The pool house appeared before them, long and low, ornate globe lamps glowing through the rising mist. There were guards inside; Gabriel could just make them out through the fogged windows. One of them appeared to be leading a tiny robed figure.
And then Gabriel felt a searing pain in his right kidney. His back arched, his face tilted upward, and for an instant he saw the stiletto tips of the pine trees stretching toward the heavens, and in his agony the heavens were a van Gogh riot of color and motion and light. Then the second blow fell, this one at the back of his head. The heavens turned to black, and he collapsed, facedown, in the snow.
44
G BRIEL OPENED ONE EYE, then, slowly, the other. He might as well have kept them closed, because the darkness was perfect. Absolute black, he thought. Theoretical black.
It was bitterly cold, the floor rough concrete, the air heavy with sulphur and damp. His hands were cuffed behind him with his palms pointed out, so that the muscles of his shoulders burned with lactic acid. He tried to imagine the contorted position of his body and limbs: right cheek and right shoulder pressed against the concrete; left shoulder in the air; pelvis twisted; legs knotted. He thought of art school-the way the teachers used to twist the limbs of the models to expose muscle and sinew and form. Perhaps he was just a model for some Swiss Expressionist painting. Man in a Torture Chamber -artist unknown.
He closed his eyes and tried to right himself, but the slightest contraction of his back muscles set his right kidney on fire. Grunting, he fought through the pain, and managed to set himself upright. He leaned his head against the wall and winced. The second blow had left a knot the size of an egg at the back of his head.
He dragged his fingertips over the wall: bare rock; granite, he supposed. Wet and slick with moss. A cave? A grotto of some sort? Or just another vault? The Swiss and their damned vaults. He wondered if they would leave him here forever, like a gold bar or a Burgundian armchair.
The silence, like the darkness, was complete. Nothing from above or below. No voices, no barking dogs, no wind or weather; just a silence which sang in his ear like a tuning fork.
He wondered how Peterson had done it. How had he signaled the guard that Gabriel was an intruder? A code word at the gate? A missing password? And what of Oded and Eli Lavon? Were they still sitting in the front seat of the Volkswagen van, or were they in the same position as Gabriel-or worse? He thought of Lavon’s warning in the garden of the villa in Italy: People like Otto Gessler always win.
Somewhere the seal of a tightly closed door was broken, and Gabriel could hear the footsteps of several people. A pair of flashlights burst on, and the beams played about until they found his face. Gabriel squeezed his eyes shut and tried to turn his head from the light, but the twisting of his neck caused his head wound to pound.
“Put him on his feet.”
Peterson’s voice: firm, authoritative, Peterson in his element.
Two pairs of hands grabbed his arms and pulled. The pain was intense-Gabriel feared his shoulder joints were about to pop out of their sockets. Peterson drew back his fist and buried it in Gabriel’s abdomen. His knees buckled, and he doubled over. Then Peterson’s knee rose into his face. The guards released him, and he collapsed into the same contorted position in which he’d awakened.
Man in a Torture Chamber by Otto Gessler.
THEY worked as a team, one to hold him, the other to hit him. They worked efficiently and steadily but without joy and without enthusiasm. They had been given a job-to leave every muscle in his body bruised and every spot on his face bleeding-and they carried out their assignment in a thoroughly professional and bureaucratic manner. Every few minutes they would leave to smoke. Gabriel knew this because he could smell the fresh tobacco on them when they came back. He tried to hate them, these blue-coated warriors for the Bank of Gessler, but could not. It was Peterson whom he hated.
After an hour or so Peterson returned.
“Where are the paintings you took from Rolfe’s safe-deposit box in Zurich?”
“What paintings?”
“Where is Anna Rolfe?”
“Who?”
“Hit him some more. See if that helps his memory.”
And on it went, for how long Gabriel did not know. He didn’t know whether it was night or day-whether he had been here an hour or a week. He kept time by the rhythm of their punches and the clocklike regularity of Peterson’s appearances.
“Where are the paintings you took from Rolfe’s safe-deposit box in Zurich?”
“What paintings?”
“Where is Anna Rolfe?”
“Who?”
“All right, see if he can handle a little more. Don’t kill him.”
Another beating. It seemed shorter in duration, though Gabriel could not be sure, because he was in and out of consciousness.
“Where are the paintings?”
“What… paintings?”
“Where is Anna Rolfe?”
“Who?”
“Keep going.”
Another knifelike blow to his right kidney. Another iron fist to his face. Another boot to his groin.
“Where are the paintings?”
Silence…
“Where is Anna Rolfe?”
Silence…
“He’s done for now. Let him lie there.”
HE searched the rooms of his memory for a quiet place to rest. Behind too many doors he discovered blood and fire and could find no peace. He held his son, he made love to his wife. The room where he found her nude body was their bedroom in Vienna, and the encounter he relived was their last. He wandered through paintings he had restored-through oil and pigment and deserts of bare canvas-until he arrived on a terrace, a terrace above a sea of gold leaf and apricot, bathed in the sienna light of sunset and the liquid music of a violin.
TWO guards came in. Gabriel assumed it was time for another beating. Instead, they carefully unlocked the handcuffs and spent the next ten minutes cleaning and bandaging his wounds. They worked with the tenderness of morticians dressing a dead man. Through swollen eyes, Gabriel watched the water in the basin turn pink, then crimson, with his blood.
“Swallow these pills.”
“Cyanide?”
“For the pain. You’ll feel a little better. Trust us.”
Gabriel did as he was told, swallowing the tablets with some difficulty. They allowed him to sit for a few minutes. Before long the throbbing in his head and limbs began to subside. He knew it was not gone-only a short postponement.
“Ready to get on your feet?”
“That depends on where you’re taking me.”
“Come on, let us help you.”
They each grasped him gingerly by an arm and lifted.
“Can you stand up? Can you walk?”
He put his right foot forward, but the deep contusions in his thigh muscles made his leg collapse. They managed to catch him before he could hit the floor again and for some reason found great humor in this.
“Take it slowly. Little steps for a little man.”
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise. It won’t hurt, though. We promise.”
They led him through the door. Outside, a corridor stretched before him like a tunnel, long and white, with a marble floor and an arched ceiling. The air smelled of chlorine. They must have been close to Gessler’s swimming pool.
They started walking. For the first few yards Gabriel needed every bit of their support, but gradually, as the drugs circulated through his body and he became used to being vertical, he was able to move at a laborious shuffle without aid-a patient taking a first postoperative stroll through a hospital ward.