“Bastards,” Emil said again, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You know why they beat me up? They thought I was homosexual. Just because they recognised me from the stage – they assumed – the names they called me! Obscene.”
“I’m sorry,” said Karl.
“What are you sorry for? You stopped them killing me.”
“Why were you in there? There are pleasanter establishments.”
“Who are you, my father? I was there to get drunk, that’s all. I got into an argument with them – that idiot, Notz, was spouting rubbish, praising Mussolini – so I put him right. A fight started – think I was thrown out, don’t remember. But once I was outside, some of them followed me. They called me a filthy poof. Me!”
“I could call the police,” said Karl. The thought of hunting down each thug individually and tearing out his throat was tempting, but he dismissed the impulse. His main concern was to deliver Emil safely back to Violette.
“No, not the police. I don’t want to bring scandal to the ballet – although why should I care any more? She doesn’t want me. I can’t go back there.”
“You might as well. Just go to bed, sleep it off, see the doctor if you need to. Violette will not be happy at the state of your face.”
Emil gave a short, harsh laugh. “What does she care? I suppose she told you – has she told everyone what a fool I made of myself?”
“Emil,” Karl said firmly. “She told only Charlotte and me.”
“Mikhail knows, so everybody knows.”
“It doesn’t matter. And you haven’t made a fool of yourself. You love her, but she doesn’t love you? I know it feels like the end of the world, but it isn’t.”
“Easy for you to say. No one understands how this feels. All the beer, the screeching racket they call music, girls smiling at me, all those boots in my guts – none of it made the pain go away. What will make the pain stop? Why can’t she…?”
He stopped, gasping for breath. Karl let him pause, concerned that he’d punctured a lung.
“What is it? Can you breathe?”
“Yes. I’m all right. But I remember what Charlotte said to me… that Violette loved someone who died. When she told me that, I felt her grief – Violette’s grief. That’s why these stupid tears won’t stop. But then I thought – who was the lucky man she loved? And if she’s capable of love, why can she not love me? I could comfort her. She doesn’t have to live alone, grief-stricken, without love.”
“Come on,” Karl said. He put his arm around Emil’s shoulders, as much to soothe him as to help him walk.
“Did you know him? Who was he?”
“She,” Karl corrected. “Emil, you don’t know Violette at all. No one does, really. She doesn’t love easily, it’s true. But when she does, her affection is only for other women.”
“No.” Emil reeled, would have fallen if Karl had not held him up. “You’re lying!”
Karl shook his head. “You must have heard rumours. It’s true. You deserve the truth.”
The theatre rose in front of them, its facade a glory of Art Nouveau curves, with pillars carved in the shape of goddesses trailing fruit and vines from their hands.
“No. Liars, all of you!”
“The sooner you accept the truth, the easier it will be. You are going to look and feel like death in the morning,” Karl said briskly. “I’ll take you to your room, and bring you water and aspirin. I know this heartache feels as if it will never pass, and you won’t get over it in a day – so I suggest that you don’t even try. Just sleep. I’ll come back and see you tomorrow.”
“Why? Who are you, anyway? She sends her lackeys after me!”
“Half dead on your feet, and still so belligerent?”
“Hide me from Violette,” said Emil. He missed his footing as Karl took him through a side door into the academy, collapsed like a dead weight and began sobbing. Karl had never seen a man cry so excessively. “I don’t want her to see me like this.”
“She values you more than you know,” said Karl, hefting him to his feet and closing the door behind them.
“It’s not enough.”
“It will have to be enough, because that’s all she can give.”
CHAPTER TEN
CAPTURING AN IMAGE
Emil woke, blinded by daylight, feeling as if a tank had run over him.
The ballet’s doctor, a short balding man of sixty or so, was leaning over his bed. Everywhere his fingers probed, fresh waves of pain throbbed through Emil. He slapped the doctor’s hand away with an inarticulate growl of rage.
“Get off me!”
