Sophie's place was neat but cold. Jacob kind of hugged himself and complained gently about his arthritis. Sophie turned on the gas central heating.
The dog was on the couch. Jacob sneezed.
'Sorry.' Then, 'C'mon pooch, out.' And out onto the patio he went, without complaint.
Sophie followed him, for a cigarette, glanced at a window opposite, one where she'd seen an interesting-looking guy work out. She'd seen him twelve times do that, wondered if he knew she watched. She worked out mostly after work, on her cold sheets.
He wasn't on.
As the tobacco caught fire, Jacob was at her shoulder.
'Mind if I join you?'
A police car was parked down below, the cops sitting against the hood, also smoking Marlboro Gold.
Jacob inhaled.
The cigarette tasted of burnt cinder toffee, pistachio nuts and Central Park in the Fall. With just a hint of death and ashes.
The cops got in their car and drove away to an armed robbery at a corner store three blocks away. Nobody was hurt.
'Mind if I use your laptop?'
'Of course,' worried that she hadn't cleared her browsing history.
She turned the machine on, asked Jacob to open a bottle of wine, launched Firefox and pressed Control+Shift+Delete.
He poured two glasses. She sat on the couch and thought. He tapped in the magazine's Gmail domain, his username and password, Gamain89. A scan of the inbox turned up little of interest, so he clicked on Apps, Drive, Create, Document. He named it Cover Story - China - Jacob, immediately clicked on Share and shared it with Jack, the production manager and designer back in the office. So, from the first characters he typed, Jack would be able to access the document and lift the words.
Words of pure gold, in Jacob's mindspace.
He swigged his wine, was alerted to his fading sobriety, placed the glass at the far end of the little wooden IKEA writing desk, just at the limit of his reach.
Sophie switched on the TV, a late movie, The Wizard of Oz.
'Damn,' said Jacob. 'Don't put that on. I want to see it.'
'Sorry,' she said. 'Criminal Minds okay?'
Christ. 'Fine. I'm sorry. It’s just that I read somewhere that it’s an allegory for the gold-backed dollar. Follow the yellow brick road, stick with gold. And the fake and shallow Emerald City represents paper money. I just wanted to see if it adds up.'
'Don't worry about it.' Dick, with your cultural references for every damned thing.
All of a sudden it was like back when they were together and everything was a hassle, an argument. Like they were married. She breathed more deeply and drank some wine. Maybe being aware of your stupid, stupid childishness is part of the solution? The beginning of the solution.
'I'll TiVo the Wizard,' she said. 'We can watch it when you're done.'
'This could take a while.'
She shrugged, as expected, while he tapped away at the worn grey keys with just his two index fingers. The letters blurred but the words flowed easily.
Sophie picked up her cherished cookbook, Larousse Gastronomique, caressed its worn dust jacket, melted into a snug corner on the couch, thumbed through the classic recipes.
Jacob eased into the writing zone and time melted as he crafted witty and interesting paragraphs about the Chinese obsession with curves, their early mastering of bronze castings and the evolution of landscape painting by the masters of the eleventh century. Chinese paintings, ink on scrolls, were influenced by Buddhism but not, as Christian art, to be holy icons, but to aid contemplation and meditation. Their timeless qualities made them retain their grace and beauty a thousand years later. These were not tacky images for the manipulation of peasants, but reflections of intrinsic beauty. Finally, he tackled the one aspect of Chinese art that everybody thought that they knew about. But what did they really know about Ming vases, now a comedy trope, an overused device: if there is a Ming vase, it will be broken. Jacob gave the simple, stunning reason for their crazy valuations: precisely their delicacy. Then the new numbers: the growth in the market for old school Chinese art was a given, that’s where the money is, and the moneyed communists buying international respectability through the purchase of western classics, that’s what’s driving the global art market. But the impending explosion in Chinese modern art, that would merit an article of its own. Funny how a crazy dictatorship is driving the art world. What would Picasso have made of that? He would’ve painted something amazing.
And when they kick out the dictators? Goodbye Picasso. Hello Ai Weiwei. President of a democratic China? Maybe.
Probably.
Dead Sichuan schoolkids will make that happen. Then let the corrupt, dead-eyed West shudder. For they will wipe the floor with us.
In.
Every.
Good.
Way.
Jacob referenced some images that could be used to complement the words, made doubly sure that there were no political references hiding within his words, for the paymasters always watched, decided to take a break before proofing.
Autosave, every two seconds, brilliant.
He pushed his shoulders back, stretched his spine. Enough. Tagged on a little note: Please proof, Jack. I am done. J.
Sophie read her iPad, raised her eyebrows.
‘That’s interesting.’
‘Hnnh?’
‘An article in Flavour journal. It’s all peer-reviewed scientific and psychological research on flavour. Very elBulli. I’ve just sent it to you. You like Kandinsky, don’t you?’
