The Anatomist's Dream (21 page)

‘Enough,' she said, swinging the shop door open, jingling the bell as she pushed it far as it could go. ‘Poor thing's hungry,' she added, disentangling herself from the tabby. She beckoned Philbert in behind her, making him sit on a stool by the counter before closing the door and put out some food for her kittens before speaking again.

‘The Turk,' she said then. ‘Very kind to me. My friend's ­cousin's cousin. Give me job looking after this place. And I think you the boy the Big Doctor has up the hill, but I already been to bakery and hear bad things happen in town. Best you get back to your friends.'

Philbert nodded. He wasn't surprised that everybody already knew about what had happened at the Westphal – Lengerrborn was a small place, and gunshots ringing through the night could not have been ignored – but he was surprised and a little perturbed that everybody, or at least this girl, knew he was biding up at The Anchorage, for never in all the time he'd been there had either he or Kwert strayed away from Ullendorf's home.

‘You look for the doctor?' the girl was speaking again, fussing about her kittens, checking till and counter. ‘His house up top the hill. Look,' she said, directing Philbert's gaze out of the window, past the small glass clock that sat upon its velvet stand, its little cogs ticking out every second followed by the next, for all to see.

‘Up there,' the girl pointed, and as she did so her shawl ­loosened, tumbling the little ginger kitten to the ground. It made a pitiful squeal as it fell and Philbert scooped it up, the girl taking it from him with a smile that brought her face alive. Philbert looked away and out of the window where she'd pointed and, now that morning was truly established, he could see there indeed was the hill and the little track winding its way up through the cypresses, and Philbert was so relieved he jumped down from his perch, thanking the girl and taking his leave, quitting the shop's door on a run.

The girl dipped her chin and carried on with her morning as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all.

20

Loosed from the Pier

Philbert knew something was wrong before he reached The Anchorage. Coming up the last stretch of hill he could see the big iron gates were hanging open, the door at the top of the drive agape. He went on anyway, through the gates, up the driveway and the steps to the door; but there was no Helge standing at the porch to greet him, only a blood-spattered apron huddled on the floor just a couple of yards inside the house. Philbert moved forward, picking it up, hugging it to him, a small puff of flour dusting the air. There was a noise behind him and Philbert turned, saw a small brown woman creaking up the steps behind him, hovering in the doorway, nervously playing with the sleeves of her tatty cardigan.

‘You must be Philbert,' the woman said. ‘Never mind the head, I'd recognise that jacket anywhere. Used to be my Georg's. Can't tell you how many times I've cleaned and patched it. But you'll find no one here. They took Helge away last night. Went through the entire place. Broke everything up. And then I saw them dragging Helge out.'

The widow from next door wiped her eyes, which none­theless sparkled with fear and excitement once she took away her arm.

‘There was trouble last night in the town,' she went on. ‘They say the soldiers caught a traitor – the leader of those Westphal scum. That they killed as many as they could and took the rest to the gaol. But poor Helge! What must those soldiers be doing to her now?'

Her voice rose a pitch, her eyes glowing. ‘You know what they do to women who won't talk? Well no, you're too young. But mark my word, it isn't pretty and if you can, then get off and go home. They'll be back for the doctor if they haven't got him already, you see if they don't.'

Widow Wilhelm had said her piece and went away, trotting down the hill into town. The things she had to tell her friends at the bakery! She could hardly contain herself, no thought anymore of Philbert treading gently over the broken glass of the tall barometer that had once hung on the wall.

Philbert moved through the hallway, the pictures there all askew, the big coat-stand felled and broken, trying to comprehend what the woman had been saying. There was mewing coming from the kitchen and Philbert followed it. He held his hand to the stove – still warm – and saw Helge's kittens on the table, their paws dipping into the spilled cream from the jug that had fallen to its side and broken. The remnants of a meal lay broke-boned before him and Philbert threw some of the scraps onto the floor, the kittens jumping easy-pawed from table to chair to follow them. Only then did Philbert see what was all around him: lots of plates on the table, a bowl of sauerkraut, another of coleslaw. The widow woman said the soldiers had been here and he realised Helge would have tried to feed them, as she always tried to feed anyone who made their way through her doors. And no one could possibly do anything bad to Helge, so most probably she'd gone with the soldiers to the gaol to see if her brother was there, Kwert having no doubt helped Heinrich, staunched his wounds, the two of them explaining why they'd been at the Club – all to do with Philbert's head and nothing whatsoever with uprisings or traitors. They were probably right now at the gaol, filling in the forms needed for their release. And gaols were easy to find; they looked the same in every town Philbert had ever been in; the best plan was for Philbert to go and meet them there.

