“Thank you, dear Imogene. Thank you. I am free now. You were not too late!”
And when Mother Filippa’s soul then rose up and vanished, Imogene finally knew what her calling was. Fire must be fought with fire, not just in Imogene’s own body, but in the whole world. She had to find the sword that would do that, the tool that could cleave body and soul, so that animals were purely animals and humans purely human, and not this unclean whorish mixture of one thing and another.
She came to herself much later in frigid, unforgiving darkness. Overwhelmed by weakness, she lacked any strength to get up, turn on the light, make a fire, or even pull a blanket over herself. Iago had lain down next to her, warming her body with his own, but her hands and feet were numb and senseless from the cold.
Sword. Mites.
Mites. Sword.
She slowly began to understand.
VI
March 31–April 16, 1894
If Imogene herself had not explained, without concern that she was revealing her own culpability, we might still have proved her guilty of the killing of Mother Filippa but never for the cold-blooded murder of Cecile Montaine.
My father was present during the entire lengthy questioning because it quickly became clear to both the Commissioner and Inspector Marot that his knowledge and medical experience would be necessary.
She sat straight backed and serene on the chair she had been placed in, and even though the préfecture had insisted that she be chained, she managed to make the chains seem irrelevant, like a childish notion she had to endure since it could not be otherwise. My efforts to render her unconscious had left two wide abrasions above one eye and along one cheekbone, but if it caused her pain, she did not reveal it.
Imogene’s task had not been at all easy, she explained. The responsibility God had placed on her was this: to test humanity’s humanity. She was not an executioner, she was a weapon smith. She just had to create the burning sword, and once that was accomplished, the Lord would direct it Himself.
The mites were the ore the sword was to be made from. They were eminently suitable, precisely because they commonly lived in animals and would not attack a human being who was clean, Imogene believed. But not until old Lisette became ill did Imogene know what was to form the shining sharp edge of the blade.
Lisette’s illness was caused by bacteria; Imogene established that herself while she nursed the dying cook. In the mucus Lisette coughed up, she found microorganisms that were related to the erysipelas bacteria that had been her own purgatory five years ago, when she had thought she was cured, and that God had finished testing her. It was a sign that could not be misunderstood.
Lisette thought nothing was amiss when Imogene began to administer nose drops with a pipette. She took it as yet another sign of the young mademoiselle’s great knowledge and loving care. Imogene let the mites live for only a few days in Lisette’s nasal cavity before she brought some of them back to Iago. Then she waited in breathless anticipation, but Iago did not become ill, and thus she was certain that God’s new sword really could distinguish the unclean from the clean. Clean humans and clean animals had nothing to fear; it would strike only at those who corrupted one with the other.
Imogene cried only a little at Lisette’s funeral. Her suffering had had a purpose—just like Imogene’s own.
The greatest difficulty was how to transfer the mites to the wolf pack at the convent. She was still not able to entirely control her fear of the wolves even though she knew it was an undignified weakness in a servant of God. She had tried to catch one of them in a fox trap, but it was wild and unmanageable and snapped at her so viciously that she could not get near enough.
Then she had the idea with the puppy. It was from old Bijou’s last litter, and it was not thriving. It might be because Iago had infected it with the bacterial mites. Once she realized that it was rife with them, she brought it with her back to the convent late one Sunday evening and put it in the wolf pen without anyone the wiser. Later she heard that the new male wolf had killed it, and no one could understand where it had come from.
Now everything was ready—so she believed. The mites would no doubt attack Emile first, since he was closest to the beast. Then it would be Cecile’s turn. And then Mother Filippa, who still kept the old male wolf with her most of the time. The rest was in the hands of God. Purgatory would seize them, and cleanse them or kill them.
But months passed. November, December. The nativity of Christ, and still no sign that God’s sword was working. Imogene reminded herself that the Lord measured time in eternities, not in brief human weeks, and prepared herself for the fact that it might be necessary to find a new way to transfer the mites. She could not get her father to understand the task that God had set her. He tried to prevent her from returning to the school and the convent, but she defied him—she could not permit herself to be weak now. It was only when Cecile decided to flee with Emile and asked Imogene for help that she began to have real doubts.
If they ran away from the convent, away from the wolves, how would God’s sword reach them? And yet their flight was a clear sign that they were in thrall to the beast. She tried to calm Cecile, but she was beside herself and would not listen. As a last resort, she told them about the hunting cabin, so that she might at least know where they were.
She thought about it for three days. Then she knew what she had to do.
“I have not killed anyone,” she insisted on the stand, even after she had carefully explained how she had anesthetized Cecile with chloral hydrate and thereafter transferred the mites with a pipette. “I have only made the test possible.”
“And Father Abigore? As far as I can see, his only crime was that he prayed for Cecile’s soul throughout the night,” said my father.