‘Ah? Yes?’ jokily sarcastic.
‘This chef, Michel, made a beetroot and mushroom salad three ways. Tossed. Separate components. And made to look like Kandinsky’s Painting #201.’
‘Go on.’
‘Everyone thought the Kandinsky salad tasted better. Diners were able to recognise an artistic pattern in the food intuitively.’
‘Got it. Reward centres in the brain are activated in people looking at art and processing complex visual stimuli. Fascinating. There’s something here, Sophie. Something important.’
‘We eat first with our eyes.’
‘Where can we take this? I wonder.’
‘To the kitchen, for starters. Hungry?’
‘God, I wouldn't have thought it possible after that meal. But yeah. I'd eat.’
Sophie put out a bowl of toasted sunflower seeds, then cooked up some fried ham and cheese sandwiches, their smell filling the space with anticipation. What is it about the smell of cooking cheese? Pheromones?
‘I’m too tired to make your sandwich look like the Mona Lisa, if that’s okay.’
‘To me, this looks better. I’ll eat, then sleep. If that’s okay, Sophie. The day I’ve had. I’m not kidding. I’m a crock, Madame.’
He was dazed, in a mental and physical stupor, sleep quietly sneaking up his spine. His exhausted reverie was broken by the cruel buzzer.
‘Who’s that?’
‘I’m not expecting anybody.’
Jacob said ‘Hello.’
A man’s face on the fuzzy screen. He looked okay, not obviously insane. Familiar?
‘Jacob, I need to talk to you.’
‘Who is this?’
‘I saw you at Vierte today. You must know the truth about them.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s very late.’
‘But you need to know that they are Nazis.’
Jacob dropped his hand from the intercom, looked to Sophie, who was drying her hands on her apron.
‘Jesus,’ he said.
‘Some day you’re having,’ she said.
‘What do we do?’ He genuinely didn’t know the answer. This was too much. This. Is this what they mean by the edge of reason?
‘Could he be telling the truth?’ she asked.
‘Of course he could. A mega-rich corporation with a hand in dodgy deals in the art world? That’s got Nazi written all over it. But I thought Vierte were Freemasons.’
‘And then the killing today.’
‘The killing today...’
Jacob held up a finger, then used it to prod the intercom.
‘What is the relevance of Arnold Böcklin?’ he asked. That’s the name, the unicorn at Vierte!
‘He was Hitler’s favourite painter. Why do you ask?’
And, yes, now I remember. The moonlit sea scene - ‘Maritime Nocturno’ by failed artist Adolf Hitler.
‘Are you a Nazi?’
‘No,’ he said calmly. ‘I want to destroy them.’
Jacob turned off the man’s face again, told Sophie about the paintings he’d seen in Vierte that day.
‘It struck me as very odd, though I didn’t know why. That’s all.’
Sophie said ‘As a Jew, however lapsed, it’s in my genetic memory to want Nazis punished.’
‘I’ll go down to him and talk to him at the door. I’ll only bring him up if he seems credible. That okay?’
‘Okay. Be careful.’
Jacob smiled as he thumbed the buzzer and said he’d be right down.
Sophie waited, lighting a cigarette and on the balcony, looking down at the street for idling cars, surveillance vans, lurking assassins.
Time moved deliberately. Slowly. Her mind again filled with the horror of the Holocaust stories she’d heard all her life.
Then the door opened and Jacob came back, the stranger behind him. Sophie’s nervous smile driven away by Jacob’s awkwardness and the gun the stranger held to his side.
‘Sit, both of you,’ he said.
They sat, side by side on the red leather couch.
Jacob couldn’t speak. Sophie chose not to, her heart screaming painfully in her throat, a sensation she’d never felt before.
The stranger stood before them, the gun held casually at his side. Sophie couldn’t take her eyes off it.
‘I don’t mean to scare you,’ he said, gesturing at the gun. ‘Look.’ With his left hand, he took an identification card from his coat pocket and passed it to Jacob.
Jacob saw MOSSAD and the man’s photo and writing in Hebrew and English. He appeared shabby, crumpled, tired. Deliberately so?
‘You’re with the Israeli secret service, Daniel?’
He nodded. ‘I have been working to uncover Vierte for two years. Black operation, the Americans didn’t want to know. When I confirmed that Peter Egner was here in New York, my orders were to kill him.’
‘The old man?’
‘Yes. He was deeply involved in the killing of over 17,000 people in Serbia.’
‘So why are you telling us?’
‘There is an even greater prize hidden in Vierte. You know of Dr Death, Sophie?’
She shuddered at the mention of the name. ‘Of course.’
‘Jacob, let me tell you briefly of Dr Aribert Heim. He served the Nazi regime at Mauthausen concentration camp. He experimented on many prisoners, injecting various substances directly into their hearts to see how they would die. He removed organs without the use of anaesthetics. He did things that no human being should be capable of.’
