A Visible Darkness Part 19

As I bent to look at her, I heard his voice outside the pigsty, ordering his men to start packing up their equipment and get it loaded onto the carts, ready for its immediate return to the coast. I was glad that he was gone, though not comfortable to be alone with the corpse. The exposed skin of the arms, the b.l.o.o.d.y circles where her b.r.e.a.s.t.s had once been, the dark cavern of the ravaged stomach, had altered since the night before. She was now entirely black, her skin spotted with drops of dried mud and yellow slime.

I reached out a finger and laid it on her forehead.

It was warmer than I expected. It might have been an effect of the interminable organic decomposition of the slime in the sty, though I could not be sure. I slid my hand beneath hers, and lifted. Her stiff left arm came up. I repeated the operation with the right arm with the same result. Nothing was broken there.

I felt for the bones in her legs, squeezing the rigid muscles between my thumb and forefinger. The bones of both legs were intact, though the pigs had caused great damage to the soft tissue of the calves and the lower legs.

I closed my eyes for a moment and silently asked forgiveness to her, placing my hands flat against her blood-caked breast, pressing hard against the ribcage. Nothing cracked, nothing gave, which seemed to suggest that there was no internal damage to her upper body.

I lifted her dress and looked up between her parted legs, moving my head left and right to take advantage of the light, searching in vain for amber hidden in that ma.s.s of meat and blood and innards. I did not have the courage to search with my fingers. If anything were amiss, it might be the work of man or swine. It was hard to imagine which was worse.

I dropped the skirt-hem quickly.

'What killed her?'

Les Halles was standing behind me once again.

'It is hard to say,' I admitted.

Her scalp was marked, despite the filth, by a clear line of division where her hair was parted in the centre.

I lifted a lank, filthy curtain of hair away from her left cheek, bent down beside her, my face inches away from hers. She did not smell like any person I have ever met; no individual human odour could match the stench in that place. I examined her left ear and temple and felt her skull with my fingers.

'No sign of cutting here,' I said.

I doubt that anyone who had known her would have recognised her face. The skin was mottled black and blue, swollen around her eyes, the lips, nose and cheeks shredded and torn. I could only say, as her hair fell back into place, that it had been blonde before she entered the pigsty.

'What about the other side?'

There was something blunt, practical, inhuman about the Frenchman. In that instant, I abhorred the sound of his voice, resented his interference, though he suggested no more than I would have done without his help.

My hand grazed her cheek as I lifted the filthy, heavy hair away. My fingers trembled as I bent close. Dead flesh has a texture like no other. It was as if the life had evaporated out of her, leaving something behind which was human in shape alone.

'Impossible to say what has happened . . .' I said.

'Adam Ansbach will tell you.' Les Halles was burbling at my back like a brook in spring flood. 'And if he does not, well . . . he will . . . But what do you think he wanted from her? And from the other girl, too, of course. Amber? s.e.x?'

That was not the end, but I stopped listening.

'She will need to be turned over,' I said. 'He may have stabbed her from behind . . .'

Words failed me. So did my strength. I gathered just enough. It was concentrated in the tips of my fingers as I placed them on the point of her jaw and tried to lift the head up, pushing it backwards with all the force that I could manage.

As the head lolled back against the meeting of the walls, I believe I may have cried out. Certainly, I fell backwards, and I felt the cold dampness soak quickly through the seat of my trousers.

Her chin had been covering her throat, protecting it from the a.s.sault of the pigs, from the sludge and the slime as the draining of the sty was carried out by the suction pump of les Halles and his intrusive team of labourers. The skin beneath her throat was surprisingly white, starkly contrasting with all the rest. It was like a white picture-frame enclosing a surgical drawing that had been made by an expert medical ill.u.s.trator. Three neat cuts made a neat triangle, the horizontal upper line shorter than the two downward strokes which met at a point where her Adam's apple had once been. All was red and fresh within. Maggots wriggled where an entire section of her gullet had been removed.

'He has stolen the larynx,' I remember saying.

I came to, lying on my back in the open air, gazing up at the sky.

A soldier had just poured a bucket of water in my face.

17.

'BEYOND-YOUR-JURISDICTION.'

His fleshy lips made a sucking sound as he read the words out slowly.

