The Water Mirror

by Kai Meyer

  Some said she was only as big as a droplet that was sometimes here, sometimes there; others swore she was the water itself, some just a tiny swallow. She was more power than creature, and for many even a deity, who was in every thing and every creature.

  The campaigns of the tyrants might sow grief, death, and desolation, Amenophis and his Empire might subjugate the world—but the aura of the Flowing Queen had protected the lagoon for more than thirty years now, and so there was no one in the city who did not feel obligated to her. In the churches Masses were held in her honor, the fishermen sacrificed a portion of every catch, and even the secret guild of the thieves showed her gratitude by keeping their hands to themselves on certain days in the year.

  There—again a sound! This time there was no doubt about it.

  Merle sat up in bed. The tendrils of her dreams still lapped at her senses like the foaming tide at one’s feet during a walk on the beach.

  The sound was repeated. Metal grating on metal, coming up from the courtyard. Merle recognized that sound—the lid of the well. It sounded the same way all over Venice when the heavy metal covers over the wells were opened. The cisterns existed all over the city, in every open piazza and in most courtyards. Their round walls were carved with patterns and fabulous creatures of stone. Gigantic semicircular covers protected the precious drinking water from dirt and rats.

  But who was busying himself about a well at this time of night? Merle got up and wiped the sleep from her eyes. A little wobbly on her legs, she went over to the window.

  She was just in time to see in the moonlight a form climb over the edge of the well and slide into the dark well shaft. A moment later hands reached out of the darkness, grasped the edge of the lid, and pulled it, grating, over the opening.

  Merle emitted a sharp gasp. Instinctively she ducked, although the form had disappeared into the well long since.

  Eft! There was no doubt that she had been the shadowy figure in the courtyard. But what would make the housekeeper climb into a well in the middle of the night?

  Merle turned around, intending to wake Junipa.

  The bed was empty.

  “Junipa?” she whispered tensely. But there was no corner of the small room she could not have seen from there. No hiding place.

  Unless . . .

  Merle bent and looked under both beds. But there was no trace of the girl.

  She went to the door. It had no bolt that the girls could have slid closed for the night, no lock. Outside in the hallway it was utterly quiet.

  Merle took a deep breath. The floor under her naked feet was bitterly cold. Quickly she pulled her dress and sweater on over her nightgown and pushed her feet into her worn-out leather shoes; they reached beyond her ankle and had to be tied, which at the moment required much too much time. But she couldn’t possibly go looking for Junipa and run the danger of tripping over her own shoelaces. Hastily she laced and tied them, but her fingers trembled, and it took twice as long as usual.

  Finally she slipped out into the passageway and pulled the door closed behind her. An ominous hissing came from somewhere in the distance. It didn’t sound like an animal, more like a steam engine, but she wasn’t sure whether it was coming from here in the house. Soon after, she heard it again, followed by a rhythmic pounding. Then silence again. Only as she was already on her way down the stairs did it occur to Merle that there were only two inhabited houses on the Canal of the Expelled—Arcimboldo’s workshop and that of the weaver on the other side.

  The whole house smelled strange, a little of lubricating oil, of polished steel, and the acrid odor she knew from the glass workshops on the lagoon island of Murano. She had been there one single time, when an old glassmaker had contemplated taking her to work for him. Right after she arrived, he ordered her to scrub his back in the bath. Merle had waited until he was sitting in the water and then run as fast as she could back to the landing point. Stowing away in a boat, she’d managed to get back to the city. Such cases were not unknown at the orphanage, and although the authorities weren’t at all happy to see her again, they had enough decency not to send her back to Murano.

  Merle reached the landing on the third floor. Until then she’d met no one and discovered no sign of life. Where might the other apprentices be sleeping? Perhaps on the fourth floor, like her and Junipa. She knew at least that Eft was not in the house, but she avoided giving too much thought to what the odd woman was looking for in the well.

