HS03 - A Visible Darkness

by Michael Gregorio

  I closed the envelope and handed it back.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to postpone your training, Gurten. I cannot say when I shall return to Lotingen and my duties . . .’

  ‘Lotingen is not the point, sir,’ Gurten said politely, slipping effortlessly into the space that I left him as I drew a deep breath. ‘You are the point, Herr Stiffeniis.’

  He sat on the bed, back straight, hands on knees, blue eyes focused on mine, like a prisoner waiting for me to pronounce sentence.

  ‘I asked specifically to be assigned to you, sir,’ he added. ‘It was not so easy to achieve in Potsdam, you can imagine. They wanted to send me to Berlin. Magistrate Otto von Rautigan’s name was mentioned. You’ve heard of him, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  I knew von Rautigan as the author of a shelf of standard works of reference in any decent School of Law. Now, I supposed, he would be nearing the end of his working life. Still, any young graduate would have given the world for the opportunity to work in his office. I most certainly would have.

  ‘I do not wish to sound like a flatterer, sir,’ Gurten continued, ‘but I should have been disappointed had they sent me to work in the offices of Minister von Arnim himself.’

  ‘I am certainly flattered,’ I said, and I was telling the truth. Another thought occurred to me. Out in the church, I had asked God to spare me further problems. Had God sent me help, instead, in the person of this young man? ‘What advantages do I offer that von Rautigan cannot surpass?’

  Gurten bounced on the bed, and answered quickly. ‘Herr Stiffeniis, were it not for the serious expression on your face, I would think that you are making fun of me. Not one of the greatest magistrates in all of Prussia possesses what you possess, sir.’

  Was he making fun of me ? His seriousness suggested that he was not.

  ‘I do not understand you.’

  ‘Kant, sir. Immanuel Kant.’ He raised his hands and joined his palms together as if he meant to pray to the soul of the philosopher. ‘Four years ago, you went to him in Königsberg. Kant has always been my spiritual north . . .’

  ‘I thought your spiritual north was east,’ I quipped, looking at the spot on the pavement where I had found him lost in meditation five minutes before. ‘Are you not a praying Buddhist, sir?’

  He smiled. ‘Buddhists have no god and do not pray. I use their technique of meditation to enter into closer contact with the spirit of Christ. There is no better place than a Pietist church to ponder on the mystery of God’s essence, sir.’

  Had anyone asked me why I had been praying in that Pietist chapel five minutes before, I would given the same answer.

  ‘You find me in a difficult situation, Gurten,’ I explained. ‘The investigation in which I am engaged has nothing to do with our Prussian authorities. I would like to help you, but I cannot.’

  His eyebrows arched. ‘Are not you the legal representative of Prussian interests in this case?’

  ‘Do you know what is happening here?’

  ‘I know something,’ he said. ‘I called on you in Lotingen yesterday. Your office was closed, but a note was pinned to the door, saying that you had been sent to Nordcopp on an urgent mission. It was signed by a certain Colonel Claudet.’

  Despite myself, I let out a loud sigh. No man in Prussia would read such a note without assuming that I had sold my soul to the French. That I had chosen to further my career by serving them. Would anyone in Lotingen believe that I was interested only in removing the putrefying waste from our streets?

  ‘Did you see the state of the town?’ I asked him, anxious for news.

  Gurten wrinkled his aquiline nose. ‘I’ve never seen such filth, sir. Only flies and other insects prosper in Lotingen, I think.’

  I had left Helena and my children in that stinking mire, and I continually chastised myself as I went about my business on the coast.

  ‘The French don’t seem to care,’ he muttered.

  Our eyes met. Shared resentment flashed between us. He did not say a word against them, but it was clear that he had no time for our foreign overlords.

  ‘I must show you something,’ he said, standing up, opening his bag, taking out a roll of papers. ‘I gathered these in Lotingen, sir. Before the dust had settled behind your coach, these were already floating in the air.’

  He handed over two broadsheets—one of fair quality paper, the other a rough rag.

