19

Von Ebner’s Nucleus

Kwert and Philbert got into Ullendorf’s carriage and went down the long winding road into town, surrounded on both sides by tall dark lines of cypress trees dripping and swaying with the light rain falling on their leaves. They were heading towards the patchwork of roofs Philbert had seen but not experienced, and soon were right amongst them, clopping past white-washed walls, hedged gardens and courtyards. The streets were remarkably busy, this being a warm, soft evening, people able to ignore the sporadic showers by sitting in open-doored porches or beneath awnings pulled out from bars and taverns. Ullendorf’s carriage wound through narrow alleys and backways behind the main thoroughfare of the town into the dark, unpopulated streets that made up the less salubrious parts of Lengerrborn, where the houses were shabbier, the cats scrawnier, the gas-lamps dimmer – if they were there at all.

A short while later the carriage drew up, hooves clattering on the cobbles. Ullendorf flung open the door and threw himself out telling his driving-boy not to wait but to come back at midnight, wrapping his cloak tightly about his shoulders, making sure his hat was on fast and sure, beckoning Kwert and Philbert with him up a mean ginnel set between two rows of tall-stacked houses. It was dark, their footsteps echoing dully between the flanking walls, the recently fallen rain splashing against their legs when they stepped into unseen puddles. Ullendorf stopped at a break in the wall, tapping at a small narrow door with his knuckles – rat-a-tat-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat-tat. A small window opened in the wood, closed again, then the door opened, Ullendorf and Kwert having to bend in half to get through, Philbert nearly getting stuck trying to step over the high ledge at its base. And then they were in, a mangle of wet capes and hats, the door closed quietly behind them, two large bolts drawn over to keep them in.

Philbert could see very little, but was aware of murmurings and scraping noises and the strong smells of beer and tobacco. Ullendorf handed over his cloak, talking sotto voce to the man who’d opened the door to them and who was eying Kwert and Philbert with suspicion, looking them up and down and round and round before eventually nodding. He jangled a large set of keys as he took all three through an arched tunnel, like those found in beer cellars. At the very end of it, he unlocked another door.

The noise was immediate – the place chock-a-block with well-attired men, tankards and cups before them, candles burning at the centre of each table, chair legs catching at the stones set in the earthen floor as they were constantly pulled back and forth as people moved amongst themselves. Ullendorf stood tall, shading his eyes to concentrate his search, but before he found what he was looking for he was addressed by a man clothed entirely in black velvet who grabbed Ullendorf by the arm and pulled him on.

‘Doctor Ullendorf!’ said the man. ‘What a pleasure! Come, sit. Von Ebner’s not here yet, but your fellows are.’ He barged his way through the small crowd, pushing people aside with ostentatious requests to make way for Von Ebner’s special guests and, moments later, they were all three seated, Philbert launched onto a cushioned pew so that he was able reach the table, hands already reaching towards the platter of trotters and potatoes at its centre, which delicacy was soon matched by the arrival of a stack of napkins, two pitchers of ale, a large jug of wine and three men, after which the velvet man slipped away like steam from a kettle, like Harlekin from the stage. Ullendorf took his place and introduced Philbert and Kwert to his newly arrived companions, everyone shaking hands. The first, Herr Federkiel flipped back his coattails and sat next to Philbert, lifting a potato from the central platter to the light of the candle.

‘A prime example of a parabolic frustum section, I should say, shouldn’t you, Philbert?’

It sounded good, so Philbert nodded, adding that the potato tasted fine. Federkiel laughed and picked up another, which he handed to Philbert with the words ‘rhomboidal tetragon’, at which Philbert nodded gravely and wished him good health in return. Federkiel smiled and put a hand on the boy’s head, informing the company that he’d studied under the great Cuvier in Paris and had a passion for all things geometrical and the names they bore.

