HS03 - A Visible Darkness

by Michael Gregorio

  ‘Regarding amber?’

  Edviga shook her head vigorously. ‘Regarding herself. Ilse said that someone wanted to draw her.’

  ‘Draw her?’ I echoed, astounded.

  Edviga nodded, as if she found the idea equally surprising.

  ‘Who was this artist?’

  Edviga shrugged. ‘She did not say, sir.’

  ‘What did she say, then?’

  ‘She said she’d met a man in Nordcopp. And that he had made a picture of her. I thought that she was mad to tell such a tale.’

  ‘Did you see the picture?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. There, that’s the trouble, sir. I didn’t know if she was telling the truth. We are like the squid in the sea.’ She laughed. ‘They spit out a cloud of ink. We hide behind our storytelling.’

  She pointed her finger at me, assuming a stern attitude. ‘I do it better than most,’ she added. ‘But that was Ilse’s story that day. The others made a mock of her because she took herself so seriously. Apart from one girl.’

  ‘You?’ I asked.

  ‘Kati Rodendahl.’

  I sat up straight, and bent towards her.

  ‘You told me that you don’t know names. You said you hardly know each other . . .’

  ‘I knew those two. And then again, it’s strange the things you have in your head, the things that you forget about. They pop up, just like that!’ she said, and snapped her fingers. ‘Yesterday, while working in the water, I was thinking back on things that you might want to hear. Things that you’d find useful, sir. That’s when I remembered. We were on the beach, the three of us. Kati, Ilse and me, and Ilse told us that strange story. About the man who wished to draw her . . .’

  Had Edviga dreamt it up, I asked myself, as an excuse to return to my cabin at dead of night? And what might have happened, I wondered, if I had been there, and not asleep on a hard wooden bench in Nordbarn?

  ‘Why would Kati believe Ilse?’

  ‘Kati said that he had drawn her already. And Ilse was jealous. She was even more jealous when Kati told her that he wanted to draw another girl, as well.’ She slapped her hands down hard on her thighs. ‘And guess who that girl was?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Me, sir!’

  The blood in my veins might have turned to ice.

  ‘Where had he seen you?’ I asked. ‘All three of you, I mean.’

  Edviga shrugged her shoulders. ‘In Nordcopp, I suppose.’ She shook her head. ‘But here’s the point, sir. Were they lying? Both of them? Or was Ilse telling the truth, while Kati chose to pull her leg, and drag me into it, too?’ Her face took on a melancholy expression, and she sat in silence for some moments. ‘Is it not strange, Herr Stiffeniis, that both of them were murdered?’

  ‘Did either girl ever name this phantom artist?’ I asked.

  ‘No, sir, they did not. But Ilse did mention something that might help you. Not who, but what he proposed.’

  ‘What was that?’ I asked.

  ‘He did not want to draw her face,’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘What did he draw, then?’

  ‘She was most mysterious on that point, sir,’ she added with a grimace. ‘And yet she did say that it was something very par tic u lar. A detail that fascinated him. Not her face, but a part of her body . . . We made some filthy suggestions, of course. That’s why I thought they were inventing the story. Both of them. Just to attract attention to themselves.’

  Kati, Ilse, Edviga, and someone proposing to draw them.

  ‘Were Ilse and Kati beautiful?’ I asked her.

  ‘Someone thought them pretty enough to draw,’ she replied. She smiled a strange, shy smile. ‘If this artist is real,’ she said, ‘and if he asks to make my picture, I’ll tell him yes. And straight away!’

  Edviga was striking in her looks. Any artist would jump at the opportunity to sketch her. And if this artist really did exist, and if he used his art to approach girls like Ilse and Kati, he could do the same with Edviga.

  ‘I shall draw you,’ I announced.

  Edviga’s expression froze in a stupor, then suddenly flushed the colour of the amber dangling from her ears. She did not speak. I think she had lost her tongue, watching as I opened my bag and took out my drawing album and graphite-holder.

  ‘Stay quite still,’ I ordered. With gentle pressure, I turned her face towards me, revealing the scar on her cheek. She stiffened for an instant. Then, almost imperceptibly, she began to move her head up and down, gently caressing my fingertips.

