The German gestured. ‘An example. I bring this with me. A schematic of the whole building, from the Corbusier museum in Switzerland.’
A schematic. A blueprint.
This was interesting. This was very interesting. An entire plan of the monastery. The journalist’s eyes widened, he tried not to show extreme curiosity.
‘And…?’
‘Here.’ The German pointed. ‘You see. If everything is so functional, what is that?’
‘That’ was a mess of complex dotted lines and faintly traced angles, with numbers and Greek letters attached. He couldn’t see what Julius meant. He’d been pretending he was an architect for six hours. He couldn’t keep up the lame and feeble illusion.
‘Looks alright to me.’
‘You do not see?’
‘Why don’t you tell me?’
Julius’s smile was triumphant.
‘I have been studying the building. But this section here makes no sense.’
‘The…?’
‘The pyramid. The pyramid has no apparent function at all. It just sits there doing nothing, in the middle. I have checked, there are no heating ducts, no engineering purpose. No one can explain it. I have therefore concluded it is mere decoration. You see?’
Simon hesitated, his throat slightly choked.
‘I see.’
‘It means he was a liar! The great Le Corb was a fraud. He added this pyramid as pure ornament. A purely decorative addition to the architectonics. The man was a charlatan! Form follow function? – it is nonsense!’
Picking up the schematic, Simon looked close. The pyramid sprang from the basement. If it was accessible, it must be accessed from the lowest floor of the monastery. The dark and mysterious underchapel.
This had to be it, if anywhere: this had to be it, the only place he hadn’t looked.
The pyramid.
33
‘Disgusting, isn’t it?’
David turned. A large blond man in a rugby shirt had sat down at the next table; he was staring at the roistering Germans.
He had a kind-of South African accent. David shrugged, not knowing quite what to say.
‘Sorry.’ The man burped. ‘But I overheard your conversation. The waiter is right. Those bastards are celebrating the Nazis. The ascension of Hitler to power.’
He ran fingers through the thick blond hair; he was tall, tanned, vigorous, about thirty-five.
‘And I am German! At least by descent,’ he said. He extended a manly hand. ‘Name is Hans. Hans Petersen. Only come here for the Tafel, best beer in Swakop.’ He smiled again. ‘My people are from Otasha. Cattle farmers.’
David offered his own name, and he introduced Amy.
‘So…’ David tilted a glance at the partying Nazis. ‘Why…do they do it? Is it a joke?’
‘For some of them, yeah.’ Hans swigged from his Tafel. ‘They fly here from Germany and make a big joke of it. They say it is…ironic. Shocking the bourgeois. But for others it is no joke. Some of them are descended from Nazis, or Nazi families, who fled here after the war. Some are from old colonial families – they’ve been celebrating Hitler since 1933.’ He wiped the beer from his lips with a thickly muscled wrist. ‘So what about you?’
The Germanic singing had subsided; many of the ‘ironic’ Nazis were departing the bar, cold blasts of air slapping the room every time the door swung open.
‘We’re…trying to get a lift to Damaraland. To meet someone. Seems kind of…impossible.’
The German’s stare was almost unblinking.
‘You say Damaraland?’
‘Yes.’
He surveyed them.
‘Well, could be your lucky day.’
‘How?’
‘I can take ya. Maybe. I’m heading up there with some conservationists tomorrow, do some work with the ellies.’
‘The what?’
‘Desert elephants. S’what I do. I left the farm to my brother. Too boring.’ He chuckled. ‘I help ecologists, the government. Safaris for tourists, run a fleet of 4 by 4s. Namibia is not the easiest place to get around.’
Amy smiled, anxiously. ‘We noticed.’
Hans nodded and laughed and bought a beer. He asked a couple more searching questions, then a couple more questions – and then he stood and laid some Namibian dollars on the table, and waved at the waiter. ‘OK. Let’s call it a deal! Happy to give you a hand. Sounds like you need it.’ He walked and paused, at the doorway. ‘You’ll have to get up early though, guys. Seven a.m. start. It’s a long old drive.’
‘But…Where?’
‘Meet by the Herero Monument. You won’t miss us – we’ll be the guys with the DEP Land Rovers.’
David stared at Amy as Hans disappeared into the night. They had lucked out. They sighed their relief, paid the tab, caught a cab, and headed back to their hotel.
But their optimism was swiftly checked.
As they were passing the reception, the bashful, defeated face of Raymond appeared: barring the way to the elevators.