HS03 - A Visible Darkness

by Michael Gregorio

He did not react. Or would not. As the silence stretched out, hope began to flutter in my breast, and a sort of desperate madness took hold of me. Why had he taken me prisoner? Why did he let me live? I had something that he wanted. Whatever it was, it might just save my life.

  ‘We can help each other,’ I suggested. ‘Don’t you want to know what Kant left out?’

  Time stood still.

  ‘Continue,’ he snapped.

  ‘What do you think Kant saw in me?’ I asked, carefully weighing my words. ‘What connection did he make between myself and the piece of amber that Wasianski showed him? That was the reason he sent for me, and no one else, four years ago, to investigate the murders in Königsberg.’

  I said no more, but waited for his answer.

  ‘I want to know,’ he said at last.

  I took a deep breath.

  I could smell my own sweat. It was sharper than the stink of the binding cloth and the cloying odour of putrefaction in that place.

  ‘I witnessed an . . . an execution,’ I said.

  I had to force myself to speak. When it came at last, my voice seemed to come from the centre of the Earth. ‘I saw a man beheaded by the guillotine. Blood spurted out of his neck like vapour from the blow-hole of a whale,’ I said. And then, in a whisper, ‘I hoped that the flow would never end.’

  I fell headlong into the nightmare from which I had tried in vain to escape. I told him what I had confessed that day so long ago to Professor Kant. I had been in the Place de la Révolution in January 1793, when the Parisian mob put their king to death. That day my life had changed for ever. I described what I had seen, and what I had felt. It was not an ordered narrative. I re-evoked the violent rush of emotions which possessed me as I stood at the foot of the guillotine. The buzz of vulgar tongues. The dizzy ecstasy of expectation. The execution order finally given, the explosion of a drum-roll. The thunderous beating of my heart. The sudden shriek, the metallic scrape as the blade fell free.

  The fountain of blood upon my face. The coppery taste of it upon my tongue. The immense power of Death. My unquenchable desire to see life taken.

  Again, and again, and again . . .

  I felt anew the passion of that day. I relived it all in perfect detail, wondering where the tale had been hiding. In which dark antechamber of my fetid soul had it lain fallow? I pulled it out like a horrid trophy, and threw it at the feet of the man who meant to murder me. I did not intend to let him think of me as his victim. I wanted him to think of me as his brother in blood.

  ‘Kant saw the same implacable cruelty, the same heartless ferocity, imprisoned in that piece of amber. The hideous insect trapped inside the stone. Wasianski saw a marvel. Kant saw a monster,’ I concluded. ‘He thought at once of me.’

  The light seemed to ebb before my eyes.

  The death-blow must come now.

  I did not strain against my bonds.

  An image filled my thoughts, instead.

  A memory, rather . . .

  I was in the garden. It was early morning still, the light was brilliant. I was on my way to work. I stopped by Helena’s roses, and saw a fly caught tight in a spider’s web. Later that day, I had been summoned by General Malaport and sent to Nordcopp. But it was the fly that gripped my thoughts. I felt as that creature must have felt. I was helpless, mortally trapped in a suffocating web of Heinrich-Vulpius’s making. Like the spider, he would wait until the fight had drained out of me. That is when they kill.

  But no blow came. That voice came, instead.

  ‘Professor Kant saw the future in you,’ he said.

  I was stunned. Had he accepted the deal? Had he taken what I had to offer?

  ‘Prussia will not be born again on the field of battle,’ he murmured. ‘Generals, armies, cannon, frail flesh. These things are gone for ever. Jena proved it. Our revolution will . . . Listen to me,’ he hissed sharply. ‘Could any man, except Professor Kant, have divined it? Our ideals will stem from amber. Our weapons will be wax and flesh. Can you imagine that? You have been to the workshop of DeWitz.’

  What was he saying?

  DeWitz, the workshop, Prussia’s spiritual rebirth?

  ‘I have been there,’ I said uncertainly. ‘I have seen the models for the university.’

  ‘There is much else, besides.’

  What did he mean?

  ‘DeWitz showed me examples of . . .’

