The Dream Killer of Paris (13 page)

It was late October but the weather remained mild, the streets bathed in sunshine.

I had no precise route in mind, no pre-established plan. My only intention was to walk for a long time, a very long time, happy to go where the mood took me, my mind completely open to whatever chance might bring. I enjoyed ambling idly. After wandering aimlessly through the streets for some time, it was as though you developed another sense, allowing you to experience reality differently, revealing unsuspected connections between things, creating space/time relationships outside the bounds of Cartesian reason. In that state of mind, maybe I could re-establish the link with my stranger from the steamer while I was awake.

Having passed Tour Saint-Jacques and crossed the two branches of the Seine, we wandered along Boulevard Saint-Michel. At one of the many bookshops in the area specialising in the occult, I found an edition of
The Key to Black Magic
by Stanislas de Guaïta and Jules Delassus’s famous
Incubi and Succubi
. I purchased both books, which joined
Aurélia
and
Nadja
at the bottom of my bag. After making our way through the Luxembourg Gardens, swarming with people on this sunny weekend, we continued to Boulevard du Montparnasse where, on the dot of one o’clock, my sidekick was lured by the promise of a seafood
rémoulade
, and we stopped at La Coupole for some sustenance.

I decided to tell James about my dreams while he made light
work of a trio of chocolate profiteroles accompanied by a smooth ice cream. Then I immediately changed my mind. It was not the right time for discussions, however necessary they were, but for a voyage into the irrational, far from logic and understanding.

We resumed our stroll, this time heading towards Les Invalides. James followed me without grumbling, both amused at the whim which had suddenly taken hold of me and delighted to see me making the most of the splendours of Paris. At the packed pavement cafés, young women with painted nails savoured their Bloody Marys and their champagne, lapping up the glances of the young men around them. Every now and then we passed newspaper kiosks but the grim headlines about the repercussions of the assassination of the King of Yugoslavia in Marseille and the anti-Semitic decrees issued by the new German Führer barely tempered the carefree mood which seemed to be de rigueur in the French capital.

I walked with my eyes wide open, drinking in everything that was going on around me, trying to decipher all the messages reality was sending me. I scrutinised the street signs and examined the slogans of the giant advertising boards on the outside of buildings, looking for hidden meaning. I made up complicated formulae from the omnibus and tram numbers. I spoke the names of shops and cafés out loud as if they had magical significance. I interpreted the positions of the hands on the clocks. I probed the faces of
passers-by
, firmly convinced that the truth was to be found somewhere, written on the wind of the daily drama of that modern city.

At the Gare d’Orsay we leapt on to an omnibus which was heading for the Champ-de-Mars. It dropped us under the legs of Eiffel’s masterpiece. We then crossed the Seine to Trocadéro and headed for Boulevard Haussmann. After walking from Chaussée d’Antin to the Gare du Nord, the Machiavellian gaze of the main character on a poster at Univers Ciné caught my attention and I
suggested that we get our strength back by responding to the call of the cinema
15
.

‘Did you see Mabuse’s eyes!’ exclaimed James as we came out later.

‘Yes. Öberlin’s must look like that. It’s a sign we are on the right track.’

As daylight began to fade, another omnibus took us from the Gare de l’Est to the Buttes-Chaumont park where we wandered for a long time, looking for a sign, whatever it might be. On the bend in a steep path, James suddenly stopped in front of a noticeboard giving the history of the park.

‘There was a gallows on this very spot until the reign of Louis XVI: the gallows of Montfaucon. Does that have anything to do with the author of that book you took from Château B—?’

‘Montfaucon de Villars? I don’t think so. But it might be a warning. Let’s keep going before the garden closes!’

A little further on, we came to the area around the lake and the island where, under a cloudy sky and an almost full moon, my gaze was drawn to the temple of Sibyl at the top of a rocky cliff. Although the water in the lake at the foot of the spur was stagnant, unlike the turbulent waters of the sparkling blue-tinted river, and this was not a castle of old stone but a modern replica of the Tivoli temple, it definitely recalled the mirage of
fata Morgana
.

