The Fig Eater

by Jody Sheilds

  He helps her from the chair. She grandly waves him away and proceeds alone across the room, infinitely slowly, the shuffle of her slippers preceded by the delicate thump of her cane.

  He studies an unsympathetic portrait of Queen Victoria while the elderly women weave whispers behind him. It suddenly occurs to him that they all believe he is an abandoned suitor, trying to find his lost love. He blushes again.

  His face is still red when the matron returns. She hands him a card with an address elaborately inscribed on it. I’m sorry this took so long, she says. Our resident with the best memory is dreadfully hard of hearing. She lays a thin hand on top of his. You must be very anxious to find her.

  Franz stammers his gratitude in English. He’s even more flustered when her eyes are transformed by tears. He awkwardly kisses her dry hand and then departs, forgetting his tea.

  It wasn’t until that night that he remembered the aged governesses of the Jubilee Home had kept his official letter.

  When fire caught the veil of Wally’s hat in the Zentralfriedhof, she screamed and fell. Otto had rushed over. Egon was afraid they’d attract the cemetery attendants, and he quickly led her away. She was dazed, her scalp ached, there was a terrible smell of burning in the air.

  Only Dora’s father didn’t move. He stood as if frozen in place, unable to answer when his wife urged him to go and help.

  Wally has a memory of her veil burning, its edges unfurling and yellow with flame, a reflection of the candles around her. She didn’t see Egon jerk the scarf off her head and the curve of bright color it made as he threw it in the air. Later he told her it was his practice with the cloth over his camera that enabled him to move so quickly.

  Wally spent two days in bed. Then she met Egon at Demel Konditorei. “That man in the cemetery, Dora’s father, did you recognize him?”

  She grabbed his hand.

  “No, I didn’t. He wasn’t the man who came to my studio with the woman.”

  Without any preliminary explanation, Franz hands the Inspector the card he was given at the Queen Victoria Jubilee Home. Astonished, the Inspector reads the name and address, then congratulates Franz on his work. A genuine accomplishment. This is the first breakthrough they’ve had in weeks. Even though Franz found the governess, the Inspector will interview her. Franz doesn’t protest. The situation is too delicate for an assistant officer. By her long absence, the mysterious governess has grown in importance. She has become the key to Dora’s murder. Now they almost have her.

  That night at dinner, the Inspector is strangely ebullient, even requesting a second glass of fruit brandy. Erszébet sits on the arm of his chair, watching him drink.

  “I’ve found the missing woman in Dora’s case. I believe she may be the last witness. I hope everything will fall into place when I interview her tomorrow.”

  “Who is she?”

  “A young woman. A governess.”

  He refuses to say anything more. And even though Erszébet teases, he won’t reveal the woman’s name. Buoyed by his discovery, he shuts her out.

  Which governess? Rosza? Wally?

  Erszébet’s throat begins to ache. She slips into bed, but sleep doesn’t arrive that night. She possesses various ways to stop him, but she’s already deep in ráböjtölés, the black fast. Spells are unpredictable things.

  The last thing her husband remembers is her cool hand sliding over his flesh and his turn toward her in the darkness. He’s grateful her desire is more calculated, rougher than his. She leads him into the labyrinth.

  The Inspector arrives at the house without giving any notice. The Hausmeister who admits him takes careful note of his appearance and his business. A policeman. He’s certain the woman he’s visiting will be reprimanded later for entertaining such an inauspicious guest.

  Now he sits across from Rosza, watching an angry line crease her forehead. She has just confirmed she was with Herr Zellenka on the evening Dora died, and she isn’t pleased with herself. Or the Inspector. Although it’s only midafternoon, the room is a dim, lamp-lit gray cave. A cage with two noisy canaries hovers on a stand next to him.

  “Tell me about that evening with Herr Zellenka. What do you remember?”

  “We had dinner at the Grand Café in the Alsergrund district. We were there from eight o’clock until past midnight.”

  “And did Herr Zellenka escort you home?”

