HS03 - A Visible Darkness

by Michael Gregorio

  ‘You know the Baltic coast, I think? You know what goes on up there.’

  I sat up straighter. ‘Many things, sir. Fishing, smuggling . . .’

  ‘Important French interests, remember.’

  ‘The docks and harbours, then. Trade and the English blockade . . .’

  ‘Amber,’ he interrupted me in a hoarse whisper. ‘Amber is what interests the emperor.’

  Amber had been on everyone’s lips for a year. One night, a month or two before, a paper had been pinned to the door of Lotingen cathedral, and to the doors of many other churches in the canton. A melodramatic gesture, but an effective one. Luther’s ghost was walking the streets at night, the people said. He was pinning up his lamentations, trying to incite good Prussians to revolt against the foreign thieves. ‘THEY ARE RIPPING IT OUT,’ the title screeched. A rough drawing illustrated the theme: a large chunk of Baltic amber cut in the shape of a human heart. The Prussian eagle was imprisoned inside the resin, like a dead fly. And a threat. ‘FRANCE MUST PAY!’

  I had been surprised by the motive for such anger. There were a thousand more important things that the French had ripped from Prussian hands. Our pride. Our liberty. Our independence. But then I thought of the ancient amber necklace that my mother had worn on every important occasion in Ruisling. The handles of our best knives and forks were amber inlaid with silver. So was the candlestick on my bedside table. The mouthpiece of my father’s pipe, the handle of my pocket-knife. If one had made an inventory of the Stiffeniis estate, there would have been a thousand items, large and small, which were decorated with amber from our Baltic shores. The portraits of my ancestors hanging up in the library were framed in sculpted amber. The paintings had faded, but the amber was as bright and fresh as the day it had been polished and set. Its very permanence seemed to highlight the weakness of the flesh that those ostentatious frames contained.

  ‘France has plans for the amber industry,’ he said.

  He did not say what those plans might be, though I could guess. Was there one crucial event in the history of my country—the financing of a war, the purchase of new cannons, new ships, new horses, swords and pikes—which had not been paid for with amber from the Baltic Sea? Was there a single item representing the wealth, the history and the culture of Prussia in the collections of other nations that did not contain a piece of amber? Was it any surprise that the French were interested?

  ‘A corpse was found in Nordcopp yesterday morning,’ General Malaport went on. ‘A young woman. One of the amber-workers. She may not have been the first to die. Nor will she be the last, I fear.’

  ‘What makes you think that she was murdered, sir?’ I asked. ‘Gathering amber on the shore is not the safest way to live. The waves of the Baltic Sea . . .’

  Malaport’s hand came down flat on the desk, but there was no anger in the gesture.

  ‘Waves do not butcher bodies,’ he said. ‘You’ll be in a better position to judge when you have examined the corpse for yourself. What is happening in Spain has not gone unnoticed here in Prussia. I want to know whether Prussian rebels are involved.’

  Helena’s frightened voice echoed in my mind. The words that she had pronounced on the beach. Despite censorship of the papers, news from the Spanish peninsula was on everyone’s lips. The fact that it was supposed to be kept a secret made it all the more disturbing. The Spanish guerrilla were getting the best of the emperor’s finest. And though we might admire their courage, we quaked at their methods. Was it possible that men who wore the Cross of Christ around their necks could strike in such a manner? They went from bad to worse—hamstringing horses first, then the men who rode them. And the revenge that the French extracted was even more horrendous. There had been a massacre in Santa Maria del Cruz. One hundred Spanish women and children had been hanged. The peasant guerrilla might go home victorious one day, but they would find no one to welcome them. Their cooking-fires had been extinguished for ever.

  ‘Nothing of the sort will happen here,’ I had promised Helena.

  She had been silent, never once taking her eyes off mine.

  ‘Can you be certain, Hanno?’ she had said at last. ‘You think you know the French. But do you know your countrymen? I am more afraid of what our rebels may do. There will be no end to it. That’s all I know.’

  Had Helena been right?

