HS02 - Days of Atonement

by Michael Gregorio

  ‘Interests?’ queried Lavedrine. ‘The French? Is that who you were hoping to rent it to?’

  Biswanger rolled his mouth up into a tight grimace. ‘Let’s say, anyone who might be . . . interested in keeping an eye along that road. The French, of course, sir. But not only them. When politics shift, there’s always room for improvisation. An inn, perhaps. Or a hunting lodge for officers . . .’

  ‘A whorehouse for French squaddies,’ Lavedrine offered with a wink.

  Biswanger smiled uncertainly, and winked back. ‘You catch my drift, sir. That house did seem to offer a fair number of commercial possibilities, though it was slow finding an enterprising soul.’

  ‘Until that Prussian officer turned up,’ Lavedrine concluded. ‘May I enquire how much you paid for it, and how much you charged for the rent?’

  ‘We agreed on ten thalers a month.’

  This was more of a murmur from the side of his mouth than a proud proclamation of business acumen, and Lavedrine’s eyebrows arched with surprise. ‘Not a lot,’ he said. A moment later, he added: ‘Indeed, the rent is incredibly low.’

  Biswanger pulled an uncomfortable face, and looked extremely unhappy, even embarrassed. He had answered our questions, and answered them honestly, I presumed, but still there was a trace of something that I could not put my finger on. He appeared to be telling us what we wanted to hear, but that was not the same as freely telling us everything he knew. Was this the attitude that had puzzled Lavedrine at their first meeting? Did the man have something to hide?

  Lavedrine slapped the flat of his hand on the table, and fixed Biswanger with a look of frightful intensity. ‘Let us recapitulate,’ he said. He raised his hand and held one finger up in the air. ‘You set a house in order with the intent to speculate on its commercial use.’ He added a second finger to the attack. ‘That house was on the Danzig road, and you hoped to make a handsome profit renting it to Frenchmen, or those who make a profit out of them.’ The third finger popped accusingly into place. ‘But then a desperate Prussian officer arrived on the scene, and you rented it to him for next to nothing. I ask you, Biswanger! In your own words, he was interested in that house, and no other. You could have asked for twice as much, but you did not. What miracle of Christian charity took possession of you?’

  Biswanger raised his hands in the air as if Lavedrine had pulled a pistol from under his cloak and cocked the hammer. ‘You know already, sir, I think.’ He looked at me, and made a nodding motion with his head. ‘You’ve laid your hands on the contract, haven’t you, Herr Procurator?’

  Lavedrine avoided my eye. I nodded my head to hide my incredulity.

  ‘Could we ignore it?’ Lavedrine said with a sneer, following it up with a blinding platitude. ‘A legal contract is a binding contract, when all is said and done.’

  Although he spoke with knowing intelligence, he had made no previous mention of it. The existence of this document was as new to him as it was to me, I realised.

  ‘You know the house does not belong to me, then,’ Biswanger declared. ‘I should have told you at once, Colonel Lavedrine, but, well . . . there and then, I did not think that it was a matter of any great importance.’

  He popped the top button of his bulging waistcoat loose with his finger, and let out a mournful sigh, as if he had been in danger of suffocating.

  ‘In the circumstances,’ he went on, his brow red, beaded with droplets of sweat, ‘I do believe I’d better make a clean breast of the whole thing.’

  ‘Excellent,’ I agreed. ‘Rather than make your position worse.’

  Biswanger jammed his eyes tightly closed. I thought he was about to cry. ‘If you’ve spoken to lawyer Wittelsbach, you’ll know that I am merely the nominee. I do rent other houses, but not that one. It isn’t mine to rent.’

  ‘We know that,’ I said, stepping quickly into Lavedrine’s shoes. ‘But before we act on the information, we want to hear from you the name of the owner.’

  I hoped my voice would not betray the excitement that I felt.

  Biswanger rubbed his chin for what seemed an interminable length of time. ‘The trouble with that house, sir . . .’ he began. ‘The trouble with any house . . . You need a respectable name. Isn’t that right? If deeds are to be signed, I mean to say, with a lawyer there, you need a man who . . . Well, a person like myself. That house does not belong to me. That’s why the price was low.’

  ‘Who owns it, then?’ I asked.

