by Alex Pheby
‘Who’s the judge now, Judge?’
He sniffed and laughed, but he hung his head joylessly.
Schreber held up his hand and peered from behind its shade, but he could make out no more of the man than if he left his hand where it had been, flat on his knees. Müller was a shadow, encroached on by light and whittled away at the edges, but a shadow nonetheless. The largest part of his presence was his odour and the weight of his mood. His anger and tension occupied the room.
‘I can’t see you,’ Schreber said. ‘The light… my eyes…’
‘He can’t see us, brother. The light. His eyes.’
Müller took two steps forward so that he blocked out the doorway. ‘Can he see us now?’
‘It is only you,’ croaked Schreber.
‘And Karl! Do not forget Karl!’
‘I see no Karl.’
Müller turned and shut the door, and in the darkness Schreber found he could see, the excess light removed so that the grain of things, the differentiation in shades of grey and black, was visible again. There was only Müller.
‘Karl is next to me,’ Müller said. ‘He is always next to me. He always was, and he always is.’
The orderly sat on the ground, next to Schreber. ‘Always, always…’
Müller sighed and pursed his lips. He closed his eyes, and for a long time there was only the sound of his breathing.
Schreber watched him without moving, and the longer he watched, the more the man came into focus: the roundness of his shoulders—like a boulder, or a bison—his thick fingers with nails bitten down to the knuckle, almost. The jutting of his lower jaw. Under his breath he said something.
‘I can’t hear you,’ Schreber said.
‘We have come to…’ the words trailed off.
‘Come to?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Karl and me. For justice. But now…’
Müller took the stopper from the bottle and up-ended it, sucking the neck until it whistled. He kept on sucking, shaking it and sucking, and, even when it would have been obvious to a child that there was nothing inside, he wouldn’t believe it. In the end he tossed the bottle into the corner of the room, spitting after it.
Then he turned to Schreber.
‘I suppose you’ve got brothers and sisters, Judge?’
‘My family is no concern of yours.’
‘You’ve probably got brothers and sisters, too. Like I have… Had, I mean. Had. Did I ever tell you about my Karl? No. I suppose not. He’s dead. You know that though? Guillotined. As a murderer. Isn’t that right, Karl?’
Müller nodded in agreement with the silence.
‘There is no one there.’
‘He is always there. He looks after me, from heaven. He’s an angel. A saint.’
‘Who?’
‘I’ve already told you. Don’t you listen? You should listen…’
Schreber began to speak, but Müller reached over and placed his hand over the old man’s mouth. He was gentle, at first, the hand barely making contact, but as Schreber moved his lips, he pushed harder.
‘Don’t speak…’
Schreber forced the hand away and started to say something—Sabine—but before the word could begin the hand was back and now the other one came with it, cupping the back of Schreber’s head, so that the two worked together, pressing against both surfaces.
‘You think he was a criminal? You’re wrong. It’s possible for an innocent man to get the chop. Agree?’
Schreber could make no sound and almost no movement of his head. Müller made him nod.
‘Your lot will do it, won’t they? To my lot? And charge them a fortune for the privilege! Ask my dad…’
Schreber was made to nod again.
Müller nodded too, and there was quiet for a long time. The orderly’s eyes closed and nothing happened. After a while, the hands went from Schreber’s face and he shuffled back into the corner of the room.
Müller didn’t move. A long while passed.
Was he sleeping?
He was not sleeping. Müller lurched onto his knees and shuffled over until he sat with his legs splayed forming a square with the corner of the cell in which Schreber was contained. He spat in his hand, and smoothed Schreber’s hair.
‘Got to make you look neat…’
‘Leave me alone!’
‘It’s not personal. It’s just I won’t get this chance again, what with you going home tomorrow. Rössler…’
‘Call for him!’
‘He doesn’t think much of me. I can see he wants me gone. Then how long will it be before I return to my old ways? How long do you think?’
‘Please! I am better. Send for my wife.’
‘I haven’t always been the upstanding type, Judge—not like Karl—that’s the joke. He was the good one. Me? I’ve always been a rogue. Don’t think twice about it. He was the gentleman.’
‘I am old. I have been punished… every day…’
Müller picked up the bottle again and peered into it. Nothing. He put his index finger into the neck, and his knuckle was so thick that when he let go of the bottle, it dangled like a hanging man.
‘The things I could tell you,’ he said, barely letting the words trouble the air. ‘It’d break your heart! Your precious Sabine… your precious Fridoline…’
Now it was Schreber’s turn to close his eyes, and in the darkness he stopped up his ears, his fingertips forced so deep that the nails cut the skin.
‘Revenge,’ said the Jew, nowhere in the dark, ‘is like all the appetites: one can only satisfy it temporarily.’
Müller sighed silently.
‘Your brother, Karl, wasn’t it?’ the Jew went on. ‘I can see the temptation. It is one I understand very well… Your father, he deserved better. Your birthright, lost…’
Müller let the bottle swing in the manner of a pendulum, and all the while the Jew spoke, quiet and certain.
