The String Diaries (6 page)

Fight or flee.

‘You’re right, she needs to sleep in a proper bed.’ Hannah finished her tea and placed the mug on the counter. ‘But I don’t want her waking up alone. Not after all this. Can you show me around upstairs? There must be a master bedroom.’

‘Front of the house.’

‘Then she can sleep in there with me.’

Sebastien nodded, wincing as he pulled himself out of the armchair. He clanked his mug down on the counter next to hers.

Hannah went to the sofa and knelt at Nate’s side. He was still asleep, his pallor as awful and as frightening as when she had first turned on the Discovery’s overhead light. He breathed in shallow spasms. She wanted to check under the pads to see if the bleeding had stopped, but Sebastien had warned her not to disturb the bindings. She kissed the top of his head and smoothed his hair.

The Maglite was by the fireplace where she had left it. Hannah picked it up. Even though Sebastien had managed to start the generator and they had electricity to power the lights, she found the solid heft of its aluminium casing reassuring. ‘Let’s go and check out upstairs,’ she said.

Sebastien turned to the dog and gestured in Nate’s direction. ‘Stay here. Keep watch.’ Moses pricked up an ear. His tongue lolled out of his mouth and he panted agreement.

In the hallway, Sebastien flipped the light switch. A frosted bulb lit up a chandelier hung with dust-coated crystal. The light cast an eerie patina of shapes on to wallpaper lifting at its seams and brown with age. A door opposite the kitchen led to a dark living room. She could see the outlines of old furniture. Chill air leached from the doorway. Further down the hall a second door, this one closed, concealed what she presumed was a dining room.

She followed Sebastien to the front door. He turned and led her up the stairs, wooden treads creaking beneath his feet. The passageway grew murkier as they ascended, the light from the downstairs hall unable to banish the shadows from the upper level of the house.

They came to a landing and a tall chest of drawers. A display case stood upon it, the front smeared with grime. Inside, the glass eyes of a stuffed peregrine falcon watched her. The specimen was pitiful with age, its feathers brittle, some of them missing. A stain of brown had spread across the front of its chest. She vowed to get rid of it first thing in the morning.

Off to their right, the stairs rose again. Sebastien went first and they arrived at a long passageway. He flicked on a light switch. The ceiling bulb, enclosed in a fabric shade, remained dark. He toggled the switch back and forth and shrugged. ‘Must have blown. Come on, this way.’

At the end of the hallway he opened a door and turned on another light. She stepped into a large bathroom. In one corner stood a cold and uninviting roll-top, a verdigris stain around the plughole. A rusted metal shower hose snaked up from the mixer unit, its head hanging limp from a bracket, as if its neck had been broken. The shower curtain was spotted with black mould. On the basin next to the toilet, a plastic tub contained a dried brown sliver of soap.

‘Probably could do with a once-over,’ Sebastien muttered.

‘You don’t say.’

‘We can spruce it up a bit tomorrow. Come on, I’ll show you the master bedroom.’

‘I can’t wait.’

He indicated a door and she poked her head inside. The room was huge, two tall sash windows overlooking the driveway below. The wind was fiercer up here, howling as it battered itself against the walls. Sebastien reached for the bedroom light switch but she knocked his hand away. ‘Don’t. We’re more exposed on this side of the house. Let me close those curtains first.’

‘As you wish.’

‘I know it’s unlikely, but I’d feel better if I knew no one could see inside.’

‘Can’t blame you for that.’

Hannah went to the heavy drapes and pulled them across the windows, flinching at the feel of the mildewed cloth. The house needed a good blast of heat to chase out the damp.

Once she had shut away the sounds of the storm, Sebastien turned on the light. An ancient four-poster bed rested against the wall opposite the windows. A crimson bedspread covered it. Two mahogany wardrobes, with carved crests and ornate corbels, stood against the far wall. A dressing table and chair, in the same Renaissance style, completed the room’s furniture.

Between the two wardrobes, a stone fireplace surrounded a grate with logs, kindling and a box of matches. A further supply of wood had been stacked in a basket on the hearth. ‘Did you do that?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘I’ll get it started for you.’

‘No, I can manage.’ She moved to the grate, struck a match and quickly had a fire going. ‘You can turn the light off now.’ Sebastien obliged. Lit only by the glow of the flames dancing around the logs, the room felt a fraction more welcoming.

