CHAPTER III

A long but pithy chapter, in which we learn about Cracovian conservation practices, and that – mark my words – Matejko will live for some time to come, that one can keep procuring new staff for years on end, what one must do to lie down beside Mrs Helcel, and finally what the watchman found.

‘Ignacy,’ said Zofia cautiously, ‘I cannot imagine that, as a university professor and a distinguished person, you have not been invited to the gala opening of the new theatre . . .’

Typically, Zofia already knew of course that a special committee, convened by the City Council, would soon be focusing its attention on a matter that was stirring lively interest in most Cracovian households: the distribution of spare tickets for the celebrations due to take place in less than a week from now. Although the new building was large and impressive, everyone was aware that it couldn’t accommodate all of Cracow’s bourgeoisie simultaneously.

‘Zofia,’ gasped Ignacy, setting a shred of bay leaf on the edge of his plate with his fork, ‘surely you don’t mean to tell me you wish to attend that feast of fools?’ Ignacy, who was not terribly interested in cultural matters on the whole, had an extremely critical attitude to the new theatre; he was of the opinion that the prodigious sums of money the City Council had spent on building and furnishing this temple of Melpomene should have been granted to the goddess for whom he cared far more, namely Hygieia. ‘As you know, I’m most concerned about culture,’ he said, ignoring his wife’s meaningfully raised eyebrow. ‘And I think highly of the national arts’ – the eyebrow went up a notch – ‘but the gentlemen at the Council must have been suffering a mental aberration, confusio mentis, when they decided that a theatre is more important than the waterworks that Cracow has lacked ever since the Swedes destroyed the reservoirs and pipes over two hundred years ago. Cholera! Typhus! Dysentery! Not to mention alcoholism – the water in the wells looks nasty and tastes disgusting, so when in need of a drink, with nothing to quench their thirst, the common folk are all the more willing to reach for a beer mug or a shot glass, bringing moral disaster on themselves.’

Having said this, he reached for a wine glass himself, drank a little Riesling, and carefully set it down again on the ring it had impressed on the tablecloth earlier. Zofia was silent; she had known from the start that bringing up this topic would prompt her husband to deliver a tirade, and so she was waiting out the storm, focusing on her zander and on planning her next move.

‘Never mind that the central conservation committee in Vienna called for the preservation of the ancient Holy Spirit Hospital on that site, never mind that none other than Count Tarnowski appealed for the salvation of that relic of the past! Oh no, those miserable reformers railed so furiously against its “hideous stone walls” that this barbarity was committed – approval was given to demolish the hospital, with the single caveat of a promise to the imperial committee to keep the little Holy Spirit Church intact . . .’

Zofia gazed at him as he poured out the familiar facts and opinions that he cited every single time in exactly the same order, and with her entire bearing did her best to express her undivided interest.

‘. . . until suddenly last year, when the theatre was already up, and the church was not blocking the view of it at all, they approved its demolition too. Barely had Matejko made an offer to the City Council to restore the church at his own expense, when the very next day word got out that the roof had collapsed, and the church would have to be destroyed because it posed a threat to life, certain death for children, et cetera . . . It’s most peculiar that the vault caved in as if on command, as if at the sound of the trumpets of Jericho. And the danger was so severe that they couldn’t take the church apart for several months after.’ As he spoke, Ignacy’s face went redder and redder, making his sideburns look like bursts of electricity surrounding a purple ball. ‘Vandals! Matejko was right to return his honorary citizen’s diploma to the mayor and declare that he’d never be buried in the National Pantheon at St Michael’s. Quite right!’

‘That’s nothing but hot air. He has only just had his fiftieth birthday, he’ll live as long again. He’ll have plenty of opportunities to be reconciled with the councillors, then he’ll rest in peace at St Michael’s, and no mistake,’ said Zofia, unable to restrain herself. In fact, she loathed the troublesome liberals just as much as her husband did, but in her heart of hearts the thought of the beautiful new theatre pleased her, even if it had been built on the site of a medieval barn. ‘I’m sure Matejko will be present at the opening. And Count Tarnowski, too. Regardless of your views about the theatre, the city’s elite are bound to attend the gala opening. And tomorrow, as a university professor, you will walk across from St Anne’s to the Collegium Novum with the other professors for the inauguration of the academic year. In a gown!’ She all but quivered at the thought of this memorable moment. ‘So say what you like, but I cannot imagine that we can fail to appear at the opening of the theatre.’

‘My dear Zofia . . .’

‘Ah, there’s dessert as well,’ said Zofia. She crumpled her napkin, tossed it onto the tablecloth and went into the kitchen. Time off is a sacred thing. Yet the fact that she could not eat her meal in peace, but had to keep going to and fro, from dining room to kitchen and back again, was bound to give her stomach ulcers in the end; for now it just put her in a rage. She came back carrying a tray, on which stood two cups filled with lemon flummery, her hands shaking so badly that the cups shook too, causing their edges to chime against each other. Franciszka may well have done the cooking, mixing and grating, but it was the lady of the house who had to interrupt her meal, go into the kitchen and come back with the tray. And then clear away the unappetising remains, plates smeared with sauce and little balls of allspice, the dirty knives and forks . . .