The medium’s words came back to me.

‘James! Do you remember what Pfizer said at the Institut Métapsychique?’

‘What? That crank?’

‘He said: “A train heading east! A train you must not miss!”’

‘Yes, I remember. So?’

‘He also mentioned a clock face …’

‘Yes, it showed seven minutes to eight in the evening. But there’s no doubt he’s got a screw loose.’

‘Where do trains going east leave Paris from?’

‘The Gare de l’Est I think.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Twenty past seven.’

‘Quick, we must hurry!’

‘What’s going on? Will you just tell me?’

‘There’s no time, James!’

At the northern exit of the park, we leapt into a taxi. Luckily, we didn’t have far to go. The driver sped towards the La Villette roundabout and then headed down Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Martin to Place Verdun. In less than ten minutes we were at the great Parisian station. It was almost completely dark.

‘Quick! Follow me!’

I crossed the concourse at a run and looked around for a porter.

‘Is there a train which leaves at seven minutes to eight?’ I gasped.

‘Three times a week, Monsieur. And today, Saturday, is one of those days.’

‘Which one is it?’

‘Over there, Platform 2, the one with the blue-and-gold carriages. It’s the Orient Express.’

‘The Orient Express?’

‘Yes, Monsieur. It arrived earlier today from Calais.’

‘And where is it going?’

‘Stuttgart, Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest—’

‘Vienna you say?’

‘Yes, Vienna.’

‘We absolutely must catch that train!’ I cried, turning to James who was looking rather taken aback.

‘There are usually still seats available at this time of year,’ said the porter. ‘Go to the ticket study of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, under the arches, and then find one of the uniformed
conductors on the platform
16
. But hurry, the Orient Express will be leaving soon – and it’s rarely late.’

The Orient Express! I didn’t have enough money on me to pay for such expensive seats but we had to catch that train! It was suddenly clear to me that this was what I had been looking for.

‘Are you sure about this, Andrew?’

‘Definitely. Our man is on that train. We’re going to get him this time.’

‘Right, let’s warn Fourier so that he can organise a search of the carriages!’

‘Out of the question! If the train stays in the station Öberlin will get suspicious and give us the slip again.’

‘Damn!’ swore my friend as he grudgingly took a thick wallet from his jacket pocket. ‘Take that! You’ll find my passport inside and a wad of notes! It’s all the money I withdrew in London before leaving. I thought I’d squander it on seeing the sights of Paris, not the view from a train window … even if it is aboard the Orient Express!’

I grabbed his wallet and ran to the ticket office. A few minutes later I went up to the uniformed conductor of the first sleeping car and proudly held out the precious tickets.

‘I will also need your passports.’

‘Here.’

‘Very good, Messieurs. You will be in a second-class compartment, couchettes 8 and 9,’ announced the conductor, stamping the numbers on his plan. ‘Do you have any luggage?’

‘Here,’ I lied, showing my bag full of books. ‘The rest is waiting for us in Vienna.’

‘In that case, please get in. The train will leave in less than a minute. Your compartment is at the end of the third carriage. If you wish, you may use the restaurant car. It opens in quarter of an hour.’

A whistle blew; behind us a voice cried: ‘All aboard!’

As I mounted the step I had the unpleasant sensation of being watched by terrible, threatening dark eyes. It was the same feeling I had had when we left André Breton’s studio the night before.

I craned my neck to try to see
his
face. But it was time for saying goodbye and a number of people were poking their heads out of the carriage windows to bid farewell to those who remained on the platform.

A new blast of whistles was heard. James leapt into the carriage and the conductor followed suit.

Before the conductor closed the door, I took
Nadja
out of my bag, tore out the end paper and scrawled a few words and my signature on it. Then I hailed a porter whose cap bore the insignia of the Compagnie des Wagons-Lits and gave him the folded piece of paper as well as some money from James’s bundle of notes.

‘Take this message to Superintendent Fourier at the Sûreté Nationale. It is extremely important. Do you hear? Superintendent Fourier! The Sûreté Nationale!’

