The Vorrh Read online

  It was then that she saw another potential rise from the milky whiteness: This camera obscura could be the solution to the cyclops’s discontent. From here, he could view the city at a safe distance, saturating his curiosity in its shifting image. She decided to make a surprise of it and bring him up to the attic room without telling him why.

  —

  On the morning of the street market in the town square, she dressed him in warm clothes, unlocked the doors, and led him through the house. He had not been outside his rooms since the traumatic day of Ghertrude’s arrival and the Kin’s demise. He looked at everything and marvelled at the shrinkage that had occurred, relative to his own growth. Mutter led the way up into the attic, as Ishmael, then Ghertrude followed. They stepped into the singing room and she caught his hand in a gentle camouflage of restraint. Against their expectations, he recognised the contrivance in the room instantly.

  “How wonderful,” he exclaimed. “It’s a Goedhart device.”

  Mutter and Ghertrude were stunned. “A what?” she said.

  “A Goedhart device, one of the rare and unique instruments of Joanhus Goedhart.”

  At the word “Goedhart,” the floor chimed with a deeper and more significant resonance. He pulled away to examine the strings. Ghertrude felt an irrational anger begin to grow inside her.

  “Let’s go to the door,” she said, setting off quickly across the room, with Mutter following closely. But Ishmael could not be rushed and made his way slowly towards them, delighting in the wires and their reaction when he murmured into them. He touched them all, pulling at the cords attached to the roof, stroking the feathers and feeling the weight of the metal balls with an increasing pleasure.

  “We have not come to see these things,” Ghertrude snapped, sensing that the importance of her gift was being diluted by the inconsequential and irrelevant intrusions and his understanding of them. He left his enquiries reluctantly and caught up to them, strumming five of the strings in a discordant slash en route. They climbed into the dark, octagonal chamber and stood around the circular table. She grabbed the controls and, with a dramatic flourish, twisted the projector into life. The narrow parting in the roof sprang open and the market jumped onto the table, shimmering with activity, colour, and bustle. Mutter, sensing the growing emotion, moved back down the stairwell to search in the attic for a window or an opening.

  Ghertrude watched the cyclops. He stood very still, slightly bent over the table. His eye was enormous, starting from his head. He was pale, a greasy film of perspiration on his skin reflecting the light of the scene below. Suddenly, her body reinstated the revulsion she had felt when she had first seen him; that moment seemed decades away now. Their intimacy and her growing feelings for him had made his face normal: Wonder and secrecy had repaired his learned abnormalities, while familiarity and desire had stitched up their differences.

  She was overpowered by the shock of the old feeling, especially as they stood together, in a moment that could turn in any direction. Had she made a mistake in bringing him here? Why did he look so? A tear splashed onto the glowing disc, briefly creating another tiny lens. He made an indecipherable sound, deep in his chest. She thought, at first, that it was a composite of longing, but as it slid over her array of perception it changed, taking on sharper and more alarming tinctures. The second tear fell, and she was cleaved by the need to go to him—to touch and reassure—and the desire to escape. The table seemed to get brighter as the room blackened around them.

  He started to undress as she watched, unable to do or say anything. As he unbuckled his belt, he became aware of her stillness, its perfection denting the air, and angrily pointed at her blouse while yanking at his trousers. When she did nothing, the pointing hand converted into a clenching fist that snatched the docile lace and wrenched her forward. Pearl buttons flew in all directions, and she was about to cover her startled breasts when he shouted, “For me, you for me!” She closed her eyes and slowly removed the wrecked blouse and the thin straps of her chemise beneath. He pulled away the rest of her clothing, trampling it and cracking the fallen buttons under his stiff, impatient feet.

