HS03 - A Visible Darkness

by Michael Gregorio

  Benedikt Tanzig regarded us as if we were a pair of idiots.

  ‘Keeping track of names and numbers is what my job is all about. When we’re short of room,’ he said, ‘we take the oldest ones out and burn them. We . . . I’m the only one left here now. Every year I have a bonfire. Today’s the day, as it happens. Feast of the Venerable Jakob Spener. My way of celebrating. I was about to make a start when you gentlemen arrived. An entire shelf will be going up in smoke very shortly.’

  Would someone do the same thing to my own archive in Lotingen one day? Burn all the notes and drawings that I had made so carefully while preparing for the trials that had occupied my working days? The case in Königsberg with Kant? Last year’s investigation of the Gottewald family massacre? All the other less memorable proceedings, including the one that I had left unresolved just a few days before in Lotingen?

  ‘Which ones are you planning to burn?’ I asked him.

  Tanzig pointed to a stack of files and thick leather ledgers lying on a desk in the centre of the room beneath the skylight. ‘1700 to 1720,’ he said. ‘I’ll rip the covers off, of course—all the leather goes back to the margrave’s factor—but the paper is no use to anyone. Who wants to read the names and the dates of a million dead amber-workers?’

  ‘A million?’ I queried.

  Tanzig turned to Gurten with a toothless smirk.

  ‘You’re the one that’s good at counting,’ he said. ‘I’m asking you, sir. How many men, women and girls have passed through them doors down there at the rate of . . . say, forty a week—averaging them out, of course, good times and bad times taken altogether—over a period of five hundred years?’

  Gurten smiled and said: ‘One million.’

  ‘Exactly,’ the archivist smiled back.

  ‘But you do still have the recent records,’ I insisted.

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘Let’s start with those,’ I said.

  ‘If I may make a suggestion, Herr Stiffeniis,’ Gurten intervened, ‘perhaps we ought to look at the records for the year 1805, that is, the year before the French arrived. Just for the sake of comparison.’

  It was a sensible proposal. ‘Herr Tanzig?’ I said, turning to him.

  ‘I have to warn you,’ he replied. ‘I shall be obliged to inform the margrave.’

  ‘Do as you must,’ I said.

  Tanzig went across and took a ledger out from the stack. It was as large as a slab of black bread, but twice as thick, a heavy studded volume with dark brown leather covers. As he dropped it onto the desk, a storm of dust flew out from between the pages, dancing and floating in the sunlight. ‘Here you are, sir. This one runs from 1804 ’til the day that we were ousted. We used to keep the records proper back in them days. Without a birth certificate, no girl could be employed. Prussian law was strict . . .’

  I opened the book near the middle, took out a sheaf of loose papers that divided the pages, and set them to one side on the desk. The top sheet was a fading copy of an edict. The title caught my eye: Amber Edict & Convention—France & Prussia. Two paragraphs had been ringed in ink:

  Commercial amber, that is to say, amber of any quality, type or size [from the finest powder to the largest block], and for any general purpose [medicinal, chemical, decorative, etc.] will be consigned to the nearest French Office.

  All amber of a scientific nature, that is to say, amber containing objects, animals, plants, or any other unusual ‘insertion,’ will be consigned to the Round Fort, in the person of Benedikt Tanzig, Archivist to the Margrave of Marlbork, who will despatch the said consignment to the Royal Scientific Society, Berlin, for immediate examination and classification . . .

  I had just such a piece of amber in my pocket. It had belonged to Kati Rodendahl. That is, I corrected myself, it belonged to the Royal Scientific Society, and it ought to have been consigned into the safe-keeping of Herr Tanzig.

  ‘Do you send many pieces to Berlin?’ I asked him, waving the edict in the air.

  ‘Haven’t seen one in the last uh . . . ten or twelve months,’ he said. ‘The other papers in that pile are official receipts for pieces sent, which I retain for the margrave’s inspection. I have, of course, written to inform him that somebody is robbing him. That’s his only income now from the coast. Today, of course, I’ll add the thalers that your young assistant has given me.’