  “Not right away. We drove through the Prater in a fiaker. As I remember, it was a very hot evening.”

  He writes down everything she says, making no criticism of her conduct with a married man, even though her irritability tells him she expects it.

  “I understand you left Dora’s family rather suddenly. Did you and Dora remain friends?”

  She doesn’t answer. He resists the urge to ask the question again.

  “No.”

  “Why did your friendship change? You were very close at one time.”

  “Dora resented me. She was a grown woman, and she didn’t want a chaperone. I tried to leave her alone. I spent most of my time with her brother, but she hated having me in the house.”

  He leans forward over his notebook. “You and Dora had a quarrel. What was it about?” His voice now has an edge.

  She assures him it was nothing, really. Just a silly misunderstanding between friends. Dora always exaggerated everything. Then she falls silent. She lets him wait, fidgeting with her hands in her lap.

  Do you mind if I open the curtains? he asks, and without waiting for her answer he violently yanks them open. Sometimes questions need sunlight, he says, sitting down in another chair closer to her, away from the birds. Their chirping was affecting his nerves.

  “Fräulein, we’re alone here. I want you to answer my questions quickly, before the lady of the house returns. I’m certain you’d prefer it that way too. Otherwise, I can make your situation here very uncomfortable. You and Dora argued about her father. Correct?”

  He’s struck something familiar in her.

  “Yes. Although it wasn’t until August that I told her everything. We arranged to meet in the Volksgarten. I hadn’t seen her for months. I guess she was curious about what I’d hinted at in my letter.”

  By the tone of her voice and her posture, he can tell she’s eager to have him believe her story. Even take her side against Dora.

  “I told Dora it was unconscionable to be friends with Frau Zellenka, since she was her father’s lover. I explained the situation very clearly, that Dora was just a pawn between them. The woman had no friendship with her. She was just using her.”

  Now he no longer needs to be careful with his questions. Her character is uncovered; Rosza is scornful and self-righteous. For the moment, she’s even forgotten she’s a beautiful woman and dropped her flirtatious mannerisms. Although he believes in words as well as observation, it always surprises him when they strip away a defense.

  “How did Dora react to your enlightening her?”

  “She was hysterical. She wept and said she didn’t believe me, but I’m certain I told her exactly what she already knew. She could hardly miss the intimacy between her father and that woman. It was as obvious as the nose on her face.”

  Rosza wrinkles her own nose in disgust.

  “And did Dora confront Frau Zellenka?”

  “I’m sure she did. Dora never let anything rest.”

  She looks at him with a strange grim pride.

  “Perhaps I was wrong to tell Dora about her father’s shameful behavior, since they’d always been close. Well, it’s too late. The truth destroyed our friendship. I hadn’t calculated on that. And Dora died about two weeks later. The poor girl had no one she could trust, not her father, her dear friend Frau Zellenka, or even me, her promeneuse. But it’s always better to know the truth, isn’t it?”

  He doesn’t say anything. His notebook is forgotten in his hands. He wonders if she has any remorse.

  “You don’t like Frau Zellenka.”

  “I blame Frau Zellenka for everything.
It wasn’t enough for her to have a wonderful husband. She had to steal Dora’s father too. Dora was calculating in her own way, but she was also an innocent. I tell you, the situation in that house was unbearable. I wasn’t at all sorry to leave.”

  Even though she says she has no regrets, her voice is angry.

  Without enthusiasm, he thanks her and wishes her well. As he leaves the room, he looks back and sees her angrily jerk the drapes back over the windows.

  If we find that the witness has any sort of connection with the affair, we must, to some extent, accept with mistrust all that he says and verify every one of his statements; we must spare no trouble to ascertain the point of view at which the witness stations himself. This is not so difficult as one would think; the witness almost always betrays himself, if only by a word.

  In the laboratory, Franz and Móricz continue to work with the burned diary stolen from Philipp. They experiment with some of the buckled pages, to soften them so they can be flattened onto the gummed paper. One black page is held over boiling water in a sieve, but it breaks apart. They immerse another page in a large basin of water, hoping it will float. The paper contains a high percentage of baryte, so it disintegrates. Móricz fishes it out of the basin as cinders.

