The Castle of Kings

by Oliver Pötzsch

  Feeling curious, he opened the little box and suddenly sensed an odd tingling that he couldn’t explain. Briefly, everything went dark before his eyes, and he almost fell off the ladder. It was as if a misty hand were reaching out to touch him. Then he had himself back under control. Only an acrid, almost burning taste was left clinging to his palate.

  What the hell was that? Some kind of aroma that I don’t tolerate? The smell of some varnish or something? Or have I turned allergic to something, just like that?

  Carefully, Steven climbed down the last few rungs and looked inside the box. It was lined with dark fabric and had a musty smell. Inside, there were a few faded photographs and a lock of black hair tied with a silk ribbon—as well as a handsomely designed little book. Bound in blue velvet, adorned with ivory ornamentation, it looked like an enchanted book of spells. Steven traced the outline of a knight with a sword who seemed to be riding on a swan, stroked the blue velvet of the binding, and ran his fingertips over the intarsia work of white flowers and leaves. When he blew into the little treasure chest, a cloud of dust flew up; the smell of it made him dizzy again.

  Once again, he felt a misty hand reach out for him; he closed his eyes and opened them again. His throat was suddenly dry, as if he’d been up all night drinking. Steven shook himself and tried to concentrate.

  Don’t be silly; pull yourself together. It’s only an old box, that’s all.

  The photos were the first thing he saw. They seemed to have been taken in the last third of the nineteenth century, and in matte gray colors and various positions they showed a young man of about thirty sitting on an adjustable wooden stool. Beside him stood an older, rather portly gentleman, wearing a black coat; in some of the pictures his left hand was resting almost caressingly on the younger man’s shoulder. He looked like a kindly giant. Did the dry lock of hair in the little box come from one of the men? They both had dark hair, anyway.

  Thoughtfully, Steven put the pictures and the lock of hair back in the container, then focused again on the book with its valuable ivory intarsia work. When he began turning the pages, he stopped short in surprise. The fine handmade paper was covered not with letters and words, but with curious scribbles and hieroglyphics, like some kind of secret code. Could this really be an old book of magic spells? Steven’s heart beat faster. He knew that amazing sums were offered for grimoires, as such things were called. Self-styled “white witches” and others with a yen for esotericism competed to get their hands on them. The title page, however, did seem to be legible. Frowning, Steven took out his reading glasses and inspected the faded writing.

  Memoirs of Theodor Marot, Assistant to Dr. Max Schleiss von Loewenfeld.

  Steven rubbed his eyes. He had never seen either the book or its container before. Or had he? A strange sense of familiarity passed through him. For the life of him, though, he couldn’t remember how the little box came to be in his possession. It hadn’t been part of the estate left by the old lady from Bogenhausen; he would certainly have noticed such an unusual item. And he had been through all his purchases from flea markets over the last few weeks, classifying them one by one and keeping a written record. So how did this little treasure chest come to be in his shop?

  He picked up the photographs again. Suddenly he was sure he’d seen a picture of the gigantic older man in them somewhere before. He hadn’t looked quite so portly, but the gentle eyes, the beard, and the full head of black hair were the same. He made a genuinely imposing, almost regal impression.

  Suddenly Steven stopped dead.

  Was it possible?

  Thoughtfully, he tapped one of the photographs. Carrying the little box, he hurried into the stockroom behind the shop, where the books from flea markets and estate sales that he had already classified lay in stacks, waiting to be sorted and placed on the crowded shelves. He rummaged busily around in the cartons, in search of a book that he had bought quite cheaply when he found it only a few days before at a stall in the Munich Olympiad Park, among trashy novels and wartime stories. At last he found it at the bottom of the third carton that he searched.

