HS03 - A Visible Darkness

by Michael Gregorio

  ‘I will not pay money for such useless information,’ I said.

  In the course of this exchange of opinions, my hand had slid into my pocket in search of coins, then slid out again as I realised the waste that such a donation would constitute. Herr Doctor Rickert had followed my every movement, and he must have understood that his thalers were in the balance.

  ‘It would be money well spent,’ he replied sullenly. ‘If he is a . . . Kantian, you’ll find him there, I’m certain.’ He seemed to imply much more than he actually said. His eyes flashed nervously around the room, as if he feared being overheard, though there was no chance of it. I was the only person within a mile of the philosophy desk. ‘All the true followers of Kant go there,’ he added in a whisper. He bit his lower lip with his brown upper teeth, and made a thoughtful sucking sound. ‘I could even look in the university back-lists for you. Could this person have registered at some time in the past? I can check back as far as 1800, though I’ll have to go to the general deposit, which is now kept up at the castle.’ He grimaced, then lowered his voice again. ‘It is as if they wished to carry off the history of this institution. The French, I mean. A new era has begun, and they will not let us forget it!’

  I slipped my hand into pocket, pulled out my purse, counted out two thalers, and dropped them into his open, waiting hand.

  ‘The usual fee,’ I insisted.

  Dr Rickert’s fist closed around the coins like a spring-trap.

  ‘Very good, sir. Now, to work, to work! About this person that you are looking for.’ His voice was bubbling with excitement. ‘What did you say his name was?’

  ‘Vulpius,’ I replied.

  ‘Vulpius?’ he repeated thoughtfully, playing his forefinger against his flabby lower lip. ‘A most unusual name. Does he have a Christian name?’

  ‘I know him only as Vulpius,’ I said.

  He nodded energetically, writing it down on a slip of paper. ‘And where can I get in touch with you, sir?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know as yet,’ I answered hesitantly. General Malaport had mentioned that a bed would be found for me in one of the dormitories in the castle, but the last thing I wished to do was to sleep in the company of French soldiers. ‘I arrived in town just this morning. I haven’t had the time to make arrangements.’

  Dr Rickert looked up quickly. ‘No place to rest your head for the night, sir?’ A new light flickered in his black eyes. His face was animated by concern. ‘As it happens, you are in luck! I rent rooms in my own home. The best one’s free at the moment. Just five thalers per week, if you take the last lodger’s sheets. Unfortunately—for me, that is–he stayed for two nights only. Came to sit the viva, and complete his degree. As a rule, I charge seven. A real discount, sir. Oh, you’ll be comfortable. And I should have the information that you want before you go to bed.’

  ‘If the sheets are clean . . .’

  ‘Immaculate!’ he exclaimed. ‘A boy from an excellent family.’

  ‘Very well,’ I agreed. I had placed the coins on the sticky palm of Dr Rickert without knowing what I was buying.

  ‘Very good,’ he said, nodding fiercely as he wrote out the address on another slip of paper, and handed it across to me. ‘Ritterstrasse is only a five-minute walk from here. I begin preparing dinner as the church clocks strike seven. You can eat whenever you arrive. I will set a place for you, too, sir. My portions are large, I can assure you.’

  The services offered by Rickert were inexhaustible, it seemed.

  ‘Perhaps you can assist me further, Dr Rickert,’ I said. ‘I have a couple of letters to write, and I must despatch them tonight. Might you be able to help me on that score?’

  He sat up like a dog presented with a biscuit by his master. ‘It would be one thaler per message, including postage. But, well, as you have engaged the room, and as you’ve also opted for dinner, I think that it could be done for a single thaler. And I’ll throw in the paper, pen and ink.’

  The paper, pen and ink belonged to the university, but I did not quibble.

  ‘Where are these letters bound for, sir? I only ask because it’s getting late, and the diligence will have already left for the more distant provinces . . .’

  Was he about to revise his price-list?

  ‘My home town,’ I specified. ‘Lotingen.’

