The Strange Case of the Composer and His Judge

by Patricia Duncker

  ‘Where are my glasses?’

  He squeezed her and laughed.

  ‘You want to begin your investigation again? Now?’ He cleaned her glasses on his handkerchief, then opened them up and handed them back. She sat up and looked at him. The thick white hair needed a trim. The lines on either side of his mouth had lengthened and deepened. He looked older, very tired and a little sad.

  ‘I’ve come to do something so unprofessional that I can hardly believe it of myself.’ She reached for her rucksack. ‘I’ve brought this back. Because I believe it belongs to you.’

  The Guide is the Keeper of the Book. As she put the Book of the Faith into the Composer’s hands she needed no further confirmation of the justice of her instincts and the ethics of what she had done. The joy in his face spread like an electric surge throughout his body, his habitual heat, almost becoming visible.

  ‘I love you, Madame le Juge, with all my heart.’

  ‘So you keep saying. I’m flattered, Friedrich, but now I’ve done what I came to do.’ She straightened her back. The night gaped in the windows.

  ‘I won’t let you go.’ He clutched the Guide to his chest as if she and the Book had become one. He was so close she could feel the heat in his breath.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ wailed the Judge.

  * * *

  The kitchen curved over her like a huge tunnel until he turned on the lights, and then the roof lifted away into a high dark where a washing rack swayed on a pulley, the drying dishcloths white and crisp like elderly ghosts. She saw an old range flanked by a modern gas stove and dishwasher. This stood open and a mass of soiled dishes lay upended in a row, waiting to be scoured. Out of sheer investigative habit the Judge counted the plates: twelve, there were twelve of them. One clean plate stood aside on the dresser. She guessed this had been her plate, which still lay waiting, ready and expectant. As if reading her thoughts the Composer reached for the white plate and set it before her. She noted the huge cupboards and the door into the larder, which had a small yellow grille at eye-level, like a prison slot. The kitchen was stocked with provisions adequate for a visiting army.

  ‘Is anyone else still in the house?’

  ‘No. They’ve all gone. We’re all there is.’

  They sat at the kitchen table in the middle of the night eating bread, ham, salami, smoked salmon, fruit and cheese. For a while they gnawed hungrily at the food in companionable silence, anticipating each other’s wishes. He cut thick chunks off the loaf for her; the butter formed an oval with a stamp at the centre in the shape of a cow. She sliced off the cow’s head. He poured out two glasses of dark wine.

  ‘I can feel your ribs when I hold you. Why have you stopped eating?’

  ‘I don’t know. I find all this very unsettling. I was alarmed by Professor Hamid.’

  ‘Did he frighten you?’

  ‘No. Well, yes. Maybe a little. I blame those fearful Egyptian mummies. They were lying all about me, with their eyes fixed and black. And in some obscure way he menaced me.’

  The Composer stared at her, clearly disturbed.

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘He said that some great harm would come to me if I did not return the Book to its Keeper.’

  A deep sadness seemed to settle over the Composer, and a tired anger rang in his voice. ‘We are not here to be feared, Dominique, but to build goodness and hope in this world.’

  ‘Now you explain,’ she snapped. ‘Explain everything to me.’

  He pushed his plate aside.

  ‘There is a schism in the Faith. Hamid will have told you that we are not a suicide sect, like Heaven’s Gate or the jungle cult of the Reverend Jones, although that may be how we are represented. We are the hidden people of light and darkness, but the impending millennium and the Apocalypse texts in the Guide caused uncertainty, delusion and many fears. And, in my view, have resulted in catastrophe.’

  ‘What texts?’

  He rose, cleared the food away, cleaned and dried the table carefully, then laid down a clean napkin on which he spread out the Book of the Faith, so that she could see the strange block script. He began to read, one finger encased in his own serviette, like an anatomist opening a corpse, moving slowly from each letter to the next.