‘Ignacy,’ she began – rightly regarding the matter of the tickets as settled, so now Ignacy would bend over backward if necessary to obtain them – ‘Franciszka cannot cope on her own any more. It’s beyond her strength. She cannot do the cooking and also clean the entire house.’

‘I see no obstacle, Zofia,’ he replied, grabbing a teaspoon and a cup of flummery with surprising agility. ‘You’ll need to pay another visit to one of the domestic services procurement agencies – let them take care of it. Mrs Vogler’s, perhaps? On Szpitalna Street, or Mrs . . . what’s her name?’

‘Mrs Wolska? No, no, whatever you may say, Mrs Mikulska is Mrs Mikulska, she has been in the business for over twenty years. Hers was the first agency in all Cracow to be licensed by the Governor and I’ve always been to her . . .’

‘And you have always dismissed the girl after a month or two . . .’

‘Ignacy!’ said Zofia, burning with righteous indignation, as ever when confronted with the truth.

‘And the one who’s been with us the longest is Franciszka, who came from your cousin, not from Mrs Mikulska. Why don’t you ask Józefa if she has anyone else up her sleeve?’ he said, struggling to suppress a smile.

‘Sometimes you are quite impossible.’

They sat a while longer in silence, each engrossed in their own thoughts. She was plotting how to get back at him for those cutting remarks, and he was pondering how to leave the table in a civil manner, without exposing himself to anger, meaningful looks and snorts. If Franciszka was at home, he merely had to ask her to clear the plates or serve tea in his study, but on days like this he was entirely at Zofia’s mercy. In theory he could pretend to have dozed off at the table, but he was two years short of fifty, and that sort of ruse seemed inappropriate, for it would make him into an old codger – at once he’d have to swap his frock coat for a traditional czamara overcoat and his sideburns for a handlebar moustache, and nod off before the fire, occasionally waking up to utter a few words of upper-class waffle and then go back to sleep again. He wasn’t ready for that yet. So he sat up straight, shifting crumbs about the tablecloth with a fingertip.

‘I think I’ll go and read,’ said Zofia at last. ‘If you’re still in here when Franciszka returns, please make sure she clears the table. And tell her not to disturb me.’

He assented, and then listened to her receding footsteps: still loud in the dining room, quieter and quieter in the passage, until he heard the key grate in the bedroom door. He knew her movements by heart: now she’d go up to the shelf with her favourite books, hesitate a moment, take out a German edition of Edgar Allan Poe and reread The Murders in the Rue Morgue or The Gold-Bug once again. Or possibly one of the books by Gaboriau that she’d bought in Paris on their honeymoon or acquired later, as a young wife? Something about crime and punishment, but not by Dostoevsky. He could see her finger gliding across the spines of the books and . . . yes, he could hear the groaning of the springs as she sat in the old armchair she’d brought here from her native town. And then nothing but silence, pure silence.

 

The next day, Zofia’s main concern was the ceremonial inauguration of the academic year at the university, where, with immense satisfaction, she saw Ignacy in his gown – incidentally, it occurred to her that she must make sure he didn’t wear that costume like an ordinary frock coat, but rather with the distinction due to it. Yet on Wednesday she decided to visit Sister Alojza again and to bring her lottery plan to a happy conclusion.

Mother Zaleska was not a wasteful person, and regarded the objects produced in the workshops as a form of tribute that the almsmen and women owed to the palace – for what else was Helcel House, if not a palace? – and so her response to any attempt to grab if only a few of the wooden spoons they made was generally unfavourable; but Mrs Turbotyńska had her way of dealing with this, too. First of all, she was on good terms with one of Mother Zaleska’s ancient and extremely bossy aunts. Secondly, she provided the nun with her favourite dessert – figs, of which she had grown fond while living in Smyrna for many years; she always thanked Zofia for them wholeheartedly, although she did occasionally mention that even the best figs from the colonial shops in Galicia were no match for the ones she’d had in the past. Thirdly, Zofia had once done her a small but essential favour of the kind one can never forget – if only because the person who did the favour is more than happy to remind one of it.

She passed the door into the office and glanced curiously down the passage. Nothing seemed out of order: all the excitement of two days ago had died down now, the agitated voices were silent, and once again the only people in sight were convalescents slinking along with dark rings around their eyes and old ladies dragging their feet – some had probably been born in the previous century. In between, the nuns flitted past majestically in their white wimples, at their natural tempo moderato once again. Zofia retraced her steps and stopped at the office door.

‘Jesus Christ be praised,’ she said with a slight bow as she crossed the threshold. ‘I am pleased to see that this time you are in your place and we won’t have to go into the garden – the weather has just deteriorated.’ She had rested her umbrella against an armchair and, though gazing at Sister Alojza with a degree of benevolence, was not yet going to let her speak. ‘And we have a whole host of matters to discuss! I assume the poor lost sheep has returned to the flock by now?’

