The Angel Maker (48 page)

Rex took it all in in three seconds. In those same three seconds he felt the earth opening up under his feet and dragging him down into the abyss. He wanted to scream, but couldn’t, because of the nausea. His stomach was on fire, as if it too was seething with thousands of flies trying to come out.

He threw up for the second time that day. He was bawling, too - for the first time in years. He felt like someone who has succumbed to a moment of insanity, and then realises what he’s done. As if he had done it all himself. The children in the jars. The woman on the floor. He was the one who had done it. He didn’t give Victor Hoppe a moment’s thought. He looked, and he saw only what he had done. He let it all sink in, as if to punish himself. And as he stared, sobbing all the while like a little kid, it occurred to him that what he was looking at must never be seen by anyone else. That the only way to reverse all of this was to erase it completely. All of it.

Then he did what he had wanted to do from the start. He twisted the lid off the first jar and poured out the contents. Over the woman. All of it. The formaldehyde, and with the formaldehyde, the corpse, which landed whence it had come. The flies flew up in a black, seething mass, only to settle down immediately, driven by their instinctive urge to procreate.

His urge too was instinctive. He was doing this for his own survival. He was conscious of it; and yet not quite conscious. Everything he did was deliberately thought out, yet largely unconscious in its execution.

The contents of the second and third jars followed those of the first. The children were being returned to the womb, as foetuses. He saved some of the formaldehyde in the third jar and used it to dribble a liquid trail to the doorway. Then he went back for some more chemicals, which he sprinkled all around the room. He knew that that quantity of chemicals, in that combination, was more than enough to wipe all of it from the face of the earth.

And all this time, as he was busy with these preparations, he never once wondered where Victor was, nor if he was close by. It didn’t matter.

Even as he performed his final deed, which was to erase everything and blow it sky-high, he wasn’t thinking of Victor. He was only thinking of himself. As he had always done, in fact.

11

The days when the villagers of Wolfheim used to make the pilgrimage to La Chapelle on foot were long gone. These days even the heavy statue of St Rita, which six men used to carry in procession on their shoulders, was left behind in the church, and the marching band, once twenty musicians and twenty instruments strong, had shrunk to just a drum and a tuba. The one annual tradition that was still kept, however, was the parish committee’s selection of a deserving burgher to carry the church standard in the procession of the Stations of the Cross. On Sunday, 21 May 1989, that honour had been reserved for Lothar Weber. He had been chosen because people felt he needed something to cheer him up after the loss of his son. At first he had turned it down, since he hadn’t really done anything to deserve it, but his wife had said, ‘Lothar, just do it. Gunther would be proud of you.’

And so he did it for Gunther; for, if truth be told, Lothar didn’t really like being the centre of attention.

First, at eleven o’clock, they celebrated Holy Mass. Father Kaisergruber asked St Rita to watch over the village and its inhabitants over the coming year, and protect it from the sort of calamity that had struck some of its inhabitants these past few months. The priest did not mention any names, but Lothar knew that he meant his family, amongst others. He took Vera’s hand in his, and kept it there for the entire service.

After Mass they drove to La Chapelle in a long motorcade. Almost every one of Wolfheim’s two hundred-odd burghers was in attendance, and as they assembled at the Calvary gate, people kept coming over to Lothar and patting him on the back to wish him good luck. It made him feel quite moved, actually.

At twelve o’clock on the dot everyone was in position and the pilgrimage was ready to start. Father Kaisergruber, carrying a large silver cross on a pole, was in front, and right behind him came Lothar Weber with the church standard, embroidered with the name of their village and a likeness of St Rita. Jacob Weinstein and Florent Keuning, each carrying a votive candle, fell in behind. The rest of the villagers formed two long lines, the eldest in front. Josef Zimmermann and some of the other elderly were in wheelchairs. Bringing up the rear was the two-man band: Jacques Meekers on tuba and René Moresnet with the marching drum.

Lothar felt a shudder go up his spine as Father Kaisergruber lifted the pole with the cross high in the air, which was the sign for the procession to begin. At the rear Jacques Meekers and René Moresnet began playing ‘You have called us, Lord’, as the rest of the parishioners started reciting the Our Father. The muttering of so many voices sounded to the standard bearer like the buzzing of a swarm of bees.

