Friedrichstrasse Central

By Geoff Logan

Some seven hundred years ago, two Gemini knights placed Europe and the Middle East in a perpetual state of animosity and conflict, leaving their legacy in limbo until the ring cycle could restart again. It is not until the Nazi party comes into power in Germany in 1933 that the flame of the knights is rekindled againprompted by the number of unlikely heroes passing through the Friedrichstrasse Central railway station in Berlin.

Now it is 1979 and like his predecessor William McBride, Australian Iva Davies is attempting to unearth past elements by traveling to places like Dresden, Edinburgh, and the Greek island of Kastellorizo. Accompanied by his older German friend, Peter Maueraberger, Iva stumbles across aspects of the Templar treasure, the Jerusalem copper scroll, and the last Iman of Islam that seemingly point to the answers they desire. However, the path to these past secrets is filled with danger and intrigue for Iva. As he enlists help from a rag doll, the Black Madonna statue, and Solomons ring, Iva can only hope he will survive his ordeal and enhance the legacy of the Gemini knights and the building of the last Temple in Jerusalem.

In this historical novel, an Australian adventurer sets out on a dangerous journey to unearth past elements and rekindle the ancient legacy of two Gemini knights.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Apr 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546291176

Geoff Logan

Geoff Logan writes about the end time. This interest comes from his former Scottish ancestors who were Templar Knights of the old tradition. The knights were believed to have been chosen to build the last temple in Jerusalem and the author has spent much of his life researching their exploits. Geoff Logan enjoys travelling and exploring many of the historical places that the Knights Templar lived and played in during the medieval period. This book reflects many of those encounters and the author has attempted to place them in a modern context of today. So that the reader can explore for themselves if any of these truths have a place in the present social setting to help us negotiate the chaos of a future world.

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© 2018 Geoff Logan. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/29/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9118-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9119-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9117-6 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Synopsis

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

SYNOPSIS

They say life goes around in circles until the last part makes contact with the beginning again. And then a new quest starts again. Sometimes, the task given by fate takes only a short time to complete. Others may take longer, while the remainder are never completed. However, the open ended cycle must at some point in time be completed. Because, if it isn’t, the consequences could upset the balance of the life system, leading to great harm to people and society in general.

And this happened some seven hundred years ago, when two Templar Knights from Scotland, Sir Walter and Robert Logan set out on a crusade to retake the Holy Land for Christianity and build the third and last Temple on the Jerusalem Mount. At the time, they were known as the Gemini knights and when they failed, this left Europe and the Middle East in a perpetual state of animosity and conflict. And so, the legacy of two Gemini knights was left in limbo until the ring cycle could be restated again.

It wasn’t to be until the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933, that the flame of the Gemini knights was rekindled again. And this was started by a number of unlikely heroes that passed through Friedrichstrasse Cental railway station in Berlin. So, this is their story of how far they have taken the Gemini legacy to date, along the ring cycle path on its journey towards the end time.

PROLOGUE

As the steam train slowly made its way through the Western Australian countryside at night, a silent figure watched the occasional kangaroo and emu appear at the side of the railroad track. Dangling his legs from the open door of the guard’s wagon, Peter Maueraberger wondered how he had come to this place from such a very different world in the northern hemisphere of January 1945. One that was now in the process of total collapse and self- annihilation. Only the stars in the night’s sky remaindered him that a more peaceful life existed far away from the last throws of the German Third Reich.

As he reflected on how such a promising ideology had turned so quickly into a nightmare, Peter could not escape another place that had haunted him for so long. One that came to him whenever the engine driver at the front of the train blew his whistle to warm the occasional passenger car on the side road of an up and coming railway crossing. The piecing sound in the cold night air, took Peter back to a much busier terminus, Friedrichstrasse railway station in central Berlin. A place he both appreciated and loathed. Even during the latter part of the war, the station and its surrounding business district of Mitte was a busy place, full of people and merchants going about their daily chores as if the fighting across Europe was a million miles away. Only the occasional air raid siren interrupted the coming and goings of the area.

