HS03 - A Visible Darkness (38 page)

I tried to imagine the fortune that those boxes must contain.

Halting beside a very large man in a leather apron—a Prussian overseer whose loud voice marked him out—I thrust my
laissez-passer
into his hand.

‘Which way is Berodstein’s ware house?’ I asked him.

‘Straight on, sir.’

‘Are these ships full of amber?’ I murmured.

‘All of them,’ he replied in an undertone, glancing warily at a French sergeant sitting on an iron mooring-bollard a short distance away. ‘All that’s left in Prussia now is shit,’ he hissed.

Had he been to Lotingen and seen the streets, I wondered.

I saw the sign painted on the side of a large wooden shed at the end of the dock. It was written in English:
FABIEN BERODSTEIN—PRECIOUS HARDWOOD EXPORTS
.

No English ship was tied up on the wharf, of course. I could only imagine them sitting somewhere out beyond the visible horizon, tracing out with their prows the liquid barrier that the French had hoped to impose on them, and which, instead, now confined the French to a narrow, navigable coastal strip. Of course, Herr Berodstein might sell his precious woods to France, but his trade did not appear to be brisk. Indeed, the sight of a band of armed French infantrymen standing by the doorway suggested that the trade in exportable hardwoods had ground entirely to a halt.

They were a prison detail, and I was obliged to show the paper signed by General Malaport before I was allowed to enter what was, in effect, a prison. To my surprise, however, the warehouse contained no French soldiers.

‘Fabien Berodstein. Born in Alsace of a Prussian father. Half French, half German,’ Malaport had informed me, reading from a paper. ‘Almost bankrupted by the British blockade. Provides space and surveillance for criminal deportees waiting out on the quay. He would have built a hardwood gallows for Prussian rebels, if that was what we had asked him for. Whether he helps you or not will depend on which of his national souls prevails today.’

That day, Berodstein decided to play the Prussian. Especially when I told him that I was a magistrate. He glanced at the note, then glanced at me.

‘What can I do for you, Herr Stiffeniis?’

A stained leather notebook lay before him on the table, next to a lighted lantern. Despite the bright sunlight outside on the quay, it was as dark as Hades in there.

‘I want to know when the prisoners will be transported.’

His face was waxy yellow in the light of burning whale-oil.

Two younger men emerged from the shadows as I spoke. They took up places like sentries just beyond his shoulders. They did not speak, and looked to me like twins–of equal height, the same narrow build, their faces dark and harrowed like shrivelled apples from the same bitter tree. They stood behind their master like well-trained guard-dogs, watching me sullenly.

‘The ships are expected any time,’ he said, and looked towards the door, as if he expected the captains of the vessels to appear before him that very instant.

He shrugged, and peered into the dark interior of his warehouse.

Pale faces pressed against the metal bars of a door.

‘They’ve been here since yesterday,’ he said without prompting.

As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom—the blazing sun outside was as far away and forgotten as the celestial planet was from the Earth—I saw the careworn faces, the curious eyes staring out at me. Perhaps it was the echoing sound of Prussian voices that drew their attention. Perhaps they thought that I had come for them.

The prisoners themselves did not make a sound.

The warehouse had been divided in two distinct halves by a high wall of rough-hewn planks with the metal gate in the centre. On this side, there were stacks of hardwood trunks, others of sweeter-smelling Scandinavian pine, waiting, I presumed, for the departure or defeat of the French, and a return to normalcy before Herr Berodstein would order them to be cut. On the other side, through the narrow aperture of the gate, I saw a crowd of men and women sitting in groups upon the wooden floor, or stretching out disconsolately on ancient tree-trunks, waiting for Destiny to take them where it might. The atmosphere was muggy, heavy, odoriferous,
a dense concentration of sap and seasoning wood, musty sea and salt, the faecal stench that wretches left in their filth, and without a change of clothes or air, might provoke. Was there a latrine on the other side of the wall? Was there a place to wash? As I looked, a rat came running along the top of the barricade. Piss, shit, poor food, vermin, close confinement, abundant filth. Unless the ships came soon, the number to deport would quickly start to fall.

‘How many are you holding?’ I asked.

‘Two hundred, more or less,’ he said. ‘From all the gaols in East Prussia.’

‘Where are they bound?’