‘I measure everything I see,’ he elucidated. ‘I can’t help myself – the length of bones, and boiled vegetables, and boys’ heads.’ He held his hand to one side as if to frame it. ‘I’ve seen the crystal skulls of the Indians of the Andes, and the netsuke skulls of Japan with their ivory frogs for eyes. I’ve seen the bones of four thousand Capuchin monks resting in the subterranean vaults of Santa Maria in Rome and another, even older, that is purported to be of an ancient Adamic race, but never have I seen a head like the one that sits here before me in the humble confines of a Lengerrborn crypt. I can barely wait to get out my callipers and start sharpening my pencil.’

The second man at the table held back Federkiel’s arm, the hand of which was already delving into the bag by his side. ‘Let’s wait a moment, Federkiel, before you begin your metrological analysis. We have all night, after all, and tomorrow to measure as much as we wish.’ The man turned to Philbert and propped a pair of pince-nez on his noise. ‘You must forgive us, Philbert. We’re all as old and crusty as the hills, only impatient lest we drop dead before we can see all the marvels of this world, of which you are surely one.’

Philbert smiled, wiping trotter grease from his chin, surprised at the interest these friends of Ullendorf were giving him. The man with the pince-nez handed him a napkin, presumably liking his marvels clean, before speaking again.

‘I am Professor Schnurrhenker, a physiologist, come all the way from Berlin to see for myself this great head of yours, young Philbert. I gather my colleague Ullendorf has studied you under his microscope – a pleasure I surely hope to replicate, and so I’m delighted to meet you, Philbert,’ Schnurrhenker made a small formal bow over the table and grasped Philbert’s two hands in his own. ‘I’m sure we’re going to be the greatest of friends.’

Kwert seemed amused by these proceedings in which he was being so obviously ignored, and Ullendorf was rocking back on his chair, arms lifted behind his head, chest thrust out, a great smile spread over his face like a folded pancake. Abruptly Ullendorf brought his chair back down to the ground and laid his large hands on the table, turning towards the third man.

‘And what of you, Zwingerhahn, what’s your interest in the boy? For you are no doctor, of that I’m sure.’

Zwingerhahn sipped from his cup and took his time ­swallowing, licking his thin purple lips in a rather unnerving way.

‘You know me, Ullendorf,’ he said slowly. ‘I like to know who is coming and going, and why they’re doing what they’re doing. Times are coming when we’ll need to get organised, so it’s always necessary to know who is who and what is what.’

Schnurrhenker and Federkiel coughed, sipping noisily at their drinks, tensing themselves in their seats for the diatribe they knew would come. Zwingerhahn ignored them and shifted his gaze from Ullendorf to Kwert.

‘You’re a stranger here and, I gather, a traveller. You must have seen things up and down the country the rest of us have not had the privilege to encounter.’

Kwert nodded uneasily, shooting a quick glance at Philbert who wasn’t listening but instead sinking his chops into another pig’s trotter. Zwingerhahn went on regardless.

‘In Silesia the workers are overthrowing factories and burning down their workshops. The weavers in particular seem ill-used. I personally spoke to several being held on charges of treason and sedition, if you can believe it. And they were honest men,’ he growled, ‘forced out of their trades, or to work for a pittance and a crust of stale bread. They’re craftsmen, men used to ­supporting their families without breaking either their backs or their spirits. Not that they were against the new machinery, not at all. They keep their harsh words for the princes and overlords who are tithing them out of their own businesses, shackling them into bonded labour to pay invented debts. It seems to them, as it does to many, that the time has come to throw down the Landsadel who presume nobility and possession, not only of the land but of the men who live on it.’

‘Property is theft,’ quoted Federkiel, before adding, rather sheepishly, as Zwingerhahn swivelled his head and nailed him with a glance, ‘so said Proudhon, or so I believe.’

‘Ah yes,’ Zwingerhahn nodded, maybe with approval, maybe not. ‘Proudhon. And Lafayette. Let us not forget Lafayette, yet another great man who cast off the shackles of his birth and proclaimed liberty to be the due of his people. I remember toasting all of them at the Festival of Hambach in ’32, when thirty thousand of us stood before the gates of the castle to demand a free and united Germany; the Red, Black and Gold wrapped about us as our standard.’ Zwingerhahn took a large swig of wine, keeping his gaze on the table around which the others kept a stiff uncomfortable silence as he went on. ‘Proudhon, Lafayette . . . the martyred Marat . . . all heroes of the Revolution. And of course, Saint-Just, whose words no one can ignore: With whatever illusions monarchy may guise itself, it remains an eternal crime against which every man has the right to rise up . . . Strong words,’ he said, ‘strong words and so very true.’

