‘So what was there inside his skull?’
‘A hermetically sealed cage, a haunted room, a black dungeon. He was obsessed with what was in there.’
‘And that was…?’
‘Himself. With his entire family and their secret. All locked up inside there, silent, away from the rest of the world.’
‘He thought someone was locking him in?’
‘No, you don’t understand. He locked himself in, he was hidden away, removed from anyone’s view. He was protecting the other occupants of the cell.’
‘From death?’
‘From annihilation. There were three other clear factors in his case. He was fanatically attached to his name, his family name. And an unresolved tension over his son: he was torn between pride and rejection. He loved Pierre, but he didn’t want him to have been born.’
‘He didn’t leave his property to him, he left it to the gardener.’
‘Logical. If he left him nothing, then he had no son.’
‘I don’t think Pierre junior saw it that way.’
‘No, of course not. And thirdly, Vaudel was full of boundless arrogance, so total that he generated a feeling of invincibility. I’ve never seen anything like it before. That’s what I can tell you as a doctor, and you’ll understand perhaps why I was so interested in this patient. But Vaudel was very strong-minded, and he resisted my treatment fiercely. He didn’t mind if I treated him for a stiff neck or a sprain, and he was even very pleased when I helped him get rid of vertigo and helped with his approaching deafness. Here,’ the doctor said, tapping his ear. ‘The little bones in his middle ear were blocked solid. But he hated it if I tried to get near to the black dungeon and the enemies he thought were all around.’
‘And who were these enemies?’
‘All those who wanted to destroy his power.’
‘He was afraid of them?’
‘On the one hand, he was afraid enough not to want any children, so as not to expose them to danger. On the other hand, he wasn’t personally afraid at all, because of that sense of superiority I told you about. It was a sense he had in his dealings with the law courts, when he seemed to have the power of life and death over people. Be careful,
‘Was he mad?’
‘Totally, if you consider that it’s mad to live by a logic that’s different from the logic of the rest of the world. But not at all, in the sense that within his own scheme of things he was completely rigorous and coherent, and he was able to make it fit inside the basic framework of the general social order.’
‘Had he identified these enemies?’
‘All he would say seemed to point to some kind of gang warfare, a sort of endless vendetta. With some kind of power game thrown in.’
‘He knew their names?’
‘Yes. These weren’t enemies who changed, random demons waiting to pounce on him from round some corner. Their location inside his head never varied. He was paranoid, at least in this sense of his power and his increasing isolation. Yet everything about this war he was living was rational and realistic, and he could certainly put names and faces to his adversaries.’
‘A secret war and enemies who are fantasies. And then one night, reality strikes, walks on to his private stage, and kills him.’
‘Yes. Did he end up by threatening his “enemies” in real life? Did he speak to them, or become aggressive? You know the standard formula, I expect: paranoid people end up by creating the persecution they always suspected. His invention came to life.’
Josselin offered another drop of alcohol, which Adamsberg refused. The doctor went nimbly over to the cupboard and carefully put the bottle back.
‘I don’t imagine our paths will automatically cross again,
‘You want to look inside my head, don’t you?’
‘Yes, indeed. But we might find a less intimidating problem. No back pains? Stiffness, oppression, digestive troubles, circulation problems, sinusitis, neuralgia? No, none of those.’
Adamsberg shook his head, smiling.
The doctor screwed up his eyes.
‘Tinnitus?’ he suggested, almost like a street trader offering something for sale.
‘Yes,’ said Adamsberg. ‘How did you know?’
‘No magic! The way you keep rubbing your ears!’
‘I have been to someone. Nothing to be done about it, apparently, I just have to live with it and try to forget it. Which I’m quite good at.’
‘You’re indifferent, you don’t mind too much,’ said the doctor, as he accompanied Adamsberg into the hall. ‘But tinnitus doesn’t fade away like a memory. I could help you with it. Only if you want me to, of course. Why should we carry our burdens round with us?’
XXI
AS HE WALKED BACK FROM DR JOSSELIN’S HOUSE, ADAMSBERG turned over in his pocket the squashy little silk heart. He stopped under the porch of Saint-Francois-Xavier’s to call Danglard.
‘
‘What love letter, what code?’ Danglard asked cautiously.
‘The one from Vaudel. “Kiss lover”. The message for the old lady in Germany. He just wouldn’t say that. He was old, he was cut off from the world, he was a traditionalist, he used to drink Guignolet, sitting on a Louis XIII armchair, he just wouldn’t write “kiss lover” on a letter. No, Danglard, and especially not if it was a last message to be read after his death. It’s too cheap for his style. He wasn’t going to write silly slogans like you get on toy hearts.’
‘Toy hearts?’
‘Never mind, Danglard.’
‘Nobody’s above doing silly things,
‘Silly things in Cyrillic script?’
‘If he liked secrets, why not?’
‘Danglard, this alphabet, is it only used in Russia?’
‘No, it’s used in other Orthodox countries in Eastern Europe; it’s a Slavonic alphabet, derived from ancient Greek.’
‘Don’t tell me where it comes from, just tell me if it’s used in Serbia.’
‘Yes, of course it is.’
‘You told me you had an uncle who was a Serb. Were all those cut-off feet Serbian too?’
‘I’m not sure they were my uncle’s, actually. It was your story about the bear made me think that. They could be someone else’s.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, a cousin maybe, or a man from the same village.’
‘But it is a
Adamsberg could hear Danglard banging his glass down on the table.
‘Serbian word, Serbian feet, are you trying to make something of it?’
‘Yes. Two Serbian signals in a few days – that doesn’t happen very often.’