For Peter enjoyed nothing more on a cold winter’s morning, arriving early at Friedrichstasse station to eat some of the bratwurst sausages that the vendors on the platforms had prepared for those waiting to catch the next train. Even during the bleakest days of the war, these food vendors always seemed cheerful about their lot in life that somehow made everyone else feel the coming destruction of the city may not be so terrible after all. However, the pleasantness of such a moment in time was not as it all appeared. The need to have a good breakfast was more out of necessity than carrying out the culinary habits that a city like Berlin had become famous for during the 1920s and early 30s. You see, our friend was waiting for a suburban train to take him to Oranienburg on the outskirts of northern Berlin, so he could then take the long walk to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp on the edge of town. Since the beginning of the Nazi regime in 1933, Peter had been an employee of the propaganda minister’s staff. And over time, Joseph Goebbels had given him increasingly more demanding tasks to undertake, including interviewing prisoners in various concentration camps throughout the Third Reich. The intention of these visits was to see if any useful information could be gathered by the Ministry for People`s Enlightenment and Propaganda to use to help keep the German population loyal to the regime.

Although a committed Nazi, Peter had found the visits to Sachsenhausen during the latter part of the war a rather daunting one. This came about because of a rather curious set of circumstances that had occurred during several visits to Lake Zurich, Switzerland in the early 1930s. However, for the moment he had to put these concerns aside. Once he started walking through the centre of Oranienburg, Peter could not escape the growing stench that such a place produced as he approached the front gate of the concentration camp. One of decaying human flesh that seemed to hang in the air, day and night as it attempted to cling to anything willing to absorb its sickly presence. No matter how he tried, Peter found it very difficult to eat or drink any food in the camp, especially when all he could see around him were those wretched creatures staring at him from behind the barbed wire. The thing that haunted the interrogator the most when safely back in Berlin, were all those rather sad eyes that always seemed to follow him around wherever he went in the camp. As if asking the same question.

‘Are you human too, or ghosts just like us, no longer of any value to anyone.’

No wonder a humble bratwurst sausage and onions at Friedrichstrasse station provided the interrogator with just enough fortitude to see out the day`s task. If that wasn’t bad enough, the SS officers at the camp seemed to sense Peter’s unease and took great delight during the day to invite Peter to lunch at the officer’s mess. Here, any amount of cooked meat, poultry and vegetables were served to the privileged few by those very prisoners who were so malnourished and shortly expendable. This contrast in the human condition certainly did not worry those who administered the camp and firmly believed that life was indeed based on the Darwinian theory of the survival of the fittest. The quicker these wretched creatures were eliminated from the human race, so the SS offices reminded Peter, the better it would be for those left behind to get on with life and create the brave new master race that the German people expected.

The only way Peter could deal with this unpleasantness was to make the journey to Oranienburg as early as possible in the morning and carry out his interviews as quickly as possible. Then, Peter would quietly escape back to Berlin before lunch time commenced in the camp so as to avoid any further personal distress in the mess room. Only when he was able to hide away from others at a restaurant bar in the depths of Potsdamer Plaza, did the interrogator find enough dutch courage to keep going.

Still, as Peter Maueraberger now believed that he had somehow escaped the end of the war intact, this could only meant one thing. Such an outcome must point to a new direction in life. And he hoped this would at least lead to the possibility of a much better future than the previous one. One that Peter felt may be just around the next corner, especially as he had brought along with him on this journey, a certain Black Madonna with believed magical powers. A statue that could supposedly see the future according the sages of the past, where she would always smile when things went well and then turn to a melancholy state of weeping if events showed impending doom. Just like they did in Dresden just a few short months ago. However, fortunately for the interrogator, the weeping had now stopped since they had arrived on the south coast of Australia just a few days before by submarine. And as the train driver blew his whistle again and the steam engine pulled its cargo along the great southern line from the port town of Albany to the western city of Perth, Peter knew much work had still to be done to achieve this end. And as the train disappeared around the next bend and finally out of sight, a voice could be heard saying across the rolling countryside.

’Funnier things have happened before…. I dare say they will come again.’

