Fear and His Servant Read online

  Things would have continued smoothly in this way had not Austria and the Ottoman Empire interfered in their marriage. It was 1690, a black year for the Serbs. The Turks had routed them and driven many of them as far as Belgrade in reprisal for their service under the Habsburg banner. Belgrade itself was under attack by the fiercest troops of Albanians and Tatars, and on 29 September these forces crossed the Sava and the Danube and entered Austrian territory. In the ensuing commotion, as people fled for their lives, Novak’s wife was killed. That is, she drowned in the Sava. When it happened, he told me, something inside him snapped (‘I could feel something inside me just give way’) – and from that moment he never looked at another woman and swore off all pleasures. Except for drink. Although drinking was no pleasure, he assured me, which I found hard to believe. (‘It’s penance for every time I hit her. It’s penance for every time I cursed her.’) His father died, and rather than take over the business he drank away every last penny. And that’s how I found him in Pest, at the alehouse.

  ‘Work for the Devil? All right, I will. That’s just what I want, to burn in Hell for eternity. I deserve nothing less.’

  ‘You could burn for all eternity just as easily by committing suicide,’ I answered. ‘But, of course, this way you’re also enjoying yourself in the meantime, thou wretched sinner. Anyway, you can’t atone for one sin by committing another, if you really must know.’

  But people are always doing that, making up for one sin with yet another: they ruin a woman’s life, so they enlist in the army, supposedly to redeem themselves, and they end up slaughtering heaps of other people. Or they stuff their pockets with stolen goods and then gamble it all away. Or they fail at love then make up their minds never to love again.

  But none of this would have happened in the first place if Novak hadn’t been reading books. Before books existed, men and women didn’t know anything about pure, exalted love; they believed that a great true love was one they could actually get their hands on. Only after they had started reading books did they come up with this business about love being attainable only for the most fortunate few. Mark my words. They shall burn with me, all those scribblers and their damned books, the ones to blame for people no longer loving each other, for everyone waiting to see what comes along next, for letting their eyes wander, and changing their minds, and wanting something better, wanting only the best – and all without questioning whether they themselves are worth it, or recalling the old saying ‘you get what you deserve’. And the more these men and women burn, the more they’ll think they deserve better. That’s how I stay in business. I simply adore books, and their readers even more.

  The night was wearing on, through smoke, drink and the defeat of Kosovo, and still the hajduks had not arrived. It occurred to me that they might have been frightened off. Indeed, that happens sometimes. The very worst criminals – murderers, rapists, kings and poets – simply quail at the sight of me. Men and women who never blanch at acts of evil cannot bring themselves to face Evil Itself. I’ve often wondered why. Of course, they’re mistaken in believing me to be evil through and through, as if there were nothing else to me. They don’t understand, the foolish creatures. If I were pure evil I would be God. Because God is God so that He might be nothing but good, and that is the same as being nothing but evil. God is God because God is One and nothing else. All the rest of us, from the angels to the children of men to myself are a mixture of good and evil. Now, the individual proportions are a different matter altogether. These men and women, the worst of humanity’s worst, fear the One. Whether good or evil. They cannot stand before God, and they cannot stand before me.

  Besides, they go in terror of me for another reason. And quite rightly. They know I outdo the worst of them. And such creatures fear no one but those who are worse than themselves. The violent, the cruel, the sinful – they fear only violence, cruelty and sins greater than their own.

  ‘Is there any point in waiting?’ I asked Novak.

  ‘You can’t expect outlaws to be punctual,’ he answered sagely.

  ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘We’ll stay for one more beer.’

  We ordered the beer, and as Novak was listening to the gusle-player with such rapt attention I made no attempt at conversation. Instead, I cast my eye around the room, thinking perhaps to find an interesting soul.

  Which I did not.

  I’d had quite enough by then and told Novak it was time to leave, that it was pointless to continue waiting. Novak got to his feet reluctantly, no doubt displeased at being deprived of the gusle-playing. We headed for the door, and I said, ‘That instrument we’ve been listening to, I simply must have some set up in Hell. That way, if we get someone who happens to enjoy a roaring fire, we can always use the gusle on them instead.’ Novak only narrowed his eyes but said nothing. To my surprise.

  But at the door, as if from nowhere, two little men appeared: one was bandy-legged and had a very large moustache; the other had a very large moustache and was bald.

  ‘Arr you the Devil?’ asked the bald one, addressing me. He rolled his Rs.

  ‘I am he,’ I answered. And then, just to make a point about the Rs, I added, ‘That’s rright.’

