The Fig Eater

by Jody Sheilds

  A few days later, Philipp’s new secretary admits the Inspector to his office. She’s about the same age as Fräulein Fürj but even plumper, with pale skin under faint freckles. Without hearing her speak, he guesses she’s from Bohemia. He drops a business card on her desk blotter, announces he’ll let himself in, and strides into Philipp’s office. She bustles indignantly after him until Philipp’s curt voice from the next room stops her. Her skirt swishes aggressively as she quickly turns and walks out.

  Philipp is at his desk in a pose that indicates he’s been waiting for the Inspector. His hands are folded in front of him, his pen alertly upright in its metal holder. But the man doesn’t look well. Perhaps it’s the light in the room, but his face is thinner, his nose appears to have receded slightly. He doesn’t say a word in return to the Inspector’s brusque greeting.

  But the Inspector seems not to notice or be in any particular hurry. Without taking off his gloves, he removes a small parcel covered in black cloth from his satchel and holds it over Philipp’s immaculate desk. He slowly unwraps it, showering the desk with bits of burned paper, as deliberate as if he were sweeping leaves.

  Philipp doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move his hands away.

  With a flourish, the Inspector holds up a thick black square. There’s a strong smell of ash, of something bitter and burned.

  “Do you recognize this?”

  Mystified, Philipp shakes his head. “It isn’t familiar, but I would guess it once was a book.”

  “It was burnt here in your office.”

  “May I see it?”

  The Inspector extends the black thing, then quickly pulls it back as Philipp reaches for it. “Better not. You’ll dirty your hands.”

  “If you’ve brought it here to threaten me with, do you really believe I’d be put off by burned paper?”

  “Probably not. I have good reason to believe this is your diary.”

  The Inspector doesn’t miss the sliver of recognition in his eyes. He’s familiar with the man’s decoy tactics and believes all gestures become stage-managed under stress. Even his own face will go suddenly wooden, his expressions close down, when he’s self-conscious. Erszébet and Franz have both noticed this habit. She delights in teasing him about it.

  But now the Inspector’s face is carefully neutral as he waits for Philipp to betray himself with words, something that can be carried to someone else. Proof. The burned book lies between them on the cloth, black on black, a ceremonial offering. Only the Inspector knows the dirtied pages between its black covers are false, a Trojan horse to provoke him into a confession.

  “If I admit it is my diary, you understand I’m able to do this because I have nothing to fear from it?” Smiling grimly, Philipp casually brushes the black crumbs of paper from his sleeves. “And I assume your search of the ashes in my office stove is connected to my daughter’s murder?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Am I to be formally charged with murder?”

  “I am here to discuss that possibility with you.”

  “Is my arrest predicated on the information in the book?”

  “That and other proof that has come to my attention. You remember your son’s statement has put your alibi in jeopardy.”

  Philipp leans back in his chair, coldly confident. “Suppose you tell me what I’ve allegedly written in the book? Go on, read me an excerpt.”

  “I’m afraid that is outside my duties. A jury must hear it first.”

  The Inspector’s bluff has been called. There’s nothing further he can say to him. He has a sick feeling, as if he’s been caught stealing.

  Philipp quietly says that he wishes he could condemn the Inspector to the same experience he suffers, to have his mourning marred by suspicion and fear.

  Only afterward, as he stares at the freezing Danube below the Franz-Josefs-Kai, does the Inspector marvel at Philipp’s performance, his absolute command of himself. How he sat without reacting under the Inspector’s deluge of sooty paper, as if he wasn’t even present during this indignity. He’s a contrast to his daughter, Dora, who made dramatic demonstrations of every disappointment and affront, real and imagined.

  Perhaps Philipp is a man who unleashes himself on women. He thinks of Fräulein Fürj, Frau Zellenka. Perhaps Dora too.

  The Investigating Officer must . . . reconstruct the occurrence, build up by hard labour a theory fitted in and coordinated like a living organism; and just as on seeing the fruit he will recognise the tree and the country of its growth, so from the scrutiny of the deed he can presume how it has been brought about, what have been the motives, and what kind of persons have been employed in it; the secondary characters in the picture will find themselves.