CHAPTER 1

And in another time and place, everyone stopped work and stood back as the siren sounded. For several seconds, two hundred pairs of eyes watched the red mountain side of Mount Tom Price in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Then, as the hot desert sun beat down on the mine site an explosion suddenly erupted into the still dry air. Another thousand ton of iron ore had been released from captivity. Immediately after the dust settled, oversized dump trucks rushed forward to pick up the shattered rocks from the scooping mechanical shovels that always seemed to be ready with their cargo. The trucks then took the ore outside the mine site to the ore crusher next to the company’s rail terminal. From there the red dirt would be taken by mile long ore trains to the port of Dampier on the Pilbara coast. Eventually, the refined ore would make its way by ship to the steel plants of Japan for commercial use in the year of 1977.

Watching all this activity from a distance, Ivan Davies kept a time sheet on how the work force undertook their duties during each shift. A geologist by trade, Ivan had been employed by the Hamersley Iron Ore Company to map the remaining iron ore reserves the company held on its lease in the area. However, in recent months he had shown an increasing interest in the human production side of the mine site. This led Ivan to propose to management that certain mine practices could be improved by using different on and off worker rotation methods during the shift work cycle in the pit. The geologist’s bosses thought the ideas he outlined were worth pursuing and gave him six months to come up with more concrete suggestions for improving the efficiency of the work site.

Ivan had been born into a Welsh family who had migrated to Perth from the Lleyn Peninsula in the 1930s. His father, a school teacher, secured a permanent position with the Western Australian Education Department and became known to locals as a ten pound pom. The family settled into the suburb of Carlisle and Ivan and his older sister attended Kent St High School in the nearby suburb of Victoria Park. At the time of migrating to Australia, Ivan’s father had been greatly impressed with the progress of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia decades before and the ideology of its architect, Vladimir Lenin. Mr Davies senior firmly believed after his conversion to socialism, that this was the only way forward in the future, if the working man of today was to break free of the chains of capitalism. His strong convictions led the school teacher to become a card carrying member of the Australian Labor Party who hoped a socialist society would eventual come to his newly adopted country in due course. As a result, he named his son, Ivan Ilyich Davies after those revolutionaries, the older man had come to see as the new heroes of our time. In later years, Ivan became known to friends and colleagues alike, as just Iva.

Although Iva appreciated the opportunity to take on new challenges for the mining company, in recent weeks he had started getting itchy feet about wanting to see more of the world than just the north west of Western Australia. Like so many others before him in his family, Iva had a restless nature and saw himself as a bit of a wanderer in life. Since arriving in the Pilbara three years before, the young man had found adequate accommodation in a newly built house in Richardson Way Karratha, recently constructed to service the mining industry of the region. Still, Karratha had only been established a few years previously and lacked any real community infrastructure to date. This meant that the only real social activities in the town, centred on endless backyard barbecues or visits to the only pub for miles around, the Roebuck Inn. Such a lack of amenities was further compounded by the shortage of available women in the Pilbara that made any meaningful relations with the opposite sex almost impossible for many miners. It was this frustrating situation that eventually led to some of Iva’s work mates suggesting they go to Singapore for some badly needed R and R. So, shortly after a trio of four set off for the Asian city on the Equator.

Over the past decade, the government of Lee Kuan Yew had made it clear to the international community that they intended to make Singapore one of the most progressive city states in South East Asia. And as this scenario gained pace with new office towers and apartments rising across the city every day, the trio arrived at Singapore airport to explore the hidden treasures of Bugis Street and Orchard Road. The thing that hit them straight away were all the young sexy women that seemed to be everywhere in the hundreds of bars and nightclubs across the city. Only at breakfast the next morning after a hard night out on the town did some form of reality penetrate those still hung over from the evening before. Although Iva had met several women on their pub crawls around the city, none seemed to satisfy any lingering interest other than the immediate gratification of the moment. Never-the-less, the young man did believe that the casual sex now coming his way, definitely made up for any other disappointments to date.

On the fourth day in Singapore, Iva decided to do some shopping for his sister before joining the rest of the crew for their customary attack on the city’s bars. This task took him up many small streets and alley ways in search of the bargains that most tourists missed on the high street. So engrossed did Iva become in his quest, that he forgot the time of day and became caught in a late afternoon thunder storm that always seemed to come out of nowhere in the tropics. Sheltering in a shop front for at least an hour until the heavy rain stopped, Iva eventually made his way back to the group’s hotel for a quick shower and change of clothes. Only after discovering that in the meantime, the others had already left for other places did the young man decide that tracking them down was the only thing left to do. Moving along the Singapore River in the direction of Robertson and Clarke Quay’s where they had spent most of their time over the last few days, Iva could not find his friends in any of the establishments along the way. Rather annoyed at this, he made for the open market district around St. Andrew’s Cathedral where he could pick up a cheap Chinese meal before resuming the search. While eating at a road side stall, he heard music from a distance and a number of couples heading in that direction as if a party could be in full swing nearby.

