The Chosen Child
Page 17
At the very end of the corridor they came to a purple door with silver stars pasted on it. The whole corridor smelled strongly of bigos, hunter’s stew, and Sarah was reminded that she hadn’t eaten all day. Still, it was good for the figure. Rej knocked on the door and they waited in the gloom for an answer.
Madame Krystyna opened up. She looked more professional than psychic. She was a handsome young woman in her mid-twenties, with curly black hair and wide blue eyes that were magnified by a pair of businesslike black-framed spectacles. She wore a white silky blouse and a smart charcoal skirt. The only clue to her calling was a silver pentagram hanging around her neck on a fine chain.
‘Four of you, good,’ she smiled. ‘It always takes five to make the magic circle. Come on in.’
Her apartment was furnished with dark oak antiques, and the windows were heavily draped with rich floral curtains. There were dried flowers and knick-knacks everywhere: glass paperweights and thimbles and stuffed birds in glass cases. In the far corner of the sitting-room stood a tall, narrow bookcase indiscriminately crammed with paperbacks, leather-bound classics, magazines and newspapers. Next to it hung a strange oil painting of a woman in a long skirt and a veiled hat, flying through an orange sunset sky. Far beneath the painted woman stood a tabby cat and an alarm clock and a blank diary open at October, and a tiny figure of a man in grey, walking a white dog. For some reason, Sarah found the painting very melancholy and unsettling, and she kept turning back to look at it.
The middle of the room was dominated by a large, circular table, covered with a brown velvety cloth. In the centre of the table an alabaster pyramid was placed, almost a third of a metre high, with a curious milky sheen to it, almost as if it were transparent and filled with congealed smoke.
‘I adore this kind of work,’ Madame Krystyna told them. ‘I’ve helped the police before, you know. Not here in Warsaw but in Wroclaw. I helped to find a missing woman. She was dead, of course. But she told me where she was, in a turnip field. She wanted a coffin and a decent grave, not just a ditch. But here, sit down. Can I make you some tea?’
‘Not for me, thanks,’ said Sarah. ‘I think I’d rather get on with it.’
‘I think we all would,’ said Clayton. ‘I told you the background to the story, Madame Krystyna. Is there anything else you want to know?’
‘You’ve brought the doll?’
Rej laid his carrier bag on the table. Madame Krystyna didn’t open it immediately, but gently laid her hand on top of it, almost as if she were trying to feel if it contained something living.
‘This has very powerful emanations,’ she said. ‘It’s very rare to feel latent emotions as strong as this.’
‘What can you actually feel?’ Sarah asked her.
‘Love... this poor little doll was very dearly loved. I can feel fright, too, and great distress.’
‘If I touched it, could I feel it?’
Madame Krystyna gave her a funny little sideways look. ‘You could, I think, under normal circumstances. At the moment, though, you might find it difficult to pick up – blurred, if you know what I mean, because you have so much distress of your own.’
‘I’m not distressed,’ said Sarah, rather crossly. ‘What do you mean?’
Madame Krystyna smiled. ‘I saw you looking at the painting. That painting has great significance for women... it means many things. It means escape, and freedom, but it also means instability and loss, the fear of falling and the fear of growing older. It was painted by a woman, of course, Maria Anto. No man could ever paint anything like that.’
Rej sensed Sarah’s embarrassment, because he quickly said, ‘Where do you want us to sit? Do we have to hold hands?’
Madame Krystyna continued to smile at Sarah for a few moments more. It was an extraordinary smile, penetrating but relaxing. It had the effect of making her feel that she had just unburdened herself of a painful secret. But then Madame Krystyna said, ‘Sit, yes. Anywhere will do... and, yes, you should hold hands. It isn’t essential for any psychic reason but it will help us to concentrate.’
They pulled out the chairs and sat around the table. Madame Krystyna took Marek’s hand and immediately laughed. ‘Goodness! This young man is such a sceptic! He’s wondering already why he came here!’
Marek pouted and slouched back in his seat, but Madame Krystyna said, ‘It doesn’t matter. Airplanes fly whether people believe they can do it or not.’