  I pulled away my hand as if she were a burning flame.

  ‘Do not change expression,’ I commanded.

  I began to trace the general outline of her face. High cheekbones, large green eyes, the delicate structure of an aquiline nose. The tapering line of her jaw and chin. The fine delicate bow of her lips, and, finally, the slanting slice of that narrow scar which ran from the corner of her left eye to the dimple at the left-hand corner of her mouth. I began to work the graphite into the paper with my thumb, smoothing and polishing the surface of her skin here and there. The bated breathing of the girl, the swell of the sea which seemed to grow heavier, the distant voices of the women working out in the water were the only audible noises. When I had finished, I turned the book, and showed her what I had done.

  ‘Do you recognise yourself?’

  As if touching were believing, her fingertips stretched to caress the paper.

  ‘My own face!’ she murmured incredulously. She remained there contemplating her portrait for a minute or two.

  ‘Show me the face of Frau Stiffeniis,’ she said suddenly.

  I smiled, turning away as I flicked back past the sketches of the corpses of Kati and Ilse, until I found the page that she wanted to see. I held up the album, and showed her my portrait of Helena. She looked at it for some moments.

  ‘Did she know that you were drawing her?’ Edviga asked.

  I had drawn that picture one eve ning, several weeks before, while she was musing in the kitchen. Taken up with her own thoughts, Helena did not realise what I was doing until it was done.

  ‘No, she didn’t,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps that’s why she did not try to hide her fears.’

  I looked more carefully at the picture I had drawn of Helena. She was frowning, her eyebrows almost meeting. And her eyes were wider than was normal. I had thought that she was tired. But now, I wondered. Had Edviga seen what I had failed to see?

  ‘A pregnant woman is always a little afraid. I know the feeling, because I . . .’ As she spoke her right hand came to rest gently over her womb. ‘The freezing waters of the Baltic Sea are dangerous if you are pregnant.’

  The thought flashed through my mind.

  Was she expecting a child?

  She looked at me. ‘Did you draw that picture, sir, to protect me from him?’

  ‘From who?’ I asked in a state of mental confusion.

  ‘The artist who kills his models,’ she said.

  I tried to laugh. ‘As you said yourself, he may not exist.’

  ‘But if he does, and if he asks to draw me, I can say that someone else has done it, and I’ll be safe.’

  I did not hesitate. I turned the album, intending to tear out the page and give it to her. But her hand reached out and stopped me. Her palm was warm on the back of my hand.

  ‘Keep it there with Helena,’ she said.

  A shadow darkened the door.

  ‘Excusez-moi, monsieur,’ Robert called out, rapping loudly on the door-post without showing himself, as if unwilling to interrupt my tête-à-tête with the amber-girl.

  He waved a piece of paper in the air, though he did not enter the hut.

  ‘A courier brought this for you, monsieur.’

  I stood up quickly, took the paper from his hand.

  ‘Is it from your wife, sir?’ Edviga asked anxiously.

  ‘No, it’s not from Helena,’ I said with a smile. I had recognised the handwriting immediately. The tension on her face dissolve
d away. That note was signed by Johannes Gurten.

  Three words only: Erika is here.

  22

  I SPOTTED HIM near the North Tower in Nordcopp.

  Sitting cross-legged on the ground beneath an overhanging roof, naked from the waist up, with his hands stretched out before him, his palms turned upwards like those of a beggar. A blind beggar, I corrected myself. Head tilted back, chin pointing up at the sky, his eyes were half-open, the pupils invisible, as if they had turned upwards in their sockets. His complexion was as white as a bowl of milk.

  ‘Herr Gurten,’ I called.

  His eyes snapped open.

  ‘Forgive me, sir,’ he cried, jumping to his feet, and pulling on his shirt. ‘I’ve been trying to make good use of the time.’

  ‘How long have you been sitting here?’ I asked him.

  ‘Steady rain is a perfect mantra, you know. Its rhythm leads us to the core of our Being.’ I suppose he must have seen perplexity on my face. ‘If you concentrate on nothing,’ he explained, ‘hours pass away in a moment. I have heard the clock strike twice.’