  His voice cut brusquely over mine. ‘That place is dark and damp. It is a womb, Herr Stiffeniis. DeWitz knows nothing. He would not recognise the creature taking shape before his eyes.’

  I was lost. He was talking in metaphors.

  The dark, the damp, creatures forming in the womb . . .

  A hand settled heavily on my arm.

  I froze. My scalp tingled madly with fright. My clenched teeth ached as I prepared to die. A knee crushed down upon my chest, holding me firm. Did he intend to cut my throat, as he had done to Ilse? As he had slaughtered Rickert? Would he drive a wooden stake through my heart?

  A thousand terrors flashed through my mind.

  An instant passed, then he removed his knee.

  Was he hovering above me? Was that his game? Would he slaughter me the instant that I attempted to rise and escape from that place?

  ‘Vulpius?’ I hissed again.

  My voice rebounded off the walls. Somewhere a rat skittered across the floor. Or had Vulpius made that sound? Was it part of his strategy—like the spider lurking in my garden—before he struck the final blow?

  ‘Vulpius?’

  Had the offering of the secret, dark side of my heart failed to placate him?

  My breath burst out in a painful rush.

  ‘Vulpius?’ I called again, my voice no longer human to my own ears.

  And Vulpius replied, as he had done before.

  With silence.

  34

  WAS I ALONE?

  I strained to hear him.

  I opened my mouth to cry for help. A last appeal for mercy. I gagged against the sodden binding, tried to think, but despair had laid its heavy hand upon my heart.

  Was this how I would die?

  Like a fly in amber?

  Was Heinrich-Vulpius watching me? Was he sitting somewhere in that room, savouring the agony, enjoying the spectacle of my prolonged dying? My breath came in painful spasms, my chest heaved violently beneath my crossed hands. My face was wet. With blood, I thought. My own, or Rickert’s? The foul sweet odour of his gutted corpse seemed to meld with my own sour sweat. I retched again, then swallowed hard. If I were sick lying flat on my back, I would choke to death.

  I called out frantically. ‘Heinrich, are you there?’

  No sound, no movement signalled his presence.

  I had seen the drawings in his room, the specimens imprisoned in their jars. Insects were his model of perfection. He would act like them. Immobile, half-hidden in the dark, assessing every tiny sign of life remaining in the victim he had managed to entrap. When he was certain of his dominance, he would strike. The spider used its claws, its venomous sting. What means would Heinrich choose to finish me off?

  I listened harder, tensing for the blow that must inevitably come.

  I could hear the sound of something dripping.

  Plop—plop—plop . . .

  Then, I heard the smothered, rasping bubbling of air or gas.

  The corpse was shifting, stiffening, releasing odours and fluids as it settled into final immobility. Rickert’s throat had been slit. His stomach had been gutted. His blood was weeping onto the ground.

  Had he left me alone? Had Heinrich-Vulpius let me live?

  I clutched at straws to avoid sinking into the abyss. Was he satisfied with our exchange? Had I told him what he wanted to know? The secrets of my soul were mine no more. The murderer knew what Professor Kant alone had known before. He had made the connection with amber that he was looking for.

  I started, suddenly.

  I would find what I was looking for in the workshop of DeWitz.
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  Prussia will be born again from wax and amber . . .

  What was hidden there? What had I not seen? What had De-Witz not shown me?

  My left hand slid free, pulled tight across my chest a moment before. I suddenly found that I could move it. My fingers wriggled like a clutch of maggots freshly spawned. I pushed at the bindings, then tore a hole in the mesh. I felt cold air against my skin. Frantic energy possessed me as I struggled to escape. The ripping sounded like a cascading waterfall.

  I froze, listening. If he were there, he must strike now.

  No voice shouted out. No footsteps clattered on the tiles. No boot pressed down on my frail bones.

  I was alone . . .

  I pushed out with both my hands, using all my strength, stretching the restraining material away from my body. More cold air entered. I gulped at it, sucking it greedily into my starved lungs. The smell of Rickert filled my nostrils, making me retch and baulk. If Heinrich had not killed me, that rapidly decomposing corpse would soon have done the job. I tore the bindings from my body, shouting with the effort as the material began to yield. Hands free, I sat up and stripped the wrappings from my face.