  His purple cock was enormous, its spiralled barrel twisting and telescoping back and forth with his heavily beating heart. His eye continued to drip tears, now onto her legs as he braced her across the table. The blurrily focused crowd and the now-clumsy architecture smeared on her naked belly and her torn clothing. Their bodies united in the silent light, and deep inside she gave up, wanting the keys to be taken away. She wanted to be a child again, with no understanding; to rip her guile into a forgetting womb and pamper offspring by a warm hearth, to let milk drown her lime and become inside out, gloving another life that would fold her to a gentle, smiling death, where all spoke of her wisdom and love. In the long time of silence before he withdrew, a ruthless, automatic kindness unfolded in him, its weight matching the shock of excitement that laughed secretly in Ghertrude. The rawness of both expressions bound them together in a shame that was sublime in the depth of its contradiction.

  He fell back as she leaked on the polished surface of the porous, inert table. Low on its right-hand side, blind to their panting bodies, a drawer lay open in untraceable measures. It exposed a shallowness in its recess that was gently covered with a curved, articulated piece of polished wood. Had they examined it, they would have found a tiny cleft, oiled by perpetual moisture, concealed beneath the tonguelike flap. It sat, expectant and totally unnoticed by the pair above it. As they unfurled, and only their white breathing filled the room, it slid closed, becoming seamless and invisible again.

  He stood, his eye still shut; words existed elsewhere. She slanted over the table and gazed across herself. Some previous part of her being wanted to adjust the splutter that moved over her body, twist the focus back into detail and rewind the clock. She watched as he returned to the moment; he began to make small, pinching movements with his finger and thumb, trying to capture the Lilliputian figures that bustled in the streets, to pluck them up. She assumed he was jesting but discerned no trace of amusement in his stern and twisted expression.

  When they left the tower, they found light and the scent of woodsmoke in the attic. Mutter had found a window and opened it onto the rooftops. He had long since gone, driven away by their animal sounds, which had slid down from above to tantalise the recumbent wires.

  They returned to the third floor. At the door of his dwelling, Ishmael held his hand out towards her. She reciprocated, touched by his gesture of affection. The instant their hands met, she knew she had made a mistake. His rigid fingers were eloquent in their distance.

  “No,” he said, “the keys.”

  Thus, the cyclops changed his status in the quiet house on Kühler Brunnen; the next episode of their life together had begun.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Charlotte spent many leaden hours in the hotel room, especially after the turmoil of their arrival. She could still feel the derringer, grasped hard in the palm of her hand; the suffocating crowd of grinning faces, squashed against the car. She had travelled to many places with the Frenchman, but never to such a primitive location. Before, he had always stayed with her, in their interconnecting suite of rooms. He had never walked out into such a street, had never made appointments and plans without her. She was anxious about him, knowing how easily he could become embroiled in trouble. His predilection for the poor and the criminal led him to the most sordid and dangerous parts of town. He had a hunter’s nose for those quarters and would find them instantly in the newest, most unfamiliar locations. But he would never wander out alone. They always cruised the streets and alleys in the massive vehicle, often blocking the road and scraping the crumbling walls, causing a sensation. Sometimes, when he was too dissolute to venture out to catch his quarry, he would unfold a map of the place, pour a glass of his favourite Alsace, and ponder it for hours. He would imagine the streets, sniff the alleys, and finally select a site. She and the chauffeur would be dispatched to that place, to coll
ect or trap a partner for his night of pleasure. It was the least favourite of her duties, and the only one that genuinely made her feel unclean. No innocent was ever kidnapped, and no one was taken against his will: Any doubts in the mind of the chosen one were quickly muted by an offering of money. But the journey back in the car embarrassed her, especially when they questioned her about what they had to do and what her part was in those delights. She had never been prudish, but the last five years had stretched her experience into realms of disbelief.

  The difficulty was her kindness. She could explain the sexual details and the intricate peccadilloes that sharpened them so for the Frenchman. She could elucidate the manner of their conduct and the level of brutality that was expected of them. But she could not give voice to the instant abandonment of their humanity after the deeds were done. The suddenness of their expulsion, propelled by the total disgust of their existence. This part of the ritual she hid from, closing the doors to all her rooms, leaving the chauffeur to ringmaster the debasing event, which she suspected he enjoyed. Charlotte had no delusions that the abused vermin she had solicited would have been offended by these actions; indeed, most would have been overjoyed to escape the limpet passions of the aesthete’s bed, especially after drinking as much as they could, and with the bundle of notes grinning in their pockets. She felt pity for them, but it was the debasement of the Frenchman that so unnerved her.