  Egon agrees to come in and photograph a few sections of the book. Perhaps technology will show what their eyes can’t see. Or a hunch may prove more revealing; the Inspector begins to wonder if shy Fräulein Fürj tossed her own diary in the stove.

  Discouraged at their slow progress, the Inspector encourages everyone to take frequent breaks. After Franz and Móricz finish their recess, it’s his turn to smoke outside. In the hallway, he lights a cigarette, tipping the ashes into a jar. The burned diary refuses to give up its secrets. The words remain stubborn hieroglyphics on fragile black tablets. He has been handed a key but can’t find its accomplice, the lock. He’s certain the solution to Dora’s murder is on the table in the quiet room behind him. The book contains the answer to every puzzle and the motive for every action.

  All he must do is take apart the tender leaves of a blackened book, a process he begins to regard as unlikely as uncoiling the shell of a snail.

  Because of the inaccessibility of their suspects, Wally and Erszébet have circled back to an object. The fig, a witness to a murder. Ficus, a word for a woman’s quaint, and the tree of Judas, the betrayer. They decide to search one last location. This is Erszébet’s suggestion, and it came to her under the influence of ráböjtölés.

  Wally slips out of the Arkaden-Café into a waiting fiaker, nervously following the instructions in Erszébet’s letter.

  Erszébet waits for her on a corner, a solitary figure, her shoulders enlarged by a huge fur wrap. Wally is ill at ease; she hasn’t seen Erszébet for several weeks. Had Erszébet missed her? Wally is too proud to ask. She takes off her hat, hoping Erszébet will notice her singed hair. She doesn’t. On the point of tears, Wally describes her fiery accident in the cemetery. Erszébet mutters some unintelligible soothing words and embraces her.

  Her embrace doesn’t mollify Wally. She pointedly avoids Erszébet’s eyes. Friends shouldn’t vanish. There is a darker fear in the back of her mind — that Erszébet would walk out of her life — but she dismisses it.

  Now the ice on the walk slows their steps, and Wally clutches at Erszébet’s arm just as she falls. Erszébet helps her back on her feet and dusts the snow off her coat. This eases the tension between them.

  Erszébet pretends not to notice Wally’s coolness, knowing she can be charmed back. The girl needs her. She attempts to explain her absence.

  “I was unable to see anyone. It had nothing to do with you. But today is an ominous day, so I could finally leave the kitchen.”

  “The kitchen has an unlucky day?”

  “It is considered bad luck to bake on a Friday.”

  Then Wally relents and tells Erszébet that Dora’s father is no longer a suspect. “Egon saw Philipp in the cemetery and didn’t recognize him, so he wasn’t the man who brought Dora into the studio. It must have been Herr Zellenka.”

  Erszébet juggles her news. There is only the photographer’s word that she came to his studio with a man, she reminds Wally. What if Dora’s unknown companion was a woman? Or someone unsuspected, another man?

  Erszébet fastens her mind on such an order. Wind strikes the tall row of trees above her head, and their ice-lined branches crack and chime.

  They cautiously approach Steinach’s clinic from a side street, staying away from the windows. Everything seems quiet. Erszébet motions Wally around to the back of the building, where they find an iron fence burdened with ivy.

  “I’ll hold your feet and help you over. Then open the gate for me.”

  A snowbank softens Wally’s fall on the other side of the fence. The gate is unlocked, and the heavy door swings open at a tug from her gloved hands. Sketchy snow whitens the ground inside the garden and covers a long, low mound of snow in front of a clump of trees. It could have been made by the wind’s caprice, shaped by some invisible geography, like water breaking over a hidden reef. Or perhaps the snow hides something. They make their way across the frozen grass, moving as quickly as they can from tree to tree. Snow works its way into the tops of their boots as their feet punch into the deeper drifts.

