The Amber Room_ The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure - Cathy Scott-Clark [138]
What happened, we ask, trying to settle him down? Robert Stein's eyes are fearful: 'People came to the house. I - 1 don't know names. All the time my father, he goes away. I don't see him.' He is staring mournfully at his empty beer glass. 'The Baron, he finds people who say they know where is das Bernsteinzimmer. He asks my father to run all over Germany. My father spends all our money. He sells our bushes, he sells our land, he sells our farm, our home.'
Is he talking about Baron Falz-Fein, the man who wrote to Soviet crime writer Julian Semyonov about George Stein and the Amber Room in December 1984, we ask? I cannot talk about the Baron, you must ask him yourself.' So the Baron is still alive. Robert Stein starts rambling again. 'My father was always afraid. I don't know of what, but it started in Konigsberg in the Second World War.' He curls strands of hair around his fingers, singeing the ends with a roll-up cigarette. 'He broke my mother's heart. She murdered herself. Too much blood.'
Desperate for precision, we ask directly if Robert Stein's mother killed herself. Was her death connected to the Amber Room? 'Of course my mother's death was connected to das Bernsteinzimmer. To my father's search for it,' he says. 'Everything comes back to the das Bernsteinzimmer. Three days before my father was in blood, a man came to the house. I rang this man later and he denied having been there. Why? I learned from many people that my father had been in touch with Paul Enke. You may have heard of this man from the Stasi. My father went to see him in the GDR. He was on his way to see him again in E987.'
What does Robert mean his 'father was in blood'? Is George Stein dead? Does Robert believe that the Stasi killed his father? Robert produces from his jeans pocket a used white envelope that might have once contained a bank statement. I have learned to say, "It's enough."' He smooths the envelope on the table.
Without saying another word Robert Stein stands up and walks off, leaving the envelope. We see he has drawn on it rows of crosses with the letters RIP written beneath each one. Across one corner he has scribbled: 'Deceit. Lies. Fear.'
Robert Stein does not want to answer any of our questions or is incapable of doing so. We have no idea why he agreed to meet us. All we can see is that he is haunted by the Amber Room and the catastrophic effect it has had on his family. Faint and distorted, flickering like a light bulb about to pop, Robert Stein is overshadowed by whatever happened to his parents.
There is a Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein listed with international directories at Villa Askania Nova, Liechtenstein. Before calling the number we check the Ministry of Truth files to see if the Stasi was interested in him too.
It was. We find a report from 1987 to Stasi deputy minister Neiber.1 Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein was obviously a significant player. Here he was described by a Stasi watcher as 'a descendant of Tsar Nicolas II, a cousin of Vladimir Nabokov, and last in line to a boyar title from Askania Nova, in the southern Ukraine'. The report stated:
Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein uses his entire influence to return looted Russian works of art to the Soviet Union... It is known that he maintains contacts up to the highest Soviet leadership. For instance, he travelled with Comrade Gorbachev on his trip through the Baltic Soviet Republics in the spring of this year [1987]. [Falz-Fein] spoke on Soviet television and he took part in discussions lasting several hours with the Soviet Minister of Culture about the search for stolen works of art.
So this would explain his connection with the Amber Room. We call. 'My dears, who did you say you were?' asks a reedy voice. Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein says he is busy packing his travelling wardrobe. 'I'm sorry, dears, but I have a very important tea appointment with Prime Minister Yushchenko in