Imogene’s gaze wavered a bit. “He must have been corrupted,” she said. “Had he been pure, it would not have happened.”
“Did you tell your father about . . . God’s sword?” asked the Commissioner.
She sighed. “Yes. He was suspicious already after what happened with the puppy. He knew that I must have been the one who brought it to the convent, even though he did not understand the purpose. And then, after Cecile’s funeral, when I saw that the priest had also become ill . . . Then I very much needed someone to talk to. But Papa did not understand it. I was very angry at him. He killed the poor priest without giving him the possibility of being freed through the suffering of purgatory. He stood in the way of God’s sword and prevented it from testing more people.”
“Because he prevented the infection from spreading?”
“It was godless of him, but I could not make him understand that.”
“And Mother Filippa? Why did she have to die?”
For the first time Imogene looked affected by her account.
“The old wolves were burned,” she said. “It was my idea that I would sedate the new ones and transfer the mites to them. I had Iago with me, and a bottle of ether. But then Mother Filippa came down, and I . . . I used the ether on her instead. But she stopped breathing. She died. Without having confessed, without having cleansed her immortal soul. Without having passed the test. I had to do something to free her.”
Only then did my father understand why she had tried to cleave Mother Filippa in two with a wood saw.
“Did you really believe that her soul would rise in front of your eyes?” he asked in astonishment.
“It did in the dream with the sword. And she thanked me! Because she was set free.”
“And when this did not happen—what did you think then?”
“That she had sold her soul to the beast, and I had come too late after all.”
I had fallen asleep on the chaise longue and woke up confused at an unfamiliar sound—the hollow clack every time my father’s new plaster boot hit the floor.
“Maddie. Are you still up?”
“I was waiting for you. What time is it?”
“Almost two.”
I turned up the wi
ck on the table lamp a little. He stood for a few seconds with his hands resting on the mahogany table and studied his spread-out fingers as if he wanted to reassure himself that they were completely clean.
“Have you heard from your professor?” he asked. “News of the drama at the préfecture must have reached all the way to Heidelberg by now.”
“He sent a telegram. I answered.”
“Good. He must have been worried about you.”
“Papa . . .”
“No, Maddie. I do not think I have the strength now. I know we have a lot to talk about, but . . . it will have to wait.”
I got up. Helped him take off his coat and hat. Then I put my arms around him and rested my head against his chest until he began to stroke my hair.
The black widow of the Forchhammer Institute was no more thrilled to see me this time.
“Is he expecting you?” she asked.
“Not yet,” I said. “It is a surprise.”
I walked past her without allowing myself to be stopped. I liked the sound of my heels on the floor of the corridor. It was a decisive sound that announced a person who had an intention and a goal. I knocked sharply on the door to August’s office, and it was only after I had knocked that I noticed what a loud conversation—no, an argument—I was interrupting.
Silence descended abruptly inside the office. Then the door was flung open, not by August but by the same young blond man who had interrupted our first meeting. This time there was no cheerful glint in the blue eyes, and his blond beard looked almost white because the rest of his face flushed darkly with some form of excitation.
“Fräulein,” he said when he caught sight of me. “How appropriate.” He offered a stiff and ironic salute and marched down the hall with a clacking of heels even more decisive than mine. “The changing of the guards, Frau Gross,” he said when he passed the widow.
She stopped and looked from me to August, who had now appeared in the doorway. Her lips were, if possible, even narrower, but she did not say anything.
“Thank you, Frau Gross,” said August. “Perhaps I might ask you to bring a fresh pot of tea? And a cup for Mademoiselle Karno? Thank you for your telegram, Madeleine, but I did not think you were coming until tomorrow.”
Already, my resolution had begun to show a few cracks, which was the very reason I had chosen not to wait. I was afraid that I would lose it entirely if I did not act without delay.
“I have come to give you an answer,” I said.
“I thought so.” He looked at me, not with the intense almost clinical probing I had already been the subject of several times but with a softer and more uncertain look. “I am quite anxious to learn what you have to say.”
“I came to discuss the conditions of our marriage.”
He nodded. But his gaze was still uncertain. “Come in,” he said.
I sat down on the same chair as before. The office looked the same, with its peculiar mixture of jumbled sports equipment and clinical order.
“If we are to be married,” I said, “then I have two demands and one question.”
“Go ahead.”
“First: You must never lie to me.”
He did not answer too quickly or too easily.
“That is an unmerciful demand,” he said. “Have you considered that the truth is not always the kindest thing two people can say to one another?”
“Yes. Then you will just have to be unkind.”
There was a short glint of immaculate teeth. Whether a sneer or a smile, I could not tell for certain.
“You have my word,” he finally said.
“And second: In all things you must treat me like a human being. Not like a woman. Do you understand?”
“Do you mean that? I know you are unusual, Madeleine; that is precisely what attracts me. But are you sure that you do not want to be . . . protected . . . just a little?”
