My thoughts flashed back to Frau Poborovsky’s attic.
The amber collection on the shelves. Some pieces large, others small, containing an incredible menagerie of unknown flies and insects. I had been in no doubt that Heinrich had collected them. That he was Vulpius. Yet Heinrich had never been there. The amber did not belong to him. Nor did the drawings, or the collection of creatures floating in the jars of preserving wine.
Johannes Gurten had assembled that collection.
The realisation froze the blood in my veins.
Who was this man? What did he want from me?
He slowly shook his head from side to side. ‘Impossible to found a theory on so little, Herr Stiffeniis! Heinrich believed that the origins of life could be found in amber. His interest was scientific, his ambition limited. I ask you, can a man have a heart so impure that he will see no more in godly nectar than the confirmation or denial of the theories which inspire him?’
‘You accused him of collaborating with the French,’ I replied. ‘You went to Lotingen to look for those articles. You sent me details of the essays you had found there, concerning amber.’
He shrugged dismissively. ‘I might have found such evidence if I had bothered to read the rubbish he had written. Or not written. Who knows? I will not deceive you, sir, on that point. I did not look for proof. Nor did I disturb your friend, Count Dittersdorf. Dr Heinrich probably told the truth when he said that he was waiting for Erika to die. He would have written a pamphlet describing that ambiguous creature to the world, half child, half crone. He would have printed out the lurid diagrams of her twisted bones, cracking and crumbling into dust. That’s what real scientists do. But you are right, Herr Stiffeniis, we have no evidence that Heinrich ever passed his studies on to the French. Neither in Erika’s case, nor concerning Baltic amber.’
He stretched his shoulders, twisted his head on his neck. His wet clothes hardly seemed to trouble him, though he was surely frozen to the bone. The water was cold enough, and now the night chill came creeping damply off the sea.
‘I am not like you, Herr Magistrate,’ he said. ‘I have no need of proof. I watch, and I judge. I know what’s what. Heinrich would have killed to gain a piece of amber that he wanted. Indeed, he may have done so. Other girls have been murdered on this coast. He would have killed, I think, for an example containing a previously unknown insect.’
Gurten raised his forefinger questioningly.
‘I see the flicker of doubt in your eyes, sir. Has he done so? Is this the truth? We cannot exclude the possibility. In Nordcopp, as you know, the world revolves around the hub of amber. If you want a reason for what you saw this night in his house, I’ll give you it. Amber, amber, amber.’
He shook his head, and laughed again.
‘Heinrich saw what wasn’t there. In amber and the creatures it contains, he found truths of no importance whatsoever. Like you, Herr Magistrate, he was looking for facts and certainties. He needed vast resources of amber for his studies. He thought of them as fragments of a complex puzzle. This made him dangerous.’
‘Dangerous?’ I echoed. ‘Who did he endanger?’
Gurten turned his head towards the open door.
The glassy darkness of the sea rippled in the light of the moon.
‘The ignorant are always a danger,’ he snapped, glaring back at me. ‘And those who doubt are still more dangerous. In the pursuit of certainty, they say and do the most misleading things. They forget what amber really is. They fail to recognise what amber represents for Prussia.’ He turned aside again. ‘I have no doubts, no illusions. I know what I must do. Heinrich had to be eliminated. And when his housekeeper tried to save him, I killed her, too. It was a truly touching scene!’
He frowned, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
‘Those plaster casts make wonderful weapons,’ he remarked. ‘I grabbed the first one from the wall, strode into the kitchen, and hit her with it. Dr Heinrich had done an excellent, solid job.’
He stared defiantly at me, as if to study my reactions.
I stared back, searching for clarity, finding none.
