HS03 - A Visible Darkness

by Michael Gregorio

  I struck the stone against the flint, held the candle close to the spark, and the wick caught. I shielded the flame, sat down on the cot, and looked at her. The first thing that struck me was the strange manner of her dress. Above, she wore a vest which exposed her neck and her arms. Below, a pair of trousers cut off below the knee. The two pieces were made of waxed material which was stiff and grey. That plain, drab outfit could not humiliate the body it contained. Everything proclaimed her strength. Well-proportioned breasts, arms and shoulders moulded by the flow of muscle, the ripple of taut sinew. Her thighs and calves were powerful, her hands and fingers long, graceful, expressive. Exposure to the sun had tinged her skin the deep, dark colour of the amber that she fished for on the shore.

  I raised the candle. I wanted to see her face, too.

  ‘They eye us up like that at the Round Fort,’ she said boldly.

  Her head lolled back as if she were about to laugh. Instead, she ran her hand through her hair. In such proximity, I could not help but think of my wife. Helena’s curls were wiry and stiff; this girl’s tresses were long and gently undulating.

  ‘What is the Round Fort?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s where they take on girls who want to work on the shore,’ she answered.

  ‘You did not tell me your name.’

  The softness of my own voice surprised me.

  ‘You just watch your step now, Edviga Lornerssen,’ she said, laughing lightly, covering her mouth with her hand, turning her face aside. ‘Herr Magistrate means to interrogate you.’

  I could see what Magda Ansbach feared. This girl was charged with boundless energy. It was as if the magnetism of the amber that they harvested had rubbed off on her skin. Was it vibrant, gleaming health that made these women seem so dangerous to Adam Ansbach’s mother?

  ‘I thought you would have done so sooner,’ she added.

  ‘I did intend to question the girls today,’ I hedged, wanting to win her confidence. I tried to paint myself as another Prussian oppressed and hindered by the French. ‘But Herr Colonel les Halles would not allow it. Only soldiers were admitted to the beach today, as you know.’

  She seemed to listen very carefully, still doubting me, perhaps.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ I invited her.

  She glanced at the bed. ‘Here?’

  I shrugged my shoulders. ‘There’s nowhere else.’

  ‘I am soaked through,’ she said, and crouched cross-legged on the floor.

  She had not been beautiful as a child. Her height and the width of her shoulders would have made her seem too boyish. The shaven head that parents impose on girls to fight off lice would not have added to her childish graces either. Nor was she beautiful now. Striking was the word. Her face was well formed, the forehead broad, the cheekbones strongly pronounced. Her eyes were her jewels. They were penetrating pale green studs. In puberty they must have startled many a man who looked at her and saw her truly for the first time. A deep scar sliced her left cheek between the corner of her eye and the angle of her jaw. She had been a beauty once, but not for very long.

  ‘When did you realise that Ilse was missing?’ I asked.

  ‘At the roll-call last night.’

  She clasped her hands to her mouth. To stop her tears, I thought, but her hand slid down and caressed her throat instead. She was shaken with anguish as she relived that instant.

  ‘Did you know that she had gone to the Ansbach farm?’

  Edviga shook her head. ‘I knew that she was dead. Wherever she had gone.’

  I felt a wave of disappointment: she knew nothing.

  ‘Tell me about Ilse Bruen,’ I said.

  ‘I . . .’ she hesitated. ‘I did not know Ilse well. We have lived in the same hut on and off, that’s all. But the other day, they moved me to a different cabin.’

  ‘Why would the French do that?’ I asked.

  She shrugged. ‘They do it all the time, sir. For a hundred reasons. It depends on whether they want to reward you, or punish you. The huts are not all the same down there on the shore. Some are old and damp. Some are newer. I’ve been put in the very oldest, smelliest one . . .’

  ‘What have you been punished for?’

  Edviga raised her knees even higher, hugging them tighter with her arms, pressing her chin against them, rocking backwards and forwards.

