Chapter 49 Turtle with a wooden leg - 11

Leiber's long journey to find his old trace (Diego Haas called it "the king's farewell performance" and later told George Taras all about it) happened in 1979. Some of the truths that the king himself revealed to Taras and Setniaz, supplemented by these facts, will later help them both to trace the life trace of Reber-Michel Klimrod - from his Born in Vienna until April 1980 - piece by piece.Of course, it is inevitable to leave some understandable gaps. Leiber didn't follow the original chronological order to make this tracking trip. He didn't go all over the way he walked in the past.At this point in his life, Georges Taras believed, Reber had made up his mind about the end of his wandering life.Now, he just needs to look back at some fragments of his past, wherever memories and journeys take him, he will go there, there is no definite route at all.

In 1979, Henri Alter was still alive, running a small company in the French West Indies that chartered crewed yachts to tourists who wanted to cruise the Caribbean. He smiled and said to Diego: "This is my great regret. At the beginning, if this ghost guy," he pointed to Leiber, "would stay and cooperate with me, I'm afraid we would have made a fortune together. " "By smuggling cigarettes?" Reber asked, smiling too.They spoke French. At that time, Diego's level of listening to French seemed to have improved, but he had not yet reached his ideal. "Quite right, of course on cigarettes. There was a lot of money to be made in those days. I did make a lot of it. At one point I made a billion francs. But then I lost the money again."

"Would the situation have changed if I were here?" "I absolutely believe in making a difference," Arte continued, turning to Diego. "He had one thing I've never had, a quick head, even though he was young then. It's such a good head!" "Que sorpresa. (Note: Spanish, surprisingly)" Diego said. "I was mucho mucho surprised." The Frenchman looked at Leiber's old cloth trousers and T-shirt. "It's funny," he said. "Tell you, I dared to swear that you would be promising in the future and become a celebrity."

"I know him," Diego interjected in English. "I know someone who knows him too, a hamburger seller in Greenwich Village. He was one of Leiber's admirers and never asked us to pay for it." Art laughed.He said he didn't mean that.He invited the two guests into the house together.He was married, had five children in the third generation, and had a pretty good business, though not a great one.For some unclear reason, the banks hated him anyway, as it had to do with mortgages and loans.But he likes this way of life, that's how he's always lived.He likes living by the sea.Thank God, if the bank aside, he didn't feel so miserable about getting old.He raised his glass of mixed sweet drink.

"Let's drink to the losers, we are losers, and we don't care about being losers." Not long after, a wealthy French man named Paul Soubis became Art's client.Because he was a minister in Paris, people called him "Monsieur President".As mentioned earlier, there is a bank that hates the cigarette smuggler who was operating in Tangier, and Soubis happens to have a stake in this bank. "You must find it ridiculous, sir," Art said later to Georges Taras.George Taalas' foundation has just signed a lucrative contract with the Frenchman's company, planning to organize some children's tours in the Caribbean. "However, I still want to say. You said that you know Reb Klimrod a little bit, and that Subis is so generous to me. I even think that there may be some kind of connection between these two people. "

"You're right, I do find it ridiculous." Taras replied calmly. In Jerusalem they lived for three or four days in Joel Banich's rather modest apartment.Yoel Bernish, though he doesn't wear a tie, is a member of the Knesset and soon to be Secretary of State. Bernice asked Leiber: "Were you in Tangier a few days ago?" “He dragged me to the markets that smelled like peppermint,” Diego said. “We even visited the palace where he used to live, it was only three square meters square, in Riyadh Street in the Kasbah. Now I know where he learned Spanish, it turned out that he was in Siajin Street with a man from the Kasbah. Lived with a little Spanish aristocrat from the north of Tiria; the man is now dead. I even put my meaty ass on a chair in the 'Cafe de Paris' because he used to sit there and drink Tea. Holy Mother, this is so exciting! We even went as far as the Malabata lighthouse."

Before going to Jerusalem in 1979, Dixiego knew Bernisch well, or so he claimed.He said he had met Bernice, but he was always unwilling to tell Talas the date, place or circumstances of the meeting.Setiniaz knew very little about Pernich, and Taras even less.Hantiniaz was sure that Pernich always knew what Klimrod was doing, and why, where, and how he did anything; The establishment of Jethro's intelligence network is an example.Bernice was an expert in such matters, and he probably helped in this regard.In 1956, Jethro himself delivered a letter that informed Leiber of the imminent attack on the Suez Canal.Through this mysterious tipping.Setiniaz saw irrefutable evidence of such a connection between the two of them.