‘For ever and ever, amen, Mrs Turbotyńska,’ stammered the nun. ‘We’ve been praying to the Lord Jesus night and day for her return.’

‘Oh?’ said Zofia, tilting her head a touch to the left like a guinea fowl, then cleared her throat and began in a less jovial tone: ‘Not that I would wish to educate you in matters of faith, but perhaps it would be more appropriate to try St Anthony of Padua? Though after so many days perhaps St Jude would be the better choice . . .’

Alojza didn’t know what to say; from the day she was born she had never understood jokes, or irony or allusions, so she did as she saw fit in such instances: she raised her eyes to the ceiling and gazed upwards for a while, as if tracking a fly or a spider crawling around the lamp.

‘Are the doors into the institution locked at night?’ came a question out of the blue. Alojza was lost. She was still wondering whether to pray to St Anthony for help to find the lost old lady, as for a mislaid rosary, or a comb dropped and kicked beneath a chest of drawers, or whether St Jude would indeed be the better choice by now, but here was another turn in the path.

‘The doors?’ she replied. ‘Yes, the doors are locked. And there’s a watchman. Nobody went out. There’s no sign of her.’

‘And who has occasion to walk about the corridors at night?’ For the time being, Zofia had dropped all thought of raffle prizes for the lottery, of paste and cardboard Christmas cribs, embroidered napkins, hand-carved walking-stick handles – in short, all the junk that she would then have to force on Cracow’s gentlefolk for the benefit of scrofulous children. ‘Particularly on the top floor? The sisters? Servants? The residents themselves?’

‘Occasionally . . .’ said Alojza, blushing, ‘if one of them chooses not to employ the chamber pot but prefers . . . to make her way . . . to the water closet . . . though as a rule they prefer to stay in their rooms. But some are very bad – if the chamber pot stays in the room, even if it’s covered with a thick cloth and hidden in the bedside closet . . . they wake the maid and tell her’ – talking about human physiology was such an ordeal for the poor nun that she was almost gasping for breath in the search for reasonably bearable euphemisms – ‘to deal with . . . the unpleasantness.’

‘And has someone spoken to them?’

‘To whom?’

‘To the sisters and the servants.’

‘But what for?’ Alojza’s eyes grew even larger and more bulbous. ‘It’s not about talking, it’s about finding the unfortunate Mrs Mohr – goodness knows where she’s hidden herself, she may be unconscious, she may not be alive, may the Lord protect her . . .’

‘Is Mother Zaleska here at the moment?’

‘No, she has gone to see the bishop, to –’

‘Splendid. In that case, let’s get down to work!’

 

The blood of the Glodts was starting to rise in Zofia’s veins, pharmacist’s blood that thrilled at the thought of forms to be filled, columns to be added up and accounts to be balanced. What excitement for a heart so fond of novels about the detection and punishment of crime!

As Mother Zaleska could be back at any moment, Zofia had to find a place where she could officiate for an hour or two.

‘Mrs Mohr’s room?’ she asked in a tone that wasn’t really interrogative.

‘But it’s her room, her things are in there, it’s her property . . .’

‘By now,’ said Zofia, casting Sister Alojza an indulgent look, ‘after three whole days it is probably her estate.’

Sister Alojza put a hand to the bunch of keys hanging from her belt, chose one and turned it in the lock. Inside, the room was neat and tidy to a fault – every single item was carefully positioned to a point of obsession: symmetry reigned throughout. Every trinket on the little shelf was matched by another, every cushion on the armchair had a twin; some of the books were arranged like a pipe organ, the tallest in the middle, with smaller ones in descending order on either side. While Alojza briefly went to check if Mother Zaleska were on her way, Zofia settled comfortably at the writing desk, involuntarily peeping into several drawers as she did so: the same order ruled there too.

‘I asked Sister Teresa, who cleaned in here on Sunday morning,’ said Alojza, back from the ground floor after making sure Mother Zaleska wasn’t there. ‘The bed had been made, only the blanket was missing. She didn’t find any objects out of place, she just removed a vase of wilted flowers and some dirty dishes. Nothing special caught her eye.’

‘Splendid, splendid,’ muttered Zofia, making a note in the little book where she usually wrote down recipes, the first lines of poems and the more elaborate pieces of gossip; seconds later she had a new thought, to do with her other mission, the charitable one. ‘It would be quite appropriate for me to go and see the ladies on this floor . . . And as for the employees, ideally I would summon them all here at once, but we cannot paralyse the entire functioning of the House.’ Alojza fully agreed with these words. ‘So perhaps you would bring each of them to me in turn?’