  He jumped to his feet. ‘It’s not a crime as such, sir,’ he said. ‘Do you want to see my half of the agreement? It’s here in my office, signed by lawyer Wittelsbach, just like the copy you’ve seen. I can go and get it for you . . .’

  ‘Herr Biswanger,’ I said, standing in front of him, ‘you are in grave danger of getting yourself into very serious trouble. Who does that house belong to?’

  ‘It belongs to Aaron Jacob, sir,’ he said.

  Before I could react to this revelation, Biswanger took it upon himself to elucidate.

  ‘Aaron the Jew,’ he added.

  22

  SO, I THOUGHT, this is the new breed of Prussians.

  While Leon Biswanger boasted of his schemes for making money, I saw them advancing in legions, rank upon rank, a mighty army, sweeping the whole of Prussia before them. Dirt was ingrained beneath their fingernails, carrying with it the recent memory of an aching back and endless labour in a country gentleman’s potato field. For centuries, generations of Biswangers had slaved for privileged men who ruled over them like kings.

  Junker lords and their agents watched like hawks while their serfs turned the heavy clods in the snow and pouring rain. Junker lords shouted orders at them when the season for compulsory military exercises came around. Junker lords with names like Katowice, Dittersdorf, and Stiffeniis led them into battle. My father and his forebears had managed their serfs with unbending intolerance. Now, fortune’s wheel had shifted for men at every level of society. The Junker had disgraced themselves in Berlin, defiantly honing their sabres on the doorstep of the French legation the evening before the invasion began. That had been the last straw. The French had conquered us and brought their revolution with them, instituting the Great Edict in Prussia. They had punished the Junker by promising liberation to their serfs. All the Biswangers could be free, if they chose to scrabble for an independent living. The ones who had broken loose would turn a trick with any profiteer who chose to knock at their door. Even the Nation’s worst enemy, by which I meant the French. The country would expand and grow, I had no doubt, as a result of the efforts of Biswanger, and his money-hoarding fellows, but it would not be the Prussia of old.

  ‘Aaron the Jew?’ Lavedrine prompted.

  Leon Biswanger had met Aaron Jacob three years before, he said. The man had arrived in the small ghetto of Lotingen, a fugitive from Lithuania and the oppression of the Russians.

  ‘He made a fortune,’ Biswanger recounted with relish, ‘collecting bones from animals and making soap. Aaron’s a sharp one, I’ll say that for him. He had money, he wanted more, but had no means of investing it locally. It was a lucky encounter for both of us, I have never looked back.’

  He stared at Lavedrine as he said all this, avoiding my eye. A Frenchman could understand far better than a Prussian what motives drove him. Aaron Jacob had bought four houses through the agency of Biswanger and lawyer Wittelsbach, two in the centre of the town, two more outside the city walls, including the cottage that the Gottewalds had occupied. Biswanger had signed the contracts and paid the taxes, then he had taken a healthy cut of the profits from the real owner.

  ‘Me and Aaron Jacob get on right as rain,’ he said, ‘but I would not say I know him well. I only meet him when there’s business to be done, or accounts to be settled.’

  ‘Do you meet him in the ghetto?’ I asked.

  ‘You wouldn’t catch me going there!’ he answered quickly. ‘Nor bringing him here. We meet “by accident” at Wittelsbach’s office. All sorts come and go there, no one gi
ves a toss these days. We had to be more careful before . . .’

  His eyes darted at Lavedrine.

  ‘Before what?’ I pressed him.

  ‘Well, sir, before Jena.’

  His eyes did not waver from mine as he admitted this treachery.

  ‘The coming of the French has made it easier,’ he continued. ‘No one pays us much attention these days. Business is business.’

  ‘Did Gottewald know that the cottage belonged to a Jewish landlord?’ Lavedrine piped up.

  Biswanger shook his head. ‘He thought the house was mine. Aaron’s name and tribe never came into it. Only Wittelsbach knew . . .’ He hesitated for a moment, peering hard at Lavedrine. ‘May I ask a question, sir?’

  The Frenchman waved an encouraging hand.

  ‘Did the lawyer tell you? That man’s a viper, I always knew it!’

  ‘You may be surprised to hear this, Biswanger,’ I cut in before Lavedrine could reply, ‘but no one told us anything. Except yourself, that is.’

  Biswanger blew noisily on his lips and sat back heavily. His clothes seemed to collapse in upon him, as if his bulky body had been suddenly spirited away.

