فصل پنجاه و پنجم

55

IN THE AVIARY OUTSIDE the Café de L’Este the ortolans stirred and murmured, restive under the bright moon. The patio awning was rolled up and the umbrellas folded. The dining room was darkened, but the lights were still on in the kitchen and the bar.

Hannibal could see Hercule mopping the bar floor. Kolnas sat on a barstool with a ledger. Hannibal stepped further back into the darkness, started his motorcycle and rode away without turning on his lights.

He walked the last quarter-mile to the house on the Rue Juliana. A Citroën Deux Cheveaux was parked in the driveway; a man in the driver’s seat took the last drag off a cigarette. Hannibal watched the butt arc away from the car and splash sparks in the street. The man settled himself in the seat and laid back his head. He may have gone to sleep.

From a hedge outside the kitchen, Hannibal could look into the house. Madame Kolnas passed a window talking to someone who was too short to see. The screened windows were open to the warm night. The screen door to the kitchen opened onto the garden. The tanto dagger slid easily through the mesh and disengaged the hook. Hannibal wiped his shoes on the mat and stepped into the house. The kitchen clock seemed loud. He could hear running water and splashing from the bathroom. He passed the bathroom door, staying close to the wall to keep the floor from squeaking. He could hear Madame Kolnas in the bathroom talking to a child.

The next door was partly open. Hannibal could see shelves of toys and a big plush elephant. He looked into the room. Twin beds. Katerina Kolnas was asleep on the nearer one. Her head was turned to the side, her thumb touching her forehead. Hannibal could see the pulse in her temple. He could hear his heart. She was wearing Mischa’s bracelet. He blinked in the warm lamplight. He could hear himself blink. He could hear the child’s breathing. He could hear Madame Kolnas’ voice from down the hall. Small sounds audible over the great roaring in him.

“Come, Muffin, time to dry off,” Madame Kolnas said.

Grutas’ houseboat, black and prophetic-looking, was moored to the quay in a layered fog. Grutas and Mueller carried Lady Murasaki bound and gagged up the gangway and down the companionway at the rear of the cabin. Grutas kicked open the door of his treatment room on the lower deck. A chair was in the middle of the floor with a bloody sheet spread beneath it.

“Sorry your room isn’t quite ready,” Grutas said. “I’ll contact room service. Eva!!” He went down the passageway to the next cabin and shoved open the door. Three women chained to their bunks looked at him with hate in their faces. Eva was collecting their mess gear.

“Get in here.”

Eva came into the treatment room, staying out of Grutas’ reach. She took up the bloody sheet and spread a clean sheet beneath the chair. She started to take the blood-stained sheet away but Grutas said, “Leave it. Bundle it there where she can see it.” Grutas and Mueller bound Lady Murasaki to the chair.

Grutas dismissed Mueller. He lounged on a chaise against the wall, his legs spread, rubbing his thighs. “Do you have any idea what will happen if you don’t find me some bliss?” Grutas said.

Lady Murasaki closed her eyes. She felt the boat tremble and begin to move.

Hercule made two trips out of the café with the garbage cans. He unlocked his bicycle and rode away.

His taillight was still visible when Hannibal slipped into the kitchen door. He carried a bulky object in a bloodstained bag.

Kolnas came into the kitchen carrying his ledger. He opened the firebox of the wood-burning oven, put in some receipts and poked them back into the fire.

Behind him, Hannibal said, “Herr Kolnas, surrounded by bowls.”

Kolnas spun around to see Hannibal leaning against the wall, a glass of wine in one hand and a pistol in the other.

“What do you want? We are closed here.”

“Kolnas in bowl heaven. Surrounded by bowls. Are you wearing your dog tag, Herr Kolnas?” “I am Kleber, citizen of France, and I am calling the police.”

“Let me call them for you.” Hannibal put down his glass and picked up the telephone. “Do you mind if I call the War Crimes Commission at the same time? I’ll pay for the call.” “Fuck you. Call who you please. You can call them, I’m serious. Or I’ll do it. I have papers, I have friends.” “I have children. Yours.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I have both of them. I went to your home on the Rue Juliana. I went into the room with the big stuffed elephant and I took them.” “You are lying.”

“’Take her, she’s going to die anyway’ that’s what you said. Remember? Tagging along behind Grutas with your bowl.

“I brought something for your oven.” Hannibal reached behind him and threw onto the table his bloody bag. “We can cook together, like old times.” He dropped Mischa’s bracelet onto the kitchen table. It rolled around and around before it settled to a stop.

Kolnas made a gagging sound. For a moment he could not touch the bag with his trembling hands and then he tore at it, tore at the bloody butcher paper inside, tore down to meat and bones.

“It’s a beef roast, Herr Kolnas, and a melon. I got them at Les Halles. But do you see how it feels?” Kolnas lunged across the table, bloody hands finding Hannibal’s face, but he was off his feet stretched over the table and Hannibal pulled him down, and he brought the pistol down on the base of Kolnas’ skull, not too hard, and Kolnas’ lights went out.

Hannibal’s face, smeared with blood, looked like the demonic faces in his own dreams. He poured water in Kolnas’ face until his eyes opened.

“Where is Katerina, what have you done with her?” Kolnas said.

“She is safe, Herr Kolnas. She is pink and perfect. You can see the pulse in her temple. I will give her back to you when you give me Lady Murasaki.” “If I do that I am a dead man.”

“No. Grutas will be arrested and I will not remember your face. You get a pass for the sake of your children.” “How do I know they are alive?”

“I swear on my sister’s soul you will hear their voices. Safe. Help me or I will kill you and leave the child to starve. Where is Grutas? Where is Lady Murasaki?” Kolnas swallowed, choked on some blood in his mouth. “Grutas has a houseboat, a canal boat, he moves around. He’s in the Canal de Loing south of Nemours.” “The name of the boat?”

“Christabel. You gave your word, where are my children?”

Hannibal let Kolnas up. He picked up the telephone beside the cash register, dialed a number and handed Kolnas the receiver.

For a moment Kolnas could not recognize his wife’s voice, and then “Hello! Hello! Astrid?? Check on the children, let me speak to Katerina! Just do it!” As Kolnas listened to the puzzled sleepy voice of the awakened child, his face changed. First relief and then curious blankness as his hand crept toward the gun on the shelf beneath the cash register. His shoulders slumped. “You tricked me, Herr Lecter.” “I kept my word. I will spare your life for the sake of your—”

Kolnas spun with the big Webley in his fist, Hannibal’s hand slashing toward it, the gun going off beside them, and Hannibal drove the tanto dagger underneath Kolnas’ chin and the point came out the top of his head.

The telephone receiver swung from its wire. Kolnas fell forward on his face. Hannibal rolled him over and sat for a moment in a kitchen chair looking at him. Kolnas’ eyes were open, already glazing. Hannibal put a bowl over his face.

He carried the cage of ortolans outside and opened it. He had to grab the last one and toss it into the moonbright sky. He opened the outdoor aviary and shooed the birds out. They formed up in a flock and circled once, tiny shadows flicking across the patio, climbing to test the wind and pick up the polestar. “Go,” Hannibal said. “The Baltic is that way. Stay all season.”