  Screened by a spiny holly bush, they crouch next to the mound. Erszébet finds a branch and scrapes it into the snow. She looks over her shoulder at Wally.

  “Why don’t you help me?”

  Squatting next to her, Wally digs through the snow until she reaches a layer of dead grass and leaves, a sodden brown mass. Their cold fingers nervously pull apart the rotted vegetation, ruining their thin gloves. Erszébet’s hands tremble as she picks up a wet leaf and tenderly unfolds it, frail as seaweed. Spread open, it makes an almost transparent stain on the snow. A familiar shape. A fig leaf.

  Our tree is buried here.

  His patience is at an end.

  A week later, the Inspector strips off his white gloves, stained black to the knuckles with ash, and angrily stalks out of the laboratory. Franz gives a low whistle. He exchanges a look with Móricz and then continues to silently pore over the diary.

  The Inspector didn’t return to the office for the rest of the day.

  The Inspector is increasingly irritable. He blames Dora’s unresolved investigation for his uncharacteristic behavior. He refuses to associate it with Erszébet’s strange mood. But he’s a planet pulled to her gravity. The slightest infraction now provokes a physical response from her. He watched as she berated one of the laundry maids — the linens weren’t white enough — and then realized with horror that she was slowly peeling off a glove with the intention of slapping the poor girl.

  At first, he pressured her with questions about her state of mind. Was she angry with him, troubled about something? She shrugged off his questions. It’s just the time of year, was the best answer she gave him.

  Then he redoubled his efforts at surveillance. Every day she’s come to expect some part of her closet or bureau or desk will be subtly rearranged. They never speak of it.

  He finds her more beautiful, even though her vollschlank — full-slim — figure is thinner. In the evening, she takes the pins from her hair and lets it fall over her shoulders. It’s so heavy it gives me a headache, she complains.

  Some evenings she permits him to comb it for her.

  For some reason he can’t fathom, this intimate act fills him with despair.

  None of this matters. This is what she gives him. He is still enthralled, entering the bedroom right after Erszébet has finished dressing, when her scent and the sense of her activity linger there, a ghostly presence for him to enjoy.

  Franz and Móricz have worked through the moat of black paper surrounding the center of the burned diary. This less-damaged section is their treasure. Here, the fire transformed the paper into a rainbow of grays, from dark charcoal to a powdery ash. Like a magic wand, the heat also affected the ink, so some
words have a matte or brilliant surface and the handwriting was reversed from black to white. Here and there, they can decipher innocuous words: business, what, him, meeting. There is a list of disjointed figures and a mention of Simmerling, an outer district of Vienna.

  On other pages, the handwriting left the ghost of its image on the facing page, a double reverse. But when Móricz holds a mirror up to the page — his clever idea — the words are still mysteriously illegible.

  Móricz sets down the mirror and stares at the Inspector and Franz in silence. Their work has come to nothing. There’s no legible name. Not even a date. The black pages are scattered in hundreds of pieces on the worktables, like lace that has been picked apart. They are too fragile to even be put away.

  A letter arrived from one of the Inspector’s former colleagues, a Hungarian named Csoma, who lives near Lake Balaton.

  I am pleased to respond to your inquiry. As you well know, criminals are slaves to strange superstitions. The severed left thumb of a corpse is a powerful talisman. It is cut from a body that has been buried for nine weeks and disinterred during a new moon. Criminals believe anyone who carries the thumb is charmed and can walk invisibly through a house without waking the occupants. For this reason, the talisman is called the “slumber thumb.” French thieves call it a “main de gloire.”

  In answer to your second question, it is common for excrement to be left next to a victim’s body to magically prevent the discovery of the crime. As long as it preserves its warmth, the crime will stay hidden. This is the reason the handkerchief was placed over the excrement next to the girl’s body.

  You may also find datura seeds hidden where a crime has been committed. This peculiar habit is exclusively practiced by Gypsies.

  The Inspector is confident this information resolves the mutilation of Dora’s body. Jószef is guilty. However, the news isn’t enough to break his foul mood.