He gathered up some bread and a half-gnawed knuckle of smoked ham, wrapping both in Helge's apron. There was a bit of wine left in a bottle on the table, so Philbert plugged it and stowed it in his knapsack – or rather Kwert's knapsack. He was about to leave when he saw his
Katzkrieger
, his little peashooter, lying on the floor by the hat-stand. He picked it up and, as he did so, noticed the door to the study was open. Thinking that perhaps Ullendorf and Kwert were already back, Philbert ran towards it, swinging himself into the room before coming to a sudden stop, utterly dismayed by what he saw: a massacre of glass and toppled instruments flung in apparent fury to the floor, books lying like battlefield corpses, their spines cracked and broken, pages loose; the pickled woman's jar was still intact, and she looked down from her top shelf onto a deluge of ­shattered glass and deliquescing body-parts, equivalent to a flood of moon jellies stranded on a shore. The smell was strong and sharp, like over-boiled over-salted spinach, and Philbert stood for a moment in disbelief, then latched his eyes onto an unbroken decanter on one of the desks. Something of use then, and he poured its contents into the bottle of wine he'd taken from the kitchen, filling it right to the brim.

After that he wasted no time. He closed the study door behind him and took up one of Doctor Ullendorf's hats from the broken stand by the door and put it on. On any other boy's head but Philbert's it would have been like shoving a hollowed-out melon over a mouse, so large Lita could almost have used it as a bed, but for Doctor Heinrich Ullendorf with his unruly hair, and for Philbert with his taupe, it was perfect. The hat was of soft green felt, the colour of one of Maulwerf's waistcoats, the ­brim-feather blue as the spots on Hermann's fish. Another sign, as if he needed one.

Once in the town, just as predicted, Philbert had no trouble finding the gaol, for he'd already spotted it coming down the road, its high walls throwing a shadow over the small adjacent square. Once he'd reached the Platz Gefängnis he was in no doubt, detecting a smell the early lime-blossoms couldn't hide, and a kind of graveyard hush all around the walls that made people whisper and cross themselves as they moved quietly by. Not that many were abroad this morning, apart from a single man sitting on the other side of the grimy window of the decrepit
Kaffeehaus
opposite, who showed no interest as Philbert walked slowly down the length of the prison wall until he spied a small crack and could see a shard of light the other side. Using the end of his
Katzkrieger
, Philbert forced a way through the crumbling stone and put his eye to the spy-hole he'd excavated. He saw men sitting listlessly on the few stone benches and against each other, drawing coats tightly around themselves, the cold of the night having seeped into their bones. One of them might have been the man Federkiel from the night before, or maybe Schnurrhenker, but Philbert couldn't be sure, couldn't remember which one was which, if it was either of them at all. Blinking away the stone dust from his miniature excavation, Philbert screwed his body around to get a different angle, ­digging away more of the small aperture in the rotting mortar before he at last made out the dull bundle of red sat slightly apart from the rest. Kwert. It had to be Kwert, for he was kneeling just as Philbert had seen him down by the river that morning, doing his meditations. Philbert moved along the wall until he guessed he must be almost opposite Kwert and began to poke out another hole. It was harder this time, the only soft bit being barely a foot from the pavement, but he managed it with the help of a sturdy twig. He loaded the
Katzkrieger
with a couple of the small pebbles scattered liberally on both sides of the divide, stuck the stem through and took his aim. He repeated the operation four or five times before Kwert finally noticed the plinking of the stones about his feet, and looked around with bewilderment. Philbert hammered at the hole with his fist and scraped at it with the
Katzkrieger
until it broke in two, but ­suddenly there was Kwert in front of the hole, ghastly pale where he wasn't bruised, his robe ripped and stained, hair coarse with dried blood.

‘Kwert!' Philbert whispered fiercely. ‘It's me! It's Philbert!'

‘Little Maus?' Kwert's voice was strained and croaky, a shred of its former self.

‘I've come to get you out,' Philbert said, a sob choking its way up his throat as Kwert wheezed and cracked in vague ­intimation of laughter.

‘Ah, Little Maus,' Kwert said, leaning himself against the stone so as not to arouse attention. ‘I'm not sure anyone, even you, can do that.'

He started to cough and couldn't stop. Philbert heard his ribs creak with every spasm.

‘I'm going round to the front,' Philbert said, rubbing his fist against his eyes to stop the tears no longer coming from brick dust alone. ‘I've some food and wine for you here that surely they'll let me give you.'