  ‘It was for . . . for something that I had done,’ she said at last. ‘Something that Colonel les Halles didn’t like. He wants the bodies, our bodies, to be sewn in sacks and thrown into the sea. He says it is for the best. But it isn’t, sir. He robs us of eternal peace. He shuts us off from the next world. Why, there are things that have to be done when a body crosses over. There are prayers, rites and rituals to perform. Otherwise, we’d live forever in endless pain. I did what had to be done.’

  I remembered the way that Kati Rodendahl’s corpse had been laid out: the rough cape of animal skins that covered her nudity, the circle of tiny amber fragments that had been carefully placed around her head. I could almost hear the prayers that Edviga had uttered over her dead body.

  ‘So, you were the one who covered her up.’

  ‘I’d have done the same for Ilse, too,’ she went on, ‘but there was no getting out of here last night, not once the news was brought from the farm.’

  This declaration raised a practical question.

  ‘How do you manage to slip past the guards?’ I asked. ‘All of you girls, I mean. You were able to enter the cabin where Kati’s corpse was kept. Ilse walked at least as far as the Ansbach farm last night. And here you are, in my room now. Do all of the girls go walking when they ought to be in bed?’

  She continued to rock slowly, but she did not say a word.

  I let her be, listening to the sound of the sea, wondering how long it would be before the camp began to wake up to another day. She needs time, I thought. She is uncertain whether she can trust me.

  Still, the silence lasted longer than I expected.

  ‘I am a Prussian magistrate,’ I began to say, hoping to persuade her to tell me what I wanted to know.

  Edviga Lornerssen let out a sigh, as if regretting what she felt she had to say. ‘A Prussian working to a French mandate, as you said yourself, sir. You must report what ever you learn to les Halles.’

  ‘Not everything,’ I said. ‘Was Ilse seeing someone out there? A lover, perhaps?’ I pressed on.

  Edviga looked at me, held my gaze, then nodded.

  I tensed instinctively, waiting for her to say the name.

  Adam Ansbach . . .

  But Edviga named no man.

  ‘Who is this lover?’ I asked again, though I did it gently.

  She rested her chin on her knees again. ‘The kindest lover of them all. A prince who brings us royal gifts,’ she said at last. Then, she sang a line from what must have been an amber-gathering ditty.

  O, the Baltic Sea is my only love.

  He is hard, he is cold, but he’s fair . . .

  ‘This floor is very cold, too,’ she said, nodding towards the bed. ‘Can I change my mind, sir?’

  I made space for her.

  As she sat down close beside me, the straw mattress shifted beneath her weight. I felt intimidated by her presence. The air around her was fresh and clean, damp and salty, as if she had walked or swum through the sea. It was as almost as if she had been formed from the elements around her: the pale light of the moon, white sand, dark sea.

  ‘Amber?’ I prompted. ‘Is that that the gift you are speaking of?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Soon the French will take it all . . .’

  ‘They only want it for the riches it can bring them,’ she bridled angrily. ‘Like the Prussian lords before them.’ After a moment, she added more calmly: ‘Like we do, I suppose. We keep what we can hide away, and we sell it, too. But we see something different in it.’

  There was a simplicity about the girl which I found disarming. Certainly, she had never been educated. No one had ever taken th
e trouble to refine her thoughts and train her mind, but her sensibility was of an extraordinary sort. She seemed to envisage far more than her words alone could express.

  ‘What do you see in amber, Edviga?’ I asked.

  Her calves and her feet were bare beneath the knee-length trousers that she wore. She stretched out her legs in front of her, gently massaging the muscles, caressing the skin. Then, she turned her head and looked at me.

  ‘There are creatures locked inside the amber, sir,’ she said in a whisper. ‘You have seen them, surely. God Himself put them there. He wanted us to see the Garden of Eden as He saw it. That is the greatest gift of the Baltic.’

  ‘Insects,’ I murmured. ‘Dead ants, dead flies.’

  Her eyes flashed wide with anger. ‘You are wrong, Herr Magistrate,’ she hissed vehemently, as if she did not wish to hear such sentiments as I had expressed. ‘They are no longer insects. They are much, much more. Would people pay so much for insects? Would they do anything at all just to possess them?’

  Her voice faded into silence.