  Erszébet paid a Thomas Cook & Son guide to drive a motor cab to the summit of the Kahlenberg, so Wally could enjoy the view of Vienna and the Danube Valley, the Lesser Carpathians and the Styrian Alps. This is Erszébet’s conciliatory gesture. They take the Höhenstrasse toward the northeastern edge of the Wienerwald.

  The snow is heavier here, a few miles outside Vienna. The guide stops the motor cab, and Wally clambers out. Erszébet waits inside.

  Wally walks on the road, carefully stepping within the cab’s tire tracks to avoid the deep drifts. There are vineyards here, and the bare grapevines resemble a forest of dead twigs, as if the earth were covered with salt, not snow. The fog is a brown gray color, a monotonous fuzz hanging over the distance to the city. Wally thinks it’s a dull landscape.

  She gets back in the cab, politely thanking Erszébet for bringing her here. The driver noisily backs the motor cab down the steep hill.

  “So, you’ve seen Vienna and her famous woods. I’m sorry I can’t show you a view of Buda Pest from its hills,” Erszébet muses. “In Török-utcza, you knock on the gate of a villa for entrance to a sheikh’s monument, the Gül-Baba Mecsetje. He was a Turkish monk known as ‘the father of roses,’ and the whole city is visible from his grave. I prefer my landscape framed by roses rather than grapevines.”

  They sit close together, their features now masked by the early twilight. Outside, the planet Venus can easily be studied in the January sky, an icy diamond punctilio visible as early as five o’clock in the afternoon. The snow is a ragged sheet over the landscape, an eerie pale blue color, as waxy and unnatural-looking as some early spring flowers.

  Wally has grown quieter around her lately, and sensing this, Erszébet touches her frequently, making wordless small gestures of affection, smoothing the girl’s hair, resting a kind hand on her shoulder.

  All day they’ve avoided the subject of Dora. The light is too gray for Wally to distinguish Erszébet’s face, but she can sense the heaviness that possesses her. And Erszébet doesn’t seem to feel the need for conversation. She has her own dialogue.

  Wally brings up the fig. The tree they found behind the clinic. Could Steinach be involved in the murder? Did he conspire with Dora’s father in some way? Wally speculates. Perhaps his partner, Dr. Last, was the man in the photographer’s studio? After all, Philipp is Steinach’s patient. Wally’s voice trails off.

  Yes, it almost makes a circle, Erszébet says softly.

  Did Dora carry away proof in her body — the fig — of her visit to Steinach?

  But Erszébet is less interested now in theories, in puzzling. She believes what will bring them an answer — the name of the murderer — is working in her own body.

  “This is a magical period,” Erszébet suddenly announces.

  “Magical?”

  “It is believed that on the feast day of Saint Peter, January sixteenth, the howling of wolves will be heard. Listen.”

  Now there is no point of light outside in the landscape. And nothing but silence.

  Wally shivers. Then she dismisses Erszébet’s information as a childhood story. Animals who talk.

  I know something about transformation, Erszébet says, as if she’s read her mind. “I heard stories when I was growing up. My governess read me The Duchess o
f Malfi. I still remember it.” She closes her eyes and recites the words.

  Two nights since

  One met the duke ’bout midnight in a lane

  Behind Saint Mark’s church, with the leg of a man

  Upon his shoulder; and he howled fearfully,

  Said he was a wolf, only the difference

  Was, a wolf’s skin was hairy on the outside,

  His on the inside.

  In the silent cab, the heavy blanket over Wally’s legs and the comfortable pressure of Erszébet’s body suddenly become weightless, as if the ugly image has numbed her skin.

