50
I REMAIN ALONE IN that penultimate pew, surrounded by dozens and dozens of other tourists but alone in any real sense, for an amount of time I could not quantify. I have no idea what next steps to take or whether to take any, whether I should heed the man’s advice and fly back home.
I do believe him, though. I will be no match for anyone meaning me harm. And I likely won’t even see it coming.
It could be that guy right there, I think, as I leave the high altar and head for the exit, the man wearing a pinstriped Yankees jersey and blue jeans, taking a photo with his phone.
Or that muscle-bound bald man in a navy turtleneck, whispering to a darker, shorter man as they join the cascade of tourists exiting the cathedral.
Or that young Asian woman with piercings on her face and hair dyed lime green, who is calling out to someone and headed straight toward me—
She runs into me, her left shoulder slamming mine, and I brace for a knife slicing into my stomach, the prick of a needle dispensing poison, a bullet between the ribs. But she merely mumbles something to me, probably some version of excuse me or watch where you’re going, and moves on.
I am frozen for just a moment, adrenaline coursing through me. She was no assassin. She was just a distracted teenager.
But it could be anyone, anywhere, at any time.
I am moving through the crowd on K?rntner Stra?e rather aimlessly, no plan, no idea of what to do next, when a woman headed in the opposite direction, carrying a toddler on her arm, drops her bag of groceries, spilling out the contents onto the stone walkway.
I bend down to assist. As I hand the last apple to her, the woman takes it and whispers in English, “Save the whales, Professor. Save the whales.” Then she stands with her shopping bag, lifts her child, and leaves.
Save the whales?
I continue walking forward. And then I see the sign, in the center of the crowded pedestrian street, not far from the Ambassador Hotel. A sign that reads GREENPEACE.
I connect the dots. Up ahead, I see a number of young people, dressed in fluorescent green shirts, handing out brochure packets. “Stoppt den kommerziellen Walfang!” one man shouts through a megaphone. Stop commercial whaling.
A young man with a skinny neck and curly chestnut hair puts a brochure in my hands. “Professor,” he says, before turning and handing out the next brochure to another passerby.
I take the brochure. It’s heavy, but I refuse to look at it, treating it as nothing more than some uninteresting leaflet to discard at the first opportunity. Not until I reach the lobby of my hotel do I look down at what I am holding.
It is a three-page document of thick embossed paper. The first page discusses the international moratorium on commercial whaling and Japan’s flouting of the decree. When I flip to the next page, I can see little of it, as taped to it is a piece of plastic.
And inside the plastic is a piece of stationery bearing the name A. Hitler.
With an ink-stained thumbprint on the bottom.
I double-blink and refocus, to make sure I am seeing this for what it is. It’s real. I thought it was, I always believed it, but now I know.
It’s real. And I will show it to the world.
My heart pounding like never before, sweat breaking out on my face, I take the elevator to the fifth floor. When I get off, a man appears from the corner of the hallway, wrapped up in a coat and hat, similar to the man at the cathedral.
“Professor,” he says. From his pocket he removes a gun, which he holds low.
Before the words no no no have even formed on my lips, he yanks the pages from me and steps back. He examines them, then places them carefully in his coat pocket.
I don’t answer, still in a state of disbelief. It was right there in my hands, verifiable, and now it is gone. Like a dream, whisked away upon waking.
The elevator dings. The man steps inside. “I suppose now you know how Inspector Bauer felt,” he says as the doors close.