Physically Alojza was put to the test for the next hour or two as she ran to and fro between the ground floor and the second floor, up and down hundreds, if not thousands of steps. By turns she checked in case Mother Zaleska was coming, supplied Mrs Turbotyńska with various pieces of information, brought the watchman to see her, then the gardeners and the cook – people with whom Zofia would rather not talk in person, but such were the rules of the game she had decided to take on, the rules of reinventing herself as a detective from a novel. Of far greater interest to her than the plebs were the residents of the top-floor apartments – the female residents, that is, for after lights-out the door separating the ladies’ wing from the gentlemen’s was locked, meaning that for now she could limit her focus to this community, consisting of a few ancient noblewomen, rich widows and old maids, the last heiresses to bourgeois fortunes. And the servants who kept them company.

Each of these women, as Zofia was perfectly well aware, represented a separate world, which was either joined to other worlds by an intricate web of connections, or which had most definitely cut itself off from them. Here were long-standing animosities that had first budded at society balls and in the large, sombre drawing rooms of Cracow’s residential houses, under Renaissance beams and Baroque ceilings; here too were some heartfelt ties that dated back to the days when these wrinkled old women delighted their parents as little girls in muslin frocks – though no doubt deep in their souls they were already mean and spiteful then; and finally, here were the strangest yet most enduring relationships, in other words animosities blended into one with alliances: hate-filled friendships. On this she was counting the most, for nobody gossips as ardently as a friend filled with hatred. And perhaps some significant detail from the life of Mrs Mohr, ‘the image of respectability’, might emerge along the way.

Equipped with her little notebook, Zofia went from room to room and, regardless of whether she found the resident to be a willing or unwilling interlocutor, questioned each of them in turn. Without forgetting in the process that she had her own mission to complete at Helcel House, the one involving the lottery.

 

‘Entrez,’ Zofia heard at last from inside, after knocking at the door for several minutes; a key grated in the lock and a small, stout maid with a face as smooth and yellow as a billiard ball admitted her into the hall of Countess Żeleńska’s apartment.

The lady was already in view from the doorway; she must have spent the past few moments getting ready to give an audience. She was sitting in a tall, rather worn out armchair, as if trying to look like the pope benevolently receiving a delegation of Cracow bourgeoisie. The final corrections were still being made as she adjusted the velvet ribbon on her neck, arranged her lace mantilla and nestled down in her armchair like a mother hen.

‘Entrez,’ she wheezed again. Zofia entered the drawing room, bowing low.

Countess Matylda Żeleńska de Zielonka, in terms of status the most distinguished resident at Helcel House, occupied the most spacious three-room apartment on the second floor. Thanks to its dark green wallpaper and heavy, snuff-coloured curtains, the drawing room in which she received her guests was rather gloomy. The windows of the room – like those of the entire ladies’ wing – faced west, so the curtains were designed to stifle noise from the outbuildings, the stables and the laundry, but something about the way the thick fabric was arranged reminded one of the drapery of a catafalque. Countess Żeleńska had furnished a family mausoleum for herself while still alive: here and there on the walls hung a wrinkled male ancestor or a lovely young female ancestor (on closer inspection it proved to be the hostess in the spring of her life, in the days of the Spring of Nations). The room smelled of dust, powder and withered roses.

After introducing herself, Zofia began cautiously with the standard courteous enquiries about health, but was soon convinced that this was prompting a negative rather than a positive response, so she came to the point.

‘Your ladyship, I would like to talk to you about a charity lottery that I am helping to organise for the benefit of scrofulous children.’

‘Ah, yes, yes, those poor children with the English disease,’ said the countess, for whom the names of all illnesses suffered by lesser mortals sounded alike, or were perhaps one and the same ailment: poverty. Zofia was well aware that correcting the countess would defeat the purpose, so she continued in an unruffled tone:

‘If your ladyship were to be so kind,’ she said, modestly dropping her gaze to the dusty rug, ‘and would agree to take the lottery under her patronage . . .’

Philanthropy was the favourite pastime of almost all the local aristocratic ladies, who despite their advanced age vied with each other to organise charity balls, and before Easter, wrapped in thick woollen stoles, they solicited donations in Cracow’s ever-chilly churches. The Cracow Times eagerly informed its readers which lady would be holding a collection in which church and at what times. In this city no self-respecting charitable enterprise could exist without its own countess – these were the rules, and Zofia nolens volens (but more volens than not) had to abide by them. Matylda Żeleńska could become her countess, whose patronage would make Zofia’s enterprise into an event, meaning that next year in the column headed ‘Easter Week Collections’, alongside the familiar names of the most distinguished aristocratic ladies, the name Zofia Turbotyńska would appear.

Seeing vacillation on the countess’s face, Zofia decided to play her trump card.

‘If your ladyship’s state of health will not allow for it, then naturally I understand. Perhaps Countess Tarnowska would be agreeable . . .’ It was an open secret in Cracow that these two ladies had a genuine mutual loathing, ever since a much-publicised inheritance case several years ago. The countess took the bait.