Hannah sat on the corner of the bed. ‘How did you meet my father?’

Fetching the chair from the dressing table, Sebastien lowered himself down on to it. He rubbed the small tattoo on his wrist. ‘Charles tracked down a Council contact in Geneva. The Council selected me to go and meet him. We thought your father might be one of
them
at first. I was sent to discover the truth.’

‘The Eleni Council?’

‘The same.’

‘You’re Eleni?’

‘Was. No longer.’

‘What happened?’

He opened his hands. Studied the veins criss-crossing the backs of them. ‘I got old. Needed to find some peace. And I didn’t like the way things were going. The direction the Council was taking, I mean. There was a new generation and the whole thing was getting a lot more militant. Losing its way, I thought. Then again, I can’t deny that I’ve grown a lot less tolerant than I once was. So maybe it was just me that changed.’

‘What brought you here?’

Sebastien lifted his head and met her gaze. Emerald fireworks glittered in his eyes, and she thought she detected great sadness in them, a loneliness so stark that it frightened her. ‘What I told you was true. I live here now. When your father was scoping out locations for his hideaways years ago, I came here with him. This was his first, you know. It just seemed a beautiful area, what with the mountains, the solitude. When he bought Llyn Gwyr, I found another place up for sale a few miles west. I’ve been here ever since.’

‘Alone?’

‘There’s Moses.’

‘A dog.’

‘Better company than some humans I’ve known.’

‘Which breed is he?’

‘Vizsla. An old Hungarian hunting breed.’

‘Hungarian?’ she asked, eyebrows arching.

Sebastien smiled. ‘They’re not just great at tracking game, either.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps that’s what they were bred for, back in those days. Nobody knows for sure. You’ll find most Eleni keep them.’

‘Tell me about the tattoo.’

His fingers moved back to the blue symbol on his wrist and he smoothed away the wrinkles. ‘The Imperial Eagle. It used to be the heraldic animal of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And yet these days they’re all but extinct. All Council members have the bird’s head marked on them. Higher ranks receive more of it.’

‘You have the whole silhouette.’

‘Yes. I was
signeur
when I left.’

She frowned. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘You know what that means?’

‘I know about the Eleni from what my mother told me, and from the snippets my father shared when he was in the mood. And I know that the
signeur
is one of the three chairs. And traditionally the holding seat for the
Presidente
.’

He nodded. ‘Whereas you look at me and see an old hermit with bad manners and creaking joints.’

‘No, I—’ She paused, then shrugged. ‘Fair enough. Yes, I do.’

He cackled. ‘We’ll get along fine, you and me.’

‘We’d better. I’m pretty short on friends right now.’

Sebastien put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Hannah found herself absurdly grateful for his touch. ‘I’m not the only one,’ he told her. ‘But you can rely on me to do what I can to protect you.’

‘He’s not really after me. He’s after one of those two downstairs.’

‘I know. And . . .’ He hesitated. Appeared to consider something. ‘We’ll work together to stop that happening.’

She nodded, warmed by his reassurances and quiet humanity. ‘You’re a good man, Sebastien.’

He withdrew his hand and stood up, crossing the room to the door. Stepping out on to the landing, he peered over the rail to the stairs below. Satisfied, he walked back into the room and closed the door behind him. He returned to the bed and sat down opposite her, his voice barely a whisper. ‘Tell me again exactly what happened when you left Charles tonight.’

The seriousness of his expression, and the care he had taken to ensure their privacy, sent fear crawling like a rash across her skin. She felt her heart accelerate in her chest. ‘I already did.’

‘Just do it.’

After the gentleness he had displayed moments earlier, his sudden bluntness jarred.

‘Dad called me into his study. He was distressed, really paranoid. He said Jakab was already at the house. That he’d supplanted one of the staff. He told me and Nate to take Leah and leave.’

‘Keep your voice down. Then what happened?’

‘Leah was playing outside. Nate went to pack a bag and I grabbed her from the garden. I heard shots. I dialled Nate on the phone.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I was right around the other side of the house. It’s a big estate. Stables, the works. I didn’t want to bring Leah out to the front unless I knew what was happening.’

‘And Nate answered.’

‘He told me to get Leah into the car, to reverse it up to the side of the house. I’ve never been so scared. I didn’t know what was happening. I even considered driving away with Leah there and then. Hated myself for that. But I reversed up and Nate limped out.’