‘For a Frenchman, at least,’ added Ullendorf lightly, drawing Zwingerhahn’s eyes back from their vision of the past.

Zwingerhahn looked curiously back at Ullendorf as if not quite understanding what he’d said and gulped once into the hovering silence.

‘Quite right,’ he repeated, in a tone that was about as humorous as he ever got, ‘for a Frenchman, quite right.’

It was the sign for general conversation to break out, much to the relief of everyone, especially as Zwingerhahn chose that moment to stand up and take his leave, regretted by none.

‘Sorry about that, Kwert,’ Ullendorf said. ‘Old Zwingerhahn does get rather carried away. The right of what he says is not disputed, for maybe it is time for a free and united Germany. All of us think so gathered here. But the likes of Zwingerhahn would pick up arms at any moment and do the dirty princes to death with his bare hands if he could. He still sees the Treaty of Tilsit as the divider of the country, the dissolution of the Empire and all that, but most of us just meet up here to talk out ideas, keep up with what’s going on, discuss our business un­interrupted in a congenial atmosphere.’

Ullendorf filled Kwert’s glass, and those of his companions. ‘And you really do have to go where the great minds gather,’ he went on. ‘Myself, Federkiel and Schnurrhenker, are only here because Von Ebner is one of the great minds of Europe. We ourselves are hardly activists but Von Ebner is a die-hard – like Zwingerhahn – and this is one of the few places he will agree to meet.’

Ullendorf sighed, Federkiel and Schnurrhenker nodding in agreement, as did Kwert, though he’d not the faintest idea what any of them had been talking about. It was true he tramped the country up and down, as did most of the people who attached themselves to the Fairs, and it was true too that many of the Fairs’ people were well up on the politics of the land – Maulwerf’s own troupe of actors were proof of that – but in truth, most of them just got their heads down and did what they did, hoping to make a small living out of it. And what Ullendorf said next went right over his head.

‘Von Ebner used to know Karl Follen and be in with the Burschenschaften in his youth. Claims he’s still dogged by Metternich’s spies, though God knows they must be ancient by now if they’re still following him around after all these years. But, but,’ Ullendorf went on, interrupting himself, trying to get his point across to Kwert, ‘his expertise is invaluable. As a ­physiologist Von Ebner is first rate. He is way ahead of anyone else in terms of brain research and function. One glass of beer with him will give you as much knowledge as a week’s worth of lectures by anyone else in the field.’

Nods and more nods from Federkiel and Schnurrhenker, who now took over where Ullendorf had left off.

‘He has this theory about the growth of cells in tumours,’ Schnurrhenker said excitedly, ‘on which all of us have been ­corresponding.’ He produced a letter from his inside pocket and flourished it with pride. ‘We’ve been wondering if such cells might be harnessed to heal other parts of the body otherwise damaged, serve as energetic storehouses for the higher ­functions of other organs.’

‘Hence our interest in Philbert,’ Ullendorf took over the gist of the conversation, jiggling ever so slightly in his seat as he took the letter from Schnurrhenker’s hand and pushed it towards Kwert. ‘And when I told him of Philbert, Von Ebner was most excited, most excited indeed. People with a condition such as Philbert’s are rare indeed – and only ever present to the medical profession as adults, when their teratology has become a burden interfering in their normal lives. But Philbert . . . Philbert is still a child, still growing . . . an opportunity none of us have come across before.’

Kwert frowned, would have spoken, but Federkiel suddenly stood up, waving his arm.

‘There he is!’ he said. ‘By God, Ullendorf, it’s really him. It’s Von Ebner!’