  It will begin with the fall of the towers in the new world. We must read this as the first sign. This is the beginning of the change, the transformation which marks the conclusion of all time. There will be wars and rumours of wars, for evil will be unloosed from his prison and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. The people of the mountains and the plains shall wither and die, for their crops will shrivel and their cattle shall be scattered. The sea will rise up and sweep over the land, for the earth will be opened and commanded to yield up the dead, and before the great wave the cities of the East will be swept away into the ocean. And yet the West shall not be spared. His hand shall stir up the boiling waters of the gulf into storms of such terrible magnitude that the force of their destruction can never be predicted or foreseen. And in the South the rains will cease and locusts will consume the grain and fruits they have tended. These are the signs that will appear without warning. But again this is only the beginning. Do not fear the signs marked in this world, for the deeper pattern is moving in the stars. The people of this world will sense the impending Apocalypse. The fish in the seas will choke upon blood and the sky will be empty of birds. Their prophets will predict the destruction of their green continents. But they cannot know what is being prepared for them. Starvation and slaughter will follow the people of the desert lands and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse shall be unleashed. It will be as it has been written and recorded for thousands of years: war, famine, pestilence and death. They are coming. We must continue, as we are, steadfast in silence and darkness, serving the ancient cause of reason, liberty and enlightenment. But when these signs are upon us we shall know that the time of waiting and watching is now past and the shaping of Apocalypse has begun.

  He fell silent.

  ‘But all this sounds exactly like Revelation. The last book in the Bible,’ objected the Judge, now crackling with renewed scepticism.

  ‘Precisely,’ said the Composer and closed the Book, ‘for it was written over two thousand years ago. And the rhetoric of Apocalypse is common to many religions. But some of our number were bewitched away from the path of truth. They were unable to hold their souls in patience. You know perfectly well that it is written: that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.’

  The Judge knew the Bible well, not from childhood study, but professional research.

  ‘So you don’t believe in the Apocalypse?’

  He poured her another glass of wine and handed her a bunch of sweet grapes.

  ‘It’s not my business to speculate on the date of the approaching end to all things. Our tasks are set in this world. And we are forbidden to leave before we are called to die. The only person who is permitted to step forth through fire into darkness is the Guide himself. We know that our real lives begin beyond the grave, but suicide is forbidden, just as it is in Christianity and Islam. We must live out our appointed days. I tried hard to calm this insidious, spreading enthusiasm, but as you know I failed, even with those closest to me.’

  ‘So you knew nothing about the planned departures? You suspected nothing?’

  He did not reply, simply pushed back his chair and slumped against the dresser. The cups rattled. He looked utterly defeated. So he hadn’t known. The Judge gloated over the justice of her own deductions. The house creaked and shifted in its sleep around them.

  ‘How many of you are left?’ she asked softly.

  ‘They were all here tonight, but I cannot present them to you. Not yet. Not yet.’ He took her hand and drew her up from the table. ‘Come. Follow me.’

  * * *

  Sometimes she imagined the entire conversati
on as a hallucination, brought on by exhaustion, hunger and an irrational desire to know everything, no matter what the consequences. They sat in the long drawing room, drinking tea before the renewed flutter of sparks licking the damp logs. He held her closely in his arms, defending her against the liquid dark outside the windows.

  ‘I acted as the Guide for forty years, and yes, now I am exhausted and defeated. I could not hold the group steady and united. Their motives and desires were too diverse. Too many powerful individuals disputed the terrain with me. The Guide remains as the interpreter of the Faith, the guardian of our people, their arbiter in disagreements. I had the final word. If you like, I was their judge. Why has it been so hard for me to protect my people from themselves?’

  The Judge recognised her public role here, and her own countless defeats, but said nothing.

  ‘The Guide is not a function that is inherited. The person must be chosen, trained. Not everyone could do it; she or he must have real authority.’

  ‘So women have acted as the Guide?’

  ‘All the first Guides were women. Mostly they were priests. Or at least that’s what we read in the old stories.’

  He spoke of the distant past, then fell silent for a moment.

  ‘Who was the Guide before you?’

  ‘He was a very wise old man who lived in Lübeck. A great musician, but not a professional. He befriended me when I was a child. He taught me all I know.’

