Toymaker, The (17 page)

But Meiserlann had no wife, no children. Jacob would know a thing like that. He wouldn’t have to lie about it, and it could mean only one thing. Mathias could hardly bear to say it.

‘He wasn’t my grandfather,’ he said. ‘He never was.’

It had been the one thing that had made him stay. All those times he would have run away but for that one fact, and it hadn’t been true.

Ever.

He felt suddenly sick. He looked about for Katta, but she wasn’t there. The street was empty.

‘Where’s Katta?’ he said.

Stefan kept on walking. Mathias caught him by the arm and stopped him.

‘Where’s Katta?’

‘We go the inn,’ said Stefan. ‘The Koenig says us.’

‘But we’ve left her behind.’

‘The Koenig says us,’ said Stefan coldly, and he pushed Mathias’s hand away. ‘We go the inn.’

‘Not without Katta,’ said Mathias. He began to walk back the way they had come, but Stefan grabbed him by his arm and pulled him back. Mathias winced.

‘We go the inn,’ said Stefan.

He didn’t let go of Mathias’s arm.

Suddenly, in the street behind them, came the sound of firecrackers – several, all at once. Instinctively they turned to see what it was, and as they did so, a crowd of youths and boys came running and dancing round the corner. They had fireworks on sticks and were waving them in the air. Showers of silver and gold sparks fell all around them. Each one wore a black mask in the shape of a big beaked bird. Some had them pushed up onto the top of their heads, others down over their faces. They were blowing horns and beating drums. A huge banner of an angel in a boat flew above them as they ran, whooping and shouting. They were upon Mathias and Stefan before they had realized what was happening.

Grabbing hold of them, they pushed the two boys from one to another, then, tripping them, they sat on them and smeared their clothes and hair with thick treacle from a pot and covered them with cold ashes from a sack. Stefan was the first to scramble to his feet; with his arms covering his head, he turned and ran. He could hear whistles and jeers behind him, but he didn’t stop. He ran until, breathless, he found himself at the end of a narrow street with a lantern burning above it. He pushed himself into the safe dark of a doorway and stood there, shaking. He could hear the sound of the firecrackers and drums growing fainter in the distance. He waited until he couldn’t hear them at all, then, slowly, he poked his head round the doorway. With a rising sense of panic he looked back down the street. It was completely empty.

Mathias had gone.

Mathias hadn’t been able to run. He’d lain where he was on the ground while the boys had kicked him and dropped firecrackers around him. Then someone had thought of claiming him as their prize. They’d picked him up like a sack and, hoisting him above their heads, they’d run laughing and
whooping headlong down the street, blowing their horns and beating their drums, sparks and firecrackers raining around them, the banner fluttering over their heads. Mathias had cried out in pain with each agonizing jolt, but they paid no heed. A huge screaming wheel of light was going round and round in his head, but they just ran and ran.

They carried him up and down, running bedlam through the crowds, until at last they’d had enough of him. They dropped him in a back alley, making mocking bows in front of him as though he were a god. Then, with a last kick, hooting and laughing, they were gone. He could hear the drums and the horns getting fainter and fainter, then all was quiet. He lay on his back and closed his eyes.

He didn’t know how long he lay there like that, but it must have been for a long time. When finally he opened his eyes again, there was a rime of frost in his hair and he was shaking with the cold. The screaming light in his head had stopped; there was just inky silence. He lay on his back, looking up at the line of black sky marking the narrow gap between the dark tall buildings that reached over him.

Slowly he crawled onto his hands and knees. He’d been left in the dirty gutter of a narrow street. He
said Stefan’s name, but Stefan was nowhere to be seen. He pulled himself to his feet and found that he was leaning against the side of a cart. He was covered from head to foot in ash and treacle. He stood swaying unsteadily, with his eyes closed and his arms hugging his ribs. They hurt so much. He could hardly breathe. He wasn’t sure he could walk at all.