The doctor scowled and stepped away, pulling down his rolled up sleeves and refastening his cufflinks. Then Emil saw three figures standing inside the doorway: Karl, Charlotte and Violette. He groaned.
“Cuts and bruises,” said the doctor. “And when a healthy young man who never drinks decides to tip beer down his throat – this is the predictable result. He’ll live, madame. I recommend a week’s rest, and then light practice to regain his fitness.”
“Thank you,” said Violette. “Come back and check him again this evening, will you? Thierry – he’s the assistant assigned to Emil – Thierry will pay you.”
Her face loomed over Emil, shell-white, her sapphire eyes large and unblinking. Her lack of expression was more terrifying than anger would have been. Never in his life had he felt so low, like a soldier close to death in the bottom of a trench… so sick, depressed, and humiliated that he was sure he would die of it. Charlotte and Karl stood behind her, looking over her shoulders.
“Karl told me what happened,” Violette said softly. “I don’t know whether to yell at you for getting into that situation, or give thanks that you weren’t murdered. For pity’s sake, Emil!”
He turned his face away on the pillow.
“Well, I see there’s no point in me saying anything until you feel better,” she went on. “Who were the men who attacked you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Emil! Are you proud of being the most exasperating person who’s ever worked for me? Tell me what you remember, and I’ll leave you in peace.”
Gritting his teeth, he managed to prop himself on his elbows.
“Madame, I was disgustingly drunk. They were talking politics, which I despise. I got into an argument with them. A fight broke out… the next I knew, I was outside. Some of them came after me, started using me as a football, and then Karl arrived. That’s all I know.”
Karl said, “I saw Godric Reiniger inside. He was talking with some men very similar to the ones who attacked Emil. I believe they were all part of the same group.”
“Reiniger, who fancies himself a film-maker?” Violette looked puzzled, then dismissive. “He didn’t look the type to associate with inebriated idiots, but I suppose you never can tell.”
Karl said nothing more. The three stood gazing down at him. Their faces weren’t unkind; they all looked grave and concerned. But as they stared, something changed. Again Emil felt his mind shift, a membrane of reality tearing away to show the truth beneath.
The three faces were not human.
Their skin was radiant, with an eerie glow like pearl. They never seemed to blink. Karl’s face was too serene, his eyes like amber fire beneath the sooty shadows of his hair. Charlotte – so pretty and warm, with amethyst eyes that would mesmerise the very soul out of you, lips that would kill with pleasure. And Violette – Snow White, ice maiden, witch, enchantress…
“I’ll send Thierry in to look after you,” Violette was saying, almost kindly. “I wouldn’t have had this happen for the world, but – it’s done. Rest.”
He heard her words as if from a great distance, as if she were looking at him through rippling water. All he could see clearly were their three mermaid-pale faces, filling him with unutterable terror. He couldn’t form any clear idea of what he was seeing, yet he knew.
None of them are human.
* * *
“Like hel
l will I rest,” Emil told himself angrily, fists clenched under the covers. An hour or so had passed. His head had cleared to some degree, but the horrible illusion he’d suffered only left him agitated, determined to leap out of bed, shake off his weakness and forget the whole episode. The sooner he returned to normal, the sooner this madness would leave him, and he’d prove to Violette… what?
That he was stronger than she dreamed. She would never look at him with pity again.
Thierry, who fussed like a grumpy mother hen, had gone to bring him some tea. While he was out of the room, Emil got up, splashed water on himself and pulled on his practice gear. Out in the corridor he bumped into Thierry, exchanged a few harsh words, and pushed past. Minutes later, he entered the studio just in time for class to begin.
Everyone stared at him.
His reflection in the studio mirror was ghastly: bruised eyes, battered face, mouth swollen like a balloon. He moved as stiffly as an eighty-year-old, wincing with every step as he approached the barre. This morning the session was being supervised by the ballet mistress, Joelle, who was even more intimidating than Ralph with her long, thin figure, heavily powdered face and orange-dyed hair. She rapped her cane on the floor and said, “What’s this? No.”
