The Angel Maker Read online

  ‘There’s still something missing,’ Frau Maenhout said, and with a grand flourish she drew three wooden swords from her bag. ‘First you’ll have to be knighted.’

  Three pairs of eyes stared at the swords through the slits in the masks.

  ‘Get down on your knees,’ she said.

  She kept the ceremony short but solemn. The boys knelt down and bowed their heads, and she tapped their heads and shoulders with the sword: ‘Raphael, on behalf of the King, I hereby name you Porthos, the cleverest of the musketeers. Gabriel, on behalf of the King, I name you Aramis, the noblest of the musketeers. Michael, on behalf of the King, I name you Athos, the bravest of the musketeers.’

  She presented them with the swords, and they immediately took on the spirit of the musketeers. All three squared their shoulders, stuck out their chins and raised their swords high in the air, trying out the names she had just given them. She looked on, holding her breath, as they went to admire themselves in the bathroom mirror. Since their baldness and disfigurement were largely hidden, they looked, for once, like normal children. It almost seemed as if their real selves had been the disguise, since their features made them look stranger than the costumes they now wore.

  At breakfast she taught the boys two more things. She had them form a circle and raise their swords in the air, so that these crossed above their heads, and said, ‘One for all, and all for one! That’s the musketeers’ motto. It means that you’ll always be there for one another. No matter what happens.’

  Their voices soared through the kitchen: ‘One for all, and all for one! One for all, and all for one!’

  Finally she admonished them, ‘Remember: musketeers answer only to God or the King. So you needn’t be afraid of anyone.’

  ‘God or the King,’ the boys repeated, ‘only God or the King.’

  Then they set out to capture the three-border junction. It was Saturday, 20 October 1988: 5.50 a.m.

  ‘We’ll get there when the big hand points at 2.’ Frau Maenhout pointed at the fluorescent-yellow hands of the clock on the church steeple. They had crossed Napoleonstrasse and were now walking past the terraced houses toward the Route des Trois Bornes. Twenty minutes to get there, fifteen minutes at the border, and twenty minutes to get back. Just in time for sunrise.

  The boys were on her right. All three had their swords at the ready and kept looking over their shoulders, as if expecting an ambush at any moment. Wisps of fog trailed across the pavement, scattering like strays when one of the boys slashed his sword at the ground.

  They halted before the bridge marking the beginning of the Route des Trois Bornes.

  ‘We have go through that underpass,’ Frau Maenhout explained, ‘and then we begin the climb to the top of the Vaalserberg. That’s where the three borders join. Are you ready?’

  The boys nodded. Athos straightened his mask, Aramis clutched his sword even more firmly and Porthos tipped his hat. Frau Maenhout smiled, but the sick feeling she’d had all night did not go away.

  ‘Excellent,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘And remember: One for all . . .’ She put her finger to her lips.

  ‘. . . and all for one,’ they replied softly.

  The climb was longer and more difficult than she remembered. She never for a moment let the boys out of her sight. At the beginning the incline was gradual, but after the first hairpin bend it kept getting steeper. This was mirrored in the boys’ progress. With the impulsiveness of little kids, they had covered the first hundred metres faster than their little legs could comfortably carry them, but then their pace began to slacken. After ten minutes or so they were scarcely making any headway at all. She had asked herself beforehand whether the boys would be robust enough to handle the walk, but was determined to carry them if necessary. When she had first come up with the idea of the outing, she had also considered asking Hannah Kuijk to drive them, but in the end she had decided that she wanted to do this alone. Just the boys and her. No one else.

  In Wolfheim the clock began to strike six. The sound ascended swiftly out of the valley up the Vaalserberg. Frau Maenhout counted the chimes and at the last one she squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and announced, ‘The musketeers will be riding the rest of the way on horseback.’ Then she picked the children up in her arms, Michael and Raphael riding on one arm, Gabriel on the other. The boys promptly stuck their noses in the air and pointed their swords forward. She too stuck her nose in the air. Here we go, she thought.

