HS02 - Days of Atonement (30 page)

S
O,
I
THOUGHT
, this is the new breed of Prussians.

While Leon Biswanger boasted of his schemes for making money, I saw them advancing in legions, rank upon rank, a mighty army, sweeping the whole of Prussia before them. Dirt was ingrained beneath their fingernails, carrying with it the recent memory of an aching back and endless labour in a country gentleman’s potato field. For centuries, generations of Biswangers had slaved for privileged men who ruled over them like kings.

Junker
lords and their agents watched like hawks while their serfs turned the heavy clods in the snow and pouring rain.
Junker
lords shouted orders at them when the season for compulsory military exercises came around.
Junker
lords with names like Katowice, Dittersdorf, and Stiffeniis led them into battle. My father and his forebears had managed their serfs with unbending intolerance. Now, fortune’s wheel had shifted for men at every level of society. The
Junker
had disgraced themselves in Berlin, defiantly honing their sabres on the doorstep of the French legation the evening before the invasion began. That had been the last straw. The French had conquered us and brought their revolution with them, instituting the Great Edict in Prussia. They had punished the
Junker
by promising liberation to their serfs. All the Biswangers could be free, if they chose to scrabble for an independent living. The ones who had broken loose would turn a trick with any profiteer who chose to knock at their door. Even the Nation’s worst enemy, by which I meant the French. The country would expand and grow, I had no doubt, as a result of the efforts of Biswanger, and his money-hoarding fellows, but it would not be the Prussia of old.

‘Aaron the Jew?’ Lavedrine prompted.

Leon Biswanger had met Aaron Jacob three years before, he said. The man had arrived in the small ghetto of Lotingen, a fugitive from Lithuania and the oppression of the Russians.

‘He made a fortune,’ Biswanger recounted with relish, ‘collecting bones from animals and making soap. Aaron’s a sharp one, I’ll say that for him. He
had money, he wanted more, but had no means of investing it locally. It was a lucky encounter for both of us, I have never looked back.’

He stared at Lavedrine as he said all this, avoiding my eye. A Frenchman could understand far better than a Prussian what motives drove him. Aaron Jacob had bought four houses through the agency of Biswanger and lawyer Wittelsbach, two in the centre of the town, two more outside the city walls, including the cottage that the Gottewalds had occupied. Biswanger had signed the contracts and paid the taxes, then he had taken a healthy cut of the profits from the real owner.

‘Me and Aaron Jacob get on right as rain,’ he said, ‘but I would not say I know him well. I only meet him when there’s business to be done, or accounts to be settled.’

‘Do you meet him in the ghetto?’ I asked.

‘You wouldn’t catch me going there!’ he answered quickly. ‘Nor bringing him here. We meet “by accident” at Wittelsbach’s office. All sorts come and go there, no one gives a toss these days. We had to be more careful before . . .’

His eyes darted at Lavedrine.

‘Before what?’ I pressed him.

‘Well, sir, before Jena.’

His eyes did not waver from mine as he admitted this treachery.

‘The coming of the French has made it easier,’ he continued. ‘No one pays us much attention these days. Business is business.’

‘Did Gottewald know that the cottage belonged to a Jewish landlord?’ Lavedrine piped up.

Biswanger shook his head. ‘He thought the house was mine. Aaron’s name and tribe never came into it. Only Wittelsbach knew . . .’ He hesitated for a moment, peering hard at Lavedrine. ‘May I ask a question, sir?’

The Frenchman waved an encouraging hand.

‘Did the lawyer tell you? That man’s a viper, I always knew it!’

‘You may be surprised to hear this, Biswanger,’ I cut in before Lavedrine could reply, ‘but no one told us anything. Except yourself, that is.’

Biswanger blew noisily on his lips and sat back heavily. His clothes seemed to collapse in upon him, as if his bulky body had been suddenly spirited away.

‘Hmm,’ he murmured noisily. ‘I had nothing to do with killing them children, sir. Had I known what was going to happen in that house, I’d never have got involved.’

His rumbling voice was reedy and trembling by the time he finished.

‘If you have done nothing,’ I insisted, ‘you will answer our questions.’

Biswanger’s eyes opened wide. ‘That’s what I’m trying to do, Herr Procurator, I assure you.’

‘Why did Aaron the Jew want the Gottewalds and their children to take that particular house?’ asked Lavedrine.