  ‘Two hours,’ I said with glum scepticism.

  ‘I tried to reach you on the coast first thing this morning,’ he said. ‘But they would not let me go beyond Nordbarn. The village is full of French soldiers. “Another bit of old Prussia lost” was how Hans Pastoris described it.’

  ‘Pastoris?’ I was surprised. ‘Did he speak with you?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir,’ he replied at once. ‘He seemed glad to speak with someone Prussian. He has been dispossessed by the French, he complained. They are taking the place of his workers. He’ll be driven out, and the women will be driven off. God knows where they’ll go.’

  ‘No doubt, he blamed me for his troubles,’ I muttered.

  Gurten buttoned his jacket. ‘He did not speak of you at all, Herr Stiffeniis.’

  Pastoris had said nothing to Gurten about the fact that we had met. He seemed to deny that he had spoken anything but French for a day and a night. One thing was plain. Pastoris no longer thought of me as a Prussian. I was one of the enemy.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ I asked, pulling the note from my pocket.

  ‘Erika is being held in there, sir,’ he said, nodding towards the tower.

  ‘How did you track her down?’ I asked, feeling a tiny sting of envy.

  Gurten’s eyes were ablaze with enthusiasm. ‘A stroke of luck, really. I was on my feet before dawn. Pastor Bylsma had invited me to attend the ceremony which concludes the annual Spenerian feast. I went to the Found er’s Cell before sunrise, as he had instructed me, but I found it empty. That is, the cell was dark, there was not a candle. But then, lightning flashed, and I saw a figure standing at the window. It was Pastor Bylsma. He was in such a state that I thought the church had been robbed again. He was trembling. “Today of all days!” he hissed with anger. “No one is arrested in Nordcopp on Found er’s Day!” I reminded him that the feast day was almost over, but he would not be calmed. We watched together from the window. The French were bringing in three smugglers. Two Rus sians, as I discovered later. And a little girl was with them . . .’

  His voice gave out with emotion and the fury of the telling.

  ‘Erika?’

  ‘Soaked to the skin, sir, worn out, and in chains. Pastor Bylsma was right, sir. Arresting them was an offence against Pietism, against all Christian religion, an insult to our nation. And yet—now this was strange!—in the same instant, I was overwhelmed by a sense of peace. A revelation, I suppose you’d call it, an insight of such powerful intensity that it robbed me of my breath.’

  ‘What was this revelation?’ I asked.

  Johannes Gurten smiled. ‘I was witnessing the fruits of our lawful labours. Yours and mine, sir. Yours above all, Herr Procurator.’

  The mysticism of my assistant—his effortless transition from Buddhist to Pietist, and back again—was beginning to wear on my nerves. I would have told him, too, but he expressed himself with such natural, unaffected candour.

  ‘Is it not incredible, sir?’ he continued joyfully. ‘You need Erika Linder to help you find a killer that the French believe they have already found. And the French deliver her into your hands! They even went to the trouble of bringing her back to Nordcopp for you to question!’

  His pale face seemed to shine with excitement.

  ‘I doubt the French had that in mind,’ I replied sardonically.

  ‘I only mean to suggest that it is evidence of their karma,’ he replied. ‘Their destiny, that is. As the sacred texts of the Vedanta tells us, no human action is without a consequence. The outcome is always what we deserve. The French arrested her for stealing amber. The mother escaped, by the way, so I was told, while the daughter could not, on account of her physique. I saw how badly she was limping.’

  ‘Have you nothing to say regarding my own karma?’ I added slyly.

  ‘You will interrogate her, and find the true killer,’ he rushed on. ‘Not the innocent that Col o nel les Halles has sent to Königsberg. It will be a personal victory for you, sir. A battle lost for them!’

  I thought of that dev ilish little sprite, and wondered whether his prophecy would be fulfilled as easily as he thought. Gurten did not know Erika Linder. He had no idea what I was up against, the difficulty that I had found in trying to extract useful information from the Prussians on the coast.

  Sergeant Jean Tessier was on duty again in the North Tower. His blond curls appeared to have been recently puffed up, his cheeks smooth and shining, as if he had visited the regimental barber that morning. He glanced up and recognition flashed in his eyes.