‘Not allow for it?’ she said, almost rising from her chair. ‘My dear madam, there is nothing more noble than philanthropy! We should take my cousin, the late lamented Mrs Helcel, as our model for the selfless and righteous provision of aid to our needy neighbours in the name of Christian charity.’ The fees that the countess paid were certainly enough to keep several, if not at least a dozen paupers, but it was no secret that a place had been found for her at Helcel House on account of a clause in the donor’s will, giving priority admission to the founders’ own relatives. ‘It shall be my pleasure to help, my dear madam.’

In her excitement at hearing these welcome words, Zofia felt the blood rush to her head, and suddenly her corset was too tight. The countess must have noticed.

‘Are you feeling all right? Do take a seat,’ she said, pointing with the feeblest gesture to another armchair. ‘It is sure to be this terrible business with Mrs Mohr. We are all greatly unsettled by it,’ said the countess, shaking her head. ‘What on earth can have become of the unfortunate woman?’

Zofia, who had fully recovered by now, instantly seized the opportunity to discover some new facts.

‘Was Mrs Mohr in the habit of going outside the bounds of the institution?’

‘How could she, my dear madam?’ said the countess, frowning. ‘Mrs Mohr was in poor health – she hardly ever emerged from her room. Her knees,’ she added in an embarrassed whisper.

‘Did she receive guests?’

‘Rarely. She was a widow, she had no children . . . Well, she did have, but the poor little things had died, of cholera it seems. Her sister sometimes visited her, but they weren’t on the best terms. I don’t like to gossip . . . But every time she was here, they ended up quarrelling. It was most unpleasant. She came to see her last Sunday, in fact . . . She must have stayed late, because I could still hear them arguing after dinner, about food again. Old people don’t have the appetite they once had,’ she said, sighing. ‘Most of the visits are on Sundays. It should really be a day of rest, but there’s such a commotion from the lower floors . . .’ Her face took on the expression of a martyr from a canvas by Delacroix.

Children & chol., wid., Sun. P.M. arg. w. sister, Zofia jotted down in her notebook under the heading Co. Żel. The blood of the Glodts was happily bubbling away. As long as Mother Zaleska did not come back too soon. Oh well, there was always the hope that before her audience with the bishop she would have to spend an hour or so waiting in an anteroom.

‘Many thanks indeed, your ladyship, for those valuable observations. And of course, for your promise to support the lottery,’ she said, smiling so sweetly that her head seemed made of sugar. ‘I shall speak with Mother Zaleska as soon as possible. I would like to obtain some of the residents’ artefacts to be donated as raffle prizes.’ She noticed a wisp of sympathy in the countess’s eye; so she too was aware that the conversation would not be easy. ‘And then I shall take the liberty of coming to see you again.’

‘We should not spare any efforts for the poor,’ concluded the old lady sententiously. ‘And whom shall you interview now?’

‘Visit. I shall visit the ladies who reside in the neighbouring rooms.’

‘Aha, Banffy. And Mrs Wężyk. Well, each of us has a cross to bear,’ she said, smiling with one side of her mouth.

‘Banffy? Like the Hungarian politician?’

‘Apparently a relative, but a very distant one. Whatever the case may be, I wish you luck, my dear Mrs . . .?’

‘Turbotyńska.’

‘. . . Turbotyńska.’

 

Alojza had just clambered to the second floor, bringing two gardeners, who were now standing hesitantly in the corridor; one was crumpling his cap, the other was chewing his fingernails, and both were shifting from foot to foot. But Zofia waved a hand to say it wasn’t yet time for such secondary matters – she was just about to knock on the door of Baroness Banffy when a very small, shrivelled old lady emerged from the next room.

‘Mrs Wężyk,’ whispered Alojza, who, a little out of breath, had managed to run up to Zofia now. Then she began explaining to the old lady that ‘the unfortunate Mrs Mohr’ still hadn’t been found, and ‘this dear lady will ask a few questions’.

‘More? More what?’

‘Judge Mohr’s widow, who lives in number four,’ said Zofia, joining in.

‘It’s the first I’ve heard of her.’

‘She went missing the day before yesterday.’

‘I haven’t found her,’ said Mrs Wężyk rather angrily, ‘but then I haven’t been looking for her either.’

‘Nobody expects you to, it’s just that she’s gone . . .’

‘Gone, quite so! Goes to and fro, stamps her feet, so I can’t sleep at night!’

Mrs Wężyk, bent double at first, now straightened up, full of fury out of nowhere, and rapped her thin walking cane against the floor.

‘I do not wish it! And Aniela should not keep urging me, or I shall dismiss her!’ she shouted into Zofia’s face, or rather into her bodice, for she reached roughly the height of it, and then agitatedly headed down the corridor.

‘Yes, I thought that would be pointless,’ said Alojza, sighing. ‘Mrs Wężyk is not . . .’

‘Not in her right mind, I can see that.’

‘Not very patient when it comes to conversation, I was going to say. She thinks she’s still living at home, and we are her householders and servants.’

‘Is Aniela her maid?’