  The book, which was falling apart, was a treatise on the royal house of Bavaria written early in the twentieth century. It featured a whole series of heroic paintings of members of the Wittelsbach dynasty, beginning with Maximilian I Joseph, and ending with Ludwig III, the last king of Bavaria, who had to abdicate at the end of the First World War in his senile old age. Steven leafed quickly through the book until he found the right picture at last. There it was! A handsome young man with black hair looked out of it at him. He had no beard yet, but he had the same hairstyle and the faraway look that was in his eyes until the time of his mysterious death. He wore a blue coat with a white ermine cloak over it.

  Steven smiled. No doubt about it, the portly giant in the photograph was none other than King Ludwig II, the Fairy-tale King. He must have been one of the best-known of all Germans, and his youthful portrait adorned beer mugs, T-shirts, and postcards all over Germany.

  Steven compared the painting in the book with the photograph in his hand. Judging by the king’s appearance, the photo must have been taken in his later years. But there was no question—the little box really did contain photographs of the world-famous Bavarian monarch, probably taken shortly before his death. Maybe even still unpublished? Steven knew that in certain circles, one could ask a high price for such things. All of a sudden the rent problem seemed to retreat into the distance.

  At that moment, the bell at the front of the shop announced another visitor coming in.

  Irritated, Steven put the book and the photographs back in the little box and placed it on a shelf. Then he left the stockroom and went back into the shop. Couldn’t he ever be left in peace? It was seven in the evening already. Who on earth could want to buy something from him so near to closing time? Or was it Frau Schultheiss again with another offer?

  “We’re really closed,” he began brusquely. “If you’d like to come back tomorrow morning . . .”

  As he took a closer look at the man, he knew at once that this wasn’t one of the usual Perry Rhodan customers. The stranger was around sixty, with sparse gray hair, an old-fashioned pair of pince-nez perched on his nose, and he wore a suit in the Bavarian style of the kind favored by elderly gentlemen from the country complete with lederhosen. He was tall and thin, with a high forehead; his whole bearing suggested that he wasn’t used to having his authority questioned.

  “I won’t take up much of your time, I promise you,” the man said in a gruff voice, inspecting Steven through his pince-nez. “My interest is only in very special literature.”

  A slight shudder ran through Steven. “What kind of literature do you mean?” he asked, smiling faintly. “If you’re looking for typical Bavarian writers like Ludwig Thoma or Oskar Maria Graf, then—”

  “I am interested in eyewitness accounts from the time of King Ludwig the Second,” the stranger interrupted. “Do you have anything of that nature, Herr . . . ?”

  “Lukas. Steven Lukas.”

  Steven bravely went on smiling, but he was feeling uneasier with every moment spent under the other man’s gaze. The newcomer seemed to be scrutinizing him closely, as if he didn’t trust him for some reason. Then he looked hard at the bookshelves. He was obviously searching them for something.

  Eyewitness accounts from the time of King Ludwig II . . .

  Steven forced himself to appear calm, showing nothing on the surface. But his mind was working furiously. Could this really be just coincidence, or did the stranger know about the photographs? Had he come to get hold of the little treasure chest?

  “You hesitate,” the man said, examining him curiously through his pince-nez. “You do have something.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I don’t. But if you’d like to give me your contact information, I’ll be happy to let you know if I get hold of anything.”

  Steven had come to this decision in a fraction of a second. He didn’t trust the stranger; the man’s whole de
meanor unsettled him. It reminded him of the self-satisfied manner of certain Bavarian politicians who were used to getting their way no matter what.

  But you won’t get anything from me.

  “Are you quite sure you have nothing of that nature?” the man in the Bavarian suit asked again.

  “Perfectly sure. If I can have your telephone number . . .”

  The tall stranger gave him a thin-lipped smile. “That won’t be necessary. We’ll come back to you.” He nodded a goodbye and then went out. Darkness had fallen.

  Steven felt as if an icy wind had entered the shop, covering all the books with hoarfrost. Shivering, he went over to the window, but the man had already disappeared.

  Fine rain was pattering against the panes.

