Valerie and Her Week of Wonders Read online

  Valerie heaved a sigh of relief, since she could assume that the nimble Orlík was now safe. She thought it was now all right for her to go home, but hardly had she taken the first step when she couldn’t help but notice a figure walking at some distance behind her. She turned and froze. Marching towards her, as if the church tower itself were on the move, was the missionary.

  Chapter VI

  A VISIT

  Valerie stood motionless as if she, too, were now tied to some invisible lamppost. But as the missionary passed by, a Christian greeting slipped, as if involuntarily, from her lips.

  “I need you, young woman, to assist me with something,” the missionary said, without deigning to stop.

  “What is your wish, Father?”

  “I need to visit the most wretched people of the town, and I don’t know how to find them.”

  Valerie said nothing.

  “Surely you know,” the Polecat continued, “where the parish poorhouse is.”

  “Oh, yes. It’s not far from here.”

  The missionary walked beside the girl with majestically long, monotonous strides that echoed round the square.

  “If I am not mistaken,” said Valerie, “the only man who lived in the poorhouse was an old organ grinder; he died recently.”

  “We shall see. Or would you rather not take me there?”

  “Oh no, Father.”

  “You are performing an act of mercy.”

  “We’ll reach the poorhouse down this street here.”

  Indeed, in no time at all, a low, very long, yellow building appeared before their eyes.

  “Here we are, Father.”

  “You go first,” said the strange man, “I want to inspect everything closely.”

  Valerie wanted to say that her grandmother was expecting her, but speech failed her.

  She opened the door and entered the house, of which she had the most somber impression. But inside it was dark and empty.

  “I don’t know whether to go left or right, Father.”

  “To the right,” he said peremptorily.

  “I’m afraid, Father.”

  “God is with us.”

  “How dark it is!”

  “Just proceed.”

  “That way? Or that way?”

  “No, no!”

  The moon was just coming out and the rooms they were passing through began to take on contours. They were not rooms, but unfurnished spaces with several partitions. In one such primitive chamber, on the ground next to the wall, was a tattered straw mattress, brought to life by the moonlight. The stench was unbearable.

  “Father, what will Grandma say if I’m back late?”

  “Let’s go down,” said the priest, “you’ll be home before you know it.”

  The missionary raised a floorboard and a hole appeared.

  “Go on now, and fear nothing.”

  Valerie could tell from the damp and cold that they were underground. She walked down a corridor, barely wide enough for two. Her heart pounded. She was moving as if in a dream.

  “Any minute now we will be beneath your grandmother’s house. Haven’t you ever noticed there are several loose bricks in the cellar?” asked he about whom for the past two days Valerie had had a very doubtful opinion.

  “No, I never noticed them.”

  At certain points the corridor widened out. And sure enough after a few steps Valerie noticed she was no longer walking on the sodden earth of a cellar. It even seemed to her that she was walking on carpet.

  “We’ve reached the spot,” said the missionary.

  Valerie heard several strikes of a match. Then before her eyes appeared a high-arched room, furnished in the style of the nineteenth century. She was amazed. On the lumpy walls hung magnificent pictures in ancient frames. Several armchairs stood in a semicircle. A chandelier hung from the ceiling.

  “Where are we?” the girl asked.

  “Don’t concern yourself. Actually, you’re only a wall’s thickness away from your grandmother’s.”

  The Polecat sat down in one of the armchairs and toyed with a small metal figurine which had been standing on the edge of the table next to an inkwell.

  “There is something I must tell you,” he said quietly.

  Blood rushed into Valerie’s face, which till now had been pale.

  “Sit down opposite me.”

  “Why can’t I listen to you standing up?”

  “This is going to require more than five sentences.”

  Valerie remained standing.

  “I am sure you know a missionary is going to be lodging with you.”

  “I think he’s already moved in.”

  “We shall see,” said the man in disguise.

  He stepped onto a short, sturdy ladder and climbed up to the ceiling. Giving some kind of bolt several turns, he removed it and peered through the hole thus created.

  “Yes, he is there. Climb up behind me and take a look.”

  Drawn as by some unknown force, Valerie obeyed her guide. She recognized at first sight the room the maids had converted into the missionary’s cell. Close to the hole sat the missionary and at his feet her grandmother was kneeling with her head in the priest’s lap.

  “What does it mean, Father?”

  “You don’t need to address me like that. And anyway, I shall be taking my frock off as soon as possible.”

  “Is that really Grandma?”

  “Listen!”

  From above came the following conversation:

  “Gratian, I had begun to believe you had been clawed to death by wild animals.”

  “Not at all. I’m still far from letting death gnaw my bones.”

  “You haven’t changed a bit, Gratian.”

  “Vino nero is an excellent means of rejuvenation.”

  “It’s a pity I haven’t taken some myself. I’m an old woman now, Gratian. Five years ago, when we parted, everything was different. I can have no appeal for you now. It’s all over.”