Deciding to have a look at what was happening, the young man followed the crowd after finishing his fried fish and Nasi Goreng dinner. The music took him into Beach Road and towards the Raffles Hotel. The old creamy coloured façade with its tropical gardens had long been a favourite playground for ex-pats over past decades and continued to be for the newly rich of Singapore. However, the Raffles was now showing her age and certainly needed a good renovation sometime in the future. To the left of the hotel entrance was a large iron clad looking pavilion where bar tenders served the famous Singapore Sling cocktail to tourists and locals alike. Before the Second World War, this was the main drinking hole for British military personal stationed on the island. The wooden fans that extended down from the roof above, slowly turned all night and kept the humidity down to a comfortable level for those patrons siting at tables around the dance floor. As he entered, Iva noticed that a long table had been reserved for people at one end of the pavilion. Close by, a pianist and his guitar and drummer off siders were preparing to play for the growing crowd.

Iva decided to make for the bar and after ordering a large Tiger beer, sat down at a side table to listen to the musicians play for a while. After an hour or so the party in the corner seemed to have had plenty to drink by now and were becoming rather noisy to those around them. Only after watching these antics for a while did Iva notice a rather interesting woman sitting among the guests. Around twenty five or so years of age with flowing blond hair, she was wearing rather surprisingly for such a humid climate, long red gloves with sleeves to match. She certainly had a shapely figure and the appearance of someone coming from either Poland or Czechoslovakia was his educated guess. The woman had a number of male companions and seemed to be the main attractions of the evening. For a while, the young man fanaticised about the possibility of meeting the woman, before having a reality check and deciding instead to recommence the search for his friends.

Then, just as Iva was about to leave, a heated exchange broke out among the woman’s companions. At first, this simply took the form of finger pointing at each other until one of the men tried to grab the woman by the throat. At once she resisted and pushed to man away before quickly leaving the party and headed for the hotel lobby. For some time, the men kept pushing and shoving each other, causing several tables to fall over in the vicinity, spilling drinks and food onto the floor. Immediately this happened, other staff came running from different parts of the hotel to usher the offenders outside as quickly as possible. In the meantime, the bar manager attempted to apologise to other patrons in the pavilion for the inconvenience as cleaners were called in to immediately clean up the mess.

While this was going on, Iva had forgotten that in her haste to leave, the blond woman passed by his table on the way out. He seemed to recall the lady was clutching at what seemed to be her broken necklace from the fight. And she seemed annoyed by something else, as if a piece of jewellery was now missing. For a few seconds, Iva looked underneath the table, but could not see anything unusual and so decided to have another beer before leaving the hotel. As the cleaners finished placing new table cloths and cutlery on the now upright furniture, the young man noticed something attracting his eye against one of the piano legs in the corner. As he made his way across to the makeshift stage to have a more closer look, the musicians began playing a Frank Sinatra medley to keep patrons minds off recent events. Leaning down at the edge of the piano, the young man could see that it was a ring of some kind and wondered if this is what the blond lady had lost. Taking the trinket back to his table, Iva could see it was extremely old with a number of markings on the surface. The engraving pictured a star with five points to its design. Iva was not sure what this design represented and decided to come back in the morning and give the ring back to the blond woman. The young man then disappeared into the steamy night air.

Around ten o’clock the next day, Iva arrived at the Raffles Hotel front desk. He described the blond woman to staff and asked if he could contact her. The reservation clerk was at first very reluctant to give out any information on guests and only after the young man said that he may have something belonging to her, did a reply come back.

‘If you are referring to Miss Arabella Maueraberger, she has already left this morning for the airport to fly to Bangkok.’

Iva waited for him to continue.