  ‘You are a magistrate, sir,’ General Malaport emphasised. ‘By helping us, you may protect the less hot-headed of your countrymen . Innocent people are bound to suffer if violent repression of a rebellion is necessary.’

  Did he understand the risks of the situation in which he was placing me? Did he know how many Prussians had been murdered by their neighbours as they walked home after speaking to a Frenchman?

  General Malaport smiled thinly. ‘I know what you are thinking, Stiffeniis,’ he said. ‘I’ll order Claudet to set a close watch upon your family here in Lotingen while you are away.’

  He rose without a word, walked to the window, and gazed out over the market square. He was even shorter than I had estimated. Round and bloated above the waist, his legs were thin and curved like carriage-struts. There was nothing palpable which denoted authority in his physique, yet something had induced Napoleon to hand the man a general’s baton. I could only pray that it was his intelligence.

  He turned abruptly and stared at me.

  ‘If you have no objection, sir, you will leave immediately.’

  My thoughts flew instantly to Helena.

  ‘My wife is ill,’ I said. ‘I am reluctant to leave her in a state which . . .’

  The fat on Malaport’s forehead corrugated into a frown. ‘Is the lady dying?’ he asked. He was not being sarcastic. Rather, he was informing himself of the situation, and I was forced to smile. He seemed to be a man of extreme judgements.

  ‘My wife is pregnant.’

  ‘Pregnant?’ he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘I thought you were talking of something serious. Your wife has a doctor, surely? He’ll play her fool while you are away. When is the child expected?’

  ‘In a month,’ I murmured.

  ‘If all goes as I expect,’ he charged on, ‘you’ll be home in a couple of weeks. I do not see that as a reasonable objection. You will be serving France, but Prussia will thank you for it. I have already spoken to the district governor. Herr Count Dittersdorf agrees with me. You will report to Colonel Richard les Halles who is in command of the area, though you should consider your authority to stem directly from me. I will be keeping a close watch on the situation. In the final analysis, I’ll hold you responsible for the investigation. Do you understand what I am saying, Stiffeniis? Do as you wish, but try not to step on too many toes. A coach will be leaving for the coast at five o’clock. Make sure that you are on it. Bon voyage.’

  I had been dismissed.

  Yet one thing prickled me as I walked to the door.

  ‘Herr General,’ I said, turning back to face him, ‘we have a serious problem in Lotingen. The French army is at the root of it.’ I told him of the situation in the town, the filth on our streets, the danger of an epidemic which was on everyone’s lips. ‘If I help you, sir, will you help the town in return? Not all French soldiers are en route to Spain, after all. Couldn’t the ones who remain be set to work to clean the streets after those who are departing?’

  General Malaport pursed his lips, then nodded twice.

  ‘First, I want results on the coast, Herr Stiffeniis. Good day, monsieur.’

  I closed the door, and walked out into the hall.

  ‘Stiffeniis.’

  I met the eyes of Colonel Claudet as he stepped out of the shadows. He had been sent out, but he had not gone away. He had something more to say to me

  ‘Remember, monsieur,’ he warned me, ‘you can weigh la merde, you can discuss it in a Prussian court of law if you like, but the streets of Lotingen will not be clean until it suits me.’

  ‘Herr General said . . .’

  ‘Herr General watche
s his own back. I watch mine. I advise you, sir, to watch out very carefully for yours. Bon voyage, monsieur.’

  With an ironic salute, he turned and walked away.

  The French needed me, but that did not change the facts. I would not be working with them, I would be working for them.

  I walked home in a daze through the narrow streets.

  What if the child were born before I could resolve the case?

  6

  THE BALTIC SEA was breathing in our faces.

  I felt its salty presence tickling at my nose and coursing down my gullet.

  I had spent the last three hours in a corner of the coach with my head propped on my hand, eyes closed against the dust kicked up by the horses on the bone-hard highway, sometimes sleeping, otherwise pretending to sleep.

  We were going to a place called Nordcopp, I and my travelling companions.

  The appointment had been set for five o’clock at Lotingen town cross.