  ‘Oui?’ he said, drawing out the vowels into a question.

  ‘I am sure you remember me,’ I replied. ‘Magistrate Stiffeniis.’

  ‘Still here, sir? Haven’t you counted all the victims yet?’

  I ignored this provocation.

  ‘You are holding a prisoner,’ I snapped. ‘Erika Linder. I want to speak with her.’

  I said no more, but I did not take my eyes from his face.

  ‘Have you informed Col o nel les Halles?’ he protested.

  ‘You may inform him, if that is what you wish to do,’ I replied. ‘Erika Linder is a Prussian thief, as I think you know. She is of interest to me alone. Col o nel les Halles may resent your wasting his time. Still, that is for you to decide, Tessier.’

  Sergeant Tessier appeared to consider his options. Clearly, he had received no instructions from les Halles. And why should he? Erika Linder was an insignificant cog in the mechanical world of Col o nel les Halles. She had no name, no face.

  ‘Trés bien, monsieur,’ Tessier replied at last, and his fleshy lips made that unpleasant sucking sound that I remembered from my last visit to the prison. He stood up, went over to the door, called for one of his men, told him what to do. The soldier was to take us down to the cells, wait by the door, report immediately if anything aroused his suspicions. ‘I hope I will not live to regret this decision,’ Tessier added, as he stepped aside to wave us out.

  ‘Au contraire,’ I assured him.

  The North Tower consists of four floors above the ground, and one below which might have corresponded to a cellar or a basement. As Gurten and I followed the soldier down the steep stone ramp to the underground floor, I realised how cramped the ancient tower really was, how complex the warren beneath the streets of Nordcopp. We found ourselves in a confined square space, similar in size to the chamber above it, which was filled by Sergeant Tessier and his desk, though the ceiling was lower. Each wall was no more than thirty feet long. Into this small area were crammed a dozen rusty iron pens on either side of the ramp. Just tall enough to stand up in, these cages were hardly wide enough to allow the prisoner to turn around. Three of them were occupied: two men, and Erika Linder.

  Pointing her out, the soldier laughed: ‘Given her size, ain’t she the lucky one!’

  ‘What will happen to the child?’ I asked.

  ‘That child steals
amber, monsieur,’ he replied sternly.

  Before I could stop him, Gurten bowed close and spoke to her.

  ‘Have they treated you badly?’

  Erika lifted her head to a German voice. Her long matted hair fell away from her face. She was filthy. Filthy and bruised, I corrected myself. Sweat had gathered in the wrinkled folds of her skin, then evaporated away in the sweltering heat of the dungeon, leaving a residue of grime in clinging black lines.

  ‘Have you come to help me, sir?’ she asked

  Gurten reached through the bars and took her hand. The gesture made her gasp. Then, tears trickled down her sooty cheeks, leaving channels of white skin which converged at the point of her chin. Her bloodshot eyes fixed on his like two tiny balls of opaque glass. Her expression was a contorted mixture of hope and terror.

  ‘What . . . what will happen to me?’

  ‘They may decide to hang you,’ he breathed in a soothing undertone.

  His cruelty robbed me of breath. And yet, I realised what he was doing. Erika was a gift of Destiny. We had to use her fear of mortal punishment to our own advantage.

  ‘You were carrying amber when they caught you,’ I said, stepping close to the bars. ‘The French will make an example of you to warn off the others. And yet,’ I added, as if it were an afterthought, ‘I may just be able to loose the hangman’s rope from round your neck.’

  No female has been hanged for illegal possession of amber since the days of Frederick the Great, though there are still gallows set at regular intervals along the coast, and the coast road, to remind potential thieves of the seriousness of the offence. The great King Frederick would have hanged a child. The French would not.

  But Erika did not know that.

  She looked up. A fountain of terror seemed to surge through her soul. She was unable to speak. A whimper, a shudder, a burst of silent tears—she was not capable of anything else.

  ‘How much amber were you carry ing?’ I asked, waiting for the storm to subside.

  ‘Just a few bits,’ she replied between sobs. Her eyes blazed suddenly into mine. ‘Not so big as the piece that you had, sir!’