Volk

by David Nickle

  “This isn’t my friend,” said Andrew. “What is it now?”

  He looked up to the high ceiling . . . squinted when he saw nothing but the hanging lamps. He looked back down, and Molinare shrugged. The thing that was playing Molinare shrugged, rather. It was an important distinction and Andrew made sure to keep it top of mind. He’d been wrong . . . should have taken the gas mask. He was sliding into a delusion that could only be from a Juke—but for the subtle differences. He didn’t feel that his will had fled in the face of any magnificence.

  Molinare was far from magnificent. He was the same gangly old man that Andrew remembered from the last time he’d been in Paris for a meeting. Andrew had never seen him naked, but he was as Andrew imagined . . . sagging pectorals, arms with pale flesh hanging from bone like wet towels on a rack; a small, uncut penis dangling from a whitening nest of pubes.

  It was interesting that it was Molinare. The ghost of Molinare.

  And a very different ghost than was shown to Molinare’s young assistant and lover.

  “As soon as I get home,” said the ghost, “I am going straight to my warm bed.”

  He turned then, and went into the ticketing hall. Andrew stepped around the duffel bags and followed.

  There was a row of counters, all of them but one dark, and that one was empty for the time being. There was a policeman by the doorway. He paid no heed to naked old Molinare, nor, more incredibly, to Andrew Waggoner as he followed the spectre to the middle of the hall.

  “Warm bed,” said Molinare’s ghost. “Lie me down to sleep.” It raised an arm to beckon Andrew to step closer. As though Andrew might want to sleep too, which as he thought about it, he did—and why shouldn’t he? He’d been awake through the trip from Paris, and for—how long, here at Stuttgart?—and he was exhausted, in that insects-on-the-skin way that happens during an all-night vigil in post-op at Vire.

  He shut his eyes a moment, just an instant, and opened them again, and wasn’t entirely surprised to see another spectre standing in Molinare’s place.

  “Madame Pierrepoint,” he said aloud.

  His patient, grey and sagging, a sutured scar bisecting her chest, but smiling radiantly . . . naked as Molinare . . . as Molinare’s spectre . . . as the Juke . . .

  “Madame Pierrepoint is alive in France,” said Andrew, and her ghost shrugged, and coughed, as if to say: How was it to know? And Andrew wondered at that: How was he to know? Was she alive? He had watched her eyes open, and tested her along with Doctor Thomas, and found her vital signs satisfactory, her responses encouraging . . . but who knew how she was doing now? Things could have taken a turn. He might have lost his patient—this might be her shade . . . coming to talk to him, deliver the sad message like Molinare’s shade in Iceland, announcing his passing to young Dominic.

  No. Not ghosts.

  Andrew might have said it aloud, but he couldn’t be certain. He did know, on a level, that there was no point in saying anything aloud. The apparition was not a real thing, it could not interact with him on the level of language—in its particulars, it could not interact at all. Not there.

  Likely it was nothing at all in front of him. Andrew craned his neck, to see if he could spy the ceiling of the ticketing hall. There, if anywhere, would be the thing . . . the swirl of dangling maws . . . the great mass of the Juke.

  He had no trouble telling there was nothing there. There was no need to squint. Golden sunlight caught the beams, sending sharp, narrow shadows across the expanse. . . . There was nothing there.

  Nothing but the light.

  The sun had risen. And it lit the Hauptbahnhof like a great, brick hearth, the growing crowd of travellers that had now filled the ticketing hall.

  Madame Pierrepoint was not, he saw, among them. And neither, he saw a moment later when he left the ticketing hall for the concourse, was Le Noir Qui Danse.

  The train to Munich arrived on time, at a quarter to eight, and Dominic and Dr. Lewis insisted that they board it immediately—leave the band behind.

  “They left us,” said Lewis. “There’s nothing to be done.”

  The band had left the train station an hour ago, when a train bound for Berlin arrived and left again. It was not clear to Andrew that they had done so by their own choice, but Dominic insisted that they had.