  AFTER A WHILE, Steven shook his head and chuckled quietly to himself. What on earth was the matter with him? First that odd dizziness when he had found the little box, and now this. He wasn’t usually so easily scared. What was more, he’d had far worse customers in his shop. A couple of years ago, a drunk had thrown up in his display during Oktoberfest. And unsavory characters in Bavarian-style suits were all over Munich, not just in upmarket Maximilianstrasse.

  After looking out at the street one last time, the streetlamps casting dim light on its wet surface, he went back into the stockroom and took the little box off the shelf. Briefly, he was overcome by the fear that its contents could suddenly have disappeared, as if by magic. But when he opened the container, it was still all there: the faded photographs, the lock of black hair, the book bound in blue velvet and decorated with carved ivory . . .

  All at once he felt extremely tired and just as hungry. It struck him that he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. All the excitement over the Grimms’ Tales, followed by Frau Schultheiss and the stranger, had made him forget any hunger pangs, but now they announced themselves forcefully. Steven decided to stop work for the day and indulge in a large plateful of farfalle primavera and a bottle of wine at home. While the pasta was cooking, he’d take a closer look at that strange diary and the photographs. If the pictures were really genuine, they would create a small sensation. Steven knew, from hearsay, of a number of people who would pay good money for photographs like that. If he had to decide whether to use the illustrated Grimm or the photos to pay the rent, he would opt for the photographs.

  With his mind at rest again, he put the little wooden box in his shabby brown leather briefcase, put on his wool coat, left the shop, and locked up behind him. The wind and rain immediately blew in his face; the light drizzle had turned heavy. Steven put up the hood of his wool coat and marched away. It wasn’t far to his apartment in the Schlachthof district of Munich, but it was no pleasure walking through this rain. Countless office workers with umbrellas and waterproof ponchos hurried past him as they emerged from the complex of office buildings that had only recently been built on the old site where trade fairs used to be held; the new supermarkets were teeming with late customers, hastily making their evening purchases and disappearing into the multistory parking lots with frozen pizzas and boxes of sushi.

  Only a few streets farther on, everything was noticeably quieter. Ahead of and below Steven lay the Theresienwiese, the open space where Oktoberfest was held. Now, just after the end of that annual event, it spread out before him, deserted and desolate. The giant wheel and a few of the festival tents hadn’t been entirely dismantled yet, and they rose like metal skeletons on the flat, asphalted grounds. From up where Steven was, the silent rides and boarded-up snack booths could have been abandoned buildings in a ghost town.

  In spite of the many puddles, Steven decided to cut across the Theresienwiese on his way home. It would cut short the walk through the rain by a good ten minutes. He turned right, where a white temple with a statue of Bavaria rose. The bronze statue, almost sixty-five feet tall, with a lion and a wreath of oak leaves, always reminded Steven slightly of the American Statue of Liberty. A homeless man had spread out a few layers of newspaper in one corner of the temple, right under the bust of King Ludwig I. He was lying on them and babbling to himself. Otherwise, silence reigned, a silence that seemed curiously alien to Steven after the noise of the city.

  He cautiously climbed down the broad, slippery steps of the temple. A loose balloon, whirled up by the wind, flew past him and finally disappeared in the darkness. There was a smell of spilled beer and garbage. In this weather, there seemed to be no other pedestrians out and about on the broad space, covered as it was with puddles.

  When Steven was about halfway across the Theresienwiese, he suddenly heard a sound behind him. It sounded like a soft, hoarse voice calling.

  He spun around in alarm and saw three figures standing there, right under the statue of Bavaria. They wore dark capes and hoods that made them look like black-robed Ku Klux Klan members. All three hooded men held burning torches that flickered wildly in the wind. Steven closed his eyes and then opened them again, but the figures were still there.

  Very odd. It’s not Halloween yet.

  And the figures were obviously too large to be kids. They made Steven think more of trained thugs in monastic habits. Once again he felt the same strange fear that had come over him earlier, in the shop. He turned to look ahead and went hesitantly on. But after a few feet, he quickened his pace, and soon he was running. Behind him, he could hear footsteps in the pouring rain.

