by Regi Claire
Celia has taken one–two–three–four swallows of her drink but now the glass is empty and her hand flies up to clutch the opal pendant. She doesn’t believe in that old wives’ tale of opals bringing bad luck, does she?
‘Abracadabra,’ the apparition says, flourishing a new Cüpli as if from out of nowhere and placing it in front of her.
Celia jerks aside. The back of her chair clangs against the radiator and a sound escapes from her throat, a panting gasp like she’s being strangled.
‘You don’t recognise me? No?’
For a moment the mask is almost touching her face. Underneath the slits, the eyes flash white; perhaps she only imagines the wriggle of a tiny red snake next to the left iris. There’s a whiff of what seems like the sharp hot dust-smell of stone, the echo of a low menacing laugh, then the stranger begins to back off, whispering, ‘Well, next time, I hope …’ and is gone. Swallowed whole by the cannibals or spirited away by the witches and gypsies, tossed overboard by the pirates, argued into shreds and thin air by the philosophers.
Celia is still clutching the pendant, the leather band taut against her neck. Her mouth is panting open. Was this a threat? A silly prank? Noise and smoke surge round her, engulfing her. Home, sweet, sweet home; even the huddled unfinished silence of her lounge is preferable to this. Then a sudden thought: the decorator – could it have been him? Or that assistant of his, with the sneaky hooded eyes?
The table’s iron base shrieks as she propels herself up out of the chair, snatching the empty glass away from the edge, just. She doesn’t give a damn about the full one – some of the liquid has fizzled over its rim and gathered in a thin red pool. Heavenknows what Granite Mask might have concocted for her.
The Carnival throng is at its most riotous near the door and Celia feels rather conspicuous in her ordinary clothes. Over by the coat rack she glimpses her tree-hugging soldier again, his face smeared with lipstick. Ducking her head, wishing she hadn’t put on that glitter-bright eye shadow, she tries to sidestep the rattles and streamers and false noses, the hot greedy hands.
‘Hey! Where’re you off to, darling?’ A sheik makes a grab at her, his fat red lips all puckered and wet.
Confetti trickles down her neck, sticks to her sweaty back.
‘Going to get changed? Let me help, haha!’
‘Wow-ow-ow!’ an Apache howls, ‘Give us a kiss or –’ and he brandishes his tomahawk, messing up her hair.
Roll tongues shrill past her ears. Then she’s over the threshold and out on to the pavement.
Someone blocks her path. She trembles inside and for an instant can’t see a thing; not Granite Mask again, pleasegod-please. But no, it’s only a harlequin wearing pink-tinted wide-winged glasses.
He pats her on the shoulder in a friendly way. ‘No need to look so scared, lady.’ His huge mulberry mouth stretches into a grin.
Celia is too nervous to give him a smile in return and buttons up her coat instead. Nodding goodbye she strides off briskly – she’s had enough of people for the moment – when the harlequin is at her elbow again. He bows: ‘To escort you through the unruly night.’
‘Oh no, that’s not necessary, thank you. I can take care of myself.’ Celia breaks into a run. Laughter echoes behind her, ricocheting off walls and Carnival decorations. Coming after her. Her heels scrunch up humps of frozen slush and coloured paper. Along the short promenade of chestnut trees, half-tripping over the kerb … into a lane of shuttered windows, rigid-hanging flags and pennants, and out again … skidding across the red cobbles of the pedestrian precinct close to Eric’s, the bunting overhead like the strung-up rags of madmen … almost smashing into the potted shrub by the. Confiserie … past more soldiers, more masks who whistle after her … down a narrow back alley congested with waste containers … towards the baroque shadows of St Nikolaus’s.
She must have thrown him off; there’s no one behind her now. Halfway round the side of the church she slows to listen. Nothing apart from some indistinct shouts battered by buildings and distance.
On her right a dozen or so steps lead below ground to a pool of blackness bounded by a wooden door and a window whose metal bars gleam feebly in the moonlight. She doesn’t bother to go down to test the handle but moves on – crypts have a nasty habit of trapping not just the dead, she’s heard.
