The Lightstep

by John Dickinson

  Finished! he wanted to scream. You're finished, all of you! And be damned to you all and good riddance!

  If he spoke, he would not contain himself. They would have to leave, and would never be able to support his presence again. And he nearly spoke. He nearly damned them both. And perhaps the only thing that kept him from speaking was the memory of the Adelsheim library, of what he had said there and by the fireside, and of how even so he had been forgiven.

  At last there was a sigh, and the hands of the other woman lifted to put back her veil. The face of Maria von Adelsheim looked out at him from under it.

  'I should be grateful if you would address me – Captain.'

  He nodded grimly.

  'You are rightly outraged, Captain, because we have approached you as if you were a palace time-server, and not as a gentleman and friend of my brother. I see now that it was very wrong of us. I can only plead that we have suffered so much disappointment in this today that on coming to you we have failed to give our suit the consideration it warranted. We are most abjectly sorry.'

  For a child of an Imperial Knight to speak so to a commoner was not just unusual in Erzberg. It was almost unknown. Even in his rage he could see that.

  He found his voice, at last. 'Do not – please do not think on it. I know how things are done in the palace. It was – I will not say it was a natural mistake but . . . It is better that we do not think on it.'

  Her face was very pale, but her voice was steadier than his. 'You are merciful, Captain, and more so than we deserve. Truly we see so often that a victim becomes a villain. Yet we never imagine we will act so ourselves. Now Anna and I, thinking only that we were victims of tyranny, have committed villainy in our turn. I am ashamed. I wish you to know it.'

  Tyranny? He frowned in incomprehension.

  'Oh yes!' she said, exasperated. 'How is it that we are brought to wait in the Saint Lucia barracks, attempting to bribe one of the few men in Erzberg who cannot be bribed? I will tell you. It is because we dare not return to our tyrant and tell her that what she wills cannot be achieved!'

  'Maria . . .' said Poppenstahl nervously.

  'I know, Anna. I am being indiscreet and I should not be. But I would not wish the Captain to think that we do this to amuse ourselves! You have lived under tyranny, Captain. Have you ever lived under such as we? There is no guillotine in Adelsheim, no wheel, no hurdle, no flogging-stake. And yet I swear to you that we tremble at a word. "Anna, dear, we will need a passport. Go and get one, and don't allow any nonsense from those wretched people at the palace." So. Although even our cousin the Canon Rother said it would be impossible, nevertheless poor Anna must go, and must succeed, because my mother wills it. Do you see it, Captain? I wonder if you do.'

  'Yes,' he said slowly. 'I see it.'

  So they had been at their wits' end, trying to satisfy the monstrous Lady Adelsheim. Indeed, he could imagine it. It had been a rather good imitation of Lady Adelsheim's manner. He had recognized it at once.

  At the same time he recognized something else – something suddenly and painfully familiar.

  'Hey, Michel! Behold me! I am the Emperor Leopold. Tremble, you fellows . . .'

  Were they all mimics, in the Adelsheim house?

  'Yes,' he said. 'I do see it. Although – and I know you did not intend this – but I think that I saw your brother too.'

  Her eyes widened in surprise. 'Alba?' Then she dropped them. 'Truly sir, I – I did not know I was so poor an actor.'

  He waited, but she did not look up.

  'I did not say that you were,' he said gently.

  'No, but Albrecht. . .' Her brow furrowed.

  He saw the grief on her face. He felt it in the way she fumbled for words. And he felt, too, how the name stirred in the mud of his own heart. For a moment he cursed himself. Yet he had not been able to help speaking of him.

  'He did not command] she said at length. 'It was more that he inspired us. At least he was so to me. Even if it was the most ridiculous thing . . .'

  She lifted her chin and looked at him again. And suddenly her face lit up in boyish exuberance.

  'Maria,' she cried mannishly swinging her elbows in a pantomime of someone in a hurry. 'Hey, Maria! Attend to me this instant – I have a notion! Maria, you must attend. It is of the utmost importance. It is squirrels, Maria! Such beauty, such grace – nothing surpasses them! We will go out and catch a hundred, Maria. And we will have the kitchens place them in a dish, with pastry on top. And then we will invite the Machtings and the Jenzes to dinner, and when Father puts the knife in the pie – out they will come, hoppity hoppity all over the table and down the hall! Will it not be the merriest thing?

