28 PRELUDE

  

Their apartment on Avenue Matignon was much more than they had expected. It was almost the complete floor of one of the apartment blocks. It had seven bedrooms, a massive dining room, salons, a music room, a rooftop terrace, and more than a dozen smaller rooms for staff to work in. On the floor below were half a dozen smaller apartments for their staff to live in. 

Over the first month, not only did several governmental department heads and Ministers visit and present their cards, but French Ambassadors with foreign postings who were returning to Paris came to introduce themselves, and other nations' ambassadors to France made courtesy calls as well.

Jonathan knew that the O.T.I.D. had contacts in most governments, administrations, kingdoms, and dynasties, but he had no idea of the scope of the Devi involvement in global affairs.

In every nation, at least one higher bureaucrat was aware of who and what the Devi were or who were a Devi themselves. In England, his governmental contact was the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who reported directly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Jonathan’s first venture into European politics was ensuring the agreement of all parties to the 1925 Treaty of Locarno, a set of bilateral pacts signed in the Swiss town of Locarno. The treaty sought to fix the borders between Germany, France, and Belgium to ensure peace in Western Europe after the Great War. It involved multiple levels of government and departments of France, Belgium, Great Britain, and Italy.

Evelyn, after at the Authentic’s dinner party, had started a rapport with the European Colettes. She had visited them all over the next few months and found herself drawn toward and expressing more interest in Julia Theiss in Graz than toward the other Colettes.

Over the centuries, Jonathan had wondered how the Devi, the O.T.I.D. and the governments of the day interacted. Being instructed by Favreau in the library under the residence of the Authentic was a vast storehouse of knowledge. The catacombs under Paris were well known, but almost every building since the First Republic had been built over an old building.  Many buildings three or four levels above the street had an equal number of floors beneath. It was there that when shown the documents, Favreau told St Croix the answer to that secret.

It was not only that Kings, Czars, Kaisers, Prime Ministers and Presidents had a connection to the Devi through the O.T.I.D., but in some instances, Devi had direct dealings with those in power. It was safety and trust in exchange for power.

The Devi had helped in the assent and domination of the Vatican by the Borgias in the 1400s. The first dynasty of the Ottoman Empire was the House of Osman, which ruled from 1299 until 1922. Jonathan had known of a connection and was part of it, but he did not realize that some of the early Sultans were, in fact, Devi.

In Russia, until the Romanov royal family fell, the Devi had direct control over the Czar. Rasputin, a superior Devi in age, had kept the last Russian tsarevich, Alexei Nikolaevich, alive with Devi's healing in exchange for power and influence.

The strength of the Devi became evident when Count Felix Felixovich Yusupov conspired to kill Rasputin. He first offered him tea and cakes, which had been laced with cyanide, and Rasputin seemed unaffected by the poison. He then drank three glasses of Madeira, which were also poisoned but still showed no sign of distress. Yusupov took a revolver and shot him once in the chest. Then, hiding the body in the basement, he returned an hour later to ensure the monk was dead. Rasputin leaped up and attacked Yusupov, and he chased the Count outside, where Yusupov’s co-conspirator, Grand Duke Dmitri Purishkevich, shot Rasputin again, and he collapsed into a snowbank. The conspirators then wrapped his body in cloth, drove it to the Petrovsky Bridge in central St Petersburg and dropped the body into the Little Nevka River.  

The library contained records of Devi names, where they had lived, the names they had used, and information on who, if any, Standard they had changed.

He looked at the dossier bearing his name and discovered that although it said that he had been in Constantinople in the mid-1400s, the notations on that first page seemed to indicate that there were earlier pages which were not in the dossier.

He looked at Marcano’s file, which bore a large red ram’s head on the cover. The sign that the Devi in this file had ‘devenu voyou’ or had ‘gone rogue’.

His location from the spring of 1888 through the winter of 1891 had been London—a period coinciding with the horrific murders in the area of Whitechapel.

“How was your trip to Graz and Rome? I assume most of your time was in Graz?”

“Yes, why would you say that? But why would you assume I would spend more time in Graz?”

“Well, you have been there perhaps eight or nine times over the past four years. And you have engaged in only one or two trips to Madrid, Krakow or Stockholm.”

