Demons of Ghent

by Helen Grant

  ‘Outdoors. Want to climb a few cliffs?’

  Veerle put her head on one side. ‘Cliffs?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘In the middle of Ghent?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Bram was looking at her through those unruly strands of sun-bleached hair, and although he was grinning there was something serious in his expression.

  This is some sort of big deal to him, thought Veerle. She was puzzled: she couldn’t think what he meant. Cliffs? Ghent was as flat as a chessboard.

  ‘Okaaay,’ she said cautiously.

  ‘Have you finished that?’ asked Bram, nodding at her drink. ‘Then let’s go. Now is the best time.’

  A couple of minutes later they were out on the street and Veerle was having to trot to keep up with Bram. He wasn’t giving anything away and she couldn’t think of a way to frame a question to make him explain.

  The evening was cool without actually being cold, and dry. The sun was very low, giving the sky a lurid tint.

  Veerle thought they had been walking for about ten minutes when she saw a landmark she recognized: the great bulk of the moated Gravensteen castle, over eight hundred years old, with two flags flying from the turrets, the yellow and black lion of Flanders and the black and white lion of Ghent.

  This was not, apparently, their goal; Bram continued past the fortified gate, now closed to visitors for the night, and led Veerle into the network of streets that lay beyond it. Here there were fewer tourist shops and grocery stores and tobacconists. Instead there were very old houses, exquisitely kept, some with window boxes or trailing ivy, and occasional wine bars or restaurants with snug dark interiors.

  Bram turned a corner into a side street and stopped. ‘Here,’ he said.

  Veerle stared at him, and then she looked around, glancing up the silent street to see whether anyone else was about, and then up at the nearby buildings.

  Does he mean what I think he means?

  ‘We have to be quick – on the first bit, anyway,’ said Bram. ‘I’ll go first, you follow.’

  He shot a quick glance to either side, satisfying himself that they were alone. Then he turned to the wall and began to climb.

  The location was well chosen. Many of the buildings along this street had three or four storeys and were faced with stucco, presenting a smooth and intimidatingly high front. This one had only two storeys topped with corbie steps so that the façade tapered almost to a point. It was very old, with rough stone lintels to the windows and various pieces of ironwork, both ornamental and supportive. Even better, there was a glass-sided lamp attached to the bricks by a very sturdy metal support. It could have been designed for climbing.

  Bram was up it in double-quick time, and then he was crouching on the roof behind the corbie steps, beckoning for Veerle to follow.

  Veerle stood for a moment looking up at him, silhouetted against the evening sky. Half-formed thoughts were whirling about her brain like a flock of birds wheeling through the sky. She was conscious of the pulse beating fast at her throat. Most of all she was conscious of the itch to do it, to climb up after Bram.

  She glanced around; still no one in sight. Up she went, ascending without too much difficulty, although she could feel a little strain in her muscles now. Out of practice climbing buildings, she thought. She would not have tired so soon – before.

  She climbed over the corbie steps at the top and crouched next to Bram on the sloping roof, breathing rapidly. Bram raised a finger to his lips, indicating that they should remain silent.

  A moment or two later, Veerle heard voices and footsteps in the street below.

  Verdomme, she thought. Did they see me?

  She telegraphed the question to Bram, but he shook his head. When the footsteps had died away he rose from his crouch and indicated that they should go on. Neither of them spoke. Veerle had a thousand questions she was dying to ask Bram, but she made herself keep silent; this close to the edge of the façade there was a risk of being heard by people below. Instead she looked about her.

  The house they had climbed was the smallest in the street; on either side the buildings overtopped it. One of them was impossible to scale, being high and sheer and virtually featureless, but on the other side there was a narrow flat area less than a metre wide and an actual metal ladder bolted to the wall, leading up to the roof of the neighbouring house – a fire escape perhaps, or an access ladder for working on the tiles. Bram went up it swiftly and silently, and Veerle followed.