In Israel, Leiber visited some old traces of past events in 1945-46, and what was even more unexpected was that he found the Northern Irishman named Parnell.James Parnell served in the British Army in Palestine thirty-three years ago and is now a journalist.It was he who told Diego about the attack on the police station in Yagur on March 1, 1946, in front of a secretly laughing Reb.Parnell and Bernie had been in contact over the years, but no one had explained the reason to Diego. "Even if Joel didn't tell me, I'd recognize you," Parnell said. He held out his index and middle fingers, pointing to his face.

"The eyes. I'm sure your eyes scared me more than the explosives you claimed to have with you. Are you scaring people, or are those two bags really containing twenty kilos of TNT?" "Thirty kilos," said Reber. "It's true." "Are you really going to send us all to heaven?" "What do you think?" Purnell found the gray eyes looking at him strangely. "I think you will," he said. They went together to St. Johann in Acre and had lunch at the Place de Janeiro-Amdam.That afternoon, Reb and Diego set off for Rome. In Italy, they followed the old Franciscan monastery route that Erich Steyr and other Nazis desperate to flee Europe took.They spent the night in Rome, and then it took Diego two days to reach the Rescen Pass in a rented car.On the way, Leiber told the bizarre story of the so-called "412 Royal Transport Company", which made Diego laugh out loud.

But as soon as they entered the Austrian border, Leiber's mood changed.He hardly said a word, only when he needed to be directed in which direction the car should go. "For thirty-four years, you have not been back to Austria?" "No." "Damn it, this is still your motherland!" no answer.Diego thought: Fatherland, killed his mother and sister, especially his father, and almost killed himself.It is better to forget such a motherland.Besides, what is a fatherland to Reb Klimrod?However, after all, it has been thirty-four years... They walked all day in Salzburg.Reber began to talk again, talking about what had happened in these places before them, but his voice was lower than usual, as if talking to himself.He recounted the events of that period, from his arrival in the city, to the death of Epak and the death of Lothar, the photographer of Castle Hartheim.

