by David Nickle
“No need for the glass on that one,” said Andrew. “Nothing but Jason . . . and maybe that fellow Aguillard?”
But Annie disagreed and kept the magnifier. “Look at Jason’s neck,” she said, and Andrew leaned over to peer through the glass. Jason’s throat was pockmarked with burns that swelled like insect bites.
“I know,” said Andrew softly.
“Hurting himself did help,” said Annie, “back in Eliada.”
“Back in Eliada,” said Andrew with a snort. He slid the photograph aside and drew another one—number twelve. It was of another person, and also candid. But it was far bolder than the others. This was of a man, black-haired, with a lean face, and shirtless, lying asleep in a cot, lit by the dimmest light of the moon crosshatched by windowpanes. Although the light must have been dreadful for the purpose, this photograph was sharper than the others—as though Zimmermann here had taken the time to hold very still with his little camera, to capture the image of his dozing subject perfectly.
Whoever he was, he slept on his side, an arm beneath his head driving his dark hair onto his bicep. Annie took the magnifying glass from Andrew and studied his features more closely—to make sure she saw what she thought she saw.
“That’s right,” said Andrew. “It’s a Heidelberg scar, right there on his cheek.”
“You’re not—”
“I am. Add a beard and an inch more hair,” said Andrew, “and see?”
Annie set the glass down and steadied herself with a hand on the table’s edge.
“That’s Albert Zimmermann,” she said.
“Sleeping like a babe,” said Andrew.
Andrew and Annie brought supper to their guests, but didn’t stay for long. Both were asleep when they knocked, and had been through the day. Ruth joked that this stay in quarantine was so far more pleasant than the last time. Zimmermann asked if Andrew had had any luck with the photographs. Andrew surprised Annie by lying, saying “Tomorrow.” On the way back, Annie asked him why, Andrew didn’t have a good answer.
They ate their own dinner alone at the house, and when it was finished, sat down again with the photographs. Annie was prepared to leave him to it—this was business for his Société, a group in which she was pleased not to be included—but Andrew asked that she stay.
Annie thought that he might want to discuss the pictures further—maybe try to parse them with Zimmermann’s story, or guess at the story that Zimmermann might have been hiding . . . or might well have been hidden from him.
“Who do you think is lying?” he asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“Somebody’s lying,” said Andrew. “I don’t think it’s the camera.”
“Somebody doesn’t remember,” she said, then specified. “Mr. Zimmermann doesn’t remember. Or he didn’t even see to, begin with. The Juke does that.”
Andrew shook his head. “The Juke does something like that. Not precisely, not in Eliada. The nature of that thing . . . of its chemistry . . . is to make you see things—things that’ll draw you to it. Make you worship it. At a point, makes you want to copulate with it. That’s how it lives, how it reproduces. It becomes God. Nobody worships a God they don’t understand to be there.”
“There’s millions of Roman Catholics who’d disagree,” said Annie. “Faith, darling.”
Andrew shook his head, and slid the picture of Jason under the light for a heartbeat before moving it aside, replacing it with one of the farmhouse pictures. “Or a big old Juke, at the heart of the Vatican,” he said.
Annie laughed. “Covered in stigmata,” she said and Andrew laughed too.
“Better write the Pope,” he said.
“I’ll fetch the stationery later,” said Annie. “I’m not sure you’re right about the Juke’s nature though. At least the one we saw in Idaho.”
“It sure took me for a ride,” said Andrew.
“Yes,” said Annie. “It showed you a kind of Heaven. But it didn’t show me that. From me—it hid.”
“That’s not so,” said Andrew. “You were well aware of the Juke that Bergstrom kept in the quarantine. I asked you about Mr. Juke, and you told me what you knew.”
“I knew it was a hermaphrodite,” said Annie. “I’m pretty sure that I even had a look at it—and if I’d been looking at it properly, I would have seen that it wasn’t that at all. But that was the problem: I didn’t look at it properly. I made up my mind as to what it was . . . and managed to ignore everything that told me what it really was . . . and I did that for months—until things got bad enough that I couldn’t ignore it anymore. When it was too late.”
