The Hidden World (A Princess of Roumania)

by Paul Park

  But Clara couldn’t help herself. She knelt weeping on the rug while the condesa studied Miranda’s breathing, took her pulse, tried her forehead. The girl’s condition didn’t change. She still lay as if asleep.

  Minutes passed. Miranda turned onto her side. Princess Clara’s moans subsided and were still. The dogs lay on the floor. They were already forgetting what had happened.

  “Which one was it?” asked de Rougemont finally.

  “What?”

  “Which one?” She looked around for the black book. “How did you know what to do?”

  “It was in Aegypta’s letters, copies of her letters. I just did what she told me, what she wrote down for Miranda. That’s all I did.”

  It was sufficient, obviously. “Show me.”

  “Here,” said Princess Clara. “It was the healing one, of course. I thought…”

  “Clara, I don’t care what you thought. Tell me what you did.”

  And then it came out. She couldn’t read the text of the book itself. The English was too hard. None of it made any sense. She couldn’t decipher any of the codes or much of the cramped writing. It didn’t matter—she had found the letters in the back, pressed inside a section about raising corpses from the dead. “I recognized the penmanship,” she said. “Aegypta had a double paper that she got from Italy for making copies—I remember it in Ratisbon. The first one I saw was something with my signature. She asked me to write something in the English language. She spoke to me about it before Miranda was even born. But already she was talking about a sanctuary in a foreign country. This was when I was still a guest in the elector’s house, before he locked me into my room—she sent me a message, saying she had crossed the border with the invasion plans. And she asked me for letters that she could show Miranda as she grew. But the elector forbade it, forbade me ink and paper to write my only child—”

  “Tell me what you did.”

  “Please, I’m getting to that! So Aegypta must have written one anyway, forged it and kept a duplicate. How could she do such a thing? All I wrote was about her and what she’d done—she made me sound so foolish. And then there was a letter from her, several letters. And then this one.”

  She rose to her feet and then crossed the room to the alcove where her easel stood. A candle burned there, and Madame de Rougemont noticed she’d been working on a charcoal sketch of Miranda as she lay asleep. But some handwritten pages were propped against the bar. Now she picked them up, leafed through them—one of the old letters she had found in the black book. The condesa had seen them there but had not read them. They had been tied in a lavender ribbon, slipped into a special envelope, the personal letters of a dead woman to her niece.

  “You see they are duplicates—the ink still smears. Miranda must have seen them, but she didn’t say anything to me. This one: My dear niece, it is my pleasure to present you with this weapon that belonged to your father and his father, and which I know you will use wisely. This is the first of the treasures I have left you if there is a break in the rope and I am not there to guide your hands. First I tell you you must leave this place because it is not safe and full of robbers and murderers and spies. Here I must tell you what to do without delay. If the worst has happened and my enemies have buried me, then go to Insula Calia—”

  “Show me,” said Inez de Rougemont. She had gotten up from her stool, and with trembling fingers she snatched the papers from Clara’s hands. There it was on the second page. There were the incantations, culled from the black book. There were the diagrams, the small crude sketches of the imps, the directions in a language appropriate to a child or a young girl—the arrogance this represented! Magister Newton had spoken only of hypotheses! It was Aegypta Schenck who had rebuilt her brother’s revolver, secreted these demons in the cylinder.

  Magister Newton had hidden his results inside a crust of complication that was like a sealed box. But Aegypta Schenck had laid everything out, broken it apart for any first-degree adept or else someone with no training whatsoever. She had invented a mechanism that any fool could use. A few words as a primer, and then a tug on the stiff trigger—Miranda herself, obviously, had been too wise to fire this pistol.

  But her mother, those were words to a different melody. And the condesa saw immediately what she had chosen. There was the sketch on the smeared page, the black, fringed, twisting eel. Mintbean first, Abscess next, and now Treacle. Three of the six demons had been released.

  As Clara had suggested, the description mentioned healing, hope, and sustenance, all of which might sound like good things if you knew nothing or understood nothing at all about anything—these were ideas from long ago, when it was natural for doctors to bleed their patients dry.

  Ah God, how would she explain this to Prince Frederick, when she met him in heaven or in hell? That none of this had been her fault? Or that Treacle in any case was preferable to Rotbottom, or Flimsie, or Thorpe, God forbid?