“I do not believe that I report to you on my travels. I am the liaison between the Authentic and the Colettes.”

“I am not being accusatory on anything, nor about anything. I was stating facts.”

“Are you monitoring me? Are you having me followed? Why are you saying all of this at this time?”

“As I said, I was only speaking facts. Who you meet in a professional context is not my concern, nor should it be. Neither should I ask you where you were. Or who you met or what you did.

I make no demands upon you as to who you are with as friends, associates or as anything else.”

“How long have you known?”

“It makes no difference; I am happy you are happy. We are still happy and in love; even after eighty-two years of marriage, I still love you as much as the day you married me. And I still see the young woman with the broken boot on Waterloo Bridge every time I look at you.”

“And I still see the ravishingly handsome and helpful gentleman who was willing to help a damsel in distress. I love you, Jonathan St Croix.”

“I love you, Evelyn St Croix.”

In the spring and summer of 1929, Jonathan and Evelyn and most of the European Devi travelled to the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition. Thousands of people from across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Americas travelled to this event and the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929, which was concurrently running in Seville.

Whereas Barcelona’s fair hosted primarily European and Japanese nations, the Seville event centred on almost a dozen former Spanish colonies, Brazil, and the United States.

“The power here is amazing. I feel like I may never have to sleep again. The number of Devi here is making my head spin.”

“Enjoy it, my love. This is the largest gathering of our kind ever, and I hope it is not the last, as I, too, feel the vigour and the strength of all of them.” 

The Authentic Colette had even travelled to Spain and held ‘court’ for all the Devi wishing to make a wish or entreat her for anything. She was just north of the city at Sant Cugat del Vallès, 

Jonathan had questioned the wisdom of her leaving Paris. When he addressed his concerns about rogue Devi or any other danger, she listened to him and expressed gratitude for his concern but assured him of her safety. 

“Jonathan, I have a cadre of protection here from Cossacks to Crusaders to heroic marksmen with rifles; my physical being is in no harm. I am also continuously surrounded by ten or twelve Devi women who can sense any conspiracy against me, from the worst case, being bludgeoned to death to someone wanting to serve me a lousy bowl of soup. Relax, this is the first time I have been away from the Ile de Paris or France since I attended the coronation of Elizaveta Petrovna, Empress of Russia, in 1741. That, my boy, is almost 200 years without a holiday.

Well, if one does not count my 1816 jaunt to the wedding of Willem II, Prince of Orange-Nassau, King of the Netherlands, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, to the Russian princess Anna Pavlovna. That was just a trip to meet some old family members from Wallonia.

The ancient Greek playwright Menander said, "Time is the healer of all necessary evils. Which is ‘time heals all wounds. He never thought about a grudge between two one-thousand-year-old crazy Frankish princesses.

I will be okay, Jonathan. Thank you.”

“She said that? Was she actually that relaxed and open? I recall she opened up with some details of her past when we first met, but she said that in front of others?”

“Yes, I guess she doesn’t get out much, and the fresh air is like a potent brew.

I have a surprise for you tomorrow, but we must return to Barcelona tonight.”

“You know I hate surprises.”

 “Well, this one will be more than head and shoulders above anything else.”

The Graf Zepplin was the ‘King of the Air,’ measuring more than 770 feet long. As part of the Barcelona Exhibition, the German airship arrived in mid-May. A very select number of dignitaries flew above the Mediterranean during the visit. On the second flight on May 16, Jonathan escorted Evelyn onboard.

“Jonathan, this is not right. Nothing this size should be able to move, let alone fly.”

“It is science, dear, what I have seen in my lifetime, and even the changes in the world during yours. One can only wonder what great things we can accomplish in the coming years or decades.”

From just a thousand feet up and barely off the shore, they could see the island of Mallorca off to the south.

“Someday, air travel may even replace steamships for travel across the oceans, and we will live in a much smaller world.”

“I care not for the size of this or any world. I only ask that you are with me.”

“Forever, Jonathan, forever.”

