The young women in the basement of the main telephone exchange in Vienna were keenly aware that something was afoot. For three hours, in a flurry of activity, they’d connected the President and the Bundeskanzler to some of the most important people in Austria and Europe. By early afternoon, von Schuschnigg and President Miklas had both given way to the inevitable.
Von Schuschnigg stared pensively out his office window at the snowy courtyard. Perhaps the agreement to restore some prominent Nazi officers to their posts in the police force had been a mistake, he thought grimly. The Chief of Police had warned him the government could no longer rely on its own police force. The army would fight, but von Schuschnigg knew they would eventually be overwhelmed. The cost in young Austrian lives would be horrific. It would be better, he’d assured the President, to accede to the German Fuhrer’s wishes.
Her boutique devoid of customers, and she herself fearful for the safety of both Levi and her children, Ramona listened to the radio with growing disbelief.
‘The roads are lined with huge crowds anticipating the arrival of the Fuhrer,’ the announcer crowed. ‘In every town the swastika of the Third Reich flies regally from the Rathaus and other community buildings.’
Hitler’s massive six-wheel Mercedes crossed the Inn River at Braunau at 3.50 p.m. on the twelfth of March, flanked by a large motorcycle escort and a motorised armed guard. The convoy sped beneath the towering snow- capped Alps, slowing at the towns.
‘People are cheering and waving to the German Chancellor as he heads towards Linz, and then on to Vienna,’ the radio announcer continued, ‘where over a half a million people are expected to gather in the Heldenplatz, the Heroes’ Square.’
How could the Austrian people be so stupid, Ramona wondered incredulously.
Hitler’s driver eased the Mercedes into the Heldenplatz behind a German infantry band playing ‘In Treu Feste’. Hitler stood in the open back and raised his hand. The crowd went wild.
‘Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!’
The beat was primeval, echoing ominously off the historic walls of the Hapsburg Palace. Huge red-and-black swastika banners flew from the palace, the Rathaus, the balcony of the Imperial Hotel and the Burgtheater. The crowd was still chanting as Hitler walked onto the palace balcony, placed both hands on the edge and looked down onto the sea of people below. Hitler was home. He moved in front of the microphone and held up his hand. The vast crowd fell silent.
‘Years ago I went forth from this country, and I bore within me precisely the same profession of faith which today fills my heart! Judge the depth of my emotion when after so many years I have been able to bring that profession of faith to its fulfilment.’ His stirring words echoed around the Heldenplatz. Young women wept as they chanted and a rising hysteria gripped the crowd.
‘Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!’
The beat never lessened and Hitler stood motionless, triumphant over the city where, a quarter of a century before, he’d wandered the streets unshaven, his hair matted, a filthy black overcoat his only protection against the biting snows of winter, selling his postcard paintings on the street for a few paltry pfennigs, begging at the soup kitchen on the banks of the Danube while the patrons of the Burgtheater sipped champagne and delighted in the works of Mozart and Haydn and the waltzes of Johann Strauss. Vienna. It was the jewel in the crown of Austria. It was here Hitler had studied the Jews, and the more he’d studied, the more he’d come to detest the vile race. They were like maggots in a rotting body. There wasn’t any form of filth, prostitution or white-slave traffic they weren’t involved in. Innocent Christian girls were seduced by repulsive, crooked-legged Jew bastards. The Jews were the evil spirits leading his people astray. They must be destroyed, he mused. And they would be. Soon Adolf Eichmann would arrive in Vienna to implement his instructions.
Trembling, Ramona Weizman wiped away a tear and turned off the radio. She closed her boutique and went upstairs to the apartment to retrieve her prayer shawl.
8
L evi Weizman moved back onto the track, away from the balsa tree he’d used for cover. He froze immediately. A two-metre fer-de-lance, one of the largest and deadliest snakes of Central America, slithered towards him, the black diamonds on its dark chocolate-and-grey back clearly visible in the moonlight. Levi backed slowly into the jungle. The pit-viper could detect a change in temperature to one thousandth of a degree, enabling it to strike its prey with lethal accuracy. The dose of venom fatal to humans was just fifty milligrams, and Levi knew that a fer-de-lance could deliver up to 300 milligrams in a single strike. The huge snake slithered past and headed towards the river in search of frogs and rats. Levi could hear the troop of howler monkeys further up the river, but the track behind him was clear. Perhaps he’d been imagining things, he thought, and he turned towards the rickety rope bridge that spanned the swirling river separating the Mayan village from the ruins of Tikal.
‘It’s been a long time, Professor Weizman.’ The jungle to the right of the bridge parted and Roberto Arana appeared, wearing his customary red bandana atop his weathered face. Roberto was smiling and he stretched out his hand.
‘I was beginning to wonder if you’d received my messages,’ Levi said as he followed the shaman across the bridge, holding on to the swaying ropes and carefully choosing his footholds across the gaps between the worn wooden planks. ‘Was that you following me?’
Roberto shook his head. ‘A jaguar.’ The jungle suddenly reverberated with a spine-tingling roar, confirming the jaguar’s presence. ‘But don’t worry, warriors from the village will escort you back. As to your messages… that which you seek has remained hidden for centuries, Professor. The codex and the remaining figurines will be revealed when the timing is right, but already, the elders sense that timing is near. They have some information for you.’
Levi’s pulse quickened. ‘On the figurines, or the codex?’
‘If you decipher that which they disclose, you will find what the ancients want you to find,’ the shaman answered enigmatically.
The jungle track on the far bank of the river was narrow and Levi followed in Roberto’s footsteps. A short while later they reached a big clearing by the river bank, around which ten thatched huts were grouped. Smoke from the cooking fires drifted towards the fast-flowing river. The women of the village had soaked maize kernels in lime the night before, to soften them, and during the day they had ground them into traditional masa dough. Blackened pots hung over the fires, and next to them the comales, or griddles, were warming, ready for the tortillas. A savoury aroma wafted into the jungle: chicken simmering in jalapeno chillies, diced peppers, oregano and limes. Some of the younger women were still working their looms by the firelight, sitting on mats with one end of their looms strapped behind their backs, the other tied to trees along the river bank. Colourful huipils, traditional Mayan ponchos, were taking shape as the village women deftly moved the loom warps back and forth, the cedar worn smooth by countless hours of use. Every village and town in Guatemala could be identified by its unique traje or traditional dress, and here, bright reds and yellows were wonderfully interwoven with diamond patterns of blues and turquoises. The women and older girls all wore the corte, a long wraparound skirt with a wide woven belt.
The elders were waiting, dressed in their traditional kamixa, colourful cotton shirts and straw hats. Levi smiled politely as solemn introductions were made and he was offered a seat on one of several cedar logs grouped around the central campfire.
‘ Hach ki’imak in wo’ol in kaholtikech. We are very happy to meet you,’ said Pacal, the village chief. There were gaps in his warm and welcoming smile.
‘ Ki’imak in wo’ol in wilikech. And I am very happy to be here.’
The elders nodded, smiling broadly as Levi responded in their own tongue. Long hours spent studying the Mayan language had paid off handsomely.
‘ Bix a k’aaba?’ Levi asked the young woman who’d been designated to look after him.
‘My name is Itzel,’ she replied. Her white teeth sparkled in the soft light of the fire.
‘ Dios bo’otik. Thank you,’ Levi said as Itzel handed him a wooden platter of hot tortillas and salsa, together with a small pottery cup filled with pulque, a heady Meso-American beverage made from the agave plant.