  At the top they stepped onto a flat roof covered with sheets of dull grey metal. The new landscape revealed at this level was surprising. Although some of the roofs were sloping, particularly those facing the street, a startling number of them were flat, although of slightly different heights, so that the whole effect was something like an enormous set of child’s building blocks, stacked up unevenly together. Veerle measured them with her eyes and quickly saw the potential. With a little effort you could go half the length of the street along the rooftops, perhaps further. Now her heart was really racing; she couldn’t wait to do it. She stepped forward and Bram grasped her arm.

  ‘Hold on,’ he said in a low voice. He pointed at an adjoining section of roof, a flat area some metres square. It was shining darkly with collected rainwater. ‘Don’t go on that one,’ he told her. ‘I don’t trust it. If you have to cross it, use the stone bit at the edge.’

  ‘OK,’ said Veerle. She looked at the wet black surface. ‘Why don’t you lead, then? Or are we stopping here?’

  ‘I thought we’d go sightseeing,’ said Bram.

  ‘Sightseeing?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He tilted his head to indicate the direction they should take. ‘Coming?’

  Veerle followed him across the grey metal rooftop. They trod carefully; the roof seemed to be perfectly sound but it was inadvisable to blunder across it with thunderous footsteps.

  ‘They might ignore noises if they thought it was cats or birds,’ said Bram, meaning the people in the houses below, ‘but not if they think it’s elephants.’

  Veerle stifled a snort of laughter.

  They clambered over a small parapet and onto the next roof. Here there were a couple of skylights that they had to skirt round. Veerle could see why Bram had chosen this time of day; the light was fading, giving them a little cover, but it was not so dark that you couldn’t see what you were doing. Those glass skylights were as treacherous as rotten well-covers; step on them in the dark and you could be in for a long drop and a painful landing. She could feel her body quickening, as though some internal metronome had been set to a higher speed; the old exhilaration was back, the joy of doing something that she shouldn’t be doing in a place where she shouldn’t be, of seeing and experiencing things that most people never dreamed of. The cool air on her face and neck, the glorious pink and orange of the evening sky, the murmur of distant traffic, voices, footsteps from the streets below, like waves breaking against the foot of the brick island on which they stood: all of it seemed intense and real in a way that the rest of life never was.

  Bram was climbing a wall perhaps a metre and a half high, forming one side of a brick-built block with a grimy window on its other visible face. With the glowing coral tints of the sky behind him, Veerle saw him as a dark silhouette, tall and broad-shouldered, and for a moment she forgot that he wasn’t Kris.

  She felt a rush of emotion so intense that it was like gazing into the sun – hot, white, blinding. The next second it had shrivelled into cinders.

  It’s not Kris.

  The cold bleak disappointment was as acute as the joy of recognition had been.

  Of course it’s not Kris. How could it be Kris? He’s with her.

  Veerle had to compose her features, try to look cheerful as she clambered up onto the brick block next to Bram; she couldn’t bear the idea of fending off his questions if he noticed that something was wrong.

  But Bram was unexpectedly preoccupied. He was squatting on the rough grey surface, one hand outstretched to touch it,
his expression thoughtful. Veerle followed his gaze and saw that there was a narrow gutter running along the side of the block. The nearside edge of it was clogged with a white rime. Bram put his forefinger gingerly into it; it came away coated with white powder. He muttered something under his breath, then dusted his fingers against his trouser leg.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Veerle.

  ‘I’m not sure without tasting it,’ said Bram, ‘but I think it’s salt.’ He glanced around, still rubbing his hand absent-mindedly against his leg.

  ‘Salt?’ repeated Veerle. She had a vague recollection of someone saying something about salt; something that had surprised her. But she couldn’t remember exactly, and she couldn’t work up much curiosity about it; she was still too full of the leaden misery of missing Kris. Still, she was grateful that Bram’s attention was focused elsewhere, that he wasn’t looking at her face and seeing the woe written there.

  ‘Yeah.’ Bram was still looking down at the gutter. ‘It’s weird. I’ve seen it before, only not here. A line of it, like this, only on a roof on another block.’

  ‘Maybe it’s . . .’ Veerle thought about it. ‘Maybe it’s to keep insects off, or something.’