  A candle burned above the fireplace. The flame was weak, the light a sickly yellow. And yet, it might have been the sun at midday. I was obliged to turn my eyes away. That side of the room was empty. I quickly looked the other way, still fearful of my captor.

  Two eyes stared into mine.

  They were open wide. His face was a foot away from my own. Yet, he was not looking at me. His eyes were fixed on dark infinity. Had he seen the blow striking down on him? Had he felt his throat being slashed open? Blood had gorged out onto his neck and his chest. It had spouted upwards, then cascaded back, like frothy beer from a freshly broached barrel. His chin was black where the gore had clotted and dried. Another slash had ripped his stomach open. I was lying in his mortal fluids. The net curtain which held me tight was sodden with the blood and the effluents of Narcizus Rickert.

  Heinrich-Vulpius had laid me next to the corpse. He had intended to kill me in the same manner. We would have rotted there together until the stench brought neighbours and the police to investigate the cause of it.

  Nausea gripped me. I emptied my stomach on the floor.

  Heinrich-Vulpius had gone. Wherever his folly had taken him, I could only be grateful that he had chosen to spare me. I had given him what he sought; he had left me with my life. And something more. His words rang insistently in my head.

  The workshop of DeWitz . . .

  I darted to the door, listened for an instant, then threw it open.

  A draught of cold air doused the candle. I was tempted to cry out, but did not. He might be in the passage. I could not see ahead of me. I hesitated to escape. He might be waiting there in the dark. That cold breeze might have been his icy, deathly breath. And yet, I had to go forward. Whatever the risk, I had to do it. Like Lazarus when he rose up from the tomb, I was seized by doubts and misgivings. Not happiness, certainly. I had to hurry.

  I leapt out into the passage-way. No one tried to stop me. No shout went up as I darted for the door. No dagger lunged as I pulled it open and ran out into the deserted street. Somewhere in the distance I could hear the sound of a hornpipe played by a hollow, rasping fiddle and a sibilant, whistling flute.

  The river shone like a rippled sheet of glass at the far end of the sloping prospect, and I began to run towards the water. I knew where I was going. Certain of the direction, I ran out onto the wharf. A group of sailors were drinking on the quay beside their barge. One man was dancing with a woman, the others egging them on to worse.

  I began to run along the wharf towards the Kniephof bridge.

  There is much else besides . . .

  What had Vulpius meant? What was he thinking of?

  Vulpius?

  My side was aching. I slowed to a trot, but still I pressed on.

  Gurten had interpreted the words of Heinrich. He had made sense of the collection of objects in Heinrich’s house. He had seen an aspect of the plaster casts of Erika’s limbs that I had failed to see. He was convinced that Heinrich was the killer. Heinrich killed to gain possession of the rare and precious amber which would support his scientific theory. Gurten had been right concerning who the killer was, though he had never understood the murderer’s motive. He had failed to explain why Heinrich mutilated his victims. I must find the missing piece in the puzzle. And I must find it fast.

  I turned the corner into Schwartzstrasse.

  Advancing more warily, I hugged the walls, darting from one deep shadow to the next, careful to avoid being seen by anyone who might be guarding the waxworks. The street was deserted, the workshops closed for the night, and yet, the scents of wood and sawdust, paint and pitch, and all the other materials from which our industry is forged hung heavily on the night air. Among those cold and stagnant smells, a fresher perfume picked its way with care.

  The warm smell of melting wax.

  I stopped before the door of the waxworks.

  How should I enter?

  It had been hot inside the vault. DeWitz had ordered the air vents to be opened to relieve the discomfort of his employees. A man had opened them, using a long hooked stick. I worked my way along the brick wall of the workshop, searching for one of these wooden hatches. I came to the corner without finding one, then turned down the narrow alley which ran along the side of the building. It was darker there, more putrid than the filthy street. I trod upon a rat, and heard it yelp.

  Might there be a night-watchman?