  The Bullétin militaire announced that ‘Prussian magistrate Hanno Stiffeniis of Lotingen has been appointed to investigate a murder in Nordcopp.’ The writer underlined the fact that I had accepted the task of helping the French without hesitation, pointing out that ‘such willing collaboration is rare among the native populace.’ Before the end, he casually mentioned the fact that I had left an eight-months-pregnant wife and three small children behind without a second thought.

  ‘It puts my family and me at risk,’ I said, and felt my cheeks burn brightly.

  Gurten sighed and turned his head aside, as if to spare my shame.

  L’Ami des peuples was a blatant copy of the Parisian broadsheet with which the monster Marat incited the crowd before the victims of his ire went to meet the guillotine blade. The news reported was the same, except for a rough silhouette of a tall, thin man striding away, while a large-bellied woman with three small children in tow waved him goodbye.

  ‘May I keep these? I asked.

  ‘I’d rather burn them,’ Gurten replied.

  I quickly folded up the papers, and put them in my shoulder-bag.

  ‘Your wife must be exceptionally brave,’ he added quietly.

  ‘Did you see her, by any chance?’ I asked.

  ‘It would have pleased me greatly,’ he replied. ‘But I didn’t stop half an hour in town. I jumped on board the coach again, and dashed here after you, sir. In the future, perhaps, I may have the opportunity to make her closer acquaintance.’

  ‘My wife is everything that a man . . .’ I began to say, but then I faltered.

  I had never revealed such sentiments to a stranger. Why was I doing so with Johannes Gurten? He claimed to be a trainee magistrate. He insisted that he had chosen me as his tutor. Was he telling the truth? How many powerful men in Berlin—the king, or Minister von Arnim himself—would want to set a hound on my heels? A man who would ingratiate himself with me. A spy, in other words.

  ‘Have you been sent to watch me?’ I asked him flatly.

  The laughter which erupted from his lips was the loudest thing I had heard since entering the chapel confines. ‘You must excuse me, sir,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I wondered how long it would take before you asked me. After all, here am I, an acolyte, who turns up out of the blue. And there are you, a magistrate depicted as a traitor to his nation. It was a natural supposition on your part, but there’s no truth in it. I cannot prove to you that I am not what I am not, but there is one thing that I can do. Let me serve you, sir. Let me learn what you have learnt from Professor Kant. I swear to you in his name that I am not a spy.’

  I shook my head, though he had in part convinced me of his good faith. It was the name of Kant that did it. I had believed as fervently in Kant when I was Gurten’s age. ‘I am quartered inside the French camp,’ I explained. ‘That is where the victims lived. And General Malaport alone has the power to open the gates and let you in. I can see no way around the difficulty. The commander is eager to be rid of me. He will not welcome my assistant.’ A bitter laugh escaped from my lips. ‘Today, he believes that he has got rid of me!’

  ‘Does he really, sir?’

  It was the expression on his face that finally won my confidence. I did not feel as though I were talking to a stranger. Instinctively, I felt inclined to trust him. Something similar had happened four years before, when Amadeus Koch had come to carry me off to Königsberg and Immanuel Kant. Irksome incomprehension had quickly given way to abiding friendship, while all around us the city was plunged into chaos. I had not felt alone. Now, I was drawn to Gurten by the thought that he wou
ld listen and respond to me in a language that was native to us both.

  The young man pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, a gesture I would soon know well. ‘The victims lived in the French camp,’ he murmured. ‘Yet, they managed to elude the guards and reach Nordcopp. Surely they were trafficking in stolen amber?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I countered.

  ‘What other reason could there be to murder amber-gatherers?’

  ‘Colonel les Halles has arrested a man named Adam Ansbach,’ I replied. ‘The Frenchman believes that sex is the motive.’

  He edged closer, and frowned. ‘Is this man a Prussian?’

  I nodded, curious to know where his reasoning would lead him.

  ‘And he is accused of murder by the French,’ he said with a grimace. ‘Nothing happens here on the coast, but amber is the cause. And especially now that it is in their hands.’

  ‘But I have found nothing to contradict the accusation,’ I said. ‘So far, at least.’

  Gurten stretched out his hand, as if to lay it on my arm. He stopped short, his hand in mid-air, smiling awkwardly, embarrassed by his own impulsiveness, perhaps.