The conductor pulled the door towards him and pushed down the safety latch.

‘Well, it’s good night Vienna for us!’ I exclaimed, giving James back his wallet minus an appreciable number of notes. ‘There’s no going back now.’

‘
Good night Vienna!
’ cried my friend.

The Orient Express rumbled off slowly, spitting out steam.

In a little over twenty hours we would be in the Austrian capital.

‘“Dark forces which are preparing to turn the world upside down?”’ repeated James after I had told him about my dreams, although underplaying their erotic charge. ‘What does it mean?’

‘I don’t know yet. All I know is that these dreams follow on from one another and contain a message which it’s important I understand. It started with the mirage on the
Canterbury
. My dream last night was part of it, as was, of course, the medium’s vision.’

We were sitting comfortably on a mahogany-framed banquette in our compartment. Outside the window, landscapes cloaked in darkness sped past under a starry sky.

‘And if it is a message, who is sending it to you? That woman? And who is she? The spirit of a dead person? One of those sylphids they mention in your book,
Le Comte of what’s-his-name?’

‘
Le Comte de Gabalis
. Yes, at the moment I am convinced she is a kind of elemental spirit.’

‘Golly! If I were to be visited by one of those creatures, well, I’d sleep all the time. Is she pretty?’

‘If you’d read Joris-Karl Huysmans you’d know a bit more about their powers of seduction.’

‘Sorry, I haven’t had the pleasure of discovering that gentleman’s work.’

‘He was a French writer. He died a quarter of a century ago. He discussed the theme of succubi extensively in a novel called
Là-bas
. He was loyal to the ancient demonologists and saw them as satanic
creatures. But it was a serious subject for him, not be taken lightly. He had personal experience of it when he stayed in the Trappist monastery of Notre Dame d’Igny.’

‘My word! How I envy you two, you and this Huysmans chap.’

‘In any case, since I became open to the possibility of communicating via the gates of sleep, things have become clearer.’

‘Well, as you can see, I am delighted! Here we are, stuck on a train on the basis of a hunch and our Austrian friend might still be running around the streets of Paris.’

‘It’s not a hunch, James. Pfizer’s words put me on the right track. And don’t forget that Öberlin’s return was planned. It was explicitly referred to in the telegram found at La Toison d’Or.’

‘The telegram said the 23rd and it’s only the 20th today. Why would he have decided to go back today in particular? And why take this train? His plot against Breton failed. It doesn’t seem like him to leave without finishing the job.’

‘No doubt he had more important things to do.’

There was a knock at the door.

‘Come in!’ called James.

It was the conductor of our carriage.

‘Messieurs, the final sitting is about to start in the restaurant.’

‘Ah! A very timely reminder!’ said my friend. ‘I am dying of hunger.’

The man in the blue uniform prepared to close the door but I rose and held out my hand to stop him.

‘How many carriages does this train have?’

‘Six, Monsieur. There are three sleeping cars, a restaurant car and two wagons, one at the front and one at the back, where the equipment is stored.’

‘Are the sleeping cars all in the same section?’

‘No. The third one is after the restaurant car. It was added at the
Gare de l’Est and will be uncoupled at Budapest. Only the other two will go on to Romania.’

‘At this time I imagine that most of the passengers are in the restaurant car.’

‘I doubt it, Monsieur. There have already been several sittings since we left Paris! You are among the last to dine.’

‘Ah, I see. One last thing, how many passengers are on the train?’

‘Unless I am mistaken, five compartments are empty: three singles in first class and two doubles in second class. In other words seven empty beds. The train can take up to forty-eight passengers. So that makes forty-one with the seven empty beds.’

‘Forty-one! Very precise! Thank you.’

‘At your service, Messieurs.’

The man left. James pulled me towards the restaurant car. In the corridor I took the opportunity to have a good look at the faces of the dozen or so passengers we passed. Amongst them were couples and single passengers: English, French, Italians, Germans, Austrians and Hungarians who were striking up conversations in a surprising mixture of European languages. Only the upper echelons of society were represented (financiers, well-to-do people, aristocrats, intellectuals, artists, etc.) but none of them looked anything like the individual we sought.

