“It took a good bit,” Alfred said, squirming in his chair, “but time is something I have, needless to say.”
“Well, it really is quite good. I could never do something like this.”
“Why not?”
“Because I just couldn’t. Drawing has never been one of my strong suits. You saw my self-portrait.”
“I love your self-portrait. I have it hanging in my cell. It’s across from my bed. I admire it every day.”
She laughed. “What’s to admire?”
“The expression of it. Your composition.”
“It’s nothing,” Elisabeth said, and she looked again at Alfred’s picture. “This—this—is really something. This is out of my range.”
Alfred was leaning sideways, reaching for a back pocket. He pulled out a second piece of folded paper. “Do you have a pencil?”
“No,” Elisabeth said.
His face went blank. “You don’t carry a pencil with you? Not even a pen?”
“No, I meant I’m not going to draw anything, if that’s what you’re hoping for.”
“It is.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Come on,” Alfred said, wriggling his fingers like a blackjack player asking for another hit. “Get your pencil,” and when she didn’t immediately reach for her purse, his head fell to one side and his lips went flat. “Loosen up, Elisabeth. For God’s sake.”
Rolling her eyes, she had her pencil a moment later.
“Give it to me,” Alfred said, and she did. He unfolded the paper and turned it over—she caught only a glimpse of an incomplete illustration, the outline of a fountain—and then Alfred was sketching hurriedly on the paper’s blank side. He bent so close to the table that his nose nearly touched the paper. “I mentioned Kohler’s Haus when we spoke some time ago,” he said. “Do you remember it? A little restaurant and pub in Lititz. A man named—”
“I know Kohler’s Haus, yes.”
“Good.” His hand jumped around the page. “And how well do you recall it? The building, I mean. I know it closed some time ago, but the building is still there. Can you picture it?”
“Of course,” Elisabeth said, “and this is all very cute—”
“—But nothing,” Alfred said, and now he pushed the piece of paper across the table. He had drawn a rough sketch of Kohler’s Haus, complete with the sidewalk and the ghostly outline of a stoop but little more than that. “Fill in the blanks,” he said.
“There are a lot of blanks.”
“Yes, but I can’t do everything for you.”
Elisabeth reached for the pencil, but then she paused. “I really am terrible at this.”
“Then you’ll draw something terrible,” Alfred said. “I’d still like to see it.” Leaning forward, he swept his hand around the page. “Give it windows, a doorway, a sign, bricks, trees, whatever else you remember.”
“I’m not sure I remember it in that kind of detail.”
“Then make it up,” Alfred said. “That’s all this is—just making things up, filling in the blanks. Accuracy is beside the point.”
So she started to draw. In the interest of speed and her own fragile ego, she tried to keep it simple, mimicking Alfred’s rough lines as closely as she could. Above the door she sketched a sign—a wooden slab that had hung by ropes from two wrought-iron posts—and then she started outlining the windows.
“I think there was a little window above the sign,” she said, “like, a decorative window, but I really can’t remember.” She looked up at Alfred. “Was there?”
“It doesn’t matter. If you remember it, then draw it.”
“But I don’t remember it. That’s my point.”
“Then don’t draw the window,” Alfred said. “For goodness’ sake, Elisabeth, just put something down, would you?”
They sat in silence for ten minutes, Elisabeth working all the while. She was hesitant at first—hesitant and sharply aware of Alfred watching her—but soon her heart was beating slower and she made herself focus. The pencil scratched against the page and her hand moved with a life of its own, the life of many distant years, the life of memory and hazy recollection. And when she finally finished, or when she had done enough to feel justified in giving up, the place that she had drawn wasn’t exactly Kohler’s Haus but it wasn’t something else either. It was a place part new, part old, part truth, part fantasy. Like a dream.
“Not bad,” Alfred said, staring down at the drawing. He turned it toward himself, studying it for a second longer. “You could have done worse.”
