The Glass Demon

by Helen Grant

  I looked back down the track. The dog was closing on me very fast. It was bounding along, muscles clenching under its brindled hide, jaws agape. Its teeth looked gigantic; already I could imagine them grinding my flesh into ribbons. Sick with terror, I stooped and caught up a stick from the ground. It would be all but useless as a weapon to bludgeon the dog, but I had some faint hopeless idea of wedging it into the creature’s jaws.

  Instantly there was a piercing whistle which made my ears ring. The dog skidded to a halt and stood there panting, every muscle rigid with tension, its eyes fixed on me. Its powerful flanks were heaving, and saliva was hanging from its mouth in gleaming threads. I still clutched the stick like a talisman, my knuckles white, though my palms were slick with perspiration and I doubted I could wield the thing to any useful effect.

  Gradually I became aware that someone was shouting. I looked away from the dog, further up the track. A man was running towards me. I thought he was about fifty, old enough to be my father at any rate, craggy-faced, with messy dark hair shot through with grey. He was dressed in some sort of scruffy-looking green coat and ancient brown trousers with splashes of mud, and was carrying a stick that was considerably thicker and more threatening than mine. He did not look friendly.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing here?’ he shouted in German as he came up to me. He hardly glanced at the dog. ‘Platz,’ he said, and it flopped down on to its stomach.

  ‘I’m –’ The words wouldn’t come out; I could almost feel my brain short-circuiting.

  ‘This is private land,’ he snapped, not waiting for me to choke out another word. ‘Didn’t you see the fence?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  He pushed past me, with a sour whiff of body odour, and paced a few steps down the track, the way that I had come. His entire posture was stiff with irritation.

  ‘Look here.’

  I followed him reluctantly. There was indeed a kind of fence made of what looked like chicken wire, but where it crossed the path it had been pulled down and trodden deeply into the mud, so that I had not really noticed it when I picked my way along the path.

  ‘I’m sorry –’ I started to say in a wavering voice, but got no further before he interrupted me.

  ‘What were you doing on this track?’

  Finally the roughness of his tone forced me to collect myself. ‘I was trying to find Michel,’ I managed to say, and then realized how vague and unconvincing that must sound. ‘He lives at the farm.’

  ‘Michel Reinartz?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose so. He lives on a farm, somewhere in these woods, or near the woods, I think.’

  ‘Hmm.’ The man’s gaze upon me was distinctly hostile. ‘And if I tell you that I am Michel Reinartz? What do you say to that?’

  ‘I…’ I was not sure what to say. I stared at him in silence for a moment before light dawned. I noticed that his eyes were the colour of mud. ‘Have you got a son?’

  He looked at me for a moment, then he nodded grudgingly. ‘Two.’

  ‘Is one of them called Michel too?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Then I’ve met him. We’re the people living in the Kreuzburg.’

  He made a grunt which might have been acknowledgement or might have been disapproval.

  ‘He said you might be able to give me a lift in the morning – to school, I mean.’

  ‘Did he? That’s up to him. I don’t drive him.’

  I groaned inwardly; this was even worse. It looked as though the offer of a lift came from Michel himself, in which case I was looking at twenty minutes shut up in the car with him every morning, not to mention the assumptions my new classmates would make if they saw us arriving together.

  ‘Look, I’m really sorry I came this way. I really didn’t know it was private. I’ll go back the way I came.’

  ‘No,’ he said tersely. ‘You come to the farm with me and talk to Michel yourself. He can take you back afterwards.’

  With that he whistled for the dog, which leapt up and bounded to his side, then he turned away from me and began trudging back the way he had come. After a moment’s hesitation I followed him, with one last uncomfortable glance towards the trodden-down fence.

  For a little while we walked on in silence. Michel’s father was much better dressed for the muddy conditions than I was. He had on stout boots with thick soles which gripped the ground, whereas my shoes were constantly slipping in the mud. I had to struggle to keep up with him, but he did not bother to slow down for me.

