The hall was a veritable feast for the eyes. Copious amounts of fine marble polished to a beautiful sheen, liberal applications of gold leaf and stunning stucco work were combined with frescos executed in vibrant colors, elaborate wood decorations and elegant chandeliers to create an impression of opulence and regality he had never experienced. Zeki wondered how anyone could read sitting in the midst of such beauty. He wouldn’t have been able to take his eyes off the ceiling to look at a book.
So, this is the library founded with the private collection of books Eugene of Savoy had donated to the crown.
It was an exquisite masterpiece of Austrian art and culture. Eighty meters long, it was the largest Baroque library in the world and held two hundred thousand volumes.
The man at the door cleared his throat, forcing Zeki to pry his eyes away from the magnificence.
“Do you have a ticket?” the man asked. “If not, they can be purchased on the ground floor.”
“Ticket? I made a reservation yesterday.”
“You mean for the Augustinerlesesaal?”
“Yes.”
The man bowed ever so slightly and raised his hand with the palm up and pointed to the door on the left. Zeki nodded his head in thanks, turned and walked towards the small anteroom, vowing to return and spend an entire day in the Prunksaal at his first opportunity.
The anteroom was paneled with wood up to about eight feet and there was a heavy plexiglass security door set in the left wall. He saw a small rectangular metal panel left of the door, put his finger on the button and pushed. A few seconds later, there was a buzz and click. He pulled the door and it opened.
He walked into a small room filled with what looked like modern lockers made of a blonde wood and accented with trim in primary colors of red, yellow and blue. He thought the style more suited to a kindergarten classroom than an imperial palace museum. On the other side of the room were four steps leading through an open door.
He climbed the steps and walked through double doors into a surgically white, brightly lit, long rectangular reception room with three large windows on each side. At the other end of the room was another pair of matching doors.
This is it. Game time.
He noticed the security camera above the second window across from the receptionist desk.
They didn’t think that one through very well. They are videoing the backs of the visitors and the face of the attendants.
There were also small cameras mounted on the book cases across from the reception room and pointed down at the study tables. The absence of a metal detector surprised him. In Turkey, even shopping malls had a metal detector.
All of the furniture and even the fishbone parquet flooring were the same straw-colored wood, a striking postmodern contrast with the dark oak used in the original doors and window frames. Obviously, the room had been redecorated in the not-too-distant past. Behind the counter on the right were three librarians.
CHAPTER
57
“
Guten Morgen
.”
A pleasant looking young lady with short black hair had addressed him. He noticed immediately that she had a lazy eye, a physical defect that had no effect on her smile.
“
Guten Morgen
,” replied Zeki. “My German is not so good. Do you speak English?”
“Yes, of course,” she answered. “How can I help you?”
“My name is Fatih Gülben. I believe you are the lady I spoke with yesterday on the phone. I called about reserving Codex 2662, THEOL. 62 and N.B. 215.”
“Oh yes. Now I recognize your voice.”
Zeki noted the comment. Tomorrow, when he showed up with his real face, he would need a new voice to go with it.
“I really appreciate you allowing me to see the manuscript on such short notice.”
“It’s no problem. In fact, we had already requested it from the archives for another researcher from the Vatican tomorrow, so it was already here and the other two volumes are used very infrequently. I’ll need to see your ID.”
He handed her Fatih Gülben’s passport. She looked at it carefully and then compared it with his face. She scanned a digital copy for the library records and set it down on the counter to copy the passport number into the library checkout register along with the titles he had reserved. When she was finished, she put the passport in a cubbyhole.
“I’ll also need you to sign this,” she said as she spun the thick, black binder around on the counter so that it faced him. She pointed to the column for his signature and then handed him the pen.
“Right there, please.”
Zeki took the pen and carefully executed the signature he had practiced for hours on the flight from Istanbul. It had to be perfect. When he lifted the pen from the paper, he was pleased.
“Thank you,” she said, taking a deep breath in preparation for what was obviously a memorized spiel regarding library rules.
“I must ask that you leave your computer bag in one of the lockers you passed at the entrance as no bags are allowed in the reading room. There is a key in each locker. You deposit a two-Euro coin and the key can be removed. When you retrieve your belongings, the deposit will be returned. Photographs are not allowed in the reading room. You must use a pencil for any notes you want to take. We can provide one if necessary. Pens with permanent ink are strictly forbidden. You may use the book for the entire day, but as I told you on the phone, another researcher has it reserved for tomorrow.”
Zeki grimaced.
“I’m not sure I have any Euro coins on me. I just arrived this morning, you see. I rushed to the hotel, left my belongings and came straight here.”
He checked his pockets, feigning a genuine attempt to find what he already knew was not there.
The girl attempted to come to his aid.
“I can give you change for a five or ten-Euro note.”
