The Prisoner

I wrote of recent events and my suspicions and asked I my uncle to make sure the letter reached Ferney. My message also asked for money and instructions: I needed to know my words were being heard, that a clear mind was putting the pieces together and arranging my next steps. At the time, it was common for loose pages, found in the bookstores of Paris, to be gathered up and kept in wooden boxes until, at some point, their rightful place was found. It had recently become popular to bind these lost pages, to create a book that jumped from one topic to another. That’s how I felt: I was gathering incomprehensible pages, hoping the great reader, sitting next to a window in a parlor at Ferney, would make sense of them.

Every now and then I would hear rumors that Voltaire was in the city or that he had died, and I would wonder whether I might be working in the service of a lost cause and for no pay.

In the evenings I would watch the Laghi house, hoping to see Clarissa. I was prepared to attempt a second meeting as soon as her father went out. But when I saw Von Knepper hurry away, carrying his little chest, curiosity impelled me to follow him.

Von Knepper walked without looking back or to either side. His stride was so long I practically had to run to keep up. We crossed over the river and passed through a market, where I nearly lost him among the vendors leaving for the night. He stopped at an iron gate, and I had to step back so as not to be seen. We had come to the cemetery. The guard was expecting him and let him in without a word. I watched Von Knepper walk through the trees and the graves until he was swallowed by shadows.

I now had to choose between the graveyard and the house and decided on the latter. The maid tried to stop me at the door, but I shouted Clarissa’s name and she came to my rescue. Once again she led me to the room with the piles of broken toys, Kolm’s walking stick now among them.

“I saw your father at the cemetery. Would he be visiting your mother’s grave?”

“My mother died elsewhere, and my father never went to her grave.”

“So what is he looking for there at this time of night?”

“I don’t know. If you’re so interested in my father, why didn’t you follow him?”

“Because I wanted to come here.”

“Then enough about the cemetery. Your shoes are already caked with mud. The more you talk, the muddier things will get.”

She offered me a chair with a cracked leg, and I nearly fell off it. She sat down on a trunk. The room was nearly dark. I thought I could hear the whirring of little machines in the corners.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to anyone. My father isn’t much of a conversationalist.”

“They say he’s the greatest maker of automatons in Europe.”

“He’s made a tiger and a ballerina and won over the courts of Portugal and Russia. Sometimes I thought all the time he spent around machines allowed him to discover the secret workings of the world, and his every wish was granted. But then automatons went out of style, and now my father isn’t moved by art but by greed and fear.”

“What is he afraid of?”

“He’s afraid of Abbot Mazy and his calligrapher, who’s writing a book that never ends, using his enemies’ blood as ink.”

Darkness had filled the space as we talked, pushing us closer together. I reached to put my arm around her, in that cowardly, imperceptible way that tries not to appear deliberate. Clarissa gave no sign of approval or disapproval, and I wondered whether I might have touched her so softly she hadn’t even noticed. Emboldened by her apparent acquiescence, I moved closer still. She didn’t reject my caresses, but she didn’t return them either. The things around us gradually began to move: the Dutch dolls and the dismembered soldiers and the little Greek gods all moved. Everything moved but Clarissa, who sat perfectly upright, as if pretending to be made of stone.

Von Knepper opened the door, and I now felt as if I were caught between two wax statues. He stared at me without seeing. He had something to say—he was going to throw me out of his house, maybe even report me to the police—but it was obvious the very thought of speaking to me annoyed him. His coat was soaking wet and his boots were caked with mud. His mind was still elsewhere, out there among the graves, and not yet fully present. Now that his body was warming up, it was likely his thoughts would return, too.

“My daughter is ill,” Von Knepper said. “She often falls into this state.”

He passed his hand in front of her eyes. Clarissa didn’t move.

“Please don’t visit her again. Her attacks are brought on by strangers.”

“But I didn’t go near her.”

“You don’t need to. Her condition is very sensitive and can detect strangers before they even enter a room.”

“But you have your daughter shut up in here like a prisoner.”

“It’s her illness that imprisons her. If I were to let her lead a normal life, she’d fall into a trance and never wake up. Don’t try to understand. Go now, now that you can, now that you won’t run into anyone outside.”

I could feel an extraneous cold. It came from either the girl’s immobility or the profound impact the night had had on Von Knepper. He crossed the room and, before I knew it, threw Kolm’s walking stick at me. The metal hand closed around my throat. If it had possessed its former destructive force, it would have killed me. Instead, all I felt was a slight squeeze that would barely leave a mark.

“Tell your friend I’ve adjusted the mechanism. There’ll be no need for us to see one another again.”