  It was tiring. Individually the boys weighed very little - just thirteen kilos each - but together they were quite a load. She soon broke into a sweat, and her arms felt like lead. She never for an instant thought of stopping, however. Every time she glanced at one of the boys and caught sight of the blue eyes through the slits in the masks, she found the strength to continue. Their breath on her face, and the warmth of their bodies against her chest, spurred her on. It was her last chance to feel that.

  Finally the tower came into sight. It loomed up like some gigantic insect on tall, skinny legs, lit from below by the glare of floodlights. Open-mouthed, the three musketeers gazed up at it.

  ‘The Boudewijn Tower,’ said Frau Maenhout with great relief. ‘Thirty-four metres high. When you’re up on the top you can see Aachen and Vaals. And when the weather is clear, you can see as far as Liège. You can touch the sky up there.’

  She shouldn’t have said that. It was as if she’d waved a bag of sweets under their noses, then told them they couldn’t have any.

  ‘Can we go up there?’ asked Michael. ‘All the way to the top?’ He pointed with his sword.

  She shook her head. ‘The tower is locked.’

  She lowered the boys carefully to the ground and walked them over to the fence around the tower. A chained iron gate barred the entrance. Raphael and Gabriel gazed up, holding on to the railings. Michael did the same thing, only he was also trying to squeeze one of his legs and shoulders between the stakes.

  ‘Look, I can get through! I can get through!’ he cried.

  Frau Maenhout, alarmed, yanked at his arm and pulled him down off the gate. Her fingernails dug deep into his skin.

  ‘Ouch!’ he cried, and for a split second she recognised the look they usually reserved for their father. It made her realise how rough she’d been.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ she said. She stretched out her hand to adjust his hat, but he pulled out of the way. ‘We will go up the next time,’ she promised him, knowing there would be no next time.

  ‘Really?’ he asked.

  ‘Really.’

  She took a deep breath and it struck her how nervous she was. She realised for the first time how impulsive her decision to come here had been. It was so unlike her. She turned her head towards a cement pillar bathed in a floodlight’s yellow beam.

  ‘Look, there’s the three borders,’ she said gently to distract their attention from the tower.

  The boys instantly seemed to forget what had just happened. They glanced at the pillar, then at each other, back at the pillar, and began to run, their capes fluttering from their backs like brightly coloured plumage. They reached the pillar almost at the same time, and wrapped their arms around it as if apprehending a thief.

  ‘We’ve got him! We’ve got him!’ they shouted excitedly.

  Frau Maenhout laughed. ‘The King will be so pleased.’ Walking up to them, she said, ‘And now I think it’s time for your battle cry.’

  The three musketeers nodded and promptly raised their swords above their heads. It was 6.15, and at the three-border junction three little voices rose into the air: ‘One for all, and all for one!’

  Frau Maenhout swallowed. She breathed in, out, in, out, then took a few steps forward and pointed at the ground. ‘Each of you is standing in a different country. Just take a step back.’

  On the pillar they could make out, in white paint, the letters ‘B’, ‘D’ and ‘NL’. Frau Maenhout produced a piece of chalk and crouched down to draw the lines on the ground dema
rcating the borders. The boys followed her every move.

  ‘This is Belgium. This is Germany. This is the Netherlands,’ she said, walking around the column and the triplets. ‘Belgium. Germany. The Netherlands. Belgium. Germany. The Netherlands. See?’

  Three little heads bobbed up and down.

  ‘OK, now it’s your turn.’

  She stepped back and, holding her breath, watched as the boys began moving round the column, slowly at first, then faster and faster. Each would yell out the name of the country he was in, and when at a certain moment all three turned their faces to her and she saw their eyes shining through the holes in the silver masks, she felt a flood of warmth. This was why she had done it, she now realised. For this.

  ‘Come, Aramis, Athos and Porthos,’ she said after a while, ‘you have fulfilled your task. Now we must hurry back.’

  ‘One more time, Frau Maenhout, just one more time,’ Athos pleaded.

  ‘OK then. One more time.’

  Slowly, very slowly, they shuffled around the border junction, sticking out an arm or one leg as they went, so that each was in two countries at once. Her pupils used to do the same thing, she remembered. In that respect Michael, Gabriel and Raphael were no different from any other children. In that respect, at least. The thought came to her suddenly, and it brought back with it the queasy feeling she’d been having.

