The Watcher in the Shadows (18 page)

‘In those days, the only glimmer of hope was provided by a mysterious character who haunted our dreams. To us, his name, Daniel Hoffmann, was synonymous with our fantasies – so much so that many of the children doubted his existence. Legend had it that Hoffmann wandered through the streets of Paris, wearing different disguises, assuming different identities, and providing poor children with toys which he had made in his factory. Every child in Paris had heard of him and they all dreamed that one day they would be the lucky one.

‘Hoffmann was a master of magic and imagination. Only one thing could overcome his power to intrigue: age. As children grew older and their spirit lost its ability to imagine and invent, the name of Daniel Hoffmann eventually faded from their minds; until one day, when they were adults, it no longer meant a thing to them, even when they heard the name uttered by their own children . . .

‘Daniel Hoffmann was the greatest toy manufacturer that ever lived. He owned a large factory in Les Gobelins. It was like an enormous cathedral rising from the squalor of that ghostly quarter. From its centre soared a tower, sharp as a needle, piercing the clouds. Its bells marked dawn and dusk every day, and the echo of those bells could be heard all over Paris, beckoning. All the children in the city knew that building, but the truly amazing thing was that adults were incapable of seeing it. Age had blinded them and they were convinced that the site was occupied by a vast swamp, a wasteland at the heart of the poorest area of Paris.

‘Nobody had ever set eyes on the real Daniel Hoffmann. People said that the toymaker lived in a room at the top of the tower and hardly ever left it, except when he ventured out into the streets at nightfall, in disguise, handing out toys to the city’s dispossessed. In exchange he asked for one thing only: the children’s hearts, their promise of eternal love and obedience. In our area, any child would have surrendered his heart without giving it a second thought. But not every child heard the call. Rumour had it that he used hundreds of different disguises to conceal his identity. Some even swore that Daniel Hoffmann never wore the same outfit twice. He was everywhere and nowhere. A watcher in the shadows.

‘But let’s get back to my mother. The illness Nicole was referring to is still a mystery to me. I imagine that some people, like some toys, are born defective – which I suppose makes us all broken toys, don’t you think? The truth is that, as time went by, my mother’s illness led to her gradually losing her mental faculties, which, to be honest, had never really amounted to much to begin with. But when the body is wounded, it doesn’t take long for the mind to follow suit.

‘That is how I learned to grow up with loneliness as my only companion, dreaming that one day Daniel Hoffmann would come to my rescue. I remember that every night, before going to bed, I would ask my guardian angel to take me to him. Every night. And that is also how, probably inspired by the legend, I started to build my own toys.

‘I used scraps I found in rubbish dumps across the district. I built my own train, and a three-storey castle. This was followed by a cardboard dragon and, later, a flying machine, long before aeroplanes had become a common sight in the skies. But my favourite toy was Gabriel. Gabriel was an angel. A wondrous angel I built with my own hands to protect me from the dark and the dangers fate might throw at me. I built it using the wreckage of an ironing machine and other pieces of scrap I found in an abandoned textile mill two blocks away from where we lived. But the life of Gabriel, my guardian angel, was short.

‘The day my mother discovered my collection of toys was a death sentence for Gabriel. She dragged me down to the cellar of our building. She started muttering, looking around her as if there might be something lurking in the shadows, and told me that someone had been whispering to her in her dreams. My dear mother was one of those people who would never listen to anybody around her, but heard plenty of voices inside her head. One of those voices had informed her that toys – all toys – were the invention of Lucifer himself. She was always one to see the devil in the details – especially in other people. In her new-found wisdom she had decided that, through toys, the devil planned to steal the soul of every child in the world. That very night, Gabriel and all my other toys ended up in the building’s furnace.

‘My mother insisted that we should destroy them together, make sure they turned to ashes and thus I could return to the path of righteousness. Otherwise, the shadow of my accursed soul would come and get me. Every lapse in my behaviour, every error, every disobedient act, would leave a mark on my shadow. She told me that my shadow was a reflection of how wicked and inconsiderate I was, and that it followed me wherever I went. I was only seven at the time. Sometimes I wished that her threat would come true and I could embrace that shadow. At least that way I’d be free of her.’

