew chain-smoked and were badly dressed, while this one looked as if he worked out every day and had a healthy pay check, but then,
La Recherche
was one of the most popular science magazines in Europe and Jorges, a vain man, had particularly liked the way the journalist seemed to linger on his every word.

‘Oh, Matthias? A couple of years. I covered his last breakthrough involving ceramics – superconductivity at thirty-nine kelvin, and I arranged some work experience for his daughter, Liliane,' Destin elaborated, hoping that Jorge Hatiwais was only ever a work colleague of Matthias's. His gamble paid off.

‘That's right, the daughter. Lively little thing, isn't she?'

‘As for India itself?' Destin thrust his Dictaphone under Jorges' nose with the kind of naive urgency he imagined a young journalist would have.

‘Well, there are various crater sites: Piplia Kalan, Samelia, Tonk, Raghunathpura, Desuri, Udaipur among others. All significant but not really important in the grand scale of things. The major site is in Maharashtra – Lonar Lake, which is about 1.8 kilometres in diameter and 150 metres deep and was formed by a two-million-ton meteor nearly fifty thousand years ago. But to my mind the crater site that is of real current interest is in Rajasthan – at Ramgarh. In fact' – here Jorges began to enjoy the sound of his own authority – ‘there are reasons to assume the meteorite, which I believe is responsible for both the lake and the raised lip of hills and plateaus around it, was made of the most unusual material, one that might be of great scientific interest, perhaps even a historical first.'

Destin clicked off the Dictaphone. ‘Sounds like a scoop, Professor.'

‘Oh, it will be, I am confident of it.'

‘Now, was that Hatiwais with one S or two?'

 

 

The homemade altar sat on the circular side cabinet, one of two that ran either side of the two sleeping compartments. A lit candle, its light reflected by the oval mirror set in the wooden panelling behind, flickered at the foot of the statuette, which was flanked by two black-and-white photographs. The first was of Keja and Yojo from before the war, sitting on the same horse bare-backed, Keja a skinny six-year-old olive-skinned girl perched in front, gazing up adoringly at her brother, as Yojo, a ten-year-old, grinned into the camera absolutely carefree. The second photograph, dated ‘1932', was of the whole family gathered outside Keja's parents' painted caravan: the five siblings and her father, standing upright in embroidered velvet trousers and wide leather belt, his deep-set eyes hidden by the shadow cast by the brim of his hat, smiling beneath his moustache. Her mother was tiny next to him, two braids decorated with ribbons framing her face covered by a traditional
diklo
, her dowry of gold earrings and necklace displayed proudly, the youngest – who lived only a month in the camps – a baby of three months in her arms.

Keja stood in front of it clasping an amulet made of a dried bat's heart bound with red thread, her head bowed, while Latcos watched from the top sleeping compartment, lying on his side, a rolled cigarette between his fingers.

‘Father,' she whispered, ‘Yojo kept his promise. We have her back, back in the family, thank the Lord.' She laid the amulet at the foot of the homemade altar, lifted the rosary she was wearing over her head and carefully draped it over the neck of the statuette, then turned to her son. ‘Latcos, you must think of a way of protecting her. There are others after her now.'

‘I will talk to Raga.'

‘Who makes the antiques?'

‘
Arvah
, don't worry,
dej
, never again will she leave the Romanes.'

A draught made the candle flame flicker, and Kali's four arms danced in the moving light. Keja turned to the window. ‘There is evil coming, Latcos, I feel it, and we will be drawn right into the centre of it.'

Latcos slipped off the bed and joined her at the window, then drew the curtain across. ‘
Dej
, your time as a
drabarni
is over. Now you must rest and fight for yourself.
I
protect the family now. This is a new beginning; the goddess brings us luck, as will my brother Matthias.'

It was the first time she had heard him refer to Matthias as his brother; smiling, she lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed it.

 

 

Matthias lay curled on his side, the eiderdown pulled up to his ears as he tumbled down in the dreamless sleep of the exhausted. Around him the house settled about his breath, the creaking boards and shifting planes of space taking on his rhythm, wrapping him up in a familiar cocoon. Just down the corridor, Liliane, lying in her own bedroom listening, closed her own eyes. And for once she managed to exorcise the events of the day bashing against the walls of her mind like trapped moths. Sensing her sudden surrender, Matthias turned in his bed, happier than he could remember.

 

The white E-type Jaguar drove slowly past the modernist house; set in the landscaped garden it looked more like a series of cubes glinting between the branches of the trees. Destin had grown to like this house, its clean, exact lines appealing to his need for precision, the race for reinvention that had become his life, his constant disguise. He could imagine living there, could imagine being Matthias von Holindt. He was tired of the constant travel, perhaps even the violence. For tonight, at least, he could envisage being a husband, a father, having those relationships that would anchor him to the civilian world. He slowed down, letting the engine idle. There was only one light on in the house, downstairs – a desk lamp that lit up the long pine lines of a table and low sofa, the copper dome of a freestanding fireplace. Destin had seen the lamp lit before; it meant the whole household was dormant, the housekeeper in her small bedroom that ran off the back of the kitchen, the two other bedrooms on the first floor all velvet with the smell of the sleeping.

Looking up at the windows he was filled with the exhilaration of the predator, the stalker who can toy with his prey. He could slip into that house as easily as slipping into a woman and have them all now, but it would be too soon. There was more pleasure in the execution of a meticulous plan, one in which he would be able to extract exactly what he wanted and inflict the most pain. Like a wronged god, he thought, then, feeling the chill of first light, drove on.