‘Hello,’ she said, grinning at him.
‘Fräulein Herzenweg?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Kirsten Herzenweg,’ and there was a touch of pride in the declaration.
‘You’re German?’
‘Actually, I seem to be Danish. Three of the monks here are from the continent and have quite a number of languages between them, so we checked. I speak okay French, good German and fluent English, but my native language seems to be Danish. Just think, I can remember all those languages but I can’t remember anything about my own life? Isn’t it crazy?’
She was carrying a cloth-covered tray. Now she sort of brandished it at him.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘Food!’
Stephen’s stomach rumbled again. It seemed to be fretting that its owner might not speak up for it. Kirsten Herzenweg laughed at the sound – a curiously carefree laugh for someone in her situation.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘I’ve eaten already, but I’ll have tea with you if I may.’
‘Please,’ Stephen said, trying to show some manners. His mind, like his eyes, fixed on the tray as the girl put it on the big table and whisked the cloth away. Then he went and sat, and for the next ten minutes he ate ravenously. Kirsten said he’d eaten nothing since his arrival, except some broth that the monks had managed to pour down his throat. That explained the abbot’s reference to ‘proper’ food.
Kirsten poured strong tea into plain, brown mugs.
‘There’s coffee here too,’ she said, ‘but very little. It’s a real treat. We’ve just about run out of a lot of things. The monks weren’t prepared for anything like this. We plan a foraging expedition to one of the towns tomorrow.’
He heard pride in her voice when she used the word ‘we’.
‘Is there really no clue as to what happened?’ he asked.
‘No. There’s no news of any kind. Not a soul to be found so far except those poor people – we poor people, I should say.’ She gave a little shudder. ‘It’s terrible to think what might have become of us if the monks hadn’t found us, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose so,’ Stephen said. Personally, he found what had happened to them pretty terrible anyway, whatever it had been. ‘But there must be something out there. Have the monks searched?’
‘Only as far as the nearest village, and that’s just a cluster of houses at a crossroads. They’ve been up to their eyes looking after all of us. But tomorrow, Philip and I are going to the local market town. It’s the main town in the area. Maybe we’ll find people there.’
‘Maybe you’ll even find people who are, you know, all right. The inhabitants.’
Kirsten made a face.
‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘It’s only about twenty kilometres away. If there were any people there, surely they’d have come looking for us by now. No. The trip tomorrow will be a major expedition, but I don’t think anyone expects to find people in the town, much as we’d love to.’
‘But they have to find people soon, I mean, everybody can’t have just disappeared into thin air! It’s not possible!’
‘There’s nothing on radio or television,’ she reminded him. ‘No electricity …’
‘There must be a simple explanation. Maybe it’s just a local thing. How could such a big disaster happen so suddenly? Even if everyone was dead, there’d be bodies. It’s just impossible!’
‘But it’s happened,’ she said gently. ‘Local or not, it’s happened.’
They talked about the situation for a while. It saved them from talking about themselves, which is a hard thing to do when you don’t know who you are. After he’d called the girl Fräulein Herzenweg a few times, she stopped him.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘You sound like the monks! Call me Kirsten.’
‘You think that’s really your name?’
She’d obviously thought about this.
‘It’s strange,’ she admitted. ‘I mean, Kirsten is a good, solid Danish name, but Herzenweg is German. Maybe my family came from Germany originally. The letters in my pocket were both addressed to Fräulein Kirsten Herzenweg – that’s a German form of address. Oh well, in a way I rather like being a mystery. It makes me feel important.’
‘And the letters themselves?’ Stephen asked. ‘Did they have any useful information?’
‘No,’ she said wistfully. ‘There were three envelopes. One was a bank statement showing a money transfer, and the other two were empty.’
‘What about postmarks? Where were they all sent from?’
‘The empty envelopes were posted from Belgium. The bank statement was from Dublin.’
‘Dublin?’
She gave him a puzzled look.