  ‘I won’t come into your part of the forest again,’ I said.

  There was no reply.

  ‘The other parts are all right for walking, though, aren’t they?’ I continued, feeling slightly foolish at the one-sided conversation. ‘I mean, they don’t belong to anyone else, do they? There’s no reason not to go there?’

  At this he turned his head and gave me a look of naked contempt. ‘Nobody can stop you walking in the public parts of the wood. They belong to the town. But if you have any sense, you’ll stay in the castle.’ He muttered something else under his breath which I did not catch, but I understood the sense of it: Bloody townies.

  ‘Aren’t the woods safe?’ I persisted. ‘Are there – animals?’

  Herr Reinartz gave a short savage laugh like a bark. ‘Of course there are animals.’ He stopped and grimaced at me, baring his teeth. ‘Badgers, foxes. Some of them have got the –’ He named a word I did not recognize for a moment: Tollwut. Then I realized where I had seen it before: on the posters at the port when we had landed. Rabies. He was talking about rabies.

  ‘There are animals with rabies in these woods?’

  He grinned at the alarm on my face. Really, I did not like Michel Reinartz Senior one bit. ‘Thousands of them,’ he informed me. ‘You get bitten, you’ll need a lift to the hospital, not the bloody school.’

  I eyed the dog nervously. ‘Is he – I mean, has he had the…’

  ‘The jab? What do you think?’ Herr Reinartz stumped on ahead of me without waiting for a reply.

  A few metres further on the path came out on to a wider track which bore the ruts of wheels. Up ahead I could see a screen of trees, behind which I could make out a cluster of grey rooftops. Evidently this was the farm. We skirted around the side of it and came to a section of whitewashed wall with a large wooden gate set into it, big enough for a tractor to pass through. Herr Reinartz opened a smaller door which was set into the gate and indicated that I should go inside. Then he walked off, whistling for his monstrous dog, without bothering to say goodbye.

  I stepped inside and found myself in a yard surrounded by the farm buildings. There was a good deal of junk piled up on every side – sacks stuffed with what might have been animal feed, splitting at the seams; unidentifiable pieces of agricultural machinery, with horrific-looking spikes and blades sticking out at all angles; piles of logs and planks. I was debating where I might find Michel when a movement caught my eye, somewhere high up and to my right. I looked up, just in time to see a window closing, right underneath the eaves. With the light on the glass it was impossible to see who was inside. The next moment a door opened on the ground floor and Michel came out. Perhaps it was the door opening outwards, or the fact that Michel was dressed in a dark sweatshirt and jeans, but I was suddenly irresistibly reminded of the moment when I had first seen the Catholic priest, stepping out of the castle door.

  When Michel saw me his face lit up. ‘Lin!’ Judging by the indecent haste with which he came hurrying over, he must have thought I was here to declare my undying love for him. A momentary image of the priest’s stern face flickered across my mind. It was hard not to be irritable with Michel; there was something so pathetic about the way he looked at me.

  ‘Hi,’ I said non-committally. I couldn’t help glancing up at the closed window, but there was nothing to see. ‘I just came over to talk to you about the lift to school,’ I added in German. ‘Tuesday says it would be better if I went with you.’

&
nbsp; ‘Great,’ said Michel.

  The fact that I had more or less told him that I had only come because Tuesday had made me do it passed him by completely.

  ‘Do you want to come in?’

  ‘No thanks,’ I said hastily. ‘I have to get back to the castle.’ I paused, weighing up the options: walk through the rabies-infested forest on my own, or ask Michel to take me back. Common sense won, though I was afraid I would regret it later. ‘Would you mind taking me back there? I met your dad in the woods and he says it’s dangerous.’

  ‘Dangerous?’ Michel looked puzzled.

  ‘Because of rabies,’ I explained.

  ‘Rabies?’ he repeated.

  I resisted the urge to shake him and tell him to stop repeating everything I said.