‘Do you not agree, Herr Stiffeniis, that punishment should suit the crime? I pressed the doctor’s face down into the plaster until the fight went out of him. And while his nose and throat were filling up, while the cast was setting hard, I whispered in his ear and told him what the point was. Herr Doctor, I said, this is how your precious insects felt when they sank and drowned in amber resin. He had studied the creatures fixed inside their transparent coffins. In that instant, he realised what it meant. I only hope that he was grateful. He learnt a great deal more in a handful of seconds than he had garnered from a lifetime of futile observation.’ He smiled, and added: ‘Now that—I am sure you will agree—was a most appropriate way for him to die.’
Revulsion surged in my throat. I baulked, swallowing the acid stuff that spurted up towards my mouth. I must not give way. I must humour him, encourage him to talk. He had to tell me what I wanted to know. What had he done with Edviga Lornerssen and the child that she was carrying in her womb?
‘You did not kill me last night’, I said, ‘because you wanted me to see what you had made in DeWitz’s workshop.’ I paused for an instant. ‘I have seen it. But what was I supposed to make of it? Why kill the girls who work on Nordcopp shore to make that model? You spoke last night of the destiny of Prussia. I saw nothing of the sort in that strange waxwork.’
He clapped his hands like a delighted child. ‘Now the real investigation begins, Herr Magistrate! So, you found the place. I would have expected you to lose yourself in the maze of Königsberg—all those alleys, lanes and bridges.’
He knew that I had been there. He knew that I had found it. Did he not recall what we had said the night before?
‘Ask on,’ he encouraged, his tone sarcastic. ‘I will hide nothing from you.’
‘The pact we made,’ I said. ‘Last night I helped you understand what Kant intended when he wrote those pages about the creatures trapped in amber. Now, you must help me. That creature you are creating in DeWitz’s workshop. What has it to do with the future of Prussia?’
37
‘I CALL HER Eve,’ he said.
‘Who is she? What is she?’
He raised his chin, eyes half-closed. Sweat or water ran trickling down his forehead. It split into two separate streams that ran down either side of his nose. His tongue shot out and caught the flow.
Suddenly, his eyes blazed into mine. ‘You have seen the women,’ he said passionately. ‘The women of the Baltic coast. As they enter the sea in those strange outfits. Like pagan goddesses. Working with their prongs and nets. Surely, Stiffeniis, even you can understand the attraction that they wield?’
On the far horizon, a pink haze began to tinge the purple sky.
‘Contact with amber, and with the primitive organisms preserved within it, has transformed them,’ he said slowly, carefully, as if he were outlining a thesis. ‘They are superior beings, Stiffeniis. They are strong, resilient, an ancient memory of what Prussians used to be. They stand firm against the wind and the waves. The sun cannot harm them, nor can the freezing winter cold. They breathe the densest fog, ignore the driving rain. They are immune to storms. All they know is amber and the dour struggle for survival. The strong live, the weak die. They are creatures of another time. Other German women are as larvae in comparison with them.’
I remembered gazing on the statue made of wax, and thinking of Helena.
My wife and those working women were creatures from two different worlds. No similarity existed between them. My wife’s slender limbs and narrow hips denied the motherhood within her. How could she carry a child? When I saw the écorché that he had made, I had thought instinctively of Edviga Lornerssen: strong arms, powerful legs, the physical presence, the jolt that I had felt as she stepped into my cabin.
‘The French are changing everything,’ he said. ‘Machines, engines, pumps. Useful, efficient, but nothing mo
re.’ He passed his hand across his face, as if to cancel out that vision. ‘Our women are no use to them. But we know what they are. We must become like them. We must generate children in their likeness. Children who are immune to pain and suffering. Children who will not bend with fear, or shrink with remorse. Children who will fight to the death. You have seen the creatures enclosed in amber, Stiffeniis. Professor Kant was galvanised at the sight of them. He understood what had happened. He grasped the true implications of the Flood. The loss . . . They are the original forms, closest to Almighty God, and His Creation. He made them so. In His own image. Pure aggression. Sanctified cruelty. God is not so mild as we have come to think. We celebrate His meekness, we adore Him as a sacrificial lamb. But the creatures that He made were powerful. He shaped them to survive, and dominate.’