‘Aniela has been dead for years. At first Mrs Wężyk used to visit her grave at Rakowicki Cemetery, but since last year . . .’

‘I see. Did Mrs Mohr have similar problems with her memory?’

‘Not in the least! Her memory was legendary – she only had to have seen a person once in her life to recognise them fifty years later. She could recite whole books by heart. Oh no, hers was an unusual mind!’

‘Really?’ said Zofia, making another note. ‘What else? Ah yes, the baroness, and then I’ll deal with the next person you’ve brought here.’

Baroness Banffy occupied two rooms next door to Countess Żeleńska. The door was opened by her maid, who looked a little older than Zofia; a well-built figure with greying hair gathered in a large bun. Zofia uttered the same formula as for the previous visit.

‘Her ladyship is not receiving anyone,’ snapped the woman icily, glaring at Zofia like Cerberus.

‘That will do, Polcia,’ came the baroness’s voice from inside. ‘Ask her to come in.’

Zofia had been sure this conversation would be in German – the language of her forebears on the paternal side – but the baroness turned out to speak Polish very well. As they talked, Zofia realised that she must in fact be a Pole who, after several decades in Austria and Hungary at her husband’s side, had acquired a slight, indeterminate accent. She must once have been a handsome woman, thought Zofia, but the years had not been kind to her. She appeared robust, despite being seventy, at a guess, but tiredness showed in her face, and not even a thick layer of powder could hide the dark shadows under her eyes. Zofia rejoiced at the thought that regular use of Rix’s Pompadour Milk was sure to spare her complexion a similar fate.

‘A charity lottery . . . I am sorry to say that I cannot help you,’ declared Baroness Banffy. ‘I no longer have the strength to contribute to such events. A few years ago, perhaps . . . at my late lamented husband’s estates in Transylvania I myself organised charitable fetes . . . ach, how fine they were, excellent Tokays, superb company, Gypsy bands, cymbals, a dancing bear . . . But today, in this venerable sanctuary, I myself am in need of solicitous care’ – she cast a glance at her Cerberus-like maid. ‘I am sorry,’ she said again in an almost apologetic tone.

Having already won the countess round, Zofia was not dismayed by the baroness’s refusal, so she opened her notebook and smoothly moved on to questions about Mrs Mohr.

‘I don’t know her.’

‘You and she are neighbours.’

‘Yes, so I have heard.’

‘Do you not lead a social life within the House, your ladyship?’

‘My dear Mrs Turbotyńska’ – Zofia was very pleased that her interlocutor had remembered her name at once – ‘if I wished to lead a social life, I would not have come to live in this dying place. My only desire is peace and quiet in my native parts.’

‘Her ladyship’s only desire is peace and quiet,’ repeated the maid, as if translating from another language.

‘And did you see anything troubling on Saturday evening, during the night, or on Sunday morning? Any unfamiliar people? Or suspicious faces?’

‘Almost everyone here has a suspicious face,’ replied Polcia, who was plainly in the habit of assisting her mistress in conversation. ‘Even those from so-called society . . .’

‘Polcia . . .’

‘I’m just saying what everyone can see anyway,’ she said, pursing her lips.

It was clear that she stuck by her mistress as a faithful housekeeper who, judging by their intimacy, must have been there at the late lamented Baron Banffy’s estates in Transylvania, where, instead of notaries and councillors’ wives, bears danced at the charity fetes, and instead of a string orchestra, nothing but cymbals played . . . Honest to God, thought Zofia, if a Transylvanian brigand were to spring from behind the wardrobe, this big-boned woman would send him to kingdom come, if only with the bunch of keys that jingled at her apron.

‘No, I noticed nothing out of place,’ said the baroness after a pause for thought. ‘Everything is so ordinary and repetitive here that any deviation from the norm sticks in the memory. The fact that one of the almswomen has died, that marzipan muffins were served for dessert, or the laundry was a day late, even changing the bed sheets becomes an event. No wonder the House thrives on the slightest gossip . . .’

Zofia pricked up her ears. ‘And have you heard any gossip about Mrs Mohr?’ she asked.

‘What sort of gossip do you imagine there can be about an ailing widow who, apart from a Sunday outing to mass, never pokes her nose outside the door of her room? Too late for a wedding, and too soon for a funeral,’ said the baroness.

‘That fortune hunter may have had a go at her,’ said the maid, laughing knowingly.

‘Polcia!’

‘What fortune hunter?’ asked Zofia.

‘I’m not saying a thing,’ said Polcia, scowling.

‘And quite right too,’ the baroness concluded for her, in a tone implying that the conversation was at an end. It only remained for Zofia to thank her for her time, bow politely and withdraw under the vindictive gaze of the snooty maid.