  A simple knock on the door, and he would have opened up. Would DeWitz employ a man to guard that place at night? Was there any sane man who wished to steal what the Dutchman manufactured? But then, I saw what I was seeking: a half-moon wooden shutter close to the ground. I tried to kick it in with my foot, but it would not give. A pale halo of light shimmered around the edges.

  Somebody was in there . . .

  The impulse to run was strong. I could go to General Malaport, and tell him what I knew. He would call out the French soldiers. They would storm the workshop in force. But would they come in time?

  Heinrich-Vulpius would flee . . .

  Whoever was inside the workshop was making no attempt to hide.

  I retraced my steps to the front, raised my fist, and hammered on the door.

  Nothing happened for a minute or more. No one came. I knocked again.

  Then, I heard the murmur of voices. Not one person. More than one. They were talking—whispering—on the other side of the door.

  I rapped harder.

  ‘Signor DeWitz?’ a female voice cried out. ‘È lei là fuori?’

  ‘Sono il magistrato Stiffeniis,’ I answered.

  I had learnt some simple phrases when I visited Italy fifteen years before.

  The double door creaked, and half of it swung open slowly. Two women stood before me, their eyes were wide with fright. One of them held up an oil-lantern, and I recognised her.

  ‘Maria.’

  The woman smiled uncertainly. ‘You came yesterday,’ she said in stilted German. ‘Signor DeWitz is not here tonight, sir.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I replied, stepping inside.

  ‘Was that you in the alley, sir? You frightened us. We are working. We thought it was the rats. They love the wax, and lay siege to this place at night.’

  DeWitz had said that they worked at all hours when a suitable corpse required it.

  ‘I will not take up your time, I promise you,’ I replied, stepping inside. ‘Just show me one thing, and I’ll leave you in peace.’

  Maria had been modelling a human hand in wax the day before. She turned to the other woman, who was older, plumper, her long black hair rolled up in a net which hung heavily on her shoulder. They spoke together in Italian for a moment, Maria explaining who I was, reassuring her friend.

  ‘Is anyone here, except yourselves?’ I asked.

  They knew Vulpius, and would have let him in w
ithout any question.

  ‘There’s no one else tonight, sir,’ Maria assured me. ‘I’m helping Anna. She has a lung to finish.’

  ‘Lung nearly done,’ the other woman said in broken German. ‘Nothing left for the rats. È quasi putrefatto. Urgh!’ The look that appeared on her face was one of plain disgust.

  ‘No one wants to work at night,’ Maria said with a twitch of her nose. ‘But if there’s work to finish, well, we have no choice.’

  ‘What about Herr Vulpius?’ I asked her.

  ‘Oh, he is different,’ she said. ‘He’ll work any time.’

  ‘Have you seen him recently?’

  ‘Not for weeks, sir.’

  I paused for a moment. ‘There is a place, I think, where freshly made models are left to set.’

  ‘The cold room.’

  ‘That’s it,’ I said, explaining nothing. ‘Can you lead me there?’

  As we passed through the vaults, I noticed the tiny oil-lamps burning in every room beneath a brass cauldron so that the wax would not set hard during the night. And in the main work-room the other woman returned to her table, where a lamp and a mirror illuminated the puffed-up lungs on which she was working.

  We stopped before a small wooden door.

  ‘Here you are,’ Maria said, and handed me her lamp.

  As the door swung gently open on its hinges, I stepped inside, and looked around. There were four full-length figures in the centre of the room. They were laid out beneath white sheets which served as dust-covers. There was no other door, no room leading on from this one. This was the innermost sanctuary of DeWitz’s workshop.

  The cold room.

  No cauldrons bubbled there. It was cooler than the other rooms, but not cold. Neither was the chamber large, though it was cramped, and full of things. In the weak light of the lamp I could see that there were shelves on three of the walls. They were loaded down with objects, each of which was covered with a cloth. They might have been packages waiting to be collected from a post office. Signs hung at intervals on the walls: BONES/SKELETAL COMPONENTS. MUSCLES, TENDONS, CARTILAGES, EXTENSORS. LUNGS/FINE TISSUE. ORGANS. MEMBRANES. BRAINS.

  I peeled back the sheet which shrouded the object on the nearest table.