  ‘Hmm,’ he murmured noisily. ‘I had nothing to do with killing them children, sir. Had I known what was going to happen in that house, I’d never have got involved.’

  His rumbling voice was reedy and trembling by the time he finished.

  ‘If you have done nothing,’ I insisted, ‘you will answer our questions.’

  Biswanger’s eyes opened wide. ‘That’s what I’m trying to do, Herr Procurator, I assure you.’

  ‘Why did Aaron the Jew want the Gottewalds and their children to take that particular house?’ asked Lavedrine.

  Did Lavedrine think that the rumours flying around Lotingen had some foundation in truth? Had he been convinced by the revolting caricatures on that Jew-hating broadsheet?

  If Lavedrine’s question left me breathless, it provoked a quaking spasm on the podgy face of Leon Biswanger. ‘Sir, you cannot believe . . . Oh no, sir, not that! I did not know there was a motive in it. I was convinced they wanted that house. Why else would Aaron . . . You can’t believe what people are saying, sir! I was just the go-between.’

  ‘Yet, in your own words, that house was intended to make a profit,’ Lavedrine ploughed on. ‘Not ten miserable thalers. What other reason could there be for letting the house go so cheaply?’

  ‘Major Gottewald . . . he wanted that house, sir,’ Biswanger repeated piteously, as if that frail argument were his one remaining hope of salvation. ‘There was no other profit to be made from it, at least in the short run. I told Aaron about the offer, and he instructed me to accept it . . .’

  ‘And in the long run?’ Lavedrine challenged.

  ‘Sir?’ Biswanger whined, uncertain where he stood, incapable of guessing where Lavedrine’s sharp reasoning would take him next.

  ‘You are a businessman, Biswanger,’ Lavedrine replied smoothly. ‘Surely, you know the current price on the local market of a pint of Christian blood?’

  If Biswanger was flabbergasted, I was horrified.

  Lavedrine smiled benignly at the pair of us. ‘A tiny rent on the house, but a huge profit on a certain rare commodity sold in the right religious circles, don’t you think?’

  He looked at Biswanger, whose head was in his hands, as he tried in vain to stifle his wailing. Then, Lavedrine looked at me and winked reassuringly.

  ‘But come, Herr Biswanger,’ he said, turning his loaded cannons on the man again. ‘You are, as I said before, a businessman . . .’

  ‘You’ll have to speak to Aaron, sir,’ the man protested defiantly. ‘I don’t know nothing about that business.’

  ‘We will speak to him soon,’ I interposed. ‘You can swear an oath on it.’

  But Lavedrine brought the discussion back again to his own chosen path. ‘This business with the houses, Biswanger. Tell me, what sort of a profit do you manage to make in that line of work?’

  Biswanger studied the Frenchman’s face for some moments. ‘Thirty per cent,’ he said, and for all his discomfort he could not prevent a hollow smile from appearing on his fat lips.

  ‘So,’ Lavedrine summed up, ‘thirty per cent of ten thalers. That’s three, if my sums are correct.’

  ‘Indeed, sir.’

  Lavedrine smiled, then chuckled to himself. ‘I took you for a mastiff, Biswanger. Instead, I find that you are a puppy. A benefactor, if I am truthful. If Aaron Jacob’s other houses yield so little, you can’t be doing very well for yourself.’

  ‘That’s just a sideline, sir,’ the man shot back. ‘I have my own business to put the clothes on my back, and Pfennig in my coffers.’

  ‘What is your business?’

  ‘If you are hiding something more,’ I warned him, ‘the next time you speak to us, you will be wearing chains inside a prison cell. What is your trade?’

  The man joined his hands and looked at me, as if he were amazed. ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ he said. ‘I thought you knew. People passing in the street are always going on about the smell. We don’t have neighbours living near. We are used to it, and someone has to do the job. The workshop’s on the windward side, away from the river. It’s open country out back. I have a license from the General Quarters now, and it is of great public utility. Still,’ he sighed, ‘there’s no accounting for ignorance and superstition.’

  ‘Pour l’amour de Dieu!’ Lavedrine exclaimed. ‘What do you do, man?’

