Helena grasped at my arm, but I was already on my feet. I threw back the curtains. The sky was a translucent creamy yellow laced with wisps of purple cloud. Frosted patterns like embroidered lace had traced themselves on the window-glass. A clinging ground-fog smothered every plant and bush in the rear garden, the trees solid black against the pale light.
‘Who can it be?’ Helena whispered, half out of bed.
I strained my ears, but heard no sound of movement on the loose gravel path at the front of the house, nothing but the predawn warbling and chattering of birds in the black pit of the garden.
‘Stay here,’ I hissed, reaching for my pistol.
I had learnt my lesson the night that Mutiez came to carry me off.
I set off quickly down the stairs. In the hall, the doorbell glistened in the dark like a grenade that might explode at any instant. Edging closer, I rested my ear against the cold oak.
A low, raucous gurgle sounded.
I drew back the bolt, removed the bar, and threw open the door, expecting to find a wounded Prussian fugitive on the mat.
Instead, I found a wooden cage.
Bright eyes stared out at me. An imprisoned cat. A magnificent specimen with a long silvery coat, and pointed ears. More like a lynx than a mouser. As we gazed into each other’s eyes, that low moan became a fearsome howl, and the cat showed his teeth.
‘I did not mean to wake you, Stiffeniis.’
Lavedrine was sitting on the rustic bench in the garden, wrapped up in a military cloak. He was wearing trousers with a regimental stripe and leather riding boots. His silver curls were covered by a forage-cap with flaps that hid his ears.
‘I was just about to write you a note,’ he added.
‘A note?’ I asked, uncertainly.
He raised his hand in a nonchalant wave. ‘Do not concern yourself, Herr Procurator! There’ve been no more massacres in Lotingen. I was about to ring the bell, then reproached myself for having contemplated it. I’ll wait a while, I thought. But the Prussian cold is too penetrating even for Lionel’s fine fur coat. Will you invite us in for a second?’
I stepped aside without speaking, trying to comprehend what had brought him to my door at such an hour, and in such unexpected company.
The Frenchman pulled off his hat, and shook out his hair as I led him into the hall. He dripped humidity all over the place in much the same way that his strange long-haired friend in the cage might have done. They were of the same colour, more or less, the luxuriant fur of the cat, the silvery curls of the master.
‘You won’t judge me bold if I ask for a drop of something strong to drink. Another five minutes out there, you’d have found two rigid corpses on your doorstep.’ His smile was open, winning, his voice low. His glance darted nervously to the door, as if in search of something. Or someone.
‘All sleeping, I suppose?’
‘They were asleep,’ I corrected him. ‘Come into the kitchen. I can offer you cider, or
aqua vitae.
’
‘Cider, please.’
While I threw a log on the ashes, and lit the lamp hanging above the table with a spill, he sat himself down at the table, raised the wooden cage, and placed it on his knees. ‘I have spoken to you of Lionel, I think? Do you mind if I set him free?’
What could I say? Even in my own house, Lavedrine seemed to be the master of the situation. He set the cage down on the floor, pulled out the peg, and raised the door. A head appeared, then a body followed circumspectly. Like a man long imprisoned in a dungeon, the cat emerged from the confines of the cell, sniffing at the air, wary of the dangers of the place and its inhabitants.
I poured two glasses of cider. My eyes were on the door, my ear on the ceiling above my head. Had Helena gone back to bed? Had she heard the Frenchman’s voice? Was that the reason she had not come down?
‘Take heart, Stiffeniis! I see the question hanging from your lips. What is this damned Frenchman doing at my door at dawn? And what is he doing in the company of a cat? I received my marching orders last night,’ he announced with a smile. ‘A coach will call for me here as soon as they have finished loading it. Military accoutrements only, I’m afraid. The rest I shall have to jettison,’ he said, offering his fingers to the cat, which purred loudly, and licked his hand as if it were a bit of beef. ‘I’ve been ordered East. I hope
to make a decent start, and sleep tonight in a comfortable inn somewhere along the way. I mean to take no risks, seeing as I will not be travelling alone.’
I thought he was referring to his cat.
I offered the flagon, and refilled his glass. I drank some more, relieved at the news. The cat made its way about the room, looking curiously into every corner, its bushy silver tail raised like the sail of a fishing boat that was being driven forward by a gentle wind.