  ‘He told me there are thousands of animals in there with it, foxes and badgers and stuff.’

  ‘That’s Quatsch,’ said Michel. ‘There’s no rabies in this area at all. Maybe you misunderstood him.’

  ‘I didn’t misunderstand him,’ I said rather coldly. ‘But if there isn’t any rabies I can walk back myself.’

  Michel realized his mistake. ‘No, don’t do that. Look, I’ll come with you anyway.’

  I turned and he fell into step beside me. For once it was reassuring to have him there; he was half a head taller than me and broad-shouldered.

  ‘I bet you came round the long way,’ he was saying. ‘I’ll show you a short cut, then you can come over any time you like.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t listen to Dad. I expect he was just trying to put you off walking around in the woods.’

  ‘What for? He said they mostly belong to the town. And if there aren’t any rabid animals I don’t see why I can’t go for walks.’

  ‘Well…’ Michel began reluctantly. ‘It’s not really – well, people don’t really like anyone going through the woods here. It’s not exactly private, that’s true, but it’s not really a tourist place, you know. People who want to go hiking normally go over to Bad Münstereifel.’

  ‘Well, I live here,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s not exactly convenient, going over to Bad whatever-it-is. Anyway, what’s the problem with the woods? Have the local villagers got an illegal schnapps factory in there or something?’

  Michel wasn’t listening. He was staring absently at the sky, strands of dark hair flopping over his eyes. Suddenly he said, ‘Have you got – you know, a boyfriend?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said immediately. ‘In England.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He looked so disappointed that I almost felt sorry for him. It wasn’t until much later that afternoon, after he had dropped me at the castle with a promise to call for me on the first day of school, that I realized he had never answered my question about the woods and what they had to hide.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Three days later the autumn term began. Michel was supposed to be calling for me at seven thirty. When I came downstairs, my father was already sitting at the pine table, surrounded by stacks of books and maps. He barely looked up, simply making a vague gesture of greeting in my general direction, and I knew better than to speak to him. When my father had the bit between his teeth he would work all day and half the night, barely stopping to eat, snapping at anyone who interrupted him. Since Herr Krause’s visit he had been working like a demon, determined to prove the older man wrong, although judging by his uncertain temper he was making very slow progress.

  Tuesday was still in bed. I had long since given up any hope that she would be bustling around the kitchen making bacon and eggs or packing me a lunchbox. In fact, she appeared to have finished off all the ham I had been intending to use to make sandwiches; there was a plate with the remains on it at the other end of the table. I searched the room until I found her handbag, a hideous creation in shiny emerald-green leather, which was lurking under a chair like an enormous tropical frog, its mouth gaping open. I shot a swift look at my father; he was deeply engrossed in a dusty-looking volume, feverishly jotting down notes. I fished Tuesday’s purse out of the bag. There were four twenty-euro notes and one ten-euro note in it, plus assorted change. After some debate I took one of the twenties, reasoning that she would be more likely to miss the single ten. As I was sliding the purse back into the bag I heard the honk of a car horn and sighed.

  ‘Morgen, Michel,’ I said as I slid into the passenger seat of his car, a little red Volkswagen that had seen considerably better times. I did my best to keep my voice as neutral as possible, steering a hazardous course between friendly-enough-to-give-him-the-wrong-idea and downright rude.

  The inside of the car was scrupulously tidy, in contrast to the scruffy-looking exterior. I noticed there was a smear on the dashboard as though someone had made an inept attempt at wiping it down. Balancing my bag on my lap, I pulled the door shut.

  ‘Morgen.’ Michel gave me a wide smile.

  I noticed that he was looking considerably smarter than I had seen him look before; I sincerely hoped it was for the school’s benefit. He had on a crisply ironed blue shirt and jeans, and he had washed his hair; now it fell across his forehead like a dark glossy wing. I even thought I could detect a subtle hint of aftershave. I found myself wishing that I had dressed down myself, rather than pinching the best of Tuesday’s wardrobe for my first day at the new school. As it was, I had the uncomfortable feeling that we looked as though we were going out on a date.

