The Columbus Affair: A Novel

brand. More like Paris than Bohemia. Richly decorated shop windows lined the sidewalks on both sides of the boulevard. Balconies, gables, towers, and turrets rose overhead. The east facade of the Old-New Synagogue backed to Parizska, totally exposed. Tom Sagan had taken a foolish risk climbing to its loft.

But Alle had not escaped, either.

He watched as she was led down a short flight of stairs to where her father was being held.

Prague was informally divided into sections, formed directionally according to prominent monuments, the Vltava River bisecting the center. East was Zizkov, and an old quarter with little tourism and few attractions. West hosted Prague castle and suburbs where many locals lived. To the north sat more neighborhoods and the zoo. The south held its famous horse-racing course, which he’d visited several times. Old Town, at the center, was the showpiece, which included the once prominent Jewish quarter. New Town, nearby, with its bustling commercial center and department stores, was where students had demanded free elections in what came to be known as the Velvet Revolution.

A tiered government administered everything. The lord mayor and council were responsible for citywide public service, but ten administrative districts handled things locally. One of those ten oversaw the neighborhoods of the former Jewish quarter.

And he knew its mayor.

“You want me to follow them?” Rocha asked. “See where they go.”

“No. There are cameras everywhere beyond the synagogue. You’ll be spotted. I have a better idea.”

———

BENE WAS TIRED. IT HAD BEEN A LONG DAY. HE AND HALLIBURTON had landed in Montego Bay around 6:00 P.M., and the drive back southeast had taken two hours. Tre lived north of Kingston in Irish Town, named for coopers who came there in the 19th century and crafted wooden barrels for coffee transport. Bene’s estate was farther north into the mountains, far away from the sights and sounds of Kingston.

The grandfather clock in the house’s foyer banged out chimes for 10:30 P.M. He sat in his study, the veranda doors open to a brisk evening. Milder weather was one of the marvelous things about the mountains, as heat and humidity were generally confined to the lower elevations. He’d made it back in time to have dinner with his mother. The evening meal was something she always enjoyed, and he liked bringing her joy. He sat in the dark and munched on a bulla his chef had baked. He liked the flat, round cakes, sweetened with molasses and ginger. When he was little they were sold everywhere. Now, not so much.

During dinner his mind had stayed on Cuba and what they’d found.

So he’d asked his mother—

“Tell me about Martha Brae.”

“We haven’t discussed her since you were a boy.”

“I’d like to hear the story again.”

He’d listened as she told him about the Taino witch who once inhabited the banks of the Rio Matibereon. Spanish treasure hunters captured her, thinking she knew where the natives hid their gold.

“The island be so big, the dirty Spaniards could not imagine that gold was not somewhere here,” his mother said.

So they tortured the witch until she relented and led them to the secret location. A cave beside the river.

“Was there an iron gate at this place?” he asked, recalling what Frank Clarke told him.

His mother shook her head. “Never heard that mentioned before with Martha Brae. No need for such things with her. What she did was disappear once they were inside the cave and that scared those Spanish. They started to leave, to run away, but they were all drowned. Martha Brae changed the course of the river and flooded the cave, sealing it forever. That river still bears her name and still flows the way she changed it.”

But he knew the Martha Brae River was a long way from the valley Tre Halliburton had discovered, and was more associated with the Cockpit Maroons of western Jamaica than the Windwards here in the east.

Not that the easterns didn’t have legends.

“The golden table,” he said to his mother. “Where did it come from?”

“You in some mood tonight. Lots of talk of stories. Duppies got you?”

He smiled. “You could say that.”

She pointed her wrinkled finger at him. “They be real, Bene. Duppies are all over. They guard the golden table.”

Another story from his childhood. A table made of gold, spotted from time to time at the bottom of certain rivers and lakes, glistening in the light.

“That be a bad one, Bene. Everybody who went in search of that table came to an end.”

“Does the tale come from Maroon? Or Taino?”

“Not sure. Just a legend, Bene. Many people claim to see the golden table under the water. Too many, really.”

He finished the bulla and reached for another.

A stiff wind molested the trees beyond the veranda.

He’d learned more over the past two days about Columbus’ lost mine than he had the past two years.

And about Zachariah Simon.