“I think I have already answered that.”
“Yes. You are right. One thing follows logically from the other. Go on.”
“Those are my demands. Now comes the question.”
“Yes?”
“Recalling that you have promised never to lie to me: Why do you want to marry me?”
He took a long, stumbling breath. Closed his eyes. Opened them again. Made fists. Opened his hands again. I just waited.
“Since I have promised never to lie to you: because I believe that I am in love with you. And because I have an urgent need to be married.”
“Why?”
“My dearest Madeleine. And I really mean that. Dearest. The man you saw leave my office a moment ago . . .”
“Yes . . .”
“. . . has been my lover for the last three years.”
I did not say anything. I sat completely still and let his words sink down into me, all the way into my mind’s darkest corners, where they met a dumb knowledge that had lived there for a while.
He observed me. Neither uncertain nor clinical this time, but searching.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“I am thinking . . . that I am happy that you did not lie.”
“And?”
“And that I would like you to kiss me.”
“Now?”
“Yes. Now.”
We both got up. He took my hand and slowly peeled the glove off it. Then he kissed me once on the back of the hand and once on the palm, precisely where my middle finger began. He pulled me close and placed his free hand behind my neck. And he kissed me, not choppily like last time, but for a long time, thoroughly and without reservation. My body gave the same unhesitating yes as last time. If that was animal-like, then I was an animal.
“What are you feeling right now?” I asked, and looked up into his face, a few hand lengths from mine.
“Much the same as you, I believe,” he said.
“So you do . . . like women?”
“Women—and men.”
“If we marry . . .”
“. . . will you then be the only one? Will I be faithful to you? Is that what you are asking?”
“Um, actually not. But will you?”
“To the best of my ability. And probably as much as most other married men. I cannot promise more than that.”
He was right. The truth was not always the kindest thing you could say. But I nodded. He was still keeping his word.
“If that was not what you wanted to know, what was it, then?”
“If you will let me be myself.”
“What does that mean?”
“That you will not place me in a box labeled ‘wife.’ That you acknowledge that I also have the right to live a life. To make decisions. Grow. Become wiser. According to my plan for myself, not yours. And that I may continue to assist my father, even though that is probably not what is expected of the Professor’s Wife.”
He tipped his head slightly.
“This is not just about my expectations,” he protested. “It is also about the expectations forced upon us by culture, society, and religion. Even if I say yes, it would be naïve to believe that all obstacles would then be overcome.”
“I know. But I need to know that I will not also be fighting you.”
This time it was clearly a smile. “Not over that,” he said. “Never that.”
When Frau Gross arrived with the tea, we had just let go of each other after yet another examination of man’s animal nature. She looked back and forth between us and set down the tea tray with a loud and disapproving bang.
She looks upward, toward the blade. There is not much light; the sky is overcast and the hour early. There is no sun to glisten in the metal. Her face is oddly childish; the cropped hair makes her look like a boy. There are only a few people present in the préfecture’s inner courtyard. The priest, whose constant praying is a low rumble that barely makes sense. Her uncle Emanuel, who stands there pale and shaken to his roots, unable to look away and yet equally unable to look at her. The executioner and his assistant, of course. And the C
ommissioner under whose jurisdiction she will soon belong.
And one more man. It is his face she finally seeks for, his gaze she meets. She knows he is the one who will announce that death has occurred. It is he who will take delivery of her dead body later in the day, and his scalpel, his instruments that will probe her body and her illness. She interrupts the priest.
“Do you think you have solved the riddle?” she asks. “When you have understood my illness, have you understood me?”
The priest believes she is speaking to him, but Doctor Death knows better.
“No,” he says. “At that point I will be able to tell the story of your death. Not of your life.”
She nods.
They strap her to the board and tip her forward, the executioner and his assistant, and she feels the pressure of the lunette like a cool collar around her neck. She closes her eyes, and does not open them again.
Acknowledgments
A huge thank-you to the patient people who have read, checked, examined, listened, and commented along the way:
Bent Lund
Lone-emilie Rasmussen
Bib Carlson—and all the experts at Memorial Sloan Kettering she laid siege to for my sake
Berit Wheler
Lars Ringhof
Anna Grue
Rudo Urban Rasmussen
And not least: Agnete Friis—on whom I cannot place the blame this time.
LENE KAABERBØL has been a professional writer since the age of fifteen, with more than two million books sold worldwide. She has won several national and international awards for her fiction, and her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. Kaaberbøl is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller The Boy in the Suitcase, which received rave reviews, was selected as a New York Times Book Review Notable Crime Book of 2011 as well as an Indie Next List Pick, and won the Harald Mogensen Award for Best Danish Thriller of the Year. Born in Copenhagen, she now lives on the small Channel Island of Sark.
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