  ‘Off what? There’s nothing growing up here.’

  For a moment they both considered in silence. Then Bram shrugged dismissively. ‘Well, who knows?’ He sat down, sprawling comfortably on the flat roof. ‘I didn’t come up here to look at a pile of salt, anyway.’

  Veerle sat down too, but she was careful not to sit too close to him. She still felt a kind of cold ache inside her, as though she had suffered some kind of shock. The thought of pressing herself close to him, of his putting an arm round her, was impossible. Instead she settled herself cross-legged on the roof, leaving space between them so that someone else could have sat there, had there been anyone else up there but themselves.

  ‘Look,’ said Bram, pointing. ‘That was what I wanted you to see.’ Outlined against the lurid sunset was the uncompromising bulk of the Gravensteen castle, rugged and massive as a mountain peak, the castellated walls like rows of teeth fixed into the belly of the sky.

  ‘It looks like a mountain,’ said Veerle. Even with that dragging feeling of sadness gnawing at her, she couldn’t help being a little impressed.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That was what you meant when you talked about cliffs,’ said Veerle. ‘Cliffs and mountains made out of metal and bricks and glass.’

  Bram looked at her, and in the fading light she saw the flash of white teeth as he grinned. ‘The mountain ranges of Ghent,’ he said.

  17

  Bram kept looking at her; he didn’t turn back to the sunset and the great dark hulk of the Gravensteen. Half his face was gilded by the setting sun, the rest in darkness. Veerle felt as though she should be remembering something half forgotten. The way Bram was looking at her was making her self-conscious; she felt a warmth in her face and tried to find something to say to fill the speaking silence.

  ‘This is amazing,’ she said eventually, and actually she meant it; the sunset behind the castle was impressive.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How did you get into this?’

  ‘Friends. But it’s not like your Koekoeken in Brussels. It’s not organized. It’s just something some people do.’ Bram shrugged easily. ‘Sometimes Marnix does, and there are other people I know. We see each other at the wall or wherever, and sometimes we pass on information. That’s about it.’

  ‘So places like this are your cliffs?’

  ‘Yeah, but you know, it’s not just about climbing up, doing difficult routes or whatever. It’s about being in a different place.’ He pointed back over his shoulder with a thumb. ‘That house we climbed up – we call it de ladder because it’s so easy to do. Once you’re up here, it’s’ – he thought about it – ‘just different. You get a new perspective on everything. It’s the last unspoiled part of Ghent. One place the Brits and the Dutch don’t get to go. Sometimes in summer I lie on the roof of some building and look down over the edge, and you can see them all swarming around like ants, everyone going click, click, click with their digital cameras. Up here, it’s peaceful. Sometimes I spend the whole night up here.’

  ‘The whole night?’

  Bram nodded. ‘I have a bivvy bag. Easier to move than a tent, and not so obvious. But there are people who pitch tents up here, on the higher roofs where nobody’s overlooking them.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ said Veerle. She glanced around. ‘Do you ever spend the night here, on this block?’

  ‘Not here,’ he said. ‘I come here to look at that.’ He nodded towards the Gravensteen. ‘I’d like to do that one day. I don’t mean go round it during the day with all the foreign tourists. Anyone can do that. I mean at night. I’d like to go up to the top of the battlements and see the whole city lit up, and the three towers floodlit. If it was a good night I’d sleep out up there.’

  ‘That would be unbelievable.’

  Bram shot her a glance. ‘If I did it, you could come too. It means all night, though.’

  ‘All night?’ said Veerle cautiously.

  ‘Has to be,’ Bram told her. ‘You can’t just nip in and out of there. They knew what they were doing, back in the twelfth century. That place is impossible to break in or out of. We’d have to be in there when they locked up.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Veerle. ‘I’d have to find some excuse for being out all night, and that could be really difficult.’

  ‘Your dad?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Veerle. She hesitated. There was something on her mind, something she wanted to ask. ‘Bram,’ she said slowly, ‘when you’re up here on the rooftops, have you ever seen . . .’ She paused, thinking, This is going to sound crazy. I can’t say, Have you ever seen anything that might be demons up here, Bram?