  'And so,' she finished, dropping back into her normal voice,'so I must spend a long day in the woods with him, he up the trees, and I with a long-handled net waiting on the ground, and we did not catch one! Was he not so? Anna, do say.'

  'Oh, he was very merry, dear, all the time.'

  'Captain?'

  'Yes,' said Wéry, smiling. 'Yes, he was.' A strange imp was stirring inside him. 'But also . . .'

  A gentleman in conversation with a lady should not remove his eyes from her.

  He certainly should not lie back full length on his battered settee.

  He could not possibly lift his feet, booted and spurred and muddy, and prop them crossed one over the other, on the settee's sagging arm, as if no lady were present and he himself were a hundred miles away, in another time, inhabiting another body.

  'Michel,' he said languidly, staring at the ceiling.

  (His voice was too husky. That was nerves. Pause, and strengthen it.)

  'Behold me, Michel . . .' (pause) '. . . I am furniture' (pause) '. . . and I am content.'

  He could sense her leaning forward to watch him. Would she be shocked by what he was doing? Dear Heaven! What was he doing, imitating her dead brother for her?

  But there was nothing for it now.

  'I am becoming,' he went on,'Joinery. Yes, I feel sure of it. And cloth – a little threadbare perhaps. And better yet . . .' He smacked his lips with luxurious delight and whispered, 'Woodworm!'

  She laughed.

  She laughed, surprised, delighted, and the sound burst over him like applause. He felt elated. He felt a power growing in him. It was years since he had played this sort of game. But once there had been a time . . .

  'Oh!' she cried. 'But was it not exact, Anna? Was he not just so? Captain, you have a talent! I declare it might have been himself.'

  'He was the nearest I had to a confessor for four years,' said Wéry apologetically, as he righted himself. 'As to the passport . . .' he frowned in thought.

  'Oh no! Do not let us think of it. But tell me – was he drunk when he said that?'

  'Why, I do not recall,' lied Wéry.

  'Then he was, I swear it! Were you, too? Were you drunk with him often?'

  'Maria!' said Poppenstahl warningly.

  'Oh no, Anna. The Captain will forgive us, I am sure. You do not mind, do you, Captain?'

  There was no malice in her. Greed perhaps, for something of her brother that she could never have shared, but no malice.

  'What I do recall,' said Wéry, 'was that he might be most merciless if I were – a little ill – of a morning.' He chuckled. 'He would visit me in my sickbed, stamp up and down, recite the Rights of Man at me, until I was fairly driven to get up and chase him away. "War on the cranium, peace to the corpus," he called it. You know the saying of Chamfort? "War on the castles" and so forth?'

  'And you drove pigs through the tents of other officers together.'

  'Well, I may have helped, but . . .'

  'What villains you were!'

  'Ah, but did he tell you about the bear?'

  'Bear? No! What bear was this?'

  'A dancing bear. A poor creature. Its master brought it to the camp with a halter around its neck and played on a drum for it to dance to. We watched. And then suddenly your brother said, "Aha! But now comes the delu
ge!"And he pushed the man into the ring, and said, "Now you, sir, will dance!" and he took the drum and gave it to the bear!'

  'No!'

  She was laughing aloud. And so was he.

  'And – and the bear could not hold the stick. So he sat down with it, and put one arm around its shoulders . . .' He hugged an imaginary bear with one arm. 'And with the other hand he took the bear's paw and the stick and played the drum for it. And he cried to us, "Make the villain dance!" And someone drew his sabre, and the fellow danced, and – and the bear . . .'

  He tried to imitate the bewildered look of the bear, watching the stick bounce up and down on the drum, and the girl laughed, and could not stop laughing, and he was laughing too at the memory.' . . . And at the end he – he p-paid the bear!'

