The Journey: Illustrated Edition (An Anna Kronberg Thriller) (29 page)

While we watched flames lap up paper, turning white into crumply black, I wondered whether solving a case always felt like dropping into a void.
 

‘Two weeks until Koch reports me to the
Berliner Tageblatt
.’ It almost felt like a vacation. ‘I want to see my father’s home once more.’
 

He looked at me, and I knew he understood. About one in two hundred mothers died during childbirth or soon thereafter. Infections took the greatest toll.

We found my father’s house occupied by strangers. There were no chickens in the garden, no one cutting wood in the workshop. The old cherry tree was but a stump.
 

I was shocked. Apparently, I hadn’t yet accepted that my father was gone. For a moment, I wished I had bought the property from the landlord, just to cling to a memory I wasn’t ready to give up. When we turned away from my childhood home, I had no wish to ever return.

(18)

Katherina invited us to stay with her. She appeared older; her skin had given in to the gravity of grief. She had lost my father shortly before their planned wedding.
 

She had a small room for us. Her six children were long scattered throughout the neighbourhood, five of them married and surrounded by swarms of offspring. She couldn’t understand my apprehension towards my own child, but she didn’t say a word.
What would your father think?
was written all over her face.

Sherlock and I talked little during these days. It felt much like the moment of inhaling a deep breath just before an earth-shattering scream.

My thoughts were with Moran and James, with the future of Europe, and the sheer mass of information Kinchin hadn’t shared with me. The night before our return to Berlin, I waited until Sherlock had fallen asleep. Then I dressed and made for the door.

‘May I accompany you?’
 

‘I doubt Moran knows where we are,’ I answered, a little annoyed he felt the urge to protect me even here. ‘But yes, if you wish.’

Unspeaking, he rose and dressed.

We walked to a clearing half a mile from the village, where I sat down in the cool grass, placed my hand on my swollen abdomen, and closed my eyes. I could almost see my father’s face now; it didn’t look friendly. If he were still alive, he would despise me for even thinking of casting out a newborn.
 

I thought of all the young ladies — trained to behave neatly, to have no wants other than to get married and be mothers, and all the young gentlemen — trained to see women as the lesser men. It was hard to imagine that my own child should be brought up the same way and grow into a woman or man like all others.

The dawn of September brought an abundance of falling stars. We watched the night sky, and only the stalling of breath spoke of our astonishment when bright silver streaked across the dark blue.

‘I’ve never seen the Milky Way in London,’ I said. ‘Too much soot in the air. The ancient Greeks believed that this was Hercules’ doing. He supposedly spilled his mother’s milk.’

The forest around us was vivid with life. Scratching of paws and claws, calling and screeching. Why these sounds scared people was a conundrum to me. As soon as the lights were out, imaginations went rampant, fuelling fears. Wouldn’t one have to conclude then that people had little imagination during the daytime?

‘Sunrise is a puzzling thing,’ I continued. ‘I’m astounded that people say “Look! The sun is rising!” But the sun never rises and never sets. Every observation depends on who we are, what we know, and where we stand. If I floated right next to the sun, if I had never heard of the human race, the absurd thought of the sun going up and down wouldn’t even touch my mind. All I would see were circular rocks revolving around a ball of fire. I wouldn’t know anything about life on Earth.’ …
and how short it can be
, my mind whispered.
 

‘I live in my own small bubble of education, and my limited ability to see, smell, feel, and hear. No matter what I do, my viewpoint — my way of interpreting what I observe — is always tainted by what I have learned previously and who I am. Hence, I must doubt all that I see.’

I looked at him. ‘It is a maddening thought. To be trapped in a cell, and to see that everyone else is trapped as well, and to know that I’m the only one who can see her private prison.’

He gazed at me. A moment of two minds connecting; a moment so intense that the air began to vibrate and the heart to weaken. Behind his eyes, I saw the weighing of consequences, the testing of hypotheses, the wondering whether it was fear or simply logic that held him back. At last, a decision was being made. He turned away.

