by Angels
“I cannot understand you,” Anna’s mother was saying. “The son of the Dynast himself is coming here tomorrow evening to meet you, and you treat it as something trivial, even boring! You still have no idea what you will wear, or how you will arrange your hair. You empty-headed child! Are you telling me you wouldn’t like to be the future Dynast’s wife?”
“The son of the Dynast,” said Anna in a chill voice, “is thirty-two; I am seventeen. I have little interest in someone twice my age, even if he were the Dynast himself.”
“This is unbelievable,” said Anna’s mother, who had married a man ten years her senior, for his money, and had never forgiven herself. “How have we brought you up? Your father always yields to your caprices, he’s spoiled you rotten. Anyone else would sell her soul for the chance to spend a quarter of an hour with Radulf, and you turn up your nose at him!”
Anna capitulated. “I didn’t say that. I will wear the white and gold dress, the one that goes so well with my complexion, and I will arrange my hair the way it was on my fifteenth birthday, the style that you liked so much. And I promise to be polite to Radulf—but I won’t throw myself at him.”
Appeased, Anna’s mother allowed herself to be magnanimous: “Poor child! I never asked you to behave like a young ninny, only to be your usual charming self. You’ll see, Radulf is a wonderful man; as soon as you have met him, he’ll turn your head.” She rose to leave and smiled a fake smile at her daughter.
When she had left, Anna made claws of her fingers and buried them in her pillow. “‘A wonderful man, whom we want to see you marry, dear daughter, for our own glory and fortune. You will be happy with him, because we order it.”
There was a knock at the door; Anna started, went to the door and opened it on Stefan. “It’s you! How is he?” she whispered, as she let the servant enter.
“He is in pain, even in his sleep, but none of his wounds are dangerous to his health. He is at an age when one doesn’t die.”
“I want you to see to him every two hours, make sure everything is going well. When he wakes up, come tell me, I want to speak to him myself.”
“Yes, Damoiselle.” Stefan understood the feelings that roiled within the young woman: concern for another person, which she had never been able to truly express up to now; the childish pleasure of having a secret of her very own; and especially the desire to act contrary to her parents’ wishes: they would have been appalled to see her worry about the fate of a servant. She would have done as well, and probably better, to send Pieter to one of the Heilendhäuse, where a doctor would have seen to him; but Stefan would never have dreamed of blaming his mistress for her decision.
The stars spun in the night sky, whirling around the axis that transpierced Polaris. Anna yielded to sleep within her silken bedclothes; she dreamed of Radulf, the son of the Dynast of Neuerland, and her dreams were not pleasant.
In his house on the Ligeiastrass, the old inventor Johann Havel busied himself about the time machine to which he had devoted nearly twenty years. He sat on the black leather seat, spun the pedals through a few revolutions. Above his head, the vast horizontal gear pivoted about its axis, imitating the celestial sphere, and the stars, the comets, and the moons of shining metal hung to the rim of the gear began to spin. Johann Havel let the movement of the cogs stop by itself, then climbed down from the seat. He felt in the grip of a slight vertigo, as if he had just come out of sleep or was falling into it. The walls of his house seemed to become insubstantial. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead on the cool glass of the window a moment, then he went to sit heavily in a faded velvet armchair. Morning sunlight surprised him; he had no awareness of having slept.
THE ORPHAN
Pieter woke up. His bruised body seemed to have rusted, like the gears of the old clock on the Starkplatz that had forever stopped at half past noon. He threw off the sheets and extracted himself from the too-small bed.
The room was dark. Pieter felt for the candle stub; his fingers encountered a metal tray on which lay a quarter-loaf of bread, slices of ham, a wedge of cheese, and a full carafe. He was so hungry that he did not bother to search further for the candle and feasted in the darkness.
Once his belly was full, he found the block of quartz and half a dozen matches. He struck one aflame, then lit the wick. In the pink light, he examined his injuries: they had been cleaned and bandaged, the wasp stings had been rubbed with a medicinal unguent. Despite the unguent, the numerous purple swellings were still tender; the surrounding flesh was burning hot.