  Edviga, too, had her superstitions. But they were of a different order from those of Magda Ansbach. I heard enchantment, admiration, awe. For God, the Baltic Sea, and the amber that it showered upon them. There was nothing dark or ominous in what Edviga said. And yet, something struck a discordant note in my head.

  ‘There are men who would do anything to get those pieces,’ I said. I spoke calmly. I had no wish to frighten her. ‘You said so yourself. Do you think that there are men—one man, perhaps—who would kill for amber?’

  ‘Two girls have died, have they not? Kati and Ilse are not the only ones. Other girls have disappeared before,’ she protested.

  It was not the first time that I had heard that story, but perhaps this girl knew more than anyone else.

  ‘Do you know how many girls have disappeared?’ I asked.

  As she shook her head, her hair swished softly. ‘Many.’

  The word hung in the air like a phantom.

  ‘When did it start, do you think?’

  ‘This terror?’ she said offhandedly. ‘Months ago. A year, perhaps. Names were called, and no one answered.’

  ‘But only two bodies have been found,’ I opposed.

  ‘The others may have run away,’ she conceded, just as Pastoris had done. He had begun to tell me what he thought, but then had watered it down for fear of me, for fear of my dependence on the French. Would I learn no more from her than the little I had learnt from him?

  ‘Is it so easy to escape?’ I asked.

  ‘It never used to be,’ she said. ‘When the French first came they were very strict. They wouldn’t let us out without a thorough search. But then . . . something changed . . .’

  I could understand her prudence—she would speak, then clam up a moment later—though I found it frustrating. I could almost see the question racing though her mind. It had hampered the tongue of Pastoris, and every other Prussian that I had spoken with.

  If I speak, am I putting myself in danger?

  ‘What changed, Edviga?’ I asked lightly.

  ‘The machines . . .’ she said quietly. ‘They said that they would use machines to dig up amber. They said they’d have no further use for us. And now the machines are here. How long do you think we’ve got before they send us on our way, Herr Magistrate? Now, there is only one thing in our heads: find it while you can! Take the gift the Baltic gives. Keep those bits that are rare, or beautiful. Sell them to the highest bidder.’

  ‘Who offers the best prices?’ I asked.

  She lowered her head, shook it slowly.

  ‘Don’t you want the killer to be caught, Edviga? He murdered Kati and Ilse. He’ll kill again, unless he can be stopped.’

  She stared at me intently. Her eyes were mysterious liquid pools reflecting light. Her beauty was unmarred. Even by the scar on her cheek. In that instant, I would have said that such a scar was the sort of ornament every girl should have. I had seen a number of printed pictures of natives from the Pacific Ocean. It was tribal practice there, they said, to mark their women with ritual scarring to enhance their natural beauty.

  ‘Amber drives them out of their minds,’ she whispered. ‘Especially . . . especially when it contains something unusual. There are many buyers . . . Every man is looking for those pieces . . .’

  Suddenly, she changed direction.

  ‘You asked me how we come and go,’ she said, and gently laughed. ‘You spoke of French patrols, French guards. They know we are smuggling amber out, and they pretend to control us, but they profit from it. The soldiers will let us through, if we pay the toll. If we smuggle, they hoard. We’re like hens outside the hen house, while wolves are waiting in Nordcopp. Now, one of them is killing.’

  ‘Are you saying that the killer is a Frenchman?’

  ‘I did not say that,’ she answered brusquely. ‘If the girls were killed inside the compound, any magistrate would know who to blame. There are only Frenchmen here, sir. But outside, it could be any man.’

  While she was speaking, I was fingering the piece of amber in my pocket.

  ‘Kati Rodendahl had this,’ I said pulling it out, opening my hand, showing her. ‘It was found . . . hidden deep inside her body.’

  Edviga took the nugget, turning it over and over. ‘Inside . . . herself?’

  ‘You know what I am saying,’ I said, sounding less patient than I intended.

  She closed her fist around it, opened it, held the amber up to the light. ‘This is worth a fortune, sir. She must have considered herself very lucky when she found such a beauty,’ she said. She shook her head, then added: ‘Isn’t it sad? Instead of riches, she found death.’

