Strindberg's Star (45 page)

“You are sitting in the captain’s suite, after all,” Don tried. “Perhaps you can …”

“You want me to help you. Pay and get the icebreaker to turn around, so you can investigate something you say is a hole? Is it deep, Samuel Goldstein? Deep enough to contain something surprising?”

Then Lytton laughed again.

“You are funny, Señor Goldstein. And besides, what does your wife say about this?”

The piercing eyes were buried deep in his face.

“My … wife?” Don said. “You could say that all of this is her idea.”

“Really?” said Lytton, sounding a bit more interested. “So what are the two of you willing to bet on it, in that case?”

The old man rapped his knuckles against the X on the map. Then he sat there in silence, as though he were waiting for Don’s decision.

“I would probably have to discuss that with her, I guess,” Don mumbled.
He got up from the sofa, and although he hadn’t really had time to consider, he heard himself add, “Maybe we can show you something that really is amazing, Señor Lytton. Something you have never seen before.”

Lytton looked searchingly up at Don from the map.

“I have lived for a very long time, I can tell you, so I rather doubt that.”

Don could feel the dextroamphetamine making him smile; he turned around one last time and said, “Just give me half an hour, Señor Lytton. I’ll come back soon.”

“I’m more worried about how you will find your way back to your cabin, but in any case I wish you good luck.”

Lytton took a drag of the cigarillo and raised his hand in farewell. Then his eyes returned to the Arctic map and locked onto the position that Don had pointed out just a moment ago.

T
he dextroamphetamine had carried Don down the steep stairs to Eva Strand’s cabin with light steps. Outside the door he glanced at his watch and saw that it was long past midnight. Hesitated for a second, and then he knocked.

The door was opened so quickly that he got the feeling the attorney had been standing there waiting in the dark. Maybe she had been out on some errand too, because she already had her coat on.

Don saw Eva look questioningly at the Bunsen burner, which he was holding in his hand, and he cleared his throat and said, “I think maybe I’ve found someone who can solve our problem.”

If he’d been expecting a long discussion, he had been mistaken. Just a few minutes later, they were out in the polar night, on their way back to Agusto Lytton’s lounge.

Don could feel Eva wind her way under his arm to seek shelter from the severe cold. The wind caused the icicles on the railing to break off and fall down into the dark furrow that
Yamal
was plowing in the chalk white ice. Above them, the radar masts shook in the wind as the ship continued to force its way on to the north.

A
gusto Lytton had remained awake and left the doors to the captain’s suite ajar. When Don cautiously pushed them open, the old man was still hunched over the Arctic map on the glass table, lost in thought.

Lytton realized that they were standing there in the doorway, and in the thin corners of his mouth, a smile began to take shape.

“So you are Señora Goldstein?”

Lytton had stood up, and he waved at them to come in.

Don noticed that the top buttons of his silk shirt were unbuttoned now, and through the yellowed skin he could glimpse the bones of the man’s rib cage.

“Or do I dare call you Anna?” asked Lytton.

Eva Strand looked a bit strained as she greeted him. But the South American had already taken his eyes from her and was looking instead at the Bunsen burner and the plastic bag dangling at its side in Don’s hand.

“What is it you’ve brought with you?” Lytton asked. “Equipment for some kind of scientific experiment?”

Don didn’t really know what to say, so he just nodded slightly. Then he walked to the middle of the lounge with the Bunsen burner, which he placed on the glass table.

The star and the ankh clinked as he took them out of the bag, and then he began to assemble the gas cylinder’s hose.

“You know that it’s forbidden to even smoke aboard the icebreaker,” said Lytton. “If one follows the captain’s orders.”

The old man sat down in the easy chair and observed Don’s movements while he lit yet another cigarillo.

When the rubber hose was firmly attached to the valve on the burner, Don turned up the gas. Then the flame sparked to life, and he adjusted it to glowing white.

“I promised you something you’ve never seen before,” Don said, looking at Lytton.

“And I’m still doubtful,” said Lytton, taking another drag.

Don laid the ankh and star on the tripod’s wire gauze and then placed it above the flame from the burner. He could make out the South American’s face through the spheres that were slowly beginning to take shape.