‘You’re insane . . .’ whispered Simone.

The man in the mask laughed.

‘Wait. It gets better. Soon after this baptism of fire, my dear mother’s illness took a turn for the worse. She would shut me up in the basement because she said the shadow wouldn’t be able to find me there. At first, during these long spells I hardly dared breathe, fearing the sound of my breath might draw the shadow’s attention and that this evil reflection of my corrupt soul would then carry me straight to hell. I realise all this must sound quite comical to you, or perhaps just sad, Madame Sauvelle, but for that young child it was a serious business indeed.

‘I don’t want to bore you with the sordid details. I’ll just add that, during one of these purifying episodes, my mother finally lost what few, if any, marbles she had left and I ended up being trapped for a whole week in the darkness. You’ve already read the story in the cutting, I imagine: it was the kind of thing the press love to splash across their front pages. Bad news, especially if it’s full of lurid details, is wonderful at persuading people to part with their money and remind them of how good they are, for evil is always on the other side of the fence, isn’t it? You’ll be wondering what a child does when he’s locked up for seven days and seven nights in a dark basement waiting for the devil to come and claim his soul.

‘First of all, you must understand that when humans are deprived of light, we lose all sense of time after a while. Hours turn into minutes or seconds, even weeks. Our perception of time is closely related to light. During that week something truly astonishing happened to me. A miracle. My second miracle, if you like, after those blank minutes that occurred after my birth.

‘My prayers were answered. All those nights praying in silence had not been in vain. Call it luck, or fate, but Daniel Hoffmann finally came to me. To
me
. Of all the children in Paris, I was the chosen one. I still remember the timid rapping on the trapdoor that led to the street. I couldn’t reach it, but I was able to reply to the voice that spoke to me from outside; the most marvellous, kindest voice I had ever heard. A voice that dispelled the darkness and melted away the fear of a frightened little boy, like sun melting ice. And do you know something? Daniel Hoffmann called me by my name.

‘I opened the door of my heart to him. Suddenly, a wonderful light flooded the basement and Hoffmann appeared out of nowhere, dressed in a dazzling white suit. If only you’d seen him, Simone. He was an angel, a real angel of light. I’ve never seen anyone radiate such an aura of beauty and peace.

‘That night, Daniel Hoffmann and I spoke in private, just as you and I are doing now. I didn’t need to tell him about Gabriel and the rest of my toys; he already knew. He was also aware of the stories my mother had told me about the shadow. It was a relief to confess to him how terrified I was of it. He listened patiently as I recounted all the things that had happened to me, and I could feel he shared my pain and anxiety. His compassion and understanding were overwhelming. Above all, he understood that this shadow was my greatest fear, my worst nightmare. My own shadow, that evil spirit that followed me everywhere, the vessel for all the wickedness that was inside me . . .

‘It was Daniel Hoffmann who told me what I had to do. Needless to say, I was completely ignorant at the time. What did I know about shadows? What did I know about mysterious spirits that visited people in their dreams and spoke to them about the future and the past? Nothing.

‘But he did know. He knew
everything
. And he was willing to help me.

‘That night, Daniel Hoffmann revealed my future to me. He told me that I was destined to succeed him as the head of his empire. He explained that all of his knowledge and his skill would one day be mine, and that the poverty that surrounded me would be gone for ever. He offered me prospects, things I could never have dreamed of. In short, he offered me a future. I had to do only one thing in exchange. A small, insignificant promise: I had to give him my heart. Give my heart to him and nobody else.

‘The toymaker asked me whether I understood what that meant. I replied that I did, without a moment’s hesitation. Of course he could have my heart. He was the only person who had ever been good to me. The only one to whom I mattered. He told me that, if I wished, he could get me out of there and I’d never have to see that house or that street, and especially my mother, again. Most importantly, he told me to stop worrying about the shadow. If I did what he asked of me, the future would open up to me; it would be bright, luminous.