  ‘Then it’s us you want to see,’ said the bandy-legged one. I didn’t know what his Rs sounded like, as he hadn’t used any yet.

  ‘These are your hajduks?’ I said to Novak. He frowned and motioned towards the table. We all sat down.

  6

  This is my number. Or so they say.

  So here we sit, the four of us. I’m the first to speak. ‘Out with your story, then.’

  ‘Money firrst, up frront!’

  ‘The money!’

  How odd, as if they thought they were saying two different things. I set the purse on the table.

  ‘And now for the story,’ I said.

  ‘Well, since you arr wanting to hearr it … It happened like this …’

  We all drew closer to the table and leaned towards the story-teller.

  ‘The Austrrians sent a tax-collectorr down this way, and two soldierrs with him.’

  ‘I was told there were four,’ I interjected.

  ‘Two, five, makes no differrence. We knew that he liked a drrink, and the soldierrs liked a drrink, and so we lay in wait one earrly morrning, down the rroad. They’d always come that same way, the tax-collectorrs would.’

  ‘Because it’s the only way,’ said the other hajduk. Again, I couldn’t tell anything about his Rs.

  ‘We knew they’d be hungoverr. And it was foggy out, like today … So they’d harrdly be cutting acrross the fields … The morrning goes by and us still waiting. The afternoon goes by and not a sign. We head forr the inn. Then we see, not a horrse in sight. So they’d gone by in the morrning afterr all.’

  ‘We hadn’t expected that,’ said the other. Still no Rs.

  ‘I’m not interested in what you were or weren’t expecting. It doesn’t matter,’ I said, trying to speed the story along.

  ‘Rright. So I say to him, I say, they’ve gone off, the drrunkards, and got lost in the fog. Shall we go afterr them?’

  ‘Let’s go after them.’ Aha, an R at last.

  ‘And so we head off along the rroad, like, looking rright and left. Going on and on. And afterr a while the fog clearrs out. And the sun’s beating down …’ From Schmidlin’s account I couldn’t recall what time of year it was when the tax-collector disappeared. ‘… and us all thirrsty. And I say, shall we go back to the inn?’

  ‘Let’s go back to the inn.’

  ‘So we have a drrink, and we settle the bill like decent folk, and off we go, back down the rroad. They could have turrned back, couldn’t they? What with being drrunk and taking the wrrong way, they’d turrn arround and come back. So we head back. It’s a hot day, and us rriding along. Rriding, rriding along, and noonday in summerr. I say, shall we go back to the inn?’

  ‘Let’s go back to the inn.’

  ‘So we each have two drrinks morr. Maybe by now th
ey’ve found the rright way. Out on the high rroad. And so we look again, left and rright. And no sign of them, like the earrth has swallowed them up.’

  ‘So you thought you’d go back to the inn,’ I offered helpfully.

  ‘Just what I said myself. I say, shall we go back to the inn?’

  ‘Let’s go back to the inn.’

  ‘So we each have anotherr two drrinks.’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘And I say, shall we go back again, the same way? They’ve given us the slip, they have, if they set off this morrning. So there we arr again, looking left and rright. Nothing, no sign of them. Shall we go back to the inn?’

  ‘Let’s go back to the inn.’

  ‘So back we go. And the innkeeper says, “You’ve drunk me dry, you have.” Not us, I say, not with the wee bit we’ve been sipping. “You and that other lot downstairs,” he says. What other lot would that be then? “Why, those Austrians.” Downstairs? In the cellarr? And what about the horrses? Where’s the horrses, then? “They had me set them loose in the meadow to graze.” So, the cellarr. Down to the cellarr we go. The soldiers, dead drunk. The tax-collectorr still with his eyes open. We slit his throat. We take the money. We leave the soldiers where they arr, nothing we can do to them in that state.’

  ‘We can’t do it if they haven’t got their eyes open.’

  ‘You can’t slit someone’s throat unless its owner is looking at you?’ I asked, not quite clear on this point.

  ‘We cannot. We did trry waking them up. But they werre dead drunk.’

  ‘Just like the dead.’

  ‘We take the tax-collectorr and burry the body so no one can find it.’

  ‘Where do the vampires come in?’ I ask.

  ‘Ah, that comes later, Devil, sirr.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘A year later, a man goes and dies. And we put him in the same cellarr. The Austrrians …’

  ‘Our own lads, those über-captains …’

  ‘That’s rright, our überr-captains go and find him. We tip them off, don’t you know?’

  ‘No, I don’t know.’