  ‘Procurator Stiffeniis, you will need a spy in Nordcopp,’ he said. ‘Someone to act as your eyes and ears. A man who is not known in the French camp. A Prussian who can move with ease among our own people.’

  I had to smile. He seemed to contradict my fears, generously offering to do for me what I suspected him of doing already.

  ‘I am that man, sir.’ He paused, looked up eagerly. ‘As a child I travelled with my father in this region. He was a comptroller for the old Baltic Trading Company. Fish and furs for the most part, but they also dealt in amber.’ He edged closer. ‘When I learnt that you’d been sent out here on a case involving amber, it seemed to be a potent sign of my destiny, sir.’

  His mysticism took strange and unexpected paths, I realised.

  ‘Did you see a sign before you asked to be seconded to my office?’

  I found it hard to keep the sarcasm from my voice, but he did not react to it.

  Instead, he laughed, and said: ‘That’s not the half of it, sir! When I discovered that you’d been sent to the amber coast, I thought to myself: this was meant to happen. I may be able to help the man who learnt his trade from the great Immanuel Kant. By helping you, Herr Stiffeniis, I may be able to help my country.’

  A sort of growl erupted from my throat. ‘Judging by those papers that you brought from Lotingen, you seem to be one of those rare Prussians who thinks that I am acting in the national interest.’

  He shook his head, held up his hands. ‘I should not have shown them to you.’

  ‘You did the right thing,’ I said.

  ‘I may do another, yet,’ he said. ‘At five o’clock this morning, sir, I opened my Bible, and began to read the first passage that came to hand. You’ll never guess what it was!’

  ‘It is possible to find everything in the Bible,’ I replied dismissively.

  Would he use the Holy Book in his attempt to make me take him as my pupil?

  ‘I read the page where Moses leads his people through the Red Sea,’ he rushed on. ‘The waters close again on the heads of the Pharoah’s army, and drown them all. And as I read it, I was thinking of the French . . .’

  The image of les Halles being swallowed up by the Baltic Sea was a pleasing one.

  ‘And there’s something else, sir,’ he pushed on quickly. ‘Something inside this convent that you ought to see. I have been here with my father many times, the pastor knows me well. Yesterday, I had just arrived, he told me something he would not have told to you, or anyone else. It may be helpful to your investigation.’

  I had prayed to God for help when I entered that convent.

  Had my prayer been answered?

  18

  JOHANNES GURTEN LED me down a dark corridor.

  A row of identical wooden doors was set into the right-hand wall, a different inscription carved in Latin in the lintel above each one. At regular intervals along the opposite wall, a narrow unglazed slit let in a sliver of light.

  ‘They live according to the rule of Jakob Spener here,’ Gurten explained.

  I had been brought up in a Pietist family, and had no need to ask what he meant.

  ‘Unfortunately, the convent is built like a rabbit warren,’ he added.

  He paused for an instant in front of one of the doors, then entered without troubling to knock. I followed him into a small room which was dimly lit by a single tiny window. A score of people were huddling in the gloom, adults and children, seated all together on a narrow bench along the far wall. A man held up a large Bible; a woman read from it. Her words were echoed in a whisper by the assembly; they seemed to know the text by heart, reciting something concerning ‘unfaithful shepherds who abandon their flocks.’

  A man was waving his hand in time to the chanting, like a kappelmeister.

  ‘With your permission, Pastor Bartosik?’

  One might have expected resentment at this interruption of their Bible studies, so I was surprised by the way in which the people, most of all, the children, smiled and nodded, as if they were overjoyed to see Gurten.

  ‘Would you care to join us?’ Herr Bartosik enquired.

  ‘Later, perhaps.’ Gurten smiled. ‘We are going to see Pastor Bylsma.’

  ‘He is preparing for the exposition,’ Bartosik replied.

  ‘Today is Spener’s memorial day,’ Gurten added for my benefit.

  As we left by a door on the far side of the room, the hands of the people came up and waved to us, as if they, or we, were setting off to sea on a long voyage.

  ‘God bless!’ called Gurten.

  ‘I thought the place was empty,’ I whispered, as we crossed the threshold into a dark corridor.