‘Killing this judge is something you will only be able to do once, and it will not be enough. Gustav will not return. Your father will not regain his health. You will still have no heir. You may feel some satisfaction tonight, but what about tomorrow?’
‘I’ll be for the chop… It doesn’t matter.’
The Jew laughed, a particularly incongruous sound in that place, at that moment.
‘No man has ever been killed for disposing of a lunatic. You must know that. There will be no murder here. Far too inconvenient. What family would send their people here, knowing that the staff were murderers? No. This will be marked down as pneumonia, or heart failure, or gangrene of the lungs—anything.’
Müller reached for Schreber’s throat, as if he intended to adjust his necktie, delicately, but, at the last, he slipped his fingers around, and rested his thumbs where the cartilage made a natural hold.
‘And what about tomorrow, Herr Müller? When you feel the lack of your brother again? Herr Schreber will be gone, but your hunger for revenge will not. Let me tell you, it gets worse. It will consume you, and you will attempt to satiate it, and in the end you will find yourself in a place like this. On the other side.’
He tightened his grip, and, after a little while, Schreber felt the life leaving him. It was a strange feeling, not at all uncomfortable. Not unpleasant. A relief! Like being lulled to sleep.
The world contracted before his eyes until he seemed to be observing it through the wrong end of a telescope.
He squeezed, and nothing mattered at all.
The next morning, in response to Zilberschlag’s letter, Sabine comes at last.
XXVI
From down the hallway and up the stair: the rusty scrape of a key turning in the lock. The bolts drawn across, first the top and then the bottom. The twist of the handle, the metal bar rattling loose
ly in its fitting, never mended because the function of this door was to lock, clearly, and its opening was only an afterthought. Weak candlelight, wavering in the crack beneath Schreber’s own door. Dirt and stones: a mountain range in miniature, the panorama stretched thin between the wood and the floor. The sun rising behind it, orange. Müller, whispering. Mind the steps? Speaking to her?
Then there was a man’s weight on the creaking wood, the shrill squeak of a board pulling against a nail that had lost its head—on the third step down—and now, behind, a gentler tread. And another? The light growing stronger. Yellow. A summer’s day break.
Hesitation—the movement down the stair ceasing, the progress of the tiny sun toward the brightness of noon interrupted. A child’s voice. A girl!
‘I don’t like it.’
Fridoline? It was Fridoline! Her voice. Just her voice.
‘He’s in here.’
Boots under the door, blacking out the sunlight.
‘Why is it so dark?’
Fridoline.
He could see her face—he ran his finger across her brow, smoothing away the sadness and fear.
‘Quiet, child!’
Sabine? Behind the shut door. Locked.
‘But it’s so cold and dark.’
‘Doctor’s orders, little Fräulein.’
‘Why would a doctor make it so cold? Why would he make it so dark?’
‘Doctor’s orders.’
‘Enough questions, girl. What about his food? He always liked his food. Chops. Potatoes.’
‘He won’t take it now.’
‘Nothing?’
‘No, Frau Schreber, well… not by choice anyway. He says he doesn’t have the stomach for it.’
‘He takes nothing at all? How does he live?’
Sabine!
Schreber sat up on his mattress.
‘I see to it that he has his porridge in the morning, and beef stock at night.’
‘This is foul. There is a smell down here.’
‘That’ll be the drains—you quickly get used to it. I don’t smell them at all.’
‘The child… take her back upstairs.’
As soon as they were all home he would put it to Sabine that they must take the salts in Baden. He must always retire early despite the gay parties and young friends invited back from the theatre. Keep to his bed and sleep. Perhaps hire Cook’s sister, as she was always suggesting.
No pipe in the drawing room.
Schreber licked his teeth and listened.
‘You are sure you want to go in alone?’
Little round face. Smooth skin.
‘I want to see him!’
Frida!
‘Take her and show her the gardens.’
‘I won’t go!’
‘Now, Fridoline, do this for your mother and we’ll shop for dresses when it’s all done.’
‘I don’t want dresses! I want to see Papa!’
‘Fridoline! Is that you child?’ the words echoed in the empty room and then silence.
‘Papa!’
Quick steps and then banging on the door—two small fists! Hard knuckles.
‘Take her upstairs!’
‘I don’t want to go! Papa!’
‘Do what your mother says, Fräulein.’
‘He is more of a mother to me than she ever was! Papa!’
‘Fridoline!’ Schreber at the door now, with his hands pressed against the wood, fingers spread, and his cheek flat.
‘Should I take her?’
‘You have my blessing.’
‘Come on now, Fräulein; let’s see the pretty flowers, eh?’
‘Get off me!’
Fluttering, like a bird’s wings. The knock of her shoe against the wood.
‘Soon we will be away from here and then we can shop for a dress and take our lunch out. How does that sound?’
‘Papa!’
‘Fridoline!’
There was a struggle and then nothing.
Breathing? The rise and fall of thick cotton? The scarcely present friction between layers of crêpe de Chine?