  “I thought—”

  “Be quiet, Clara, please.”

  But if you understood the rage of these creatures, plucked from the hidden world and then imprisoned in these tiny chambers—for how long? Years, certainly—more than a decade, certainly. She put the page aside. She took Miranda’s hand again chafed her wrist, touched her neck, listened to her breathing. She pulled back her eyelid to see the rapid flutter of her pupil, which was unchanged. The girl was mumbling in her sleep.

  Ah, God, the condesa asked herself: But was it possible she was mistaken? In the terror of the moment, was it possible she had inadequately witnessed what had happened? Was it possible the spirit had dissipated or vanished somewhere else, somewhere, anywhere in the wide world, leaving the girl untouched?

  10

  The Living and the Dead

  AT AN ADJACENT moment, on the hillside below Kepler’s tower, an orange cat lay in the high grass. It had something in its mouth. It didn’t move or hide itself.

  There was a rockfall in the glacier above the pass. Startled, the animal leapt up, then continued down the hill. Nor did it hurry and then stop in the forgetful manner of cats. But with an even, stiff-legged gait, it climbed down through the grass and then the rocks.

  Darkness came, but the animal kept moving. It did not stop and find a sheltered place to rest, a hollow among the pine trees where it could curl up and sleep. During the short, quick night it labored down, until it came into the misty valley. This was a place without a sunrise, but the light came in time. Many paths converged, then led away to separate villages.

  At a crossroads marked with a rock cairn, the cat paused. It was an ugly creature with a loose, striped coat. There were scabs on its knees and rump. Its face was marked and scratched in many fights, one ear bitten out of shape. Its lip was split, its sharp teeth broken.

  But all this time it had held its treasure in its mouth. Now it spat it out. The crossroads was a lonely place, two rutted footpaths in a dry waste. Fog had collected in a little bowl. There was no wind.

  And if you chose this moment to look away, when you looked back the cat would have disappeared. In its place there would have stood a naked woman, or else partly clothed in fog. Beautifully formed, she was much mauled and damaged, like the cat. There were red wounds on her breasts and neck, holes made by a knife, self-inflicted. But her hands were cut and scratched where she had tried to defend herself against the dog or wolf, her face clawed and bitten, her copper-colored hair stiff with blood. Other marks were on her body like a cat’s stripes in reverse, yellow and red against pale skin. They ran like seams of fire through the woman’s flesh, over her thighs and buttocks, up her back. They divided her face into several parts, though the skin itself had reformed without any change in texture, any swelling or distortion. Even ripped apart she was a beautiful woman, as everyone but she had always said.

  And a happy woman, too, at least according to the language of her gestures. In that cold, desolate place, surrounded by unmoving wraiths of fog, she gave a small performance, a little dance. Students of th
e dramatic arts might have recognized the triumphant solo of the whore and goddess Shamahat in Manolescu’s Gilgamesh le Roi, before she immolates herself on Ishtar’s altar. Reviews were mixed after the premiere in Berlin, though even the most angry critics praised the new seventeen-year-old prima donna of the company who, in the words of one, “brought a naked vulnerability to an otherwise bombastic role.” Or she “snatched pathos out of bathos, lit an otherwise cold score on fire, and achieved a poignant delicacy in moments of the most savage and overwrought grandeur.”

  In the opera she danced with the heart of Enkidu clasped in her fist, the heart she had preserved out of his corpse. Through a trick of the light, in the middle of the dance the organ seemed to glow. Now too, twenty-three years later, the treasure changed in her outstretched hand, and in a moment it was not the soft piece of quasi-tissue that the cat had carried from the mountain. But it was something else.

  The performance was over. Nicola Ceausescu stepped down off the rocks. She had the tourmaline clenched in her fist, and she wasted no more time. But she set off along the skein of paths that proliferated in this system of small valleys. She had left the mountainside. After several minutes the gate loomed out of the fog, the brass gate that marked the boundary to tara mortilor—the brass wall snaked over the hills. And the gate was different every time she crossed, sometimes a high triumphal arch, sometimes a forgotten postern, sometimes a gap in the broken wall, as now. But wherever it was and however you found it, once you stepped into the brass circle you were in a different landscape in the country of the dead. It is where we live in towns full of our dead friends and enemies, walk among streets we ourselves have laid out, climb the stairs in houses we have built, eat food we have grown or baked ourselves. Some of these towns are almost cities, full of counterfeited life. But some are small, deserted or abandoned. No one noticed the baroness as she stalked though the empty streets, climbed the cobblestones to the castle at the summit of the hill.

