HS02 - Days of Atonement (51 page)

I knelt down and began to imitate the Frenchman, picking up a paper, glancing at the contents, setting it aside. One unpublished essay dated 1756 referred to the earthquake that had destroyed the city of Lisbon the year before. Kant noted that an acquaintance of his had felt the seismic shock, though escaping with his life and a few minor scratches. I felt a shudder of relief as I read it. The name of the friend was indicated only by the man’s initials, P.D. If Professor Kant had ever mentioned me in his writings, I prayed that he had employed a cipher known only to himself.

As we moved the mound inch by inch and foot by foot from one spot to another, the night wore on. Lavedrine remained fortified by boundless enthusiasm. He did not seem to doubt for a moment that somewhere in that mound of papers he would find some clue to throw a shining light on the case of the Gottewald children. My hands grew cold as I sifted through the life and thoughts of Professor Kant, but a colder sweat drenched my body, and my terror increased as the work continued without result. Somewhere, I was certain, there would be a reference to me. I quaked at the prospect of finding it.
Let it fall to me, or not be found at all,
I prayed. My only hope was that my name, or my initials, were buried as deeply in that sea of documents as one of those rare monsters that marine biologists tell us never leaves the dark ocean bed in search of light.

‘How I envy you, Stiffeniis, working so closely with this remarkable man,’ Lavedrine said at one point. ‘No expert’s knowledge or opinion was equal to his own. Just think of it, a fledgling scholar, a promising student of philosophy, still unknown and unrecognised at home, who dared to question
Isaac Newton. There’s a letter here from a Swedish astronomer. Kant had written to him, wondering whether the Englishman had got his mathematics right!’

I smiled, as I must, then continued burrowing into the pile, casting aside whatever was irrelevant as soon as I had caught the gist of it. That phrase of Ludvigssen’s had me in a state of nervous alarm:
ephemera,
he had called it. Was my own collision with the meteor Kant nothing more than an ephemeral incident, at least in the eyes of an archivist? Each time I picked up and read another sheet of paper written out in Kant’s neat, small handwriting, I half expected to find myself the subject of the thesis. His mind had ranged over almost every subject in the academic universe, from German poetry to Lithuanian folklore, from European politics to the most elegant form of wig that might be worn by a gentleman in the aftermath of the Russian occupation of Königsberg in January 1758. My nervous anxiety never ceased. One page seemed to have been written in the early 1740s, the next in the late 1750s, then I jumped ahead to a letter explaining how he had come to publish ‘Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space’ two decades later. Anything might emerge from that mound of forgotten controversies.

As it soon did.

‘Unbelievable!’ Lavedrine announced, holding up a letter dated 1750. ‘Just look at this. Voltaire thanking Kant for praise of his
Treatise Concerning the Metaphysics
. It makes you wonder whether the young Immanuel had already worked out the whole thing!’

By midnight, Ludvigssen was snoring loudly. I had dusty grit in my mouth and would have given the world for a glass of fresh water. I was on the point of suggesting that we call a halt, when Lavedrine said suddenly, echoing my thoughts, ‘Let’s stop for the night. These papers will still be here tomorrow.’ He glanced in the direction of the sleeping librarian. ‘And for many years to come, I believe.’

I stood up, brushing dirt from my hands and cobwebs from my clothes, looking around for my hat which I had laid aside hours before. But there is something obsessive and bewitching about the hunt.
La chasse
, as the French call it with that lilting-nostalgic urge to find and catch and keep at any price. The fisherman’s heart is always in his mouth for one last pike to grace his table, the hunter’s for one last shot at a rabbit for his cooking-pot. Policemen and magistrates are not so different. If there is one last chance to find a thing, to settle a question, they will take it, in the hope that this may be the key to what they seek. Had I not done just that with Aaron Jacob and the dead woman’s bones? With Helena’s sketch of Sybille Gottewald?

Standing up, Lavedrine brushed off his hands and shook the dust from his hair.

‘I’m ready to leave when you are,’ he said, then dropped immediately to his knees again, sweeping up one last bundle of paper, and glancing at the swathe of rag-cloth with which it had been bound.

‘
Quelle chancel’
he said quietly, walking across to me, thrusting the manuscript into my hands with the grin of a schoolboy stamped on his face.

The label was peeling from the cover, the ancient glue having lost much of its efficacy:

Concerning the Death of an Infant, 1765

 35 

T
HE MANUSCRIPT BUNDLE
was made up of a number of sections.

To Lavedrine and myself, as we examined the document that night, it revealed the young Immanuel Kant to be an acute observer of social minutiae. Those papers were a vivid testimony to the passion with which he embraced the question of one life cut short by murder, and another cut short by the offices of the public executioner.

Like two climbers who have reached the summit of a high peak, we sank to the floor exhausted. Lavedrine was exhilarated, having found what he was looking for. I felt relief. He had not found what I most feared.

He read the first page, then passed it to me. And so we continued to the end.

P
AGE 1:
T
ITLE

Concerning the Death of an Infant in the Year of the Lord, 1765 by
ImmanuelKant of Königsberg

All across this title page, from the bottom left-hand corner to the top right corner, the following declaration had been written out in massive capital copperplate letters: PLEA REJECTED. It bore the blue seal of the Central Police Bureau in Berlin, and the scrawled signature of the Magistrate General.