‘I should not be telling you this,’ the clerk said hesitantly as he looked around to make sure no other staff member was listening. ‘Miss Maueraberger came to Singapore for a recent arts festival as a representative of the German Democratic Republic and will not be returning to our city for some time. Now that is all I can tell you,’ said the clerk as he deliberately turned away to do something else. For the next few seconds Iva was left standing in the hotel lobby with a rather puzzled look on his face.

‘What would a women from a rather repressive communist country in Europe be doing with such a strange ring, especially hanging from a necklace around her neck’ he wondered to himself. Placing the ring inside his jacket pocket, Iva just shrugged his shoulders at the unsolvable mystery and headed for the bar to order a drink. Eventually, the holiday in Singapore came to an end and the trio returned to their jobs at the Pilbara mine site. And like most things when life calls us to attend those mundane tasks at home, the events at the Raffles Hotel drifted from the mind of the young man at least for a while.

CHAPTER 2

Iva’s observations at the mine site eventually went to his bosses as a report with recommendations on how to improve a number of mine work practices. Several months later, management approved his suggestions and transferred Iva to the company’s state head office in Perth. Here the young man was given 12 months to put these ideas into practice. Being home also pleased Iva, as he could now spend more time with his family and pursue his growing professional interests in a more competitive urban environment. As his reputation grew in the company, Iva travelled to meetings in Melbourne and Sydney and was also asked to speak at several mining conferences in town about his work ideas. This continued for some time until he started to have itchy feet again about wanting to widen his horizons, possibly attending an overseas conference or professional seminar of some kind. So, Iva started collecting information on possible mining exploration meetings across the globe to be held over the coming year.

At first, very few possibilities seemed appealing and the idea took a back seat for a while. Then, one conference began to take the young man’s interest. This came from the Faculty of Geology at Lomonoso Moscow State University in the USSR. The Faculty wanted to hold a so called ‘peace exchange’ with other countries on the new developing field of image technology that was now helping mining companies find new ore deposits in remote regions of the globe. Iva knew about the famous cathedral looking institution from his previous studies and believed that presenting an academic paper at such a prestigious location would not do his professional standing any harm.

However, Iva had another reason for wanting to make the trip. As a young lad, he had spent many a night around the kitchen table at meal times, listening to his father talk about the glorious Bolshevik revolution and the socialist strides the USSR had made for its people. He wondered if this was true and wanted to see for himself. Never-the-less his employers were more cautious, believing that such peace conferences in the USSR were more about Russian spy agencies trying to steal industrial secrets from the West, than promoting any real international cooperation. And so, Iva had his ambitions sidelined for the time being.

It was only after he received written information from the conference organisers in Moscow several months later that the young man renewed his interest again in earnest. While thumbing through the list of attendees that was so proudly listed in the conference brochure, he came across an interesting name. Among those coming to the event from the German Democratic Republic was a certain Arabella Maueraberger. At first Iva was pleased that he may finally meet the blond woman from the Raffles Hotel. However, a sense of trepidation came with the possibility, especially when he asked himself the most obvious question.

‘What was a woman with an occupation in theatre and the arts, be doing at a conference on geology of all things?’

And as with his time in Singapore, the answer still remained out of reach. However, now that the possibility had definitely come back into consciousness, Iva become more and more intrigued with each passing day. Eventually, Iva persuaded his bosses to let him book for the conference. This they only agreed too, on the provision that his academic paper be assessed beforehand by company specialists to make sure that any reference to production sensitivities were eliminated from the text.

And so in the summer of 1979, the young man set off for his time in the Russian northern hemisphere. After arriving at Singapore he boarded an Aeroflot flight for Moscow. While waiting for the aircraft to leave, Iva was somewhat amused at the antics of the Russian flight crew. They had obviously been on a duty free shop in Singapore and were stuffing as many goodies as they could into the forward compartments of the plane. This he assumed was because the majority of Russians were still trying to catch up with their counterparts from the West in the household goods stakes. And so, buying rare white goods overseas was indeed a very serious occupation for comrades who managed to get access to more affluent areas of the world. Still, the antics of the crew were reassuring to the young man. The problem was that in some quarters of the West, Russian aircraft were not known for their reliability, especially the Ilyushin 62 that he was now sitting on. However, Iva reassured himself that everything would be alright this time, seeing that the plane crew now had every incentive to arrive home safely with all their wares in one piece.