  “Those men . . . persuaded them to join them to Berlin,” said Dominic.

  “Persuaded them. How?”

  “They bought them tickets,” said Dominic. “I don’t know how they persuaded them.”

  “Perhaps Berlin is a more welcoming place for their kind,” said Lewis.

  “My kind too,” Andrew said, and Lewis nodded.

  “In any event, they’ve gone now. And Doctor Kurtzweiller will be expecting us.”

  They had packed up the trunk by the time that Andrew returned, so it was simply a matter of hauling it, along with their regular baggage, to the platform itself and leave it to the porter. Andrew took hold of his own bag, with its still-unused ampoules of adrenaline, and followed them. Should they have stayed, while Andrew determined just what had occurred with the musicians?

  The truth of it was, they should have. But none of them this morning was in a state to investigate that. Andrew . . . he had lost himself for hours. Neither Dominic nor Dr. Lewis, even swaddled in masks, could account well for the time after the music began.

  As they settled in—seated together this time, Andrew was through masquerading—and the German-made train rumbled its way to the south, all Andrew could think was that they had to do better in Munich.

  They had to do much better in Wallgau.

  Two

  Ruth Harper’s return to Chicago in the autumn of 1911, October 3, came as a surprise. She might have wired ahead, and her father’s lawyers would certainly have appreciated it. Mr. Lester Keegan, who was in the process of handling what he had until that afternoon assumed to be the Harper estate, told her that in as many words: “It would have been a courtesy to inform us. We might have assisted, Miss Harper.”

  Keegan was a big man with a florid complexion, his whitened hair slickly oiled directly back on his skull . . . and although Ruth had seen him at the house in Astor from time to time, he had never spoken with her directly, until she arrived at the firm’s offices unannounced. Which was fair enough; she hadn’t spoken to Keegan either. Why would she? She was a child then, and children kept their peace, particularly among their fathers’ employees.

  “Thank you for the lesson in manners, Mr. Keegan,” she said. “I have suffered some privation, you will understand. Assistance might have been welcome. But I managed.”

  “Of course.” Keegan opened a thick folio on his desk. “Well. You shall not have to suffer that privation any longer, Miss Harper. Your father’s will stipulates a generous allowance that will keep you in school and, dare I say, in comfort.”

  “An allowance?”

  “Until,” said Keegan, adjusting spectacles on the thick bridge of his nose, “you have reached an age of . . . twenty-five years, at which point the entirety of the estate will become yours. Unless, of course, you marry earlier. . . .”

  “And until then, who will be managing my fortune?”

  “Trustees,” said Keegan. “Including myself . . .” He produced another sheet of paper and read off a list of names that Ruth didn’t recognize—but most of whom had also visited the Astor house at one time or another while she was there, and also, to whom she had not spoken during those visits.

  Over the coming months, she would remedy that . . . speaking not only to Keegan—to whom she’d speak extensively—but to each and every one of the trustees managing her late father’s affairs, as often as necessary. It was true that there was nothing that she could do, at the age of nineteen, to get the fortune, and her father’s business and philanthropic interests, back under her full control.

  But if she couldn’t control them, she could exercise such influence as to be nearly indistinguishable. And in the end, she gained control years earlie
r than the will her father wrote had stipulated. She didn’t have to marry anyone to do it either.

  In the fall of 1931, on the 12th day of October, Ruth Harper—on her own accord, and against the advice of both Annie Waggoner and her own better sense—left the Sanatorium de Vire and set out for Bavaria, accompanied by Albert Zimmermann.

  Luc Curzon, the old groundskeeper, had taken them to Vire after dark, in one of the ambulances once again. It wasn’t likely necessary . . . the staff at the Sanatorium had been remarkable in their discretion. But Ruth wasn’t sure about the townsfolk, whatever Annie thought.