When the North Star flashed to life, he heard a gasp from Lytton. Don moved closer so he could see the position that the ray pointed to on the white Arctic ice.

“You seem to have measured correctly,” said Lytton, when he had compared it to the black X on the map.

He picked up a compass to measure the distance from the X to the silver coin that marked the ship.

“To get there,
Yamal
must immediately turn onto a southwesterly course. We have already gone ten or twenty miles past it.”

As the flame went out and the spheres faded away, Lytton looked up at Don and said, “But I must ask you, Señor Goldstein … do you really know what it is the ray is pointing at?”

Don felt his mouth becoming increasingly dry. This speedy resolve was not something he’d counted on. Inside of him, the exhilaration slowly trickled away.

“It’s supposed to be some sort of opening into the underworld,” he said hesitantly.

“The important thing,” Eva said, “is whether you can help us get the icebreaker to turn south and take us there.”

“Getting the Russians to turn
Yamal
,” Lytton said, “is probably just a question of money. But of course we must also get the ship to wait at an adequate distance in order to investigate whatever is down in the opening in peace and quiet.”

Lytton leaned over the map.

“I can probably convince Sergei Nicolayevich. The icebreaker will have to stay a few nautical miles away, here …” Lytton pointed down at a dot that he’d already drawn on the map, just beyond the black X. “Then we’ll take the helicopter and fly out to investigate whatever it
is that’s out there in the ice. It will have to take as long as it takes; the North Pole can wait.”

T
he Bunsen burner was still standing on the glass table, and the objects had fallen apart on the wire gauze of the tripod. Out of pure instinct, Don wanted only to pack up all the equipment and leave Lytton and the captain’s lounge. But it was already too late, for now the old man reached out and picked up the ankh in his hand.

“It’s so light,” Lytton said, letting his fingers glide across the inscriptions on the ankh, “and strangely enough, completely cold.”

“It’s probably best to …” Don began, but he was interrupted by Lytton:

“Do you know what? I think I would like to see the experiment once more. That star ray was truly beautiful, and maybe we could determine where it’s pointing even better if we try once more.”

Don got up from the sofa to start disassembling the Bunsen burner. Lytton grabbed his hand and said, “I really insist, Señor Goldstein. I can light it myself, if you don’t want to.”

Then he moved the tip of his cigarillo toward the opening of the gas pipe. Adjusted the regulator, and soon the white flame was burning again.

D
on stood there, at a loss, and watched Eva help get the ankh and the star in place. The attorney didn’t seem particularly concerned about Lytton’s snap decision.

He turned his back to them and walked away a bit to try to figure out what was actually going on. Through the row of windows in the captain’s suite, Don could see the spotlights shining against the heavily falling snow.

After he’d stood there for a while listening to the dull sound of the ice breaking under the ship, he looked back at the glass table where the spheres had now begun to appear once more.

Lytton and Eva didn’t seem particularly interested in what he was doing, so Don continued toward the open writing desk that stood against the far wall of the lounge.

He began to fumble through the piles of paper, but Lytton must have had excellent hearing, because from behind him Don could hear the South American say, “Don’t touch anything there, please, Señor Goldstein.”

Don lifted something that looked like a blueprint. He threw a glance over his shoulder to see if Lytton would react, but at this point the old man was looking intently at the searching light of the North Star.

Lytton Enterprises seemed to have broad business interests, Don thought as he paged further through the papers on the writing desk. Chemical formulas and physical calculations were mixed in with financial cost-estimate sheets and texts of an almost New Age nature. After a blueprint with a technical description of an MRI scanner, his attention was caught by a picture from an awards ceremony. There was a German name that he couldn’t help but recognize:

“Fritz Haber … ?” Don mumbled.

“¿Disculpe?”
Lytton said, without taking his eyes from the spheres. “Excuse me, what did you say?”

“I see here that your company, Lytton Enterprises, has given a ‘Scholarship of Fritz Haber’ to a Luis Flores?”