“Gosh, thank you,” Elisabeth said. “That’s about the nicest thing anyone’s ever told me.”
Alfred frowned. “What would you like me to say?”
“I’m only kidding,” Elisabeth said. “I know it’s not very good. I told you it wouldn’t be good.”
“No, no,” Alfred said, “it is good. I only meant that you could have done better with your choices.”
“What choices?”
“The things you made up. The blanks you filled in. You let yourself go for a little while, but you could have done more.” He studied it again, and now he smiled—warmly, the smile of a sympathetic teacher. “But it is good, Elisabeth. Honestly, it is.” He slid it back to her. “I hope you finish it.”
And although she knew that she wouldn’t, Elisabeth told him, staring down like a child, “Maybe I will.”
She folded the incomplete illustration, and she did the same with Alfred’s picture of Lititz, slipping both of them and the pencil into her purse. Then she gathered herself, and she tried to sound as official as she could.
“Now we need to talk,” she said. “You called me here to talk about my sister, and the last part of our exchange.”
“Yes,” Alfred said, “absolutely”—and he pushed his chair back and stood—“but would you mind if we talked outside? In the courtyard, I mean.”
He didn’t wait for her approval. He crossed the room and called for the guard through the barred window in the door. The guard and Alfred exchanged a few words, and a moment later the Mouse was unlocking the courtyard’s sliding door—a wall-sized flank of metal that opened from the bottom to the top like a mechanic’s garage.
“Just ten more minutes,” the Mouse told them. “You’ve already gone a little long,” and he left them again.
The courtyard wasn’t much to look at: thirty by thirty feet of plain snow. No trees, no bushes, no frills of any kind. Wreathed in rusting barbed wire, twenty-foot concrete walls enclosed the space. In the corners and along the top, the concrete was crumbling to pieces like dry bread. The courtyard was reasonably well shoveled, though only a foot of snow was piled against the walls. There should have been more.
“What did they do with the rest of it?” Elisabeth asked, pointing with her chin. They were walking side by side in an uneven circle.
“The rest of what?”
“The snow. Where do they pile it?”
“Oh, they have us haul it away,” Alfred said. “They trade work for time outside.” In lieu of a coat, the guard had given him a pair of tattered mittens and a wool blanket, which Alfred held tightly around his body. It was five degrees that afternoon, cold, but not as punishing as it could have been, especially here in the courtyard, where the walls blocked much of the wind. “On designated days,” Alfred said, “two trash bins of snow gets you five minutes of free time out here. That’s the going rate.”
“That seems like a fair trade.”
“Fair enough,” Alfred said, “but I’m one of the few prisoners who ever takes them up on it. Most of the others seem content to stay indoors. I think for Alaskans, prison is a fine vacation. Free heat.”
They walked another circuit in silence. It was snowing now, and Alfred’s brown hair sparkled with flecks of wetness. He reminded her of someone then, but she couldn’t quit
e place it. Her uncle? Her father?
“So,” Alfred said, “our exchange. We’ll talk that through, but first we must discuss another matter.”
“Which is?”
“Trust.”
“You already made your pitch on the phone—”
“No, no,” Alfred said. “I’m not talking about why you should trust me. I’m talking about why I should trust you. That’s what this exchange is all about, but after you involved the police, I don’t know if I can trust you again. You have to earn my trust again, just as I have to earn—”
“What is it you want?” Elisabeth said, unafraid to show her annoyance. “I’m tired of speaking in these grandiose statements. Just tell me, plainly. What do you want?”
In two quick steps, Alfred was in front of her. But he didn’t reach for her. He only stood there. His hands still clutched his blanket, and his eyes shined as wild and electric as they had in Tanacross those many months ago. Someone was knocking. Someone was absolutely pounding.
“I want Margaret to visit me,” Alfred said. “Alone.”
“Margaret?”
He nodded. “Your daughter, Margaret.”
“Why?”