  ‘How can I explain it to you, sir?’ Biswanger replied, a terrified frown on his face. ‘You have a name for the work in France, I do believe . . . jux crux,’ he mumbled at last, making an execrable attempt to pronounce these words in French. He jumped up, wiping his sweaty hands on his trousers. ‘It would be better if I showed you.’

  He led us along a brick-tiled corridor, then out into a paved courtyard at the back of the house. Taking a large key from his pocket, he unlocked a narrow door which opened into his workshop. As the man bowed and waited for us to pass inside before him, I threw an eye at Lavedrine, hoping for elucidation, but the expression on his face pitched me into greater confusion. He was smiling in a manner that suggested amusement and lively curiosity, equally mixed. I think he knew what we were about to discover, but decided to leave me in the dark.

  One thing alone was indisputable: the smell.

  While knocking on Biswanger’s front door, we had remarked upon it. But inside that room it was sickening. Daylight entered by means of the same narrow slits we had noticed from the street, the rays cutting through the gloom like stabbing swords. Six lamps were set at intervals along the other wall, each containing a candle. Beneath each lamp was a wooden table covered with a slab of slate. Laid out on five of them was the ‘merchandise’ of Leon Biswanger.

  ‘You almost hit it, Biswanger. Jurés crieurs is what we call them in France,’ Lavedrine said with a laugh. He turned to me and explained. ‘ “Announcers of death”,’ he said. ‘An edict issued by Louis XIV made them into a hereditary guild. Sons follow by right of birth in their fathers’ footsteps in every town and city. Their duty is to inform the people of a death, then assist with the interment.’

  He turned to Biswanger. ‘Well done, sir! A trade in constant expansion, given the times we live in.’

  My eyes were riveted on the row of corpses. Two men and three women, all dressed in their Sunday best, as if they might stand up at any moment and decide to take a stroll. The women were artfully displayed, each wearing a headdress of black lace thrown back to expose the face, the trailing veil expertly moulded along the shoulders and down the arms. But as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, I realised that the first impression had been misleading. These people would never stand again. Their cheeks were sunken where bones gave no support, the skin as thin and brittle as parchment. The jaw of one of the women had locked at a lopsided angle, exposing yellow teeth and putrid gums.

  Smiling now, confident of having won the approval of Lavedr
ine, Biswanger led us into the room, stopping beside one of the trestles. The candlelight flickered mercilessly on the dead man’s face. Clearly, he had suffered. His body was unnaturally twisted, his aged face aghast with pain. His tongue was steely blue, protruding from between clenched teeth, lolling along the side of his stubbly chin. He had gagged in the moment of decease. Had the agony gone on longer, he would have bitten his tongue off.

  ‘Gunthar Loesse, bellringer in the parish of Allenswerder,’ Biswanger recited smoothly. ‘Fell from the bell tower. Probably the worse for drink. Broke his back and every rib.’ He turned to me. ‘Horrible sight, don’t you agree, sir? There’s not much I can do for him. I’ll have to remove that tongue before we lay him in an open coffin. A very popular man with the local Pietist congregation, apparently. The parishioners agreed to pay for my services. They brought him in last night, so he still don’t look his best. By the time they bury him on Friday, he’ll be as handsome as a bridegroom,’ the undertaker explained with joy.

  ‘Do you save the better specimens for medical schools?’ I asked. ‘Or sell the organs by the pound weight when requested?’

  ‘What do you take me for, sir?’ he protested, making the sign of the Cross on his forehead. ‘I go to chapel every Sunday. Sell human remains? I’d never dream of doing such a thing. Why, I . . . I’m a . . .’

  He was trembling from head to toe. My conviction grew. There was more to his business than he had chosen to show us.

  ‘You are what, sir?’ I insisted.

  ‘I was going to say, sir, I am something of an artist,’ he replied. ‘If the parents, relatives, or friends ask me . . .’

  ‘Pay you,’ I corrected him.

  ‘First, they ask. Then, happy with the results, they pay. I . . . well . . . You’d better come with me,’ he said, moving towards a jutting wall which enclosed a second room. ‘In here, Herr Procurator. And Colonel Lavedrine, sir. Step this way, please.’

  We might have entered a different house. The smell of death was dominant out there, but in this sanctum we might have been inside a church with a hundred burning candles. Oil lamps flickered in the room like votive lights, but the persistent smell—a delicate perfume, overwhelming and cushioning the scent of rotting flesh and corrupt innards—was a familiar one.