16. The Almost Violet Light

Despite the sun’s insistence, day became night as fast as a thief, silently, no corner unexplored, meticulously reconnoiting the territory at first, then faster so it could finish as soon as possible. But for a moment the light wavered on pale surfaces as if it still wanted to reveal and reflect, although it did not last; a very brief moment that no one would have noticed if it had not been precisely the light that made Katja see the sand fall from the garden wall, dissolve in water that erased the wall, leaving a hole without a single trace of anything having been there, showing her how Luduv could not be heard when he spoke quietly, at least with ears: a field of souls sowed with green stones that dissolved in water again, and arms and knives were lifted from the water with screaming, utter conflict, utter lies, utter wisdom from dreams, erosion, and the specter she was loath to see. Except that she was lost, captive of a merciless hand and distant voice: Katja belonged to two worlds and in both she was obliged to do the behest of other people, orders from Madame Helena in one world to which she was expressly indifferent but took pains to complete, and mandates from Luduv in the other world with her consent. As always things happened to her sight and hearing in the indecisive season with evasive winds and sun to evoke Luduv, leaning on a grainy wall or crouching at her side, yet despite this she kept polishing the mother-of-pearl handles of dessert knives with ashes moistened in olive oil: Luduv was saying why should you be afraid, you must go down, down deeper, confident all the way, I am here to help you rise but you have to go down, down, I can do nothing now, open the traps and let out the swarm, does the buzzing frighten you? No, it did not. The fragrant chamois went back and forth under prodigious fingers. Katja’s were long and slim, palms wide compared to those girl-like fingers, strong smooth hands, tight in the winter from the cold, unfortunately with split, peeling cuticles at times; Madame Helena wanted the nails cut square and kept clean, and Luduv made them sing, rubbing his own nails on them, like crickets, like cicadas; but fleshy and pink in summer, hands she paid no attention to when she heard sounds and Luduv held her in daydreams. And so the light left its watch and the sea of souls bellowed in a whirlpool and disappeared on the head of a pin. Katja wanted to call him, Luduv! but Wulda was watching. Although she was never sure what Wulda was watching.

Luduv was gone. Splendid was the afternoon voice that had changed, heard in the doorways of stores, on the steps of offices, on high at the seafront, and in the aura of trees that arose without warning; only an occasional cabinetmaker or gardener who cared for wood was tipped off, watching, catching a hint of the land of childhood in their veins, knowing that roots awoke impatiently with buds, sweet offspring driven by water. But inside the houses, where walls and partitions unfolded, inconvenient, full of crannies to hide love, meaning, and revenge, soft cushions that embraced the body, doorways that trembled in storms, stained-glass windows with rosettes and ribbons that colored light without destroying it, no one felt the wood or sand, and the absence of light or its waning was so different each day that it provoked arguments between the ladies of the house and maids; it was only the sign to light the lamps and say it is now too late for children to still play on the sidewalks of Scheller Street in front of doorways and windows and beneath the poor trees that had not lost the blackish coating of winter. Mothers called to nursemaids: that’s enough, it’s time for them to come in and wash, they’ve had enough fun, enough insisting and begging and promising, they’ve played enough games, bring them in, light the entryways, wash their noses and hands, change their shoes, comb their hair and give them clean kerchiefs; and the nursemaids obeyed.

In the moment of the almost violet light Miss Esther slowed her step, dressed in pure white without any color or jewelry or brooch or buckle or grace note to distract from the whiteness, returning to the house on Scheller Street thinking about the honest job of printer as the only treasure and even as a pretext to plan the impossible. But there was something more, something indistinct and nameless that shook when she cleaned out chests of drawers, rolled up the rug in her room in anticipation of summer, and bought a new piece of clothing and had to decide which old one it would replace; something that had happened in her home without a mother and with prayers, where her father dreamed and spoke both for pleasure and to tie her to that dream; something that she ought to recall and could not; something that at times seemed to have to do with austere, dark, almost bare rooms, with high ceilings and floors that creaked; something she had done or had tried to do. That was all: the memory became forgotten, forgotten since she was born, and like a strict taskmaster, it blocked her way. She could not force her way into the past, she could not look at it unless she wanted her flesh to become stone and salt, and no, not that. Memory had borders like countries, barriers, intricate passageways for which she did not know the password or she had lost it crossing one of these doorways and went astray, came to a stop in her own room in no way austere or cold or bare in the boardinghouse of Madame Helena Lundgren, everything blue, sky blue, snug and secure in winter, separated from the world up in the cold air, the colder the stronger to keep her from falling; windows open, the house, the street, the city, the world in summer a sounding box, echoing wall, mirroring water, singing landscape, golden frames for mysterious doors, decoy and disguise, and then she was helplessly weightless and no one fit where they belonged. Here the trail was lost, it was impossible to follow even the shadow of this suspicion about something that had perhaps never happened, which was not an event but an image on the polished surface of a door of a festive store and yet, yet; but now she did not know what she was trying to do with this venture and her shoeless white feet were taking her to the shadow, the moment, the insidious paw so silent as to be invisible, the night wrapping the bases of streetlights, night in the gutters and thresholds and in the jaws of gargoyles.