Then he realized that he could hear noises. They were coming from the cart. Someone was moving about inside. He opened his eyes. The street was quite dark. The only light came from the cart itself – just a thin crack through one of its shutters. He stood, listening. Maybe whoever it was would help him if he asked. Very slowly, he made his way round the cart until he found its steps. They were very steep. He stood holding the rail while a wave of pain swept over him. Then he took a teaspoon of breath and, one by one, he went up the steps and tapped on the dark door. The sounds inside stopped but nothing happened, so he tapped again.

This time there were different noises – a bolt being slid back, and then another, and the door opened just a crack, spilling warm, yellow lamplight into the street. Mathias lifted his face and was about to speak but the words died in his mouth.

Standing in the doorway, face painted, lips as dark as blood, was Anna-Maria.

She didn’t recognize him at once, this ash-covered boy in a Burner’s coat. He could see that she hadn’t and, mumbling an apology, he began to back slowly down the steps, and that was his mistake. Anna-Maria might not have recognized him, but she knew his voice. He saw her eyes suddenly widen as she realized who he was. He tried to turn round but she shot out her hand and grabbed hold of his coat.

‘Lutsmann!’ she shouted.

He tried to push her hand away, but the ends of bones grated in his chest and he folded like a broken toy. It was all she needed. She caught hold of him with both hands and, pulling him off his feet, dragged him by his collar up the last of the steps and into the cart, kicking the door shut behind her with her pointed shoe.

The light seemed so bright. Lutsmann was lying on the small cot bed in his shirt and braces. He stared with drink-bleary eyes, first at his wife and then at Mathias. Anna-Maria pushed Mathias forward with her foot.

‘Look who I’ve found,’ she said.

The old man was already at the end of the alley, but Koenig could see him well enough – a dark shadow moving against the darker shadows of the buildings. He wasn’t walking quickly. Koenig let him go a few paces more and then followed.

It was as he had thought – Jacob had not come far. The old man walked over a small bridge, then into a narrow alley with tall uneven buildings reaching across on both sides, almost blocking out the dark sky above. A gutter piled high with frozen filth ran down the middle of it. On both sides, all the way along, there were slits of light showing through the cracks of closed shutters. Somewhere a dog was barking. Jacob did not once look round. He walked steadily to the end of the alley, where an open doorway led into one of the shabby buildings. A
candle stub was burning just inside, and by the light of it Koenig saw him slowly climbing the wooden stairs.

Koenig quickened his pace; coming to the foot of the stairs, he stood, hand on the banister, listening, counting Jacob’s shuffling steps until they stopped. There was the sound of keys and a door opened and shut. Koenig waited a moment, listening to the noises from the other rooms above, but there were no more steps. Quietly, keeping count, he began to climb the stairs.

When he had counted the right number, he came to a landing with two doors opening from it. He listened at the first. He could hear the sound of a man and a woman talking inside. Then the woman laughed. He moved across the landing and put his ear to the other door and there was silence. As he touched the door, it moved. It hadn’t been properly shut. He pushed it with one finger and it swung slowly open. The room inside was in complete darkness. It smelled stale and damp.

‘One step, Mr Liar,’ said a voice from the dark, ‘and I’ll blow your brains out.’

Koenig didn’t move. He couldn’t work out where the old man was – whether he was near enough for
him to reach before he had time to pull the trigger – so he stood quite still.

‘I want to speak with you, Jacob,’ he said.

‘You can say what you like from where you are,’ came the answer.

He had where the man was now. He was in the furthest corner of the room. It was too far to reach.

‘The boy really believes that Meiserlann was his grandfather,’ said Koenig.

‘Liar.’

‘I did not say it was true. I said it is what he believes. He knew him by another name – Gustav.’

There was a long silence.

‘Are you still there, Jacob?’ said Koenig.

‘Go on,’ said the old man.

‘Meiserlann died. Sewn into his coat was a piece of paper – half a piece of paper. The boy found it. People have tried to kill him to get it. I want to know why.’

There was another long silence, then the sound of movement and a flint being struck on a tinderbox. A flame flared. Jacob had lit a lamp.

‘Come in, Mr Liar,’ he said.

The room was squalid and small. There was a filthy bed, and an unlit stove. Jacob, wrapped in his
coat, sat in a chair with a pistol cradled awkwardly between his thumbless hands.

