17. Will
17
Will
A ntonov cut an imposing figure, his Soviet officer’s uniform immaculately pressed, his boots polished to a mirror shine, his hair now slicked back with some grease akin to motor oil or shoe polish. The lines of his face were sharp, his nose hawkish, his jaw set in a way that suggested perpetual dissatisfaction. He swept the room, his near-black eyes narrowing briefly before landing on us.
“Good morning, comrades.” His voice carried over the quiet hum of the café. It wasn’t a greeting so much as an announcement.
Thomas gestured to the empty chair at our table. “Care to join us?”
The man didn’t bother answering. He simply pulled a chair back with a sharp scrape and sat, then leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table.
“You are enjoying our hospitality, yes?” His eyes flicked to my half-eaten scone. “How fortunate for you, to have time for breakfast while my people work tirelessly to rebuild this city.”
“The espresso is quite good.” Thomas ignored the jabs. Picking up his cup and waving toward the Soviet, he asked, “Would you care for one?”
“No. I prefer tea.” Antonov snapped his fingers at the waitress and barked in Russian. Moments later, she reappeared with a cup of tea, which he took without a word of thanks.
Silence stretched as Antonov sipped, his sharp eyes darting toward the suited men across the street, then back to us. Finally, he set the cup down and leaned back.
“We have a full day ahead,” he said. “I have arranged for your first stop to be one of our depots, a location where we store items confiscated from fascists during our liberation of Berlin.”
“Confiscated?” Thomas asked, arching a brow.
“Yes,” Antonov snapped. “Confiscated. Stolen from the Nazis, as they stole from others. You Americans call it justice, do you not?”
“We do not care what the Americans call it. We Germans believe it is simply the right thing to do,” Thomas protested.
Antonov smiled at that. “Yes, of course, you Germans do.”
I decided to steer the conversation before Thomas provoked the man further. “We appreciate the access, Captain. The more we can see, the better our chances of identifying pieces that can be returned to their rightful owners.”
“Rightful owners,” he muttered. “Very well; but I warn you, comrades, this is not a museum. It will not be delicate on your eyes.”
Long moments passed as we waited for Antonov to finish his tea. Our sentinels barely moved. I hadn’t seen the one man change to a new cigarette, though the one he held looked freshly lit. The other man had yet to turn a page of his newspaper, marking him a rookie in our game.
The clank of Antonov’s cup on the table was the only indication that our leisurely morning had concluded. He stood, adjusted his coat, and strode purposefully toward the door without looking to see if we followed.
Thomas shrugged with his eyes, then stood.
I offered a mental farewell to the remaining scones, consciously deciding not to shove them into my pockets, then followed Thomas.
A short drive later, we stood before a nondescript warehouse, its exterior still pockmarked with bullet holes. Most—but not all—of the windows had been replaced. Those still shattered by war were masked with plastic nailed to the frame. A Soviet flag fluttered above the entrance, its vivid crimson a stark contrast to the grimy stone and rusted metal.
“Do not touch anything without asking first. The curator of this facility is quite, how do you say, anxious.”
With that admonition, Thomas and I followed our host as he stepped through the warehouse door. Inside, the air was thick with dust and the tang of mildew. Rows of wooden crates stretched into the dimly lit corners of the space. Some were neatly stacked, while others appeared tossed about in a rush. A handful of workers in Soviet uniforms toiled among the crates, their movements disinterested and unhurried.
“This is our primary recording office, the central repository for information. Other locations we will visit house more of the actual items, but I thought this would be a good place to begin.” Antonov’s voice echoed off the high ceiling as we stepped inside. “Some of these crates have not been opened since they arrived. Others contain artifacts we are still cataloging.”
“Efficient,” Thomas mumbled a little too loudly. Antonov shot him a glance but didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he gestured for us to follow him down one of the aisles.
As we walked, I scanned the crates, noting a variety of markings. Most bore Soviet emblems and Russian notations, but a few still wore the swastika, though most of those had been marred with graffiti-like paint scrawls or burns. A few bore names in faded ink—Jewish-sounding names, I realized with a pang of unease.
