buried it in Gabriel’s abdomen. His knees buckled, and he doubled over. Then Peterson’s knee rose into his face. The guards released him, and he collapsed into the same contorted position in which he’d awakened.
THEY worked as a team, one to hold him, the other to hit him. They worked efficiently and steadily but without joy and without enthusiasm. They had been given a job-to leave every muscle in his body bruised and every spot on his face bleeding-and they carried out their assignment in a thoroughly professional and bureaucratic manner. Every few minutes they would leave to smoke. Gabriel knew this because he could smell the fresh tobacco on them when they came back. He tried to hate them, these blue-coated warriors for the Bank of Gessler, but could not. It was Peterson whom he hated.
After an hour or so Peterson returned.
“Where are the paintings you took from Rolfe’s safe-deposit box in Zurich?”
“What paintings?”
“Where is Anna Rolfe?”
“Who?”
“Hit him some more. See if that helps his memory.”
And on it went, for how long Gabriel did not know. He didn’t know whether it was night or day-whether he had been here an hour or a week. He kept time by the rhythm of their punches and the clocklike regularity of Peterson’s appearances.
“Where are the paintings you took from Rolfe’s safe-deposit box in Zurich?”
“What paintings?”
“Where is Anna Rolfe?”
“Who?”
“All right, see if he can handle a little more. Don’t kill him.”
Another beating. It seemed shorter in duration, though Gabriel could not be sure, because he was in and out of consciousness.
“Where are the paintings?”
“What… paintings?”
“Where is Anna Rolfe?”
“Who?”
“Keep going.”
Another knifelike blow to his right kidney. Another iron fist to his face. Another boot to his groin.
“Where are the paintings?”
“Where is Anna Rolfe?”
“He’s done for now. Let him lie there.”
HE searched the rooms of his memory for a quiet place to rest. Behind too many doors he discovered blood and fire and could find no peace. He held his son, he made love to his wife. The room where he found her nude body was their bedroom in Vienna, and the encounter he relived was their last. He wandered through paintings he had restored-through oil and pigment and deserts of bare canvas-until he arrived on a terrace, a terrace above a sea of gold leaf and apricot, bathed in the sienna light of sunset and the liquid music of a violin.
TWO guards came in. Gabriel assumed it was time for another beating. Instead, they carefully unlocked the handcuffs and spent the next ten minutes cleaning and bandaging his wounds. They worked with the tenderness of morticians dressing a dead man. Through swollen eyes, Gabriel watched the water in the basin turn pink, then crimson, with his blood.
“Swallow these pills.”
“Cyanide?”
“For the pain. You’ll feel a little better. Trust us.”
Gabriel did as he was told, swallowing the tablets with some difficulty. They allowed him to sit for a few minutes. Before long the throbbing in his head and limbs began to subside. He knew it was not gone-only a short postponement.
“Ready to get on your feet?”
“That depends on where you’re taking me.”
“Come on, let us help you.”
They each grasped him gingerly by an arm and lifted.
“Can you stand up? Can you walk?”
He put his right foot forward, but the deep contusions in his thigh muscles made his leg collapse. They managed to catch him before he could hit the floor again and for some reason found great humor in this.
“Take it slowly. Little steps for a little man.”
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise. It won’t hurt, though. We promise.”
They led him through the door. Outside, a corridor stretched before him like a tunnel, long and white, with a marble floor and an arched ceiling. The air smelled of chlorine. They must have been close to Gessler’s swimming pool.
They started walking. For the first few yards Gabriel needed every bit of their support, but gradually, as the drugs circulated through his body and he became used to being vertical, he was able to move at a laborious shuffle without aid-a patient taking a first postoperative stroll through a hospital ward.
At the end of the corridor was a double door, and beyond the doorway a circular room, about twenty feet across, with a high-domed ceiling. Standing in the center of the room was a small, elderly man dressed in a white robe, his face concealed by a pair of very large sunglasses. He held out a spindly, purple-veined hand as Gabriel approached. Gabriel left it hovering there.
“Hello, Mr. Allon. I’m so glad we could finally meet. I’m Otto Gessler. Come with me, please. There are a few things that I think you might enjoy seeing.”
Behind him, another double doorway opened, slowly and silently, as though on well-oiled automatic hinges. As Gabriel started forward, Gessler reached out and laid his bony hand on Gabriel’s forearm.
It was then that Gabriel realized Otto Gessler was blind.
45
BEFORE THEM LAY a cavernous statuary hall with an arched ceiling reminiscent of the Musee d’Orsay. The light streaming through the overhead glass was man-made. On each side of the hall were a dozen passageways leading to rooms hung with countless paintings. There were no labels, but Gabriel’s trained eye discerned that each had its own mission: fifteenth-century Italian; seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish; nineteenth-century French. And on it went, gallery after gallery, a private museum filled with Europe