  Dr Rickert let out a sigh of relief. ‘No problem. No problem at all. We have a couple of hours in that case, then.’

  ‘May I use your desk?’ I asked. ‘Or is there an additional charge?’

  His expression was composed and serious. ‘Oh no, sir. What are you thinking? It comes with the rent of the room. There would have been a small fee, but . . . well, we can skip formalities. You may even use my chair,’ he replied, standing up with alacrity, setting out a pen and paper on the table.

  I thanked him, and sat down.

  I did what I had been meaning to do all day, I wrote a note to Helena.

  She was constantly in my thoughts, I said, and the investigation was proceeding speedily. I told her that I was confident of being home before the child was born. Her time would soon be up. If I had not completed my task (that is, if I had still not caught the killer, though I avoided being so unnecessarily explicit), I would request temporary leave from General Malaport, and I had no doubt that he would grant it. I asked her to consign the second note (which would be folded up and sealed inside her letter) to my assistant, Johannes Gurten. I described him as ‘manna from heaven,’ noting:

  I know not where he may be lodging, but Knutzen will know. I count on you, my love, having no other means of contacting Herr Gurten.

  Kiss our little ones for me. I miss them all. I cannot express the pleasure that I feel to think of the addition to our house hold, who is, at this very moment, growing inside you. Try to keep him/her quiet until I am able to return to you all.

  Yours, etc. Hanno.

  The note to Gurten was more prosaic.

  Königsberg–two unidentified female corpses found here. One was mutilated. The other, too, perhaps. Reports unclear about details. Girls from Nordcopp selling amber in Königsberg? Most likely. City alive with rebels/nationalists/dissidents of every sort.

  I am hunting a ghost named VULPIUS.

  I hope that your research is more material than mine.

  I will keep you posted regarding developments.

  I added Rickert’s address, telling Gurten to send his messages there.

  All the while, Professor Rickert stood in front of the table, his back towards me, arms folded, feet apart, as if he were on special guard duty. Would he charge me for this service, too, I wondered. If any marauding student from another queue came too close, he stepped forward quickly, waved them off with his fists, ordering them angrily to keep their distance and behave like scholars.

  I folded the second letter inside the first, sealed the packet with wax by the candle flame, then I stood up.

  ‘I thank you for your help, Herr Doctor Rickert,’ I said.

  ‘It was nothing, sir. Nothing at all,’ he replied. ‘You have to keep a careful eye on them, you know. Whatever is the university coming to! They’re little better than monkeys. Why, they’d be climbing all over the table if you didn’t fight them off.’

  I knew what was expected of me. I slipped another coin into Rickert’s damp palm as I handed him the letter.

  ‘You spoke of two letters, sir.’

  ‘Just one,’ I replied. ‘Second thoughts, you know.’

  Dr Rickert had no such thoughts. He did not offer to refund a farthing of the money that he had already taken from me.

  ‘Your message will be delivered tomorrow morning,’ he informed me, glancing at the address that I had written. ‘The town is near enough.’

  Dr Rickert was correct. Lotingen was close, Nordcopp even closer. They seemed to me like distant planets drawn together by an astral flux that was malign, mysterious. Lotingen with its invasion of flies and foulness, Nordcopp with its mutilated corpses, living cripples and vu
lnerable women. Königsberg was part of the same impenetrable labyrinth—strange men and stranger trades in the port, the secretive commissions of its jewellers’ shops, the cloisters and the halls of its university ringing with a new scientific language, the old ways all but forgotten. And yet, I thought, there was the secret, hidden underbelly of Königsberg, too, where amber was smuggled, bought and sold, and where feverish and rebellious ideas of Prussia’s spiritual rebirth were never far away.

  ‘A letter to your wife, I see, sir. She’ll be pleased to know that you have found the perfect lodging. Until this evening, then, Herr Stiffeniis. Your humble servant, sir.’