  The Inspector stands before the door of the Zellenkas’ house. Fräulein Yella answers his knocking, and he can tell by her sour expression she isn’t pleased to see him. The woman isn’t prepared to lie, can only confirm that Frau Zellenka is at home. She reluctantly accepts his hat and walking stick and takes her time leaving the room. He could believe she counts one, two, three between each of her steps. The women intend to make him wait, and he resists the impulse to pace. Two days earlier there was an assault and a robbery at a Tabak-Trafiken, and he spent hours searching the dirty floor for spilled coins and bloodstains. His knees still ache.

  The next footsteps are Frau Zellenka’s. She’s calculated her entrance.

  “I’m to have the pleasure of your conversation yet again?”

  He ignores her sarcasm.

  “As you see. I thought you’d prefer meeting here rather than the morgue.”

  They move to the next room. She produces cigarettes and they smoke, repeating their last interview, as if he’s stepped into a photograph of the scene. However, this time she’s dressed in a scarlet robe, which drains her face of its color.

  He’s conscious of the immense weight of his hope that she may have an answer for him, something to end Dora’s story. No debate, no further developments, just the dry precision of a fact, like a sealed envelope. He takes out his notebook.

  “Another witness claims you argued violently with Dora.”

  She considers this for a moment.

  “Strange the way events come to light. Yes, Dora and I had an argument. She displayed the most reprehensible behavior toward me. After all I’d done for her.”

  He notices her gestures have become more agitated.

  “As you know, my only daughter died in August. Tuberculosis. While I was still in mourning, Dora decided to confront me about my relationship with her father. Can you imagine Dora’s selfish, disrespectful impertinence? She screamed at me, and I slapped her face. I still don’t regret it, may God forgive me.”

  She glares at him.

  “Now if you think this was motive enough for me to murder Dora two weeks later, you are wrong. No one would believe a bereaved mother would kill a dear friend. No one. And now I must ask you to leave. The extent of my courtesy has reached an end.”

  He abruptly rises to his feet. She’s turned everything around. He has no words. Not even sympathy.

  The traffic was very slow, some accident on Josefstädter Strasse with a horse and wagon. While Erszébet and her husband sat inside a dark fiaker stalled on the street, she told him about a contest some aristocrats had created, purely for their own entertainment. A gold coin was embedded in a lit candle. While they watched and cheered, a Gypsy attempted to remove the coin with his teeth without extinguishing the flame, burning his hair or the skin on his face. If he succeeded, the coin was his to keep. She reassures him this cruel story was documented by Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu’s secretary some time ago.

  She chose this moment to light a cigarette.

  He presses his lips to her hand, and as he smells her skin and sees the dot of fire that is her cigarette, he’s conscious that these two sensations have summoned the genie of memory. She senses his mood has shifted.

  He recognizes nothing yet, although the emotion that precedes the memory — one of sadness and loss — is completely present. He waits. As if he looked down from a height, only gradually does the diminutive scene become visible in his mind.

  “My father did something to me when I was about six years old,” he says, his voice thoughtful. “I held my hand over the top of a lamp; I didn’t know any better. I burned the palm of my hand. You’ll learn not to do this, my father shouted, angry at my foolishness. He made me sit at the dinner table and use my knife and fork to eat, even though my burned hand bled. I always thought he was secretly proud of me because he couldn’t make me cry.”

  He slowly bends over and buries his face in her lap.

  Although it has never occurred to her husband to ask, Erszébet is very familiar with certain love spells. Some are even ironic. She knows of lovers who have become convinced their passion for each other is so great it must be caused by a supernatural force. As if the sunlight they’ve been sitting in has gradually grown too hot for their comfort. They realize a rontás, a spell, has been put on them.

  One remedy is to consciously fall out of love. A passionate quarrel.

  The other cure is to discover who is responsible for the spell and have it removed.

  The consent of only one of the lovers is necessary for this process.

  Erszébet no longer approaches her husband in bed. She sleeps unmoving in her voluptuous imperviousness to him. He burrows his head under the sheets, just to be enclosed with her scent, wholly surrounded.

  He believes he is lost. For the first time in his life, he wants to howl like a dog.

  But he keeps silent, and shivers until he falls asleep.

