He knew that he was watched. He had heard movement above, heard muffled voices up there when the house was supposed to be empty. He was not meant to have noticed the small hole that had appeared in the plaster scrollwork of the ceiling, the gap that let them peer down into his seclusion. He, in turn, picked at the paintwork around the lock on the shutters, splintering away a shard of wood, which could be set back in place with spit and cunning. He had seen the courtyard and the live animals and sometimes the street beyond, when the gate had been opened.
Some nights, he dreamed of the Kin: the hard brown of their kindness; Luluwa’s unflinching touch; the watery hiss in her body. Some nights he pieced together the bits of learning they had given him and strung them on a thread of meaning that was entirely his own. If she would not let him see the world outside, then he would not let her see the one he was constructing within.
Charlotte spent many leaden hours in the hotel room, especially after the turmoil of their arrival. She could still feel the Derringer, grasped hard in the palm of her hand, and the suffocating crowd of grinning faces, squashed against the car. She had travelled to many places with the Frenchman, but never to such a primitive location. Before, he had always stayed with her, in their interconnecting suites of rooms. He had never walked out into such a street, had never made appointments and plans without her. She was anxious about him, knowing how easily he could become embroiled in trouble. His predilection for the poor and the criminal led him to the most sordid and dangerous parts of town. He had a hunter’s nose for those quarters, and would find them instantly in the newest, most unfamiliar locations. But he would never wander out alone. They always cruised the streets and alleys in the massive vehicle, often blocking the road and scraping the crumbling walls, causing a sensation. Sometimes, when he was too dissolute to venture out to catch his quarry, he would unfold a map of the place, pour a glass of his favourite Alsace and ponder over it for hours. He would imagine the streets, sniff the alleys and finally select a site. She and the chauffeur would be dispatched to that place, to collect or trap a partner for his night of pleasure. It was the least favourite of her duties, and the only one that genuinely made her feel unclean. No innocent was ever kidnapped, and no one was taken against his wilclass="underline" any doubts in the mind of the chosen one were quickly muted by an offering of money. But the journey back in the car embarrassed her, especially when they questioned her about what they had to do, and what her part was in those delights. She had never been prudish, but the last five years had stretched her experience into realms of disbelief.
The difficulty was her kindness. She could explain the sexual details and the intricate peccadilloes that sharpened them so for the Frenchman. She could elucidate the manner of their conduct and the level of brutality that was expected of them. But she could not give voice to the instant abandonment of their humanity after the deeds were done. The suddenness of their expulsion, propelled by the total disgust of their existence. This part of the ritual she hid from, closing the doors to all her rooms, leaving the chauffeur to ringmaster the debasing event, which she suspected he enjoyed. Charlotte had no delusions that the abused vermin she had solicited would have been offended by these actions; indeed, most would have been overjoyed to escape the limpet passions of the aesthete’s bed, especially after drinking as much as they could, and with the bundle of notes grinning in their pockets. She felt pity for them, but it was the debasement of the Frenchman that so unnerved her.
He was not just a ruined brat, spending his family’s wealth on indulgence; she had known many of those. He possessed, or was possessed by, something else: a crippled soul, which might just pucker into genius, if only he allowed his wretched shred of joy to grow. She had seen it, and knew it was closer to his vision than the exhaustion of his heart and the poisoning of his body. She knew that, for those that have everything in abundance, there is always a gap, a hollow that will never be filled. Long before she had met the Frenchman, before his mother had even conceived of proposing that Charlotte become the companion of her beloved son, she had known of the hunger, and some of the ways of its manifestation. The fruitless mangle of emotions, spurred and strangled by the auto-cannibalism of guilt. The humiliation of being animal, the whipping into cruelty of lost affections. She had accepted the offer out of kindness, and the need to provide the possibility of change. They had thought she needed the money and the elevated social position – perhaps she had. Nevertheless, it was a good bargain. The son had a companion who he would learn to trust, who would give a glint of beauty to all his endeavours. He could wear her proudly in all Parisian society, and she would neither expect nor demand anything from him. The mother could entrust her son to a bright and elegant creature, who would keep him on at least one fixed rail considered respectable and normal in decent society; moreover, she would own the young woman and never have to suffer the machinations and spite of a daughter-in-law.
But these were malign and tragic fantasies; she knew her son’s appetites ran in opposite directions. Previous attempts to arouse his masculinity had been woeful disasters. She had supplied him with a comely mistress for his twentieth birthday, but the poor woman was driven to distraction by her supposed lover’s endless, limp readings of interminably long poems. So monstrous was the abuse that she had demanded 100,000 francs in compensation from the old woman, for the aural and temporal violation. And Charlotte? She could settle and pretend for a while. There was no need for real marriage in her life, certainly not yet. And thus it came to pass that the two strangers became witnesses in a shared life.
But he was still missing. She looked across the colonial-style room at the grandfather clock, emaciated in its light, timbered case. She thought of calling the chauffeur, but could not face hearing his monochromatic indifference. Dinner was at seven, and after all the fuss he had made about the menu, she dreaded the chef’s reaction to a postponement. She went to the window, threw open its juddering glass and stepped out onto the balcony. This had been the only hotel in Essenwald of sufficient quality to satisfy the Frenchman’s fastidious requirements. They had taken the entire upper floor. The balcony extended around the building. She began to walk its rectangular length. Peering into the crowd below and shading her eyes with her long, delicate hand, she looked into the distance.
Far off, the black shadow of the Vorrh could be seen, sealing the city on its northern side. She searched the faces and the gaits of the seething streets beneath her, unable to find him in their constant shift and bustle. She became suddenly aware that one of the crowd was still and facing her. He was tall and motionless, his face hidden by a tightly wrapped ghutra of black silk. She could feel his stare, even from the distance of several hundred feet. Coldness plucked at her optic nerves with a bony nail, her sight flickered in distress and she grabbed at the squeaking door. From behind her, there was a sound on the landing outside the room. Approaching footsteps, unfamiliar and ponderous, drew her away from the street and its intruder and back into the room, composed and ready to receive anybody. No one knocked, but the brass door handle slowly turned and the Frenchman quietly entered. So pleased was she to see him that she didn’t instantly notice the strangeness of his approach.