P
AGE 2:
P
REMISE

To His Excellency, the Magistrate General,
Baron Erlich von Bülow, Berlin.

Mostnoble sir,

I, Immanuel Kant, a private gentleman and loyal citizen of His Royal Majesty, King Frederick II of the house of Hohenzollern, do hereby
solemnly swear that every statement and description which follows in these pages is, to the very best of my knowledge, and in the soundness of my judgement, true and indisputable.

It is my intention to examine the following questions:

a. the death of Georg-Albert von Mandel, son and heir to Humbert-Arthur von Mandel, 6th Duke of Albemarle and Svetloye, in the canton of Königsberg;

b. the accusation of murder brought against Karlus Wettig, footman to the house of Albemarle, and serf to the 6th Duke;

c. my relations with the Albemarle household in Svetloye and in Königsberg, and my observations of what I know of both those houses;

d. my conclusions relating to the sentence which is due to be pronounced by Procurator Helmut-Philip Reimarus, magistrate, in the city of Königsberg on 24th October next, in the year of God, 1766.

In faith and loyalty,

Immanuel Kant, philosopher, this day, 1st October, 1766

P
AGE 3 FF.:
T
HE EVENT

Death of Georg-Albert von Mandel, heir to Duke Albemarle of Svetloye.

At half past six on the morning of 2nd December, 1765, a nursemaid, Edith Peckenthaal, was present in the bedroom where the eight-month-old son, and only heir, to the Duke of Albemarle was found dead. The infant had been put to bed by his mother, Dorothea-Ann Lundstadt, Duchess of Albemarle, and the nurse, at the usual hour of seven o’clock the previous evening. Nurse Edith sat with Georg-Albert, knitting a shawl for him until 10:30 p.m., when she extinguished the candles in the room, leaving only one nightlight burning next to the child’s cot. By her own account, Fraulein Peckenthaal sat by Georg-Albert for another half-hour, or more—the boy’s sleep had been disturbed for a week by teething pains. Certain that her charge was comfortably settled for the night, Edith removed herself from the room for fifteen minutes, as she was permitted to do, going down to the kitchen, where she drank a glass of milk and ate several biscuits in the company of the cook, Frau Angela Schmidt.

Frau Schmidt records that nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. Edith was her usual self. The nurse is renowned within the family for her good sense. Having eaten a late supper, and taken leave of the cook, she
returned upstairs to the nursery. She at once took stock of the child, and swears that he was sleeping soundly. At that point, Nurse Edith undressed and washed herself. Having donned her nightgown and said her prayers, she put herself to bed in the same room. The child, she remembers, was gurgling lightly as he slept.

During the night, Edith was disturbed on two occasions:

a. On the first occasion, the nurse was able to say precisely what time the intrusion occurred. Having woken up shortly before for no reason that she could give, Edith says that she heard the estate clock strike two. That dock is situated directly above her head. Its chiming can be heard at distances of up to one mile, depending on the strength and the direction of the wind, as I verified on the morning following the event to establish the veracity of contradictory reports by diverse witnesses.

Lady Dorothea-Ann entered the room shortly afterwards. She had dreamt, she told Edith, that the child was crying for his mother. The nurse reports, however, that the child had been sweetly sleeping, and did not wake up until his mother came in and made a fuss, lifting him up from his cot, and walking him round and round the room—rather quickly, according to the nurse—for almost an hour. Later, the Duchess of Albemarle left the nurse and the child alone again. The servant swears that the clock struck three within a brief space of time.

b. On the second occasion, a footman came to the room. The man in question was Karlus Wettig, occasional second valet to the Duke. That night, as was always the custom in the Albermarle household, one of the menservants was required to sit up from dusk to dawn, patrolling the house to ensure against thieves, fire, or any other accident which might endanger the lives of the family and the Albemarle retinue. As personal tutor to the Duchess—counted, therefore, as one of the servants—I have myself kept the night watch on several occasions. The duty is not onerous and is rewarded by a free day and a half-day holiday the Saturday following. The guardian is required to sit on a comfortable chair in the entrance hall. He may read by candlelight, if he wishes, and I took advantage of the opportunity. Every half-hour, at the striking of the hour, or the half, by the English grandfather clock in the reception room, the nightguard must walk the length and breadth of the house, including the nursery where Georg-Albert sleeps with Edith Peckenthaal, checking that all doors are closed. In all, the survey of the house takes at least twelve minutes. On my nocturnal wanderings, I have rarely met any person with the exception of the Duke himself, who keeps late hours, and occasionally milady, Dorothea-Ann, who is a notoriously light sleeper.

On the night in question, I was sleeping in my room, though I believe I may have heard Karlus Wettig passing in the corridor outside my room on two separate occasions, some ten or twelve minutes after the hour of eleven; some time later that night, I observed the flicker of candlelight beneath my door. My room is situated at the end of the servants’ corridor. Karlus Wettig had been in service with the family for almost twenty years, and was considered to be a trustworthy nightwatchman.

At half past six o’clock on the morning of 2nd December, 1765, I was roused by a piercing scream from somewhere in the house, followed by a flurry of activity, most of the servants already being at their posts and engaged, preparing the house for the family ablutions and the breakfast, which was generally served in the dining room at 7.45. As I was informed in passing by Lucinda Boehmer, one of the lady’s maids, the child, Georg-Albert von Mandel, had been found dead in his cot.