A flurry at the end of the room confirmed Federkiel’s analysis as a tall man – made taller by his stovepipe hat – threaded a graceful way towards their table, the black-velveted Zwingerhahn practically pushing people out of his path. Ullendorf stood up.

‘Von Ebner, dear fellow!’ he shouted, smiling and waving his hat, Schnurrhenker and Federkiel hastily rearranging chairs so the great man could take the centre place. Kwert didn’t stand but leant over the table and bade Philbert drop the trotter, dabbed at him with napkins and straightened his coat and shirt.

‘Doesn’t hurt to make a good first impression, Little Maus,’ Kwert whispered urgently. ‘I think we’re about to meet someone very important, and the only reason he’s here at all is because of your head. So sit sharp, be polite, answer any questions you’re asked exactly as you’re asked them, and with any luck we’ll be able to get back to the Fai –’

There was an eruption of noise and movement like a bottle of Herr Volstrecken’s wine blowing its cork in an unguarded cellar, everyone shouting and trying to run, getting in each other’s way, tables getting shoved and knocked, candles rolling to the floor, setting fire to spilled spirits and the cloaks and coats slung ­casually over chair backs. The loud commotion had begun at the Club’s outer door but was soon moving towards the inner sanctum with every second, metal clanking as if the ropes of Helge’s kitchen racks had been cut and all the copper pans sent crashing to the stone flags below. Philbert saw the newly come Professor Von Ebner rising above the crowd, his hat askew, then heard the sharp sizzle of an explosion, the man and his hat falling sideways to the floor. Ullendorf gasped, cried out in panic and then crouched down quickly as a barrage of soldiers pushed their way in, unmistakeable in their uniforms, barging through the central passageway, flinging men out of their way with wide sweeps of broadswords. Philbert heard pistol shots, smelled the newly discharged gunpowder that was rank in the air, dragged without warning from his seat as Kwert bundled him beneath the table. An awful moment then, when all Philbert heard was yelling and shouting, shots and more shots, horror when Ullendorf’s large body fell onto the table above Philbert’s head, the wood splintering and giving way, pinning Philbert to the ground. The noise was tremendous and confusing, the air filled with swirling smoke-dust and gloom as the candles were extinguished with the movement of burst tables and men, but Kwert did not lose his head and dragged Philbert out from beneath the broken Ullendorf and his broken table, everything lit now only by the flashes of the marauding soldiers’ guns and the trickles of brandy caught to flame by the candles that had been tipped to the floor.

‘You’ve got to get out, Philbert!’ Kwert spat into Philbert’s ear. ‘You’ve got to get out. Go towards the kitchens just over to the right at the back. Keep yourself down to the floor and don’t stop for anyone, don’t speak to anyone, no matter what you see. Get yourself to Helge, but go now, Philbert, you have to go right now!’

And Philbert went. He’d been caught by the noose before and needed no persuading. He took time only to grab Kwert’s knapsack from the seat and sling it over his shoulder, glancing back for one millisecond, seeing Kwert rolling Ullendorf out from beneath the broken table: hat gone, dark curls stained darker by his blood, fine coat ripped and torn. Then he was away, ­scampering down the short passageway as Kwert had directed, blood beating at his bones telling him to be gone. He reached the kitchens, saw the small window in the wall and was up and through it, catapulting himself out into the night where the clear air fell down on him like the breath of God. But even then he didn’t stop. He clutched Kwert’s bag close to his stomach and ran down the wet streets like a rat, ran until he had no more breath, until his body told his head that enough was enough, no more in him, time to stop.