  CHAPTER 14

  As his fiaker speeds west out of the city, the Inspector notices the dead grasses near the road move by more quickly than the woods in the distance, a slowly unfurling grayness inflicted on the luminous white hills. The snow is steadily growing deeper, as if the ground were sinking, pulling him in. But at least that suffocation would be a relief from the speculations that torment him. He’s no closer to a solution to Dora’s murder. Correction. Just as he approaches a solution, it proves to be a false image, a mirage that vanishes, a délibáb. Perhaps this next interrogation will settle matters. He doesn’t have long to wait, as the lunatic asylum is visible through the trees.

  The fiaker turns off the main road into the asylum grounds. The snow is in drifts here, a sea of pointed billows, and the horses slow down to wade through it, making their entrance seem irreversible.

  From the bottom of the hill, the asylum is an ominous fortress, sixty nearly identical brick structures with unusually small windows. In the center of this drabness, the Kirche am Steinhof, with its glorious gilt dome, stands like an abandoned bride. The church was designed by Otto Wagner, and the Inspector is looking forward to a meditative Sunday service. He asks the driver to let him out.

  Under the tolling of great bells, a crowd streams into the Kirche. As he walks closer, he sees the worshipers are patients, some coaxed along by nurses, others pushed in wheeled chairs. The blind and violently disturbed are loosely roped together, hurried along by harrassed orderlies.

  Depressed by this clumsy parade, he turns his eyes to the Kirche. Marble plates are bolted over the facade of this severe structure, and the figures of four immense, icy angels are balanced over the portal.

  Slightly ill at ease, he follows the inmates into the Kirche. Inside, it’s bare and cold, unfinished looking. The ceiling bristles with rough silver pipes, deliberately left exposed. The altar is situated inside a fantastic structure of scrolled metal, like a giant cage. Gibbering voices, wails, and shouts bounce off the white tile walls.

  Struggling with the patients, the orderlies take no notice of him. Two burly uniformed men shove half a dozen unruly worshipers into a pew, then slam the gates at each end, locking them in for the service.

  The Inspector steps gingerly into the nave, dodging jostling bodies. The echoing noise, the strange, antiseptic aura of the church, the smell of incense and unwashed bodies, all of it seems artificial yet familiar, as if he has been lured into a terrible purgatory of his own imagination. T
here must be some mistake, he thinks. How have I found my way here? He tries to stay calm, keep his bearings in the chaos. Then his feet are unsteady, and he looks down to see the floor slope into a drain. Now he understands. The church was designed to be easily cleaned, the black-and-white tiles are hosed down after each service.

  Hands suddenly grip his shoulder from behind, then move around his neck. He tries to wrench them away, but his unseen attacker jerks his weight back, transforming everything into noise and blurred motion as he falls.

  The man is on top of him now, a grimacing brown face. The Inspector gropes his chin and nose, digs fingers into the stranger’s eyes. There’s a hard pressure on his throat, and a blurred black shadow moves across the back of his eyes like a cloud eating the light. He feels the weight lift. Two orderlies pull the man off his chest. Other hands grab the Inspector under the arms and heave him to his feet.

  He sags against the wall, gasping for breath, trying to clear the rawness from his throat and chest, the red veil from his eyes. He dimly recognizes the classic symptoms of strangling. Dizzy, he shakes his head, trying to focus on the strange circle of men around him. Some stare at him expressionlessly. Others laugh.

  A voice asks how he feels. His eyes blink. Did he bite you? the voice demands, and he realizes it comes from the concerned face next to him. A young man. I don’t think so, he rasps.

  The deep chords of an organ begin, momentarily overwhelming the indescribable din in the church. As if translated into a physical sensation, the music seems to swell against the bruised places on his neck.

  The priest enters, walking easily down the aisle into the noise, serene as a man contemplating a garden.

  The Inspector stays where he is, unable to hear a single spoken word of the service. Relieved when it is over, he leaves without waiting for the blessing or holy water from the fountain, rubbing his sore neck.

  Two thumbprints, red and blue as jewels, are pressed into the skin over his jugular veins.