I had seen the sergeant sleeping in the guard-room the day before when I went there to enquire where the doctor might be found. Now, he was wide awake, his piercing black eyes bold and challenging. It was hard to say how old he was. Two deep wrinkles scarred his puffy cheeks; blond curls worthy of Apollo framed his chubby pink face. His blue tunic was pulled as tight across his broad chest as if he had donned his younger brother's jacket by mistake. Tiny eruptions sprouted from the cloth where b.u.t.tons had been shifted to accommodate his bulk. The company tailor had had to labour hard to fit him into that uniform, but his authority was in no way diminished. His epaulettes and buckles gleamed, his belt and cross-belts as black and shiny as a quivering blancmange. They might have come from the tanner's workshop five minutes before.

'The prisoners are your concern no longer, monsieur,' he insisted.

Jean Tessier, Sergeant of the Guard, sat behind his desk in the North Tower, balancing the conflicting papers in either hand, while I looked down on him. It was less humiliating to stand than sit: the stool he had offered me was lower than the table which separated us.

'My authority is signed by General Malaport,' I challenged. 'He ordered me to investigate what is happening here. The persons taken into custody are my responsibility. I have not yet finished questioning them.'

He let out a sigh.

'Adam Ansbach is twice accused of murder,' he replied, holding up the doc.u.ment in his right hand. 'The woman is listed as his accomplice.'

I could not accuse him of failing to co-operate. Still, I felt humiliated, imagining what had been said when the soldiers of les Halles brought the prisoners in that morning: The colonel says to humour the Prussian magistrate. He's Malaport's man, so he's bound to kick up a fuss. It's a bureaucratic question, Tessier. Nothing more. His task is over once the guilty parties are found. He's the investigator, not the judge. Tell him that, then send him on his way.

Les Halles did not contradict General Malaport, he simply brought him up to date on the latest developments. Tessier had let me see the colonel's note the instant I walked into the room. I had read it through a couple of times, searching for a loop-hole which would open the door to the cell where Adam Ansbach was being held.

The persons under arrest are accused of complicity in the murders of Katiuscka Rodendahl and Ilse Bruen, registered amber-gatherers. The corpse of the latter was discovered in the pigsty of the Ansbach family; the former was found on the beach adjacent to Military Post 67, Nordcopp Installation, three miles from their farm.

Prussian magistrate Hanno Stiffeniis, on the direct authority of General Malaport, successfully conducted the groundwork for the investigation, and he will now continue to pursue the matter in Nordcopp.

As military commander of the zone, I, the undersigned, on this day, 15th August 1808, declare that further interrogation should be carried out by the competent military authorities, as per Reg. 176.b/1804, and that trial and execution of the sentence should be pa.s.sed to the relevant judicial authority for the governance of East Prussia.

The Ansbachs were being sent to Konigsberg.

As Sergeant Tessier explained it, the order issued by General Malaport limited my duty and my authority to Nordcopp alone.

'Nothing could be simpler, monsieur,' he said, dropping the paper on the table, looking up to meet my gaze. 'As Colonel les Halles mentions here, your task has been successfully accomplished.' He ran his fingernail along the pertinent line. 'Here's the word. Groundwork. A military judge in Konigsberg will be appointed to complete the procedure and p.r.o.nounce sentence. Surely, you have discussed the matter with the colonel?'

He smiled at me in the mild manner one might employ to calm a lunatic.

'In your opinion, Sergeant, how am I to do what Colonel les Halles suggests,' I paused before using the verb which indicated my new role, 'and pursue the matter here in Nordcopp?'

He shrugged his shoulders, threatening to burst his jacket seams. 'The soldiers who brought these orders told me that Colonel les Halles is convinced that other women have been murdered. Not these two alone. Perhaps you ought to go and look for the corpses?'

Was that the bone I had been thrown?

Only General Malaport could relieve me of the investigation. Until he did, I must remain in Nordcopp and try to ascertain precisely how many amber-workers had been killed. Those two girls alone? More?

For an instant, I was tempted to lean over the table, take hold of Tessier's cross-belts, wrap them around his neck, and pull with all my might. If luck were with me, I might be thrown into the same cell with Adam Ansbach and his mother. There could hardly be more than one cell in that cramped tower, which was as s.p.a.cious as a privy.

'I demand to see them,' I said, struggling to control my anger.

'That is impossible, sir.' Tessier looked down and began to rifle through the papers on his desk. Finding nothing there, he looked at the grey-green stains of mould and the blocked-up cannon-holes in the ancient plaster wall. Then he murmured: 'They were taken away an hour ago. They'll be on the high road to Konigsberg by now. Is there anything else?'