  The town itself was picturesque. It commanded a small valley that was always full of fog, which gave the looming haystacks a melancholy, romantic aspect in the empty fields. The buildings were conceived in the manner of Italian hill towns, with pale stucco walls and flat terra-cotta roofs. The castle was a modest one with high, wooden ceilings, yellow or ocher-colored walls, stone floors covered with Turkish rugs that could be seen entire, because there was very little furniture.

  The wooden door hung open and the baroness stalked the austere, undecorated rooms. In the street she had recovered herself, leather boots, tight trousers, loose shirt, long overcoat—often in her life she had dressed like a man. “Felix,” she called out, “Felix,” and he came to her. He was happy to see her, his face open with happiness, a young boy ten years old or so—it varied. “Maman,” he said, “maman, I’ve missed you!” And he ran to her and squeezed his face against her chest. He was such a demonstrative child! He laughed and chattered. He didn’t want to hear about her going away. But he looked up at her with bright, flashing eyes. No vestige of his father remained in his small face, though the old baron sometimes broke into the abandoned houses near the square. Sometimes he broke into the clock tower and set the bells to ringing. He wouldn’t dare set foot in here.

  “Go play in the garden,” she said, and put the boy aside. “Maman will be back soon. Oh, but don’t cry! You’ll break my heart! I’ll come back soon, and I’ll bring a present for you. Just some little plaything, or a bicycle, or perhaps a book. You’ll like that, you’ll see.”

  Then she continued on into a farther room where the other boy sat listless in his cage, surrounded by all kinds of alchemical equipment. It was always dark in that low-ceilinged room. But his face brightened as she came to him, unlocked the padlocks as she always did, opened the bars and led him out—such a relief! He was weak and frail as always, and she led him to the daybed that was sometimes on one side of the room and sometimes on the other. And he was feverish, murmuring something that sounded like the name of a street, 351 Camatei—she didn’t want to hear anything about that! Instead she laid him down, washed his face with the wet cloth that was at hand, fed him from the bowl of hot milk and buttered toast on the bedside table. She chafed his hands, pushed his hair from his damp forehead, revealing the strange marks on his temple, the soft, single eyebrow. This room had no windows and the only light came from the doorway, but it was better for him here while he was convalescing. Nor did she tell him she had to go even for a little while—she didn’t want to worry him. Rest and time were what he needed and what she had to offer. Soon he would be strong enough to go outside, play with his little brother in the empty streets. She’d have to keep an eye out for the baron, though!

  “Sleep now,” she said, and pulled her hands away. The door on the other side of the room was open, and she walked toward it. This was the dark chamber, never lit. Past the threshold she was always stumbling and reaching out her hands, muttering some of the small charms she had learned from her husband’s books. Filtered light could stretch in here sometimes, if it was a bright day outside. Sometimes that was enough to give the shadows shape and substance. Eyes straining, she reached out her hands. No, nothing, until she brought the tourmaline from the inside pocket of her overcoat, a stone that appeared now green now purple, and which glowed as if it were the source of a dim, uncertain light. And she was groping toward a shape she couldn’t see, a shape that was made of shadow, indistinct, except she knew his features, knew his eyes, especially, that seemed to shine out of the darkness, beckoning her on—gray eyes with flecks of blue. They never changed.

  * * *

  LIEUTENANT SASHA PROCHENKO took the night train from Stanesti-Jui. As usual it was beyond crowded, forcing him into uncomfortable proximity with other men. The compartments and seats had been ripped out. There were no first- or second-class cars. Instead, wooden benches had been bolted to the floor.

  The train stopped for no reason, and sometimes there were long delays. Men slouched against each other, asleep or half asleep. Prochenko was lucky enough to sit in the last row, so he could lean back against the wall. But the man on his left side had his head on his shoulder. Prochenko could smell the oil in his hair. Past three o’clock, they had not yet reached Rimnicu.

