The Collected Short Fiction

by Robert Aickman

  But there was a figure in the lake, or above it: if in it, then not of it. It was a beautiful woman; it was a woman more beautiful than any man could have conceived or imagined as possible. She was white and naked, and she had large eyes, like the eyes of the Blessed Virgin, and a wide red mouth, which smiled.

  Elmo knew at once that he had fallen asleep from cold and wretchedness and that this was a dream, devised for his further torment. Because all that the vision had done was to reinstate the thought and recollection of Elvira in full brutality; unbearably to invigorate sentiments lately numbed into brief abeyance. "Curse you, curse you," groaned Elmo; and, as he cursed, the little pistol in his hand was discharged by him for the first time. It was unfortunate, too, that, dream or no dream, his hand was still shaking as much as if he were fully awake at that hour; indeed his entire arm. The vision had faded or vanished anyway, and it was hard to say where the bullet had lodged. There were still occasional duels in the Tiergarten, and small holes were sometimes found in trees. As for the vision, it had probably lingered for less than a second, much as if it had been an apparition of the Virgin indeed. And the pistol was of the lady's kind that contains only one bullet.

  Elmo recalled a simple truth that had, as it happened, been uttered in his case, by the mistress of the ballet at Elvira's minor opera house, the lady who saw to it that the girls were properly dressed and equipped, punctual, and diligent, though naturally she did not herself devise any of the works in which they danced: "We do not die merely because we want to," this woman had said in Elmo's hearing. In the faint and frightening light of a new dawn, the big trees stood around watching his every gesture, absorbing his every breath. No other mode of death was possible for a soldier and a prince. With another curse, Elmo threw the pistol into the lake.

  Even in this respect, what happened seemed mysteriously significant. That same day the pistol was seen gleaming upwards through the water by a park attendant. He recovered it with the long rake provided for such incidents, and, because the pistol bore on its butt the name of the Countess Sophie-Anna, it was respectfully returned to her by the superintendent, whose staff spent much time in wrapping it with sufficient care for the post. This time the Countess retained it. She merely sent Elmo a short letter. Elmo had, in fact, lost his chance with the Countess, who from now on regarded him with indifference. But the Countess addressed her little letter to the family residence in the capital (she was fully in Elmo's confidence about Elvira); with the result that Elmo never received it, as he had left Berlin by an evening train on the day of his disintegration in the Tiergarten.

  Elmo realized that he was dead anyway. Elvira had killed him, life had killed him, the passing years had killed him: whichever it was. There was no need for a weapon, or for action of any kind on his part. When the heart is dead, all is dead, though the victim may not fully realize it for a long time. Elmo had realized when he had thrown away the pistol; and the Countess's action in contemptuously depriving him of any second chance was superfluous.

  Elmo went to the Bodensee, because there seemed to be nowhere else where he could so easily be alone, indeed settle himself in a solitude. Before leaving Berlin, he had telegraphed the major-domo (in truth only a senior peasant, elevated, at the most, to caretaker) to arrange for the carriage to meet him at Stuttgart. He reached that other Schloss Allendorf by ten o'clock the next morning, feeling very hungry. Both with sleep and with appetite, unhappiness sometimes augments and sometimes destroys. It was eight years since he had been there.

  For a year, he confined himself to the semi-ruinous buildings and to the neglected park stretching vaguely away behind them. He never once went down to the lake, lest he be observed. The park was at least walled, and it would have been a serious matter with the Hereditary Prince if the wall had been permitted to crumble at any point. Elmo never allowed as much as the light of a candle in any of his rooms unless the shutters had first been closed and the long, dusty curtains drawn tight. He gave orders that his arrival was to be mentioned nowhere, and that all letters (if there were to be any) were to be cast away unopened.