Did Lavedrine think that the rumours flying around Lotingen had some foundation in truth? Had he been convinced by the revolting caricatures on that Jew-hating broadsheet?

If Lavedrine’s question left me breathless, it provoked a quaking spasm on the podgy face of Leon Biswanger. ‘Sir, you cannot believe . . . Oh no, sir, not
that
! I did not know there was a motive in it. I was convinced they wanted that house. Why else would Aaron . . . You can’t believe what people are saying, sir! I was just the go-between.’

‘Yet, in your own words, that house was intended to make a profit,’ Lavedrine ploughed on. ‘Not ten miserable thalers. What other reason could there be for letting the house go so cheaply?’

‘Major Gottewald . . . he
wanted
that house, sir,’ Biswanger repeated piteously, as if that frail argument were his one remaining hope of salvation. ‘There was no other profit to be made from it, at least in the short run. I told Aaron about the offer, and he instructed me to accept it . . .’

‘And in the long run?’ Lavedrine challenged.

‘Sir?’ Biswanger whined, uncertain where he stood, incapable of guessing where Lavedrine’s sharp reasoning would take him next.

‘You are a businessman, Biswanger,’ Lavedrine replied smoothly. ‘Surely, you know the current price on the local market of a pint of Christian blood?’

If Biswanger was flabbergasted, I was horrified.

Lavedrine smiled benignly at the pair of us. ‘A tiny rent on the house, but a huge profit on a certain rare commodity sold in the right religious circles, don’t you think?’

He looked at Biswanger, whose head was in his hands, as he tried in vain to stifle his wailing. Then, Lavedrine looked at me and winked reassuringly.

‘But come, Herr Biswanger,’ he said, turning his loaded cannons on the man again. ‘You are, as I said before, a businessman . . .’

‘You’ll have to speak to Aaron, sir,’ the man protested defiantly. ‘I don’t know nothing about
that
business.’

‘We will speak to him soon,’ I interposed. ‘You can swear an oath on it.’

But Lavedrine brought the discussion back again to his own chosen path. ‘This business with the houses, Biswanger. Tell me, what sort of a profit do you manage to make in that line of work?’

Biswanger studied the Frenchman’s face for some moments. ‘Thirty per cent,’ he said, and for all his discomfort he could not prevent a hollow smile from appearing on his fat lips.

‘So,’ Lavedrine summed up, ‘thirty per cent of ten thalers. That’s three, if my sums are correct.’

‘Indeed, sir.’

Lavedrine smiled, then chuckled to himself. ‘I took you for a mastiff, Biswanger. Instead, I find that you are a puppy. A benefactor, if I am truthful. If Aaron Jacob’s other houses yield so little, you can’t be doing very well for yourself.’

‘That’s just a sideline, sir,’ the man shot back. ‘I have my own business to put the clothes on my back, and
Pfennig
in my coffers.’

‘What is your business?’

‘If you are hiding something more,’ I warned him, ‘the next time you speak to us, you will be wearing chains inside a prison cell. What is your trade?’

The man joined his hands and looked at me, as if he were amazed. ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ he said. ‘I thought you knew. People passing in the street are always going on about the smell. We don’t have neighbours living near. We are used to it, and someone has to do the job. The workshop’s on the windward side, away from the river. It’s open country out back. I have a license from the General Quarters now, and it is of great public utility. Still,’ he sighed, ‘there’s no accounting for ignorance and superstition.’

‘
Pour l’amour de Dieu!
’ Lavedrine exclaimed. ‘What do you do, man?’

‘How can I explain it to you, sir?’ Biswanger replied, a terrified frown on his face. ‘You have a name for the work in France, I do believe . . .
jux crux
,’ he mumbled at last, making an execrable attempt to pronounce these words in French. He jumped up, wiping his sweaty hands on his trousers. ‘It would be better if I showed you.’

He led us along a brick-tiled corridor, then out into a paved courtyard at the back of the house. Taking a large key from his pocket, he unlocked a narrow door which opened into his workshop. As the man bowed and waited for us to pass inside before him, I threw an eye at Lavedrine, hoping for elucidation, but the expression on his face pitched me into greater confusion. He was smiling in a manner that suggested amusement and lively curiosity, equally mixed. I think he knew what we were about to discover, but decided to leave me in the dark.

One thing alone was indisputable: the smell.