‘You live alone here?’ said Koenig.

The old man looked around at the dirty room. ‘You call this living?’ he said.

Koenig shook his head. ‘No.’

Jacob lifted the pistol a little so that it pointed at Koenig’s heart. ‘There was a fat man,’ he said. ‘He came to the theatre just to watch Meiserlann. He sat in the very best box. He would buy Meiserlann meals and give him presents. He never knew how Meiserlann laughed about him behind his back – at his little handkerchief and his perfumed shirts. He was Meiserlann’s very own private joke. You know what his name was?’

‘No,’ said Koenig.

‘Gustav. How did you come by that name, Mr Liar?’

Slowly Koenig held his two hands up, palms out to show Jacob that he had nothing in them. Then, one hand still held like that, he reached slowly into his coat with the other and drew out his flat leather wallet. He opened it and held up the piece of paper for Jacob to see.

‘What I want to know is why this is worth so much, Jacob.’

‘It is worth nothing, Mr Liar,’ said the old man, and then he smiled, a crooked, clever smile. ‘Unless you know where the other piece is.’

‘How much would it be worth then?’

Jacob shrugged. ‘It might just be enough to save your life,’ he said. He shifted his grip on the pistol. ‘Meiserlann said he would come back. I believed him. I was more afraid of losing him than I was of losing my thumbs. So I said nothing, even when they cut them off. Now you tell me he is dead. Who are you to know, Mr Liar?’

‘I found the boy.’

‘Then let him tell me himself,’ said Jacob. ‘Because I don’t believe you.’

Koenig slipped the piece of paper back into his wallet. ‘Where shall I bring him?’ he said.

‘Here,’ said Jacob. ‘Bring him here. Then we shall see.’

Anna-Maria and Lutsmann sat staring at Mathias. It was too good to be true, like finding a solid gold watch in a ditch. Anna-Maria had taken the precaution of tying his wrists with a thin, biting rope, one end of which she’d fastened to a hook in the roof, higher than he could hope to reach. But she needn’t
have bothered. Mathias didn’t have the strength to do anything. He lay in a crumpled heap on the floor.

‘So,’ said Anna-Maria. ‘You ran away, after all the trouble we took for you. You ungrateful little scab!’ She slapped his head.

‘Let the boy speak, my plum,’ said Lutsmann in a false, brandy-fumed voice. ‘Didn’t he come back to us all on his own? He must have wanted to tell us something very much.’

‘The only thing I want him to tell us,’ hissed Anna-Maria, and she put her face close to Mathias’s – so close that he could smell the perfumed powder, the peppermint breath, ‘is what Leiter wanted to know.’

Mathias closed his eyes; his head drooped on his shoulders. ‘I don’t know,’ he said in a whisper.

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Anna-Maria in a voice silky quiet and full of menace. ‘I don’t think you are telling me the truth.’

‘I am,’ said Mathias. But he couldn’t look at her.

‘Do you know what I do to filthy, dirty, lying little boys who don’t tell me the truth? I do this.’

She put the heel of her hand on Mathias’s broken chest and leaned all her weight down on it. The pain was unbearable. Mathias let out a long broken cry. Anna-Maria sat back and watched him.

Lutsmann went quite white. ‘P-p-people will hear,’ he said.

‘Let them,’ said Anna-Maria.

‘But—’

‘Go outside if you haven’t the stomach for it,’ she snapped. ‘If anyone comes, tell them we have the barber here, pulling the boy’s bad tooth.’

She looked back down at Mathias, who was doubled up with pain. ‘I don’t think it will take us that long.’

She leaned forward and, with gritted teeth, pushed even harder.

Lutsmann stood outside in the dark street with his
coat wrapped around him and his fingers stuffed in his ears. Every now and then he would take them out just a little to see if it was all over yet, but then there would be another long scream and he would quickly jam them back in. But no one heard. No one came. And while he stood there, over the roofline of the town, fireworks began to burst in great flowering balloons. Fingers stuffed in his ears, he tipped his fat face up to the sky and watched them.