Like most flights, the trip turned out to be uneventful. The only thing that left an impression on Iva was how noisy the Ilyushin plane engines seemed to be compared to the Boeings that he had flow in around Australia. Eventually, the flight arrived at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow and he was greeted by a representative of the conference committee. Olga was her name and she took every opportunity on the drive into the city to emphasis the virtues of communism and the Russian socialist state. Only every now and then when Iva could tear his gaze away from Olga’s expansive gestures could the young man gain any impression of the world he was now entering. For some reason, everything including the roadside buildings all seemed rather grey looking and the trees without any leaves of any kind.

‘This must be how winter looks in the frozen north,’ he wondered to himself.

After a while, they arrived at the Lomonoso University campus. The university’s main 36 story building, dedicated to the glory of Stalinist Russia was certainly on display for all to see. The conference members were housed in what looked like converted student accommodation. At first, Iva thought this was a good idea, as attending professionals with similar interests could mingle and discuss academic topics as they wished. This eventually turned out to be how the conference progressed each day and seemed just like the way any other university meeting was undertaken in the West. Still, the young man kept his eye on his main interest for coming, the illusive blond lady from East Germany. Unfortunately, at first she did not appear at any of the academic events and this made Iva rather apprehensive as he thought to himself.

‘Perhaps she could not make it to the conference after all…. and what a waste of time for me in the end.’

So, to keep himself from becoming increasingly depressed about this issue as the conference wore on, Iva decided to do a little exploring of suburban Ramenki near to the university. Initially, the world outside the campus was a little perplexing to the young man. Few cars were on the road and those that were seemed to be of the same vintage and model. Then, he remembered someone he had met in Melbourne the year before who was a regular visitor to Russia who said to him that there was a standing joke in Moscow about the state of Soviet vehicle manufacturing.

‘When a citizen asked if he could buy a car’, so the story went, the salesman replied. ‘Of course you can, and please choose any colour that takes your fancy, as long as it is black.’

This certainly seemed to be the colour of choice on the street from what the young man could see. The other thing that caught his attention was how wet the streets seemed to be and the way this state of affairs made every vehicle on the road perpetually stained with mud. And just as Iva was about to ask any friendly local why this seemed to be the case, Olga appeared out of nowhere to offer her timely assistance with his questions. Although nothing was said, it became very obvious to the young man that foreigners at the conference were very much discouraged from having any contact with the average muscovite. And to that effect, Iva realised very quickly that he would have an ever present chaperon wherever he went in the city as his new found friend calmly ushered him back to the security of the university campus.

For the next twenty four hours, the young man started to believe the whole conference was now a complete waste of time and the blond woman would never appear. That evening at meal time, the conference organisers announced a cultural evening would be held at the end of the gathering and asked each country representative to provide a skit of their culture to be presented to the rest of the conference for their enjoyment. A rehearsal was to be held that evening in one of the conference halls. Iva came along reluctantly, because he has not sure of what to present on behalf of his country down under. While he mulled over a number of possibilities, several other cultural groups demonstrated their prowess to on lookers. It was only when several of the performers from the Romanian team fell off the stage in disorder to every ones laughter that the young man looked up.

To his surprise, Iva saw the blond woman standing at the side of the stage. She seemed to be directing traffic as if one of the concert organisers. This went on for some time, until Iva decided to try and approach her. Although the young man made several attempts to do so, the blond woman always seemed to be protected by several bodyguards who made sure he never came within talking distance of his intended target. At the end of the rehearsals, everyone left the hall including the blond lady, with Iva still left with no chance of any contact.

Om the last day of the conference before the farewell cultural dinner that evening, the formal aspects of the academic meetings were concluded and everyone was bused into Red Square for an afternoon of sightseeing. Olga was in fine form as she marched her charges around the square to see the Kremlin and of course, Lenin’s Tomb, telling everyone about the wonders of the Soviet State along the way. Iva could also see that the blond lady had come along, although her hair was covered in a head scarf and large sunglasses that took away a good deal of her facial expression. And so, the woman just looked like any other non-descript tourist catching a glimpse of the local colour in Moscow. After a while, Olga directed everyone towards an ornate three story building opposite Lenin’s Tomb. This was the regime’s answer to the West’s shopping mall, known locally as the GUM Department Store. Olga told her followers that anything produced in the vast Soviet Empire could be bought here and invited those on the tour to buy as much as they liked to take home. The interior of the building was indeed very splendid and reminded Iva of several nineteen century Victorian mansions he had seen in Melbourne and even somewhat similar to His Majesty’s Theatre in Perth.

