The Sixth Key(149)

‘The morning Rahn came to see me with Deodat, I had Eva wheel me as close as possible to the pond. You can’t imagine my excitement when I saw Rahn. At this stage I didn’t yet know of our past karma together, but I was happy that my plans had come to fruition and that I would soon be released. I gave Deodat the word sator, knowing the combination of Rahn’s erudition and my dear friend’s wisdom would literally lead them around in circles. When Rahn and Deodat left to go to the church with Eva, I saw my chance. I overbalanced my wheelchair – it was an old chair and only needed a little tilt of my weight on uneven ground – and fell into the pond.’

‘So you committed suicide?’

‘I was already dead, incapacitated, a vegetable, and I didn’t want to end up like those others who had lost their souls.’

‘I see.’

‘Rahn and Deodat’s hunt for the key diverted the attention of the Lodges away from my death and burial, as I had hoped it would.’

‘You wanted to distract them from your burial because you had left instructions for the clue to the third part of the treasure’s whereabouts to be inscribed on this headstone.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Very clever. But if you are dead and this is your grave, how did you send me letters – how did you help me with my books?’

‘I told you that when you fall asleep you also enter that same realm in which the dead live. Were they letters you received? Or were they messages, impulses, inspirations, intuitions?’

I had to pause to think this through. ‘So then, what is this moment . . . past, present, or future?’

‘It is the future, in Rahn’s time, and the present in yours. It is the Day of the Dead in 2012 and the Day of the Dead in 1938. You should know by now that galleries stand side by side.’

‘But who is the fearful monk who guards this grave? Is he just imaginary?’

‘That monk tends this grave lovingly because it is his. He is me, as I was long ago when you first came here. He is a remnant, a memory of what I was.’

‘And are you undead? Locked in limbo?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I’m here of my own free will. I remained behind to guard the knowledge of the whereabouts of the third part of the treasure, the Seventh Key, until Rahn returned to solve the inscription. In those days I feared not only that the living would find a way to the grave, but also that the living dead would find it. You see, intrigues don’t only occur in the world of the living, there are those who have crossed the threshold precisely in order to discover what I took to my grave.’

‘So who was Eva?’

‘On the physical level, she was the reincarnation of Isobel, the mother of the young boy who was taken to Montsegur, and Isobel, in turn, was the reincarnation of Mary Magdalene. On a spiritual level, she was the embodiment of wisdom.’

‘I see . . . and the woman who reads to the dead?’

‘You will meet her when we return to 1940.’

‘She said she had given me the solution to the inscription. She said they knew, and that they were after me. Who are they?’

‘Himmler, of course, and others . . .’

‘Himmler?’

‘Yes, don’t forget Himmler knew Rahn wasn’t dead and sent his men to hunt him down.’

‘So you said we will return to 1940 – another gallery?’

‘Aptly named “The First Return”. It begins when Rahn takes up the hunt for the rest of the treasure. He will shortly wake up on a bench, waiting for the vaporetto that will bring him to this island. Rahn has to find this gravestone and to solve the cipher. At that time he had the freedom to turn around and take a different path – the same freedom you will have when you wake up. In fact, he nearly did take another path, as you will see, because he felt he was about to walk into Hell. The trouble with inspirations and intuitions is that we soon forget them when we wake up.’

‘Will I forget all that you’ve told me?’

‘It is likely that only a vague feeling will remain in your heart. If you choose to follow it, you will find the right course. If you forget everything else, remember this . . .’ He paused to look at me and said, ‘The way to Heaven is always through Hell . . .’





52


The First Return

‘Holmes!’ I cried. ‘Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you are alive?’

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’


Venice, November 1940

Otto Rahn had fallen asleep on the bench waiting for the vaporetto. He woke with a dry mouth and a crick in his neck that he was still massaging when the boat pulled up at the Fondamente Nuove. He remembered dreaming about a conversation with a man; something about being in a garden with many paths that lead here and there, something related to a promise he’d made. As he climbed aboard the vaporetto he wondered if the dream had anything to do with his promise to the Countess P.