  There remained only Arcimboldo himself. And, of course, Junipa. What if she’d only had to go to the bathroom? The tiny chamber, in which a round shaft in the floor ran straight down to the canal, was on the fourth floor too. Merle hadn’t thought to look there, and now she cursed herself for it. She’d forgotten the most obvious thing—perhaps because in the orphanage it was always a bad sign when one of the children disappeared from his or her bed at night. Only a few of them ever reappeared again.

  She was about to turn around to look, when the hissing started again. It sounded even more artificial, machinelike, and the tone made her shudder.

  She thought she heard something else, too, very briefly only, soft in the background of the hissing.

  A sob.

  Junipa!

  Merle tried to make out something in the dark stairwell. The area was pitch-black, only a touch of moonlight falling through a high window beside her, a vague suggestion of light that scarcely sufficed to make out the steps under her feet. In the hallway to her left ticked a grandfather clock, alone in the shadows, a monstrous outline like a coffin that someone had leaned against the wall.

  Meanwhile she was certain: The hissing and the sobbing were coming from the interior of the house. From farther below. From the workshop on the second floor.

  Merle hastened down the steps. The corridor that branched off from the staircase had a high, arching ceiling. She followed it, as softly and quickly as she could. Her throat was tight. Her breathing sounded as loud to her as the wheezing of one of the steamboats on the Grand Canal. What if she and Junipa had jumped out of the frying pan into the fire? If Arcimboldo had planned some horror similar to that of the old glassblower on Murano?

  She recoiled as she perceived a movement next to her. But it was only her own reflection, flitting across the innumerable mirrors on the walls.

  The hissing was coming more often now, and sounded nearer. Eft hadn’t shown them exactly where the entrance to the workshop was. She’d merely mentioned that it was on the second floor. But here there were several doors, and all were high and dark and closed. There was nothing for Merle to do but follow the sounds. The soft sobbing had not been repeated. The thought of Junipa being helplessly delivered to an unknown danger brought tears to Merle’s eyes.

  One thing was certain in any case: She would not let anything happen to her new friend, even if it meant both of them being sent back to the orphanage. Of the worst she didn’t want to think at all. Nevertheless, the bad thoughts stole into her mind like the buzzing of small gnats:

  It’s nighttime. And dark. Many people have disappeared into the canals already. No one would care about two girls. Two fewer mouths to feed, nothing more.

  The corridor made a bend to the right. At its end glowed the outline of arched double doors. The crack between the two doors shimmered golden like wire that has been held in a candle flame. A strong fire must be burning inside the workshop—the coal boiler of the machine that was uttering the primeval hissing and snorting.

  When Merle approached the door on tiptoe, she saw that a layer of smoke lay over the stone flags of the corridor like a fine ground fog. The smoke was coming from under the door, emerging in a fiery shimmer.

  What if a fire had broken out in the workshop? You have to remain calm, Merle kept drumming into herself. Very, very calm.

  Her feet stirred the smoke on the floor, conjuring up the outlines of foggy ghosts in the darkness, many times enlarged and distorted as shadows on the walls. The only light was the glow of the crack around the doors
.

  Darkness, fog, and the glowing doors directly in front of her—it seemed to Merle like the entrance to Hell, so unreal, so oppressive.

  The acrid odor that she’d noticed in the upper stairwell was even more penetrating here. The lubricating oil stench was also stronger. It was rumored that messengers from Hell had visited the City Council in the past months and offered it the help of their master in the battle against the Empire. But the councillors had ruled out any pact with Old Nick. So long as the Flowing Queen was protecting them all, there was no reason for it. Ever since the National Geographic Society expedition under the famed Professor Charles Burbridge in 1833 had proven Hell to be a real place in the interior of the earth, there had been several meetings between the ambassadors of Satan and representatives of humanity. However, no one knew any of the details, and that was probably just as well.

  All this shot through Merle’s head while she walked the last paces up to the door of the workshop. With infinite caution she placed her hand flat on the wood. She’d expected it to feel warm, but that proved to have been wrong. The wood was cool and in no way different from any of the other doors in the house. Even the metal door handle was cold when Merle ran a finger over it.