  He read Thomas à Kempis and Jakob Böhme in copies from the castle library; of which the pages were spotted and flaky, and from which the leathery covers parted in his hands, revealing pallid, wormy activities within. Every now and then he inscribed thoughts of his own on the blank pages of an old folio. It was a book on magic. There were printed words and diagrams only in the first half of the volume. The remaining pages had been left blank for the purchaser or inheritor to add reports of his or her own, but no one seemed so far to have done so. Elmo found, as have many, that the death of the heart corrupted the pen into writing a farrago of horrors and insanities, not necessarily the less true for their seeming extravagance, but inaccessible for the most part to the prudent. Thus another autumn followed another summer, and then another cold, damp winter drew near.

  Elmo discovered that even the imminence of spring, the worst quarter of the year for the sensitive, the period of most suicides, the season of greatest sadness, no longer disturbed him, or not that he was aware of. Before leaving, he had told them in Berlin that he was not to be approached: nor were such orders altogether unusual on the part of those in a position to give them. Autumn offered a faint respite.

  Not that Elmo abstained from looking out over the lake from various upstairs windows. It seemed perfectly secure, provided that he took care to stand well back in the room; which was often, at that, an empty room as far as furniture or pictures or trophies were concerned. The panes in the windows were old and imperfect, not only defeating the intrusive stare from without, but also adding much to the fascination of the view across the water from within. Moreover, these upstairs windows were very imperfectly and infrequently cleaned. Sometimes Elmo would stand gazing and lost for hours at a time, oblivious at least; but in the end cramp and weariness would suddenly overcome him, in that it was, of course, impermissible to lean against the window frames themselves, as do most who look forth on life outside their abode.

  "Jurgen!" Elmo went to the door of the big, empty room and shouted. He had expropriated all calendars, but supposed it to be now the end of September or the beginning of October: a phase of the twelvemonth when cold became noticeable. It was about eleven o'clock in the morning.

  Jurgen, one of the resident peasants, came clambering up the several flights of imposing but uncarpeted stairs. Elmo had attached this man to his more personal needs, in the absence of the valet who had been his go-between or Mercury with Elvira, and who had therefore been left behind to rediscover himself in Berlin. The man was in late middle-age (or more), but had seemed sharper than his fellows.

  "Jurgen. You see that boat?"

  Jurgen looked through the discoloured window rather casually. "No, your Highness. I see no boat."

  "Look again, man. Look harder. Look."

  "Well, perhaps, your Highness."

  "There's something I recognize about it. Something familiar."

  Jurgen stared at his master, though only from the corner of his eye. He was not sure that he himself could see anything at all. However, his master's statement was all of a piece.

  "Have you any ideas about it, Jurgen?"

  "No, your Highness."

  "I need to know. I should like the boat to be brought in, if necessary."

  "That's not possible, your Highness."

  "Why not? We've got Delphin and Haifisch, and men to row them. Or to sail them, if the wind's right."

  "It's not that, your Highness."

  "What is it, then?"

  "If the boat your Highness speaks of out there is the boat I think I can see—though I'm not really sure about it, your Highness—she's not in territorial water."

  "Not in our territorial water maybe, but I don't think we shall start a war."

  Elmo, however, reflected for a moment. The Lake of Constance was adjoined by several different national territories, with varying statutes and rights. What did it really matter about the
boat? What did it really matter about anything? What other thought mattered than that nothing mattered?

  He was about to resign the pointless idea, as he had resigned other ideas, when Jurgen spoke again. "Your Highness, if the boat your Highness speaks of is where she seems to be, then, your Highness, she is on No Man's Water."

  "What's that, Jurgen?"

  "No Man's Water, your Highness, " Jurgen said again.

  "I don't know what you mean, Jurgen."

  Jurgen looked as if taken aback; so much so that he seemed unable to speak.

  "You've lived here all your life," said Elmo, "and your father before you, and so forth. I haven't. In any case, I never came here for history and geography lessons. Explain what you mean."

