“You looked inside?” Sara interrupted him.
Steven nodded. “There was something in there, but I . . . I simply don’t remember what it was. From that point on, there’s this black void in my head. But if I concentrate, I always see a girl with blond braids trying to scratch my eyes out. Her white dress is burning; I hear crackling and hissing; there’s acrid smoke everywhere . . .”
“My God,” Sara said breathlessly. “You accidentally set the library on fire. That’s why you went into shock in the museum. The smoke aroused your memory.”
Steven pulled the thin woolen blanket tightly around himself and nodded. “The next thing I remember is running through my grandparents’ garden, which was decorated with Chinese lanterns. I ran and ran to this little teahouse at the end of the garden. I . . . I was thinking that Mom and Dad would never forgive me, so I crept away and hid there.”
It was some time before he mustered the will to continue. The fall wind, howling and whistling, rattled the shutters over the windows as if to prevent Steven from telling any more of his story.
“When they realized that the house was on fire, my parents fled into the garden with their guests,” he said, his voice flat and emotionless. “But when they didn’t find me out there, they went back into the house in spite of the flames. They kept calling my name—I could hear them from the teahouse. But I was too frightened to answer. Dad could get very cross if I damaged any of his books, and now the whole library was blazing, the whole house. I crawled under the table and put my hands over my ears. My parents’ screams are the last thing I remember . . . their screams from the burning library . . .”
“They died in the fire?” Sara asked quietly. “Both of them?”
Steven nodded. “Because I didn’t answer them. They must have gone looking for me until they were trapped by the fire, and finally the smoke smothered them. When the firefighters arrived, one of them heard me crying in the teahouse and finally found me under the table. Then I was adopted by a family who had been friends of my parents.”
He smiled wearily. “I could have done worse. My adoptive father was Hans Lukas, a highly regarded professor of English literature at Munich University, and my adoptive mother, Elfriede, was the soul of kindness. They both died only two years ago, one not long after the other. My birth parents had left me a handsome inheritance, which I squandered on old books. All the same . . .” Steven briefly wiped his eyes. “All I still remember of my real mother is that she knew wonderful fairy tales and songs from her native Cologne. I suppose my love of Germany is based on those memories. Maybe I’m still looking for those fairy tales in my books.” He laughed despairingly and struck his forehead. “Now I really do sound like a patient on a therapist’s couch. I hope you’ve been busily writing all this down.”
“Idiot.” Sara gently swatted him on the nose. “Don’t joke. I’m glad you told me. Maybe I understand you a little better now.”
Steven smiled. “I’d like that. You know, I don’t think we go so badly together. Who knows, when this adventure is over, maybe there could be something more permanent between us.” He was staring at her thoughtfully. “And maybe it’s time you told me your own secrets, Miss Mystery. I have a feeling I’m not the only one here with a dark hole in my past.”
Sara laughed quietly. “Another time. One patient on the couch per session, okay? Tomorrow we’re going to go to Neuschwanstein and finish this thing.”
She passed her finger over his lips, then kissed him lightly in the hollow of his throat. “Until then, the two of us will have to find some way to pass the time.”
Directly after that, Steven stopped caring about the way the bed creaked and squealed.
WHILE SARA SLEPT soundly beside him a couple of hours later, Steven lay with his heart thudding and his eyes open, staring at the ceiling. The events of the last few days, feeling Sara so close, his memories of the fire at the villa in Cologne more than thirty years ago, all combined to keep him awake.
What really happened back then? Why are the images coming back?
By now the rain had stopped. Steven turned restlessly in the bed, finally gave up, and reached for the diary lying on the floor beside him. The book was like a drug that he couldn’t do without, like a magic powder out of a fairy tale. He had a feeling that he wouldn’t be able to rest until he had read it to the end.
26
JTI, JG
I must now write an account of the king’s death, and I swear to God that every word is true. Even if the ministers, the newspapers, the whole world claims otherwise, I know what happened. I and a handful of others who, however, hold their peace out of fear or because they are already dead. We were threatened, some of us were bribed, or made compliant in other ways. But I cannot keep silent any longer, and so I am now going to tell the true story.