Part 36 (2/2)

Herr Ludvigssen was wearing a new suit of neat brown twill, his s.h.i.+rt was clean, his collar stiff with starch, his tie was a puffy red velvet bow. When drunk, the man had been rude and intractable, but now he was as meek as a puppy, and he was sober.

'The papers, sir. I was very worried. That's why I reported the theft.'

Had he chosen to confide in me because I was working for the French? He was the first Prussian to behave in such a manner. All the others had been terrified at the thought of talking to a man in my position.

Before I could ask him what had been taken, he began to speak again.

'I thought that you'd been sent by them . . . My benefactors,' he said, a twisted expression of resentment on his face.

'Who are you talking of?' I asked him.

'The people who supervise the archive nowadays.'

'I thought the University ran it?'

'Oh no, sir. Not anymore. The Albertina would have closed the place down,' he continued. 'But then . . . they stepped in at the eleventh hour. They paid for the furniture, and the shelves, and the desks, but . . .'

'But what?'

'They are strict, sir. Mighty strict. Consider this a mausoleum, they said. And dress the part. The archive must be worthy of the man that it enshrines.' An embarra.s.sed smile appeared on his face, and he giggled quietly to himself. 'Sometimes, when I am down here on my own, I have the notion Kant himself has come in through that door, sir. I get the feeling he is watching me. He is a malevolent presence, sir. A threat, I can a.s.sure you.'

He spoke as if he lived in a permanent state of terror.

'Professor Kant would be gratified to see the splendid work that you have done,' I said, trying to put him at his ease. 'Who are these benefactors, anyway?'

His mouth opened and closed, like a carp out of water.

'The idolaters of Kant,' he whispered, leaning closer. 'For so I call them.'

Vulpius had used a similar expression about himself when stopped and questioned in the street by the night watchman. 'I am a follower of Kant,' he had said. Had Rickert sent me to the right place, after all?

'Have you ever met these people?' I asked him.

Ludvigssen clasped his hands together. 'Never, sir.'

'Surely, if they pay your salary, someone brings it.'

He shook his head, and breathed in noisily. 'Oh no, sir. I am paid through the Albertina Secretariat,' he replied. 'That's not changed, though everything else has. Including the notes I get when I commit an error, or put a book back in the wrong place. Arrive a minute late, or close too soon, an envelope turns up.'

'Well, somebody must bring those,' I suggested.

Ludvigssen shook his head. 'I find them on my desk. I've no idea who brings them here. I've asked the watchman on the gate, but he's got no idea, either. It's almost as if the fog had delivered them.'

Ludvigssen s.h.i.+vered as if the temperature had suddenly dropped.

'Were these letters signed?' I asked, wondering whether there might be some rational explanation, an academic committee, perhaps, that had been formed to oversee the daily running of the archive.

'Not signed, as such,' he said mysteriously.

'May I see them?' I asked.

Ludvigssen looked once again beyond my shoulder to the door. 'You are a magistrate, aren't you, sir? Working for the French, I mean?' he said. His eyes flashed bright with fright. 'They haven't sent you here to test me, have they?'

'I am employed by General Malaport, as I told you,' I answered firmly, 'and I have come here on his business. Now, let me see these letters, if you will.'

He blinked nervously, as if uncertain whether the greatest danger lay in me, or in the unseen watchers. Then, with a deep sigh, he crossed the room and sat himself down behind his desk, reaching down to open the bottom drawer.

As he came up again, holding a sheet of paper, there was something odd in his way of managing it. He had laid the folded paper flat in the palm of his left hand, and he held it closed with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. 'Open it as if you were lifting up a lid,' he said, offering the paper to me. 'That's right, sir. Just hold it in the same way I am holding it.'

I did as I was told, then raised the top half carefully. There was red wax all around the edges, as if the paper had been sealed like a packet, as if it had once contained something more than words alone.

OFFENCE, I read the large letters. In smaller letters: Archive closed one hour early on 17th inst. You were seen drinking beer in the Mermaid Tavern. s.h.i.+rt collar dirty. It has been noted that the frontispiece of the Westphalia edition has been consumed by worms.

WARNING: Let this be the last time!

There was neither a date, nor a signature.

Where the signature ought to have been, there was a large bluebottle.

The insect had been squashed, then pressed down hard, leaving the imprint of a finger in the mulch. Fluids had stained a dull brown spot. The crushed contents of the thorax had attached themselves like glue to the paper. As the paper trembled in my hand, a fragment of the wing detached itself and caught against my thumb.

'This was no accident, I think.' I folded the paper up, and pinched it closed.

'Indeed,' he said, putting the note away, taking out another one, handing it to me in the same curious manner.

I repeated the operation.

OFFENCE: Preface to Critique of Pure Reason [1787 Riga edition] incorrectly returned to the shelves containing Social Essays.

Late in opening 22nd inst.

WARNING: This is the second time that books have been misplaced!

No fly had been squashed on the paper. It was a spider this time. A large, long-legged spider, which had been crushed with a thumb, and spread across the page like strawberry jam.

I closed it up, and gave it back.

'Are these accusations justified?' I asked, closing the letter, handing it back.

'They were, sir,' Ludvigssen admitted. 'I have altered my ways. Stopped drinking, for a start.'

'Would the idolaters do what those crushed insects seem to suggest?'

It was cold down there, despite the oppressive heat of summer out in the streets, but a drop of sweat rolled down Ludvigssen's nose and splashed on the surface of his desk.

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