It was sweltering hot that afternoon, but the sun was already hidden behind looming clouds. The weather forecast had predicted a thunderstorm by nightfall.

When the procession drew to a halt at the first station, ‘Jesus condemned to death’, the beads of sweat were starting to drip down Lothar’s face. The banner was heavier than he’d expected and his Sunday suit was much too warm for this hot weather. But he did not own any other suit. It was the same suit he had worn at Gunther’s funeral.

‘We worship Thee, O Christ, and praise Thee,’ said Father Kaisergruber. The music had stopped.

‘Because by thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world,’ chorused the villagers.

‘My Jesus, I know that it was not only Pilate who condemned You to death,’ the priest began to read from a prayer book, ‘but my sins too have caused thy death . . .’

Lothar’s thoughts began to wander. He thought about his son Gunther, but also about that other son, the one who was coming, and who was supposed to look like Gunther. He still had his doubts. Just as in these past few months he’d never been able to come to terms with the fact that he was no longer a father, he now found it impossible to believe he would soon be a father again. His wife seemed to be feeling something already. He had seen her run her hand over her stomach when she was getting dressed, the way she used to do when she was expecting Gunther. According to Dr Hoppe, the embryos that had been transferred that morning would still have to implant themselves in the uterus in order for the pregnancy to take, but Lothar was almost certain that it had already happened. Maybe it would even be twins, or triplets. But even that thought didn’t yet invoke any paternal feeling in him. It would come, he supposed. He hoped.

The dull beat of the drum roused the standard bearer from his musings. The procession started up again. The villagers had already started mumbling the Our Father again. Lothar looked up at the sky, where grey clouds were accumulating. It didn’t look as if the thunderstorm was going to wait for nightfall.

At the eighth station, ‘Jesus comforts the weeping women’, he finally caught sight of his wife. He had tried to find her in the throng several times before, with no luck. She was staring dreamily into space and again he saw her putting her hand on her stomach. Oh yes, she was pregnant all right.

‘Give me the strength,’ he heard Father Kaisergruber read, ‘to forget my own grief so that I may comfort others.’

Well put, he thought, and when his wife happened to look his way at that very moment, he felt a shudder go up his spine for the second time that afternoon. He smiled at her and she smiled back. Then she gave him a curt nod, as if to say he was doing great, and that gave him the strength to march on with pride, his back straight and his nose in the air, as if suddenly the church standard didn’t weigh a thing.

Forty-five minutes later the procession arrived at the eleventh station: ‘Jesus is crucified’. Lothar stared at the relief sculpture. Even though the figures were carved of white stone and were relatively small, they seemed very lifelike. It was almost as if they were just taking a break, before springing into action. The emotion in the faces, especially, was strikingly real. The haughty judges, the grieving women, the dutiful workmen wielding hammers, and, finally, Jesus himself, stoically allowing himself to be nailed to the cross.

‘Patiently didst Thou bear this suffering,’ read the priest.

Lothar tried to find his wife again, but did not spot her this time. He would see her later, presumably, when they arrived at the clearing in front of the twelfth station. That was always a wonderful moment - not only because the procession was nearly finished, but also because it was such an impressive sight, every time. After walking the eleven stations along a narrow, winding path, hemmed in by towering trees, you suddenly came into this enormous, wide open space. It was truly as if the heavens had parted and great shafts of light came pouring down on you. Lothar also found the twelfth station’s statues awe-inspiring. Those seven life-size figures on the hill, with Jesus on the cross in the middle, and the two murderers on his left and right hand. Those statues too were lifelike; as real as flesh and blood. They seemed so real that he always found himself wondering how long they’d be able to stick it out up there on that cross.

‘We worship Thee, O Christ, and praise Thee,’ said Father Kaisergruber. The prayer of the eleventh station was coming to an end.

‘Because by thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world,’ said the villagers.

The procession started up again. The two-man band began playing ‘Lord, grant us your peace’. Lothar took a deep breath and lifted the standard even higher in the air. He glanced over his shoulder, and catching sight of Florent Keuning, nodded at him. The handyman gave him the thumbs-up. For the first time in his life, Lothar felt truly supported by everyone, and it made him feel good.