 More than a decade later, the world was at war again. Within six days of the start of hostilities, Evelyn had lost contact with the Colette in Krakow. The Colette in Rome was in a fascist Axis nation, as was Julia in Austria. The Colettes in Madrid and Stockholm were in provisionally neutral countries, with the former leaning towards the Axis and the latter in Sweden being genuinely neutral.

Eight months later, France was invaded, and before Paris was possibly occupied, the Authentic ordered all Devi material to either be hidden, copied, dispersed or taken to an Allied nation.    

The library under her residence was sealed, and access and doors were boarded over. The first sub-floor beneath the ground floor was filled with rubble to conceal the lower floors.

She, most of her staff, and the other female Devi would travel south to Marseilles, then across the sea to Oran or Algiers, Portugal, and, if possible, America or the United Kingdom.

Twenty-one women boarded the trawler in southern France for the five-hundred-to-six-hundred-mile journey. The time and distance depended on the placement of the assets of the Italian and British navies.

When the women boarded the ship, the captain acknowledged each one, paying special attention to the Authentic. Evelyn attributed this to the fact that the Authentic was not carrying any luggage, so she would be the woman in charge.

Evelyn was the last to board, and when she did, the captain grabbed her forcefully, grabbed her hands, and, with a wide smile, said, “Well again, welcome to my ship, Madame. As always, I am at your service.”

“I beg your pardon? I do not believe I have ever met you before. And I have never been on this ship before.”

“Not this ship, Madame, but one of mine.” Then, releasing her hands, he pointed to a Galician flag tattooed on his arm.”

It took a moment for her to recall the distant flight from Ireland, but once she did. She threw her arms around the man, and that was a surprise to all of her companions.

Back in Paris, those who remained behind at the residence quickly converted all the rooms into sleeping wards, filling the rooms with beds and desks and hanging crucifixes on the walls. In just a few days, the residence of the Authentic became an orphanage and school for Parisian children.

Things were equally hectic in Jonathan’s offices and their residence. All of Devi Communicators, travellers, and messengers required multiple identification documents, transit papers, military exemption papers, various types of certifications, old correspondence from family and lovers, and entire backstories to permit entrance and admittance to multiple countries, transit across those countries, and exit visas.  

After France was invaded, the French National Assembly voted to dissolve itself, ending the Third Republic.

By that time, Jonathan had reached the Pyrenees, travelled north, crossed the frontier into Spain, and awaited transportation from the coastal town of Donostia-San Sebastian.

“Oh my God. I love you,” both said in unison as Jonathan ran to meet Evelyn as she disembarked from the train from Cardiff at Paddington Station.

He hailed them a cab, and then they went to their old home in Chelsea on Royal Avenue.

Devi owned the house, and all the adult residents from the area had passed away. If any children had inherited their parents' home, they seemed more preoccupied with life in wartime than meeting their new neighbours.  

Once back at Royal Avenue, Evelyn began to talk about her roundabout journey from Paris.

“It was frightening; the trip to Oran was quiet, but the road trip from there to Casablanca was almost three weeks. We were detained and treated like cattle at the Moroccan border; I am not sure which side treated us worse, the Algerians or the Moroccans. There was a delay in Casablanca of more than a week.

In Lisbon, we were free to travel the city but had to report where and why we were going. I visited our old home. It has held up nicely; however, the store has been replaced. But the family in the home allowed me in. I said that my great grandmother’s family had owned the home. I was amazed at how much Portuguese I had retained.

“I am glad you survived the ordeal. My journey to Spain and Wales was much easier and faster than expected.”

“What of us now Jonathan? What of us and the Devi and all of this?”

“If the war lasts over a year or two, I do not know. With a peace pact between Russia and Germany, and the Americans being neutral, and the Japanese and Chinese in their war, I do not think this will last long.”

“I hope you are right, my sweetheart. I think it is time to retire for the night.”

“I was hoping you would soon say that.”

Within a few months, the routine they had in Paris was re-engaged, but on a smaller level.

The Authentic was safely stowed away in an old estate in Killarney Ireland.

The Colettes in Rome and Madrid remained mostly silent. Stockholm was very busy. Sadly, Krakow was lost in the early days of the war, and Julia in Graz had just recently disappeared.

   Jonathan’s Communicators were re-establishing themselves and functioning across Europe as an information network for the Allied side.