‘He is a most handsome creature,’ I offered, holding out my hand as the animal came close, expecting to be rebuffed. But the cat deigned to stop for a moment and sniff at my fingers, licking them with a rough, dry tongue, before proceeding with its minute inspection of the kitchen. ‘Where are you bound?’
‘In the same direction I was heading when we met at Dittersdorf’s feast,’ he replied. ‘I said goodbye to you and your wife that night, you may remember, never dreaming that events would throw us into such close and continuous proximity. I must attend upon the army, which is gathering close to the Russian border. Our engagement in the coming Spring will probably be with the Czar. Unless the emperor changes his mind, as he often does. I will have much to occupy me in Bialystok, no doubt.’
I drained my cider in a single draught. The light-headed inebriation that I felt was not caused by the acidic warmth of the alcohol alone.
‘I read the papers you left last night with Mutiez,’ he went on, his eyes never shifting from his beloved cat, which had completed its inspection of the room, and settled itself comfortably on the kitchen mat close to the warmth of the fireplace. ‘What a tale of terror and persecution! I hope the new emancipation law will save others in the future. I countersigned your report, of course.’
‘I am pleased,’ I said. ‘But Dittersdorf will
not
be.’
‘I admire your honesty and courage,’ he added quietly. ‘A French contingent will set out for Kamenetz within the week. Given the importance of the expedition, a detachment of your Prussian forces has been requested to assist our men. Dittersdorf will have no choice but to authorise the attack. You won’t be eating roast pork at his table for quite some time, I fear.’ He shrugged carelessly. ‘All sensible Prussians will be glad to rid themselves of such a danger. Kamenetz is a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. If Katowice rebelled, and failed, the consequences for Prussia . . . Well, you know what they would be.’
I recalled the ritual solemnity with which the officers in Kamenetz saluted the Grunfelde Standard, the fierceness of Rochus Kelding, his bayonet pointing at my throat, the raging nationalism of General Katowice, his belief in the ultimate survival of Prussia’s finest.
‘They will fight,’ I said, my heart battering painfully in my chest.
‘Not while their general is away,’ he countered. ‘He will be detained in Berlin. There could be no better moment to attack.’
I closed my eyes and said a silent
Amen.
Whatever happened in Kamenetz, I would have to live with the consequences.
‘I gave orders to Mutiez to bury Frau Gottewald. He will tell you where, in case you decide to make some better arrangement.’ He drained his glass, and set it down on the table.
‘It is a shame,’ he continued, ‘that your attempt to reconstruct her appearance yielded nothing. I would have liked to include a portrait in the paper I intend to publish in Paris. It will make good reading. No names, of course, but Helena will be given the credit she deserves, together with the remarkable Frau Böll. I’ll post you a copy. In the future, I mean to study the utility of physiognomy in criminal identification. In all this time I have never ceased to wonder what she looked like.’ He shrugged. ‘Frau Gottewald, I mean.’
I thought he was going to demand to see the drawing that I had begun with Aaron Jacob and completed to Helena’s specifications, but he skipped nervously from subject to subject, his eyes never far from the door.
‘I have also given orders for the soldiers to keep a closer watch on your house,’ he went on. ‘Until Kamenetz has been secured, you may be targeted.’
The cat stood up suddenly, and began to stretch, raising himself up on the points of his paws, arching his back, yawning hugely. Then, he settled down again and began to clean his coat with his tongue.
Lavedrine laughed quietly. ‘Our chatter does not interest Lionel. A warm hearth, a rug, a hand to feed and stroke him, and all his needs are met. The Stoics learnt a lot from cats, don’t you agree?’
The cat came across at the sound of his name and began to rub his shoulder gently against the Frenchman’s leg, purring as loudly as a bumblebee. Lavedrine stroked the animal for quite some time without saying a word.
‘One thing torments me,’ he murmured.
‘What’s that?’
‘I hope it torments you as well,’ he reproached me. ‘The Gottewalds—each one buried in a place where he or she does not belong. Isn’t that, somehow, wrong?’
His eyes followed the cat, as it returned to the fireplace, and slowly sank down on the rug again. ‘You have acted correctly throughout this affair, and I commend you for it. I begin to see what Professor Kant saw in you. You do your duty without any compromise, disregarding all dangers. I realise that it has not been easy. After all, Prussia is your country, your hands were severely tied. I may sometimes have been over-hasty, and I apologise for not
always taking you into my confidence. I gave less credit to your intuitions than was fair.’