  And he did the bear's face again, looking at the purse in its paw, and the girl laughed again, and he was laughing too, and weeping a hot tear from his eye. And it hurt.

  And it was good – unimaginably good. It was healing, like a massage of muscles that had gone stiff and cold for years.

  'But – but was it not dangerous? The bear!'

  'Very! I was sweating for him. But he was like that, was he not? Danger, and a joke, and something serious too. He meant it as a parable – an allegory of revolution. And I did not agree, for no man of any station is an animal, and we argued over it afterwards. But also we laughed. We laughed for days . . .'

  'Maria,' said Madame Poppenstahl more urgently. 'Really I think we must not detain the Captain . . .'

  He saw the older woman's look, and understood.

  They were being too familiar. She was being too familiar with him. And yet he too was greedy for her company now. Greedy for more of this. He did not want her to go.

  'The – ah – the passport,' he said.

  'Oh no, Captain,' the girl exclaimed. 'You must not think of it. We did wrong to ask you!'

  'It may be possible,' he said. 'I do not know but . . .'

  He had their attention again.

  'This officer you require it for. He is not here already, in the city, is he?'

  'He has returned to Wetzlar to attend his General,' she said soberly. 'But he has undertaken to my mother that he will seek leave to come back, if we can obtain the permissions.'

  'For what purpose?'

  She hesitated for a moment. 'It may not be a purpose of which you approve, Captain. But I feel bound to be frank with you. He is the officer who carried the French parley to our troops before the action at Hersheim. We wish him to testify at an inquiry of the War Commission, for which we have petitioned. It is for my brother's sake. And for the other men who died.'

  He let out a long breath.

  This was impossible. He was supposed to be on watch for agitators. How could he help admit to the city a man whose word, true or false, could do more damage than a hundred rabble-rousers? And the man would be given an opportunity to speak against Balcke-Horneswerden – to do him as much damage as possible. If he owed anything to anyone living in Erzberg, it was surely to Balcke.

  And yet he had already let her believe that he would help.

  'You . . . want this very much, do you not?' he murmured.

  She looked at him, considering. She had said he must not think of it. Now she must decide whether she would truly ask it of him.

  'Yes,' she said slowly. 'Yes I do.'

  'May I know why?'

  'I – I believe I have already said . . .'

  Words rose within him – words that he would never normally have considered, and had not known were true.

  'Lady Maria,' he said. 'I am a man who hates. I know it. It is not good – although I believe that reason is with me. But I know how treacherous hate is. It does not admit – cannot admit – that there is reason, or good, or honour, in the one we hate. I do not ask you to tell me your thoughts. But I do ask that you consider why you want this man to come here.'

  She looked at him levelly. 'You are . . . most frank, Captain. Tell me. Whom do you suppose that I may hate?'

  'Perhaps it is Count Balcke-Horneswerden.'

  'Oh,' she said, as if she had thought he would name someone else.

  She considered it. Perhaps she nodded, slightly. But at length she said, 'What we seek is the truth about why my brother died, Captain. That is all.'

  He spread his hands. 'So. Whose truth do you mean?'

  'I do not believe there is more than one truth. To say otherwise is to be like Pilate, who demanded "what is truth?" of the Lord Our Saviour.'

  'I have always felt that he had a point,' said Wéry.

  He might also say that the various political factions in the city would all seek to use any testimony given to the Commission for their own purposes. But she would know that. He could guess how she might answer him . . .

  In the end, she was here before him. He could not refuse her.

  'Very well,' he said. 'You will have to remind me of your officer's name.'

  'Major Jean-Marie Lanard.'

  He repeated it to himself. Then he nodded. 'I will do what I can. At present, that will be nothing. In a week or a fortnight, it is likely that the Prince's decree will be less rigorously implemented, and there may be a chance. No, my ladies. Please remember, you have said that your Major Lanard has gone to assume other duties. He will not be free of those quickly and therefore it is best that we take our time.'

  'Captain . . . I am grateful. And if there is anything we may do for you, I beg that you will name it.'

  I beg that you will name it. He must have said those very words to her, on the steps at Adelsheim.

