“And so you started killing them?”
He nodded again. “They had entrusted me with the task of protecting their terrible secret, and then they let several thousand witnesses walk out of Birkenau alive. I’m sure you can imagine how I felt.”
“No,” Gabriel said truthfully. “I can’t begin to imagine how you felt.”
“There was a girl,” Radek said. “I remember asking her what she would say to her children, about the war. She answered that she would tell them the truth. I ordered her to lie. She refused. I killed two other girls and still she defied me. For some reason, I let her walk away. I stopped killing the prisoners after that. I knew after looking into her eyes that it was pointless.”
Gabriel looked down at his hands, refusing to rise to Radek’s bait.
“I assume this woman was your witness?” Radek asked.
“Yes, she was.”
“It’s funny,” Radek said, “but she has your eyes.”
Gabriel looked up. He hesitated, then said, “So they tell me.”
“She’s your mother?”
Another hesitation, then the truth.
“I would tell you that I’m sorry,” Radek said, “but I know my apology would mean nothing to you.”
“You’re right,” Gabriel said. “Don’t say it.”
“So it was for her that you did this?”
“No,” said Gabriel. “It was for all of them.”
The door opened. The warder stepped into the room and announced that it was time to leave for Yad Vashem. Radek rose slowly to his feet and held out his hands. His eyes remained fastened to Gabriel’s face as the cuffs were ratcheted around his wrists. Gabriel accompanied him as far as the entrance, then watched him make his way through the fenced-in passage, into the back of a waiting van. He had seen enough. Now he wanted only to forget.
AFTER LEAVING ABU KABIR, Gabriel drove up to Safed to see Tziona. They ate lunch in a small kebab cafe in the Artists’ Quarter. She tried to engage him in conversation about the Radek affair, but Gabriel, only two hours removed from the murderer’s presence, was in no mood to discuss him further. He swore Tziona to secrecy about his involvement in the case, then hastily changed the subject.
They spoke of art for a time, then politics, and finally the state of Gabriel’s life. Tziona knew of an empty flat a few streets over from her own. It was large enough to house a studio and was blessed with some of the most gorgeous light in the Upper Galilee. Gabriel promised he would think about it, but Tziona knew that he was merely placating her. The restlessness had returned to his eyes. He was ready to leave.
Over coffee, he told her that he had found a place for some of his mother’s work.
“Where?”
“The Museum of Holocaust Art at Yad Vashem.”
Tziona’s eyes welled over with tears. “How perfect,” she said.
After lunch they climbed the cobblestone stairs to Tziona’s apartment. She unlocked the storage closet and carefully removed the paintings. They spent an hour selecting twenty of the best pieces for Yad Vashem. Tziona had discovered two more canvases bearing the image of Erich Radek. She asked Gabriel what he wanted her to do with them.
“Burn them,” he replied.
“But they’re probably worth a great deal of money now.”
“I don’t care what they’re worth,” Gabriel said. “I never want to see his face again.”
Tziona helped him load the paintings into his car. He set out for Jerusalem beneath a sky heavy with cloud. He went first to Yad Vashem. A curator took possession of the paintings, then hurried back inside to watch the beginning of Erich Radek’s testimony. So it seemed did the rest of the country. Gabriel drove through silent streets to the Mount of Olives. He laid a stone on his mother’s grave and recited the words of the mourner’s Kaddish for her. He did the same at the grave of his father. Then he drove to the airport and caught the evening flight for Rome.
41 VENICE • VIENNA
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, in thesestiere of Cannaregio, Francesco Tiepolo entered the Church of San Giovanni Crisostomo and made his way slowly across the nave. He peered into the Chapel of Saint Jerome and saw lights burning behind the shrouded work platform. He crept forward, seized the scaffolding in his bearlike paw, and shook it once violently. The restorer raised his magnifying visor and peered down at him like a gargoyle.
“Welcome home, Mario,” Tiepolo called up. “I was beginning to worry about you. Where have you been?”
The restorer lowered his visor and turned his gaze once more to the Bellini.
“I’ve been gathering sparks, Francesco.”
Gathering sparks? Tiepolo knew better than to ask. He only cared that the restorer was finally back in Venice.
“How long before you finish?”
“Three months,” said the restorer. “Maybe four.”
“Three would be better.”
“Yes, Francesco, I know three months would be better. But if you keep shaking my platform, I’ll never finish.”
“You’re not planning on running any more errands, are you, Mario?”
“Just one,” he said, his brush poised before the canvas. “But it won’t take long. I promise.”
“That’s what you always say.”
THE PACKAGE ARRIVED at the clock shop in Vienna ’s First District via motorcycle courier exactly three weeks later. The Clockmaker took delivery personally. He affixed his signature to the courier’s clipboard and gave him a small gratuity for his trouble. Then he carried the parcel into his workshop and placed it on the table.
The courier climbed back on the motorbike and sped away, slowing briefly at the end of the street, just long enough to signal the woman seated behind the wheel of a Renault sedan. The woman punched in a number on her cell phone and pressed the Send button. A moment later, the Clockmaker answered.
“I just sent you a clock,” she said. “Did you receive it?”
“Who is this?”
“I’m a friend of Max Klein,” she whispered. “And Eli Lavon. And Reveka Gazit. And Sarah Greenberg.”
She lowered the phone and pressed four numbers in quick succession, then turned her head in time to see the bright red ball of fire erupt from the front of the Clockmaker’s shop.
She eased away from the curb, her hands trembling on the wheel, and headed toward the Ringstrasse. Gabriel had abandoned his motorcycle and was waiting on the corner. She stopped long enough for him to climb in, then turned onto the broad boulevard and vanished into the evening traffic. A Staatspolizei car sped past in the opposite direction. Chiara kept her eyes on the road.
“Are you all right?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Yes, I know. Do you want me to drive?”
“No, I can do it.”
“You should have let me send the detonation signal.”
“I didn’t want you to feel responsible for another death in Vienna.” She punched a tear from her cheek. “Did you think of them when you heard the explosion? Did you think of Leah and Dani?”
He hesitated, then shook his head.
“What did you think of?”
He reached out and brushed away another tear. “You, Chiara,” he said softly. “I thought only of you.”
