odds were long, but the covert acquisition of property is not unlike depositions. Things slip out. Possession of land is very close to a man's view of himself; in some cultures he is the land." "Why can't I look for myself? If the records are available, tell me where to find them." "It wouldn't do you any good. Only certified attorneys are permitted to search the titles. Tell me the name." "It could be dangerous for anyone who looks," said Taleniekov.
"Oh, come now." Kassel laughed, his eyes amused again. "A seventy-year-old purchase of land." "I believe there's a direct connection between that purchase and the extreme acts of violence that are occurring everywhere today." "Extreme acts of The lawyer trailed off the phrase, his expression solemn. "An hour ago I mentioned Baader-Meinhof on the phone-Your silence was quite loud. Are you suggesting?..." "I'd rather not suggest anything," interrupted Vasili. "You're a prominent man, a resourceful man. Give me a letter of certification and get me into the Records of Property." The German shook his head. "No, I won't do that. You wouldn't know what to look for. But you may accompany me." "You'd do this yourself? WhyT' "I despise extremists who deal in violence. I remember too vividly the screams and diatribes of the Third Reich. I shall, indeed, look for myself, and it we get lucky you can tell me what you wish." Kassel lightened his voice, but sadness was there. "Besides, anyone sentenced to death by Moscow cannot be all bad. Now, tell me the name." Taleniekov stared at the attorney, seeing another sentence of death.
"Voroshin," he said.
The uniformed clerk in the Essen Hall of Records treated the prominent Heinrich Kassel with extreme deference. Herr Kassel's firm was one of the most important in the city. He made it plain that the coarse-looking receptionist behind the desk would be delighted to make copies of anything Herr Kassel wished to have duplicated. The woman stared up unpleasantly, her expression disapproving.
The steel file cabinets in the enormous room that housed the Records of Property were like gray robots stacked one on top of the other, circling the room, staring down at the open cubicles where the certified lawyers did their research.
"Everything is recorded by date," said Kassel. "Year, month, day. Be as specific as you can. What was the earliest Voroshin might have reasonably bought property in the Essen districts?" "Allowing for the slow methods of travel at the time, say late May or early June of 1911. But I told you, he wouldn't have bought under his own name." "We won't be looking for his name, or even an assumed name. Not to begin with." "Why not an assumed name? Why couldn't he buy what was available under another name if he had the funds?" "Because of the times, and they haven't changed that much. A man does not simply enter a community with his family and proceed to assume ownership of a larlge estate without arousing curiosity. This Voroshin, as you've de- scribed him, would hardly have wanted that. He would establish a false identity very slowly, very carefully." "Then what do we look for?" "A purchase made by attorneys for owners in absentia. Or by a trust legation from a bank for an estate investment; or by officers of a company or a limited partnership for acquisition purposes. There are any number of ways to set up concealed ownership, but eventually the calendar runs out; the owners want to move in. It's always the pattern, whether you talk about a candy store or a conglomerate or a large estate. No legal maneuver is a match for human nature." Kassel paused, looking at the gray cabinets.
"Come. We'll start with the month of May, 1911. If there's anything here it may not be that difficult to find. There were no more than thirty or forty such estates in the whole of the Ruhr, perhaps ten to fifteen in the Rellinghausen-Stadtwald districts." Taleniekov felt the same anticipation he had experienced with Yanov Mikovsky in the archives in Leningrad. The same feeling of peeling away layers of time, looking for a clue in documents recorded with precision decades ago. But now he was awed by the seeming irrelevancies that Heinrich Kassel spotted and extracted from the thick pages of legalese. T'he attorney was like a child in that candy store he had referred to; a young expert whose eyes roamed over the jellybeans and the sour balls, picking out the flawed