  On their descent from the Vaalserberg, the queasy feeling would not go away. She was picturing what it would be like for her, later. Lonely. She’d be lonely. Just as she had been from the day she’d retired until the day she’d met the triplets. Lonely: she couldn’t get the word out of her head.

  ‘Come, boys, stay close to me.’ They’d been walking for about five minutes and Raphael and Gabriel were already trailing a couple of metres behind. She turned round, looking for Michael, and felt her heart skip a beat. Michael was nowhere in sight.

  ‘Where is Michael?’ Her voice sounded squeaky. Gabriel and Raphael looked around. They hadn’t noticed that their brother was missing either.

  ‘Michael! Michael!’ Frau Maenhout began to shout.

  But there was no answer. She picked up Gabriel and Raphael and started to run back up the hill, back to the three borders. She had a bad feeling about this - a feeling that was all too justified. Michael was making his way up the tower. He had already reached the twentieth step and was climbing higher, his eyes fixed on the top. The harsh beam of the floodlight seemed to be following him up the tower.

  ‘Michael, get down from there!’ She lowered Gabriel and Raphael to the ground.

  Michael, glancing over his shoulder, hailed his brothers with his sword. ‘I’m gonna capture Aachen and Vaals! And Liège! And then I’m gonna climb right up to the sky!’ Brandishing his sword in the air, he climbed on again as if nothing would stop him.

  Frau Maenhout felt the world giving way beneath her feet. ‘Michael, get down now!’

  ‘I’m not Michael!’ she heard. ‘I am Athos, the bravest of the musketeers!’ The cape danced up and down on his back.

  ‘Michael, come back!’

  ‘Athos! My name’s Athos!’

  ‘Michael, stop it, now! This isn’t a time for games!’

  But it wasn’t a game to Michael. At that moment he was Athos, with all his being, the bravest of the musketeers. And it was only as Athos that he was brave enough to climb that high. Not as Michael, it suddenly dawned on her.

  ‘Athos!’ she cried. ‘Athos! Stop it! Come down!’ Her voice followed him up the tower.

  There was just the slightest hesitation in his tread, then he called out, ‘Musketeers answer only to God and the King. You said so yourself!’

  Then, for a split second, he looked down. He was about ten metres above the ground, higher than he had ever been in his life. It gave him a shock, and he suddenly cringed, taking a step backward. Frau Maenhout saw it. His two brothers saw it. Then he lost his balance. Someone screamed. Instinctively he let go of his sword. It tumbled down and landed on the cement at the base of the tower. With a loud crack, the hilt and the blade split in two.

  It was a quarter to seven when Felix Glück rang Otto Reisiger’s doorbell at 17 Albertstrasse in Wolfheim.

  ‘Herr Reisiger, there’s a child stuck up on top of the tower!’ he cried when a bulbous head appeared in one of the upstairs windows.

  ‘What?’ was the reply. ‘How’s that? Wait, I’m coming! Just a minute!’

  That morning Felix Glück, garage mechanic from Aachen, had jogged to the three borders at sunrise and there, to his astonishment, he had come upon a lady and two children sitting on a bench next to the tower. All three had their heads bowed and their hands tightly clasped. They seemed to be praying. The middle-aged woman, her grey hair pinned up in a bun, had acted as though Felix had been sent by the Good Lord himself. ‘Thank God!’ she had cried, casting her eyes up to heaven. The two children beside her were wearing costumes. They had masks on their faces, and were dressed in capes and hats. Each had a wooden sword on his lap.

  The lady, who had introduced herself as Charlotte Maenhout, had pointed out the little boy huddled motionless some ten metres up the Boudewijn Tower. She had begged him to run down to Wolfheim, to fetch Otto Reisiger, the tower watchman. He had the key and would be able to open the gate.

  Felix Glück had made it from the three-border junction to Wolfheim in seven minutes, breaking his own record.

  ‘Frau Maenhout?’ exclaimed the watchman in surprise when Felix Glück told him the story.