Close on Father Kaisergruber’s heels, he turned the last corner and suddenly found himself in the large empty clearing. The explosion of light he had been expecting, however, was muted by a menacing, inky cloud that obscured the sun. But the second, perhaps even greater disappointment came when, shuffling forward, he raised his eyes to look at the hill where the twelfth station was depicted. Two of the statues were gone! He noticed this immediately, for it was the two murderers that were missing. They were no longer there, nailed to the cross; only Jesus remained. Lothar glanced over his shoulder at Florent Keuning, whose blood was draining from his face until he was as pale as the statue of Jesus on the cross. Turning his head forward again and walking on, Lothar suddenly heard muttering behind him, soon followed by the first exclamations. Women’s shouts, especially. Screams. And then he too saw it, like a bolt from the blue. And he heard it as well. Everyone heard it. And at that very moment, big fat raindrops began to fall.

 

Father Kaisergruber knew that Jesus and the two murderers would not be displayed on their crosses this year. The sandstone sculptures had grown porous and were threatening to come loose. That was why the Clare Sisters had had them taken down and had commissioned a sculptor from La Chapelle to make three new statues, of bronze this time. The four remaining sandstone figures, at the foot of the cross, were still in place: Mary, Mary Magdalene, John and the Roman soldier. But he didn’t know that one of the statues had already been finished, and seemed to have been reinstalled. It was the first thing he saw when, at the head of the procession, he came out into the clearing before the twelfth-station grotto. It was a rather extraordinary sculpture - astonishingly lifelike. But it wasn’t made of bronze. If it had been, it would have been a green or brown cast. This sculpture had to be sandstone again. Its pallor was sharply set off against the black clouds that had gathered above the hill. It was an imposing sight.

Slowly Father Kaisergruber took several steps forward. So realistic! The sculptor had done his best to make Jesus as true to life as possible. He could tell from the wound in his side, where Jesus had been stabbed by a Roman soldier’s spear. It actually looked like a gaping wound. The sculptor had even daubed it with red paint, to enhance the effect. The same red had also been used on the flesh wounds, where the hands and feet were nailed to the cross. And the sculptor had made Jesus’ hair and beard almost the same shade of red, if of a slightly lighter hue. That was rather surprising. Artistic licence, he thought - but a split second later, the truth began to dawn on him. He refused to believe it at first, even though he was seeing it with his own two eyes. But then he heard muttering behind him, and then a name being yelled out, over and over. In that instant, as he heard the screams behind him, he saw the head on the cross lift up and the eyes open for a second, and those eyes looking at him, looking right through him. And then he heard a voice, and the voice was unmistakable: ‘It is finished!’

Father Kaisergruber felt as if someone had stabbed him with a spear, not once, but a thousand times; but the worst was yet to come. The head on the cross sank down, down, and as the head sank, so did the body bend forward, farther and farther. So far that the hands began to tear free of the nails, ever so slowly, sinew by sinew, bone by bone, and once they were free, everything happened very quickly. The body pitched forward in one smooth arc. The feet were ripped from the nail that held them, and then there was nothing to keep the body up there. It tumbled all the way down the hill, landing with a thud between the railings and the altar grotto.

Father Kaisergruber felt everything go dark before his eyes. He felt dizzy. Looking behind him, he saw the procession’s straight line falling apart: a couple of women had fainted. As he looked, several others collapsed. He recognised Vera Weber among them. Then the thunderstorm broke overhead. And to him that was, just possibly, the worst thing of all.

 

All the people of Wolfheim were convinced that the woman had done it - that she was the one responsible. She had drugged Dr Hoppe and nailed him to the cross. To do that required brute strength, of course, but the woman was well built. Anyone who’d set eyes on her could tell you that. But she must have murdered the children first - or maybe later. One or the other. Whatever the case, after nailing the doctor to the cross, she had returned to the house, set fire to it, and then she’d committed suicide. So: first she had drugged the doctor, then she had drugged the children or else killed them, then nailed the doctor to the cross, then gone back, set the house on fire and killed herself. In that order. That was how it must have happened. That was what the villagers told the police. The woman was responsible for the whole thing.