However, another observation soon became apparent. The GUM store was much bigger than the young man first imagined. Long corridors led off each other and curved stairs made their way to upper levels, connected by walkways across the lower isles to a number of emporiums. This proved a real challenge for Olga and her other minders. As members of the tour party spread out to explore the many nooks and crannies of each store, the tour minders had a real problem keeping an eye on everyone at the same time. By now, Iva had made his way to one of the first floor landings and was admiring the curved glass roof that covered all the internal department arcades. From there he noticed the blond woman standing by a water fountain on the ground floor. At first, she looked as if shopping interested her, although the woman appeared more concerned about the minders around her. Then, as the minders became distracted by other things, the blond woman made a quick exit for the side door of the store.

Iva seemed somewhat intrigued by the woman’s behaviour and decided to see what she was up too. And besides he reasoned, this might be the last chance he had to talk to her before the conference ended and to find out more about the ring in his pocket. By the time he had made a safe exit from the emporium himself without attracting the attention of any of the minders, the young man saw the woman make her way down several streets to Plaschad Revolyutsii metro train station. Iva followed at a discrete distance as the blond lady travelled on several underground rail lines. Besides keeping a close eye on his quest, the young man did notice along the way how spacious and beautifully decorated the Moscow metro stations were compared to other public transport systems he had travelled on in Australia.

‘At least that is something communism has got right for its citizens,’ reflected Iva as the underground train sped from one station to another.

Eventually, the blond woman alighted at Novoslobodskaya station and proceeded to the street level. Iva followed, but was not sure of which part of Moscow he had come too. The shops looked as if they belonged to a suburban neighbourhood with flower sellers and trinket merchants trying to sell their wares to busy passers bye. From what Iva could ascertain, the location seemed to be a rather poor neighbourhood with four and five story buildings lining the streets. Each building housed commercial premises on the ground floor and flats above. The flats all looked the same and the architecture rather drab by western standards. Grey concrete seemed to be the construction material of the day.

By now the blond woman had started to walk down Dolgorukovskaya Ulitsa and did so for another ten minutes before coming to the front to a rather ugly five story building. For a moment she looked around to see if anyone was watching before proceeding to a corner lane way and going down the road way out of sight. Iva noted that the white concrete building had a number of columns on the upper stories and looked like something that should have been built in Rome or Athens, not suburban Moscow. Still, he walked to the lane way that had a very long and unpronounceable Russian name of Pykhov-Tserkovny Per. As Iva turned the corner, the young man was surprised to see an old church built behind the concrete structure that was made out of old red bricks and looked like a protestant or catholic edifice from the West, than an eastern orthodox place of worship. Certainly, the building had no onion shaped roofing, so common on the churches in the Russian landscape. The neglected exterior had by all intents and purposes seen better days. The windows were now completely missing and the whole interior looked as if it had been trashed for years. As he walked down the lane, Iva could see that the land at the back of the old church had also been neglected and the space was now used for storing building materials and other construction rubbish. Even the trees that once graced the garden sanctuary at the back were now dishevelled and in need of a good trim.

‘Indeed, a very sorry sight to see now for all those who obviously came to seek comfort many years ago,’ thought the young man to himself.

As he continued to survey the sad sight, Iva could see the blond woman was sitting at an old bench in the far corner of the church yard. Then, for a moment he thought this might be the right time to approach her regarding the ring. And just as the young man was about to step from the corner of the church wall into the garden, Iva heard the sound of someone coming from the run down interior of the building. A man with a fur coat made his way to the bench. The blond woman and the man shook hands as he removed the thick clothing before sitting down opposite the blond woman. For a second, Iva thought the woman was a little hesitant and rather irritated by the encounter. However, the young man was too far away to gain a more precise assessment. The man sitting at the table seemed to be of medium build and height with a round face and sandy coloured hair. For a while, Iva watched the encounter from a distance until he became aware that people in the housing complex opposite were starting to take an interest in his loitering behaviour. Fearing that this unwarranted attention might expose him to those in the church garden, the young man decided to go back onto Dolqorukovaskaya Ulitsa and wait in the hall way of a bank building opposite the white ugly building. And while waiting there, an interesting observation came to Iva. He came to the conclusion that the ugly building opposite had probably been deliberately built in front of the church by Soviet authorities in days gone by.