‘My God!’ she said. ‘You don’t even know what country we’re in, do you?’
Stephen thought for a moment.
‘Ireland,’ he said finally, not knowing how he knew, but still certain that he was right.
Kirsten nodded and smiled.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Your home country, to judge by your accent. Maybe I’m a tourist.’
‘Did the other … ‘patients’ have anything to identify them?’
‘No. None of them. Only me.’
Again her voice was proud, as though she’d been somehow responsible for this.
Stephen soon felt tired. He hadn’t recovered from his weakness, and the food was making him sleepy. Kirsten noticed.
‘Rest,’ she said. ‘You’ll feel much better in the morning. At least, that’s how it was with me.’
She left, taking the tray with her. Stephen got into bed and lay awake for a few minutes afterwards, thinking about her. He didn’t know what to make of Kirsten Herzenweg. She didn’t seem very disturbed by her amnesia. She was, she’d said, concentrating on the present. Maybe he could learn from her example.
‘The past is gone anyway,’ she’d said. ‘Maybe I’d hate it if I knew about it. Maybe I was someone awful, or worse, maybe I was someone boring! Perhaps I’ll never find out who I was. But in the meantime the present is here, and I’m here, and I’m needed. The monks need all the help they can get right now.’
It seemed sensible enough. In the middle of thinking so, Stephen fell asleep.
3. The Bearded Monk
Stephen was woken at some dead hour of the night by a dreadful sound – a long, singing howl that made his flesh creep and the hairs on the back of his neck stand erect. He was terrified for a moment, not knowing where he was. Just as he started to think that he’d dreamed it, he heard it again. It was the sound a lonely, wounded night would make, if lonely, wounded nights could make sounds. It also sounded like it came from just below his window.
Stephen was shivering in a cold sweat. He wanted to crawl under the quilt and pull it over his head. Instead, he made himself get out of bed, go to the window and look out. The window was ajar, and the sweet air of the summer night brought in a scent of distant greenery. The dark blue sky was spangled with shimmering stars. The moon was fat and silver, and it lit the courtyard clearly with a cold, white light.
In the middle of the courtyard, a very tall man was moving in crazy circles around the well. He was being chased by a young monk who seemed in no great hurry to catch him. He trailed half-heartedly in the tall man’s ragged course, not even trying to catch up with him. The fugitive himself didn’t seem to notice the monk.
‘Where are you?’ he roared out suddenly to someone or something. ‘Unshade me! It hurts!’
‘Unshade me?’ thought Stephen, puzzled. But he was sure that was what he had said. The man was old – a big old stick of a man with a gaunt face and raggy white hair that shone silver in the moonlight. His head was thrown back as he staggered around, howling at the moon. Stephen shuddered at the weird sight.
The grotesque pair rounded the well a few times. Then another monk entered the courtyard from a doorway somewhere beneath Stephen’s window, a big, bearded man who stood for a moment, watching the chase. Then he snapped at the young monk in a stern voice with an Irish accent – t
he first Stephen had heard.
‘Catch up, you little eejit! You’re like a pup after an ould buck rabbit, half afraid to catch what it’s hunting.’
Spurred on by this, or perhaps more afraid of the newcomer than of the old man, the pursuer put on a spurt of speed. He caught up with the staggering figure easily, and threw his arms around his waist. The fugitive lashed out with one thin arm and sent him sprawling. But the monk was suddenly game – he threw himself bodily at the man, grabbing hold of him again. This time the old man just kept going, dragging the monk behind him. It would have looked funny if it hadn’t been so sinister.
‘He’s too strong!’ the monk shouted in a panicky voice.
The bearded monk gave a loud sigh. He went over and stood in the old man’s path. Stephen noticed that he was almost as tall as the old man, and heavily built.
‘Such gods as there be, please forgive me,’ the big monk said. Then he punched the old man, once, in the jaw. The fugitive grunted and went down like a pole-axed cow, pulling the young monk down with him. With a little squawk, the monk scrambled to his feet. He stood looking from one big man to the other.