‘Marek believes that airplanes can fly,’ said Clayton, with a grin. ‘He’s just not sure about pigs.’
Madame Krystyna held Sarah’s hand. She didn’t say anything, but somehow Sarah knew that her touch had confirmed what she had already seen in the way she looked at the painting. She tried not to think about the trouble she was having with the hotel, and with Ben, and the horror she had felt when Muller’s three workers were cut up and killed; but the more she tried to empty her mind, the more luridly bright the images became.
Madame Krystyna gave her fingers the lightest of squeezes, and Sarah glanced at her and gave her a quick smile.
‘Can you take out the doll, please?’ asked Madame Krystyna. ‘Lay it on the table in front of me. I don’t want to touch it just yet.’
Rej lifted the doll out of the carrier bag and set it down. ‘Now everybody hold hands,’ said Madame Krystyna. ‘Complete the circle of five, and let’s see what we can find out.’
She closed her eyes and stayed silent and unmoving for over a minute. Sarah could see that Marek was biting the inside of his lips to stop himself from laughing. Rej looked tired but patient. Clayton, on the other hand, was watching Madame Krystyna with an interest that was obviously sharpened by experience.
‘A little girl has lost her doll,’ said Madame Krystyna, with her eyes still closed. ‘Somewhere in Warsaw, a little girl has lost her favourite doll. The doll is full of her love; but it is full of her fear, too. Can anybody help me to find out where this little girl came from, and where she has gone?’
More minutes went by. Marek let out an involuntary snort, but Madame Krystyna ignored him.
‘A little girl has lost her doll,’ she repeated. Her voice was becoming very slurred and dreamlike. ‘A little girl has lost her favourite doll. Can anybody help me to find her? Does anybody know where she is?’
Sarah was beginning to think that Marek was right to be sceptical. Another three or four minutes passed, and all Madame Krystyna could do was to murmur the same words, over and over. ‘A little girl has lost her doll. Can anybody help me to find her? A little girl has lost her favourite doll.’ She was just about to pull her hand away from Madame Krystyna’s and call it a night when the lights in the sitting-room dramatically dimmed and flickered blue.
‘Power-cut?’ said Rej, lifting his head.
‘Ssh,’ said Clayton. ‘I’ve seen this before.’
Sarah suddenly felt frightened. There was a strong sense that other people had entered the room. She could feel them, feel their clothes rustling, feel their breath, even though she couldn’t see them. Rej gripped her hand more tightly and she knew that he, too, was aware that the five of them were no longer alone.
‘...favourite doll...’ Madame Krystyna intoned.’... anybody know where she...’
The sitting-room was so dark now that Sarah could scarcely see the painting of the flying woman. But she was even more acutely conscious that people were moving around her, sighing, touching, whispering to each other, yet invisible. She had never believed in spiritualism. She had never believed that it was possible for anybody to ‘contact the dead’. Yet here she was in a sitting-room in Warsaw, surrounded by shifting and murmuring spirits. A chilly feeling crawled all the way down her spine, like a centipede that had been nestling in a freezer, and she sat up straighter, her eyes wider, and she dreaded to think what was going to happen next.
‘You’re here, aren’t you?’ asked Madame Krystyna, with her eyes closed. ‘Which of you recognizes this doll? Which of you knows the little girl she belongs to?’
‘You’re here, aren’t you,’ Madame Krystyna repeated.
In the centre of the table, the alabaster pyramid began to shine, so that it illuminated all of their faces like paper masks. The markings on its sides appeared to slide and shift, like a speeded-up movie of a cloudy day. Sarah felt that the sitting-room was even more crowded, as if dozens of people had pushed their way in through the door; as if people had stepped out of the curtains; as if people were shuffling and pushing and filling up every available inch of space.
She began to feel claustrophobic and panicky, the way she did in the New York subway, even though there was nobody visible, and nobody was actually jostling her. She looked across at Clayton and she could tell from the expression on his face that he could sense these invisible strangers, too. Marek actually twisted around, looking for them.