A flash of motion down the row of crates caught my eye.
I looked up in time to catch the back of a man wearing a dark suit as he stepped quickly down another row. I couldn’t see his face but was fairly certain he was our newspaper non-reader from the café. Thomas, a couple strides ahead of me, was engaged in conversation with Antonov. I doubted he’d seen the figure.
“ . . . of these are paintings,” Antonov was saying as I stepped closer and refocused. “We also have many statues and carvings. Jews must truly love such things.”
He didn’t say the word “Jews” with a lack of respect, but there was no care with its use either. My mind wandered to Arty, one of the kindest, gentlest people I had ever known. His family had welcomed me into their home. His brothers played with me as though I was another of their number. His mother offered a seat at her table and shed tears as I mourned the loss of my own parents. They weren’t Jews to me. I mean, they were, but they were so much more than their beliefs or heritage. They were extensions of my own family.
Peering up at painted names on lifeless crates, I couldn’t help but see Arty and his folks emblazoned on the wood. Our mission was to figure out why the Soviets were so worked up, why they were flooding the East with agents, but in that moment, all I cared about was helping Arty—and all the Artys who might have had precious relics ripped from their homes.
Our mission suddenly felt more important.
It felt more personal.
“Hey.” Thomas’s voice brought me back to the present.
“Oh, sorry. Got lost in my head.”
“He wants to know if there’s anything in particular you want to see, if there’s something specific you’re looking for.”
I nodded and stepped past Thomas to face Antonov. “Could we start with your records? Where do you keep information about each piece’s origin, where you ‘liberated’ it, as you said?”
“We anticipated your needs. Come with me.”
We strode the rest of the way down the aisle, then turned toward a row of offices that formed the far wall. Without knocking, Antonov opened the middle door and stepped in as though he owned the place. A man of impossible-to-guess age blinked up from his desk.
“Out. Now,” Antonov barked.
The man blinked a few more times, his gaze shifting from Antonov to me, then back. When he didn’t move, Antonov added, “That was not a request.”
Two blinks later, the man rose and brushed past us, muttering angrily in Russian as he went. Thomas must’ve understood because he snickered, then covered his mouth with a hand. Antonov stepped around the desk and sat, the squeal from the chair drawing both our attention.
“This,” Antonov said, sliding a notebook across the desk, “is your register, or whatever you Americans call it.”
“Germans,” Thomas corrected.
Antonov waved his hand in the air.
I sank into a chair and opened the binder, flipping through a few pages before realizing the entire thing was in Russian. The Cyrillic letters may as well have been Egyptian hieroglyphics for all I could read of the stuff. I blew out an annoyed breath and turned my head toward Thomas. “A little help here.”
There were no other chairs, so I stood and let Thomas sit before the binder. He scanned a few sheets before looking back at me. “It’s a logbook containing names of pieces, descriptions, estimated weights and sizes, that sort of thing. There are columns for the original owner and original address, but most are blank.”
“We do the best we can,” Antonov said, spreading his hands in a placating gesture.
“Right,” I said, leaning over to look past Thomas at a page before remembering I couldn’t read any of the script. I straightened and smiled at our host. “May we take this with us? I would like to study it back at our hotel.”
“Of course,” he said. “I had the facility make a copy for you.”
A copy. Right.
That meant nothing in the book could be trusted. The darn thing was probably bugged. I made a mental note for us to check that out when we got back to the hotel.
“Thank you, Captain. I believe this logbook is more helpful than continuing our tour. Once we have studied it, I will have further requests of items to be reclaimed and whatnot.”
Antonov stood. “Of course. Tomorrow, we visit other locations in which we process and store such items. For now, let us move on. I wish to show you the sector.”
Thomas stood and shot me a glance that unmistakably read, “What the hell does a tour of the sector involve?” though neither of us spoke. We simply followed Antonov like two lost puppies desperate to keep up with their mother.