He clenched his fist and held it up, as if to explain the inexplicable.
‘Prussia is finished. Our army has been dismantled, our arms confiscated. But all is not yet lost. The Prussian soul must break out from its amber tomb and live again. We must create a new species of man. That’s what we must do. Men born from the loins of women such as those who work here on the coast. Men born of amber. Men whose instincts are savage and primitive, like those fearsome insects nestling deep inside the soft, transparent resin. We must cancel out all mystification. There will be no room for sentiment, no space for conscience, or for pity. We must cultivate the bestial core. The raw barbarity of our ancient souls. Until that spirit lives again, we will be slaves. Of the French. Of others.’
This was true madness. No grotesque scowl, no lolling mouth howling senseless obscenities, no inexplicable undirected rage. Instead, a careful, reasoned belief in the impossible. Madness was stamped on the face of Johannes Gurten. He was handsome, glowing, transported, youthful, serene in the spiritual intensity which animated him. The strength of unalloyed conviction.
‘How?’ I asked in a whisper. ‘How can this come about?’
‘Let it happen,’ he replied slowly. ‘Let the French do as they please, while our scientists find the means to defeat them. Nature can be moulded. As Monsieur Lamarck has discovered, Stiffeniis, Nature moulds itself according to its circumstances. This is the challenge that we face. Implant a soul of iron in a human form that is invincible. This is the path that we must follow. We must implant a buzzing insect where the frail human heart once held sway. Our scientists are the finest in the world, but they must be shown the way. A working model. That écorché in DeWitz’s workshop will be transformed by Prussian science into flesh and blood. When it is finished—and it will be finished very shortly—we’ll waste no time on hare-brained plots and futile opposition. We’ll leave all that to the Spanish. We will spread the news to all those Prussians who love their country, those who are ready to create a new Garden of Eden in this land on the Baltic shore. We must look to our glorious past if we intend to form the future. Amber holds the key, and Kant knew it.’
He smiled in my direction, an expression of evident triumph lighting up his face, as if he had revealed a palatable truth to a friend who would surely understand his feelings.
‘What have I to do with this scheme of yours?’ I asked him. ‘What exactly do you want from me?’
Gurten made a loud clicking sound with his tongue.
‘Poor Magistrate Stiffeniis,’ he said with an affected air of concern. ‘You thought that I had come to learn from you. The opposite was true. I came to teach you how to face a truth that you are trying constantly to deny. Embrace your destiny, sir. Family, work, a peaceful life in a country town . . . You are not these things. Sooner or later, the black insect nestling in your soul will free itself. I hoped that you would find the truth that Kant discovered in you. He saw the human form enclosing a ravening beast. You are as transparent as amber, sir, there is a black spot at the core. You hide the abyss in your soul. That’s why you became a magistrate. You think that you are safe in there, appearing to be on the side of what is Just and what is Right. But you deceive yourself. The sight of blood, the smell of it, attracts you terribly. Irresistibly. You cannot stay away from it. Murder stalks you.’
I felt the impulse welling up inside me.
‘When I read that the French had handed the investigation to you, I was already here, and I was very busy.’ He laughed to himself. ‘You can imagine what I was up to, can you not? A great many corpses are needed to make a detailed anatomical model. The French had no idea, of course. They realised that women were disappearing without a trace, but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Well, what did it matter? They thought that the girls had run away, carrying the amber that they had stolen. But then les Halles arrived on the scene. Women disappearing? A Prussian killer on the loose? He wanted the killer to be stopped. His motive was obvious, of course. He was afraid the French would be blamed, that it would go ill with him when he tried to rid himself for ever of the women, and replace them with his machines. But what was to be done? Les Halles spoke to his general, and Malaport had a bright idea. What about that Prussian magistrate, the one who was called to Königsberg by Kant? That clever fellow had already worked with the French, and he had proved his usefulness. A French criminologist had written excellent reports about him. If he can find a suitable Prussian suspect, Malaport declared, and if he hands the killer over to us, all our troubles will vanish into thin air.’