  ‘And after you? Who comes after you?’ whispered the Judge, knowing the answer before she spoke. She felt the slight shudder of horror that ran through him.

  ‘You know, Dominique, you know. I chose Cécile.’

  Suddenly the Judge felt all her energy returning. She shook herself free of the Composer and stood up, her back to the fire and her face in darkness.

  ‘Marie-T! She wanted to pass the task on to Marie-T.’

  The Composer looked past her into the fire.

  ‘Yes. She did. And I cannot allow that. I will not sacrifice my daughter.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The Faith is a great joy to us, but it is also a burden, a sacred task. Your life is not your own. You cannot choose your own paths. It is like a monastic calling. You must have firm shoulders and great strength of mind to survive. Marie-Thérèse is fragile, une enfant sensible. She cannot negotiate quarrels, bickering, arguments. This happens within any community, but within the Faith –’ He broke off, shrugged, then continued, his voice low and fierce.

  ‘I have not allowed Cécile to draw Marie-Thérèse into the Faith. I have kept her out. Cécile sank into terrible depressions, then dangerous enthusiasms. She and Anton turned themselves into missionaries of apocalyptic madness against my will. And I will not let my daughter die before she has lived. I want her to live out her days in happiness and safety. We are not slaves to masochistic suffering as some Christians are. We believe in joy, the same revolutionary joy that is the legacy of the Enlightenment. If the Faith is to degenerate into an insane, unbalanced, suicide sect then I want her to have no part in it. I wish for her only the blessings of the Faith – joy, life, freedom.’

  ‘And what is my role in all this? Why have you sought me out?’

  ‘I want you to become the Guide.’

  The Judge froze, then strode to the windows and looked out. The lake was still there, flat and dark, with the lights tracing the edge. She took a deep breath, to stop herself shouting.

  ‘Are you out of your mind, Friedrich? You want me to take over from you as the leader of your sect? I cannot think of anyone less suitable.’ The Judge faced the dark, unflinching. ‘I believe in nothing.’

  ‘But you do.’ His voice seemed to come from a long way off. ‘You believe in all the Enlightenment values of the Republic. You believe in justice, liberty, solidarity, and the right of all your citizens to live in peace, free from poverty and fear. And you believe in the law.’

  ‘But I don’t believe in God or destiny. Or anything up there, out there.’

  The Composer stood up, stretched, and his giant shape unfurled upon the long wall of the drawing room, across the bookcases and above the piano. He smiled at her, shaking his head, as if she were an apparition, a wondrous and unexpected miracle.

  ‘The Kingdom of Light is a citadel, built in the hearts of men. You shine like a warning flame, Dominique. You are radiant with that very light.’

  She almost stamped her heels in rage. She felt belittled, patronised.

  ‘How do you know what goes on in my head? You know nothing about me. And if I take your place and learn how to mouth all this nonsense, are you then condemned to die? To die at once? You said that only the Guide could choose to die.’

  The horror of all this seemed utterly grotesque. But the Composer remained unruffled.

  ‘I would have to teach you many things first. I could not leave you to struggle in darkness and unknowing. You do not yet understand the Faith. We would be together night and day. For many years, I hope. I would give you all the rest of my life.’

  ‘But then you’d leave me? You would choose to die?’

  ‘Sterben um zu leben. I die in order to live, more fully and for ever. Death is not a state. Or even an event. Listen to me, Dominique. It is a door, a door through which we stride into eternity, into the eternal glowing darkness of vision, glory, freedom, joy. You cannot imagine, in this small world, imprisoned by the limits of your senses, constrained by these four walls of flesh, what boundless glory awaits you. I will wait for you there, beyond that door. The first thing you will know is that my arms are tight around you, and once we are there I will never, never let you go.’

  ‘Then hold me now.’