The forest surrounding Anna’s village (19)

— twenty-six —

M
oran and Parker had arrived in Berlin. They’d found the trail of clues we’d laid to our hotel, and now they were waiting. Their plan was simple: wait for me to go from pregnant to non-pregnant, then
harvest
. Moran had picked a befitting term for his plans.

Perfectly on schedule, Koch had asked his housekeeper to report me to the papers. The article made it to the second page and had been published four days ago: one of Koch’s former students had appeared at Koch’s lodgings and demanded an explanation for the failure of the tuberculosis remedy. However, said student was in fact not a man, but a woman who had disguised her sex for years, and — to put a crown on her audaciousness — she was most obviously in the family way. The housekeeper gave a colourful account of how agitated the doctor was after said student had left, but he wished her no harm and thus refrained from making her name public. The reporter then provided his own and rather expanded opinion of the years of betrayal, the disrespectful treatment of the most respected German scientist (no matter his recent gaffe), and how wearing men’s clothing was utterly unacceptable for a woman of any social standing.

As anticipated, Koch had a visitor who fit the description of one of the two men I had given him — that of Moran. He had been on his best behaviour, as should have been expected when conversing with one of Europe’s best-known scientists. Koch had given Moran our address and then dispatched a wire to inform me of his latest visitor. He’d wished me luck and a safe future.

Should all go well, I’d write him a letter.

On a mild and rainy September morning, we began pulling in the lure. Sherlock had informed the local police using his forged identity of Chief Inspector Nieme. Two inspectors now lodged in the rooms adjacent to ours. He suspected the
Geheimdienst
— the German Secret Police — had been informed as well: two beggars neither of us had ever seen suddenly appeared on the street below our windows.

My nerves had been pulled taut for days. My back muscles reacted, and so did my uterus. It was impossible for me to find a comfortable position and I grew restless and abrasive. Once all this was over, I’d spend a quiet month with rest, peace, and pondering Watson’s offer again.

Sherlock and I got ready for step one: Breakfast followed by a long walk with an
unexpected
outcome.

I kept my eyes on the pavement, occasionally leaning on his arm to pretend an urge to breathe heavily. He kept his face directed towards me, but his eyes searched the park. When his arm stiffened, I knew he had spotted our pursuers. I pressed his hand to signal understanding. After another half hour, we strolled back to our hotel. On the last hundred yards, I doubled over and produced a fake grunt. Sherlock’s grip tightened around my shoulders.

‘Excellent!’ he said once we stepped into our rooms. I pulled myself together, rang the bell, and ordered tea. ‘Second step,’ he muttered, swung the heavy velvet curtains closed, and knocked thrice on each wall facing the adjacent rooms. Then he got his revolver, checked the chamber, and slipped a surplus of ammunition in his trouser pockets. I did the same, but my fingers were trembling. One bullet escaped my grip.

Two swift strides and he had covered the distance between us, picked up the bullet, and pressed my shoulders. ‘All will be well.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered, feeling a band tightening around my stomach. My thighs and lower back were aching. ‘I’ll lie down for a moment.’ Clutching my revolver, I rolled up in a ball, hoping my uterus would calm down.

When the maid knocked to bring the tea, the sudden noise startled me. Sherlock threw me a quizzical glance, then went to open the door. I desperately wished he wouldn’t be so perceptive. If he would ignore my contractions, then I could possibly ignore them, too.

I kept telling myself that rest was the best aid against premature labor. If I could only find a little rest — if the space around me wasn't littered with guns, bullets, a missing index finger, an assassin and kidnapper, his footman, two police inspectors, and two men from the
Geheimdienst
— I could make this overeager uterus stop being so busy.

When I pressed my face into the pillow, a hand settled gently on my head. ‘Is it time already?’ he asked.

‘No! It’s another month, dammit!’ The cry of distress surprised even myself. ‘I’ll lie down for a moment,’ I huffed, trying to soften the panic, but noticing instantly that I was already on my side, curled around my cramping abdomen.