Berodstein closed his leather notebook with a clap.

The heads of his helpers snapped sharply in the direction of the sound.

Neither moved an inch. They stood stiffly at his shoulders, and seemed to quiver with the effort. Their eyes met mine, their nostrils flared. They looked from me to him, then back again, staring with the fixity of terriers, waiting only for a word from their master before they tore me to shreds.

‘Where are they going?’ I said more sharply, rapping my knuckles on the table.

‘Abroad,’ he muttered, opening his book, flicking carelessly through the pages.

He was fifty years old, I would have said. His face was the same pale colour as the Scandinavian wood that he sold. His hair was thick and white, delicately streaked with blond swaths, tied up in a bow.

‘When are they leaving?’

His gaze was fixed unflinchingly on the barred door, and the silent prisoners.

How did he keep them quiet? I wondered.

‘
La Pléiade
,’ he read. ‘Out of Hamburg. Should be here today. They’ll go where she goes. My job’s to load them on the ship, and make sure they don’t cause any bother. I have no say about the route . . .’

A howl of pain cut through the air.

Berodstein leapt up, his chair scraped loudly on the floor. The notebook fell, as he reached for the lantern. Then, he was gone, racing round his desk, muttering wildly. The twins went trotting at his heels without a sound.

‘Easy, my lads,’ he snarled over his shoulder, snatching up a stick, striking it against the bars, holding off the mastiffs with his other hand. ‘There, there,’ he said, looking through the bars, reassured by what he saw. ‘Everything’s as it should be. Come! Keep an eye on them, while I finish with the gentleman.’

‘Are your charges troublesome?’ I enquired.

No one had asked for so much as a drop of water. No one had protested about the way that they were kept, nor about the prospect of their imminent deportation to an unspecified destination.

Berodstein sat down. ‘Call yourself a magistrate, do you, sir?’ he chortled, looking at me with a puzzled frown. ‘Königsberg’s full of patriotic scum. A hot-bed of rebellion, if you ask me. More troublemakers here than rats. And the port is worse than all the rest together.’

‘Are the prisoners the only thing you handle?’ I asked obliquely. ‘Unsold wood apart, I mean.’

‘What else would there be?’ he replied, lifting up the lantern, shining it into my face, as if my question had excited his curiosity. ‘After something special, are you? You can find a bit of anything here on the docks.’

‘Quality amber,’ I said, keeping my voice low.

‘Got some strange ideas, you have, magistrate,’ Berodstein replied, his stare more hostile than before. He snapped his fingers, and the two boys quietly appeared at his side, their eyes fixed immovably on me. ‘That job belongs to the Frenchies,’ he added dryly. ‘They guard it and load it and ship it themselves. Don’t need help from me. Not so far, anyways. You work for them, it seems. You should know what they are like.’

I attempted a bold smile.

‘I am engaged in private enquiries of my own,’ I admitted conspiratorially. ‘There may be Prussian amber that takes a road that
does
not
lead directly to the French wharf. Special amber. Amber that the French send somewhere else . . .’

‘You’re on the wrong road,’ Berodstein interrupted rudely. ‘If you want to know about amber, ask the French. Or the jewellers out in Kneiphof. I have heard there’s plenty knocking about down there. And a lot of it the French don’t know about.’

He lowered his lantern, rested it on the table.

‘Now, sir, if there’s nothing else, me and my lads have got things to do before that ship gets in.’

‘Are they your sons?’ I asked, hoping to prolong the conversation.

The sound that came from the throats of the twins made my hair stand up on my head. There is a wild dog in Africa, I have read, that makes a sort of bestial howl that has been mistaken for human laughter. Herr Berodstein looked at this brace of young hyenas, then burst out laughing with them.

‘Ain’t never shagged no she-wolf, me,’ he said roughly. ‘She was mother to ’em. Who the father was, I cannot say! I found them in Siberia ten years back. I was up there buying prize wood for the Brits. Saw these eyes peering out at me from behind a juniper bush. And nearly lost a thumb just catching them. I brought them home, but God knows where they came from. I don’t need no whips to keep the peace, sir, not with them two. Deportees, nationalists, thieves, it’s all the same to them.’

He pushed the general’s letter across the table, as if to say that the interview was over.