  Having kissed Helena goodbye with less passion than I truly felt—Lotte and the children were looking on—I had walked back to town, my leather travelling-bag hanging from my shoulder. The road was empty, except for swarms of flies, which nipped at my face, neck and hands.

  The carriage was waiting.

  Pulled by four stout horses, it was grey with dust, though painted black, and it appeared to have travelled many miles that day. I quickened my pace, taking stock of the vehicle as I approached. It was not the sort of carriage that generally ferried passengers along the coast road. A large square box with stout wheels and great leather suspenders, it was a transport wagon of some sort. On the roof, as well as a mound of valises, bags and sacks, there were a number of metal tubes, some wooden crates, and a set of oversized drilling bits. The French had deemed that I should be conveyed not as a passenger worthy of care and consideration, but as just another piece of heavy equipment that needed to be moved up to the Baltic coast.

  There were three other passengers, and all of them were French.

  I announced my own name; they fired back with a rapid cannonade of French double names and surnames which went straight over my head. No doubt my name had been equally quickly forgotten. As the coach pulled away, the luggage on the roof began rattling, shaking and clanking, as if a dozen blacksmiths had been hard at work up there. My companions shouted angrily at the driver, but there was nothing to be done, the man shouted back. The road was full of holes and ruts after the long, hot summer.

  The other passengers were soon engaged in heated discussions. They were talking of their experiences in Spain. Their tales of the campaign froze the blood in my veins. In one instance, thirty French troopers had been caught in ambush and cut to bits with scythes and pitchforks. In another case, the throats of five French officers had been slit by guerrilla warriors posing as peasants in a country taberna. Their still-beating hearts had been ripped from their breasts, and French blood had been quaffed as if it were the finest Madeira wine.

  I closed my eyes, thinking of Helena, and the tribulations she must suffer in my absence. The children, the unborn child, the flies and insects, the foreign occupants, the stench which hung over Lotingen. I recalled the details of our parting. Of necessity, I had told her of my meeting with General Malaport.

  ‘I must go the coast,’ I announced. ‘A woman has been murdered there.’

  ‘Do you know who she was?’ she asked. ‘Was she married? Did she have children?’

  ‘I only know that she was employed collecting amber,’ I said.

  ‘She was Prussian, then.’ She placed two fresh shirts in my bag, and closed the strap. ‘There, that’s everything. Except for the promise you must make me.’

  ‘To be back soon . . .’

  ‘No, no,’ she protested. ‘I want something else from you.’

  She had made me promise that I would find the killer before the baby was born.

  When not pretending to sleep, I sat in silent isolation looking out of the carriage window. The road was unusually busy, the travellers almost exclusively French. While we drove north and east, French troops, cavalry and baggage-trains flowed by in the opposite direction. There was nothing surprising in that river of marching Frenchmen—though it did make the direction being taken by my travelling companions all the more mysterious. After serving two years in East Prussia, where they had besieged the city of Königsberg, then mercilessly crushed a more recent rebellion in Kamenetz, the marching troops were going down to Spain. I had seen the same battle-worn faces every day for the last month as they marched or rode through Lotingen, turning left towards the interior on the long road that would lead them eventually to Paris and beyond, or wheeling right towards our port and the galleys which would race them to Spain.

  As dusk came on, a heavy sea-fog rolled in off the sea, and the coach slowed down to walking-pace. Not long afterwards, we turned off the main highway, heading out towards the shore along a sandy lane. The Frenchmen grew ever more anxious, shouting up to the driver, warning him to take care of the ‘beak,’ and go more slowly. I did not ask what they were referring to. As I was climbing up into the coach in Lotingen, handing my bag to the coachman on the roof, I had caught a glimpse of a long, slender object made of metal. Rolled up in heavy canvas, it had been tied to the vehicle with a great many ropes. The further down that lane we went, the more loudly this metal tube began to clank and judder as it pulled against its moorings.

  On every occasion, French conversation died in an instant.