“Every year, for many years, Señor Goldstein. Luis Flores is a very gifted young chemist. We are happy to be able to help him.”

“Is this scholarship named for the famous Fritz Haber?”

“For the winner of the Nobel Prize, yes. Haber was actually one of the founders of Lytton Enterprises, you could say. Why?”

“You mean Fritz Haber? The researcher who received the Nobel Prize for the Haber process?”

“Yes, it was a completely groundbreaking way to create ammonia. A very receptive chemist, Fritz Haber,” said Lytton, who was now looking over at Don.

But Don was back in Ypres and the war museum, at the display case about chemical warfare.

“You
are
aware that Fritz Haber’s wife committed suicide after the gas attack at Gravenstafel? She couldn’t stand knowing that her husband had not only invented the gas used in the war, but also insisted upon being there at the front to open the spigots himself. She shot herself in the heart when she found out what Fritz Haber had done. He set off that same morning for the eastern front to supervise fresh attacks against the Russians. That time, the Germans used a type of nerve gas that no one had seen before.”

Don looked at Lytton.

“It was Fritz Haber’s research that led to the Nazis’ favorite gas, Zyklon B.”

“Zyklon B was created to get rid of insects,” said Lytton in a measured tone. “It was never meant to be used against people. Besides, Fritz Haber has presumably saved more lives than anyone.”

“You think so?” Don muttered, continuing to page through the piles of paper on the writing desk.

“Well, you see,” Lytton said, “the Haber process made the industrial production of ammonia possible, as well as cheap fertilizers for agriculture. Without that fertilizer, a third of the world’s population would starve to death. Stopping Haber’s research would have made all these lives impossible. Would that have been a more humane choice, Señor Goldstein?”

Lytton turned his back toward the Bunsen burner, drawn by the fizzling sound of the ray. And Don didn’t answer, because now he had caught sight of a different black-and-white photograph.

At first he had paged past it, because it looked like the cover of an advertising brochure. But there was something about that picture that …

The gas flame was turned down and shut off.

“An experience.
Muchas gracias,
Señora Goldstein. I’ll help you pack up.”

Lytton stopped talking. There was a clatter as Eva began to disassemble the Bunsen burner. Don realized that he only had a few short seconds.

It was difficult to really make out the faces in the grainy picture, but one of the men there was definitely Agusto Lytton. As the South American must have looked in his prime, before all the softness melted away from his cheekbones.

Next to Lytton in the picture were three people dressed in black, and in the row below them sat several more men and a young woman in a white blouse whose knees were turned modestly to the side.

LYTTON ENTERPRISE—BOARD OF DIRECTORS—BUENOS AIRES 1936

Don began to count from 1936. Judging by his face, Lytton must have been at least fifty years old when this picture was taken. If that were the case, now Lytton would have to be …

Don counted again, thinking that he must have read wrong.

He turned the brochure over. On the back the names were listed in the order in which they sat:

Fleischer, Haber …
J. Jansen
?

Don quickly turned back to the cover again. He met Agusto Lytton’s stern gaze from the middle of the back row. Lytton? Jansen? Had he changed his name?

And hadn’t there been another Jansen?

Front row, third from the left. Yes,
E. Jansen
.

The young woman, pale hair, but he would need a magnifying glass in order to really be able to see … Hadn’t Lytton had a magnifying glass? There it was—quickly, now, third from the left, the slanting legs,
the face, the cold eyes, and she really did look remarkably similar. E. Jansen—
Eva Jansen?

Eva …

Don felt a warm breath on the back of his neck. The attorney had moved so silently that he hadn’t heard a thing.

“I married into the name Strand two years after that photograph,” Eva whispered. “A Swedish man. He died in 1961.”

D
on didn’t turn around. Suddenly he was back in the interrogation room in Falun. He remembered that the attorney from Afzelius had reminded him of someone as she sat there in the clicking fluorescent light. And now he knew who it was Eva had reminded him of: the pictures in the evening papers of the dead man as he was carried out, the long hair that framed the face like a halo. Eva Strand resembled the man in the mine with the gash on his forehead. The man who, according to the letter in Malraux’s grave, had been named Olaf …