Diego did not stop in Hartheim, and the car passed through Linz and Mauthausen without stopping. Everything Reber did between the time he first left the Leondin refugee camp and when he went to Palestine with Joel Bernisch, about how he desperately sought out what happened to his father and how he later learned about him What happened to him and so on are only known by the three people, Setiniaz, Taras and Haas, who put together what they know.The section on Salzburg is mainly from Haas, the information on the Castle of Hartheim is from Settniaz, and he also provides information about Reber's visit to his hometown at dawn on June 19, 1945. In some episodes, Taras heard Leiber talk about the search for Steyr in Austria. Leaving Salzburg, they went directly to Vienna.Diego was ordered to park in front of a handsome private residence in the inner city. "What are we doing now?" "Nothing." Diego turned off the engine.The mansion had a grand portico with its phalanxes.Leiber looked at the door, sat in the car without making any gestures. Diego asked: "You were born in this house?" "yes." At this moment, several children came out of the house, and one of them held the radio to his ear. "Don't you want to go in?" Haas asked. "No." But Reber turned away and watched the two children walk towards the Bohemian Office.The two children, a boy and a girl, are between the ages of twelve and fifteen. "Reber could have had a child that age," Diego thought suddenly, instinctively.This made him feel very uncomfortable. silence.Reber turned his face to the windshield again. "Drive. Let's go," he said hoarsely. The next stop was a place called Reichenau, but first the car walked all the way through Vienna's Schönkengasse—"there used to be a bookstore here." Reichenau is hardly a village.Reber came to a lonely farmhouse and asked about a woman named Emma Donning.The couple who lived there had only vague memories of her.They said she was dead long ago, but Leib still insisted, "There were three children who were fostered in her house. Three little boys with blond hair and blue eyes. They should be thirty-five or forty years old now." The couple shook their heads; they knew nothing of Emma Donning or what happened to the three children in 1945.Reber asked these questions to people all over the village, and got the same answer: very few people knew about the late Emma Donning when she was alive.During the war and after the war, many children were fostered by her. Reber went back to the car and sat down, spreading his big, bony hands on his lap.He bowed his head and said, "Let's go, Diego." They stopped at Peyerbach slightly south.There was a family named Doppler there.Leiber asked them about an old man driving a car, and said that the old man was his friend who had invited him to his house for dinner many years ago. No, no one in the Doppler family remembered him.Of course they remembered their grandfather, but not Reb Klimrod. "You should ask Günther and his sister, they were here then. But they don't live in Austria now. They're in Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro, and they've made a fortune running several pastry shops. If you ever get to go to Rio de Janeiro... ..." Then, the last stop in Austria. This man was in his forties, his name was Keller, and he presided over a law firm that was equivalent to a notary office in Austria.They had agreed on the phone in advance that Keller would wait for them at the Isur Springs; he would come up as soon as Diego's car got there.Then they continued on their journey. Keller looked at Reber curiously. "My father told me he saw you once, in 1947 or 1948..." "It was 1947," said Reber. "March 24, 1947." Claire smiled. "Perhaps my memory is failing, or my father has made a mistake. I was only four years old at the time. But my father remembers you very clearly. When he passed away six years ago, he asked me to meet every detail you might ask. Any request. To tell you the truth, I'm interested in you. It's not easy to remember you for thirty-two years." Reber smiled and said nothing. Steam arrived at his hometown lake and stopped in front of the Pike Hotel.Keller got out of the car alone. "We'll be back in about two hours," Reber said. "Certainly, please join us for lunch. Please do your best." "There's no rush, I'm fine," Keller replied. The car drove away, this time in the direction of a small village called Bottomless Lake.At last they saw a lake appear among the brooding peaks; these peaks had a not very lovely name: Dead Mountain. "Let's get out of the car and take a few steps, Diego." "That's exactly what I'm asking for." They are just "walking a few steps" there, but climbing a mountain.The stocky Argentine hated physical activity, especially mountain climbing.After a while, he was out of breath and collapsed from exhaustion.He watched Reb crawl forward in Indian fashion, stopping often.It seems to rely on superhuman memory to determine the route traveled before, and then continue to move forward.He went to a cliff and knelt down to examine the rocky ground.At last he stood motionless, looking almost vertically down at the black surface of the lake beneath his feet.Ten minutes later, he was back at Diego, holding something in his hand, and he expected his buddy to be puzzled.He opened his palm, and in his palm were several rusty automatic pistol bullet casings. "What's the name of this lovely place?" Diego asked. "Zaplitz." They made it back to their home lake in time to have lunch with Keller.Keller collects clocks in his spare time, and talks about the hobby over meals.After dinner we went to the cemetery.They came to a tomb farther away from the other cemeteries. There stood a black marble tablet. There was no cross or any inscription on it, but it was covered with flowers, and only two letters were engraved on the tablet: D. L． . "Thirty-two years," Keller said shyly, "you have been thinking about this anonymous man from afar; I don't think it is meaningless to ask you his name now, right?" Keller is of medium build.Reb's gray eyes widened with heartbreaking sadness as he looked down at him. "Why bother?" Klimrod replied. "I am the only one in the world who still remembers him." Before returning to South America, they traveled to Aix-en-Provence in France.There, Reber went to visit another grave—that of Susan Setiniaz.They then went to Paris and met a Frenchman named Jacques Meziere, who Diego learned from their conversation had known Reber long ago in Lyon.Reber and Meziere talked about a man named Bunim Anerevich.Diego remembers him as the one with the sad eyes, whom Haas had asked Wang in a cafe in the Place de la Nation in 1951, before he left Paris for drinks with Joseph Stalin. Is it fluent.After visiting all these places in the northern hemisphere, they boarded a flight to the southern hemisphere. They first went to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where Mummyta—her full name was Maria-Ignaciki Jas de Carbajal—had died a year ago because She has never embraced a legitimate grandson. "Poor Mamita refuses to admit that I have nine children, thinking that these are the result of the 'princes and daughters' marriage. I took three or four of them to my grandmother and asked her Happy and happy, but she slammed the door in front of us." In Buenos Aires, they also went to the Almeiras Gallery on Florida Street.Old Arcadio was long dead, and Diego surprised his granddaughter when he showed her a Kandinsky painting. "what do you mean?……" "Here it is for you," said Diego with the most charming grace. "I'm just entrusted, so don't thank me. It's like this: Thirty years ago, maybe more than thirty years ago, your grandfather did a very gentlemanly thing. And I was asked to present this painting It's one of the few people who never forgets anything. By the way, would you be kind enough to have dinner with us tonight?" She has no other dates. Diego asked Reber: "Where are you going now?" "Go to Florida to see Zby; go to New York, Chicago, Montreal to see some people; and the Angels in California, that's all." Diego felt cold from head to heel. "What about the future, Reb?" "It's over, Diego." This happened in November 1979.