fix my eyes on Rasmus Æreboe as he goes over to the cabinet. He fumbles with a key, opens the door, and then places several books in front of me.
A moment later he staggers out. I’m alone in the office with the scissors chairs, the writing desk, and the exquisite copper engravings.
IN FRONT OF me are five brown leather volumes embellished with gilt.
These are the notarius’s diaries: The Russian Years, 1709 to 1714. Next to them is a cardboard folder tied with black ribbons. I don’t know where to start, so I decide to read them from the beginning, which is October 1709.
To my surprise there is nothing frail about Æreboe’s handwriting. It’s bold and angular. The letters press up against each other, breaking away and then sticking together like hard candy.
I start reading about Rasmus Æreboe’s first journey to Russia.
The notarius arrived in Moscow at the end of 1709 as private secretary to Just Juel, the envoyé extraordinaire. He had been hired because of his knowledge of Latin. The journey over had been awful, first by ship to Danzig, then along the coast to Königsberg, east to Novgorod, and by sleigh to Moscow. They stayed along the way at the tsar’s mail-coach inns. They heard wolves howling in the distance and saw a populace so impoverished that it defied all description.
I keep reading. Outside Copenhagen is awaking. The sounds stream in from the fish markets, but I’m no longer in this city. I’m traveling with Rasmus Æreboe to Moscow—a city so filled with highwaymen that every morning citizens are found dead in the snowdrifts. I’m in Petersburg, which is one huge construction site, rampant with epidemics and a cold that seeps into your bones. The notarius describes the beautiful churches with their gleaming gold icons. He is disgusted by the spiced head cheese and the chicken stomachs stuffed with ginger. He isn’t used to being in the company of people of high rank, and he’s indignant at the immorality surrounding the tsar, at the lack of respect for life in the mighty realm.
I grow more and more uneasy as I read.
That’s when I catch sight of the picture.
It’s in the third volume of the diaries: a copperplate engraving showing a number of people wearing peculiar attire. At first I think the picture seems straightforward enough, but when I study it more closely, I see that it shows two dancing dwarves. They’re both dressed in elaborate garb, surrounded by people wearing powdered wigs. But something is wrong, terribly wrong.
I look closer, studying the faces of the two dwarves. They seem to be laughing. They’re swinging around to the music. Their bodies are relaxed, but their eyes are vacant and empty.
I turn the page in the diary. The next pages are stuck together. Carefully I pull them apart. Another copperplate engraving is inside the book. It’s much bigger, but done on thinner parchment. It has been folded scrupulously in half, and I open it with trembling hands.
The copperplate engraving shows a room adorned with tapestries and high windows. A number of fine gentlemen are eating as they sit with their backs to the wall. In the middle of the room are eight tables where a large number of dwarves are seated. I try to count them. There are at least fifty. All of them are eating from little plates, using little knives and forks. Their chairs are dwarf height, their goblets tiny. I have the impression that the dwarves are part of a performance, and that the fine gentlemen are their audience.
My eye is caught by a detail on the left side of the copperplate engraving. Two chamberlains are bending over a female dwarf. At first I can’t tell what they’re doing, but then I discover that one of them is holding a hunting knife, the other a bludgeon.
I reach for Æreboe’s spectacles on the table. Then I study the details. One of the chamberlains is laughing; the other is gawking. But there is absolutely no doubt: they are beating the woman. Below the picture it reads “Dwarf Wedding.” And underneath that: “In the Year of Our Lord 1710.”
I slam the book shut and stand up. The floor is alive, the furniture as big as altars. I close my eyes. I have never felt such a rush of fury before.
At that moment the door opens, and the notarius’s steward is staring at me without blinking. I walk past him over to the front door and try to reach the handle.
The steward looks at me.
Then he laughs.
15.
THE SCOUNDREL IS RESTING AMONG THE STARS. HE IS not in Paradise or in Hell. Sometimes he’s in the sunset; other times he’s a blackbird. But there is nothing frightening about him. Terje wants only the best for me. Terje has decided that now that he’s dead, he’s going to live.
Every time I close my eyes, he’s standing right in front of me. There is something officious about him. The blood has left his face, and he is utterly sober. Terje says that he’s not my guardian spirit. He hasn’t been given any assignment. He’s merely a nomad in the starry skies, a phantom passing through. If I wish, I can talk to him. Terje is with me, and he says that he wants to make everything good again. He regrets the boozing and his lack of interest in my life. Terje in his heaven wants to be forgiven, but I’m in no mood to forgive. Forgiveness requires an obtuse temperament; I’m not sufficiently obtuse.
I write every day, sitting at my dwarf desk.
It was specially made for me, and I have an excellent view of the street. At that desk I am ridding myself of my old life and making preparations for the new. But even in the words the Scoundrel tries to reach me. He’s in every letter that I shape, every word that I write. He pushes ideas through the ink, he forces his way into my thoughts, telling me what I should write. Sometimes the pen moves all on its own, as if a demonic power were at work between my fingers.
I’ve told the Scoundrel that I don’t want anything to do with the dead. Nothing will be allowed to live inside of me without my permission. I am not a mail-coach inn where he can deliver his letters. All thoughts must come from myself, otherwise they’re of no interest to me.
Yet there are times when I grow curious to hear about the Creation, when I hope that the Scoundrel may have answers to life’s big questions, when I have an urge to question him about the fifth commandment, which pleases me less than the others. There is so much that I would like to know about life on the other side. But the Scoundrel shakes his head and says that he knows nothing. No one has spoken to him, not even the Devil.
“What about Our Lord?” I ask. “Have you met your Creator?”
The Scoundrel looks at me, as if he doesn’t understand the question. The Creator is not a term that is used in Heaven. The Creator is Heaven! The Creator is the light that burns in our bodies. The Devil is the wind that blows.
But what is it that the Scoundrel wants to make good again? And why even try? My life with him is past. We were drawn to each other for lack of anyone better. I thought I could rely on a man, but it can’t be done. I was stupid and simple-minded. I’m wiser now.
16.
I HAVEN’T SEEN THE TSAR SINCE I WAS GIVEN TO HIM by the king.
Peter Alexeyevich is restlessness personified. When the negotiations lost steam, he set off on an expedition to find some Swedes. He headed out on a frigate with a handful of men, as if he were an impetuous youth. But the Swedes didn’t
