The Jerusalem Diamond by Noah Gordon

those who had melded the mining companies into what eventually became DeBeers
.
    No one seemed disappointed that the meeting had failed in its stated purpose. There was lots of spirited and enjoyable trading, and Alfred spent time with three of his relatives who had come to the meeting from Czechoslovakia. He was fond of his cousin Ludvik, whom he called Laibel; they had lived together during their apprenticeship in Amsterdam. He scarcely knew Karel, Ludvik’s younger brother, who spent most of his time in Antwerp studying Alfred’s conservative pinstripe, hisfawnskin spats, the soft gleam of his boots, the fresh flower in his buttonhole. His uncle, Martin Voticky, was pleased during lunch when several people stopped at their table to shake hands with the young dealer from Germany. One of these men was Paolo Luzzatti of Sidney Luzzatti & Sons, a diamond house in Naples
.
    Later that day, as Alfred was leaving the Beurs Voor Diamenthandel alone, Luzzatti hailed him. “Can we talk
?”
    They found a café on Pelikaanstraate. Luzzatti’s German was clumsy and Alfred’s Italian was worse, so they spoke Yiddish. “If you’re willing, you can be of service to my company
,”
Luzzatti said. “We’ve been asked to repair and refurbish a very special piece
.”
    â€œ
I have several people in my shop who do that sort of thing,” Alfred said
.
    Luzzatti looked at him with amusement. “I dare say. We have similar people. But this is a treasure that has been dropped and possibly damaged. It’s the Inquisition Diamond, and the mitre in which it’s set
.”
    â€œ
My family has had a great deal to do with that stone,” Alfred said excitedly, but Luzzatti cut him short
.
    â€œ
We know. That’s one reason we thought of you. And we’re aware of your work in South Africa with the Syndicate. You should know how to assess damage in a large stone
.”
    â€œ
I do, I assure you. Dealing with the Vatican.” He whistled
.
    â€œ
Yes
.”
    The thought excited him. “Will they let me see it now? I could go to Rome from here
.”
    â€œ
No, no! It’s most sensitive. You understand, a Jewish firm, the Catholic Church. They move ever so slowly. I don’t know when they will turn it over to us
.”
    Alfred shrugged. “When they do, let me know
.”
    Luzzatti nodded. He signaled a waiter to bring them fresh coffee. “Tell me, Hauptmann, how do you like living in Berlin
?”
    â€œ
It’s the most exciting city in the world,” he said
.
    Berlin was where he had been born. His childhood was spent in a square, ugly house of gray stone on the Kurfürstendamm. He left it, stricken and terrified, when he was fourteen, three days after his parents were burned to death in a hotel fire in Vienna, where they had been onbusiness. His uncle was conservator of the estate. Martin Voticky, whose surname had become a Bohemian version of Hauptmann when he had moved to Prague as a young man, seemed a forbidding and foreign figure
.
    â€œ
You can live with us if you like,” Voticky told him. “Or you might enjoy a boarding school
.”
    Alfred made the wrong choice
.
    His uncle had unpleasant memories of German gymnasia and enrolled him at an expensive school in Geneva where the students were reflections of their parents’ attitudes. While Alfred was in Switzerland, he grew accustomed to hearing his name only when he was called upon in class or when he spent an evening playing chess with a boy named Pinn Ngau, a Chinese who was the school’s other untouchable. When Pinn talked with others, he referred to Alfred as
le Juif.
    After three years of wracking loneliness he was graduated with a fluency in French and an aversion to repeating the experience at a university. When his uncle suggested that he go to Amsterdam to study diamond cutting with his cousin Ludvik, he agreed eagerly
.
    The next years were the happiest he had