The Fig Eater

by Jody Sheilds

  For a moment, she waits without moving to gauge direction, squinting at the foliage. But the bare branches are too black to read, an army of thick spears against the sky. She’s afraid to use the torch in this place. She proceeds cautiously into the garden, an arm outstretched in front of her like a blind man’s stick.

  She stops, snaps on her torch and spirals its beam up through branches, transforming a tree with this sudden light, giving it the silhouette of a candelabrum. Then she directs the light to the trunks of other trees, hoping to identify the fig by its rough bark, which she’s memorized like a pattern of embroidery. The darkness is even more oppressive when she turns off the torch.

  There’s no wind, no sound but her footsteps as she moves through tall dry grasses and drier leaves, stepping as cautiously as if she maneuvered a long skirt. She finds a tree that seems to have the fig’s curious knobbed growth. She rummages on the ground below it and finds a leaf. When she holds it up between her face and the sky, the leaf is pointed where it should be rounded and it is as gray as her hand. She lets it fall. This seems hopeless, she thinks. She wishes the fig tree had an odor that would pull her to it, an invisible trail for her nose. She imagines its scent would be as intensely sweet as honeysuckle or Viburnum carlesi, with its clovelike perfume and clusters of tiny flowers, dense and white as salt.

  She looked over the wall into the garden a few days earlier, so she guesses she’s now closer to the house. A parterre is before her, smooth areas of grass boxed in by broken lines of shrubbery, and in this light they appear to be a series of bare rooms, the roofless ruins of a building.

  She skirts around the parterre, nervous about being so exposed, staying under the trees at its edge. She comes to a thick hedge, an arborvitae taller than her head, and pulls her hand over the clipped ends of its surface as she walks along it, imagining it’s a labyrinth. When the hedge ends, she heads into a knoll of trees.

  Less cautious now, she sweeps torchlight over the area, searching for the fig or perhaps the dark mound that indicates where it is buried in the earth. She remembers that the Egyptians made sarcophagi from fig wood, gilding the blind eyes carved on the lids.

  Her light unveils an upraised white arm, stone drapery, and then the rest of a statue against a wall. A nymph, Syrinx. There’s an urn trailing ivy. Rosebushes are carved out of the dark by her torch, still holding a clutch of startled white petals. She uncovers a pattern of leaves, their surface replaced by deeper shadows as the wind stirs them. Then the wind stops, and there’s a strange waiting silence. She moves forward cautiously. Her light trolls across a row of trees, and there’s a minute flash, a point of silver, which instantly vanishes.

  A noise from the place where her light was.

  She clicks off the torch. She waits. Something or someone in the garden is focused on her, trying to pick up the thread of her passage. The sound of slow footsteps opens a place of dry fear. She’s suspended between listening and obeying an interior crimson signal that commands her to flee.

  Her back pushes into the arborvitae, sharp points against her skin, but there’s no pain. She swings the torch in front of her, its light finds a man, his strange face as sharp as a painted image. He flinches. His reaction gives her a moment to run. Her sense of time is detached, and she thinks she’s moving in slow motion, passing straight along the hedge and around it. He’s at the end of the hedge, running after her. She ducks behind a tree and waits. She’s aware of the tree’s rough bark against her shoulder as the pounding of her heart shakes her body. The garden is silent.

  A long stretch of time passes, or perhaps only seconds. She moves around the tree, her footsteps imperceptible as she creeps forward, stops, and suddenly hurls the torch. It crashes behind a bench, the noise amplified by the dark. Everything is suddenly in motion as the man runs to the bench, believing she’s there. It takes him a moment to go back around it, and by then she has raced ahead.

  She swerves around a tree, some low shrubs, blindly willing her body forward. Panic has erased her sense of direction. Trees move in front of her; she can hardly dodge around them and then she vaguely realizes the trees are stationary and she’s running at them. She’s conscious of passing through the parterre only by the absence of shadow, a different quality of darkness. The wall is suddenly in front of her. She slams into it, claws at the vines, hauling her body up. She thinks of the man in the garden. Now she understands the gleam of silver her torch picked out. His nose is a cone of metal strapped around his head.