  The car was full of smells: urine, tobacco, grease, coal dust, vomit, cabbages, potatoes, wine, raki, sweat, petroleum, even sperm. Unable to sleep, Prochenko filled the time by untwisting and separating all the braided strands. Sometimes he yawned, opened his mouth, let his long tongue spill out over his teeth, a process that sharpened his already acute senses. He could hear the watch ticking in the fob pocket of the old man whose long, unwashed hair lay on his shoulder. He could hear his soft, uneven breath, scarcely strong enough to press out through his teeth. But then there was a shuddering hiccup and the man was still.

  Great, thought Prochenko after a minute. Why me, for crying out loud? There would be questions, unless he could slip away.

  The train went creaking, slow. A long slow corner, and the man’s head fell back. But then it seemed to move, return to Prochenko’s shoulder, even press against it. Distasteful, but a kind of relief. The man’s breathing, though, had not returned.

  The lieutenant strained to hear it. After several minutes more, at the furthest limit of his perception he heard whispered words in a language, Prochenko imagined, the old man didn’t know: “Ah, c’est toi! It is you.”

  The light was dim in the railway car. Suspended in wire niches, four oil lanterns showed their tiny flickering lines. Prochenko turned his head to see the old man peering up at him, his mouth gaping foolishly, pushed out of shape. He hadn’t shaved in many days, never would again.

  But underneath his rank sweat the lieutenant could perceive a different odor.

  “How did you find me?”

  He scarcely mouthed the words, but she heard him. “Ah,” she whispered. “You are easy to find!”

  The long, slow curve. “Now you’ve killed this stupid old man.”

  He coul
d feel a shudder, perhaps a shrug. “There must be sacrifices.”

  “Yes, but never yours.”

  And then the train went faster, and there were clackety-clacks. “How could you know what I have suffered?” came the strange, airless voice. “Do not judge me. You and I are too much alike for that.”

  “I am not like you!”

  “Do you not think so? But this is how we recognize each other, through our smells, through our eyes that do not change. But they peer out through a mask! If I take a shape where I can find it, whose fault is that? I was a living woman once—no more. You of all people must not reproach me.”

  As usual, what she said was not completely false. Though he scarcely remembered what she was talking about. Or he remembered chaotic sensations: the smell of blood, the splintering wood as he tore through the panel into the corridor on the third floor of the People’s Palace. Miranda had used to laugh at his inability to recover dreams. It was a way to protect himself.

  “I disgust you, I know,” came the soft voice. “Now more than ever. How could it not be so? Once I dreamed—it doesn’t matter now. But I will stay with you, remember that. I will watch over you. I will keep you out of harm. It is my gift.”

  Prochenko leaned his head back, closed his eyes. Great, just great, he thought. He listened to the sounds of the train as it bored through the dark.

  * * *

  NOT LONG AFTERWARDS, in his apartment in the People’s Palace, Victor Bocu staggered out of bed. Clothed in his undershirt and socks, he pressed himself against the wall beside the door, pressed his cheek into the ornate wallpaper. Unable to look away from the corpse on the bed, he fumbled for the doorknob, crossed the threshold into the antechamber and then crossed back, holding his camel-hair dressing gown, which he was too agitated to put on.

  The girl lay on her back. She was twisted in the bedsheets, and one plump arm hung down. She was a dancer in the music halls, and he had rented her from one of the most fashionable brothels in the Strada Batistei, though she was not yet fifteen. And it was true when she arrived she had not been as he expected, had whimpered and called unconvincingly for her brother, even after he had doubled her fee. It was also true that he had lost his temper. But when he was convincing her, it was as if she changed under his hands, turned into some inhuman creature who had fought him off, pressed him down onto the bed, grabbed hold of him and might have broken his neck. As he gasped and floundered, it occurred to him his end had come, and that his enemies had succeeded in finding an assassin to best exploit his frailties—she was a devil, with a voice and a stink that seemed familiar. “What did you do to me?” she murmured. “What did you do? When you sent your soldiers to the Ambassadors that night, when you sent Radu Luckacz to arrest me, did you really think that would be an end to it?”