The door was narrow, very low. I had to bow my head-it might have been a ritual obeisance to the power of France-as I ducked outside. In the narrow alley, I took a deep breath. The air was foul, but fresher than in the confined s.p.a.ce of the gaol, where Tessier and I had each breathed in what the other breathed out.

Nordcopp seemed empty. It made a contrast with the frenzied activity of the day before. Entering the town half an hour before, the guard on the gate had warned me: 'It's a public holiday today, monsieur. The shops are closed in honour of some . . . well, I don't know. Do Lutherans have saints?'

I was angry and uncertain.

What next? Where now?

I did not intend to walk back to the coast. I had no wish to write a report for les Halles, and wished even less to speak with him. I had had my fill of eating cinder and ashes for one day. As I came to the end of the alley and turned right, I saw the high walls of the Pietist church, and all my hesitation dissolved away. I suddenly remembered the letter in my pocket. Corporal Grillet had delivered it into my hands the evening before, and I had ripped it open thinking it had come from Helena, afraid that something had happened to her, or to one of the children. I had been so anxious, I did not stop to examine the handwritten address.

It was not a note from home, I was relieved to see.

Most honoured Sir, I have been instructed to report to you without delay, having come with letters of introduction from the High Court in Potsdam. Given the situation on the coast, where I was refused access to your person yester-night, I will await your pleasure at the Pietist guest-house in Nordcopp. You may find me by asking for, Yours, most obsequiously, Johannes Gurten.

The name was like a rope thrown to a drowning man. He was Prussian. From the elegance of his calligraphy, I judged him to be a man of letters, and, possibly, of breeding. The tone of his note suggested that it was a bureaucratic matter, some urgent communication from the court in Potsdam which Gurten had been entrusted to deliver. If the messenger had been obliged to travel so far, it was my duty to meet with him at the earliest possible moment. With the finding of the corpse of Ilse Bruen the previous evening, the confrontation with les Halles that morning, and the discovery that the girl's body had been mutilated, I had forgotten all about Johnannes Gurten.

I would search him out and see what he wanted.

The Pietist meeting-house was the largest edifice in Nordcopp, though not so grand as the Pietist church in Lotingen where I had held court just three days before. Even so, as I stood before the large double door, I had the impression that the Pietist church and the attached convent were large enough to contain the rest of Nordcopp. I had seen the church the day before while looking for the house of Dr Heinrich, but I had had no other impression of the convent than of a blank grey wall at the very end of a lane, where the scurrying crowd who rushed from one shop to the next were obliged to turn right.

I lifted the latch, and entered.

The act of entering a Prussian church always moves me. I do not feel the same emotion when I enter a Catholic cathedral, though I have visited many such temples in Italy, and seen the frescoes and the paintings that they contain. The armies of saints-Gerolamo bent over his books, a tame lion seated at his feet; Sebastian, looking like a pin-cushion; the host of Madonnas and long-haired Magdalens-distract me from prayer, and seem out of place in the House of G.o.d.

In a Pietist chapel, everything is as it ought to be.

Silence reigns. The perfume of incense scents the air. An atmosphere of rarefied sanct.i.ty is tangible. No idols based on human models prance upon the walls. The mystery of G.o.dliness remains undefiled. A simple wooden cross reminds the visitor of Christ's sacrifice: no futile attempt is made to represent His endless suffering. The cold is penetrating; it provokes shivers. And yet, it is not the cold alone, it is a sense of the abiding presence of G.o.d which calls forth goose-pimples. I remembered the cavernous nave of the family chapel in Ruisling on a Sunday, as I took my little brother, Stefan, by the hand and led him into the darkness that he feared so much. I have seen some of the greatest spectacles in Nature-the soaring mountains and sweeping glaciers of Switzerland, the thundering cascade of the Marmore cataract on the River Nera in Italy-yet my experience of the Infinite was formed in Pietist chapels. What are fury and exaltation in comparison with silence and immobility?

As I pushed the door and stepped inside the Church of Christ the Saviour, I left my rage and stinging sense of humiliation outside. I knew that Johannes Gurten would be waiting there for me. A Pietist promise is not like any other.

The silence and the chill embraced me like a familiar cloak.

The air was scented with all the essences of a lifetime: damp earth, sweet myrrh, melted wax. The nave was long, the hammer-beam roof high, the aisles on either side divided by matching rows of slender columns. I made my way towards the altar table, closed my eyes and turned my thoughts to G.o.d. I begged Him to illuminate me, to help me see the way ahead, to sanction my decisions and guide my thoughts.

