It was a fisherman in the Svalbard
archipelago that found it, after at least fifty years of being lost. He was
coming back from one of his journeys into the ocean and crossed by one of the
many rocks that formed the archipelago. This was close to the main island. As
he sailed back to his home, he saw one of this rocks filled with seagulls that
had made their nests on the highest parts of the rocks. The fisherman never
really looked at the rocks, he was very used to them, but this time something
caught his attention. It was something that sparkled with the last rays of the
sun. It was almost night but you could easily see how bright the thing
sparkled.
He sailed right for it, curious to see what
was it. Seagulls, and birds in general, were known to love shiny things and he
thought that maybe it was a piece of glass or something equally ordinary but as
he closed in he looked up and used a pair of binoculars that his son had gave
him as a present to spot birds flying over large banks of fish. He pointed them
at the nest and almost fell to the water when realizing that what sparkled
wasn’t a piece of glass or tin can. It was a bracelet. It consisted of a thin
central ring, made probably of silver, and many charms went through the ring.
Some were made of gold; some others had jewels of many colors.
Desperate to see it closer, the fisherman
tried to reach the nest but it was too high. He couldn’t just take it with his
hand and the rock was slippery do to the water and the waste made by the birds.
He realized he needed to climb the wall or get the nest down somehow. He then
tried to climb the wall, but slipped easily, almost falling in the wrong way.
He did fell to the water and had to return to the boat all wet. He then
realized a storm was forming so he had do make fast decisions. He decided to
leave and return early the next day, weather permitting, as the birds wouldn’t
let the piece be lost. Many of them were already at the rock and circling the
boat, as keeping an eye on him. So he turned on the engine and decided to come
back another time, thinking the treasure would be there the next day.
Little did he know that the bracelet was not
only a small piece of wealth, it was actually a piece of history that time
itself had forgotten long ago. The piece, or at least the central ring and one
of the charms, had being created by a tribe now nonexistent of South
America. They had made it especially for
their lord, a local chieftain that many in the world would know through the
legend of Eldorado. Yes, that man was the original owner of the piece, which
was specially created for him thinking that he needed the bracelet to be kind
of his gift to the gods one he had entered communion with them. The shape of
the bracelet, which locked with the small head of a snake, was made to be an
offer to the gods and sign of power.
But
that small piece of jewelry only survived some years before being taken away in
one of the many trips done by the Spaniards, which had arrived recently to the
region. They took many of their riches and simply put them in crates and other
types of containers and took them to the coast. There, some guy just checked
every object and determined if it was worth something and if they should give
it to the royal family or if they should keep it for themselves.
A man called Carlos Díaz saw the bracelet,
which had already been put on the boat sailing to Spain. He had been just a
petty thief in the past but now he worked with the army and for the queen. But
once he saw the small piece of jewelry, he decided he had to have it. He took
it without telling anyone and put it on his wrist to make sure he didn’t loose
it. Carlos was so enthralled with it; he decided to add something so he put a
hollow piece of gold in it. But that wasn’t good enough as, days after departing
the coast, a fleet of English pirates assaulted the ship and stole the cargo
before blowing the boat to the sky with their canons. The pirate that killed
Carlos saw the bracelet in his wrist and decided to steal it.
When trading it back in Britain, he found a
buyer. It was a merchant, a man that loved trinkets and silly things to make
himself a nice collection. The man was an Italian called Domenico Girondelli
and he was about to take a couple of his cousins to a trip to the far east, to
get spices and other things there. Domenico also added a charm to the bracelet:
a small coin with a hole through it. They had to go through all of Europe and
then cross the Bosphorus disguised as Turks. But the Turks saw through their
ruse and attempted to kill them. Just one of the men survived, and this was
because he was a better runner and because he was saved by a group of women. He
disguised himself as one and grabbed the bracelet from Domenico’s belongings.
Seeing
he had nothing back in Italy or in the Ottoman Empire, he decided to leave the
place and keep the charade of being a woman until he got to China. In the
route, many men fell in love with him. To be fair, he had girly features and
didn’t even grow a beard or a mustache. He was a skinny man and could pass for
a woman very easily. Hard to reach and very shy, men loved that about him and
also that only piece of jewelry that made her so special. Men in Samarkand and
all over the desert gave him charms for his bracelets, adorned with many
beautiful jewels and stones.
When he finally arrived into China, he
realized he wasn’t a man anymore. He felt so sorry for himself, realizing he
felt like a woman know, that he drowned himself on a lake by the imperial
palace of Beijing. The police of the realm picked up his body after several
days and took the bracelet to the Emperor who gave it to his wife. She was so
caught up by it that she added two more charms: a jade ring and a small gold
chain that rattled when she walked with the bracelet on. The piece found a home
in the palace for many years, being passed on by the Empress to other women
through generations until the Japanese invaded China. By then, the imperials
had already disappeared but the bracelet was still kept in one of the many
palaces, part of a collection worth millions. The Japanese didn’t take many
things but one man that accompanied them in their task had an eye for all
things of some worth.
His name was Carl Unger. He had been send to
Japan by the new government in Germany and had wanted to be in China as they
invaded the place. After all, his country knew how important Japan was for a
future strategy in the region and he had accepted the post of consultant with
the Japanese government. He would travel with the army, wherever they would go,
and see what use he could make of cities, people and the objects he saw on his
way. It was him who found the small chest where the bracelet was being kept and
took it as a prize. No one said anything but everyone saw him taking the bounty
to his chambers, a whole room he had taken for himself in one of the palaces.
There, Carl would look at the piece for hours.
He found it fascinating because he realized it wasn’t a local piece. The snake
and the charms… Everything was so different and unique. But precisely that was
the beautiful thing about the piece, that it was a sum of many parts and that
it seemed to reflect a beauty he would never see again. Some days later, he was
summoned back to Tokyo, so he took everything with him. There, he lived alone
and spent his days between work and his treasure. He was becoming obsessed,
almost to a clearly sick level with the pieces.
That lasted for years until the people at the embassy
revealed to him that war had started. Central command in Berlin was giving him
the option of staying in Japan or going back to Germany to help with the war
effort. He decided to go back, in order to visit his mother and to give her the
bracelet. He realized it was the best thing to do. So he packed what he had and
headed for Berlin. The city was glorious, as he had never seen it before, and
the army was making progress all over. He visited his mother and gave the
bracelet.
He would never see the piece again. Carl died
after being sent to fight in northern France. His mother, a good soul, had given
the bracelet to his housekeeper in order for her to sell it and escape the
country. The woman was a Jew and, as she escaped, she added a new charm: a
ring. But she wasn’t successful in her attempt to leave Germany and was
captured by Nazis. The woman was sent to a concentration camp where the
bracelet was lost in the sewers for many years.
It was found by an American soldier who took
it as a token to give to his girlfriend, who was waiting for him to go back
home. He travelled to France with the army and there he boarded a boat to the
United States. He added a small rock he had found in the camp, piercing through
it with a torch a fellow soldier had lent him. But the war was not over and a
German submarine fired on the boat, killing everyone on board. The bodies
floated on the water as well as their belonging and it was a seagull who found
the bracelet floating softly just below the water. The bird grabbed it and fled
the site with it. And that’s how the bracelet got to Svalbard.
The storm poured many gallons of rain on the
rock but the nest stood still and the next morning the fisherman came for the
bracelet. He had a large rod that he used to grab the nest and the bracelet for
his wife, who had always wanted a nice piece of jewelry. She added her wedding
ring as a charm and held it close until her death. But as we all know, that
wouldn’t be the end of story.