Pieter sat on the bed and endeavoured to put his clothes back on. He hadn’t been aware he had been undressed. Who had done this? At the thought it might have been Anna, he felt a flush rise to his cheeks, but the fantasy, delightful though it might be, was certainly false. He finished buttoning up his vest, all scraped and torn by his trip along the gutter.
What now? He could stay here no longer. He must return to his home. He would certainly never see Anna again, but this was in the order of things.
He pushed the door open and entered the house’s basement, cluttered with books, nailed crates, furniture draped with dust sheets. Daylight entered by the barred windows; the morning was already well advanced: he had slept far too long. As he navigated among the clutter, Pieter had a brief vision of Anna as a child, playing among these treasures, and he suddenly understood why she had asked for a room of her own to be built among what had to have been to her a place of wonders.
Without warning, he was seized with weakness; he was suddenly drenched in sweat, and felt his muscles were about to go limp. He heard two voices approaching and held on just long enough to collapse into the arms of the liveried servant who accompanied Anna.
He did not lose consciousness. The servant brought him back to the little room and put him back into bed. Anna said: “We were lucky to be here at the right time, Stefan. Did he think to leave in secret?”
Pieter made himself open his eyes. “Damoiselle, I have already taken up enough of your time. I must return home, I cannot . . .”
“What you cannot do right now is get out of bed. Besides, where would your home be, if you’ve been dismissed?”
In that instant, Pieter wished, with an intensity that astounded himself, that the servant go away. And, miraculously, Stefan left the room and shut the door.
Anna persisted. “Do you have a place to stay?”
Pieter, recovered from his momentary astonishment, answered: “Yes, Damoiselle. My adoptive father will let me stay with him. I don’t want to be a burden to you.” Horror took him as he said those words. Would she interpret them as an insult, a suggestion that she did not have the financial means to take care of him? He opened his mouth to explain himself better, but too many words spun inside his head, and he could only stammer two or three random syllables.
“Calm down. Wasp venom lasts a long time: until tonight, you will pay dearly for any efforts, like standing up and walking.” Anna did not look insulted in the least, amused rather. Pieter made himself slow down his breathing.
“Forgive me, Damoiselle.”
“There is nothing to forgive. You worked for the Achingers, didn’t you? No, I didn’t speak to them. I simply sent Stefan to gather news early this morning, and he heard a rumour about some scandal at their house.”
Pieter shut his eyes, as much from exhaustion as to tear his gaze away from Anna’s face, whose very beauty wounded him.
There was a moment of silence, broken by Anna: “Open your eyes,” she asked in a suddenly changed voice. Pieter obeyed. She leaned above him; their gazes locked, and her perfume filled his nostrils again. She bit her lower lip as if to prevent herself from speaking, but she couldn’t contain herself.
“He’s your father, isn’t he?”
“What, Damoiselle?”
She sighed, embarrassed. “You said that you would stay at your adoptive father’s house; you’re an orphan?”
�
��Yes, Damoiselle; from birth. I grew up at the Krug orphanage, and Johann Havel adopted me when I was three years old. Damoiselle, what are you talking about?”
Anna sighed again and lowered her gaze. “Stefan is your father. You didn’t notice? Myself, it took me a while, perhaps because of your bruises, but you have the same face. The same eyes. You are his son.”
Pieter stayed silent.
“I never believed in destiny, but now, I don’t know. What were the chances that you would come by accident to the very house where your father lives? Do you want me to call him?”
Embarrassment was plain on Anna’s face. Pieter shook his head no. The idea of having met his father without knowing it, the prospect of asking him all he had never known . . . he would never be able to do it.
“Damoiselle, I beg you, don’t tell him anything. I don’t want . . .”
“He already knows. I saw it by the way he looked at you; he knows who you are. But I promise you I will say nothing. For now, rest; we will speak later.”