 

The time had come to question the House’s various employees and servants. Most of them answered timidly, stuttering and drawling one word after another rather than formulating whole sentences. They sat on a small chair that the watchman carried into the missing woman’s room and set down opposite Zofia’s armchair; the small chair came from the little room beside the door separating the ladies’ wing from the gentlemen’s, where one of the nuns was on duty all night. The nun who had spent the whole of Sunday night there had already made her statement to Mother Zaleska. She hadn’t seen Mrs Mohr leaving her room, nor had she heard any suspicious noises. She had said it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Everyone else had said much the same – nobody knew a thing; nobody had noticed anything out of the ordinary.

Meanwhile, Zofia questioned them thoroughly. Earlier she had thought all this searching for the missing Mrs Mohr – towards whom she felt quite indifferent – would bore her within an hour, but now she had lost track of time. At first she had persuaded herself she was only doing this in order to impress Mother Zaleska and secure the raffle prizes, and, along the way, a countess who would lend her name and title to the lottery. But now she was far less concerned about that, and increasingly intrigued by the mystery, or at least the illusion of a mystery, because deep down she was expecting to discover that Mrs Mohr had gone on a trip, or simply wandered out of her apartment at night and died of an aneurism in some remote corner of this enormous building. But it was fascinating to find how much people revealed when pressed for an answer – and especially how much they revealed unconsciously, while trying to hide something or other. By now she knew who disliked whom, who had not been at Sunday mass, and who griped about the food. The game of interviewing all these people, taking notes, and recording their statements was more fun than any of her favourite pastimes. She had the same feeling as on that afternoon when, already engaged to be married, she had accompanied her father on a visit to the mayor of Przemyśl and had been shown a large doll’s house belonging to his daughter. Oh, if only she could have knelt before this beautiful, fragile construction and picked up the tiny dolls . . . she could have played with them like a little girl! At the time she had restrained herself, but now she had decided to yield to the temptation and play the game of solving the mystery – and it was making her feel splendid. Even if these particular conversations were monotonous and uninteresting, and her notebook wasn’t gaining any crucial facts.

‘Next,’ she said now and then, ‘next . . .’

‘Mrs Turbotyńska, Mrs Turbotyńska,’ panted Alojza, interrupting her somewhere in between the cook and the gardeners; she was out of breath again from running up the stairs. ‘Mother Zaleska is back.’

‘Let us rejoice at her safe return from the bishop’s palace,’ replied Zofia, and then in a hushed tone she added: ‘And for the good of her health let us not allow her to come up here.’ Then, speaking louder again, she turned to the gardeners. ‘Were either of you gentlemen here on the day Mrs Mohr went missing?’

Most of the employees had observed the Sabbath, so only the core staff had remained: the nuns, two cooks who had made the dinner, two of the almswomen who had helped them to distribute the meals, and Morawski the watchman, who had left his post several times during the night to inspect the orchard and garden before returning to his lodge. He hadn’t noticed anything unusual. No, no dogs barking or suspicious shadows either. Had anyone been up to the top floor after visiting time? Apart, Zofia remembered, from the missing woman’s sister, who had stayed late and started an argument after dinner was served. A doctor, perhaps? No, none had been called. Any of the nuns? The ones who delivered the evening doses of medicine. Who else? A little earlier the women distributing meals, mostly the residents’ maids. Yes, the maids might have had something interesting to say too, but it was plain to see that there was no love lost between them, and one would stab another in the back if she betrayed her or her mistress’s secrets, so they’d probably prefer to hold their tongues. What about men? No, there hadn’t been any visits from the gentlemen’s wing either. The gardeners never came up here, apart from that special day when they’d searched the whole house for Mrs Mohr.

Zofia came out of the room for a while.

‘So here we have the residents’ apartments,’ she said, drawing the corridor in her notebook with the various rooms leading off it. ‘She’s definitely not in any of those. Considering her bad legs, she’s unlikely to have gone down the stairs . . .’

‘Oh no, ma’am, Mrs Mohr couldn’t ’ave dragged ’erself to the end of the corridor, let alone the stairs,’ stammered the countess’s maid tearfully, who moments earlier had been quite shamelessly eavesdropping at the door. ‘She could ’ardly drag her little feet along, she were so feeble . . .’

‘At the end of the corridor,’ said Zofia, marking it on her map, ‘are the bathrooms. They’ve checked in there, I’m told. Who searched the bathrooms?’

‘Sister Teresa and Sister Józefa,’ Alojza was quick to answer, doing her best to be as helpful as possible. ‘They didn’t find anything.’

‘Are there any locked doors in there, broom cupboards or laundry rooms?’

‘The laundry rooms are in the next building, and there aren’t any cupboards.’

‘I see. Here is the exit on to the stairwell. Here are the rooms. Here are the bathrooms.’ Zofia turned around and pointed to a wide passage. ‘And what’s over here?’

‘The stairs up to the attic.’

‘Who checked in there?’

‘The watchman.’

‘Excuse me, my good man,’ said Zofia to one of the cluster of staff who hadn’t gone back to their jobs but were still trailing about on the top floor, exchanging whispers, ‘please bring the watchman back here to see me.’