The cobbled path circling the church is mossy and slippery with frost. The black iron railings along the back where the plateau of the Old Town drops steeply towards the former military barracks and Anders Railway Station have a forlorn and insignificant look, as if they’ve shrunk in the cold. At the foot of the tower with its onion dome, pigeon feathers have got stuck to the ice like tiny tattered sails.
There are portals here, set in an elaborate porch. Locked. Of course they are. And anyway, she isn’t the least bit religious. That was one of the sore points in her relationship with her mother, who during the last few years of her active life had taken to attending the Sunday service to say prayers ‘for the Soul of your poor lost father’. Never ‘my poor lost husband’. And never to light a votive candle either – no doubt she thought that too blasphemous under the circumstances, with him having gone missing while he was exploring the Hölloch, Hell Cave, near Lake Lucerne.
Instinctively Celia has retreated to one of the corners behind the church porch. She still can’t muster up any true feelings of sorrow, or pity. It happened so long ago she can hardly remember her father. Better to let him rest in the dripstone peace of his cave forever. She shivers. It’s freezing out here, especially after the body heat of the crowded Métropole.
All at once she starts shaking, flushes hot and cold, hot and cold. That harlequin. The voice had reminded her of someone … As if to jolt her memory, the slabs of stone in the porch wall have begun to sway, pressing into her, then sliding away in a stumble. She tries to steady them with her head, her shoulders. With both hands. The stone feels coarse and sharp and grainy; there’s a silvery glint just above her thumbs, the glint of mica – and she hears herself say ‘Granite Mask?’ in a wondering tone.
Afterwards the questions won’t stop. What if the two had been one and the same person? The diamond-patterned costume concealed under the carmine robe, the greasepaint under the hideous facelessness? Was this how the stranger had managed to vanish without trace?
But why the elaborate disguise? Why pursue her like this? Forgodsake why?
Celia’s hand is at her pendant again, clasping it till the opal seems to throb alive against her skin. Then, breath by breath, she relaxes. Surely she’s overreacting. People enjoy playing games, especially this time of year. No rhyme or reason. She’s just not used to it. And she did have several Cüpli …
It might even have been one of Eric’s more eccentric clients, one of the stone-crazy ones. Saw her sitting there and wanted to test her reaction – the voice had sounded kind of familiar. Celia is convinced that’s all it was: a chance encounter, a coincidence.
A wind has sprung up. It carries the stuttering rush of a train towards her, then the cries of more Carnival-goers, raucous and bone shrill. The crane that juts up into the darkness from among the rooftops, heralding the final stages of the millennium building project at the station, seems to rattle very faintly, like the skeleton of some prehistoric beast. Not enough for them to tunnel into the earth, dislodging tens of thousands of cubic metres for their novelty underground roundabout – they’re striving to fill up the sky as well.
Celia turns away. The shaking isn’t so bad now. In a little while she’ll come out from under the shadows and set off home.
With the window covered up so her bedroom’s pitch-dark, and a mere smell of port left in the tumbler on the night table, Celia is about to drop off. When all of a sudden she has the impression of something hovering above her in the black stillness … something palely phosphorescent … an oval form, purplish and parted across the middle, like a mouth blown up out of all proportion. It seems to be talking to her, only she can’t make out what it is s
aying, even after the message has been repeated twice. She is fuzzily aware she must be asleep already, and dreaming.
Celia had been nine the winter Lily’s mother and her own went to the Maskenball together. All excited, she’d begged to see the fancy dress beforehand. Had begged and begged, on her knees eventually, in helpless childish supplication.
Her mother had laughed, brushed off her lilac linen suit where Celia’s head had left a crease and possibly a hair or two, and said, ‘Nonsense, dear. You’re too young for this sort of thing. I’ve promised Margaret to do her face and I’ll get changed there. It’s all arranged. Now would you please be a good girl and let me get ready? Have something to eat if you’re hungry.’ And she went into the Beauty Room to pack her vanity case while Celia looked on from the corridor.