She left swiftly; almost, she fled.
Pieter forced himself to be calm. He must conserve his strength, avoid yielding to exhaustion. He would rest a while longer, then he would leave without telling anyone, and never more come near this house. He never wanted to see again the man who had abandoned him at his birth; he did not want to know, not anything, not ever. . . .
AN ARISTOCRATIC DOLL
Pieter awoke; he had no awareness of having slept. His body still pained him, but he could wait no longer. A set of brand new clothes, in his size, lay on the foot of the bed. For long seconds, he hovered on the edge of tearing the clothes to shreds, but finally decided to wear them. He thought to detect a ghost of Anna’s scent in the fabric. He made a small bundle of his old clothes and opened the door. This time, he would leave the house without collapsing.
Night had fallen; the basement was dark. Pieter wandered again among the objects that cluttered it. Feeling his way by touch, he eventually reached stairs that led to the ground floor. A little light filtered from the top of the steps. Snatches of music came to his ears. A celebration? Perhaps he could leave the way he had come in, through the window—but the thought of finding himself back in the alley was unbearable. He would find a door, leave without being seen. If ever he should encounter Stefan . . . he could not imagine what he would do.
When Anna came down from her room, her mother uttered a cluck of satisfaction at whose core lay a jealousy she was not truly aware of. In her white and gold dress, Anna seemed to glow with a light of her own. The young woman’s brown hair fell in cascades to her shoulders, the gold of the dress reflected within it. Mother and daughter went to the parlour where Anna’s father was already seated on a divan, forehead flushed and beaded with sweat, so terrified was he by the visit of the Dynast’s son.
Herr Holtz smiled weakly at the sight of his daughter and watched her sit on an armchair, arranging her dress about her with perfect ease. Anna crossed her wrists on her knees and tilted her head slightly to one side. She knew only too well that she projected the idealized image of the expectant young virgin; but the sarcasm was perceptible only to herself: her parents saw only the fulfilment of their expectations. Anna’s father wiped his forehead with a large handkerchief, then gave a signal; a quartet of musicians began to play softly.
Above the muffled clanging of the tall clock’s pendulum came eight strokes of its bell. Anna refused to think about the Dynast’s son. In his place, she kept seeing images of Pieter and Stefan. Tomorrow morning, or tonight, after Radulf’s visit, she would go speak to the young man. Apologize for having fled after delivering her revelation. Why had she not kept her tongue? Too proud of her cleverness, she had boasted of it, without thinking of the pain she might cause the young man. He had deserved better.
The sound of the main door’s knocker made its way to the parlour, above the sighs of the violins. Herr Holtz grew flushed once more; his wife began to fan herself furiously. Anna remained motionless, in the same attitude as before.
A servant entered the room, announcing the arrival of His Dynastic Highness, Radulf. Anna’s parents rose then bowed. Anna paused, long enough for her still-bowing father to dart her a terrified glance, then she rose and executed a curtsey so perfect as to be mechanical.
Radulf bowed in turn and sat down in the armchair that had been brought forward for him. Anna gazed at him coolly. She saw a man almost twice her age, rather fleshy, with a thick beard, widely spaced blue eyes. A man burning with an inner flame imperfectly hidden. A man she could only fear.
Anna’s parents, after an exchange of courtesies, began to make conversation, bringing up one insipid subject after another. Radulf answered politely, always to the point, but it was evident to Anna that he paid no attention to what was being said. He watched her constantly, with an intensity that made her shiver. Anna took care to remain fixed in the same posture, a large-as-life doll. She only opened her mouth when the conversation demanded it. Sometimes Radulf would ask her a direct question, and then she would answer in three or four words. God, if only he could think of her as haughty and stupid! But the future Dynast’s fascination seemed not to decrease in the slightest. How could she have affected him to that extent? He had seen her only from afar the first time, as she climbed up into her family’s carriage. It seemed that glimpse must have been sufficient.