Kwert waved a feeble hand to stop him but Philbert was already on his feet, heart thumping as he rounded the wall of the yard and approached the steps leading to the entrance of the gaol. The door was huge and heavy but was ajar, and Philbert could smell the dank coolness coming from inside and heard voices too. He straightened his knapsack and went in.

There were three men there in the lobby of the prison, chairs pulled out a little from the walls, bottles at their feet, uniforms open at the collar, chins stubbled and unshaven, one small and fat, another small and thin, the last sitting a little straighter in his chair looking to be the one in charge. All three lifted their heads as the door creaked open a couple of feet and Philbert slipped inside.

‘Aha!' said the fat one, in a dull, slightly slurred voice. ‘Is this another prisoner to add to the fold? Or no! It's a gentleman! Look at that fine hat!'

He spat as his skinny companion laughed. The third man, who had his chair tipped backwards, two legs off the floor, looked towards Philbert curiously, beckoning him in.

‘Tell me, Junge,' said Schupo Ackersmann. ‘What are you doing here? Don't you know this is the most feared place in all of Lengerrborn? No one will come here this morning. Nobody dares to speak to us – not even my own wife.'

‘'S not her fault,' slurred the fat man. ‘I wouldn't come here myself if I wasn't already here. Those bastard soldiers coming in and leaving us to do their dirty work. 'S not right is what it's not. Bloody bastards.'

He picked up his bottle, swirled the last drops at its base and swigged them down, then fiddled with the pistol tucked into his belt.

‘So what do you want, boy?' said Schupo Ackersmann. ‘Come here to dance for us?' He clunked his chair legs back to the floor, putting his elbows on his thighs, bending so his eyes were on the same level as Philbert's. ‘Come on over here by the table,' he said.

‘I've brought some things for Kwert,' Philbert whispered, moving one foot forward cautiously. ‘He's out in the yard.'

The fat policeman laughed. ‘Out in the yard! Ha ha! That's where he is all right!'

‘Shut up, Böllduch,' said Ackersmann, who was indeed in charge. ‘Get a hold of yourself.'

Schupo Böllduch winced, uncomfortably aware he might just have crossed a line, and fell silent.

‘Come here lad,' said Schupo Ackersmann, ‘and let's see what you've brought for your friend.'

Philbert undid the buckles of Kwert's knapsack, taking out the bundle of Helge's apron, placing it on the small table by Ackersmann's side. Ackersmann pulled back the corners of the apron, the smell of bread and smoked ham drifting across the room as Philbert delved once more into his knapsack and brought out the bottle.

‘Ah,' breathed Ackersmann softly, shaking his head. ‘Bread and wine. If ever there was a symbol then this is it.' He looked at Philbert's small offerings, noting a couple of red splotches on the apron's edges that might well have been blood, and shuddered.

‘Right,' he said decisively. ‘Your friend's name? Kwert, was it?'

Philbert nodded.

‘Up with you, Böllduch, you drunken shit,' said Ackersmann. ‘Go and fetch him. The poor sod can have a bite of bread before the rest of the merry-go-round is set in motion.' He turned back to Philbert as Böllduch got grumpily to his feet and headed for the door that led into the prison yard. ‘This man a special friend of yours?' Ackersmann asked, and once more Philbert nodded. ‘Well then,' he said, unexpectedly taking Philbert's hand in his own and patting it. ‘I'm truly sorry for what will come next. But we have our orders, not that I expect you to understand. I have a lad about the same age as you, and Lord knows I don't want him to understand either, but this is just how it goes sometimes. We'll all be pariahs after this gets out. Those soldiers should have finished the job themselves instead of galloping out of here on their fine horses to go and bust up someone else's town.'

‘We ain't really going to do it Chief, are we?'

It was the thin man, the quiet man, the man who so far hadn't spoken a word. Now he'd lifted his head Philbert could see his cheeks were streaked with tears, despite his previous strained laughter. Ackersmann gave no answer and instead placed his hands upon Philbert's shoulders, forcing the boy to look upwards, despite the large brim of the overlarge hat.

‘I don't know how much you know of what's going on,' he said, as much to the skinny man as to the boy he was addressing. ‘But all those men they pulled from the Westphal Club last night? We've got to shoot them, see? Every last one of them they said. They beat all sorts of names and shite out of them last night and then scarpered with the best of them. And now we've got to line the other poor buggers up against the wall and shoot them down like dogs. And I know most of these men, grew up with them.' Ackersmann groaned and shook his head, but did not release Philbert from his grip, holding onto the strange boy with his huge hat as if somehow the lad could save them from what they had to do. Silence fell on them, making the skinny man's snivelling all the more unnerving, and then they heard Böllduch's slurred shouting out in the yard.