“I won’t tell you,” Alfred said. “That’s between me and Margaret.”
The snow was picking up. It nipped at her eyes, stung her cheeks and chin. “You have to tell me what you’re—”
“I won’t explain why,” Alfred said. “That’s part of the exchange. We’re establishing trust again, and you have to trust me. Margaret,” he said again, stepping closer now. “I want Margaret to visit me here, alone.”
“I don’t think I can do that.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s asking too much.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t—”
“Because you don’t trust me,” Alfred said, “but you will. You’ll see. I’ll make you see.”
“That doesn’t sound very reassuring.”
“If I sound brusque, forgive me. But this is what I want. It’s very simple: Margaret, here, alone. Twenty minutes. That’s all. You can wait for us in the lobby down the hall from the visitation room.”
“Down the hall and on the other side of a locked door.”
“That’s right,” Alfred said.
“And will a guard—”
“No guards. No you. Just me and her. Twenty minutes. Trust me,” and as he said that, the faintest quiver of a smile dashed across his face. “No harm will come to your daughter.”
She turned away from him and paced through the gathering snow. We’re establishing trust again, but the plainness of that trivialized the true stakes at hand. Whoever had taken her sister was a swindler, and a slaver, and a monster. And for all Elisabeth knew, that person was Alfred. At the least, he was a killer. At the most, he was something much worse.
She could never do it. She couldn’t implicate her daughter. Shutting herself inside this place with Alfred was one thing. Shutting Margaret away was another.
And yet, and yet. She had to ask. She had to know.
“What’s your end of the bargain?”
“I’ll lead you to Jacqueline in the flesh and blood.”
“No more abstractions,” she said, facing him again, “not even that much. My sister, Jacqueline Metzger: She’s alive and well?”
“Alive and well.”
She stepped forward. “And the man. A German. Your age. Tell me more about him, and how you know him.”
“After Margaret visits me.”
She steeled herself. “You know, sometimes I very seriously doubt this altogether.”
“Doubt what?”
“This story you’re spinning,” Elisabeth said. “Do you know what a reasonable person might think?” The handwriting. The medals. The little bird. He’s handsome, her sister had told her once. “A reasonable person might think that you’re the one who took Jacqueline.”
“I did not take your sister. On my honor, I swear it.”
“I told you that means nothing to me.”
“And I’m sorry to hear that. But it doesn’t change the fact: I did not take your sister, Elisabeth. I did not.”
“But you know the person who did,” Elisabeth said.
“Yes.”
“And what is your relationship with him? Are you related to him?”
He was shaking his head. “No more of this,” Alfred told her, “not before I meet with Margaret. I can’t tell you any more about how I know what I know.”
“Then what can you tell me?”
“That your sister is alive and well.”
“And this man,” Elisabeth said, “she’s free of him now?”
“Not exactly. I told you that she’s not captive anymore.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that her situation has changed,” Alfred said, watching her fixedly. “Your sister is living with this man as his wife. She’s still a captive, so to speak, but not like she used to be.”
“And this man, you know where he lives?”
“Yes.”
“But why hasn’t Jacqueline contacted me? Why hasn’t she contacted anyone for help?”
“I don’t know exactly,” Alfred said, “but soon you can ask her yourself.” He glanced down at her waist. “Is something wrong with your arm?”
She was holding her right arm strangely: palm down, tight against her body, arched over her stomach. She used to stand that way when she was pregnant with Margaret, when she’d had a swelling belly to rest her arm on. Unconsciously, she had posed that way now, and only when Alfred pointed it out did Elisabeth realize it. She dropped her arm, brushed off his question.
“And what about your confession?” she said. “Are you going to rescind it?”
“Let me deal with that. The confession is a minor detail now.” He looked up, facing the falling snow straight on. “I dreamed of you last night,” he said, “and I dreamed of Jacqueline, too. I saw the two of you together in a field—a huge, sweeping field—and you were holding hands, and you were together, and you were happy.”