  The men were following him.

  Looking briefly behind him, Steven saw three red dots in the darkness, bouncing up and down, slowly but inexorably coming closer. Were these men really after him? Could it be because of that strange little treasure chest? Heart thudding, Steven ran on. He tasted the metallic tang of blood in his mouth.

  He hurried across the deserted Theresienwiese. In the dark, it looked like a huge black lake threatening to swallow him up. To his right and left, alleyways opened up, leading to empty beer tents, and in front of them switchback tracks reared up like the bones of a dinosaur. The opposite side of the plaza, bordered by shining streetlamps, seemed endlessly far away; behind every one of the abandoned snack bars, in every niche, behind every caravan, Steven thought he saw a hooded figure scurrying by.

  He stepped into a puddle, tripped over the raised edge of a manhole cover, and fell flat in cold, shallow water. The briefcase slipped from his hands. As he frantically groped for it, he could hear footsteps coming up behind him. They were distinctly closer now; he heard the sound of shoes slapping down on the wet asphalt. Where was the damn briefcase? Something crunched very close, as if someone had stepped on the pieces of a broken beer stein, and then there was a snort and a cough. Something deep inside Steven told him that he mustn’t lose the briefcase, not under any circumstances, even if he didn’t know why.

  At last his hand felt familiar leather, caught between a couple of garbage bags left lying around. Steven seized the bag, got to his feet, gasping for breath, and ran on until, at last, he reached the safety of the light from the streetlamps. Still breathless, the bookseller stumbled past a few stunted linden trees, and then finally reached the Bavaria Ring on the other side of the Oktoberfest site.

  When he turned around once more, the men and their torches had disappeared. Car horns were honking, a set of traffic lights changed to green, passersby pushed busily past him.

  He was back in the bustling city.

  Who or what in the world had that been?

  Steven was trembling all over. Until now, he had always felt very safe in Germany’s most beautiful and expensive city. Finding that someone had intended to rob him in the city center itself, and indeed not just someone but several weird characters in monastic habits, suddenly made him see Munich with new eyes. All at once the narrow streets of the residential area where he lived, the flickering streetlamps, and the tall old buildings that had been spared by the war seemed to him strange and uncanny.

  ANOTHER FIFTEEN MINUTES, and Steven was finally back at his apartment building in Ehrengutstrasse.

  He leaned against the front d
oor, briefly closed his eyes, and listened to the familiar sounds of his home—the distant ringing of trolley bells, the horns of cars, the laughter of the many people out drinking in the local bars. In the middle of the night or very early in the morning, before dawn, Steven sometimes heard the mooing of cattle and calves and the squealing of pigs on their last journey to the slaughterhouses from which the district took its name. Now and then there was even a smell of blood in the air. All the same, he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else in the city. Here in the Isarvorstadt area, with the old South Cemetery, the winding alleyways, and the magnificent bridges across the nearby river, Steven thought he could still sense the spirit of past centuries—a Munich that now existed only in a few corners of the city.

  The kind of Munich that this man Theodor Marot would have known, he suddenly thought. Is what he wrote in that little book so valuable that I’m being followed already by whoever wants it?

  Tired and still shivering, Steven climbed the many well-worn stairs to the top floor of the building. Only when he had closed the door of his apartment behind him did he notice that his pants were torn and that he was bleeding in several places. His hands were dirty, the wool coat was as wet as a dishcloth, and his briefcase was damp and spattered with mud.

  He decided to drink his first glass of wine before the pasta was ready.

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  About the Author and Translator

  OLIVER PÖTZSCH, born in 1970, was for years a radio personality for Bavarian radio and a screenwriter for Bavarian public television. His Hangman’s Daughter books have sold more than half a million copies in English.

  ANTHEA BELL, translator, is the recipient of the 2009 Schlegel-Tieck Prize for her translation of Stefan Zweig’s Burning Secret. In 2002 she won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize for her translation of W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz. She has translated more than two hundred works.