  She considered whether she should enter. It was the only thing she could do. She was alone, and she doubted there was anyone in this house who would come to her aid.

  She’d just made her decision when the latch was pressed from the other side. Merle whirled around, meaning to flee, but then she sprang into the protection of the left-hand door, while the right one swung to the inside.

  A broad beam of glowing light splashed across the smoke on the floor. Where Merle had just been standing, the swirls of smoke were swept aside by a draft of air. Then a shadow crossed the light stripe. Someone walked out into the corridor.

  Merle pressed herself as deeply as she could into the protection of the closed side of the door. She was less than six feet away from the figure.

  Shadows can make people menacing, even if in reality they aren’t at all. They make midgets large and weaklings as broad as elephants. So it was in this case.

  The mighty shadow shrank, the farther the little old man got from the source of the light. As he stood there, without even noticing Merle, he looked almost a bit comical in his much too long trousers and the smock that had become almost black with soot and smoke. He had disheveled gray hair that stood out on all sides. His face glistened. A droplet of sweat ran down his temple and was lost in his bushy side whiskers.

  Instead of turning around to Merle, he turned back to the door and extended a hand in the direction of the light. A second shadow melted with his on the floor.

  “Come, my child,” he said, his voice gentle. “Come out.”

  Merle didn’t move. She hadn’t imagined her first meeting with Arcimboldo like this. Only the calm and serenity in the old man’s voice gave her a little hope.

  But then the mirror maker said, “The pain will stop soon.”

  Pain?

  “You needn’t be afraid,” Arcimboldo said, facing the open door. “You’ll quickly get used to it, believe me.”

  Merle scarcely dared breathe.

  Arcimboldo took two or three steps backward into the passageway. As he moved, he held both hands outstretched, an invitation to follow him.

  “Come closer . . . yes, just like that. Very slowly.”

  And Junipa came. With small, uncertain steps she walked through the door into the hallway. She moved stiffly and very carefully.

  But she can’t see anything, Merle thought desperately. Why was Arcimboldo letting her wander around without help in a place that wasn’t familiar to her? Why didn’t he wait until she could take his hand? Instead he kept moving backward, farther from the door—and in fact at any moment he was going to discover Merle, hiding in the shadow. Spellbound, she stared at Junipa, who was falteringly stepping past her in the hallway. Arcimboldo, too, only had eyes for the girl.

  “You’re doing very well,” he said encouragingly. “Very, very well.”

  The smoke on the floor gradually dispersed. No new clouds came from the depths of the workshop. The glowing firelight bathed the hallway in flickering, dark orange.

  “It’s all so . . . blurry,” Junipa whispered miserably.

  Blurry? Merle thought in astonishment.

  “That will improve soon,” said the mirror maker. “Just wait—early tomorrow, by daylight, everything will look very different. You must only trust me. Come just a little closer.”

  Junipa’s steps were more confident now. Her careful progress was not because she couldn’t see. Quite the contrary.

  “What do you recognize?” asked Arcimboldo. “What exactly?”

  “I don’t know. Something is moving.”

  “Those are only shadows. Don’t be afraid.”

  Merle couldn’t believe her ears. Was it possible, was it actually possible that Arcimboldo had given Junipa sight?

  “I’ve never seen before,” said Junipa, baffled. “I was always blind.”

  “Is the light that you see red?” the mirror maker wanted to know.

  “I don’t know how light looks,” she replied uncertainly. “And I don’t know any colors.”

  Arcimboldo grimaced, annoyed with himself. “Stupid of me. I should have thought of that.” He stopped and waited until he could grasp Junipa’s outstretched hands. “You’ll have a lot to learn in the next weeks and months.”

  “But that’s why I came here.”

  “Your life will change, now that you can see.”

  Merle could no longer stay in her hiding place. Unmindful of all consequences, she leaped from the shadows into the light.

  “What have you done to her?”

  Startled, Arcimboldo looked over at her. And Junipa blinked. She strained to make anything out. “Merle?” she asked.