  "Well, your Highness, everyone knows—I beg your Highness's pardon—that there's a part of the lake which belongs to no one, no king or emperor, and not to Switzerland either, and from what I can see of it, if I can see it at all, that boat out there is on that very piece of water."

  "I don't believe there's any such spot, Jurgen. I'm sure you think it, but it's impossible."

  "As your Highness says," replied Jurgen.

  Elmo was again looking out. "Can't you see something familiar about that boat?" It was true that, like most members of his family, he had exceptionally long sight, but he was staring as if distracted. He had even drawn far too near to the glass, though fortunately there seemed none to see him, as he would have been visible only from the lake; and on the lake, that cold morning, there was only the single boat in question, very distant, if there at all. Often there were odd fishermen, and odd traders too, but at the moment none were in sight.

  "What is familiar about it, if I may venture to ask your Highness?"

  "I wish I knew," said Elmo slowly. "I simply don't know. And yet I know I do."

  "Yes, your Highness," replied Jurgen.

  His master's words were still all of a piece. Downstairs most had come to the view that their master was simply a little out of his mind, poor gentleman. It was common enough among the great families; and elsewhere for that matter. He was always identifying things and recollecting things and staring at things.

  "How are you so sure where this piece of water is?" asked Elmo, not looking at Jurgen, but still staring. "How can you tell?"

  "All of us know, your Highness. We know all our lives. Near enough leastways, your Highness. So that we don't find ourselves there by mistake like. "

  "Would it matter so much if you did?"

  "Oh yes, your Highness. As I said to your Highness, it's a piece of water that belongs to no one. That's not natural, is it, your Highness?"

  "If this had been a year ago," said Elmo, "I should first have had the whole story properly looked into, and then, if there had proved to be anything true about it, I should have sailed out there myself."

  Jurgen was obviously about to demur, and there was a slight but detectable passage of time before he replied, "As your Highness says."

  "But I don't believe a word of it," commented Elmo petulantly. It was difficult to decide to what extent he was still staring out at the lake and to what extent he was staring at the blackness inside him.

  Jurgen bowed more formally and clattered downstairs again.

  The survival of the lost beloved being so incomparably more afflicting than his or her death, the bereaved is the more likely to vary bitter grief with occasional episodes of hysterical elation, as the dying man, isolated amid the Polar or Himalayan snows, has quarter hours of almost peaceful confidence that of course he will emerge, even believing that he sees how.

  So it was that afternoon with Elmo. He found himself growing more and more wildly excited by what Jurgen had asserted, nonsense though it was. The world seemed to be suddenly lighted up with liberation, as in that case of the Polar or Himalayan castaway. Inwardly he knew that any motion on his part, however minute or merely symbolic, would at once dim and then rapidly extinguish the light: he must simply hold on to the excitement as long as he could, for its own sake. Indeed, he had been through such interludes before during the past year, through two or three of them; and he knew how transitory they were. All the same, if the castle library had offered a modern reference book, he might have consulted it. As it was, it contained nothing of the kind later than works left behind (or "presented") by the French officers at the time of the Napoleonic occupation.

  When one is dead as Elmo was dead, ideas cease to be big or small, true or false, weighty or trivial: the only distinction is between irritant and anodyne. Long after his false elation had worn off (such conditions seldom last as long as an hour), Jurgen's fantasy still lingered in Elmo's mind as anodyne.

  Shortly after three o'clock that afternoon, he picked up the bell and shook it. The wiring of the castle bells had become so defective that Elmo found he did better with a handbell, but it had to be a big, heavy, and noisy one, a veritable crier's bell, or it would not have been heard through the thick walls, and down the corridors.

  "Jurgen. I should like to see Herr Spalt. After dinner, of course."

  "But, your Highness—" After all, Jurgen's master had not merely seen no one from the outside world for a twelvemonth, but had given particular directions, with serious penalties attached, that no one was even to be told he was in residence.

  "After dinner, Jurgen, I should like to see Herr Spalt."

