Plunder by Menachem Kaiser (suggested reading txt) 📗

13

A few days after I received the decision, Joanna called and said she had a surprise for me. She’d posted on Facebook, asking if anyone had any interesting Kajzer-related information. Most of the responses were from explorers who did not have any information for me but, being explorers, wanted to know if maybe I had information for them. But there was one interesting response, from an explorer who claimed to know the house Abraham Kajzer had hidden in during the waning weeks of the war, and said he was friends with the house’s owner, a man named Jacek. Joanna had reached out to Jacek to arrange a visit. This was the surprise.

Jacek had stressed to Joanna that he himself was not a treasure hunter; he was, he said, extremely wary of treasure hunters. He was extremely wary of me. At first he said I could not visit; then backtracked and said okay; then backtracked and said no; then said I could come for one hour; then said I could not come at all; then asked Joanna for proof that I was related to Abraham Kajzer; then said I could visit but only for twenty minutes; then texted to say it wasn’t a good day, let’s try and reschedule, but by then we were already in the Land Rover on our way over so we just ignored the text.

Jacek lived on a narrow unpaved street on the outskirts of Głuszyca. His house was very big, and a peculiar combination of old and new—​it had been expanded, renovated, altered countless times over the decades, and the scars showed.

Jacek met us at the gate and soothed the dog that was losing its mind. He was in his late thirties, which surprised me—​I’d assumed he was older, mostly because he’d been so suspicious. He was blond, chubby, baby-faced, and wore a blue polo shirt, gray sweatpants, and Crocs, an extremely un–treasure hunterish outfit. For whatever reason (my Americanness; Joanna’s celebrity), Jacek’s suspicions of who I was and what I wanted evaporated instantly upon meeting us, as did any pretense that this was going to be a quick visit. We stood in front of the house as he spoke at length and with obvious pride about its history.

Jacek said that when he and his family moved in ten years ago, they didn’t know anything about the house, were unaware of anything strange or noteworthy. But many things happened, he said, that made him understand that this was no regular house. (Ah, I said to myself, here we go; I’d spent enough time with treasure hunters to recognize their vocabulary; Jacek may not identify as a treasure hunter, I thought, but neither was he immune to the siren.)

One day, Jacek said, two Germans, an elderly man and his middle-aged son, showed up and began photographing the exterior of the house; when Jacek asked who they were, why they were interested in his house, the old man said that he had grown up here, had lived here until he and his family had been forced out in 1946. They assured Jacek that they had come strictly for sentimental reasons, just wanted to see the place, nothing nefarious, were uninterested in reclaiming the property or ripping out floorboards. A gracious and curious Jacek let them in, and they went through the house, room by room, as the old man reminisced, described what the place used to look like. And at some point during the visit, Jacek said, the old man mentioned that fifteen Jews had hidden here during the war.

Suddenly Jacek restarted the narrative; there was another house-related mystery that had to be told first. The previous owner of the house, he said, was murdered. Shot in the head six times. I don’t believe in the supernatural but we definitely have a ghost, he said, then burst out laughing. The murdered owner had been an officer in the Communist secret police. (Ah, I said to myself; secret police are a staple of Silesian mystery, they are everywhere, in all varieties: KGB, CIA, Stasi, Mossad.) Six bullets in the head, Jacek emphasized. His body was found in the kitchen by his wife and daughter, I’ll show you the spot when we’re inside. Jacek paused; he was waiting for me to ask why the former owner had been murdered, so I asked why the former owner had been murdered.

There are three theories, he said.

One, it was a robbery gone wrong. An unfortunate and random act of violence. Nothing to do with the man’s former career as a Communist secret police officer. This is a possible theory, Jacek said, but it was clear he considered this to be a preposterous theory.

Two, the murder was an act of revenge. An officer in the Communist secret police?—​there are many people who would have wanted him dead. Joanna and Jacek nodded knowingly; I also nodded knowingly.

Three—​something extremely secret. Like what? I asked. Jacek shrugged. I don’t know, he said, and I also can’t tell you everything I know. (Ah, I said to myself; these men, their exhausting insistence on the unutterable.) I found two hiding spots in the house that had been cleared out, he said. Who knows what was in there?

Anyway: the family of the murdered former officer of the Communist secret police didn’t want to stay in the house, for understandable reasons, and sold it to Jacek. Though when they sold it they failed to mention the murder, I suppose also for understandable reasons; Jacek found out only after he’d moved in. I asked if it bothered him. Not really, he said. It makes it interesting. I told you—​we have a ghost, and he burst out laughing.

Not long after he moved in, Jacek said, someone knocked on the door and handed him a book—​Za Drutami Śmierci, by Abraham Kajzer. And when I read the book I understood that the house he describes is my house. What? I said. Who? Who was this someone? And why did they give you a book?