  She jumps off the wall, possessed by his image.

  CHAPTER 6

  Frau Zellenka opens the door and introduces herself to the Inspector. The pattern of her dress strikes him first, a brilliant print of huge, unrecognizable flowers. A necklace of heavy amber beads rests precisely around her neck. She doesn’t smile, but studies him as gravely as if he knelt at her feet, then silently takes his hat and walking stick. He wonders about the absence of a maid.

  He follows her down the hallway, slowing his steps over the patterned Turkey carpets on the floor, his admiring eyes tripped by the maze of lines. I see you enjoy my carpets, she says without turning around. She raises her voice to an unseen maid, Fräulein Yella, requesting her to bring them coffee.

  The Biedermeier furniture in the drawing room is upholstered in striped fabric, so when she positions herself on the sofa, its stark geometry is a startling background for her flowered dress. She makes herself part of the composition.

  He’d sent a boy with the letter arranging their meeting, since few homes are equipped with telephones. However, there is a telephone here, and now he is surprised by its strange, unfamiliar ring. Footsteps and a quiet voice silence it. He wonders if his office has called him here, and it seems miraculous to be invisibly tracked and found across the space of the city.

  Egon had told him how messages were sent in Paris during the war in 1871, when the Germans occupied the city. He once worked with the photographer who engineered the airborne postal system. Anyone who had a letter to post brought it to the photographer’s studio. There, the letters — secret, urgent, and even ordinary — were glued end to end into a single huge sheet, which was then photographed. In the darkroom, the image was reduced to a print of several square centimeters, rolled up inside a quill, and attached to a homing pigeon.

  After the bird delivered the miniature photograph, it was inserted in a magic lantern machine and projected on a white wall. At dusk, a crowd gathered in front of the luminous square to read the letters.

  In those days, the photographer had explained to Egon, the skies were full of secrets.

  Frau Zellenka begins the interview. “You’re here to talk about Dora.”

  “Yes. You’ve no need to feel concerned. Everyone has been asked the same questions.”

  “I’m neither frightened nor offended. Do you smoke?”

  The lighting of cigarettes takes some minutes. There is a beautiful glass dish on the table for the ashes. As the maid sets out coffee from a tray, Frau Zellenka languidly leans back to inhale her cigarette, tucking her legs up under her. She’s bored, and this irritates him. He reminds himself that she’s reacting to his mode of investigation, not to him personally. “The Investigating Officer must compel himself to be sincere even to the limit of pedantry, impenetrable by any shock.”

  He launches his first question, unconsciously hoping to unsettle her.

  “Where were you when Dora was murdered?”

  “If she was killed in the evening, I was at home. I imagine my husband told you he was out.”

  The Inspector doesn’t answer, but keeps his unblinking eyes on her as he fishes for his notebook in his jacket pocket. I understand you were very close friends with Dora, he says.

  She nods, continues smoking.

  Most people’s comments about the deceased tend to be embroidered. As he waits for the inevitable recital of praise, his shoulders sag with expectation. She coughs sharply, her cigarette leaving a sketch of smoke around her hand. He understands
this is her answer. She waits him out.

  Very well. He tries again. “I’m curious about whether you’d noticed anything unusual about Dora’s behavior right before she died?”

  “It’s hard to pinpoint what I truly remember after all this time. In retrospect, everything about Dora seems significant. But I’m certain you find this every day in your work?”

  He ignores her question. He’ll circle around the information in another way. This is fair.

  “Did Dora have any suitors?”

  “No. I’m certain of that. She confessed everything to me.”

  “When did you see her for the last time?”

  “A week before she died. We were shopping on the Graben. She was looking for a particular book. I don’t remember what it was.”

  “Nothing struck you about her mood?”

  “Dora was always in a mood. She didn’t enjoy good health and she wasn’t patient about it. When she hadn’t lost her voice, she complained constantly.”

  Frau Zellenka surprises him. He expected her to be more emotional, marooned in shock at her friend’s death. Perhaps even tearful. She’s very matter-of-fact.

  “How did you spend your time together?”