  So, that’s where the money would end up, I thought. Not in beer, or food, or a new pair of stockings, but, as tradition required, those coins would go to fill the coffers of the margrave of Marlbork, wherever he was surviving after the deluge that had swept away the remnants of ancient Prussia.

  ‘Are you suggesting that the French are holding back amber?’ Gurten asked. ‘And that they are not respecting the agreement?’

  ‘’Tain’t my job to suspect no one, sir,’ Tanzig replied gruffly. ‘Let the margrave suspect, if that’s what he wants to do! Still, I reckon it is the French. They don’t bring it here, which doesn’t mean that they don’t send it someplace else!’

  Tanzig suspected the French. The French, of course, accused the Prussians of wholesale theft. Only the verb differentiated them: Prussians were not permitted the luxury of accusing anyone.

  I turned my attention to the ledger, and began my search for Annalise and Megrete.

  1. Anna Strudel, 26, of Ostróda, 24th April 1804–6th May 1806.

  2. Mabel Bartold, 25, of Elbing, 24th April 1804–1st September 1804.

  3. Krista Wiecwinski, 19, of Warsaw, 24th April 1804–11th June 1804–lost a hand (compensation–150 thalers).

  4. Angeljka Cord, 30, of Lotingen . . .

  I had lived in Lotingen for fifteen years, but I had never heard that name.

  I picked up the separate bundle of papers and began to search through the leaves until I found the yellow registration certificate of Angeljka Cord. Born in the Roederstrasse district of our town in 1771, the girl had been raised inside a Pietist community for destitute female orphans. From this scant information, I guessed that she might have been the illegitimate daughter of a prostitute. Where was she now, I wondered. Above, or below ground? The last recorded date of her existence was written in the ledger as 7th November 1807. She had worked on the coast for two and a half years, then left as suddenly as she had arrived.

  ‘Is this your handwriting?’ I asked the archivist, who had seated himself on the chair behind the desk.

  He pulled a glass from his pocket, and lowered his nose until it grazed the page. ‘It is,’ he said, glancing up.

  ‘I don’t suppose you remember this girl?’

  ‘Don’t remember any of them precisely,’ he said. ‘They’re here one minute, gone the next. They drift from place to place in search of work. She was in one piece when she left here, otherwise there’d be a note of injury. My records were a miracle of precision ’til the French took over. Date of arrival, date of departure . . .’

  When had Edviga Lornerssen appeared in Nordcopp?

  I ran my eyes over the pages ranging up and down the lists with my forefinger. Ostensibly, I was looking for the names Annalise and Megrete, but my finger jolted to a halt as I read the name Edviga. It was not the entry I was looking for, however. Edviga Brandt had arrived from Danzig in April 1806, and she had disappeared in June of the same year. Swept out to sea by a storm, the note read, as if that storm had come for her, and no one else.

  What would Edviga Lornerssen make of that? A girl adrift in the after-life without a piece of amber to protect her.

  ‘Can I see the records kept since the arrival of the French?’ I asked.

  Tanzig began to cough and splutter violently. He was laughing, I realised.

  ‘The French don’t bother with formality,’ he said. ‘If a girl looks fit, they take her on. If not, away with ye!’

  ‘Surely you have a copy of their lists? For the margrave, I mean. Surely he would want to know the names of those who left the shore,’ I said. ‘And who was taken on to replace them.’

  H
err Tanzig shook his head. ‘None of my business, the Frenchmen said. I wrote to the margrave, of course . . .’

  ‘So, there’s no way of knowing who is working on the shore at present,’ Gurten concluded.

  ‘They may keep a roster down on the beach,’ the old man replied.

  I could verify that fact from personal knowledge. I had heard the roll being called before I went with Adam Ansbach to examine the corpse that he had found in his pigsty. I had been hoping that the Round Fort records would verify whether the girls that Pastor Bylsma accused of theft were registered as amber-gatherers. Now, I would need to check the French lists instead, and convince Colonel les Halles that it was not Prussian intrusion in French military affairs.