“But you did see it,” said Andrew. “You didn’t miss things. You didn’t fail to see people, as they walked past you in the street. You weren’t blind to it.”
Andrew pushed all the pictures out of the light, leaned back in his chair, and looked at Annie.
“I don’t think that Zimmermann’s lying,” said Andrew. “But I think he’s been tricked.”
“Just like Jason.” Annie put a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Maybe just like all of us.”
Andrew’s damaged hand reached up to touch Annie’s, but he didn’t say anything, so Annie continued.
“Sometimes I think that we are all unhinged,” she said. “Susceptible.” She smiled, stroking the back of Andrew’s hand. The skin was dry and cool, tight over his knuckles like an old man’s—not like a surgeon’s, not since twenty years ago.
“Suckers,” she said.
“I don’t think we’re suckers,” said Andrew.
“We’re hunting someone named after a picture-show monster,” said Annie. “Based on a story you and your friends heard from a hairy-chinned Austrian fellow you’d never met ’til then, during a night of heavy drinking in Paris.”
Andrew chuckled at that. But Annie wasn’t done.
“All to find a man you won’t even take the time to speak with, who maybe doesn’t want to be found. In Germany. Maybe the one place in the world that’s worse for a gentleman Negro than the United States of America.” She lifted Andrew’s hand from hers and stepped away. “And I should stop you from going. You’re my husband, and I should keep you safe here. But I know that I can’t.”
“You could,” he said, but Annie shook her head.
“You know I can’t. We’re suckers, darling. You and me both.” As she turned to draw the curtains against the quiet dark, Andrew laughed one more time.
Mail came the next afternoon from Berlin, with news from Dr. Kurtzweiller. It was a long letter; Kurtzweiller had been busy and diligent. Still, it offered very little news. He had been unable to meet with Professor Muckermann—“I confess we are the barest of acquaintances,” he wrote, “so it is not surprising that he could not find the time.”—but confirmed that the professor had only recently returned to Berlin, after a long stay in Munich.
Kurtzweiller also confirmed that there was some talk of troubles around the vicinity of Wallgau, over the summer—but details were difficult to ascertain and he thought he would need to travel to Munich himself in order to learn much more than he heard from his contacts in the Reichstag.
“There was indeed a large Hitler-Jugend troop staying there for some time, in a mountain valley. It had come to my contact’s attention because boys from some Berlin families were among them, and they had lost contact with their sons. The matter was properly one for the Bayerische Polizei in Munich, however, and my friend did not know what had come of any investigations they might have conducted. To my mind this does confirm Herr Z.’s account to a very great degree, although obviously not entirely.”
Kurtzweiller said that he might learn more in Munich, where he expected to be ensconced by the time this letter arrived at Vire. He offered a post box number where Andrew could send a reply, along with whatever he had learned, and promised to write again once he was settled in suitable rooms.
“Eventually,” he wrote, “I believe that we must meet there. It is the nearest city to Wallgau, and also the town w
here the Hitler-Jugend and the Sturmabteilung are headquartered. It is not likely to be safe. Even in Berlin, the Nazi Party makes its presence very well known, and the Polizei does not seem a match for it. I cannot think matters are much improved in Munich, particularly for men such as yourself, or the Jew Zimmermann.”
That same day, Andrew did bring the photographs to Zimmermann, and to Ruth. Zimmermann had bathed, and made use of scissors and a razor to shave his beard, and he rubbed his freshly bare chin as he flipped through the photographs, and put names to the faces. “Yes, that is Aguillard with Jason. Those men on the porch? S.A.,” and he listed some names.
“That is Wallgau,” he said as Andrew showed him the photograph of the high street. “I remember that day—early on, the first trip into the village . . . before I even found the postmaster.” Andrew tapped the image of the two nude youngsters, and Zimmermann drew a breath.
“I did not see them,” he said.
“They appear hard to miss,” said Ruth, who sat beside him at the little table in his room. Zimmermann shook his head.
