Silver Nitrate(50)
Our luck did not hold for long, and we found ourselves in a precarious position by the end of 1942, when we were both thrown under house arrest. My father’s reaction was to drink whatever he could get his hands on, and I understood, from his feeble mutterings and complaints, that he was ultimately a weak-willed and pitiful man whose possibilities had been exhausted. My poor health, ironically, kept me safe during this time as few people thought an alcoholic and his wan, feeble son could cause problems.
It was in 1943 that Mussolini was kidnapped, and in desperation Himmler decided to assemble a large group of occultists, ranging from astrologers to pendulum users, to locate the man. My father and I were among those invited to join this motley group at a villa on the Wannsee. Although the purpose of the congregation was to gather for work, the atmosphere was of that of a great bacchanal, with enormous quantities of food, drink, and tobacco available to energize us, plus the promise of one hundred thousand Reichsmark for anyone who could provide the required coordinates. My father promptly sunk into a stupor, and I watched the fools around me carousing and eating until I thought they might explode, all while I considered our situation and its inevitable conclusion.
For I must confess that my experiments with the pendulum had never yielded many results, and my studies of runes and astrology charts produced few effects. I knew, therefore, that just as we had been marched into those vast rooms filled with wine and food, we would be marched out to our doom once we were proven to be frauds and fools. There was not one amongst the lot of us that could claim access to a higher power.
After paying attention to the layout of our abode and studying the guards who kept watch over us, I determined that security was lax. No doubt this was because few people would wish to abandon such luxurious accommodations. At any rate, I arranged, through clever subterfuge, to make my way out of the premises. I carried with me what few belongings I had, including my pendulum. My father attempted to bar my way, but he was drunk. I managed to land a blow against his head, and he lost consciousness. I ran.
This was the first turning point in my life. I realized that my father would be punished for my escape, maybe even killed, but he was too much of a liability to me, old and weak as he was. I understood, at that moment, that the universe was inhabited by those who trample and those who are trampled, and I was determined to survive this war. No one would tread over me.
I lived in terror for days, not knowing where to go or how to get there, unable to chart a route. I was hungry and tired; one evening my luck took an even worse turn when I was suddenly beset by a man by the name of L, who was a thief. L pointed a gun at me and went through my belongings, pocketing what little he could find before he noticed my pendulum and a map. Curious, he asked what it was, and I explained to him the work I conducted, quickly adding that not only could this be used to locate British boats, but to locate anything at all.
L was greedy, that I immediately understood. I also understood if I did not make myself useful to him, I’d end up on the side of the road with a bullet in my gut, thus it’s no surprise that I steered our conversation toward the topic of finding hidden valuables. I managed to convince L of my special abilities, and he agreed that we would journey to Berlin.
Soon I found myself in trouble once more, since L demanded a demonstration of my powers before we reached the city. My abilities with the pendulum were meager, but I had no choice, and I sat in a cold room with my arm extended, as I’d done before, and assumed I would be killed by a bullet to the head.
Yet in that moment when I should have resigned myself to death, I felt the fiercest desire to live. It was that same flame that had burnt in my chest the night I left my father behind and made my escape, and as I clasped the chain from which the pendulum hung, I vowed I would not perish there. There was an itching of my palms and a sharp spark of pain in my head. Then, as if possessed, I uttered coordinates for a nearby building that was abandoned and where L promptly uninterred a box filled with coins.
From then on, my gift did not fail me—though I developed a propensity for migraines after calling upon it—and I did not need a pendulum to locate objects, either, although I liked to use it for show whenever L was around. Weapons, food, money, art objects. I retrieved them for my companion like a dog sniffing for truffles.
L was rapacious and had no allegiances, two qualities I learned to admire. He lacked my father’s sophistication and intelligence, and I despised his crudeness, but I admired his tenacity.
After the war ended, we found ourselves in trouble once more. L’s past, before he became a deserter and a thief, included certain crimes that would earn him the noose, should the authorities catch wind of him. He knew a forger who could provide him with papers that would allow him to change his identity and secure passage to South America.
L’s plan was to leave me behind and steal our share of the loot we had amassed, which is how I arrived at the second crucial moment of my life. In a fit of rage, I sliced his neck open. Panicked, I utilized the forged documents L had secured and assumed a false identity, boarding a ship from Italy to Argentina.
At first, I thought myself quite clever. For a while, I focused on my runes and filled pages with them, and found my quiet studies as rewarding as they had been in my childhood, but soon a bitter melancholy overwhelmed me. I hated South America and longed for home. I cursed my stupidity, because, I must admit, my departure had been made thoughtlessly.
One afternoon, walking through the streets of Bueno Aires, I chanced upon a beggar, sitting on the side of the street and performing a small type of divination magic using pebbles. At first, I paid him little heed, but then I felt a distinctive tug similar to the sensation I had when I used my pendulum; not quite pain in this case, but almost like feeling the snapping of a branch.