While knocking on Biswanger’s front door, we had remarked upon it. But inside that room it was sickening. Daylight entered by means of the same narrow slits we had noticed from the street, the rays cutting through the gloom like stabbing swords. Six lamps were set at intervals along the other wall, each containing a candle. Beneath each lamp was a wooden table covered with a slab of slate. Laid out on five of them was the ‘merchandise’ of Leon Biswanger.

‘You almost hit it, Biswanger.
Jurés crieurs
is what we call them in France,’
Lavedrine said with a laugh. He turned to me and explained. ‘ “Announcers of death”,’ he said. ‘An edict issued by Louis XIV made them into a hereditary guild. Sons follow by right of birth in their fathers’ footsteps in every town and city. Their duty is to inform the people of a death, then assist with the interment.’

He turned to Biswanger. ‘Well done, sir! A trade in constant expansion, given the times we live in.’

My eyes were riveted on the row of corpses. Two men and three women, all dressed in their Sunday best, as if they might stand up at any moment and decide to take a stroll. The women were artfully displayed, each wearing a headdress of black lace thrown back to expose the face, the trailing veil expertly moulded along the shoulders and down the arms. But as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, I realised that the first impression had been misleading. These people would never stand again. Their cheeks were sunken where bones gave no support, the skin as thin and brittle as parchment. The jaw of one of the women had locked at a lopsided angle, exposing yellow teeth and putrid gums.

Smiling now, confident of having won the approval of Lavedrine, Biswanger led us into the room, stopping beside one of the trestles. The candlelight flickered mercilessly on the dead man’s face. Clearly, he had suffered. His body was unnaturally twisted, his aged face aghast with pain. His tongue was steely blue, protruding from between clenched teeth, lolling along the side of his stubbly chin. He had gagged in the moment of decease. Had the agony gone on longer, he would have bitten his tongue off.

‘Gunthar Loesse, bellringer in the parish of Allenswerder,’ Biswanger recited smoothly. ‘Fell from the bell tower. Probably the worse for drink. Broke his back and every rib.’ He turned to me. ‘Horrible sight, don’t you agree, sir? There’s not much I can do for him. I’ll have to remove that tongue before we lay him in an open coffin. A very popular man with the local Pietist congregation, apparently. The parishioners agreed to pay for my services. They brought him in last night, so he still don’t look his best. By the time they bury him on Friday, he’ll be as handsome as a bridegroom,’ the undertaker explained with joy.

‘Do you save the better specimens for medical schools?’ I asked. ‘Or sell the organs by the pound weight when requested?’

‘What do you take me for, sir?’ he protested, making the sign of the Cross on his forehead. ‘I go to chapel every Sunday. Sell human remains? I’d never dream of doing such a thing. Why, I . . . I’m a . . .’

He was trembling from head to toe. My conviction grew. There was more to his business than he had chosen to show us.

‘You are what, sir?’ I insisted.

‘I was going to say, sir, I am something of an artist,’ he replied. ‘If the parents, relatives, or friends ask me . . .’

‘Pay you,’ I corrected him.

‘First, they ask. Then, happy with the results, they pay. I . . . well . . . You’d better come with me,’ he said, moving towards a jutting wall which enclosed a second room. ‘In here, Herr Procurator. And Colonel Lavedrine, sir. Step this way, please.’

We might have entered a different house. The smell of death was dominant out there, but in this sanctum we might have been inside a church with a hundred burning candles. Oil lamps flickered in the room like votive lights, but the persistent smell—a delicate perfume, overwhelming and cushioning the scent of rotting flesh and corrupt innards—was a familiar one.

‘Wax?’ I asked.

A great quantity was cut into square blocks, piled high on shelves. As Biswanger wound up the wicks of his lamps and light invaded the gloom, a dozen forms laid out on the central worktable were thrown into stark relief. Each piece was milky grey, though the lineaments were different. Each one possessed the same deathly stillness. With blank unseeing eyes, they appeared to float in a world without feeling or emotion. Yet pain and torment were stamped on their faces.

‘Death masks. There’s no better way to remember the departed. Each is a true original. When a loved one has passed over, the mask remains for the living to cherish. It keeps alive the memory in their fickle minds. This is what I do. Of course, if the death is of an unusual or unnatural sort, I sell copies to the medical profession. Or to scholars who may be interested. As was the case with those three little angels recently massacred . . .’