  “I’m here.” Merle walked up to Junipa and touched her gently on the arm.

  “Ah, our second new pupil.” Arcimboldo had quickly recovered from his surprise. “A quite curious pupil, it seems to me. But that doesn’t matter. You would have found out early tomorrow morning in any case. So you are Merle.”

  She nodded. “And you are Arcimboldo.”

  “Indeed, indeed.”

  Merle looked from the old mirror maker back to Junipa. The realization of what he’d done found her unprepared. At first glance and in the weak light the change hadn’t caught her attention, but now she asked herself how she could have overlooked that. It felt as though an ice-cold hand were running its fingers up her back.

  “But . . . how . . . ?”

  Arcimboldo smiled proudly. “Remarkable, isn’t it?”

  Merle couldn’t speak a syllable. Dumbly she stared at Junipa.

  Into her face.

  At her eyes.

  Junipa’s white eyeballs had vanished. Instead of them, silvery mirrors glittered under her lids, set into her eye sockets. Not rounded like eyeballs, but flat. Arcimboldo had replaced Junipa’s eyes with the splinters of a crystal mirror.

  “What have you—”

  Arcimboldo gently interrupted her. “Done to her? Nothing, my child. She can see, at least a little. But that will improve from day to day.”

  “She has mirrors in her eyes!”

  “That is so.”

  “But . . . but that’s . . .”

  “Magic?” Arcimboldo shrugged his shoulders. “Some might call it so. I call it science. Besides humans and animals there is only one other thing in the world that is able to see. Look in a mirror, and it will look back at you. That is the first lesson in my workshop, Merle. Mark it well. Mirrors can see.”

  “He’s right, Merle,” Junipa agreed. “I actually can see something. And I have the feeling that with every minute it’s getting to be a little more.”

  Arcimboldo nodded delightedly. “That’s wonderful!” He grabbed Junipa’s hand and did a little dance of joy with her, just carefully enough not to pull her off her feet. The last remnants
of the smoke flew up around them. “Say it yourself, isn’t it fantastic?”

  Merle stared at the two of them and couldn’t quite believe what was taking place before her eyes. Junipa, who’d been blind since she was born, could see. Thirteen years of darkness had ended. And for that she had to thank Arcimboldo, this little wisp of a man with the disheveled hair.

  “Help your friend to your room,” said the mirror maker, after he’d let go of Junipa. “You have a strenuous day ahead of you tomorrow. Every day is strenuous in my workshop. But I think it will please you. Oh, yes, I really think so.”

  He held out his hand to Merle and added, “Welcome to Arcimboldo’s house.”

  A little dazed, she remembered what they’d hammered into her in the orphanage. “Many thanks for having us here,” she said politely. But in her confusion she hardly heard what she was saying. She looked after the gleeful old man as he hastened back into his workshop with dancing steps and pulled the door closed behind him.

  Merle shyly took Junipa’s hand and helped her up the stairs to the fourth floor, anxiously asking every few steps whether the pain was really not too bad. Whenever Junipa turned toward her, Merle shivered a little. She wasn’t seeing her friend in the mirror eyes but only herself, reflected twice and slightly distorted. She reassured herself with the thought that it was certainly only a matter of getting used to Junipa’s appearance until it looked completely normal to her.

  But still, a slight doubt remained. Before, Junipa’s eyes had been milky and unseeing. Now they were as cold as polished steel.

  “I can see, Merle. I can really see.”

  Junipa kept murmuring the words to herself long after they were back in their own beds again.

  Once, hours later, Merle awakened from tangled dreams when she again heard the grating of the well cover, deep in the courtyard and very, very far away.

  The first few days in Arcimboldo’s mirror workshop were tiring, for Merle and Junipa were left to do all those jobs that the three older apprentices, boys, didn’t want to do. So, many times a day Merle had to sweep up the fine mirror crystals that were deposited on the workshop floor like the desert sand that in some summers was driven across the sea as far as Venice.