  He was not just a ruined brat, spending his family’s wealth on indulgence; she had known many of those. He possessed, or was possessed by, something else: a crippled soul, which might just pucker into genius, if only he allowed his wretched shred of joy to grow. She had seen it and knew it was closer to his vision than the exhaustion of his heart and the poisoning of his body. She knew that, for those who have everything in abundance, there is always a gap, a hollow that will never be filled. Long before she had met the Frenchman, before his mother had even conceived of proposing that Charlotte become the companion of her beloved son, she had known of the hunger and some of the ways of its manifestation. The fruitless mangle of emotions, spurred and strangled by the auto-cannibalism of guilt. The humiliation of being animal, the whipping into cruelty of lost affections. She had accepted his mother’s offer out of kindness and the need to provide the possibility of change. They had thought she needed the money and the elevated social position—perhaps she had. Nevertheless, it was a good bargain. The son had a companion whom he would learn to trust and who would give a glint of beauty to all his endeavours. He could wear her proudly in all Parisian society, and she would neither expect nor demand anything from him. The mother could entrust her son to a bright and elegant creature, who would keep him on at least one fixed rail, which was considered respectable and normal in decent society; moreover, she would own the young woman and never have to suffer the machinations and spite of a daughter-in-law.

  But these were malign and tragic fantasies; she knew her son’s appetites ran in opposite directions. Previous attempts to arouse his masculinity had been woeful disasters. She had supplied him with a comely mistress for his twentieth birthday, but the poor woman was driven to distraction by her supposed lover’s endless, limp readings of interminably long poems. So monstrous was the abuse that she had demanded one hundred thousand francs in compensation from the old woman, for the aural and temporal violation. And Charlotte? She could settle and pretend for a while. There was no need for real marriage in her life, certainly not yet. And thus it came to pass that the two strangers became witnesses in a shared life.

  But he was still missing. She looked across the colonial-style room at the grandfather clock, emaciated in its light, timbered case. She thought of calling the chauffeur but could not face hearing his monochromatic indifference. Dinner was at seven, and after all the fuss the Frenchman had made about the menu, she dreaded the chef’s reaction to a postponement. She went to the window, threw open its juddering glass, and stepped out onto the balcony. This had been the only hotel in Essenwald of sufficient quality to satisfy the Frenchman’s fastidious requirements. They had taken the entire upper floor. The balcony extended around the building. She began to walk its rectangular length. Peering into the crowd below and shading her eyes with her long, delicate hand, she looked into the distance.

  Far off, the black shadow of the Vorrh could be seen, sealing the city on its northern side. She searched the faces and the gaits of the seething streets beneath her, unable to find him in their constant shift and bustle. She became suddenly aware that one of the crowd was still and facing her. He was tall and motionless, his face hidden by a tightly wrapped ghutra of black silk. She could feel his stare, even from the distance of several hundred feet. Coldness plucked at her optic nerves with a bony nail; her sight flickered in distress and she grabbed at the squeaking door. From behind her, there was a sound on the landing outside the room. Approaching footsteps, unfamiliar and ponderous, drew her away from the street and its intruder and back into the room, composed and ready to receive anybody. No one knocked, but the brass door handle slowly turned and the Frenchman quietly entered. So pleased was she to see him that she didn’t instantly notice the strangeness of his approach.

  She greeted him with lapping warmth. He smiled gently and touched her arm. This was unknown. She was dismayed, overwhelmed, and silenced by it. He deflated into one of the enormous Moroccan armchairs and said, with eyes already shut, “Charlotte, my dear, I am a little tired.”