  Bram was looking at her, waiting for her to go on.

  ‘. . . anything strange?’ she finished, self-consciously.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘There are these stories going around,’ said Veerle. ‘About things being seen on the rooftops.’

  ‘Demons,’ supplied Bram. He said it so matter-of-factly that for a moment Veerle was thrown. He put his head back, gazing at the sky. ‘Yes, I’ve heard those stories.’ Then he looked at her. ‘Where did you hear them? It’s usually the really old people, the ones who’ve always lived in Ghent, who go on about that stuff.’

  ‘There’s this girl in my class. She’s called Suki. She’s been telling people she’s actually seen the demons on the rooftops, and they think she’s completely insane, or else trying to get a rise out of everyone.’

  ‘Well,’ said Bram casually, ‘she probably has seen someone up here.’

  Veerle stared at him. ‘You . . .?’

  ‘Well, not just me.’ Bram was grinning now. ‘The others too. And I’m not saying some of them aren’t a bit strange.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Veerle, laughing.

  ‘I know. They’re just people, though. But it’s kind of useful, that thing about the demons on the rooftops, because if anyone sees anything, people react the way you said they did to Suki. They just think the person has a screw loose. Marnix, he actually got some of those plastic demon horns, the ones you get for fancy dress, and wore them a few times when he was up here.’ Bram laughed. ‘Probably gave a few people a heart attack.’

  ‘So this whole story about the demons – did one of you start it?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Bram, shaking his head. ‘There have been rumours going round about it for . . .’ He thought. ‘Over five hundred years.’

  ‘Five hundred years?’

  ‘Like I said, we didn’t start it. It’s just . . . convenient.’

  ‘So who did?’ asked Veerle.

  ‘You sure you want to hear this? It’s kind of a long story.’

  Veerle put her head on one side. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it’s just a local legend. It’s not written down anywhere, and it�
�s definitely not in any of the guide books. It’s not the kind of thing the Ghent tourist board is promoting. It’s just some old story that’s been around for ever.’ Bram nodded at the street behind Veerle. ‘Most of the people down there don’t know it, and definitely not the ones whose grandparents weren’t Ghent born and bred.’

  ‘Mysterious,’ remarked Veerle. She was wondering whether Bram was setting her up, preparing to spin her a line.

  ‘OK, well, you know the painting in Sint-Baafs? The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb?’

  ‘Ye-e-s . . .’

  ‘People say it’s a Van Eyck.’

  ‘Jan Van Eyck, right?’ said Veerle, plucking a scrap of remembered detail from her visit to the altarpiece in its glazed room in the cathedral.

  ‘Not just Jan Van Eyck,’ said Bram. ‘The painting was started by his brother, Hubert Van Eyck. It was Jan Van Eyck who finished it.’

  Veerle looked at him, then shrugged. ‘So?’

  ‘The point is why it was Jan who finished it. Hubert was the elder brother and the court painter. He was the one who was commissioned to create the altarpiece, not Jan. Some people say that Hubert was the greater painter. Only maybe,’ said Bram, ‘he was too good. And that was when the rumours started. People said that what Hubert was doing wasn’t right.’

  ‘Because he was too good?’ Veerle raised her eyebrows. ‘How could that be a problem?’

  ‘Because of who was helping him. Supposedly.’

  ‘Let me guess. The devil?’

  Bram nodded.

  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ said Veerle. ‘He was doing the painting for the church.’

  ‘He was doing it for his patron,’ said Bram. ‘Not the church itself. Look, you’ve seen the altarpiece, right? Did you go round the back?’

  Veerle shook her head.

  ‘Well, if you ever do, there are portraits of the guy who commissioned the painting, and his wife. He was called Joos Vijdt and his wife was Lysbette Borluut. They were rich but they never had any kids. By the time Hubert started painting them, Lysbette was too old anyway. So the altarpiece was their way of making sure they were remembered.’