.
.
He saw her again. The woman with the blue umbrella, walking silently through the village market. Karl stepped behind the sugar cane stalls and watched as she passed. The first time he had seen her, he thought she was a colonial from the way she was dressed, but as she approached he could see quite clearly that she was Oriental. Perhaps even Vietnamese, like him.
She turned, and Karl stopped. Cold blue eyes met his his, and her lips turned upward into a smile.
xXx
.
"Experiment?" Solomon said.
Karl waited, sitting politely in the drawing room while Solomon and his colleague argued. They spoke rapidly in German, and Karl listened intently, only able to understand a few fragments here and there. "We cannot," Solomon said. "He is a scholar. Someone to take under our wing."
"All the more that we should recruit him," Amshel said. Karl raised his eyes. Recruitment. Often he had heard stories of people like himself, whisked away from village life to study abroad in France. The argument turned heated again, and quietly Karl stood. Outside, students were entering the building, chatting amicably in French and hoisting their books over their shoulders.
Karl turned and left, quietly shutting the door.
xXx
.
There was a thick wedge of sunlight coming through the study window, which was unusual for this time of day. Earlier it had been raining, but now the light streamed in with watery streaks, catching the edge of the bookshelves and the tables across the room.
Karl moved and set the books carefully back on the shelf, keeping sure to arrange them as he had found them. Soon the real students would come and Karl would need to find another place to read, but he didn't mind. Solomon had been allowing him to study for almost a month, but in truth it had felt much longer: everything that had been denied him, physics, Latin, the study of anatomy and medical physiology, opened up to him in a way he didn't think was possible. He was learning at a rapid pace, and it was in no small part due to Solomon's influence.
His family had been suspicious. "Why?" his father said. Karl knelt on his knees and kept his head bowed respectfully, avoiding his eyes. "Your mother and brother work the fields and yet you are traipsing around with foreigners. It is shameful!"
"I wish to better myself." Karl kept his eyes fixed on a spot on the floor. "The world is bigger than what is here, Father. There is life outside of this place."
"Only foreigners who wish to castrate us and force us on our knees."
Karl did not argue.
Solomon's personal study. He allowed Karl to sit and read in there sometimes, after Karl was finished cleaning and tending to his duties. He brought a book under his arm, The Physiology of Human Reproduction, which he carefully set on the bureau.
There was a photograph on the wall: Solomon Goldsmith, 1910, a picture of Solomon and what could only be surmised as his colleagues, smiling and standing outside the university steps. A coterie of learned men. Karl stopped to admire the photograph for a moment, when something caught his eye.
The corner of a paper, sticking out from the drawer on Solomon's desk. Karl frowned and opened the drawer, intending to straighten out its contents. He picked up the papers and re-shuffled them on the desk, but just as he was about to put them away a photograph fell onto the floor.
Karl stopped. The photograph was faded and aged, and Karl stooped over to pick it up. It was a picture of Solomon. He turned the photograph around.
Solomon Goldsmith. 1880.
Solomon looked exactly the same.
Karl frowned. He turned the photograph over. The man certainly looked like Solomon, but perhaps Solomon just aged gracefully. Somehow Karl had assumed Solomon was only a few years older than he was, but then, weren't there people in his village that aged without showing the years on their face? Karl slowly sat behind on the desk, going through the papers.
A newspaper clipping. Solomon Goldsmith. A graduation announcement marked for 1870.
Another photograph. Solomon Goldsmith and what looked like his partner, Amshel. The handwriting on the back, 1839.
"It is amazing, isn't it," someone said in German, and Karl turned. Amshel was standing at the doorway.
"Forgive me," Karl said. He pushed the drawer shut. "Solomon said I could use his study. I will leave, if you wish."
"Your German is terrible," Amshel said. He stepped inside, shutting the door. "However, that is to be expected: very few people speak German here outside of this place. A pity I do not speak French."
"Ah," Karl said. Amshel peered over his shoulder, frowning.
"You saw Solomon's photographs?"
"I-yes. I was admiring them. There is a strong family resemblance," Karl said.
"Resemblance?"
"Between himself and his father. His grandfather." Karl tried to ignore that uneasy feeling in his stomach, and focused on his words. German was hard and the words stuck in his mouth like dry bread. Amshel's mouth stretched into a slow smile.
"Those are not his relations. They are pictures of him," Amshel said. He stepped forward, then picked out the photograph marked 1839. "This is a picture of us."
Karl blinked. "I'm sorry," Karl said. "My German is not very good. It sounded like you said this was a picture of you two."
Amshel turned.
"Do you know what a bluatsauger is?" Amshel asked. He stood by the window, frowning. "A vampire," Amshel said. "In Bavaria, my homeland, we believed those who lived an immoral life or those who died by suicide became such beings. Living forever in the shadows, living off the blood of human beings."
Outside the window, the clouds parted, and sunlight streamed in at odd angles, backlighting Amshel's body and making Karl squint his eyes.
"It is amazing how much German you know," Amshel said, finally. He turned again, looking out the window.
"Why do you speak of vampires?" Karl asked. Amshel kept his hands behind his back, looking out into the landscape.
"It is an interesting subject to me. But what I find more interesting is how you can speak so many languages so fluently, and with so little exposure."
"I hear French all the time," Karl said. He looked at the table and at the papers scattered there. "I heard somewhere that the best universities are German. So I taught myself, ever since I was small."
"Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful." Amshel turned again, smiling. "There are those who have an affinity for language. Two, three, seven languages, speaking it as they speak their mother tongue. I have found that those polyglots tend to come from countries such as yours," Amshel said. "I have seen it with my own eyes. Old and frail village men, stooping by their huts, switching from dialect to dialect as simply as they breathed. It is a common necessity in these backward places, I am sure."
Karl waited uneasily as Amshel looked out the window, letting the words sink in slowly. "You understand what I am saying, do you not?" Amshel said.
"Yes," Karl said. "You are saying, people like myself-" and Karl paused, trying to find the words. "People like myself have an aptitude for language."
"Wonderful," Amshel said again, and Karl's jaw tightened. "The natives here have no choice in the matter. Communication. The Indochinese is ripe with other languages. It teems with them, you see. Cantonese, Mandarin. Tamil. All these languages. And of course, your mother tongue."
Amshel's eyes grew unfocused, as if he weren't looking at him so much as looking through him, and Karl shifted his weight, uneasily. "There are certain races who are suited for certain kinds of things," Amshel said. "As our race is meant to rule, your race may be meant to learn. To study language, but also...other things as well."
Amshel's eyes glittered. Karl shifted, uncomfortably.
"I should be going," Karl said. He picked up his book and bowed. "Forgive me for the disturbance."
"Karl," Amshel said.
Karl turned. Amshel smiled slowly, then pulled out a knife.
This is wrong, Karl thought. His heart thundered. This is wrong and I should not be here.
"You were wondering why I spoke of vampires," Amshel said, and he flicked open the blade. "Perhaps I should show you."
The blade flashed. Karl's eyes widened. Before he could say anything, Amshel cut into the tender flesh of his palm, holding it out to him. Blood dripped onto the carpet in bright red beads.
"Vampires," Amshel said, and the wound slowly began to heal. "Immortal men. Creatures of the night. You were not mistaken when I said that photograph was the two of us. Solomon Goldsmith and myself, taken all those years ago."