  ‘What else can we do here, sir?’ Gurten asked softly.

  ‘Nothing,’ I admitted.

  Downstairs in the entrance hall, I was just about to leave when the archivist called me back. ‘Herr Procurator,’ he said, ‘you asked me before if I remembered a particular girl.’

  ‘Angeljka Cord,’ I reminded him.

  ‘That’s right, sir. And I told you that I didn’t. Well now, there is somebody who might know.’

  I clutched at this straw. ‘There is?’

  ‘There is, indeed, sir. I may have mentioned it, in fact. She’s been hanging around here, off and on, for a couple of years, I’d say. She pesters the girls when they’re coming in. Or she chases after them on the way out.’

  ‘She?’ I asked, surprised.

  Herr Tanzig began to chortle, as if he were seeing something very funny in his mind’s eye. ‘A strange little creature, sir. The contrast is quite hideous. Just imagine, all them big, fine strapping maids—beautiful, all of them—and this little imp in a skirt that skips and limps at their heels, telling them God knows what. If you could find her, sir, she might have a better memory for names than me. She’ll know them. She speaks to every one without exception. She was hanging about outside last Monday, too, come to think of it. When no one came, she sat herself down on the bridge, dangling her legs over the ditch, and waited for a couple of hours. Next thing I looked, she must have realised nobody was coming, she’d taken off. I wouldn’t be surprised if she comes back next Monday, though. Never misses a day, she doesn’t.’

  As Gurten and I began to retrace the dusty road to Nordcopp, the image of Erika Linder would not leave me alone.

  Did Erika know what the Round Fort register could not tell me?

  20

  EVERYTHING WAS GREY as the rowing-boat pushed off.

  The sea, the sky, everything in between. Only the stark outline of the coq du mer stood out in the gloomy light of dawn. The derrick hung over the water like a gallows painted black. The sky pressed down like a sheet of basalt on the molten lead of the sea. The boatman groaned and grunted at his labour, each dip of his oars producing an oily swirl in the water, yet we barely seemed to advance an inch. Rippling reflections grazed the flanks of the boat, fanning out in a wide chevron behind us. He was carrying me to the barge where les Halles had been labouring all night. There was no one left to whom I could turn for help. But would he help me? Was there one single reason why he should?

  Inside my head a dull heaviness reigned.

  The day before had been a total failure.

  The Round Fort in the morning. Nordcopp in the afternoon. Gurten and I, looking everywhere for Erika Linder. The cellar was empty, as if a magician had waved his wand and caused every single thing to disappear: Erika, her mother, the tables and benches, the cauldrons of amber and fish soup. Only the smell of fish confirmed the fact that I had not been dreaming.

  I had turned for help to the French.

  Sergeant Tessier was not on duty. The soldier who was pretended not to understand my French until the name of Colonel les Halles brought him to his senses. He admitted that a girl answering to the description of Erika was often seen around town, but neither her name nor her mother’s was registered with them. As for the cellar, he explained, it was rented out on a daily basis. One day someone might be brewing beer down there, the next it could be used as a tavern. Sometimes no one rented it. In Nordcopp, anything could happen when the streets were full of amber-traders.

  As the sun began to sink, Erika was nowhere to be found.

  Gurten invited me to spend the night in the guest-house of the convent.

  ‘I need to speak to les Halles,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you . . . you know where you can always find me, Herr Stiffeniis,’ Gurten said, an expression of uncertainty on his face.

  I knew what puzzled him, and I had no reason to prolong his uncertainty. Could I deny that he had set me on a new track? Adam Ansbach was no longer the only suspect. That was the news that I would be carry ing back to les Halles.

  I nodded, smiled, and said: ‘It is important for a magistrate to know where his assistant may be found.’

  Assistant.

  Gurten’s face lit up at the word. And I was glad to have him at my side.

  I no longer felt like a total stranger in my own country.

  I had to pass through Nordbarn going back towards the coast. Pastoris was next on my list of things to do. But as I approached the settlement, I saw French uniforms milling around outside the workshop.

  I ran, expecting the worst.

  They had found another corpse.