  The old lady again laid her head in the missionary’s lap and appeared to be sleeping. But suddenly she raised her head with the words:

  “Watch me though. I’m going to scourge myself.”

  Gratian stood up, leaned against the door, and folded his arms. Valerie thought he looked twenty years younger. She wanted to cover her eyes with her hand so as not to witness her grandmother’s humiliation. But her guide wanted her to miss nothing of the strange spectacle that was about to unfold right above them. Then Valerie heard the swishing of the scourge and saw her grandmother, hair flying, mercilessly torturing herself. Her eyes took on an unusual gleam, and out of the old woman’s painfully clenched lips came words that Valerie could not understand. The man she had called Gratian sternly watched her self-mortification. Suddenly he shouted: “Enough!” He raised his head convulsively as if looking into heaven, and let himself be embraced by the kneeling woman, her body visibly bearing welts of blood.

  Eyes staring wide, Valerie gazed upwards and felt that at any moment she would fall to the ground in a faint. But suddenly, as if the expression of a fainting spell overtaking her, she perceived that the light in the room she found herself in had been extinguished – and at that instant she felt deft arms carrying her away. As the distance between her and that place increased, she also heard a thud and the shout of a man’s voice.

  She supposed she was asleep.

  Chapter VII

  SAFE

  “We’re safe,” Valerie heard above her when her inexplicable flight had come to an end. Uncertain, she half-opened her eyes. Orlík, now immaculately attired, right down to his straw boater, was bending over her.

  “Where are we?” she asked, dropping her eyelids again. Strange, softly droning voices echoed around her. Valerie recognized the voices of her hens. She stood up. They actually were in the henhouse.

  “Forgive me, my dear, for failing to save you sooner. But I had my hands full with escaping my pursuers.”

  “Are we really in our yard?”

  “Yes, just ten or fifteen steps from your back door.”

  “Thank you for freeing me.”

  “You now know much of what I wanted to tell you there in the square.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen with my own eyes that my house has a mysterious vault.”

  “It’s the constable’s hideout. He built it in the last century.”

  “Is he really a missionary?”

  Orlík laughed:

  “A man like him has had all kinds of adventures.”

  “So how is it he gets to deliver a homily?”

  “He can manage far tougher jobs than deceiving a handful of priests. Besides, he’s in league with all sorts of rogues.”

  “Will he find us here?”

  “His vengeance is only directed at me.”

  “I’d like to know why he was so intent on taking me down there into the vault, as I can swear on my honor he made no attempt to harm me, although ...”

  Valerie fell silent. Before her eyes again appeared the image of her grandmother’s humiliation as she had witnessed it.

  “His motive could not be simpler ...”

  “I would like to hear it.”

  “He wants you to like him.”

  “I wouldn’t consider the terror he inspired in me as likely to win the favor of a girl as timid as I,” said Valerie, touching her inflamed forehead.

  “He knows people better than they know themselves.”

  “What does he have in mind for me?”

  “He wants you to love him of your own volition.”

  “Then I don’t think I’m in any kind of peril.”

  “You’re wrong, my dear ...”

  “I was expecting you to tell me something more definite.”

  “Don’t forget, I know him an
d I know the kind of women who have fallen victim to his blandishments. I need only recall my own mother. That is reason enough for me to want to strangle him.”

  “And what about his nonhuman appearance?”

  “Even like that he can win over human hearts. I confess that even I, in some sense, am attached to him. Though I will do whatever is in my power to prevent his gaining power over your spirit.”

  “A quite unwarranted concern!”

  At that moment, the hens began clucking in fright. Even the chicks looked unsettled. Their piteous chirping stirred Valerie’s heart to horror.

  “It isn’t by chance that I chose this rather unfitting place as somewhere safe to hide you,” said Orlík. “I want you to see for yourself just what my uncle is. Behind these few planks, there is space enough for you to observe the Polecat’s true face with ease.”

  “Spare me any sight that could make me unhappy. I’ve been through enough ordeals already.”

  “You need to stay here – to see everything, to hear with your own ears that which is difficult to communicate.”

  The hens were growing more and more restless. At Orlík’s request, Valerie hid behind a piece of crate that may once have held a piano.

  “Well, I’m waiting for you, Constable,” said Orlík, leaning out of the henhouse window.

  “You damned schemer!” the man below unloaded.

  “You’re the schemer, you crock of spite.”

  “Time will tell who’s master.”

  “Valerie,” came from the stoop. “Valerie!”

  It was Grandmother calling.

  Then the old lady let out a shriek of terror:

  “Hands up, thief, or I’ll shoot!”

  But then the constable said:

  “Elsa, it’s me.”

  Chapter VIII

  ELSA

  Valerie trembled at the thought that the Polecat could address her grandmother with such familiarity.

  “Elsa, don’t you recognize me?” the man’s voice continued.