The soldiers stamped their way through the Westphal Club as if they’d nothing left to do, which indeed they did not. Not that any of this was their idea. They’d known about the Westphal Club for years but it had never seemed a threat, just a load of local boffins going to drink in a place they thought was secret, but was about as secret as the fact that the sky is sometimes blue. The Schupo themselves, the men nominally in charge of keeping order in the town, drank in here themselves, finding it convivial, the one place in Lengerrborn where folk didn’t stiffen at their arrival, where everyone was taken for what he was, everyone accepted, everyone as keen as they were to keep themselves to themselves. The Schupos therefore knew the place inside out, and were not happy to have been co-opted into the storming of the Westphal Club by outside soldiers despite the order from their direct superiors, and all on the one tip that one man, namely this Von Ebner, deemed an enemy of the state, a revolutionary who needed to be stopped, had arrived in Lengerrborn. The town’s Schupos had colluded in this duty only because they were given no choice, the result being this raid, this massacre and mayhem, the apparent cutting down of ­revolutionary ringleaders from outside. But friends and family were friends and family, and a great many of Lengerrborn’s own lost their lives in the tumult, and not many of the local Schupos were happy about that.

Philbert stood with his back against a wall. He breathed hard and was terribly afraid. The rain fell, runnelling off him, and he’d no idea of which direction to take. This wasn’t the first time he had been alone, set adrift without oar or rudder, nor was it the first time he’d seen people shot by soldiers, but it was the first time he’d seen people he knew shot down in such close proximity and was appalled, having no idea whether Kwert or Ullendorf – or Ullendorf’s friends – were still alive. There was nothing to do but get as far away as he could, and when he ran out of steam with blind running he walked, stumbling over wet and uneven cobbles, tears pricking at the backs of his eyes, focussing his mind on Helge and her kitchen, that oasis of warmth waiting for him in this bleakest, darkest of nights. But he’d no idea how to get there. The hill to The Anchorage was hidden from him and soon he was too tired to walk, too tired to think straight, and he slipped from the wall against which he’d put out his hand to brace himself, huddling into a crouch on the unknown street, the rain tip-toeing down the shop-window opposite him as he wished himself safe inside, behind its glass, cut off from the wet and the horrendous turn the world had taken against him. He didn’t think it possible that he could have slept but he did, and when he opened his eyes again a sliver of dawn had begun to climb into the sky, just enough for the shadows behind the glass of the shop windows opposite to take form. He saw hams peppered and hanging, sausages black and curled and speckled with fat, dusted with white mould. They reminded him of dead things and Philbert retched and spat before hauling himself to standing, moving off slowly, ­following the gutters that ran along the edge of the street, ­tangling his feet in its muck. His throat was tight, his face aching with unspilled tears. All Philbert wanted was to curl up in that wide, white bed at Helge’s, knowing Helge was down in her kitchen cooking up splendiferous wonders waiting to be piled onto plates, and that Kwert and Ullendorf were still in Ullendorf’s study, watching the cells from Philbert’s head growing wildly in their little dishes, wanted the solidity and warmth and companion­ship of Kroonk at his side, wanted Hermann to be alive again and be there to tell him that everything would all be alright.

The sun rose a fraction in the sky and Philbert’s eye caught a patch of gold shivering in the gloom, a shine of brass, an edge of red, and he slowed down, stopped and took a couple of steps back. He held his sleeve against his nose to catch the drips and then slowly crossed the street he’d been walking down and was up against the window, hands a visor across his eyes as he tried to see more clearly what was inside. And what was inside was the Uhrmacher’s clock with its six sides of glass, the very same one – or one the twin of it – that he’d seen on the stall of Zacharias Holzhauer at Dortmund, the man who was companion to the Turk. Philbert fingered Hermann’s gold ring beneath his shirt that the Turk had delivered to him, and made a decision: no more running not knowing his direction. Against all the odds Philbert had seen something he recognised, and here he would stay, for if one of the Uhrmacher’s clocks was really in that shop window then maybe the shop owner knew the Turk and would look kindly on him, tell him the way back to The Anchorage and Helge.

Philbert stood his vigil, unaware he’d fallen asleep in the shop’s doorway until woken a half hour later by a hard kick, followed by the unpleasant sensation of wet fur rubbing against his face.

‘What you do here, boy? You not know it is ’gainst the law to go sleep in people’s doors? Geht! Gehen Sie! Go way!’

Two more kicks had Philbert scrambling to his feet.

‘Ayiee! Your head look bad! You have been in fight I think. You find a doctor before it go bang.’