‘If I am right,’ he thought. ‘Our communist friends were telling the local population in no uncertain terms just who was boss over mind and matter in this neck of the woods…. and religion certainly was not the winner in this contest.’

After around thirty minutes, the blond woman emerged from the church yard and headed up the road towards Novosobodskaya metro station, again. Iva followed at a safe distance. Once she came close to underground entrance, the woman crossed the road and entered one of the many lane ways that led off the high street. The young man did the same. To his surprise, this part of the suburban landscape harboured a hidden world of what one could only call, small time capitalist activity. Mainly women in peasant dress were selling flowers, fresh vegetables and homemade pastries to the local population from old fashioned wheel barrows. Iva gathered they were out of towners earning a few extra roubles to make ends meet. And from their nervous disposition of always looking out for authority figures, the young man assumed that these traders were undertaking illegal practices and the barrows could be on the move at any given moment.

After being consumed by this activity for a few minutes. Iva suddenly realised he could not see the blond woman in any direction along the lane ways. Sensing the urgency of losing his quarry, he made his way quickly up and down several walk ways, but to no avail. By now the young man had reached Suchchevskaya Ulitsa and realised he had made a complete mess of things. Angry at himself for being so careless, the young man was just left to watch an old Moscow tram pull up and take on a few passengers in the middle of the road. Thinking all he could do now was head back to the university campus empty handed, Iva turned around and made for the nearest laneway to take him back to the metro station. As he turned the corner, to his complete surprise, the blond woman was leaning against a wall smoking a cigarette. As he hesitantly approached her, the woman said in broken English,

‘So what took you so long…. and why are you following me?’ she demanded.

Caught off guard the young man was not sure of what to say until the lady interrupted his scrambled line of thinking.

‘I will give you ten seconds to answer,’ she said rather angrily. ‘And if it is not forth coming…. then, I will call the Police…. and let me tell you, when they find out a foreign national has absconded from his accommodation without official permission…. only a very cold Soviet prison cell will be your comfort from now on… that I promise you.’

All Iva could think of doing at that moment was to reach for the ring in his jacket pocket and show the blond woman. For a moment she looked rather hesitant and increasing puzzled by what was now in the young man’s hand.

‘Where did you get this ring?’ she enquired.

By now the young man had regained his composure somewhat and tried to relay the story of the Raffles Hotel incident in Singapore as best he could.

For a moment, the woman looked as if she bought the story and became a little more relaxed, before stiffening up again and saying.

‘Don’t tell me… because, I am not that stupid… you came all the way to Moscow just to give me back the ring,’ she said smiling in a very suspicious manner.

Iva then attempted to reassure the woman that he was indeed attending the conference legitimately on behalf of his employers and their coming together was just a fortunate set of circumstances. He thought afterwards that his explanation certainly lacked any real conviction and the blond woman must have also thought so too. Still, she seemed curious enough by what had transpired up to this point to want to find out more. Stubbing her cigarette out with her shoe on the lane way path, she finally said.

‘Follow me,’ before going back out into Sushchevskaya Ulitsa and walking to the Restaurant Napnkmaxerckar not far away. The young man did as she asked and they both went through the front door of the premises together. The restaurant was not very large with only around fifteen tables in total. The walls were made out of wooden beams and decorated with Russian snow scenes on crumbling wall paper. Some type of plastic covered the tables and large laminated vases seemed to be strategically placed around the premises with flowers in them that to the eye, needed throwing out as soon as possible. Still, the coloured doll faces with their nineteen century costumes depicted on the vases did give the restaurant an appearance of welcoming visitors, even if the rest of the environment was rather drab and uninteresting. After they sat down at a table near a window, the blond woman ordered tea and cake in Russian. For several awkward seconds, Iva was not sure of what to ask next. The woman just stared at him across the table before lighting another cigarette and looking out the window.

‘You already seen to know who I might be,’ he