  ‘And her three nephews.’ The mechanic nodded, staring at the man’s pot belly.

  ‘Three nephews? Oh, you must mean Doctor Hoppe’s sons.’

  ‘She said the boys were her nephews - her sister’s grandchildren. I didn’t see their faces because they kept their masks on. They were very young, anyway. Toddlers, I think. They only came up to here.’ With his hand he drew an imaginary line about ten centimetres above his knee.

  ‘Then it’s the doctor’s kids. There’s no other explanation. What about the doctor - wasn’t he with them?’

  Garage man Glück shrugged his beefy shoulders.

  ‘That’s odd,’ said Reisiger, ‘very odd.’

  Just a short while later the two men set off for the three-border junction in the watchman’s old Simca. The car was making horrible noises.

  ‘There’s a hole in the exhaust,’ remarked the mechanic immediately.

  ‘I know,’ replied Reisiger, shouting over the din. ‘I’ve ordered a new car, but it won’t be delivered until next week.’

  He drove the car under the bridge in second gear. As he started up the Route des Trois Bornes, he asked the mechanic what Charlotte Maenhout had been doing so early in the morning at the three borders.

  ‘No idea,’ he replied. ‘I asked her, but she didn’t give me an answer. All she said was that she had to get back to the village, and soon.’

  ‘She’ll just have to be patient,’ said Reisiger, switching into first gear because the old Simca could barely make it up the hill.

  When they caught sight of the tower through the windscreen, Glück pointed up at the sky. ‘There’s the boy. Do you see him?’

  The watchman nodded, pressing his nose flat against the windscreen.

  The boy was hunkered down into a ball and seemed to have some sort of cloth draped over him. His arms were wrapped around one of the vertical banisters.

  Frau Maenhout was standing by the gate, her face almost as white as the shawl around her shoulders. She was holding a child by each hand. The watchman couldn’t tell if the children were bald because of their hats, but he did catch a glimpse of a scar through one of the masks’ mouth holes.

  As Otto Reisiger unlocked the gate, Glück the mechanic stared at the strapping woman. Her legs were shaking.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Frau Maenhout muttered several times. She was making a visible effort to fight back tears. But in spite of that, there was something hard about her. With a black habit on, she could easily have been t
aken for a nun, he decided.

  ‘Wait here,’ said Reisiger. He strode through the gate to the foot of the tower, but Frau Maenhout followed him at once.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ she said, ‘or he’ll never come down.’

  The watchman shrugged. Grabbing the handrail, he began to mount the stairs, with Frau Maenhout right behind him.

  ‘Too bad this had to happen,’ he said without looking back. ‘The tower’s going to be demolished soon. They’re building another one in its place.’

  Frau Maenhout did not respond.

  ‘It’ll be fifty metres high,’ he said proudly, ‘and it’ll have a lift!’

  His words did not appear to be getting through to her. She could think of nothing but the boy, he realised; it was only natural. They had to be the doctor’s sons - he was sure of it. He glanced down over his shoulder. The other two children were following his every move, their heads tipped back. He had seen the triplets once, when he had felt a sudden searing pain in his chest and had urgently rung Dr Hoppe’s doorbell. The boys had been sitting at the doctor’s desk in the office and they’d looked at him curiously. He had returned their stare. Afterwards he had invited the doctor to visit the three borders some time with the boys, but the doctor had never taken him up on the offer, at least until now.

  Once they were at the top, the watchman saw that the boy’s arms were tightly clasped around the banisters. Leaning down, he reached for the skinny arms, but the child began to yell, ‘Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!’

  The shrill voice cut the air like a knife. Startled, Otto Reisiger took a step back, bumping into Frau Maenhout. As he made a grab for the railing, his free hand accidentally struck the child’s hat, pushing it askew. What he saw then removed any doubt: a big bald skull with a network of inky veins.

  ‘See now, it is one of the doctor’s brats! I just knew it!’ he exclaimed.

  Frau Maenhout quickly looked the other way, turning to the boy. ‘Let me try,’ she said. She bent down and began talking to him in a soothing voice.

  The watchman heard her say the name Michael a couple of times.