‘Did he say what happened?’

‘Just that there had been a fight, and that he’d been stabbed. I think he was trying to protect me, trying to stop me from panicking too much.’

‘And you think Nate shot Jakab.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you see anyone else?’

‘No.’

‘No one else at all?’

‘No. I—’

‘Hannah, listen to me very carefully.’ Sebastien took both her hands into his. ‘Have you validated Nate since he got into the car with you?’

‘No, I—’

She stopped. Suddenly knew why he had gone to the landing. Why he had closed the door. Why he was whispering.

Horror embraced her, thrusting its talons deep. ‘Oh my God, no,’ she said.

C
HAPTER
6

Gödöllö, Hungary

1873

Lukács was sitting in the toolshed playing with the mole rat when he heard his father calling his name.

He knew why József wanted him. He also knew, without any doubt, that he had no chance of escape. Tomorrow’s journey loomed with a dark inevitability; Lukács could no more halt the events lined up before him than he could halt the clocks in his father’s workshop with a hopeful breath.

It did not make the thought any easier.

His first
végzet
night. One of four over the coming months that would symbolise his entry into adulthood. A night of celebration, of discovery, of girls flush-faced with the excitement of reaching womanhood.

If,
he reflected, he had been born whole like his brothers, instead of bringing them disgrace. Lukács suspected his own passage through
végzet
would be greeted with little enthusiasm by his peers.

On the sawdust floor of the toolshed, the mole rat lurched from left to right, dragging its shattered hind legs behind it. It had no eyes to speak of, testing the air with a wrinkled pink nose, the folds of which, his older brother assured him, resembled a woman’s vulva. He watched it quiver and twitch as the creature searched for an escape route. The comparison disgusted him. Typical of Jani.

Sensing open space behind it, the mole rat turned and used its front paws to pull the rest of its body through the dust.

Lukács blocked its progress with a stick.

‘Here he is!’

Two figures had appeared in the doorway, one tall and broad, the other a child. Summer sun silhouetted them but he knew their shape, recognised the voice that had spoken. The taller one ducked inside the shed, walked over and stared down at Lukács, hands on hips. ‘Well, well. What’s the saying? A bad penny always turns up.’

‘Go away, Jani.’

‘Can’t you hear father calling you?’ Jani looked round to little Izsák, who was still peering around the door jamb. ‘So he’s deaf now as well. Our brother is truly blessed.’

‘I’m not deaf.’

Jani hunched down and stared into Lukács’s face. ‘Then why do you linger here like a disobedient pup?’

‘He’ll find me soon enough.’

‘Yes, he will. When he does, he’s going to be angry with you for ignoring him. Perhaps you’ll get a whipping. Although probably not today. He needs his runt as pliable as possible if he’s any chance of getting rid of him at the
végzet
.
Pity there isn’t a runt’s
végzet
,
eh, pup?’

Lukács said nothing in reply. To answer Jani too readily would incite violence. Not that he particularly cared.

His brother looked down at the struggling mole rat. They both watched as it raised its vulva-like snout and sniffed the air. As if finding something distasteful in Jani’s presence, the rodent turned away.

‘Appropriate pet for you,’ Jani sneered. ‘Listen to me, runt. Tomorrow night, at your
végzet
,
if any one of them asks, you don’t tell them about your brothers. You don’t
have
any brothers. Understand?’

Lukács scowled.

‘You know no one called Balázs Jani. I’m not having my name associated with a cripple.’

‘He’s not a cripple, Jani.’ Izsák stepped into the toolshed. The boy only reached Jani’s chest in height; he kept a careful distance.

‘You shut up, ’Sák,’ Jani spat. He turned back to Lukács. ‘You don’t mention any brothers. You especially don’t talk to any girls from the Zsinka family. If you’re as deaf as you seem, you won’t have a problem acting mute, will you? Understand?’

He shrugged.

Jani snatched a handful of his hair and yanked his head back. ‘I said do you understand?’

‘Leave him alone!’ Izsák took another step towards them.

Lukács refused to struggle in his brother’s grip. ‘Fine, Jani. No mention of brothers. And I won’t talk to any Zsinka whores, I promise.’

He heard Izsák snigger. Before he even saw it coming, he felt Jani’s fist slam into his cheek. The blow knocked him sprawling. Pain bloomed in his face but he controlled it, pressing his lips together and raising his head, daring Jani to strike him again.