When we entered the restaurant we were welcomed deferentially by the head waiter who sat us at a table for two.

The carriage was only about a third full at that time in the evening. During the course of the meal (which was, incidentally, exquisite and served with an excellent Moselle wine), a very forthcoming waiter with a Swiss accent told us all about our neighbours.

Next to us were Herr Hersteinmeyer, the great banker from Munich, Frau Hersteinmeyer and a servant; at the table behind me sat Countess Dravidia who was returning to her estate in the St Pölten
region with her young secretary; next to them chatting happily, were Miss Denbar and Miss Arianovski, inseparable elderly ladies on a European tour; next to them smoking an impressive cigar was a man reading the newspaper. He was the retired General von Bülow. According to the waiter, the soldier was attempting to exorcise the trauma of the German surrender and signing of the armistice in restaurant car No. 2419 of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits on 11 November 1918 by spending most of his pension haunting the trains of the Belgian company between Paris, Vienna and Berlin.

On the other side of the carriage, behind my friend, was the table of Mademoiselle Ida Petrini, a Franco-Italian actress of whom neither James nor I had heard; she was accompanied by her impresario who was making it a point of honour to talk loudly and with his mouth full, boasting of the starlet’s flourishing success. Further away, just finishing his meal, sat Mr Boormann, a successful American writer who was returning to the old Austro-Hungarian Empire to gather material for a new romantic novel. At the very end of the carriage were four young English academics going to Salzburg for a conference at Mozarteum University. They were immersed in a passionate debate. Just before the door to the kitchens was Mademoiselle Lisa Dampierre, a Parisian painter of about forty, accompanied by her maidservant.

There were exactly seventeen passengers in the carriage. If they were added to the fifteen we had passed in the corridor to reach the dining car, it made thirty-two passengers out of a total of forty-one. And still no sign of the Austrian.

A few minutes earlier Mademoiselle Dampierre had opened a book and begun reading avidly.

‘I would love to know what that young lady is reading,’ I mused out loud.

‘If you would allow me, Monsieur,’ said the waiter, bringing two glasses of a vintage cognac we had ordered, ‘Mademoiselle Dampierre is reading
The Interpretation of Dreams
by Professor Sigmund Freud.’

‘Dreams! Dreams again!’ muttered James before putting the glass to his lips.

‘Indeed, I believe I am right in saying that Mademoiselle Dampierre is going to Vienna to meet the famous doctor.’

‘Did she tell you that?’ I asked, surprised.

‘No. But when she is not absorbed in that book, she continually rereads a letter sent from 19 Bergasse, Vienna IX. That is the professor’s address.’

‘You seem well informed.’

‘Oh, she’s not the first and she won’t be the last of that gentleman’s patients to take the Orient Express. I have been working on this line for ten years and I have come across several from France, England and America. Like Mademoiselle Dampierre, they spend the entire journey studying the great man’s work. You’d think they were sitting an examination. On the outward journey they are all silent, like this lady.’

‘And on the return journey?’

‘That depends. Some seem satisfied, others look even more depressed than when they left.’

‘You would have made an excellent detective.’

The waiter thanked me with a bow, keeping his tray flat.

As he went into the kitchens the train slowed down and pulled into Nancy station.

‘One of us should go on to the platform to see which passengers get off,’ said James, looking out of the window. ‘If you’re right and our chap is on the train, there’s nothing to say that he won’t break his journey here.’

‘Our man is going to Vienna, James. I’m sure of it. There really is no reason for him to get off here.’

Herr and Frau Hersteinmeyer had returned to their compartment and I caught the attention of the waiter, who was busy clearing their table.

‘Do you know the name of an Austrian passenger travelling alone who has very strange eyes? We met him on the platform earlier at the Gare de l’Est. We would very much like to talk to him again.’

‘A passenger with strange eyes? Hmm! Sorry, I don’t know who you mean.’