  Their eyes rolled up to the ceiling, they spoke in worried whispers, and the man sitting next to the window dropped the sash, leaning out to see that nothing had come adrift above us, reaching up to check that the ropes were holding, calling to the driver, ducking back inside to announce that all was secure, and that, despite their worst fears, nothing had happened to upset their plans.

  Plans?

  One thing was clear to me: their military careers would be at stake if any damage were done to the ‘beak.’ At the same time, I began to feel that they feared for more than just their careers alone. They spoke of the officer that they were delivering it to as some sort of ogre, who might eat them all if any harm came to his metallic plaything. It gave me unexpected pleasure to hear the thrill of fear in their harsh voices.

  Suddenly, a loud shriek split the night.

  Leather brakes bit harshly on the steel rims of the wheels. The carriage creaked, rocked, skidding from side to side on the sandy surface of the road. The smell of burning took the place of salt and sea air. Above our heads, instruments, tools and boxes began to clash like warring bands of medieval knights locked in a battle to the death, coming to a crashing, rowdy climax as the vehicle lurched to a sudden halt.

  My travelling companions flew into a fit.

  They leapt down onto the sands before the coach had fully stopped.

  I did not follow, but remained where I was. I was going on to Nordcopp after all, and I dared to hope that the rest of the journey would be more peaceful without them.

  ‘Les forets!’ one man shouted. ‘Avez soin des forets!’

  ‘Descendez mes instruments trés vite!’ another voice demanded.

  I heard the studded boots of someone up on the roof, the repeated calls for their valuable cargo to be unloaded, and carefully, too. I stared out through the open window, wondering whether I ought to get down and offer them a hand, but then dark shadows ran into the circle of light that was cast by the coach-lamp. They would have no need of me. Indeed, the local helpers seemed to be more efficient and orderly. A voice stood out above the others, issuing orders in a sharp, commanding tone, while a succession of boxes, packages, bags and more unwieldy objects were handed down from the roof to the hands now reaching up to receive them.

  I took complete possession of the empty vehicle, and closed my eyes.

  ‘Paralysed with fright, are you?’

  The accent was French, though the language was German.

  I opened the eyes. A head was poking in through the door, a
dark silhouette against the sulphurous light of a lantern.

  ‘Or are you deaf?’

  Wisps of sea-fog hung about his face and hair like drifting pipe-smoke.

  I sat up quickly. ‘Colonel les Halles is expecting me in Nordcopp,’ I began. ‘The sooner I get there . . .’

  ‘You are there,’ he snapped in bulldog fashion. ‘And I am he. Now, get out quick, monsieur, or that carriage will take you straight to Königsberg.’

  I made haste to jump down from the coach, embarrassed to be told by a Frenchman what a native Prussian might be expected to know. So, this was the ogre that my fellow-passengers had been speaking of, the one with whom General Malaport had told me that I would be required to work.

  He was shorter than myself, more square, robust, rugged. His head was a cube, his close-cropped hair as white as salt. And yet, he was not old. Certainly, he had not passed forty. There was a piercing, challenging, brutal quality to his rude stare, as if he were summing me up for future use.

  ‘Procurator Hanno Stiffeniis,’ I announced. That ‘get out quick’ still stung, and I thought it best to meet his rampant arrogance with disdain.

  ‘I know who you are, monsieur,’ he replied brusquely. ‘I do not know what you may yet be. But we have work to do. The stink of the Baltic Sea will not cover the stench of the fräulein for very much longer.’

  He turned away, shouting to the man on the roof of the coach. ‘That drive shaft! Break it, and I’ll break your neck!’

  As I retrieved my leather satchel from the ground, he turned to meet the other new arrivals, informing them that their instruments would be stored in a hut close by, warning them that nothing should be touched without his say-so.

  He exercised authority like a bludgeon.

  ‘Coach clear, Monsieur le Colonel!’ a soldier saluted.

  Les Halles grunted, and waved the man away.

  ‘It’s too late to do anything tonight,’ he said, his voice gruff and low, as if he were accusing us of coming late on purpose, just to frustrate his plans. ‘You’ll start first thing in the morning. We rise at five.’