‘Can you feel that?’ he asked. His cheeks were totally bloodless.
‘Ssh,’ said Madame Krystyna. ‘They’re here, you mustn’t disturb them. Some of them are helpful; some of them are very aggressive.’
‘Who is?’ asked Rej. ‘I don’t see anybody.’
‘Can’t you feel them?’ said Sarah.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I can feel.’
‘They’re souls,’ said Madame Krystyna. ‘And Warsaw has so many.’
Rej opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, then closed it again. His hair bristled; his eyes were bright with alarm.
They heard voices. At first they sounded like nothing more than dead leaves, blowing across grass. Then they became more distinct, and Sarah was sure that she could make out words and phrases, and the sound of somebody praying. ‘...oh, God, protect me... so much suffering... bought him a waistcoat... never remembered... boated all summer on Zegrzynskie Lake... hurt me so much...’
‘They’re souls,’ Madame Krystyna repeated. ‘And Warsaw has so many.’
From the top of the alabaster pyramid, an inverted triangle of light began to shine, like a mirror image of the pyramid, reflected in thin air. Sarah could see through it – she could still see Clayton’s face – but she could also see images inside it, clouds moving, and trees swaying; and then she could see people running along a city street. It was like watching an old black-and-white movie, silent except for the rustling voices of the spirits who were all around them.
The face of an old, bearded man appeared, angular and distorted. He didn’t seem to understand where he was, or what he was doing. He stroked at his beard a few times, and then started to speak.
‘That was Zofia,’ he said, in a distant, tinny voice, although his words didn’t quite synchronize with the movement of his lips.
‘Who was Zofia?’ asked Madame Krystyna. ‘Listen to me... who was Zofia? Where did she live?’
‘My wife gave her that doll, for her sixth birthday, when we took her to Urle. She loved Urle... she paddled in the river all day.’
Sarah was frightened but fascinated at the same time. The old man’s face flickered and shifted, as if she were seeing it from dozens of different angles, with long gaps of time in between. She was aching to ask Madame Krystyna if this was an actual spirit – the living image of a long-dead person – but she thought that it would be wiser not to interrupt.
‘Where is Zofia now?’ asked Madame Krystyna.
There was no direct answer, but a tiny, barely-audible voice saying, ‘...paddled in the river...’
‘Have we lost him?’ asked Clayton.
‘Jesus, I hope so,’ said Marek. ‘This is too fucking weird to be true.’
‘Ssh,’ Madame Krystyna repeated. ‘He’s showing us the way.’
‘The way to what?’ asked Marek. ‘The way to where?’
‘Just watch,’ said Madame Krystyna.
In the inverted triangle of light above the point of the pyramid, they could see a plain Warsaw street, with lime trees and automobiles parked on the sidewalk. They passed a food stall and a furniture stall, where sofas were arranged in the open air. They could even hear voices, and passing traffic. Somebody was arguing about the price of a fireguard.
They reached an intersection. Everything looked as if it were pitched at an odd slope. Sarah could see people walking past; housewives with bags of shopping; men with briefcases. She could see cloud shadows crossing the road.
‘Where are we?’ she asked. ‘Does anybody know?’
‘It looks like Swietokrzyska to me,’ said Rej. ‘Just past Jana Pawlall.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Madame Krystyna. ‘There’s that cafe on the corner.’
‘I can’t believe this,’ said Marek.
They crossed Jana Pawla II and continued along Swietokrzyska until they reached the door of an apartment building, with nine glass panels. Then they seemed to be climbing stairs. They could hear music and somebody arguing. They walked straight into a solid door and passed right through it.
‘My daw,’ said a high-pitched voice, like a very young child’s.
‘Is that you, Zofia?’ called Madame Krystyna.
‘My daw,’ the voice repeated; a little distressed, but very emphatic.
‘It’s her,’ said Madame Krystyna, gripping Sarah’s hand even tighter. ‘It’s the girl who owns the doll.’
‘Does this mean that she’s dead?’ said Rej.
‘Of course she’s dead. You can’t find living people in the spirit world, can you?’