Moments later, he appeared. Asked if he had searched the attic thoroughly, he shrugged and said, ‘But how could Mrs Mohr have clambered up those stairs? She could hardly walk to the bathroom, and not without one of the sisters to support her.’

‘Did you do a thorough search?’

‘I went in and looked around – there’s nothing but sheets hanging up to dry.’

‘And the whole roof is open-plan, with no enclosed areas, no storage spaces, cupboards or closets?’

‘There are no closets, just a small box room, low and dark, where our residents’ trunks are stored on arrival.’

Momentarily Zofia imagined all those trunks, coffers and travelling chests with labels from Nice, Venice and London, once smart and new, but which, in a year or two, five at most, would be packed with a deceased aunt’s or grandfather’s belongings and moved to the loft of an apartment building or the attic of a suburban manor house, for ever out of fashion, doomed to the secondary role of junk.

‘She could have lain down in a trunk. Slammed it shut. Fainted and fallen inside,’ said Zofia, sensing how freely she was floating on the churned-up waves of her own imagination. ‘Go and check again,’ she finally commanded, ‘and this time do it properly!’

Alojza came running from the direction of the stairs again, just about on her last legs after racing all the way downstairs and back.

‘Mother Zaleska,’ she gasped, somewhere in between a shout and a whisper, ‘Mother Zaleska!’

‘Splendid,’ said Zofia with great composure, having just about completed her interviews. ‘We shall have the opportunity to discuss the raffle prizes for the lottery. Countess Żeleńska has promised to provide her patronage.’

As she said this, she glanced through the open door at the chair brought earlier by the watchman – someone was sure to remove it shortly; the cooks and maids would return to their jobs and she to her everyday life at Peacock House. From here she could see that a white wimple had appeared on the stairs above floor level. Mother Zaleska had just come into sight when a loud cry came from the attic, surprisingly high-pitched for a man built like a wardrobe, followed by the patter of feet.

‘A doctor!’ shouted the watchman. ‘Fetch a doctor! And a priest! Help!’ He came running down the wooden staircase in such a rush that he almost fell – in fact he did, but was caught by a gardener standing nearby. ‘Fetch a doctor!’

At this point almost everyone began vying to push their way to the attic staircase; the women appeared to be squealing, weeping and shouting, but plainly, in the interval between one sob and the next, they were eyeing each other closely; it took the joint action of Zofia and Mother Zaleska – women who in two quite different companies were known for their gruff, military tone and the ruthless obedience that they inspired in others – to bring the cluster of curious onlookers under control. One of the young gardeners was sent to fetch the House’s head doctor, but by the time he came back, alone, someone had remembered that Dr Wiszniewski was not at work today but had gone to his cousin’s funeral in Tarnów.

‘Dr Zakroczymski!’ exclaimed Alojza suddenly. ‘He came to see his sister today. Perhaps he’s still here.’ And, hitching up her habit, she bolted down the stairs.

 

A short while later, Dr Zakroczymski did indeed appear, walking with his usual awkward gait. Zofia regarded him with a mixture of sympathy and dislike. He had his reputation, indeed he did, but, be that as it may, even a doctor with such a badly tarnished reputation would be capable of confirming a death.

Finally, the four of them went upstairs: the watchman, the doctor, Mother Zaleska and Zofia Turbotyńska. The attic smelled of dry timber, dust, fresh laundry and mice. On the left-hand side they could see the door leading into the box room. No wonder the first time he had looked the watchman had failed to spot Mrs Mohr; she may have been ‘the image of respectability’, but not of imposing stature. Indeed, she hadn’t fallen into a trunk or been buried by a pile of dry sheets. But for some reason she had made her way up to the attic. Perhaps she’d been walking in her sleep, or perhaps she’d had a temporary brainstorm. Then she only had to wake up, take fright at not knowing where she was – and a heart attack was inevitable. She had indeed slipped into the small box room with a sloping roof where the trunks and suitcases were kept, and in such an unfortunate way that her body couldn’t be seen from the middle of the attic. She was lying in a corner, still wrapped in the blanket taken from her bed, and shielded by the half-open door.

First the doctor checked her pulse, and then he and the watchman grasped the corners of the blanket and carried her little body closer to the stairs, to a spot that was better lit. There was nothing shocking about the corpse, no dark stains, bruises or blood; the face was peaceful and the cheeks still ruddy. The doctor’s fingers clumsily undid some buttons.

‘Not counting a small bruise that she must have sustained while falling and landing against that trunk, I can’t see any injuries,’ he said. ‘She fell into a faint, which could have happened for various reasons, and then died of exposure. Yes,’ he said, straightening up, ‘naturally I will draft the relevant report and leave it for Dr Wiszniewski’s inspection. For now, I suggest moving the body to the mortuary.’

Apart from the doctor, nobody said a word. From below, at the bottom of the stairs, came a clucking chorus of voices telling each other tall stories. Though death was not an unusual event at Helcel House, every time it occurred it stirred strong emotions among the residents.