One thing above all others concerned me. I prayed that Johannes Gurten would help, not hinder me. I hoped that he would not heap more problems upon me. I stood in silence for some minutes, head down, eyes closed, listening for the Voice of the Lord inside myself.

The perfume of the place grew so intense, it seemed to possess me.

I opened my eyes. The candle on the altar-table sputtered, guttered, went out, then lit up again, though no door was opened, no one came.

Was this a sign from G.o.d? And if so, a sign of what?

An ogive arch and a wooden door at the end of the left aisle caught my eye. I read the sign: GUEST-HOUSE. I lifted the latch and found myself in a small courtyard formed by the church itself, a low building across the way, and the ancient city walls of Nordcopp. Once, it might have been a garden, but there was not much light, and the garden had been paved over, leaving only a single apple tree in the centre of the courtyard.

On the far side of the s.p.a.ce, I saw the sign again. GUEST-HOUSE. Another ogive arch, another narrow wooden door. I listened carefully before pushing the door and entering. As quiet as a forgotten tomb, the flagged corridor was barely illuminated by a single lantern. A paper hanging from a pin on a wooden board shifted in the draught. I lifted it up, and turned the paper towards the light.

Regulations of the community.

5.00 Bible reading; 6.00 Cleansing of the house; 7.00 Breakfast duties; 8.00 Tending the sick; 9.0012.00 Biblical instruction to the children of the poor; 12.00 Cleansing of the church; 13.00 Luncheon; 14.0017.00 Private study.

There was more of the same, but I did not read it all. A second sheet listed the names of the guests. I was interested in one alone: Johannes Gurten. It was at the foot of the list, and next to it the number VII was inscribed in Latin numerals.

I glanced along the corridor and counted seven doors. Over each lintel was a number, together with a Biblical quotation. I made my way to the last door in the row, at the farthest, darkest end, and read the inscription above the door: Only knock, and ye shall enter. Leaning close, my voice low, I called out: 'Herr Gurten?'

No answer came.

With the heel of my hand, I knocked three times very gently.

Silence.

I waited a few moments, then called out: 'Herr Gurten?'

As I lowered my hand, preparing to turn away, my sleeve caught on the handle, and the door swung slowly open on the wings of gravity and faulty carpentry.

There was a man inside.

He was naked, sitting on the cold floor, legs crossed, ankles hooked over his hips. His eyes were large, the irises bright blue, his arms were raised, the thumbs and forefingers meeting in front of his face to form an oval. His hair was blond and cut very short, showing off the planes of his skull. A candle burned on a saucer in front of him, casting a pale golden light over his rippling muscles. He had made no attempt to cover his s.e.x, which rested limply on the tiles. His mouth distended in a tranquil smile.

Had I disturbed some mysterious and intimate rite?

'Do not desert me, sir,' he said quietly, moving only the muscles of his mouth. 'Give me a moment to complete my meditation.'

I took a step forward.

'Please, close the door.'

I did so, then turned to him again.

His eyes flashed open. They were large, the pupils blue. He unfolded his legs, and stood up with surprising alacrity.

'This is no Himalayan temple, sir. You are still in the convent of Christ the Saviour,' he laughed, holding out his hand in welcome, totally oblivious, it seemed, of the fact that he was as naked as a Greek G.o.d. Though slightly shorter of stature than myself, he projected a self-confidence that I could hardly have matched in my judge's cap and toga.

I am not used to nudity. Not even my own. While still at university in Halle, sharing a room with three other students, I was obliged to make my monthly bath in the stone tub in the bas.e.m.e.nt of my lodgings, taking my turn with the water and the soap. I made a point of scrubbing my body as quickly as I could-summer or winter, the water was always cold-then drying myself off, and dressing as rapidly as possible. And even where my wife and my duties as a husband are concerned, there is a great deal of natural reserve. More on my part than on Helena's, I admit.

I took his hand and pressed it.

'I was . . . was looking . . . for . . .' I stuttered.

'Johannes Gurten,' he smiled and bowed, laying his right hand on his heart as if swearing an oath. On his middle finger he wore a ring with an inscribed cornelian. 'You received my message, Herr Stiffeniis. I was beginning to wonder if it had gone astray. The French could have . . . Please excuse my state of undress. You may not believe it, but I am a trainee magistrate. And I have been ordered to continue my apprenticeship under your tutelage.'