  The eyelids of Dr Rickert beat as rapidly as any young lover’s might, when the moment of separation arrives. By way of contrast, his joyful expression reminded me of the mysterious sentence about blood and how best to extract it, that he had been writing when I arrived. Then, something that Colonel les Halles had said the other night on the coq du mer returned to my thoughts. Nothing is ever as it seems in Prussia, Stiffeniis. What had induced this smiling academic, this thaler-hungry sycophant, to interest himself in blood, and the most efficient ways to extract it from the human body?

  The sun was sinking, and it was gloomy out in the quadrangle. I walked through the great entrance-gate, but I did not leave the precincts of the university. I knew where I was going as I turned away from the harbour, and headed into the shambles of the old town.

  I knew what I would find there.

  28

  THE LIBRARY DOORS were thrown wide open.

  A single lantern traced out a cracked mosaic of pummelled, ancient paving stones. A head poked out of a tiny window in the wall, like a guard-dog on a short chain chasing off unwanted callers.

  ‘What can I do for you, sir?’

  ‘I must speak with Herr Ludvigssen,’ I answered, recovering from my surprise. Here was a change! The library had been abandoned and forgotten the year before. Now, there was a man to guard the entrance.

  ‘Ludvigssen? D’you know where to find him, sir?’

  ‘If he is still down in the Kantstudiensaal . . .’

  ‘That’s right, sir. Been down there before, have you?’

  The head ducked out of sight, as if I had just given the correct password.

  As I went down the stairs to the basement, as the lanterns grew sparser, and the shadows thickened, I recalled my visit to the university library in the company of Serge Lavedrine the year before. On that occasion, thanks to Lavedrine’s perseverance, we had found what we were seeking.

  Would I be so lucky on my own, I wondered.

  The underground corridor ran the length of the building. It was dark and dank, smelling strongly of mould and mice, dusty paper and rank abandonment. My nerves were tingling and a sort of blind panic seized me by the throat. Was it possible that Kant had failed to record our conversation? It had changed the course of my whole life. It had altered the direction of his life, too. I was certain the philosopher had written a note about it, and I did not doubt that his account was hidden somewhere in that archive. All of his extant papers had been deposited there after his death. And Arnold Abel Ludvigssen had been employed as the archivist to catalogue each single manuscript sheet. My nightmare had long been that the man would find my name and learn what I preferred should be forever lost and forgotten.

  My steps echoed on the stone flags. Someone might have been following behind me in the gloom, they sounded so loud. My head was a maelstrom of thoughts that made no sense, as I halted before the door of the Kantstudiensaal.

  I raised my fist—it felt as heavy as a cannonball—then let it fall upon the door.

  ‘Come in,’ a voice called brightly.

  It was not the slurred and slovenly voice that I remembered, though the same man was seated behind a large desk. I recognised the long nose of Arnold Abel Ludvigssen, the straight middle parting, the divided waterfalls of greasy black hair which fell on either side of his long, pale, narrow face. He peered short-sightedly over the top of his pince-nez like a frightened hare.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’

  No light of recognition shone in his eyes, and I was glad of that. Twelve months before, he had been the picture of destitution. Drunk then, he was sober now. The state of the room had altered, too. It was as if a Baltic gale had blown through the place, sweeping up the mountain of manuscripts and books, and depositing them magically in perfect order on the shelves which ran around the walls. He had accomplished a task that would have daunted Hercules. A rubbish tip had been transformed into an archive which was manageable, though vast. The same purifying wind had blown over him. He looked fresh, clean, new, as he came running from behind the desk to meet me.

  ‘I am an investigating magistrate,’ I began to say.

  ‘You’ve come about the stolen papers?’ he asked, and his left eyelid began to flicker nervously.

  ‘I am conducting an enquiry on behalf of General Malaport,’ I specified.

  I could have sworn I heard his heels click together at the mention of the Frenchman’s name. He had been standing in front of me, his body rigid, eyes cast down like a junior officer brought up on a charge. Now, his tense face seemed to visibly relax.

  ‘You are working for the French,’ he started to say, and a trill of nervous laughter burst out of him. ‘That’s a great relief, sir. I knew they’d take the matter seriously in the end.’

  ‘The matter?’ I echoed.