‘I want to speak to one of the prisoners,’ I objected. ‘Request reluctantly refused,’ he said, beating his clenched fist on his chest. It was the Frenchman coming out in him, I suppose. His lips pursed tightly, he rolled his ‘r’s, aspirating his ‘e’s like an Aeolian harp, though he was speaking German. ‘No one talks to no one here. Forbidden! Those are the rules! The French were clear on that account. There are rebels in the midst of this lot. If there’s trouble here on the dock, I’ll lose my warehouse. I want them quiet, and I want them orderly. They know it to their cost.’

‘I have General Malaport’s permission,’ I insisted, waving the paper at him.

My appeal to French authority failed dismally.

‘I do not think you have, Herr Procurator.’ The words thundered from his lips. ‘That note says you can come in here and ask me about the prisoners.
My
prisoners, I repeat. Now, I’ve told you what you want to know, and there’s an end of it. You’ll not speak to any man. Not while I’m in charge of them. They’re my responsibility while they stay on Prussian soil. I won’t have riots. I won’t have Spain breaking out in the port of Königsberg. Not if I can help it.’

His words were wild, but what came next was wilder. He was on his feet in an instant, lantern in hand, rushing to the barred gate in a fury, calling for me to follow, shouting at his lads to bring me if they had to.

I did not linger, feeling their hot breath on my collar.

‘Just look at them!’ Berodstein exploded, wiggling his finger angrily, inviting me to step up to the gate and see what he was looking at, holding up his light to aid me.

I heard the sharp intake of the twins’ breath.

Wounded prisoners were stretched out on the floor. Those crushing close to the door pulled back like a widening ripple where a stone has landed in a still lake. I searched the frightened faces for a glimpse of Adam Ansbach, but I did not see him.

The stench which entered my mouth and nostrils was like a physical blow.

Berodstein dropped his lantern closer to the ground, pointing. ‘There, sir,’ he said. ‘Look at that one! That’s a Prussian rebel, that is.’

I squatted down, the better to see the man that he was indicating.

His face was deathly pale above bruised eyes. His cheeks and chin were stained dark red with coagulating gore. Where blood still flowed, it gleamed more brightly. He had been severely beaten. The tip of his nose was hanging on by a strip of skin, nothing more. His lips were black–crushed, torn and mangled. Streams of froth dribbled from the corners of his mouth and flowed down his jaw. Each time he breathed, red bubbles blew out of his mouth. His
head lolled, and I glimpsed a hole in his cheek. The edges were serrated, ragged, the teeth showing through.

‘Pretty, ain’t he?’ Berodstein sneered.

Suddenly, the man collapsed. His face fell with a sharp crack into a large metal bowl. His hands were tied to the wall. If he was going to fall, that was where he would land. Over a bowl of dirty water.

‘He’s in the shit, so to speak.’ Berodstein laughed.

The animals behind me began to howl.

As the man gasped for air, I saw the horrid traces of brown slime on his skin.

‘That’s where they piss and shit,’ said Berodstein.

Suddenly, he was shouting at the other prisoners. ‘If I catch you doing it anywhere else, you bastards, you’ll get the same treatment!’

‘What crime has he committed?’ I asked.

‘He was talking,’ Berodstein snarled, as if it were obvious. ‘Talking to the other prisoners. I will not have it! I set my boys on him, I did. They’ve got their mother’s teeth. Most terrible weapons, that’s what they are.’

As he spoke, he patted one of the twins affectionately on the shoulder. Like a jealous hound, the other one pushed his brother aside, seeking equal favour from their master.

‘They smell rebellion, sir. Don’t like it any more than I do. I had to drag them off. They’d have killed him otherwise. There’s always one or two that won’t be told. Born rebellious, they are. I spot them, and I set my boys on them. It keeps the others in their place. By the time the ship comes in, these Prussian scabs will be glad to get away from here, wherever they’re sent.’

It came to me in a flash.

I slid my hand inside my bag, grasped the rolled-up bundle of papers lying at the bottom. I pulled them out, and waved them in his face.

‘Your secret’s out, I’m afraid,’ I said.

Berodstein’s eyes flashed wide with alarm.

‘What are they, sir?’

They were the seditious handbills Gurten had brought from
Lotingen, the ones naming me as a collaborator of the French, damning me as a traitor. I did not tell him the contents, obviously.