“We were living at the lodge. There was an explosion. I can remember being picked up by soldiers and riding on a tank to the village. In between I don’t know. I try to remember. I cannot.”
“I talked with Dr. Rufin.”
No visible reaction to that.
“He would not discuss any specifics of his talks with you.”
Nothing to that either.
“But he said you are very concerned about your sister, naturally. He said with time your memory might return. If you remember anything, ever, please tell me.”
Hannibal looked at the inspector steadily. “Why would I not?” He wished he could hear a clock. It would be good to hear a clock.
“When we talked after … the incident of Paul Momund, I told you I lost relatives in the war. It is very much of an effort for me to think about that. Do you know why?”
“Tell me why, Inspector.”
“Because I think I should have saved them, I have a horror of finding something I didn’t do, that I could have done. If you have the fear the same way I do, don’t let it push away some memory that might be helpful to Mischa. You can tell me anything in the world.”
Lady Murasaki came into the room. Popil stood up and changed the subject. “The Lycée is a good school and you earned your way in. If I can help you, I will. I’ll drop by the school to see about you from time to time.”
“But you would prefer to call here,” Hannibal said.
“Where you will be welcome,” Lady Murasaki said.
“Good afternoon, Inspector,” Hannibal said.
Lady Murasaki let Popil out and she returned angry.
“Inspector Popil likes you, I can see it in his face,” Hannibal said.
“What can he see in yours? It is dangerous to bait him.”
“You will find him tedious.”
“I find you rude. It is quite unlike you. If you wish to be rude to a guest, do it in your own house,” Lady Murasaki said.
“Lady Murasaki, I want to stay here with you.”
The anger went out of her. “No. We will spend our holidays together, and weekends, but you must board at the school as the rules require. You know my hand is always on your heart.” And she put it there.
On his heart. The hand that held Popil’s hat was on his heart. The hand that held the knife to Momund’s brother’s throat. The hand that gripped the butcher’s hair and dropped his head into a bag and set it on the mailbox. His heart beat against her palm. Fathomless her face.
27
THE FROGS HAD BEEN preserved in formaldehyde from before the war, and what differentiating color their organs ever had was long ago leached away. There was one for each six students in the malodorous school laboratory. A circle of schoolboys crowded around each plate where the little cadaver rested, the chaff of grubby erasures dusting the table as they sketched. The schoolroom was cold, coal still being in short supply and some of the boys wore gloves with the fingertips cut out.
Hannibal came and looked at the frog and returned to his desk to work. He made two trips. Professor Bienville had a teacher’s suspicion of anyone who chose to sit in the back of the room. He approached Hannibal from the flank, his suspicions justified as he saw the boy sketching a face instead of a frog.
“Hannibal Lecter, why are you not drawing the specimen?”
“I finished it, sir.” Hannibal lifted the top sheet and there was the frog, exactly rendered, in the anatomical position and circumscribed like Leonardo’s drawing of man. The internals were hatched and shaded.
The professor looked carefully into Hannibal’s face. He adjusted his dentures with his tongue and said, “I will take that drawing. There is someone who should see it. You’ll have credit for it.” The professor turned down the top sheet of Hannibal’s tablet and looked at the face. “Who is that?”
“I’m not sure, sir. A face I saw somewhere.”
In fact, it was the face of Vladis Grutas, but Hannibal did not know his name. It was a face he had seen in the moon and on the midnight ceiling.