The Chemistry of Tears

ALTHOUGH FIRMLY INTERROGATED, Frau Beck affected to have no memory of the man in the parlour.

“If Herr Brandling means the Englishman, that gentleman has settled his account. That is all I know.”

“I am the Englishman.”

“Yes Herr Brandling,” said Frau Beck (rhymes with peck, a pecking little person). “Mr. Brandling you are also an Englishman. But that Englishman.” She held apart her wiry little arms to indicate the scoundrel’s shoulders. “He paid.”

Clearly I had been duped by a confidence man of the type that preys on travellers. I slammed my hand down on the counter and this displeased Frau Beck.

“He was a German,” I said.

“No, an Englishman.”

I was eviscerated. I had abandoned my son for what? A playing card?

“What of the maid?” I asked.

The maid? What maid? Etc. Was Frau Beck a member of the gang?

“The maid of my room.”

“The maid of your room,” Frau Beck said, as if mocking my English grammar. “The maid of your room has departed.”

“Clearly,” I cried, seeking her behind her lenses. “Clearly, these criminals do not work alone.”

“Herr Brandling, it is the springtime. The maid goes to her family in the Schwarzwald. It is to be expected. Each year the same.”

“She has taken my plans to the Black Forest!”

“Herr Brandling, we know this is not possible.”

“It is so, Frau Beck, believe me.”

“And these plans, were they the same plans you showed Herr Hartmann?”

“They are my plans. I have no others.”

Dipping her pen in her ink well, Frau Beck dismissed me.

At home I would have sent a man to summon the police, and they would have frightened all the servants (as they did both times my wife lost her wedding ring).

I informed Frau Beck I was going to my room to write a complaint. I doubt she knew what I meant, and how could I know myself? What would I write? In English? To whom would I address my charges? No, I must bite my tongue. I had no recourse but to order new plans, and of course the firm’s draughtsmen would copy the London Illustrated News again, although my brother would make it clear to them that “Mr. Henry’s” request was even less welcome than the first.

And yet, was not my little boy himself the most important family enterprise? He was a Brandling, which is also the name of a salmon before it has gone to the sea, a parr, a pink, a smolt, a smelt, a sprag, or brandling. My brother must be made to see that Percy was our future. He had none of his own.

I returned to my eyrie and lay upon my bed. How long I slept I have no idea. I was roused by a mousey skittering as someone attempted to slide paper beneath my door. I was on my feet in a trice.

I surprised the maid’s son kneeling, envelope in hand, blue eyes wide with fright. I caught him by his long white wrist and hauled the limpy creature into the room. I felt his magnetic life surge as it shook my arm, jolting, kicking like a hare or rabbit in a trap. I booted the door shut as I shackled his other wrist as well—if he had lice eggs under his fingernails they would not find a home beneath my skin.

Trapped—my little criminal, in the middle of the white-washed room, shaking, crying, crumpled letter in his hand. Then it was knock knock knock and rattling on the handle and here was the accomplice, “The maid of the room,” a red kerchief around her wheaten hair. This second party required no dragging. Indeed she rushed to embrace her offspring. There, by the foot of the peculiarly austere bed which she had so recently made herself, she kissed his crown and glared at me. I was a brute. The boy pressed himself hard against his mother and regarded me with fear and hatred, his fierce eyes revealing a will much stronger than my own. I wanted him to like me even so, this tiny enemy.

The mother I had earlier thought to be quite pretty, but now I saw, in that wide and delicate mouth, the knowledge that all happiness was conditional. Her complexion was as fine as an English woman’s but her thief’s hands were used and hard.

“Give me back my plans,” I said.

She showed the perfect understanding of the guilty.

“Sir, your plans are safe,” she said, and the quality of her English was not of the natural order. That is, she was revealing herself to be a maid so dangerously well educated that, apart from the eccentric Binns, no one of my acquaintance would have employed her.

I said: “They will be safe when they are with their lawful owner.”

She dared to contradict me.

Said she, “They must not be allowed to remain in Karlsruhe.”

I fear I may have snorted.

“It is better the plans go to where they can be understood.”

Her craven manner had slipped from her. I thought, yes, I am correct, a gang.

“And where might my plans be understood?”

“In Furtwangen.”

Who had ever heard of such a comic place?

“But even Furtwangen is filled with mediocrities.”

I would have grilled her on the sources of her strong opinions had not the child slyly produced a number of small brightly painted wooden blocks, and then—from where?—a length of thick steel wire perhaps a quarter of an inch in diameter. I watched in silence, while he swiftly assembled an ingenious bowed bridge along which his red and yellow blocks were made to slide and hop, all under the power of their invisible or magical engines.

It was a delightful contrivance. What lovesick father would not be charmed by such a child?

The boy had a voice like a little bell. When he spoke he was so tuneful that I did not immediately understand he spoke my tongue.

“He has made it for your son,” his mother said. “You will send it to England and your son will play with this while he waits for his father to return.”

How do they know I have a son?

“It is very kind,” I said at last, “but your son does not need to buy toys for mine.” They had seen Percy’s likeness. That was it.

“He does not purchase,” she said, cupping the back of his head with her hand. “He makes. In the night.” How she loved him—she was alight with it—but given the dexterity of the manufacturer and the ingeniousness of the invention, I had to make clear my scepticism.

“You wrong him,” she said, all respect now vanished. “He made it. He cut himself and he will be punished for his carelessness.”

He was clearly a very serious boy and he wore a white bandage on his forearm. Indeed his unwavering gaze defeated me and I retreated to the contents of the envelope, a very calligraphic English—“Herr Brandling, we will make the duck. A coach we have prepared to take you to the clockmaker.”

“There is no cost to you,” the woman said hurriedly. “We will take you to Furtwangen and there your duck will be constructed as you wish.”

What could I do but laugh at her?

“Why would I lie to you, Sir? You would put me in prison if I cheated you. I would be ruined. Please, Sir, do come. You cannot have a fine machine constructed by a common shopkeeper.”

“How could one manufacture such a thing without a shop?”

“You will meet him. He is Herr Sumper.”

“It is Mr. Sumper has robbed me?”

“No, he is gone to Furtwangen to await you.”

Since my first day at Harrow my trusting nature has been a source of amusement, and it is curious to me that these judgements have inevitably been passed by those who are untrustworthy—why be so boastful about your own appalling character?

But consider a moment. Would you, in my place, have refused to go with the thieves? Then what injury you