  "I shall see what can be done, your Highness. I shall do my best."

  "No man can do more," commented Elmo with a spectral smile.

  Herr Spalt was the schoolmaster. In other days, Elmo had not infrequently asked him in, to share some evening concoction he, Elmo, had himself prepared according to regimental tradition. Indeed, Elmo considered that he had learned much from Spalt, whom he deemed to be palpably no ordinary village disciplinarian. He assumed that, at some point in his career or in his life, Spalt had been in trouble, so that he had sunk below his proper position in scholarship.

  As has been said, the grief-stricken sometimes gorge and sometimes starve. That evening Elmo ate little. Some new impulse had entered his bloodstream, though he could not decide whether it helped or harmed, especially as there was so little difference between the two.

  It was past eight o'clock when Spalt arrived. The walk from the village was not inconsiderable, notably in the dark. Spalt now was a corpulent man, grey-skinned and bald, and with an overall air of neglect. There was even a triangular tear in the left leg of his trousers. He was noticeably what is described as "a confirmed bachelor".

  "Spalt, have some Schnapps." Elmo poured two large measures. "It's cold in the evenings. It's cold always."

  Spalt made a fat little bow.

  Elmo said: "I do not wish to go into things. There are reasons for all I do and all I do not."

  Spalt bowed again, sucking at the Schnapps. "Your Highness's confidences are his own."

  "Tell me how is Baron Viktor von Revenstein?"

  "As before, your Highness. There is no change that we are aware of."

  "What did you make of it, Spalt?"

  "The baron endured a terrible experience, your Highness. Terrible." Spalt's expression had seldom been seen to change. Possibly this was a qualification for his profession. The young have to be strengthened, especially the young men and boys.

  "If I remember rightly, you were among those who thought it was done by a shark?"

  "Something like that, your Highness. What else could it have been?"

  "A freshwater shark?"

  Spalt said nothing.

  "Are there such things? You are a well-informed man, Spalt. I have found that you know almost everything. Are there such things as freshwater sharks? Do they exist?"

  "The ichthyologists do not know of them, your Highness. That is true. But there must have been something of the kind out there. If not exactly a shark, then something not dissimilar. What other explanation is possible?"

  Elmo refilled the glasses, lavishly.

  "Jurgen, my man here, rough, very rough, but n
ot a conscious liar I should say, has been telling me a wild tale about there being a part of the lake which belongs to no one. To no state or ruler; to no one of any kind, as I gather. Have you ever heard of that?"

  "Oh yes, your Highness," replied Spalt. "It is perfectly true."

  "Really? You astonish me. How can it be possible?"

  "There was not always an international law governing the ownership of open water between different states, and even now that law is very imperfect. It is distinctly controversial in various parts of the world. In our case, the international law has never been deemed to apply. The ownership of the lake's surface has been governed by treaty and even by convention. One consequence, doubtless unintended, is that part of the lake's surface belongs to no one. It is quite simple."

  "What about beneath the water?"

  The same, your Highness, I imagine. Exactly the same."

  "The lake is very deep, I have always understood?"

  "In places, your Highness. Very deep indeed in places. There has never been a complete hydrographical survey."

  "Indeed! Do you not think there should be?"

  "It is hard to see what practical purpose could be served."

  "The acquisition of new knowledge is surely a sufficient end in itself?"

  "So it is said, your Highness."

  "But you must agree? You are our local savant."

  Instead of replying, Spalt said: "Your Highness was not then aware that the baron's terrible injury happened on that part of the lake?"

  "Of course I was not. Though perhaps since this afternoon I may have suspected it. Perhaps that is why you are here now. But how do you know, in any case? You were not there."

  "I was not there. And indeed I do not know in the ordinary sense. No one knows in that sense, except perhaps your Highness, who was there. None the less, I am sure of it."

  "Why are you sure of it?"

  "Because it is the part of the lake where all strange things happen."