  Herr Ludvigssen was wearing a new suit of neat brown twill, his shirt was clean, his collar stiff with starch, his tie was a puffy red velvet bow. When drunk, the man had been rude and intractable, but now he was as meek as a puppy, and he was sober.

  ‘The papers, sir. I was very worried. That’s why I reported the theft.’

  Had he chosen to confide in me because I was working for the French? He was the first Prussian to behave in such a manner. All the others had been terrified at the thought of talking to a man in my position.

  Before I could ask him what had been taken, he began to speak again.

  ‘I thought that you’d been sent by them . . . My benefactors,’ he said, a twisted expression of resentment on his face.

  ‘Who are you talking of?’ I asked him.

  ‘The people who supervise the archive nowadays.’

  ‘I thought the University ran it?’

  ‘Oh no, sir. Not anymore. The Albertina would have closed the place down,’ he continued. ‘But then . . . they stepped in at the eleventh hour. They paid for the furniture, and the shelves, and the desks, but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘They are strict, sir. Mighty strict. Consider this a mausoleum, they said. And dress the part. The archive must be worthy of the man that it enshrines.’ An embarrassed smile appeared on his face, and he giggled quietly to himself. ‘Sometimes, when I am down here on my own, I have the notion Kant himself has come in through that door, sir. I get the feeling he is watching me. He is a malevolent presence, sir. A threat, I can assure you.’

  He spoke as if he lived in a permanent state of terror.

  ‘Professor Kant would be gratified to see the splendid work that you have done,’ I said, trying to put him at his ease. ‘Who are these benefactors, anyway?’

  His mouth opened and closed, like a carp out of water.

  ‘The idolaters of Kant,’ he whispered, leaning closer. ‘For so I call them.’

  Vulpius had used a similar expression about himself when stopped and questioned in the street by the night watchman. ‘I am a follower of Kant,’ he had said. Had Rickert sent me to the right place, after all?

  ‘Have you ever met these people?’ I asked him.

  Ludvigssen clasped his hands together. ‘Never, sir.’

  ‘Surely, if they pay your salary, someone brings it.’

  He shook his head, and breathed in noisily. ‘Oh no, sir. I am paid through the Albertina Secretariat,’ he replied. ‘That’s not changed, though everything else has. Including the notes I get when I commit
an error, or put a book back in the wrong place. Arrive a minute late, or close too soon, an envelope turns up.’

  ‘Well, somebody must bring those,’ I suggested.

  Ludvigssen shook his head. ‘I find them on my desk. I’ve no idea who brings them here. I’ve asked the watchman on the gate, but he’s got no idea, either. It’s almost as if the fog had delivered them.’

  Ludvigssen shivered as if the temperature had suddenly dropped.

  ‘Were these letters signed?’ I asked, wondering whether there might be some rational explanation, an academic committee, perhaps, that had been formed to oversee the daily running of the archive.

  ‘Not signed, as such,’ he said mysteriously.

  ‘May I see them?’ I asked.

  Ludvigssen looked once again beyond my shoulder to the door. ‘You are a magistrate, aren’t you, sir? Working for the French, I mean?’ he said. His eyes flashed bright with fright. ‘They haven’t sent you here to test me, have they?’

  ‘I am employed by General Malaport, as I told you,’ I answered firmly, ‘and I have come here on his business. Now, let me see these letters, if you will.’

  He blinked nervously, as if uncertain whether the greatest danger lay in me, or in the unseen watchers. Then, with a deep sigh, he crossed the room and sat himself down behind his desk, reaching down to open the bottom drawer.

  As he came up again, holding a sheet of paper, there was something odd in his way of managing it. He had laid the folded paper flat in the palm of his left hand, and he held it closed with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. ‘Open it as if you were lifting up a lid,’ he said, offering the paper to me. ‘That’s right, sir. Just hold it in the same way I am holding it.’

  I did as I was told, then raised the top half carefully. There was red wax all around the edges, as if the paper had been sealed like a packet, as if it had once contained something more than words alone.