A little later Walter’s door opened. ‘Have fun, both of you,’ he called out. ‘I’m off to a tree-house party.’ His blue sleeping bag rolled under one arm, he fastened some straps on his rucksack which was crammed with Coke bottles, Bürli rolls, Cervelat sausages and a carbide lamp from his potholing days with their father (Celia had done a little snooping earlier, when Walter was in the bathroom washing his curls).
‘Oh, a party,’ their mother mimicked, emerging from the Beauty Room. She sauntered right up to him, reached out a hand, ‘No need for this then, is there?’ and tried pulling the sleeping bag away from him.
‘Christ, Gabrielle, it’s damn cold out. Trees don’t have central heating, you know.’ He straightened up, flung on his fleece-lined leather jacket and walked out, banging the door.
Celia glanced at her mother furtively. At only fourteen Walter seemed so much more grown up than herself. His behaviour had awakened a vague memory in her of a series of doors slamming shut like a line of dominoes toppling over – her parents’ bedroom door, the kitchen door, their front door, the cellar door, the garage door, the car doors – and her father driving off with Walter and a whole bootful of provisions and caving equipment. Exactly like then her mother now stood glowering into space, ignoring Celia, who’d sidled up to her and was doing her best to be nice and make amends by default. Walter had won a minor victory – from that day on, the blue sleeping bag travelled to and from the tree house with him unchallenged.
Having realised there was no hope of ever being shown her mother’s fancy dress, Celia decided on action.
Lily was spending the night because her father was away somewhere with the chamber orchestra he conducted, and old Frau Gehrig had been asked to keep an eye on them. Frau Geriatric, as they’d nicknamed her, playing the syllables round their mouths like pinballs, was easily duped.
By bicycle it wasn’t too far to the casino where the ball was held in those days. The streets were dry, most of the snow having melted during the week. They raced each other over the level crossing just as the barriers were coming down, then put the bicycles into the stand at the station. There was no Casino Mall yet, no late-night shopping, and the train passengers had soon dispersed. Out of sight from the casino’s main entrance they found a ground-floor window which was slightly ajar and conveniently fringed by shrubbery. A few lumps of snow crunched under their boots as they hunkered down. Heavy plum-coloured curtains were drawn across a small recess, almost joining in the middle. Close to, Johnny’s Carnival Band sounded fast and brash but slipshod somehow, as if all those feet they could hear stamping, tripping, shuffling and clattering about were treading the music to bits. There were giggles, shrapnels of laughter. The air wafting through was warm and clotted with smoke, alcohol fumes, scents and sweat.
Lily was freezing, and getting impatient; they needed a larger gap to see anything really. She nudged Celia and pointed to a slash of light from a window further up to their left. ‘Let’s try that one.’
They were about to move when an arm appeared between the curtains. The leafless thicket of twigs thrashed their faces like a Santa Claus birch rod, and ice crystals rained down on them. With bated breath they cowered in chandelier brightness. Then the curtains flapped once more and they were back in the soft plum-coloured dark.
Though not quite. There was a shadowy glow now from above: someone veiled in white layers of chiffon was leaning against the window. Pretending to be a ghost – at least that’s what Celia assumed at the time. She shrugged at Lily, who’d put a gloved finger to her lips and was gesturing with her other hand. Slowly, stealthily they hoisted themselves up.
A woman. The Carnival ghost was a woman. She had her back to them and was gripping the sill. Her face – or the little of it that wasn’t obscured by a half-mask – shimmered like mother-of-pearl.
Abruptly, as if she’d been waiting for their arrival before she could begin, the ghost woman started to moan, slipping into her role free and easy. Small low moans to spook people, drive them away. Her head had fallen lolling against her shoulder in an uncanny imitation of death. Just as it should be, Celia told herself. But her spine was tingling – whether with cold or fear or disgust or something else entirely she couldn’t have said. Then Lily beckoned and smiled in that loose lazy way she had, smiling and beckoning until Celia crept nearer, bent forward beside her.