‘You hit him!’ he said, sounding outraged and impressed all at once.
The big monk sighed.
‘I did,’ he said. ‘I hit him.’ He put a hand on the young monk’s shoulder. ‘It’s never nice, son,’ he said. ‘But sometimes it does just simplify things. He’ll be grand when he wakes up.’
‘But won’t it hurt him afterwards?’
The big monk bent down and heaved the long form of the old man over his shoulder. He straightened up again.
‘There’s something so big hurting this one,’ he said, ‘that a puck in the jaw won’t make much difference.’
He set off across the courtyard lightly carrying the old man across his shoulder, draped like a rolled-up rug. The young monk followed.
After they’d gone, Stephen stayed for a long time looking out at the empty night. His skin crawled, and he pitied himself. What had happened in the world? Who were these unfortunate people? And who, for that matter, was he?
4. Breakfast
The next morning Kirsten woke him early, bringing breakfast on a tray. She seemed almost giddy at the prospect of the morning’s expedition, which she insisted on calling ‘The Raid’. Stephen laughed at her.
‘It’s only natural that I’m excited,’ she said, not minding his amusement. ‘I am Danish after all, my ancestors were Vikings. Raiding must be in my blood!’
It was impossible not to smile at her enthusiasm, but Stephen wondered how she managed it in the circumstances.
Kirsten sat by the table as he ate his breakfast, but she was so excited she couldn’t sit still. Stephen hadn’t known that it was possible to hop from foot to foot while sitting down, but she proved that it was. She talked non-stop, fantasising about what they might find on the expedition. She really didn’t seem upset by the whole situation. If anything, the mystery seemed to excite her all the more.
‘You’re coming with us, aren’t you?’ she asked. ‘If you feel up to it, I mean.’
Stephen wasn’t sure how he felt, but he knew that he couldn’t pass up the chance to see this brave new world. He was unnerved by the situation, but he was very curious too.
‘You’re definitely going?’ he asked.
‘Of course! I wouldn’t miss it for anything. This is like living in a movie!’
But what kind of movie? he wondered. He remembered last night’s howling. It had made him feel like he was in a horror film, and horror films tended to have monsters in them.
‘It’s not a movie,’ he reminded her. ‘It’s real. We’re not on some adventure holiday.’
‘Our expedition today is important,’ Kirsten replied. ‘There’s very little food left in the abbey. The monks get most of their food from their farm, but they don’t have enough supplies stored to deal with six extra mouths. And there are replacement parts and fuel needed for the generator, and clothes for me – I can hardly ask Philip to pick underwear for me, can I? I do know how serious the situation is – or may be. But, at the same time, there’s no way I’m going to miss this raiding party, I mean, it even sounds funny, doesn’t it: the monastery raiding party?’
He had to admit that, yes, it did sound funny.
‘The abbot insists on calling it a “reconnaissance”,’ Kirsten continued. ‘But Philip just laughs when he hears that and says, “Paul, I always knew you were a Jesuit at heart”. Which Paul doesn’t like, because he’s not even a Christian. And then again he’s Swiss – very serious!’
‘What do you mean, he’s not a Christian? He’s a monk!’
‘Yes, but this isn’t a Christian order. I’ll tell you about it later!’
‘But–’
But Kirsten had sat still as long as her excitement would allow, and was already at the door.
‘I have to help Philip finalise the list of supplies,’ she said over Stephen’s protests. ‘We call it “the shoplifting list”. Philip won’t admit it, but he’s just as excited as I am. He’s dying to see what’s out there. I think he’s secretly enjoying all of this. Come and join us in the kitchen when you’re dressed.’
‘Maybe Philip’s ancestors were Vikings, too,’ Stephen said.
Her laughter hung in the air after the door closed behind her.