  He made no move towards her, but opened his arms. She crossed the dangerous space between them. As he folded her against him she touched his simmering heat. Flamme bin Ich sicherlich. He was already flame. Her cool lizard skin brushed his bare arms, her ice cheek came to rest against the throbbing pulse in his jugular vein. Their roles were already reversed. She was the one dedicated to that cold night of death lodged in the far stars, and he was doomed to serve in this vital, boiling world of hunger and blood, for all eternity. The urgent words of denial and rebellion bubbled within her.

  ‘But I want you now. In this life. Now. I don’t believe in for ever. I don’t. There is only now. Only this moment.’

  She felt his gentle laughter, a hot wind stirring in her hair.

  ‘And yet I have chosen you. Not just for this life, but for all time. How can you be so bound to the kingdom of this world? Surely your own Catholic faith taught you to look further, deeper? To look up? I will teach you so many things, Dominique. And it will be my joy to do so. You are so precious to me. You are my jewel, buried in sand, uncovered by the very music you resist. You stand revealed to me.’

  ‘Buried in sand? Like Verdi’s lovers? You believe that this life amounts to nothing more than a tiresome prelude to the grave?’ Now she was actually shouting.

  ‘No, no.’ He kissed her forehead gently, but continued to speak. ‘There is no grave. And for me there will be no grave. I will vanish into light, air, darkness. And all through your long life I will stand beside you, waiting for you to accomplish your work, this immense work that is entrusted to both of us. And once your time here in this strange green world is completed, then you will step into eternity, the great ring of pure and endless night, the night of boundless love.’

  She sounded like a disappointed, bawling child, even to herself.

  ‘But I want you now. Now! In this world. There is nothing else but this world. And I think you’re insane!’

  The heat of his body engulfed her, as if he was already consumed by fire aboard the Viking ship. And for one terrible moment she felt herself sinking, vanishing. She pulled herself away from him, flung open the nearest French window and lurched out into the wet grass. The freezing night washed over her; she gulped down the shock of the mountain cold, and felt herself shivering. Wrapping her arms about herself she
picked her way through the soaking earth, unable to see anything at all on the black mass before her. A man’s passion held no terrors for Dominique Carpentier; this was just one more field in which she excelled, like mathematics and jurisprudence. And to the outcome she was largely indifferent. He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me. The deepest currents within her never surfaced and were never touched. But now, in this man’s arms, she had sensed her cold intelligence obliterated, and she was shaken to the core. The combed vines and the glassy blackness of the lake with the Alps beyond, ghostly in the night mist, refused to remain a backdrop to this moment of temptation, like a painted scene before which the Composer seduced her with his outrageous propositions, for the very landscape heard his voice, and shivered, animate, listening, intent. She was surrounded, trapped.

  ‘Dominique?’ She never heard his approach. He caught her and she felt his giant hand cradling her head. She lost her footing in the slithering grass.

  ‘Look up,’ he commanded softly, ‘look up.’

  And there above her reeled the Great Bear and Pleiades, the vast dense mass of stars, suffocating, close, the long veiled trail of the Milky Way, exploding with light, a dance of such glamorous enormity that her breath stopped in her throat. As if for the first time, she saw the huge immensity of light and distance, stretching away into nothingness, a soft glimmer on the outer edge of the universe, and then the endless galaxies beyond. She heard his voice coming towards her from the passionate brink of all created worlds, seen and unseen.

  ‘Everything already is. Everything exists. It is both before us and within us. All we have ever done is discover the names. We spend our short lives finding the words to say it. You and I have always been here, now and for all eternity. Did you never listen to your uncle when he was teaching you your catechism? He was teaching you the first fragments of the Faith.’

  16

  FOLLOW ME INTO THE KINGDOM

  She stumbled out past the gatehouse in the first grey-blue light of coming day, dishevelled and unsteady, like someone drugged. Where had she left the car? Could she still find her keys? With each step she struggled to regain her chilly equilibrium. Her mind shuddered and gaped, as if she had stepped into a distorting fairground mirror and retained its grotesque shape. There was another car parked, just behind her own. As she reached for the lock a huddled form crouched behind the wheel of the intruding vehicle sprang into life and leaped out before her – André Schweigen.