  'I do not think . . .'

  Suddenly he frowned. A thought had occurred. He looked at Anna Poppenstahl. 'Your relatives beyond the Rhine, madame. Do you have news of them?'

  She blinked at the question. 'I have indeed. Although I fear their condition is a wretched one. My cousin Ludwig is well, but his state is much reduced by the war. The impositions of the French army are far heavier than any he had to endure from his former ruler. And his nephew Maximilian is not well, for he had high hopes of the Revolution when it began, and is much afflicted by how it has turned out . . .'

  He listened, understanding that Madame Poppenstahl, although wishing him no particular ill-will, was determined to return the conversation to the ordinary polite gossip that was the only intimacy permissible with single young men such as him. And as he listened he tried hard not to betray that he already knew as much and more of Ludwig and Maximilian Jürich as she did. They would guess of course. Was this wise? He was not dicing with someone's honour, now, but with lives.

  'Terrible!' he murmured. 'How you must wish to comfort them.'

  'It is my earnest wish to visit them as soon as I may,' said the simple woman. 'When Lady Adelsheim is able to release me.'

  'I see. But in the meantime are you able to correspond with your cousins, and perhaps send them little luxuries that they cannot now obtain in their territory?'

  Madame Poppenstahl shook her head sadly.

  'Letters may pass, although they may be opened. But not goods, unless they are stoutly accompanied. I declare the soldiers will steal anything bigger than a thimble.'

  'Indeed,' sighed Wéry.

  Of course letters were opened. That did not worry him. No censor or spy would make anything of the communications he was thinking of – so long as their destination could be disguised.

  Maria von Adelsheim was watching him very closely. Had she already guessed what he was going to propose?

  'Well,' he said, and acted a light laugh. 'If by chance you should open your letters and find within them something that is not after all for you, perhaps you would forward it on to me?'

  'Why, I do not know how . . .' began the woman dubiously.

  'Anna . . .' said the girl, and laid her hand on her chaperon's arm.

  She had not taken her eyes off Wéry's face. She was weighing his words. She would be wondering what these letters were, that somehow could not come to him directly: these l
etters for an "aide" to the Prince. And she must be able to make guesses. She had understood what he was asking.

  'So, Captain. We make something of a devil's bargain, I think,' she said at last.

  'A fearful city is full of devils,' said Wéry. 'Let us try to be honest devils with one another.'

  'Maria!' said Poppenstahl, alarmed at last.

  Maria von Adelsheim was still watching him. She was trying to read the future in his face. Now she must decide.

  'How will they know that they may pass these packages to us?' she asked.

  'The next time you write to the Jürichs, send a man you can trust. Let him use my name in the hearing of the household. It will be enough.'

  It crossed his mind that if he were truly being an 'honest' devil, he should speak to them more about the dangers – the possibility that if something went wrong their man might be arrested, imprisoned, interrogated, executed. But it would not do to frighten them. It would not do to have Poppenstahl running to Lady Adelsheim about the wild plan into which her daughter was entering. So long as the courier knew no more than he had told them, and did no more than he had said, it should be well.

  'And for my part,' he said, 'I vow to you that I will do my best to obtain what you want. If it proves impossible, then I think it is better that none of us remember what has passed between us.'

  'I hope – and believe – that it will prove possible, Captain. And we will do as you ask. No, Anna, I am sure this is the right thing. We will tell Mother that a nameless gentleman has undertaken to provide the passport in a few weeks' time, when the clerks will be less conscientious about this decree. All that he requires is that we be discreet. It is the best that we can hope for.'

  'Now, Captain,' she went on, with a sudden brightness in her tone. 'I wish to trespass a moment more upon your courtesy. Tell me, for I have been longing to know, how you find this city as a home from home?'

  I wish to trespass a moment more. That meant: After this topic I will leave. She had begun the ritual politenesses of departure. He was sorry. He did not want her to go. Ordinarily he had little time for small talk. Now, in her presence, he wished that he could fascinate, sparkle, juggle a dozen witticisms and conjure back that delighted laughter, so that she might stay a little longer.