‘Really? Have all the passengers eaten in the restaurant car this evening?’

‘No, Monsieur. Three passengers have remained in their compartments.’

‘Aha!’ I said, kicking James’s leg under the table.

Stubbornly sticking to his plan, James was staring intently at the platform. He had to admit there was very little happening out there. In front of our window the conductor of one of the sleeping cars was chatting to the station master. Not far away five or six passengers had got off to stretch their legs and smoke in the cool Lorraine night.

‘Maybe the man I’m talking about is one of those passengers,’ I continued.

‘It could be the man in Compartment 3, Herr Kessling, in the middle carriage. He got on at Paris and I think he is going to Vienna. The other two are a Madame Blattensohn, a rich English widow, and her daughter who are going to Bratislava. I doubt you mean them.’

‘Herr Kessling you say?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you haven’t seen him?’

‘No.’

The waiter moved away.

‘Did you hear that, James? Compartment 3, the middle carriage.’

‘Well! I think we should see for ourselves. Let’s go and knock on his door!’

‘Absolutely not! We should be as discreet as possible.’

‘What do you suggest then?’

‘It’s a long way to Vienna. Hunger will force him out of his lair. Let’s wait until tomorrow.’

The station master blew the whistle for departure. The conductor and the passengers returned to their carriages and the train pulled out with a screech of steel, clouds of steam swirling past our window.

No passengers had left the train and no new passengers had got on.

My watch showed that it was a quarter to one. Since the stop at Nancy station the restaurant had emptied. We decided that it was time to go back to our compartment too.

In the next carriage the corridor was completely deserted, apart from the conductor sitting on his stool reading the newspaper.

We returned the conductor’s greeting and continued along the corridor, pausing in front of Compartment 3. What wouldn’t we have given to see through the polished wooden door! To finally find out what that monster looked like. To see his face.

As the conductor was looking at us curiously, I pushed James forward and we went back to our compartment.

On entering, we were pleased to note that the beds had been made up. The seat had been turned into a bed and an upper bunk had been folded out from behind a panel.

I undressed quickly and threw myself on the bottom bunk. I was so exhausted that I put down my copy of
Aurélia
after only a few pages.

For the first time in several nights I didn’t feel terrified of going to sleep. On the contrary, I was desperate for my consciousness to
be suspended, to find that place, so near and yet so far, where (as I had only understood that day) lines could be drawn between the invisible planes of reality. The day had reconciled me to my dreams and it was from them above all that I expected further enlightenment – from them and from my stranger.

It was a quarter past one when I fell asleep, rocked by the swaying of the carriages. However, for what seemed like an age, my sleep was too disjointed for dreams to take shape.

On the upper bunk, James kept turning over. When the train stopped at the next station (Strasbourg probably, unless I had missed one) I saw him quickly climb down from his bed and disappear into the corridor. I had no idea what time it was.

I had barely begun to enter the phase of active dreams when a jolt of the train woke me with a start. Shortly after Strasbourg, the train seemed to slow down again. Half asleep, I could just hear the voice of the conductor advising a passenger that it was nothing, only German customs at the Kehl border in the Baden region.

Was it because we had now entered the land of National Socialism that I began to see a series of rambling visions of Hitler’s face and his dark army of Blackshirts?

Over the last few months the press had given a lot of coverage to the Führer’s decree that non-Aryan people should henceforth be forced out of public office. It had left no doubt about his Greater Germany project, a vast empire where inferior races and classes would be excluded. Similarly, the day after the Night of the Long Knives on 30 June the newspapers had been quick to condemn the bloody purge of the
Sturmabteilung
.

A noise in the compartment drove these troubling scenes from my mind. James must have gone back to bed earlier without me noticing because, opening one eye, I now saw him leave our compartment again and gently close the door.

I made no attempt to understand what he was up to and went straight back to sleep.

That was when I had a terrible dream, the venomous nature of which I have never forgotten; a nightmare which, masquerading as truth, began at the very moment when I thought I was waking up. It was as if dreams and reality, daytime and nocturnal life, had become one for me.