‘Paul?’
Sabine.
Schreber went as far from the door as he could and crouched until he was low enough to peer through the crack. Sabine’s boots: black leather, four straps, her skirts wavering above them, held up away from the dirt, a white rose decoration, and a number seven heel.
‘Sabine? Sabchen? I thought you were gone.’
‘No. I am here. Are you decent? I have the key.’
Schreber straightened himself. He stood up on the damp floor and smoothed out his moustaches. He licked his fingers and ran them back through his hair. All at an end. Damned place. Foolish old man, paying attention to nonsense, letting Cook off early when there was an ‘at home’ the following afternoon, buying flowers for the skivvy on her birthday. Wearing her dresses. Pollutions.
‘One moment. One moment please!’
Schreber coughed and drew the open sides of his shirt together, holding them tight in one fist at his chest. No smoking in the drawing room. Keep straight and your hands where I can see them. Lie straight, keep still. Don’t shuffle. Don’t fiddle. Don’t cry. Stop crying. Fancy a man like him allowing himself to be f——d.
He wiped the back of his other hand across his lips. There was dirt under his nails, and he bit one back, the worst, tearing skin in his hurry. A drop of blood welled at the edge and he blotted it on the back of his shirt.
‘Come!’
The door moved in.
Slowly, the shadow of a woman resolved on the wall, a silhouette, just like the one Sabine had done in the Palais de Fantasie, as a souvenir you understand—not vanity—and which she propped on her bedside table beside the blurred daguerreotype of her mother. Just the same.
The silhouette halted, with the door half open, and seemed to compose itself. It looked so young, so beautiful, hair piled high and pinned and a slight snub nose, a protrusion of the lower lip, just like Sabine, clear as day, outlined in candlelight.
‘Please… come in.’
The silhouette stiffened but did not move, and Schreber did the same. Then, suddenly, the door came in again. The focus of the light became diffuse as the aperture through which it entered widened, and the silhouetted blurred away to nothing.
‘Paul!’
Did she gasp it? Or was it a whisper? There was a restriction in her throat.
It was too bright.
‘I want to see you, Sabchen. My eyes are accustomed to this darkness, but when light comes in… if light comes in… I can’t see properly now. You are a shape?’
‘Paul…’
‘Speak up, old girl, I can barely hear you.’
She stepped forward, and now he could see her.
The left side of her face was dragged down, as if weights were suspended from the corner of her mouth. Her eyelid was heavy, giving the impression that one half of her was drowsy and the other half wide awake. The eye on the bad side was yellow—yolk where there should have been white—and the whole was specked with blood.
‘What has happened to you?’ Schreber cried.
‘To me?’
‘Your face… what has happened to your face?’
‘My face? Nothing. Do you mean the palsy? I am told it is very slight. Nothing at all. Everyone says so. Barely noticeable.’
Sabine took a step back. Schreber came forward, pulling at his sleeves.
‘Quite right, dear. Nothing at all! Silly of me…’
Sabine nodded, but for every step Schreber took forward, Sabine took one back, until they had made a circuit of the cell.
‘Are you well, Paul? Your doctor…’
‘My doctor tells me I must come home. I promised Fridoline…’
‘Ye
s… she mentioned it. Some while ago. I was against her coming here, but she is such a disobedient little… Your doctor…’
‘I thought I heard her. She is with you…?’
‘She has gone with the man to look at some flowers.’
‘In this cold? Does she have her scarf?’
‘She is suitably dressed.’
Sabine looked around the cell.
‘Sabine, please take me home,’ Schreber said.
Sabine looked down at her feet. She was quiet for a long while.
‘Your doctor…’ she said.
‘He says that I am utterly cured!’
‘That is not…’
‘He says I must return home.’
Sabine took a long look at him before speaking.
‘Your doctor… he has not spoken to you today?’
‘About what?’
‘He has not told you?’
‘About what, Sabine?’
Sabine turned away and stood, facing out of the door. She held her hands at the waist and was wringing them together, twisting one with the other, over and over.
‘How are the preparations for Christmas progressing?’ Schreber asked. ‘Are we to have guests?’
‘Christmas? In June?’
He reached for her hand, to stop the twisting, but she pulled away.
‘The house is very difficult to manage. Your sisters are well meaning, but they are too much. They put everything into chaos. They are worse than your mother. They each tell Cook a different thing. They want to control everything. Just like her, struck from the same mould. Who do they think I am? Some child, to be ordered around? To be made to do things against my will? You are all the same. Even the girl! She spends all her time running from them to me and back again. And this when I require my rest.’
‘Your headaches?’
‘They are not improved. I’m taking a cure, but it does not give any relief. It makes me worse, if anything.’
‘I will put my foot down when I return. I know you prefer me to keep out of these matters, but I have some influence with the staff, and Anna will listen to me.’
‘That, Paul, is the last thing I need: another voice, another confusion, someone else dictating what must happen in my own house.’
‘Whatever you wish my love.’