  “We’d often play with my children. When Dora couldn’t speak, she made it into a game, a pantomime. Sometimes she’d fix my hair, or try on my clothes. I don’t know if this is any help to you.”

  “I really can’t say.”

  He looks down at his notebook, trying to graft the dead girl onto this picture that she has just presented to him. No one has given him an image of Dora experiencing pleasure. The woman sitting across from him is silent too.

  There’s a moment of almost solemn tenderness as they look at each other. The smoke from their cigarettes lazily changes direction when she abruptly bends forward, recrossing her legs. This time, she couldn’t bear the silence.

  When he queries her about Rosza, her voice becomes curt.

  “She’s a troubled woman. I was glad when they got rid of her. She wasn’t a good influence on Dora.”

  “Why, exactly? What did she do?”

  “Rosza did certain things I didn’t approve of. She allowed Dora to read The Physiology of Love. Mantegazza described gross indecencies about the body. I couldn’t tell her mother she was reading about such things, it would have betrayed Dora’s trust in me. But I know Dora told her mother about Mantegazza’s book when it suited her.”

  She’s angry now. Careful not to break the mood, the Inspector mumbles an acknowledgment and keeps writing.

  “Yes, go ahead. You can put all this down. Dora wanted to get rid of Rosza. She was jealous of her. Dora finally realized the stupid woman had befriended her just to get closer to her father. Rosza was in love with Philipp. But the woman got what she deserved.” Agitated, she toys with her necklace. The heavy beads slide together with a dull click. “I don’t know exactly why Rosza was dismissed. I can’t tell you anything more about that woman.”

  He’s one step behind, describing Frau Zellenka’s angry words, her shift of mood in his notebook. I have you here, Madame, he thinks, and wrenches his eyes back to her.

  “So, who murdered Dora?”

  She thinks for a moment.

  “Dora had a strange knack for getting under your skin. She irritated people, but enough to be killed? No, it’s too peculiar. It could only have been a stranger who murdered her.”

  “I see. Tell me who works in your house.”

  “A woman comes to clean and cook. She’s been with us for years. My boy is away at school. As you’ve probably learned, my daughter died this summer.”

  “Yes, I was told.”

  She shrugs and puts out her cigarette. Her other hand idly plays with her earring.

  His pen waits.

  “This is a large house. No one else works here?”

  “My husband has a driver. He helps around the house, does odd jobs, some gardening. His name is Jószef, a Gypsy.”

  She’s thinking of something else. He tries to follow into her labyrinth of thought. Pick up the string, he thinks, help me. He summons a terrible energy, directs it at her. Waits. Lets it go.

  She smiles and shrugs. The moment has passed.

  “This is a busy time for me. If you don’t mind?”

  She takes him to the door, still friendly, but he knows she ended the interview some time earlier. She takes his hat from the maid, and the sleeve of her dress slides back, revealing the Cartier watch on her wrist. The instant he sees it, he has a cold sense of recognition, although it takes a further effort, a shiver of memory, to bring the image into mind. A pale, bare arm bent over a motionless face. Dora. Frau Zellenka’s watch is identical to the watch he cut off Dora’s wrist. A pretty thing.

  He makes a comment about the watch; she thanks him for the compliment. He hesitates, uncertain about whether to question her further, but she anticipates him, drawing him into a parody of normal conversation. Yes, my watch was a gift. From my husband. I asked him to purchase one for Dora too, in honor of our friendship. Her expression is mocking.

  After she closes the door, he walks around the house to look for Jószef. The garden in back is laid out as precisely as the interior of the house. From the terrace, he has a view of a series of formal bosquets outlined by low shrubs. There are a few statues, ornamental columns, and dwarf fruit trees, a monkey puzzle, exotic palms. At night, without the sun to strike it into color, he imagines it must appear to be an artificial replica of a garden, fashioned from stone.

  He walks along a hedge trimmed to a shape taller than his head. He drags the palm of his outstretched hand against the clipped ends of the branches. The sharp scratches revive him.

  Turning the corner of the hedge, he casually glances back at the house, where Frau Zellenka stands watching at the window, her loose dress draped like a shroud around her.