Rej said nothing but Sarah could see that he was upset. She pressed her thumb into the palm of his hand and said, ‘She probably didn’t suffer.’
‘All the same,’ said Rej. ‘It’s my job, isn’t it, taking care of people like her?’
‘Come on,’ Sarah urged him. ‘You’re not going all soft and sentimental on me, are you?’
Rej looked at her intently; and for the first time she saw how good looking he was. Careworn, yes: and probably lacking the day-to-day attention of a bustling, supportive woman. But there was nothing that a sensible diet and two weeks in the gym couldn’t cure. He reminded her so much of all those louche, battered European movie stars, Eddie Constantine and Alain Resnais. In fact, he could have been Zbigniew Cybulski, from Ashes and Diamonds, if Zybigniew Cybulski hadn’t killed himself.
Madame Krystyna said, ‘Look.’
Above the pyramid, indistinct and strangely-proportioned, they could see a living-room, with a sofa and chairs and a coffee-table. On the wall hung a print of wild white horses leaping through a foamy sea. Two pairs of pantyhose were drying on the radiator. There was a small second-hand television with an aerial made out of a wire coat-hanger; and an ugly china troll.
‘My daw,’ the child’s voice insisted; and there it was, sprawled on the floor, the same knitted doll that was lying on the table in front of Madame Krystyna.
‘This is it,’ said Clayton, breathlessly. ‘This is the place.’
‘My-my-my-my daw.’
Sarah looked up. The room felt as if it were so crowded that there was scarcely any air in it. ‘My doll,’ she said. ‘That’s what she’s trying to tell us. She’s only little. She’s saying, “My doll.”’
At that moment, they heard a muffled knocking. The room seemed to spin as the little girl looked around. The knocking was repeated, louder this time. They heard a blurry woman’s voice say, ‘Zofia – stay there! Mummy will go!’
‘What the hell is that?’ said Rej.
There was more knocking: louder now, and much more furious. In the over-furnished confines of Madame Krystyna’s apartment, it sounded muffled, but that muffled quality made it all the more frightening, like a wild drum-tattoo for the dead. Although the image was angled and distorted, Sarah was sure that she could see the door-frame shaking, and plaster cracking all around the architrave.
‘Don’t answer it!’ cried the woman’s voice. ‘Zofia – don’t answer it!’
&n
bsp; The knocking became thunderous. Sarah was digging her fingernails so deeply into the palm of Rej’s hand that she was worried he was going to bleed. In the jumpy, erratic image above the pyramid, they could see the door coming closer, they could see a child’s hand raised to open it. It was like a hologram, except that there was nothing to project it, only their own psychic energy; only their physical bonding, hands held tight; only their common need to know what was banging so violently on the other side of that hallucinatory door.
‘Zofia, don’t answer the door!’ the woman shouted. But the door burst open and something dark rushed in. Something huge. Something terrible. Rej jumped back in his seat and lost his grip on Sarah’s hand; and broke the circle.
There was a momentary sensation that the entire room was filled from floor to ceiling with pure evil, like chilled writing-ink. Then there was a thunderclap, and the five of them were dazzled right down to the core of their eyes.
Slowly, the room quietened, and the image over the pyramid melted away. Sarah leaned forward and shaded her eyes and tried to catch every last glimmer of it. But the lights brightened. Sarah heard footsteps rushing furtively away, and saw the curtains sway; and then they were alone.
Madame Krystyna looked around the table, at the four of them. For a moment, it was impossible for Sarah to tell whether she was angry or pleased. Then, without any drama, the psychic picked up the doll, and held it high above her head. The doll had been decapitated: its head remained on the table. More than that, the velvet cloth was stained with something dark. Madame Krystyna pressed the palm of her hand into it and then showed her palm to everybody sitting at the table.
‘Blood. You see that? Blood. You can test it if you like; there’s no trickery.’ She tugged a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped her hand clean. ‘Whatever happened to this little girl Zofia, it was worse than we could imagine. It hardly ever happens that the spirit world can have an actual physical effect on the material world. Only when truly dreadful deeds have been done.’