He looked at her, and then he walked forward. He let his blanket rest on his shoulders, and he took off his mittens, reaching for her. She didn’t recoil. He took her hands, and his flesh felt soft and warm. Even through her gloves, she could feel his hands burning like flatirons in her own.
“I’m going to reunite you and your sister,” he said. “You have my word, whether you want it or not. Your reunion is coming, Elisabeth, but first you’ve got to trust me.” Gently, he squeezed her hands. “We’re Gleichgesinnte, you and me. Kindred.” He smiled. “We’re the same. We’re twins.”
And with that the Mouse rattled open the door to the courtyard, and the visit was finished. She didn’t agree to Alfred’s exchange, but she didn’t decline it either, not to Alfred, and not to herself.
“It was good to see you,” Alfred said, looking back at her as he paced away. Then he smiled, and he lifted his chin, speaking over his shoulder. “Please tell Margaret I said hello.”
CHAPTER 32
She sat in the work shed for an hour that night. Drifting clouds had poured snow on Fairbanks all afternoon, but for now, the sky was clear and the moon shined with bright sterility. The yard was very quiet, and the space inside the work shed was quieter still.
Elisabeth was studying Alfred’s illustration. It lay open on the pine table. Its creases were almost flattened from the cold or the damp or a combination of the two, but one stubborn ridge refused to lie flat. It stretched across the paper’s middle, and the entire page sat up in the shape of a pyramid. Every few minutes Elisabeth would run her hand down the crease, but the fold reared up time and time again. Lititz, it seemed, was reaching for her.
She was thinking of something that had happened when she was a child. In the autumn of
1919, when she and Jacqueline were nine years old, her sister nearly died of influenza. The sickness started slowly, and at first their father hardly worried, but soon Jacqueline was battling a fever that refused to drop. She cried. She hallucinated. At times, she tore at her sheets with the bewildered mania of a trapped animal, slapped and scratched at her own face.
And all the while, Elisabeth stayed by her sister’s bed. It seemed unfair that Jacqueline should have to suffer alone. It seemed that she, Elisabeth, should be sick as well, and in all the time she stayed with her sister, part of her hoped that she would come down with the sickness, too. But she never did.
“Miss Hunnefield is not a doctor,” Elisabeth’s father told her, “but she’s like one. She’s a nurse.”
He couldn’t afford a doctor, so their father had sent for this woman instead—a prim, older lady with gunmetal gray hair and a dimpled chin cavernous enough to swallow the tip of your pinkie. As she worked, she had an odd habit of ticking her tongue against her teeth, as if gentle chiding would scold her patients’ diseases into healing. She fussed around Jacqueline for thirty minutes, and finally she tied a handkerchief tightly around Jacqueline’s left arm.
“What are you doing?” Elisabeth’s father asked, standing in the hallway outside of the bedroom. Elisabeth was seated on a stool beside the nightstand.
“I’m drawing blood,” Miss Hunnefield told him.
“Why?”
“To purify her.”
Elisabeth’s father stepped into the room. “You’re bloodletting?”
“Yes.”
“Do doctors still do that?”
Miss Hunnefield stared up at him. “I’m not a doctor,” she said. “And bloodletting is a vital part of the healing process. Your daughter’s sickness resides in her blood. We must purify her, therefore, in part through a medication I’ll provide, and in part through drawing blood. Drawing it, and then replacing it.”
She reached into a handbag near her feet, and she placed a small wooden rack on the nightstand. It held four glass vials.
“I’ll draw four tubes of blood, let your daughter rest for an hour, and then I’ll return three tubes to her body,” Miss Hunnefield explained. “Then you’re to give her four of these a day for the next five days.” She set a bottle of pills on the nightstand. Spencer & Clayton Cure All, the label read, and it featured a fantastical illustration of a man grappling with a snake. “Do you have any other questions before I begin?”
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