Plunder by Menachem Kaiser (english novels for students txt) 📕

Finally, on November 10—​nearly three months after the first reports of Koper and Richter’s discovery—​a large team of researchers and explorers, including scientists from AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, as well as Koper and Richter, analyzed the site with ground-penetrating radar systems and magnetometers. The operation was partly funded by the Discovery Channel.

A month later AGH University researchers issued their report. No train, they concluded. It was possible that there was a tunnel down there, they said, but definitely no train.

The report was rejected by Koper and Richter, as well as a core of their supporters. According to one conspiracy theory, the train was there, and the researchers were well aware that it was there, but the university had covered it up; they were in cahoots with the government, which had an obvious interest in having everyone believe there was no train.

The report helped break the Golden Train fever; the world lost interest.

Undeterred, Koper and Richter announced they would excavate the site, and after a series of delays, they began digging on August 15, 2016. At a reported cost of $130,000, a team of sixty-four people, mostly volunteers, dug for a week, and found nothing.

It seems that the irregularities on Koper and Richter’s initial readouts were due to an underground dome of loam, formed eons ago by an iceberg.

11

The Killer said a decision from the court was imminent but by this point I’d known The Killer for long enough, and was familiar enough with the Polish judiciary, to know that a decision could be “imminent” for months. The treasure hunters, particularly Andrzej, were constantly inviting me to come explore with them, see their new discoveries, but I begged off; I had had, for the time being, my fill of mystery.

I got it in my head to go to Sosnowiec, and not just for an afternoon, but for a few days, a week, maybe even a couple of weeks. There’d be some research to do but for the most part it would be open, aimless, missionless; I thought I should try to get in touch with the place. My grandfather was born here, had grown up here, he’d walked these streets: I was hungry for meaning, for some sense of my grandfather, and maybe, I thought, I could find it here.

I booked a hotel in the center of town, only a couple of blocks away from Małachowskiego 12. I probably could have stayed in the building. Hanna had, more than once, offered to host me. And the year before—​when this building was still the correct building, when it was still my grandfather’s childhood home—​I had nearly taken her up on her offer, but I’d gotten sick. Too bad, that would have been something. To stay in the building my grandfather had grown up in, had owned, but as a guest, but also as an heir? What a wonderfully fraught situation. But now it didn’t make much sense, the meaning had drained: this was almost certainly the wrong building, and even if it was the correct building or if I could somehow trick myself into believing it was, it was still the case that it hadn’t been my grandfather’s childhood home, my grandfather had never slept here. But also I didn’t want to interact with the residents, I didn’t want to have a confrontation—​even though it was almost certainly the wrong building, I remained a threat until I was definitely not.

I arrived in Sosnowiec, checked into the hotel, and hurried to meet Małgorzata, the translator from court, whom I’d hired for the day. By 5 P.M. I’d crossed off every research-related task I had on my list. We’d gone to the basement of the courthouse and flipped through the Forever Book of plot number 1304; we’d visited the museum, which was a fine municipal museum; we’d gone to Teatr Zagłębia, only to learn it was closed for the next two weeks.

Małgorzata went home and I went back to the hotel. I took some notes, uploaded photographs, took a nap. Then I took a short walk, came back to the hotel, had a light dinner. Then what? I didn’t know what to do. I watched television, took some more notes, took another walk, which turned into a very long walk, but it did little to alleviate my restlessness. Nothing I saw felt particularly interesting or meaningful. Perhaps it was a failure of observation or of imagination on my part, but the city felt so sterile and cold. It got dark. The shops closed, people packed onto streetcars to go home. I found myself scanning faces. Who did I think I might see? Bartek, Hanna, one of the other residents, maybe the judge? I was lonely. I was in an increasingly ugly mood, full of spite (toward whom? I don’t know) and self-pity and a sense of futility, a feeling I was wasting my time here. All I could see were ugly streets and ugly buildings; if there was in fact something here I didn’t know what it was. Sometimes you can feel the absence, can sense what’s gone, or at least can sense that something’s gone, but here I just felt like a lonely cranky foreign pedestrian. I couldn’t even get lost, though I tried. I kept walking past Małachowskiego 12, at first I thought accidentally but then I wasn’t so sure. As I passed by I’d acknowledge the building with a nod, like it was an acquaintance whose presence would be impolite to ignore. I felt a strange antipathy toward it. Not to the people who lived there but to the building itself. Like it had lied to me, misled me, led me on. Soon the streets were nearly empty, and the only places open were a handful of unremarkable bars. I stopped at a few of the bars and had a few drinks. Nothing remarkable happened in these unremarkable bars. I didn’t talk to anyone, no