  Gurten looked at me, an expression of severity on his face. ‘The shops are closed in Nordcopp for the day. True Christians take comfort in the words of the Lord.’

  He crossed the corridor and knocked on another door. Above it, there was another inscription. GOOD WORKS.

  A voice called out, and we entered.

  The room was almost bare, though larger than the last. Oddly, there were only two men in the room. One was stretched out on a sort of chaise longue. The other man stood over him, his legs straddling either side of the couch. The latter was wearing a long white shift that might have been freshly laundered and ironed, while the patched and ragged trousers of the reclining man gave the impression of having never been washed or cleaned in their existence. Neither man turned to look over at us. There was a strong smell of disinfectant in the air. As if to excuse himself, the man in white held up his hand.

  He was gripping a very large pair of black pincers.

  ‘One moment,’ he said. ‘A few more tweaks, and it will come out.’

  I stepped to the side, glanced at the reclining patient, saw a cheek and jaw so swollen that the man’s left eye had closed entirely. I had never seen such a frightful abscess. It must have been dreadfully painful, as must the operation, yet not a sound was heard.

  ‘Don’t disturb yourself, Pastor Praetorius,’ Gurten said. ‘We are passing through.’

  ‘Is it you, Herr Gurten?’

  He did not turn around. The pincer had taken hold and he was pulling and twisting so hard that his voice came hissing out from between his teeth. Suddenly, his arm jerked upwards, the troublesome tooth trapped in the maw of his pincers. The sufferer hardly made a sound. A long, low groan, but nothing worse.

  ‘Spit,’ ordered Pastor Praetorius.

  A gob of blood flew into a pewter dish that was resting on the floor.

  ‘Did you feel any pain?’ the dentist asked, letting the tooth—a huge, hooked mass of black roots—fall with a loud clatter into the same bloody bowl.

  ‘God bless you, no, sir. That vinegar of yours is a miracle.’ The man’s voice was as bright as that of a child who has just received an unexpected gift.

  Gurten called back: ‘Go
d guide your hand, sir.’

  We walked together into another passage, stopping in the gloom outside a door over which was carved the inscription: ZEAL IN STUDIES, AND A DEVOUT LIFE.

  ‘The fifth rule of Jakob Spener,’ Gurten intoned in a low voice. ‘We have reached our destination.’

  Whatever he was about to show me, I knew that I would see it in absolute silence, and that the lighting would be poor. Severity and parsimony were the essential elements of Pietist practice. In effect, this translated in the Convent of the Saviour into silence and darkness, a detached atmosphere in which mystic fervour could flourish.

  As Gurten opened the door, my hands flew up to cover my eyes.

  How many candles had been lit in there? At least a hundred. Perhaps more. There was not a shadowy corner in the large room. The air was pleasantly warm from the heat of the flames, delicately scented with the perfume of the melting wax. It was so bright in there, it made the rest of the convent seem as dark as a cave.

  ‘Lord above, Pastor Bylsma!’ Gurten exclaimed. ‘Is this the waiting-room of Paradise?’

  I glanced around, noting two large cabinets containing ancient leather-bound volumes and paper scrolls arranged like a honey-comb. A long table occupied the middle ground of the room. Open books were laid out on lecterns, as in a medieval scriptorium. But the main feature was a large portrait on the wall opposite the door. Painted over a rich Prussian-blue background, I recognised the hollow cheeks and long curly locks of the founder father of Pietism, Philipp Jakob Spener. Beneath the picture, a mosaic of amber fragments of different colours formed his name, together with the dates of his birth and death, 1635–1705.

  ‘Congratulations, sir,’ Gurten enthused. ‘The people of Nordcopp will remember this day for a long time to come.’

  Pastor Bylsma was dressed in the same outmoded fashion as the man in the painting. He wore a large winged linen collar and a dark padded jacket with high shoulders, and his hair (or was it a elaborate wig?) had been set in a fair imitation of the founder’s curls. Even so, I thought, Herr Bylsma failed to capture the mysticism and severity of expression which dominated the portrait of the father of German Pietism. And Gurten’s compliments made no impression on his melancholy face.