  “I don’t know you.”

  “Just come a step closer.”

  “I really don’t know who you’re pretending to be,” the old lady said timidly.

  “In that case I’ll show myself to you in the light.”

  “Ahh!”

  From the frightened tone of this exclamation Valerie was certain that the constable and her grandmother were no more than a foot away from each other.

  “Are you surprised, Elsa?”

  “In all honesty, yes, Richard.”

  “It’s been a long time since you’ve called me by that name. Not many people remember me from my youth.”

  “What do you call your youth?”

  “You probably know better than I how old I was when we met.”

  “You were just short of fifty.”

  “Add ten years.”

  “It’s not possible that you were the same age then as I am today.”

  “Do not doubt it, Elsa.”

  “You’re the ultimate wonder of wonders, Richard.”

  “Unless I’m mistaken, you were nearly seventeen.”

  “Your memory serves you well.”

  “That was exactly forty-three years ago.”

  “So that would make you now a hundred and four years old ...”

  “I feel much older.”

  “You haven’t changed over these last forty years.”

  “You distress me. To my mind I’ve grown younger.”

  “Why have you come, Richard?”

  “I missed my former home.”

  “Is that all?”

  “How has life been treating you?”

  “How should it treat me when it’s been shattered?”

  “You’re not suggesting I was the one who shattered your life, are you?”

  “I certainly am. I’ve never recovered from your lechery ...”

  “So in a certain sense you’re grateful to me, or aren’t you, Elsa?”

  “You’re making fun of an old woman.”

  “Do you want me to pity you?”

  “Since the time you seduced and then abandoned me I haven’t found any man yet who could satisfy me.”

  “You really are old, Elsa.”

  Valerie shuddered in horror, for her grandmother had burst into a loud weeping.

  “The offspring I brought into the world were afflicted with anemia. It is surely your fault, Richard. Your kisses drained me. I am the world’s most deceived woman.”

  The old lady was sobbing bitterly.

  “What wouldn’t I give to grow young like you, even for a week, believe me! I would give the entire remainder of my life. I want to know your secret, Richard. Take pity on me! I’ll give you anything you want.”

  “You’re speaking like a virgin in love.”

  “I don’t deserve your mockery.”

  “You did just say you would give me anything I ask if I make you into a young woman for a week, didn’t you?”

  “I’m prepared to sacrifice everything for a week of pleasure.”

  Valerie understood less and less of what was happening around her. What could pleasure be if a woman of such stern moral fiber, as she considered her grandmother to be, could beg for it in such humiliating fashion?

  Valerie heard the loud laughter of the man who was persecuting her. She was on tenterhooks to hear what reward he would demand for the magic he seemed to have at his command.

  “Let me have back, Elsa, this house I once lost at auction,” said the Polecat.

  “Giving it to you, Richard, would mean robbing my granddaughter.”

  “I believe you intend to commit worse deeds.”

  “Richard, you are speaking to a woman who can no longer control her senses.”

  “Well then, are you willing to give me the house that belonged to me?”

  “If you wish, I’ll alter my will and bequeath it to you.”

  “That will do. Let’s draw up a little contract of purchase.”

  “Is this not just your making fun of an old woman?” asked Grandmother.

  “You know I always mean what I say.”

  “And you really will give me your elixir?”

  “There are no elixirs of the kind you would like to believe in.”

  “So how can you work the miracle of giving me back my lost youth?”

  “You’ll see for yourself.”

  “Oh Richard, I wish it could be this very day. The thought that I’ll no longer be disfigured by old age is driving me mad.”

  “Before the sun rises, you shall be beautiful, Elsa.”

  “And where will you perform this magical transformation of me?”

  “At the wedding of the landowner from ...”

  “The whole town will be on their toes when they see me among the guests.”

  “I advise you to arrive there as a peasant woman. Then you will leave as the prettiest girl.”

  “Really, Richard?”

  “You have my word.”

  “But can’t the operation be carried out somewhere else than in a house of marriage?”

  “Rest assured that everything I think up has its purpose. This wedding has come at just the right moment. Without it, the task would not be so easy.”

  “You’re a devil,” the old lady whispered.

  “Not at all. Don’t credit me with magical powers. I do no more than put my experience to good use.”

  “Command me what to do, Richard. You know that I will obey you in everything.”

  “I would like to know the direct cause of your sudden craving for youth. Are you in love?”

  “I’ve been swept off my feet.”

  “Who is this handsome man, for whom you’re prepared to give up your life in a week’s time?”

  “A missionary by the name of Gratian. He isn’t young, but, apart from you, he’s the only man to have held me in his sway.”

  “I hope he will find you a faithful mistress,” smirked the Polecat.

  “I am sacrificing this house for him.”

  “Good-bye, then. We will meet in an hour at the wedding house.”

  “Good-bye, Richard. This next hour will be an eternity for me.”