The woman wasn’t alone. Certainly wasn’t interested in them. Someone three-quarters invisible was kneeling on the floor in front of her. Someone in black knife-edge trousers and narrow shoes with unworn soles was hiding under the filmy whiteness of her dress. And the fabric seemed to be shifting and billowing and dancing to the music all by itself.
Several days later Celia had thrown out some bubble-gum wrappers by mistake, forgetting to peel off the collectable pictures she’d meant to swap at school, and ended up having to sift through the rubbish. Instead of the wrappers, she discovered a mysterious-looking little ceramic pot. It was squarish and matt black, with a silvery lid and silvery writing that curled like a ribbon all round, saying: LOVEly LUSTre: Shine – at your Own Peril.
The entry under ‘peril’ in the dictionary warned: ‘serious danger’. But Celia still daubed some of the leftover cream on her hands. And it was only when she saw the skin turn as rainbow silky as the inside of a seashell that she finally let the sob rip out of her. The sob she’d been holding in for days now, stifled to a mere whimper. Seeing that seashell gleam on her own skin, she couldn’t deceive herself any longer. Yes, she had recognised the woman in the plum-curtained window recess. Had recognised her from the start. Despite the half-mask, the veil and the make-up. As for the person under the dress, well, it didn’t matter who it was. It could have been anyone, absolutely anyone.
8
SATURDAY LUNCHTIME Celia is in the boiler room in the cellar, hanging up a double load of laundry. A pale wedge of light is falling through the pivot window above the washing machine, down a shaft at the side of the house. The window is propped open a fraction and the gauzy spiderwebs outside ripple in the draught. When Celia was little, a fat toad speckled the colour of dead leaves used to sun itself at the bottom of that shaft, with a smaller skinnier creature on its back, like a hump. A baby toad cushioned from the hard pebbly ground, she’d thought.
‘That’s the female lugging about the male,’ her mother said, adding after a short pause, ‘Just like us humans.’
She’d been baffled. Her father was gone by that time, but she remembered him as a big man. Much too big, surely, to have ever been carried by her mother. And Walter weighed almost forty kilos.
The boiler is sputtering, then growling. Celia feels suddenly hungry. The air has grown so sluggish she picks up the next piece of laundry, a lime-green pillow case, in near slow motion.
She’d spent most of the morning doing her weekend shopping. The town centre had seemed infested with the torn remains of firecrackers, bangers, caps, confetti, streamers, coloured straw and feathers. Crushed and dirty, they clung to the soles of her boots. Encased in iced-over puddles, they glittered at her coldly in the winter sunlight. They even latched on to the hem of her coat, godknows from where.
Having bought some vegetables at the mar
ket on the chestnut-tree promenade – no sign of the harlequin, she was glad to see – she’d stepped on to the zebra crossing between the Sämanns brunnen, the seed-sower’s fountain, and the castle with its farmhouse structure of half-timbering and shingle. That’s when the bright-red Anders-Wil shuttle came shuddering round the corner, honking harshly, down its track along the middle of the street. A boy leant out from a window like a jack-in-the-box and aimed at her with a silver toy pistol. The shot made her jump.
‘Stupid kid,’ she shouted before she could stop herself, and he fired a whole volley.
Once the last carriage had trundled by and she was safely on the pavement opposite, Celia scurried up the way instead of down past the central post office towards Station Square. Up along the castle park with its scarlet benches and evergreen plants to the arcaded entrance of the Town Hall, where she knew the large barred window on her right belonged to the offices of the police, ‘your friend and helper’. But after a while she’d felt recovered enough to laugh it off: all that boy had given her was a fright for fun. Perhaps the Carnival bunting flittering in the wind between the solid Bürgerhäuser of the Old Town had cleared her mind.
Now, stooping for a fluffy striped towel, it occurs to Celia that quite possibly this was what Granite Mask had intended – fear and fun in equal measure. The greater the fear, the greater the fun. The fun always feeding on the fear. Her fear. Maybe if people didn’t show any fear, the fun would stop. Or would the threats only get worse? Celia slaps the towel into shape with the flat of her hand, then reaches down into the laundry basket for another piece.