He feigned another ruffle through his wallet and with an oh-boy-I-hope-you-can-help-me look he pulled out a 100-Euro banknote and said, “I don’t suppose you have change for this?”
She smiled and shook her head.
“I’m afraid not.”
Zeki’s face dropped, and he faked a cough.
“Excuse me, I think I may be coming down with a cold. Well, I suppose I shall have to go back out for change.”
He could see from her face that the girl felt compassion for him.
“There is no need for that, Mr. Gülben. I will give you a two-Euro coin. You can return it when you leave.”
She opened a drawer, picked up a two-Euro coin and handed it to him.
“That is very kind of you,” he said.
“Not at all.”
Zeki headed out of the room back towards the lockers and made sure to cough a couple of more times. He inserted the coin she had given him and opened the locker. He removed a yellow legal pad and a pencil from his bag before placing it in the locker, closing the door and removing the key. When he returned to the counter, the short-haired girl was gone, but his manuscript—codex 2662—was sitting on the counter between two black, foam pads.
A tall fellow with a 72-hour beard noticed that Zeki had returned and dutifully shuffled towards him. The man wore a thick sweater even though it was summer time. His back was slightly hunched and his shoulders drooped unnaturally. His head looked like it was permanently tilted forward because when he came up to Zeki he raised his eyes to look over the top of his glasses but did not lift his head. The lethargy one would expect from a caretaker of dusty old forgotten books in an old monastery oozed from his gait and posture. One couldn’t have cast for the part and found someone so perfectly suited for the role.
He handed Zeki a rectangular cube of transparent plastic about five-inches long with the letters Ö.N.B. inscribed in yellow and a number on one end.
Zeki took it and coughed again.
“That is your seat number and this is to hold the book open,” he said handing Zeki what looked like a short piece of velvet rope.
Zeki took it and was surprised at the weight.
“What’s inside this?” he asked out of a desire to appear harmless and curious.
“It’s filled with round, lead balls encased in plastic.”
The attendant picked up the two foam pads and put them side by side with the narrow edges touching in the middle and the thicker edges on the outside.
“This is for holding the book as you read. It keeps the cover of the book from lying completely flat, which, of course, prevents unnecessary strain on the binding.”
“I see,” replied Zeki.
Without a word the man shuffled away. Zeki picked up the manuscript and the other two volumes, took a deep breath and turned so that he was squarely facing the security camera. He didn’t want it to look like a mug-shot. He gave it a sense of naturalness by patting his pockets, pretending to look for his cell phone. Now, Austria border police had Fatih Gülben entering the country and there was a clear video record of Fatih Gülben checking out the G.O.B.
He turned to his right and headed for the Augustinerlesesaal. As he stepped out of the bright, sterile atmosphere of the reception area into the reading room, he was struck by its beauty. It was nowhere near as opulent as Prunksaal. It had a simpler elegance. Zeki could tell his adrenaline levels were rising and his mental processing power with it. Every detail was etched into his mind on the off-chance that it would be important.
This is it,
he told himself.
The slightest mistake could mean failure.
He stopped at the entrance and scanned the room, all of which stretched away to his left. Immediately on his right was a beautiful wooden banister, behind which were two computers for library personnel. He turned left and looked down the length of the long rectangular room. He noticed that the banister actually encircled the entire chamber on both sides, restricting access to the shelves of books that hugged the walls. Behind the banister on either side were tall wooden ladders on wheels allowing library personnel to reach books on the top shelves. A red carpet stretched between two rows of study tables, each of which had two chairs on either side, and two reading lights with pale, green lampshades. There were fourteen tables, seven on each side of the room. Five tall, narrow windows allowed slivers of sunlight into the otherwise dimly lit interior, and five video cameras mounted on the shelves glared down on visitors to ensure the security of the libraries priceless holdings.
Zeki began to make his way to his assigned seat looking at the numbered brass plates. The walls were painted in soft, malachite green. At first glance, they appeared to be supported by plaster columns and topped with crown molding. It was a visual trick; they had merely been painted to create a three dimensional effect. A beautiful fresco of blue sky and white fluffy clouds surrounded by noble human figures made the ceiling look like a portal to heaven.
He stopped at his table more than halfway down on the right and sat down facing the far end of the room where another attendant sat at a computer on his left. The other end of the room was elevated above the rest, almost like a small stage accessed by four steps. The librarian sitting at the desk in front of a flat panel computer screen looked to be about fifty years old. She had jet black hair, dyed of course. Her turquoise shirt seemed out of place, a bit too loud for a library; her nails had been painted to match.
The security camera directly above him was the next thing he noticed. He set the books on his left and put the notebook on his right. He arranged the foam pads like the man had shown him and placed the package containing the Gospel of Barnabas in front of him. Thick, gray card stock protected the manuscript. The only marking on the outside was a label in the upper right corner with the words
Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Cod. 2662
.