Sophie was pale like a January morning. She’d heard all the stories about Dr Death. The Ultimate Nazi, a complete break between humanity and twisted ideology.
‘Can I put the gun away?’ asked Daniel.
‘Yes,’ said Sophie. ‘Welcome to my home. Coffee?’ Breakfast?
So they drank good coffee and learned about how the American Army had rounded up Germany’s top scientists - the rocket makers, the atomic bomb designers, the jet fighter engineers - and flown them to the States from under the Soviets’ noses. Most were taken to Los Alamos and other secret facilities out west, but some stayed in New York. ‘Probably bribed some penpusher, likely with stolen art.’ And so Vierte was formed, its mission to build a Fourth Reich, finish Hitler’s schemes. Vierte. Fourth. Almost audible clicking from Jacob’s tired brain as everything slotted neatly into place. ‘What their plot is, we don’t know. But these are good times for them. Their financial holdings, including lots of gold, have never been stronger. The global financial system is still on life support. Wouldn’t take much to knock us all back into the Dark Ages. The Wall St Crash created the conditions that brought Hitler to power. Dr Death is the key. Kill him and we might just kill the plan.’
And now the Simon Wiesenthal Centre believed that Dr Death was hiding at its rotten heart. The realisation slowly dawned on Jacob that the story was just beginning. The day I’ve had! What could possibly come next?
‘I need your help, Jacob. I need you to locate Dr Death so that I can kill him.’
Oh. Is that all?
‘Oh.’
‘I don’t believe that he’s in Vierte. He’d need a full medical set-up, probably a life support machine, even. There’s got to be a clinic somewhere, a retirement home with the best medics on hand.’
‘Where old Nazis go to die.’
‘What do you think? Any ideas?’
‘I’m not like you, Daniel. I can’t just walk back in there like this never happened. Like I don’t know about Dr Death.’
Daniel sat back in the chair, smiled. Sophie gave Jacob a pleading look. Please.
‘We hide the truth every day, Jacob,’ said Daniel. ‘That’s part of being human. We all have secrets we’d rather not share...’
‘Dark secrets.’
‘Exactly. I know this will be hard. But you can do it.’ He stood then. ‘I must go. Jacob, you need some rest. Can I call you in the morning?’
‘Sure, yeah. Let me give you my number.’ Daniel raised an eyebrow. ‘You have it. Of course you do.’
And he was gone.
‘Guy moves like a cat,’ said Sophie.
‘A lethal fucker of a cat. I’ve seen him in action.’ A yawn, a really big one.
‘You’re in the spare room, fresh sheets in there.’
‘A bitchin’ end to a bitchin’ day.’
He was asleep in seconds, slow motion dreams of tigers pacing inside enormous vases that could hold the world.
Sophie did some tidying and worked through some notes on the specials for the rest of the week. She sat on the balcony and enjoyed the night city and wondered about Rod. Part of her wanted to take more time off, maybe help Jacob with this big story he was getting into.
Sometimes, the different things that drive a person forward, sometimes they break, stop working. So sometimes you need new motivators. This is what late night TV is for. Redemption and salvation at the end of the phone.
Sophie sat on the couch as the endless infomercials rolled over her. She’d taken the ashtray in from the balcony, sat it on the coffee table. Screw the rules. Anyway, they were her rules.
Jacob’s snoring came in waves. She increased the TV volume, actually picked up her phone to call for an oil painting set. Unleash your inner artist for just $29.99 plus postage!
‘Who am I kidding?’ she said as she turned the damned thing off. ‘Never worked for Adolf.’
In her quest for new motivation, she browsed her CD collection which, having replaced her scratchy vinyl, had stalled in about 2007. She smiled at the Dead Kennedys’ Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, found Ramones by The Ramones from 1976, the very first punk album. A genuine artefact. I was nine years old, just about tiring of my Holly Hobbie rag doll.
Played loud, it killed the buzz saw of Jacob’s snores.
But she couldn’t help wondering about Rod. There was something just not right. She didn’t know what. Could’ve been something she saw, something she smelled, something she sensed. She tried to work out what but in the end gave up and collapsed onto her bed. She was woken by her phone at 7.30, still in her clothes.
She made fresh coffee, smoked and showered. She checked in on Jacob, had to wait and watch for a few seconds to make sure his chest was rising.
‘Alive, but dead to the world,’ she said, quietly.
It was like checking on a baby.
She had an idea to go and visit her mom out in Maspeth, then jump on the Q53 bus to Rockaway Beach, just hang out by the sea for the day, watch the surfers, drink some screwdrivers. Then she remembered that her mother was dead.
So she decided to leave him there, scrawled a note on the refrigerator blackboard, got out into the bright day, wondered what it could possibly bring, hoped for something good, something better.
It’s not hard, not far to reach.
A life spent reaching.