‘Remember what I said, runt.’ His brother cracked his knuckles and turned for the door. ‘I’m fetching Father.’

Once Jani had gone, Izsák scampered over. ‘Does it hurt very much?’ he asked.

Lukács laughed. The pain of his lacerated cheek was nothing compared to the sting of his older brother’s words. The truth of them drew blood from wounds that had festered in him as long as he could remember, a litany of individual scars: an older brother so ashamed of him that he would deny his existence; a father who cared only for the old traditions and who paid scarce attention to him now that their mother had gone; a younger brother too immature to understand the deeper currents that ran within their family, and whose scorn would arrive as surely as the next harvest the instant he was old enough to understand.

‘I’m fine, Izsák.’

‘He’s in love with the older Zsinka girl. But she’s not as keen. That’s why he’s so cross.’

‘She sounds like a wise girl.’

Izsák sniggered. ‘I hear she’s a dirty
kurvá
.’

‘Hey! Where did you hear words like that?’

‘It’s what I heard father calling her. He says all the Zsinkas are sluts.’

Lukács grinned at that, until a new silhouette appeared in the doorway. He flinched when he heard his father’s cough, deep and low.

‘Izsák, leave us. I want to talk to your brother.’

‘Yes, Papa.’ Flashing Lukács a sympathetic glance, the boy skipped outside.

His father stood in the doorway for a time before he stepped over the threshold. Pulling a wooden stool from underneath a workbench, he dusted it down and sat his frame upon it. He smelled of old tobacco and mint oil.

Riffling through the pocket of his leather waistcoat, Balázs József pulled out a clay pipe and pushed it into his mouth. The spark of a match illuminated an oiled mustache and thoughtful, heavyset eyes. ‘Dark in here.’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that why you like it?’

‘Don’t know. Maybe.’

Velvet threads of smoke drifted across the shed, carrying scents of dried apple and scorched paper. ‘Heard what your brother said.’

‘It’s what you all think. At least he’s honest.’

‘He’ll get my belt later.’

In between them, the mole rat hesitated in its explorations, its nose trembling as it tested the air, hunting for options.

Lukács glanced up from the rodent and into his father’s face. Józse
f
’s features had not lost any of their strength as he had aged. His face rarely betrayed emotion, yet now Lukács detected a softening. Was that pity? He wanted none of that. Certainly not from his father. It was partly his seed, after all, that was responsible for Lukács’s condition.

József leaned forward. ‘Your cheek is cut. We cannot have that. You need to stop the bleeding.’

‘It hurts to make it stop.’

‘Do as I say. I will not have you looking like that tomorrow.’

Reluctantly, Lukács focused on the throbbing in his face. As he had been instructed many times before, he tried to empty his mind of the distractions of his environment, tried to ignore the pressure of his father’s gaze. Instead, he concentrated on the sensation of the swelling, the bright lance of pain where Jani’s knuckles had split his skin. Gritting his teeth, he forced the muscles of his cheek to press together, bracing himself as the swelling dissipated through the right side of his face.

‘Relax, boy. You’re too tense.’

He realised he was holding his breath. Tears brimmed in his eyes as the line of the cut flared with white-hot heat and then, as with the swelling, began to subside.

‘Now wipe off the blood.’

Lukács complied, looking at the smudge of crimson on the back of his hand.

József inhaled smoke, sighed. ‘None of this comes naturally to you, does it?’

He shook his head.

‘I swear, Lukács, if I knew how to help you in this . . .’ His father reached out a hand and tilted his son’s face up to meet his own. ‘Show me your eyes. Look into mine.’

Unwillingly, Lukács obeyed. His father’s eyes seemed, at first, as they always did: a flat and unremarkable grey. But as he watched, Lukács began to notice changes. Striations of green appeared, flecks of indigo. The streaks of colour began to evolve and diversify, like diamonds rising and sinking in a twilight lake, a prismatic display of pigments that mesmerised Lukács with their range and beauty. Engulfed, he felt the confines of the shed fade as his father’s eyes became his universe. He swam in an effervescent sea glittering with pinpricks of turquoise and jade, copper and gold, on a rising wave where sequins and rubies and emeralds tumbled and danced in the surf.