“Have you never seen a black eye before?” Emil said coldly. “A minor accident, that’s all.”
“I do not think Madame Lenoir would wish you to risk further injury by dancing unfit.”
“I’ll be the judge of whether I’m fit or not. Ignore me, and proceed.”
For the first time in his career, he outstared her. At last Joelle gave in and turned away. “Very well. Your decision, your fault if you hurt yourself. Begin,” she snapped.
Emil had never suffered such excruciating pain in his life. Ribs, kidneys, head, every part of him hurt – this was worse than the beating itself. Yet he pushed himself through each exercise, giving his injuries no quarter, refusing to let anyone see his agony.
And the others… did any of them know that Violette and her friends were… different? He glanced around at the intent, innocent faces of the other dancers. Was he the only one who’d seen… or was he the only one who was not in on the secret? Jean-Paul, Mikhail, Ute – all seemed to be laughing at him behind their blank expressions.
He felt he was going mad. There was nothing to take his mind off the madness except work, however brutal the pain.
Halfway through class, accompanied by an agitated Thierry, Violette entered. Emil kept his eyes to the front and ignored her. To his amazement, she said nothing, only watched him. He could feel her gaze scorching him. But by the time class ended, she had vanished.
What was he to make of that?
He’d expected a scene, forceful insistence that he return to bed at once. Instead… nothing. Was she now refusing to acknowledge his existence? Perhaps he’d only imagined that she was there, watching.
“What the hell happened to you, my friend?” In the changing room, Mikhail slapped him so hard between the shoulder-blades that he nearly collapsed. “You want ice on that face. Makes the swelling go down. Ice worked for me after you knocked me down yesterday.”
“I apologise,” said Emil, his voice thick through his split lip.
“Looks like you got your come-uppance, or whatever the phrase is,” said the Russian. “No hard feelings, but that must have been a spectacular fight. Who won?”
“No one. Isn’t it all over the school, my… misadventure?”
Mikhail shrugged. “Speculation, that’s all. Lots of gossip. You want to tell me?”
“Not really,” Emil growled. “I got drunk. Some thugs set on me. That’s all. It was my own stupidity – which, as you see, I intend to put behind me as fast as possible.”
“Ah well. Shattered hearts make us all go crazy. Did you make peace with madame?”
“Violette is not speaking to me. She sends her mysterious friends after me instead. She doesn’t want me, yet she wants to control me? She cannot have it both ways!”
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,” Mikhail said, low and confiding. “She keeps all of us where she wants us, under that steel thumb. Accept it, or kiss goodbye to your glittering career.”
“Not me,” Emil said under his breath. “She won’t break me.”
* * *
At dusk, Emil walked along the lake shore promenade towards the town centre. A cold breeze rolled off the mountains, but he barely felt it. He wore a heavy coat, and a hat pulled down over his eyes to disguise both his identity and his bruises.
His mind writhed and clawed, unable to be still. He was supposed to stay on ballet premises: to hell with that. Rest? Soldiers in the Great War had fought on and on in the trenches with far worse injuries than this. Violette spurned him… the knowledge cut his heart with a thousand knives of agony and humiliation, but if that’s what she wanted, he would spurn her in return.
He thought of her with Karl and Charlotte, staring down at him, haunting him like streghe, like spectral beings that pinned you down in the night and sucked out your life energy. Pretending to be human, thinking he hadn’t noticed their masquerade…
He intended to get drunk again. He couldn’t face the beer hall, but there was a big hotel by the water’s edge. The tables outside were lit with candles, hardly anyone there but a few tourists wrapped up in coats and hats, looking out over the water. A pleasure steamer chugged its way from one side of the lake to the other.
He sat down and ordered a bottle of schnapps. He’d drunk a third of it when a woman walked past him, stopped, and backed up to look at him.
“Hello again,” she said lightly.