  ‘Well, are you going to drive, then?’ I asked him in German as the moment stretched out. I could have sworn that he made a tiny jump, as though he really had forgotten what he was supposed to be doing.

  As the car moved off down the track Michel said, ‘How did you learn such good German?’

  ‘At school,’ I said. ‘And last summer I went to stay with a family near Trier. My uncle Karl organized it – he’s German.’

  Michel digested this. ‘Your family is partly German? So doesn’t everyone speak German?’

  ‘No.’ I smiled inwardly at the thought; the nearest Tuesday got to speaking a foreign language was asking for a latte macchiato. ‘Karl’s not really my uncle,’ I explained. ‘He’s married to Tuesday’s cousin. He comes from Koblenz but he always speaks English with us. I mean, he has to. Tuesday can’t speak German.’

  ‘But your father – he speaks German?’

  ‘Well, yes, but he’s not all that fluent. He can read it really well and he knows all the words for bits of church windows and stuff, but he’s never had to speak it much.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Michel made a sound of vague satisfaction. ‘He won’t get very far with his researches, then.’

  I felt a stab of irritation. ‘I told you, he can read it perfectly well.’

  ‘Well, that’s good, but he won’t find anything out from reading books,’ said Michel. ‘If he talked to people who live here…’ He shook his head. ‘But if he can’t speak German…’

  ‘Someone came over a few days ago and offered to help,’ I said, watching Michel carefully to see whether he would react. ‘He said his name was Hermann-Joseph Krause, though how anyone can go around with a name like that –’

  ‘Father Krause?’ Michel rolled his eyes. ‘Father Krause came to see you? Mensch.’

  ‘Father Krause? You mean he’s a priest?’ I was puzzled. ‘He wasn’t wearing a priest’s collar or anything.’

  Michel snorted. ‘No, he wouldn’t. He’s not a priest any more. He used to be one. What did he tell your father?’

  ‘He said there used to be a letter in the archive at Trier proving that the Allerheiligen glass was destroyed. He said it doesn’t exist any more. There’s nothing to find.’

  Michel risked a glance at me before looking back at the road ahead. ‘Where did you say this letter was?’

  ‘Well, it isn’t anywhere now. He said it got burned or something in the war.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘What?’ I said crossly.

  There was a pause during which Michel was evidently carrying on some internal deba
te. Eventually he said, ‘Why does your father want to find the glass anyway? What’s he going to do with it?’

  I sighed. I didn’t want to have to tell Michel the whole sorry story, that my father had failed to get the professorship he wanted and that this was his last chance. If he failed at this too he would be stuck in the same job forever – assuming he managed to hold on to it once Goodwin Lyle had taken over the department. I wondered where we would go if he did lose his job. I tried to imagine us living on the jewellery-making business Tuesday had been toying with when we lived in England. We would certainly starve.

  Michel was looking at me again, evidently waiting for my reply.

  ‘I suppose if he found it he’d be famous,’ I said. ‘I mean, he says it’s worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, and it’s supposed to be the best thing this Gerhard person ever made.’

  ‘He wants to make money out of it?’ said Michel.

  I was struck by the tone of his voice – he sounded suddenly angry. I sneaked a glance at him. His brows were furrowed, although he was still apparently concentrating on the road ahead.

  ‘He can’t sell them, you know,’ he told me. ‘They don’t belong to him. How can he make money out of them if they aren’t his?’

  ‘Herr – I mean Father – Krause says they don’t exist at all,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Father Krause is a –’ Michel checked himself.

  I stared at him. ‘So you think he wasn’t telling us the truth? You think he was making it up, about the letter in Trier?’

  ‘I don’t think anything,’ said Michel sullenly. ‘I’m just saying it’s a waste of time talking to him.’