  But as I drew near, I saw no signs of alarm on the soldiers’ faces. I showed my papers to an officer who was holding a black cheroot in the doorway of the workshop. He blew a puff of aromatic smoke in my face.

  ‘I know you,’ he quipped. ‘The Prussian magistrate in our camp!’

  ‘Has something happened?’ I asked him.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, flicking away the stump of his cheroot. ‘We marched here this morning with Colonel les Halles. When he left for the coast with his steam-pump, he told us to stay put. Up at the farm, and here.’

  The Ansbach property would be run by four men who had worked on farms before being drafted into the army. The soldiers would look after the pigs, cows and hens, and make sure that the supply of food and milk to the camp on the coast was regular. The Ansbach family would not be coming back, the officer said, sounding ominously like Magda Ansbach herself.

  ‘The corpse?’ I asked him, wondering whether les Halles had had it carried back to the coast.

  The officer shrugged. ‘Fish food by now, I reckon.’

  The night before, Edviga Lornerssen had asked a favour of me. She had given me a chip of amber, telling me to place it under the tongue of Ilse Bruen before her body was thrown into the Baltic Sea. That bit of amber was still in my pocket. I had fainted when I saw the body. And now, it was too late. I would never be able to fulfil my promise to Edviga.

  ‘What’s happening here at the workshop?’ I asked him.

  His name was Ducros, and he was a second lieutenant. There would be seven soldiers under his command, he said, two for each room, plus one to guard the door and search each person passing through it. All the rough amber coming in from the coast, and all of the polished amber going out to Nordcopp, would pass through his hands.

  ‘Herr Pastoris will translate my orders for as long as I need him,’ he said.

  I looked across at the master grinder, but Pastoris looked the other way.

  ‘My men will learn to handle these grinding wheels easily,’ Ducros confided. ‘I mean to say, French soldiers with two hands can do what a Prussian cripple manages with one. Don’t you agree?’

  There is a legend on the coast. Some folk even claim to have seen such phenomena. Monster waves which sweep down from the North Pole, pushed by the winds, gathering momentum as they race across the Baltic Sea, where they crash at last upon the Prussian shore, then flood the hinterland, bringing choking mud and wholesale destruction. Ilse Bruen had had the same effect on Nordbarn. The discovery of her body in the neighbourhood had swept away everything, destroying the lives of all the other people who were living there.

  Pastoris refused to meet my eye.<
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  He sat at his place, giving orders to his women in short sharp barks, showing the French soldiers by eloquent mime and gesture how to use the treadle, how to bring rough amber into contact with the whirring grindstone. He taught them to chip away marine deposits, turning the amber all the while, insisting that they keep it soaked with grease, and avoid over-working the parts where air-bubbles were present.

  The Frenchmen watched the women work.

  Now and then, the girls looked up, studying the concentrated expressions on the foreign faces, glancing back at their grinding-wheels as fear got the better of them. One question was written openly on their features.

  What will happen next?

  Only Hilde Bruckner worked alone. No Frenchman wanted to get too close to her. Pastoris busied himself about everything, explaining something to the French, chivvying the sad-faced women, making sure that all the amber went back into the sack that it had come from. He was purposely avoiding me, I decided. But sooner or later, I thought, he would be obliged to speak to me. A storm was coming on, the sky outside was the colour of sand. The air inside the hut was hot and heavy. The overcrowded, festering, unwashed bodies, the unremitting concentration which Hans Pastoris forced on the French, the intensity of the labour which was new to them, could not last forever. The soldiers would wish to stop, sooner or later. They would want to smoke and relax. I was waiting for this moment, and I meant to take advantage of it. Pastoris kept them at it for an hour, or more, but then Officer Ducros spoke out.

  ‘My men need a break,’ he said.

  Hans Pastoris could only nod. The wheels stopped spinning. The soldiers trooped outside, and Ducros followed them. I took advantage of the interruption, walked across and cornered Pastoris. The ugly scrofula beneath his chin was physically trembling.

  ‘What will become of us, now?’ he hissed at me, before I could speak.