“That’s not all you missed,” said Andrew, and removed the last photograph from his folio: sleeping Albert Zimmermann on a cot. Zimmermann’s hand moved from his chin to his ear, and over it, smoothing his still too-long hair against his temple.
“Wer hat das fotografiert?” he whispered, and Ruth translated: “Who photographed this?”
“Do you have any memory?” Andrew asked. “Might you have mislaid the camera in the barracks at the farm, when you slept?”
“It could have been taken by one of the S.A. men,” said Ruth, “who shared the room.”
“It could,” said Annie. She rested a hand on Zimmermann’s shoulder, then withdrew it abruptly at the panicked look in Zimmermann’s eye, as he turned at her touch. “I’m sorry Mr. Zimmermann. It could be innocent. A prank.”
“It was not.” Zimmermann took the picture by the top corner, flipped it over, then tapped the back of it. “This was not innocent.”
“How do you know that? Does any of this help your memory?” Andrew had moved over by the window, leaning against the sill, his shadow cast over Zimmermann, who shook his head. His hand moved to his forehead, and he looked down at the back of the photograph.
“Have any of you ever flown?” he asked.
“I have,” said Ruth. “Not in the pilot’s seat.”
“Of course not. But tell me, did you feel safe?”
“To be honest, no. I was terrified the engines would die, and we would fall like a stone into the ocean.”
“That might have happened,” said Zimmermann, “and you might well have died. But it was not likely that your peril would arise from a badly tuned engine. Do you know what was the greater hazard?” He tapped his temple with his finger. “Your pilot. And his inner ear. You see, when one is flying, particularly in fog or the night, it can happen that one loses oneself. In a cockpit . . . there are instruments that help against this: gauges that show air speed, a compass, an altimeter which shows how high we are flying . . . an inclinometer, to show how level the wings are. There is even a watch, so we might know that time marches forward and not the other way. A pilot needs these things. His own wits are not enough. They will trick him. They will tell him that up is down. And because that is not so . . . he will crash.” Zimmermann turned the photo over again, and looked on his sleeping self.
“In the war, we flew in daylight and nearer the ground. But if we weren’t careful . . . if we did not mind our instruments . . . we would lose one another. And we would be alone in the sky, each of us an easy target.” He made a loose fist, and tapped his sleeping self.
“Having lost our way, we could be shot, so very easily, and never know until our death was upon us.”
Three
Clouds had moved in from the south through the afternoon, and with them came rain. It announced itself by huge droplets on the windows, then rivulets and then a stream. By the time they were finished, it was coming down hard enough that even taking broad black umbrellas from the vestibule, even dashing from those steps to the main hospital building, in the end Andrew and Annie were soaked to the waist, shivering.
There was not time to change clothes, not right away. As they stepped through the doors to the entry hall, they were greeted by the day nurse, who said that Doctor Thomas needed to speak with Doctor Waggoner immediately.
“It concerns Madame Pierrepoint,” she said. “Matters have taken a turn.”
Andrew set their umbrellas in the stand and they both sloshed up the stairs. Doctor Thomas—Bertrand Thomas—was in the east-wing recovery room, where Madame Lucille Pierrepoint was evidently still resting following her surgery.
Thomas had done the surgery himself, that morning: a plombage, to collapse the patient’s right lung, by the insertion a few grams of paraffin wax in her upper thorax. He had asked Andrew if he wanted to observe, and ordinarily as chief physician, Andrew would have done so—but of course he was seized by the greater mystery of the Juke, and so he waved it off.
It ought to have been a simple procedure, and Madame Pierrepoint ought to have been out of recovery and resting in a room in the hospital now, and as they climbed the stairs to surgery Andrew swore under his breath. Doctor Thomas was young—just twenty-eight years old—and an able enough surgeon, trained as Andrew was, at Paris, and he had done the procedure many times. . . .
But he was young.
They saw Doctor Thomas through the glass of the recovery room—hidden behind mask and gown, at Madame Pierrepoint’s bedside. She was the only one in recovery, and she looked impossibly small in her bed, pale and bandaged. She was only thirty-seven years old, but the ravages of tuberculosis had wasted her, and she seemed twenty years older. Her eyes were closed and her mouth hung open.