  ‘Because this parrticularr man …’ he said, chortling through his Rs, and breaking into guffaws.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I said then looked at Novak. But he was also at a loss and merely shrugged. The man with the rolling Rs was now rolling around with them on the filthy floor. The other man had greater composure and was merely shaking with laughter where he sat. Then the laughter was picked up by the neighbouring table. And the next. And in less time than it would take for me to remember my last ten good deeds, the entire alehouse had erupted into Serbian laughter.

  ‘The man, Devil sir, the man was …’ But unable to finish his sentence, he, too, fell to the floor.

  I had it! The man had resembled the tax-collector. And they set him up, the man who had just died, to make it look as though he was the tax-collector. After a year or half a year he would have seemed quite fresh. That’s what Schmidlin had been trying to say. The corpse had seemed extraordinarily well-preserved.

  I struck the table with my hand. So, that was the story of the vampires – that they were nothing but a story. Just like that, they had vanished.

  As had my purse. And the hajduks.

  7

  At least I can stop worrying. Although they certainly cleaned me out. But then, everything has a price. Whether you’re finding out that something exists or finding out that it doesn’t. So, there are no vampires. The whole fuss was caused by two little men who couldn’t get their tongues around the letter R. And the matter had gone as far as the emperor in Vienna. To say nothing of myself.

  If that’s how things stand I can return to Vienna and from there to Paris. Lots of work waiting for me in Paris. This business with the Serbs was nothing but a temporary diversion and setback. My only regret is not being able to spend more time with that wonderful soul, Maria Augusta of Thurn and Taxis. But now that I think of it, why not? Matters in France will be none the worse for my spending another month or so in Belgrade and collecting that prematurely aged soul. Why not indeed?

  I told Novak we could go.

  We stepped out into the fog, which had lifted a little even though it was not yet dawn. Back we went along what I assume were the same streets, but uphill. Novak was moving quickly and did not speak. I didn’t know whether he was disappointed that there were no vampires or had simply failed to understand what was happening. Perhaps he was still under the spell of the gusle-player’s song. I myself am interested in folk traditions. I’ve heard all the Serbian stories about St Sava and me and about me and my apprentice. Too bad for storytellers who have no love for me in their hearts – it’s only in stories that you’ll find me playing the fool. I’ve never even met their St Sava, never hired an apprentice. All I’ve ever had is servants, as I do now. A servant not an apprentice. Because an apprentice wants to learn, to take over the shop some day, while a servant wants only to serve out his time and not be bothered.

  ‘Haaalt!’ came the ear-splitting command. Startled, I looked around me yet saw nothing but the fog.

  ‘Master, it’s the guard at the gate.’

  I answered in German, saying who I was and asking to be let back into Weissburg.

  The voice asked for the password.

  ‘What do you mean, password?’

  ‘Off with you then.’

  I looked at Novak. He looked at me.

  ‘Now we can’t get back into the German part of town. We don’t know the password. You didn’t tell me there was a password. It is your duty as a servant to keep track of such things.’

  ‘Don’t get upset, master. Let’s wait a bit. Someone from the German side who knows us may come out and be able to vouch for us.’

  ‘Someone who knows us, you idiot? There’s no one but Schmidlin and Radetzky, and they’re not coming out. Or rather, Radetzky might, but not until the commission does.’

  ‘There, see?’

  ‘No, I do not see. What are we supposed to do until then? Assuming they ever do come out. I don’t like it, I don’t like being on the wrong side of Prince Eugene’s line.’

  8

  In helpless fury I stood cursing my servant. The fool!

  It was still foggy and dark, and I could see no further than a few feet in front of me. How humiliating to sit waiting at the gate. For any waiting is always a humiliation, no matter what you’re waiting for. I had to go somewhere, but where? And so I craned my neck and looked around me, not wanting to say another word to Novak.

  But Novak spoke first. ‘Someone’s coming, master.’ I couldn’t hear anything and merely waved his words away. But again he said, ‘Believe me, master. Someone is coming this way.’ Again I pricked up my ears, but still I heard nothing. I gave him a scorn ful look, but he said for the third time, quite in the spirit of the Serbian songs we’d been listening to, ‘Master, I’m sure there’s someone coming.’

  And then from out of the fog came a pair of oxen. Behind them was a cart, and in it sat a peasant holding a switch. The cart drew closer and closer, and still there was no sound. From time to time the peasant would flick at the oxen, but no swish or crack could be heard.

  ‘Shall we go with him?’ asked Novak.

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘What do you mean? Surely you just heard him ask if we’re going to Dedejsko Selo.’

  ‘No, I didn’t hear that.’ I thought I must be going mad. ‘Well then, why not?’