  ‘Was she intending to sell it in Nordcopp, do you think?’

  She sat in silence, gazing at the amber. ‘Maybe. Maybe not,’ she said after a while. ‘There could have been another reason why she had it in that place.’

  ‘What other reason could there be?’ I asked.

  ‘She may have learnt that she was carry ing a child,’ she said. ‘A child she did not want. She could have put this piece inside herself, hoping that the monster would eat the baby up.’

  I felt a surge of revulsion. Since coming to the coast I had heard many disquieting and unpleasant things where amber was concerned. The borderline between humanity and bestiality was very fine. Often, the two worlds overlapped. Magda Ansbach had mentioned legends of the sort. Now, Edviga offered her own view. Could the women on the coast believe such horrendous tales?

  ‘I have a question to ask you, sir. And a favour, too. Can I?’

  I nodded.

  ‘They say that you are married.’ Her voice was so soft, I could hardly hear it. ‘May I know the name of Frau Stiffeniis?’

  This was the final impression Edviga Lornerssen left behind.

  Shy, inquisitive, very vulnerable.

  ‘Helena,’ I said. But then, something prompted me to tell her more. ‘My wife is waiting for me at home. She is expecting a child very soon.’

  ‘Helena,’ she repeated, as if the name were, somehow, magical.

  ‘And what is this favour that you wish to ask?’

  16

  I GAVE EDVIGA plenty of time to escape.

  Then, I followed her out into the pale grey light of dawn.

  A pair of brown Gaulisches were standing on the top step of the hut.

  My heart beat violently, my legs gave way, and I sat down heavily. Colonel les Halles had spoken of the overshoes the night before. Had he delivered them in person to my hut? Had he overheard me talking with Edviga? Had he seen her creeping from my room at dawn?

  My discomfiture did not last long. Would les Halles-deny himself the pleasure of breaking in on such an intimate tête-à-tête? Of course he wouldn’t. Our secret was safe. I picked up the Gaulisches, slipped them on over my shoes, pulling the straps to tighten the leggings around my ankles and calves. Made of rough leather stitched to a thick wooden sole, they were generally worn by e
ngineers engaged in siege warfare. They would save my shoes if I had to wade through the sewage of the pigsty, and I expected to spend the day in that unenviable condition.

  I took a few trial clomping steps, and looked out to sea.

  The air was a shimmering translucent haze, quite unlike the dense fog of the day before. The vast banks of pebbles were dark and wet. The tide was at its lowest. The sea purled and lapped inside the haf like an old man over his pap. And floating on this tranquil pond, I caught my first glimpse of the coq du mer, of which les Halles was so proud. It was an exotic name for a flat-bottomed barge with a tall derrick reaching upwards. And in the smoke-like haze, I could just make out the figures of men who were working her. One of them was managing a long rudder; two more were manoeuvring a heavy anchor. As it fell with a splash, the noise echoed over the placid water.

  Was les Halles himself out there?

  At such a distance, it was hard to say. I strained to identify him, hoping that he was stranded in the middle of the sea. I had no wish to speak to him that morning. The colonel had already formed an opinion. A female corpse had been found in the Ansbach pigsty. Adam had murdered her. And if he had killed Ilse Bruen, he had murdered Kati Rodendahl, as well. Adam was a Prussian. It was all clear and simple, in his opinion.

  A shrill trumpet sounded.

  A procession was moving slowly along the beach.

  I blinked, and peered harder in the weak morning light, remembering a picture in an ancient copy of Hartmann’s Succini Prussici in our family library. As a child, I had been puzzled by the bizarre illustrations in that book.

  ‘Can lobsters really walk on their tails, papa?’ I asked.

  I knew what a lobster was. We had a Dutch still life of fish on the wall in the dining-room. Our lobster was a big, black creature with long, twitching feelers.

  ‘Those are people.’ My father laughed. ‘Though it might be better for them if they were lobsters. They work in the Baltic Sea, and the water is always cold—summer or winter. Lobsters love cold water.’