I had been thinking similar thoughts as I walked home from the cottage the previous evening. I had hampered him at every twist and turn, refusing to see what was obvious to him.
He ran his hand nervously through his hair. ‘I was wondering,’ he said. ‘Might I say a word to Helena? There is something that I wish to ask her. If you don’t mind, of course.’
‘What do you wish to ask me?’
We turned as one towards the kitchen door. Lavedrine shot up from his chair as if a trumpet had sounded the charge. He held the empty cider glass in his hand, looking more sheepish than I had ever seen him.
Helena stepped into the light. She had thrown a heavy shawl of red wool over her nightdress, and was wearing the leather riding boots that I kept in the bedroom. They were large and heavy on me. On her they looked like wrinkled tree trunks; I marvelled that she had managed to come down the stairs without giving herself away. Her hair was a tangle of unruly curls which fell about her cheeks, and cascaded to her shoulders.
‘You glow like a sunflower, Helena!’ he exclaimed, his eyes bewitched.
He made no attempt to hide his admiration.
‘I don’t believe I’ve seen one of those,’ she observed, a trace of colour in her cheeks. ‘In Prussia, there aren’t any sunflowers.’
‘In that case, you are the first, and the finest,’ he parried gallantly.
The scene was more like a farce at the theatre than real life. A Frenchman was in my house, gazing fervently at my wife, paying her extravagant compliments, while I, the husband, stood speechless, looking helplessly on. Helena, dressed up in a gigantic pair of boots, smiled back at the interloper.
‘I really came to speak to you,’ he said again.
He turned to me, then looked away, but not in Helena’s direction. His glance darted here and there around the kitchen. ‘Where in heaven’s name is he?’ he asked.
Helena skipped three paces to her right, as if those boots were ballet pumps. She bent beneath a chair, and came up holding a bundle of fur. ‘This, I take it, is Lionel,’ she said, hugging the cat to her breast.
‘I found him here in Lotingen,’ Lavedrine said. ‘I must always have a cat about me, and I always call him Lionel. In memory of the first kitten that I ever had. Cats do not like travelling, and I must journey far and wide. I did not know who else to ask. Helena, might you take care of him for me?’
My wife cuddled the cat. Lionel responded by licking the tip of her nose.
‘The children will be delighted,’ she said. Suddenly, she frowned. ‘There are mice in my attic. Is he a good hunter?’
Lavedrine laid one hand over his heart, and raised the other.
‘The best,’ he declared. ‘I solemnly swear in the presence of this magistrate.’
‘I hereby witness this solemn oath,’ I replied in mock seriousness.
A heavy weight seemed to fall away from our hearts and spirits, a sense of oppression that I could neither describe, nor name. We laughed and crowded close together, fussing over the cat as the children would, the instant they saw him.
A coach and horses pulled up outside the gate.
‘Time to go,’ Lavedrine announced with a farewell stroke of Lionel’s warm coat.
He offered me his hand, and his eyes fixed on mine. He held my gaze, and I felt a warmth which appeared to be genuine.
‘Thank you, Hanno,’ he said. ‘You have helped me more than you know.’
Then, he turned to Helena. He did not try to embrace her, as I thought he might. Instead, with a quick gesture, he raised his hand to the back of his head and unclipped the white bone ring which held his long hair in place. I had noticed it the day before at the Gottewald house.
‘With your permission,
madame,
’ he said, placing one steadying hand on her shoulder. His other hand caught the wild tresses of her hair between his thumb and forefinger. ‘This useful object’, he said, as he fastened the clip at the nape of her neck, ‘came back from Polynesia with a friend of mine. It is carved from a real whale’s tooth, and bears a native symbol signifying Love and Fortune.’
His hands fell away and came to rest on Helena’s shoulders.
‘I hope that you will long enjoy those gifts.’ He looked at me. ‘Both of you. Now, sir, with your permission, may I chastely kiss your wife?’
There was nothing sensual in his kiss. It was the fond salute of a dear friend, taking his leave, as if for ever. I made no protest, though Lionel did. Crushed between Lavedrine and Helena, the cat miaowed loudly and raised a paw, his claws snagging in the fabric of the Frenchman’s cloak. As Lavedrine drew back, the cat leapt lightly from Helena’s arms to the floor, then walked calmly across to the fireplace. He sat down on his haunches, watching us from the mat, as if the kitchen belonged to him, and we had intruded upon his domain.