  That afternoon, she had taken a telephone call from Annie, in Paris, saying that she was quite certain that there was no one of consequence on their trail . . . that she had met a gentleman that Ruth understood to be Aguillard—and he was alone, and ignorant, and easy to deal with in the end. Ruth wasn’t sure that she understood what that meant, but wasn’t about to press it on the telephone—safe or not. Annie said she would be leaving to join her husband. “I sent a telegram explaining about the gentleman. And I’ve got one back from him just an hour later.”

  The return telegram simply said, GOOD NEWS STOP COME AT ONCE STOP GOOD NEWS HERE TOO.

  “So I’m heading off.”

  And at that point, Ruth became more forceful:

  “We will meet you in town,” said Ruth, “for a drink . . . at supper tomorrow . . . and all set out together from there. I’ll arrange the tickets.”

  Annie didn’t think it was a good idea—not given Ruth’s “anxieties” as Annie put it. But she was in no position to refuse, and their circumspect discussion made it unlikely.

  So in Paris they met: not at the flat, but at the Liberty. Ruth made a point of arriving a couple of hours early—she wanted to speak with Bobby before Annie. Bobby wasn’t in that day, however, and when she asked after him heard that he wasn’t in yesterday, and wouldn’t be in today either.

  “Mr. Grady is on holiday,” commented Zimmermann as they sat down and he stuffed tobacco into his pipe.

  “That would be a first,” said Ruth.

  “Well, it is good to be back in a tavern,” said Zimmermann. “It feels like a holiday, after that absurd prison.”

  “Not a prison,” Ruth said. “A hideout, Albert.”

  Zimmermann struck a match on the edge of the table and set it to the pipe bowl. “Prison,” he repeated.

  It was just past four, but on that count Ruth ordered them a bottle of decent Beaujolais and a baguette, and they did their best to limit themselves to that bottle before Annie arrived. After storing her bags behind the bar next to Ruth’s and Albert’s, she sat down with them, and was able to explain at least somewhat more fulsomely.

  “It was Aguillard,” she said, after Albert guessed it might have been. “He came by the apartment. The morning after Andrew left.”

  “Just dropped by?” asked Ruth.

  “Just dropped by. Like that,” said Annie. “He was alone. He’d come from Wallgau.” She allowed herself an odd little smile. “He wanted to consult. With another expert on the Jukes . . . which he knew Andrew to be.”

  “That’s odd,” said Albert. “Aguillard was a member of another society, who also knew of the Juke. Why would he seek out Dr. Waggoner?”

  “I think it went badly in Wallgau,” said Annie, “after you left. And I’m not sure just how much he was talking to that society, like you call it, when he got away.”

  “What happened there?” asked Ruth. “What exactly did he flee?”

  “The same thing that you did,” Annie said to Albert. “Orlok. He had a theory about Orlok that he wanted to discuss with Andrew.”

  “Yes?” asked Ruth.

  “He believed that Orlok might be part Juke.”

  Ruth thought about that, and thought about ordering a fresh bottle of wine. “The Jukes are a different species,” she said. “That’s like a fish being part dog. You can’t be serious.”

  “He was serious,” said Annie. “But you’re right. Species from such different phyla don’t hybridize. So that’s probably not what he’s talking about. But it’s something close. He seemed to think this Orlok fellow did things to people like a Juke might. But he’s a man.”

  “That does fit with your story,” said Ruth, and Albert corrected: “My experience.”

  He tapped his pipe into an ashtray and put it away in his coat pocket.

  “How did Aguillard develop this theory?” asked Albert.

  “He didn’t. Orlok told it to him.”

  They took a light meal at the Liberty and did order another bottle of wine, Ruth expending some considerable effort, trying to persuade Annie to imbibe. It did no good: Annie was set on moderation.

  Her determination worried Ruth. Annie was telling Ruth and Albert a great deal in one sense, but nothing at all in another. What had happened between her and Aguillard? Why was she certain that they were, in fact, safe? Where was Aguillard now?

  “We spoke,” Annie said. “He was alone,” she said. “I’m not sure exactly,” she told them.

  She spoke at some greater length about Orlok, and his story—which she readily admitted made little sense.