Annie tapped on the glass, which made Doctor Thomas start. He stepped away and came out, pulling the mask from his face and his gloves free.
“What is the problem?” asked Andrew, speaking French.
“Yes,” said Thomas. “A problem indeed. Madame Pierrepoint appears to have fallen into a coma.”
“She was awake this morning,” said Annie. She had seen Lucille herself, just prior the noon hour, groggy but alert as the anesthetic wore off.
“She was,” said Thomas. “She was doing well in fact. She had taken some broth and was able to speak a few words as of twelve hundred. At fourteen hundred hours, she seemed to have fallen asleep. Three hours later, at seventeen hundred and a quarter hours, when the nurses came around to check on her, she would not wake. She has been unresponsive since.”
Andrew nodded. “So we’re dealing with a blood clot,” he said in English.
“That’s what it likely is,” replied Thomas. “She may well have suffered a stroke.”
Of course it was a blood clot, formed during the surgery this morning; of course it had made its way to Lucille Pierrepoint’s brain; and of course, this was the cause of the coma. Annie had seen this often enough over her years—decades, really—assisting in surgeries and tending to their aftermaths.
Doctor Thomas had taken some steps to deal with this one already—small doses of strychnine and atropine—with no effect.
“Well let’s look at her,” said Andrew. “Another pair of eyes, yes?”
“Yes,” said Thomas.
And then, finally, they went off to surgery, to change from their wet clothes into surgical gowns and masks and scrub down before entering the recovery room.
“I’m going to stay here tonight,” Andrew said as he hung his jacket, “whatever we find.”
“I’ll tell the kitchen to make us a meal then,” said Annie.
“That sounds fine. But you don’t need to stay. Go back to the house. Get some rest.”
“I’m all right,” said Annie.
“You are all right,” said Andrew, and smiled. “You’ve been carrying this place . . . without any help from me. At least not lately.”
Annie stepped behind Andrew to tie his mask b
ehind his head, then tied her own.
“Lately you’ve had other things to do.”
Andrew filled a basin with hot water and soap, and scrubbed his hands. “Finding Jason. Finding the Juke. Or Orlok.” He made room for Annie beside him as she scrubbed. “Drinking the night away,” he said.
Annie raised an eyebrow and half-nodded.
“Looking out for our old friend Ruth Harper,” she said.
“Drinking the damn night away.” Andrew reached for a towel and patted his hands dry.
“Well, come back in with me, see what’s what, then order a plate of food for here and one for yourself. But after that—go home to bed.”
“Andrew—” she began, but he raised a finger to shush, and handed her the towel.
“Get some rest, Nurse Waggoner. Because something tells me in the morning, there’ll be another surgery. You’ll want your wits for that.”
By “another surgery,” Andrew meant a trepanning—or as the procedure had become to be known this century, a craniectomy. If chemicals weren’t going to ease pressure on the brain, then a burr hole in the skull might do the work.
“That’ll cure her or kill her,” said Annie, and Andrew peered up at one of the skylights, rattling with the rain.
“If it is a stroke and the drugs don’t help her, then it’s death anyway. Death or worse.”
He shook his head, and opened the door to the recovery room. Doctor Thomas was there, and offered Andrew a stethoscope.
They talked and examined Lucille Pierrepoint—listened to her wheezing breath, shone lights in her eye, redid all the little tests that Doctor Thomas had conducted through the afternoon—and then the three talked some more. It wasn’t long, but enough time to convince Annie that Andrew was probably right.
She would need her sleep.
The rain was, if anything, coming down harder when Annie left the hospital—enough so there ought to be thunder and flashes of lightning accompanying it, or a wind. But the air was still and it was quiet, too; nothing but the water, spilling from clouds that perched, still and patient, overtop Vire. It was a short walk through the gardens this time to the house’s porch, and the umbrella was up to the task. Annie arrived home as dry as when she’d left.