  Several yards away, there’s an opening cut into the hedge. He goes through it into a long narrow room, four green walls around a rose bed. He recognizes R. hugonis, the Golden Rose of China, tall stems with withered bronze orange leaves and discolored buds caught by frost.

  The odor of broken earth reaches him before he hears the thick stab of a shovel. He follows the sound, quietly tracing his footsteps back out of the hedge.

  In the orchard at the end of the garden, a man stands next to a hole, waiting for him. Like a priest at a burial.

  “You’re Jószef?”

  The man nods.

  The garden, the smell, the man’s body angled over the empty plot in the earth, all vanish. The Inspector sees only Jószef’s face. There’s a piece of silver bent over his nose, held in place with a strap around his head.

  The Inspector chose not to confront Frau Zellenka about her relationship with Philipp. He had intended to, but once he was face-to-face with the woman, he decided against it. He’d taken her measure. Her affair with Dora’s father is valuable coin to spend at a later date. He’ll see her again. He anticipates the pleasure of setting a trap for her, then watching her cold struggle not to react. You were intimate friends with the daughter of your lover?

  He wonders why Frau Zellenka wasn’t murdered instead of Dora. How did Philipp hold all these women together? Daughter, lover, wife. He stages an imaginary scene of the three women standing together, still as statues, while he walks around them, trying to decipher their relationship. Could Frau Zellenka have encouraged the girl as a way to strike at her mother? Was Dora’s intimacy with her a revenge against her mother? Or a perverse identification with her father? And did Dora’s mother recognize her isolation in this family triangle and blame her daughter? Was any of this reason enough that either woman would want to murder Dora?

  The Inspector tells Franz about Jószef, the man with the silver nose. Franz’s astonished grin fades when he sees the grim expression on his face.

  “But why would the man wear such a thing?”

  He shrugs. “Maybe syphilis ate his nose. Archduke Otto was disfigured in the same way. He wo
re a leather nose that was painted skin color for the last ten years of his life.”

  “Sometimes syphilis affects the brain, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, it can.”

  “Maybe Jószef is deranged from syphilis? Maybe he killed Dora?”

  But the Inspector has his own reasons to retreat from the conversation and doesn’t pick up his suggestion.

  “So Jószef did know Dora?”

  “Apparently, since she was frequently a guest at the Zellenkas’ home.”

  The Inspector turns back to his papers. Franz is dismissed.

  That night, the Inspector thinks about dirt. The loose dirt scattered over Dora’s grave. The dirt turned over in Frau Zellenka’s garden by Jószef. Uneasy, he goes to bed late and sleeps heavily.

  In the morning, he remembers a dream that was an image of flatness, heaviness, a dark, unplowed field cleared of plants. All that day, the image of the dream haunts him.

  Later, it is replaced by a sensation that seems to be part of his body’s sightless memory, for it has no image. He remembers his mouth and body were filled with earth, and it was a comforting, familiar feeling, like sinking into the embrace of thick water.

  Walking along the Ringstrasse a few days earlier, their hands secretly touching, Erszébet had explained that perfume and some wines are like an incantation, a magical phrase, an olvasás. You can sense an intent, a calculation behind them. Do you understand what I mean? she asked him. No, he didn’t understand her at the time. But now he believes he does. His dream had that same quality. He received it with a jolt of recognition — as if someone had sent it to him.

  Now when he thinks of his dream he finds his eyes are wet.

  Wally’s eyes fill with a line of burning light. Everything else is dark. There is a smell of damp dirt, of something sweet, fruitish. She’s confined in a narrow place. Sensing something above her, she reaches up to touch leaves. It takes a moment before memory returns. She fled from the man with the silver nose into a neighboring garden. She now reclines in a makeshift shed built around a fruit tree, its winter protection. Her back is against the tree, and when she shifts her weight, its branches scrape against the walls. She freezes, afraid the man will hear her. Nothing moves, no sound from outside. The light in front of her shapes itself into a thin rectangle. A door. She kicks it, and the door swings open on the garden and sunlight, a safe and bright radiance, dazzling after the dark.