Stephen finished breakfast quickly and went to the cupboard. His clothes were unfamiliar to him. They were perfectly ordinary: tee shirt and sweatshirt, dark denim jeans, socks and trainers. Everything, including the shoes, was spotlessly clean. He presumed they’d been laundered since his arrival. Although he knew that the monks would already have checked, he still went through the pockets carefully. There was nothing in any of them. He hadn’t really expected to find anything, but he was disappointed anyway.
‘You’re stupid,’ he said to himself. He suddenly felt that he was standing on a very thin surface, and that under the surface there was a great, sucking depth of something thick and black and smothering. He dressed quickly, trying hard to think of nothing except the journey ahead and what they might find.
5. Fresh Air
Stephen walked down the stone corridor outside his room. At its end was a stairway. His soft soles made no sound on the stone steps. At the bottom of the stairs he startled a young monk who was on his knees, scrubbing flagstones in the hallway. The monk jerked back in surprise, nearly knocking over the bucket of sudsy water that stood beside him. Stephen recognised him as the young monk from the courtyard the night before. The big, bearded man must have been Brother Philip – he’d suspected as much.
‘I’m sorry,’ Stephen said. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’
The young monk’s face reddened. ‘You … you’re the guest from upstairs,’ he stammered.
‘Yes,’ Stephen said. ‘I am.’ He repeated his apology.
‘It’s nothing,’ the monk said. ‘Really. It’s just that I didn’t hear you coming, and when I saw you standing over me …’ His voice trailed off, embarrassed, and he made a vague gesture with the wire-bristled scrubbing-brush in his hand. ‘I thought you might be one of the confined ones. They get out sometimes, no matter how closely we watch them. Some of them are very strong and … crazy.’
Stephen realised that the young monk was very afraid. He could think of nothing reassuring to say, so instead he asked for directions to the kitchen. The monk indicated an open, arched doorway beside them that led outside.
‘Right across the courtyard,’ he said, pointing with the scrubbing-brush. ‘Go through the door directly opposite. That’s the kitchen wing. I don’t know whether Brother Philip and Fräulein Herzenweg are in the kitchens or the storeroom, but both rooms are right through there.’
The courtyard was neither as small nor as bare as it had looked from his upstairs window. Looking around and up, Stephen saw that his own room was in one of the two longer arms of a building that was shaped like a square-cornered U. The kitchen was in the opposite arm. To his
left, forming the shorter base of the U, stood the main building of the monastery. It was built around a bell-tower that rose above two great wooden doors, which were standing open. On the fourth side, to his right, the top of the U was closed off by a high stone wall, pierced by a large gateway. The wooden gates, which were even bigger than the doors in the bell-tower, were also open.
The courtyard itself was partly flagged, partly gravelled. The well stood in the centre. In front of the main building was a strip of lawn, and between the lawn and the wall of the building itself lay a flowerbed riotous with colour. A flagstone path leading to the great doors bisected both flowerbed and lawn.
It was a very pleasant place in the morning sun. Overhead the sky was a brilliant, cloudless blue. The air was fresh and sweet, heavy with the scent of flowers and the humming of bees. A summer world. It seemed far too beautiful a world to have spawned a great disaster.
He walked carefully across the stone flags – after several days in bed, his legs felt unsteady. The fresh air alone made him dizzy. His head swam with a riot of sensations – the bright light and the heat, the colours and the buzzing of bees, the scents of flowers. The world seemed completely strange to him, as though he’d spent years locked up in an airless cell. And still the questions chased each other round and round in his mind, as they’d done since he’d first woken the day before: who was he? what had happened? where was everyone else?
It was all too much. Stephen felt light-headed and a weak surge of panic welled up in him. He stopped by the well, leaning on its old stone parapet, breathing in the cool, damp air that drifted up from its depths. The bucket, hung from a long rope coiled around a wooden winch, had been recently used – maybe by the monk who was scrubbing the floor. Fat drops of water were dripping from its base. It took a while for each drop to plink into the water below. It was deep water that would be cool on the hottest day.
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