Philbert moved to one side as the girl with the big boots fumbled in her skirts for a key. She was a few years older than Philbert, maybe thirteen or so, wrapped in a cat-hair-covered shawl with a shabby looking tabby on one shoulder and a little ginger wrapped like a tiny stole about the back of her neck. Philbert blinked and took a few moments to gather himself.

‘I’m looking for the Clockmaker,’ he said, his voice a little indistinct, his mouth desperate for a rinse of water, a rub of mint leaves, but he managed to catch the girl’s attention by ­tapping at the glass behind which the clock sat shiny on its box. ‘Der Uhrmacher,’ he tried again, ‘or the Turk.’

The key the girl was fiddling in the lock stopped, and she turned her dark eyes towards Philbert, taking in his wet and bedraggled appearance and the lump of his taupe.

‘The Turk?’ Philbert repeated desperately. ‘Is he here? Or do you know where I can find him?’

It’s an odd truism that coincidence doesn’t exist for the young when it seems the natural way of things, the world fitting together like it should, and yet that same coincidence – when you’re older and understand the odds against it – sends a shiver down your spine no matter how well explained by one fact or another, that it’s no coincidence at all, just a line of logic locking one part of your life to another. Like the fact that the Clock-maker and the Turk had storehouses up and down the Rhein, outposts peopled by subsets of their families from where they could collect or store their goods; like the fact that Ullendorf had heard of Philbert and sought him out and hadn’t been in Finzeln by happenchance after all, that in fact he’d learned of Philbert right here in Lengerrborn where the Turk and the Clockmaker had one of their bases, even frequenting the Westphal Club where they’d mentioned Philbert’s head.

Neither Philbert nor this girl with her cats knew any of this.

‘You know Abdal Bey?’ the girl asked of Philbert, looking at him with a curiosity she’d previously lacked, seeing only then a raggedy boy taking a kip from the rain in her shop’s doorway.

‘Eröglu Erivan Abdal Bey,’ Philbert nodded enthusiastically, ‘and Zacharias Holzhauer, the clockmaker,’ he added for good measure.

The girl looked the boy up and down. She didn’t disguise the fact of her looking mostly at his head, for she could guess this was the boy in the tale told her by the Turk earlier that year about the man who’d chosen to take a dive off a bridge. Philbert was about to speak again, try to explain about the Westphal Club and what had happened, but the girl turned away.

‘Enough,’ she said, swinging the shop door open, jingling the bell as she pushed it far as it could go. ‘Poor thing’s hungry,’ she added, disentangling herself from the tabby. She beckoned Philbert in behind her, making him sit on a stool by the counter before closing the door and put out some food for her kittens before speaking again.

‘The Turk,’ she said then. ‘Very kind to me. My friend’s ­cousin’s cousin. Give me job looking after this place. And I think you the boy the Big Doctor has up the hill, but I already been to bakery and hear bad things happen in town. Best you get back to your friends.’

Philbert nodded. He wasn’t surprised that everybody already knew about what had happened at the Westphal – Lengerrborn was a small place, and gunshots ringing through the night could not have been ignored – but he was surprised and a little perturbed that everybody, or at least this girl, knew he was biding up at The Anchorage, for never in all the time he’d been there had either he or Kwert strayed away from Ullendorf’s home.

‘You look for the doctor?’ the girl was speaking again, fussing about her kittens, checking till and counter. ‘His house up top the hill. Look,’ she said, directing Philbert’s gaze out of the window, past the small glass clock that sat upon its velvet stand, its little cogs ticking out every second followed by the next, for all to see.

‘Up there,’ the girl pointed, and as she did so her shawl ­loosened, tumbling the little ginger kitten to the ground. It made a pitiful squeal as it fell and Philbert scooped it up, the girl taking it from him with a smile that brought her face alive. Philbert looked away and out of the window where she’d pointed and, now that morning was truly established, he could see there indeed was the hill and the little track winding its way up through the cypresses, and Philbert was so relieved he jumped down from his perch, thanking the girl and taking his leave, quitting the shop’s door on a run.

The girl dipped her chin and carried on with her morning as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all.