At the centre of all this, József’s pupils gaped like forsaken voids into which Lukács would flounder if he did not pull himself away: yawning maws, reaching for him with serrated grins the colour of charcoal. Beauty and horror; at first seductive and then threatening. Did he fear what lurked inside the darkness of his father’s eyes? Or did he fear the
absence
of what resided there?

Lukács blinked, breaking the spell. He knew his own eyes were dull, lifeless – the colour of river mud in comparison. And for a fleeting moment he was glad.

Suddenly he found his voice. ‘Maybe another year, maybe if we waited. We could go to the
végzet
next summer. Maybe I will have learned by then.’ He saw his father begin to shake his head, but he pressed on. ‘Or maybe we could just forget about the
végzet
altogether. I could stay here with you, helping you in the workshop. You know I’ve become more accurate with the instruments. I’ve done all the bevelling over the last month and—’

‘
Enough
, Lukács! I have heard
enough
! You will
not
disgrace me. Nor your mother’s memory.’ His father breathed deep, swallowed his anger. ‘You will go to the
végzet
. You will do your best. We will see what happens. There are qualities in you that any sensible girl should find attractive. I will not allow you – a Balázs – to carry the shame of a
kirekesztett
. Now, I want you inside the house within the hour. We have preparations to make. At noon tomorrow we leave.’

Standing, his father exhaled a plume of pipe smoke. At the doorway, he paused. ‘You know, Lukács, your brother Jani might seem cruel, but we all have an interest in your success. Think on that. You may not believe it, but the life of a
kirekesztett
is a curse, one that would weigh on you many score years from now. Trust me, son; it is not a path you wish to walk.’

With his father’s departure, the silence returned. Lukács watched the mole rat squirm and twist about in the dirt as it tried to manoeuvre its broken body.

We all have an interest in your success
.

That was really all they cared about. József professed a concern for his son’s life as an outsider, but it was empty sentiment. None of them cared a damn for
his
feelings – his fear, his absolute certainty – that tomorrow night would bring the first humiliations of many before the reality of that life presented itself anyway.

He saw no reason why he could not stay here, living a simple life in his father’s mansion, learning the skills of a horologist and moving about in the world free of the social burdens imposed on the
hosszú életek.
His father’s pride alone condemned him to this path.

Reaching for the mole rat, Lukács picked it up in his fist and studied it. The rodent struggled between his fingers, and he could feel its tiny bones moving under the thin grey fur of its coat. It was a repulsive creature, virtually blind from the skin that grew over its eyes to protect it as it burrowed through the earth. In many ways it reminded him of himself. He knew what it was like to have a sense partially formed.

His frustration blistered into anger. He tightened his grip around the animal. The mole rat thrashed, mewling a thin sound of distress. Lukács increased the pressure, watching it intently until a glutinous scarlet thread spurted from its mouth on to his fingers. Disgusted, furious, he squeezed harder, feeling the rodent’s bones cracking and collapsing under his hand. He flung its body across the shed where it hit the wooden boards with a wet slap.

Wiping his fingers clean of the mole rat’s fluids, Lukács realised just how long he had been sitting here. The sun had crept across the sky and now a single beam of light shone through the gap in the doorway. He held up his hand and looked at the shadow his fingers cast on the wall.

He rearranged them and the shadow became a mole rat, one twitching knuckle a perfect reproduction of the creature’s nose. Lukács made the shadow rat cavort and play for a moment, before he switched the arrangement of his fingers and the shadow rat morphed into the profile of a wolf. The wolf yawned and dissolved into a horse that bucked its head twice, and transformed into the silhouette of an eagle. The bird moved its head from side to side.

Lukács watched the eagle for a while, then shook out his fingers and made a deer, the top of its head smooth and antler-free. Taking a breath, he braced himself for the pain he knew would follow, and focused on the shadow animal. The deer twitched. Gradually, twin bumps appeared on its head. Lukács felt his teeth grind together as he concentrated. The knuckles of his hand felt like they were trapped in a vice. With an effort that made him cry out, the bumps on the deer’s head suddenly elongated and branched. Before his eyes, antlers grew up and out, developing individual tines. The pain was now unbearable, glass daggers slicing him from the tips of his fingers to his elbow.

On the wall, as if checking for potential predators, the deer raised its head and looked from left to right. Lukács gasped with exhaustion and the animal’s image collapsed. As he regained his breath, he contemplated the silhouette of his limp fingers, fingers that burned now as if touched by fire.