He glowered at her from beneath the brim of his hat. The last thing he needed was a gushing devotee to see him in this sorry state. When he said nothing, she added, “You don’t remember me? Forgive me. I saw you in the Bierkeller last night, but… well, it was so crowded…”
She was wrong. He knew her at once. She was the dark-skinned beauty who’d kept catching his eye. Tonight she was wearing an olive-green coat trimmed with fur, a hat of the same colour. The brim flared slightly around her lovely face and the crown glittered with green crystals that caught every spark of candlelight. A woodland creature, all brown and green… Her German was perfect – better than his – with an accent that he presumed was of her homeland.
“I remember,” he said. “No place for a woman, or any civilised human being.”
“Those brutes did this to you?” Her voice was warm but not pitying. He liked that. “I saw you arguing with them – brave, though not a good idea – but I thought you had left…”
“They caught me outside.”
She took a seat opposite him. “Perhaps if I’d come to speak to you, it might never have happened.” She leaned her chin on her hand, looking up at him, foiling his attempt to hide his face beneath his hat brim. Her eyes shone with a mixture of regret and teasing good humour. “I’m Fadiya. Spelled F-a-d-i-y-a.”
“Emil.” In normal circumstances he would have kissed her hand, made some flirtatious gesture, but he wasn’t in the mood. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “You know why they set on me?”
“Every community has its troublemakers. It’s never a good idea to argue with them.”
“That was my first mistake. Then they decided to punish me for what I do.”
“Why, what do you do?” She sounded innocently puzzled.
“You don’t know who I am?”
“No. Should I?”
He thought, Thank goodness. Someone with no ideas about me! “Only if you go to the ballet,” he said.
“I don’t,” she said bluntly. “I like jazz music. Not the terrible stuff they were playing in the Bierkeller. That was torture to the ears.”
He smiled. “Then, no, there’s no reason for you to recognise me. I don’t know what you were doing in that dreadful place.”
“Oh, I like to try every kind of local culture: never again. My dress was ruined with beer stains.” She pulled a face, smiled a
gain. “But you were saying, those idiots knew that you dance with the ballet? Why would that make them angry?”
“Because they assume it means I prefer my own gender: a defect that entitles them to beat me like a rat in a sack.”
“Do you?” Her lips parted, forming an O of disappointment. “Like other men, I mean?”
“No. I very much prefer women. But that was none of their damned business.”
“You do look dreadfully miserable, Emil.” She brushed strands of hair out of his eyes with suede-gloved fingers. “May I try to cheer you up? I am a good listener.”
What could he say to her? That his life had fallen apart, that he couldn’t go home because three unhuman spectres waited there for him, determined to control his every move until he had no will left of his own? How could he explain the exquisite agony of loving Violette?
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Nothing matters. I have nowhere to go, nothing to do.”
“Oh yes, you do.” Smiling, she pointed at the hotel behind him. Hotel Blauensee. He looked up at the painted, timbered facade with its quirky roof. “I have a room in there. Shall we go inside?”
He was too startled to answer, too drunk to refuse. When he said nothing, she laughed and took his hand. “Listen, there’s a jazz band playing in the lounge. A good band. It’s very dark and cosy, no one will see your bruises…”
“I’m a dreadful sight.”
“You’re a beautiful sight,” she said. “I want to dance. You know how to dance, don’t you?”
* * *
Bruno breathed a quiet sigh of relief to himself. He’d passed the test: publicly declared his support for Herr Reiniger and Wolfgang without even knowing that their leader was watching and filming, and played his part in humiliating the arrogant, effeminate ballet dancer. All in all, it had been a good evening.
He liked such brutal, everyday business.
The esoteric side made him uneasy. As Godric Reiniger let the last of his Eidgenossen group into the upstairs meeting chamber and locked the doors, Bruno felt a shiver of claustrophobia. The twenty-nine men arranged themselves into three loose, concentric circles gathered around Reiniger. Wolfgang went around the circles putting a plain blue cloak over each man’s shoulders. The cloaks had been hand-sewn by Gudrun and embroidered with a small white symbol on the left shoulder: a skull inside a maze.
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