  “Aguillard said Orlok told him about himself one night at the farmhouse, him and Bergstrom. He fought his twin in his mother’s belly, and by the time he was born had eaten him up. And this gave him great strength he said.”

  “How mythological.”

  “Or how biological,” said Annie. “That was Aguillard’s guess. That Orlok, this man . . . was somehow the intermingling of a juvenile Juke.”

  “One that didn’t devour the foetus.”

  “But the other way around.”

  “That’s absurd,” said Ruth.

  “Maybe,” said Annie.

  “Who can say?” Zimmermann offered to top up Annie’s glass, but she slid her fingers over the rim.

  “Did you explain all of this in your telegram?” asked Ruth.

  “Not all of it.”

  “Did you explain about Aguillard?”

  Annie speared a green bean from her plate and popped it in her mouth.

  In this way, she remained impenetrable through dinner, and afterward, as they summoned a taxi to the Gare de l’Est, and when the train arrived, settled into their separate cabins. Annie remarked that it was likely quite a bit fancier than the train that Andrew had taken with the musicians, and also direct.

  Keeping to the spirit of things, Ruth decided not to tell her how much she’d paid for the tickets.

  Her belly hurt, like it sometimes did in the dark hours, but Ruth stayed in her berth through the night and didn’t raise a fuss. There would be nothing that Annie or anyone else could do for it because Ruth knew it wasn’t real pain. It was a ghost of pain—of the worst pain she’d ever experienced—but it was nothing but a reminder, a memory made tangible in flesh. It had flowered in reality, in the days after Dr. Waggoner had removed the Juke from her . . . the tiny, vicious thing that she understood had in fact devoured whatever innocent seed she and Jason had fertilized in Eliada.

  The phantom pain in her belly tended to awaken with the genuine pain of memory.

  “You got to go back on your own,” Jason had said. “I don’t want you no more, all right?”

  Those were his words, but were they his feelings? His face was red as they spoke, on the banks of that river, the day before they’d all planned to go to the train station, get back to Chicago—and his eyes were wet. Ruth thought that he did want her, and she wanted him too.

  And then he said a cruel thing, a thing that when she thought of it, always brought that belly pain back in full force.

  “That’s not real what you’re feeling. You’re tied up with that thing, the Juke from your womb . . . it’s telling you what to feel—” and he paused, and stepped back “—because you’re a weak female, and don’t know better.”

  Ruth didn’t go for help, but she did switch on the electric lamp, and look at the note that Zimmermann had brought her from
Jason, and read it again and again: One day I hope I will see you and make good amends for the things my wounded soul has done.

  She didn’t have to read it very many times before the pain faded. She wondered about that—about the draw of him, after all these years. In spite of herself, she wanted to see him—rescue him—take him home, to Chicago finally.

  “Weak female that I am,” she whispered aloud to her otherwise empty cabin, as the train bore down on the Bavarian border through the black night, and with those thoughts in mind, eventually she slept.

  But not long. Ruth woke early in the morning, just as the sky was lightening outside her window, by a quick knock at her door. Ruth wondered if that might have been a customs official. But it was Albert.

  “Guten morgen,” he said, and continued in German: “May I enter?”

  Ruth was momentarily taken aback. They had done this once before, on another train from Athens—early in the morning, with a knock at a cabin door, followed by a wordless embrace. It had been an instant. So far as Ruth understood, one that they both regretted. Certainly one they had never repeated, despite ample opportunity.

  Albert must have read her expression.

  “Not that,” he said. “I wish to speak.”

  Ruth stepped aside and Albert stepped in. He slid the door shut behind him and faced Ruth.

  “It is concerning Frau Waggoner,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “She knocked on my door. Very late. And no,” he added, “not for that.”

  “Then what?”

  “It was very odd.” Albert sat down on the bench under Ruth’s bunk. “Frau Waggoner was . . . a little agitated. She asked me if I had killed.”

  Ruth raised her eyebrows. “What did you tell her?”

  Albert gave a wry little smile. “Never, to my direct knowledge.”