  The evening was luxuriously calm. The perfume of the jasmine that twisted through the wrought iron of the balcony fluttered into the room. The fireflies buzzed the dusk in overlapping eclipses, and the frogs and cicadas accelerated a chorus. There was a settled peace in their suite of rooms. He was asleep in the chair where he had collapsed. She had checked that he was well, then taken off his shoes and placed his hat and cane in the hall. The cane felt curiously weightless, her excessive use of muscle giving it an illusion of levitation that made her laugh.

  He slept for three hours before waking slowly, creaking in the leather and blinking into the room as she lit the lamps. There was a softness about his eyes that had never been present before. She saw the child in the old man, wonder and contentment where cynicism and greed had been scratched before. This was the man she always knew but hardly ever met.

  “Come and sit with me,” he said. “I want to tell you about my black friend and his vision of the forest.”

  They talked for a very long time, pausing the conversation only to fetch wine and delay the dinner. He told her of his new friend, of his kindness and his lessons, of the chapel and the saints and a living Adam, somewhere at the heart of the wilderness of trees. He wanted her to meet “the black prince” and share in his tales of belief and wonder. Quietly, out of nowhere, he asked, “The little silver crucifix that you sometimes wear; is it of great sentimental value to you?” She looked a little confused, and he continued, “It’s just that I so want to give my prince a gift; I wondered if I might purchase it from you.”

  “It’s of no real value to me,” she lied. “I have several others; please do take it.”

  He was delighted and crossed the little space between them to kiss her cheek. His mouth was surprisingly cold. His request satisfied, he continued to talk about his day.

  They moved into the dining room, without a break in his enthusiasm or a pause in her amazement. It was to be a much lighter dinner than he usually demanded: only sixteen courses that night. At times, during his eloquent nibbling, he would adopt Seil Kor’s voice and dash ornate French with a rich Arabic bias and sonorous tones across the tabled landscape of food. She would laugh loudly at his pronunciations and roll against the joy that projected them. He was a genius at imitation. He could copy all voices, whether they belonged to strangers or friends, animals, or even the inanimate. He once held a party of poets spellbound by his portrayal of a collection of old hinges. She loved it when he was playful, when his gift was not soured by malice.

  It was almost midnight when he left the tab
le and sat down to the piano with a cigar. She went to the window and walked out into the glittering night. The city was already sleeping, and the heavens took up the sound of the creatures below, the stars making a notation of their trills and bells, which rang in the darkness like glass. Whispers of Satie joined them from the room, and there seemed, in this inimitable moment, to be an agreement between time and the proximity of all things, as if clumsy humans might have a place in all this infinite, perfect darkness, if only they played at the edge. Out of sight, blindfolded, and in agreement.

  —

  Charlotte smelt the coffee when she awoke; indeed, it might have been its bitter warmth that quaffed her dreams. She slipped on a yellow robe and opened the door to the Frenchman’s room; he was already awake and seated at the breakfast table. He had never been known to stir before noon. Slightly unsettled, she joined him at the table, an empty cup in her hesitant hand, her eyes never leaving his excited expression. He smiled.

  “A beautiful morning, Charlotte!”

  “Yes,” she said, noticing for the first time that thick shafts of light divided the room, motes of dust swimming expressively in their beams, giving the simultaneous impressions of animation and stillness.

  “Did I tell you last night that today I go to the Vorrh?” he asked. “Seil Kor is coming for me this morning.” It was the first time he had used his new friend’s name; previously, he had referred to him as a “native,” a “black,” or, on occasion, as his “black prince.”

  She was unmoved by the name and unsurprised he had endowed his young guide with the same moniker as a character from his Impressions of Africa. She had never seriously undertaken to read any of his books, poems, or essays, only the letters he addressed to her. It was not part of her duties. She knew that it would ruin their relationship to hold an opinion on his works: She was merely a woman, and they both preferred it that way. However, she had once flipped through the pages of the African book. She had found it confused and obscure. No doubt it was art, for she knew him to be a man of dangerous appetites and total selfishness. That was what made the smiling man before her such a disconcerting sight.