The great clock measured the flow of time. It struck nine. Ten. How long would this torment last? Delicate pastries had been eaten, fine wines drunk. In Anna’s mouth it all tasted of ashes.
Finally, she heard Radulf ask her the question she had dreaded since his arrival.
“Damoiselle Anna, would you do me the pleasure of accompanying me to the ball Friday next?”
She remained silent for an instant. From the corner of her eye, she could see her father trembling in his armchair. She knew what she was meant to answer; and what else could she say? Yet, when the moment came to utter the inevitable yes, something in her rebelled. A terrible heat filled her. Keeping her face frozen into a porcelain mask, she heard herself answer, “I regret, Highness, but I fear this will not be possible.”
Her mother barely managed to transform a yelp into a discreet cough.
“And why not, Damoiselle?”
Anna wanted to scream; she said, in a colourless voice: “I have been feeling very ill these past few days, and I fear to catch cold.”
“I am saddened to hear it.” Radulf’s voice terrified her. He was not insulted, he was not angered. It was an emotion far more powerful and dangerous that inhabited him. Against this passion, she was powerless. She understood now that she had made an irreparable mistake from the very start. She should have yielded, prostrated herself at his feet and abandoned her virginity to him at the first excuse; he would have gotten rid of her then, disgusted to have found her like all the others. By resisting, she had sealed her fate.
A tear flowed on her impeccably powdered cheek, but Radulf could not see it, since he had already left.
Pieter reached the top of the stairs, and took a corridor that ought to lead to the servants’ quarters. From there, it would not be difficult to find the service entrance, and he could at last leave this house.
There were footsteps in front of him; he raised his eyes and found himself face to face with Stefan. For an eternal second, he remained frozen in place; then he fled, running blindly. At the other end of the corridor, he pushed aside a large hanging and saw at the end of a hall the main door of the house. Running for it, he collided violently with a man whose presence he had not even noticed.
Pieter turned to face the man and was struck speechless. The man’s clothes were encrusted with gold embroidery, and the pommel of his cane was a ruby big as a pigeon’s egg. His face empurpled with rage, the man shouted at him: “What kind of manners are these, you boor?”
Stefan interposed himself between Pieter and the man; he held in his hands a heavy velvet cloak.
“Forgive the boy, Highness. He was going to warn your coachman of your sudden departure, and he grew too hurried. He will be punished for his clumsiness. . . . Your cloak, Highness?”
Under cover of Stefan’s words, Pieter took a few steps back, still facing the son of the Dynast, executing one bow after another. When Radulf, somewhat appeased by Stefan’s excuses, turned away, Pieter fled once more. Only half aware of the passages he traversed, he came to a small door leading outside, and finally found himself out on the Sommerstrass. At the top of the street, a sumptuous coach rode toward the Dynasts’ Palace. Pieter went slowly in the same direction, staggering through the squares of light cast from the windows of the houses onto the pavement, like a child splashing through puddles of gold.
THE CAGE
When Pieter knocked at the door of his adoptive father, it took only a few heartbeats before Johann Havel answered. The old man’s face showed nothing of the emotions that stirred in him. He simply bade Pieter come in and drew the door shut behind him.
Pieter began to recount what had happened to him; in his voice, anger and despair were mixed. Johann led him up the stairs, to the room he had always occupied, since his arrival here at the age of three until his departure a few months before. Pieter sat on his bed and continued his story, telling of his crawl along the gutter, the wasps’ nest, Anna and the child’s room buried within the basement of the house on the Sommerstrass, his meeting with the son of the Dynast. But he said nothing of what Anna had revealed about his father.
When he was done, he stayed silent a long while. “I don’t understand,” he said at last. “I thought I would have cried once I got here. But I can’t do it; I don’t even know if I want to anymore.”
Johann Havel, with heavy steps, went to a chest of drawers, pulled a drawer open, and took out an object carefully wrapped up in rice paper. “Do you remember?” he asked Pieter, showing him the mechanical elephant nestled within the paper.