‘He wanted to know whether I trusted him. I said of course I did. He then took out a small glass bottle, the type of flask you’d use for perfume. He opened it with a smile and what happened next was truly amazing. The best trick I’ve ever seen. My shadow, my reflection on the wall, was transformed into a cloud of darkness that was consumed by the bottle, captured for ever inside it. Daniel Hoffmann closed the bottle and gave it to me. The glass felt icy cold against my skin.

‘Hoffmann then explained that, from that moment on, my heart belonged to him and soon, very soon, all my problems would disappear – as long as I didn’t go back on my word. I told him I’d never do such a thing. He asked me to close my eyes and think about what I most wished for in the entire universe. While I was doing that, he knelt down in front of me and kissed my forehead. When I opened my eyes he was gone.

‘One week after my mother had locked me up, the police, alerted by someone who told them what was going on in my home, rescued me from that hole. My mother was found dead upstairs.

‘On the way to the police station, the streets were filled with fire engines. You could smell the acrid smoke in the air. Ashes were raining from grey, steely skies. The policemen who were escorting me took a detour and that was when I saw it: towering in the distance, Daniel Hoffmann’s factory was ablaze. It was the most terrible fire ever witnessed in Paris. Crowds who had been oblivious to it before now watched as the immense building burned to the ground. Suddenly everyone remembered the name of the character who had filled their childhood with dreams: Daniel Hoffmann. The watcher in the shadows had set his palace aflame. It was beautiful. Beautiful . . .

‘Flames and plumes of black smoke rose heavenward for three days and three nights, as if hell itself had opened its doors to the city. I was there and I saw it with my own eyes. A few days later, when all that was left of the building was a pile of smoking rubble, the newspapers published the story. You know the press, they always get it late and wrong – that is, when they don’t just go ahead and lie.

‘In time, the authorities located one of my mother’s relatives, who became my guardian. I moved to the south, to Antibes, to live with his family. I was raised and educated there, a normal life. Happy. Just as Daniel Hoffmann had promised. I even invented a different past for myself: the story I told you.

‘The day I turned eighteen I received a letter. The Paris postmark was dated eight years earlier. In the letter, my old friend informed me that the law firm of a certain Monsieur Gilbert Travant, in the rue de Rivoli, held the title deeds to a residence on the coast of Normandy which would legally become mine when I came of age. The note, written on parchment, was signed with a D.

‘A few years passed before I took possession of Cravenmoore. By then I was a promising engineer and my designs for toys surpassed anything known to man or child. I soon realised that it was time for me to set up my own factory. At Cravenmoore. Everything was unfolding just as I had been told. Everything, until the “accident” occurred. It happened on 13 February in the rue Soufflot, as I was walking out of the Pantheon. Her name was Alexandra Alma Maltisse and she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.

‘All those years I’d kept the flask Daniel Hoffmann had given me that night, sequestered in a solid-steel box with a lock the combination of which only I knew. It remained as cold to the touch as it had always been. Colder than ice. So cold it cut your skin like the sharpest razor if you held it in your hand. But six months later, I forgot the promise I had made to him and gave my heart to that young woman. I was young and foolish and thought my life belonged to me, as all young and foolish people do. I married her and it was the happiest day of my life. The night before the wedding, which was to take place in Cravenmoore, I took the bottle containing my shadow, walked to the cliffs, and threw the bottle into the dark waters, sending it to oblivion.

‘A word of advice, Madame Sauvelle: never make promises you’re bound to break.’

The sun had begun its descent into the bay when Ismael and Irene glimpsed the rear wall of Seaview through the trees. Their exhaustion seemed to have retreated, as if waiting for a better moment to come back with a vengeance.

‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Irene, noticing Ismael’s pensive expression.

‘I’m thinking about how hungry I am.’

‘Me too.’

‘There’s nothing like a good fright to give you an appetite,’ Ismael joked.

Seaview was quiet. There didn’t appear to be anyone around. Two garlands of washing flapped on the clothes line. Ismael caught a fleeting glimpse of what looked like underwear. He stopped to consider what Irene might look like wearing it.