He stopped.
‘Could I refuse them?’ I protested.
‘Who can refuse them?’ Gurten continued. ‘That was why I wanted to be at your side. I hoped to temper your enthusiasm, Herr Magistrate, and call forth from your soul the beast that had taken refuge there.’
He roared down from his pulpit. I sat meekly in the pews. I wished to ask about Edviga, but I hesitated to do so. If I asked him outright to tell me what he had done to her, he would only plunge me deeper into confusion and mystification. But there was one road left. He offered me no alternative. I had to try and play him at his own game.
‘You must take me for a fool,’ I said. ‘Did you believe that you had got the better of me last night? I would have told you any lie to save my life. And so I did. I led you to believe that we are two of a kind. You fell for it. You let me go, did you not? So, tell me, which of us is the greater fool, Johannes Gurten?’
For an instant, I saw a shadow of doubt flash upon his face. ‘I care not what was said last night. You have seen my work in Königsberg. I know that you will wish to see my écorché completed. If you are true to your own heart, you will rejoice in what I do. Otherwise, you’ll have what every homunculus deserves: endless pain and suffering.’
He flexed his knees and bent to pick up something from the floor. It was dark and sopping wet, like his clothes. He had brought it with him, whatever it was. He snatched this packet up, then rocked it gently in his arms.
As if it were a newborn baby . . .
In that instant, I ceased to breathe.
His eyes held mine.
I looked back with horrified intensity.
The fingers of his right hand pushed inside the sack. The canvas moved, as if the contents had suddenly come to life. He partially withdrew his hand, holding something small, tightly wrapped up in a dark-stained cloth. It had once been white. Now, it was grey, where water had soaked through it. But there were darker stains as well. Dark brown. Reddish brown. The colour of blood . . .
And I could smell it. It was mineral sharp, saltier than the sea.
The package was no more than ten or twelve inches in length.
If it was what I thought . . .
When had he killed Edviga?
Where had he left the body?
I heard her voice inside my head. Begging me to hide a piece of amber on the corpse of Ilse Bruen before the French threw her body into the sea. Asking me to do the same for her.
Gurten threw aside one fold of the swaddling cloth. It was seen and gone in a flash. A tiny face. A lump of blood and gore. The head of a child barely formed.
Inside my breast, a tempest roared
.
I had failed in everything.
‘What have you done with Edviga Lornerssen?’
His eyebrows formed a double arch. His eyes and mouth gaped open.
‘Edviga?’ he asked, his voice a hollow whisper.
Suddenly, he laughed out loud. ‘Herr Stiffeniis,’ he admonished, ‘have you forgotten the name of your own wife? Do you fail to recognise the face of your very own son? Who is this Edviga that governs your heart?’
I heard a Frenchman speaking once of an event on the battlefield. A friend had been decapitated by a cannonball, he said, yet they spoke for half a minute before the poor man died. What cry of protest could I raise? My head had just been blown away, and I was helpless. I could see, but I was in another world already. What sense remained in words?
And yet, I heard him speak.
‘I went to Lotingen,’ he said. ‘But not to visit your Count Dittersdorf. Nor to read his dusty French journals. Surely, sir, you remember the message for your wife? Which I delivered, as you instructed me to do.’
He paused, laughed, found something funny in what he had said.
‘It was Helena that I was interested in. She was carrying something that was valuable to me. Where would I have found the crowning jewel of my new Eve, if not where you had put it, Hanno Stiffeniis?’
He held the package up and stared at me.
I heard the sharp intake of air through his nostrils.
I did not breathe. I felt no movement in my chest. No beating heart, no lungs expanding and retracting. I had no need of air. My blood was boiling.
‘Do you share my joy?’ he asked. ‘Or do you suffer like a poor homunculus?’
HS03 - A Visible Darkness Page 44
