‘We clear the snag, we go on, fifty miles of river,’ Wesley Lewis Jr said, cutting the Prussian off, ‘then a four-day trek to get to where the eels are, one man short. You ever experience the wild forests of the New World, Mr von Rolt? Swarms of mosquitoes, the even bigger zancudos, and these little bastards the French call bête-rouge, make you itch to kingdom come. And then there’s the chegoes, which love to crawl into your boots and burrow into the skin between your toes and lay their eggs. Of course, the snakes, caimans, jaguars, all that. I could go on, but I understand you’re a busy man. When we finally got back to my employer’s sugar plantation—that’s Captain van der Velde, whom I believe you’ve had correspondences with— well, he wants to test something out. Before we barrel up the eels, he wants to see what happens if you touch one. So he orders one of his slaves—an older man, scarred all over from the whip—Captain van der Velde orders him to pick one up out of the barrel.’

Wesley Lewis Jr slapped the barrel wood.

‘Of course, the Negro’s reluctant, but he’s got no choice. Trembling, he slowly reaches in and then, before he can even get a decent grip on the slimy bastard, receives such a jolt that he falls back onto the ground as though he’s been shot. Then the captain orders another slave to push the eel onto the man’s body, which he does, terrified, with a stick, and then we all watch it stretch along the Negro’s body and begin to pulse and change colour, and the Negro sets to twitching and shaking. His black heart’s already stopped, but he keeps twitching and shaking until the eel is spent. Then the creature rested a moment before slithering away.’

Wesley Lewis Jr paused. ‘One of these eels, sir, right here in this barrel. A man killer.’

‘Half,’ Claus von Rolt said again.

Wesley Lewis Jr frowned and was about to reply when Mr Hendrik took him by the arm. Turning to the Prussian, the Negro bowed his head a little, blinked his eyes in the slow, sleepy way that Wesley Lewis Jr couldn’t stand, and said, ‘We accept your offer.’

GUESTS

The family lawyer Seidlitz was there when Elisabeth von Hoffmann returned home with Günther Jagelman. She couldn’t stand Seidlitz and mostly wished he’d fall under a horse. Hearing the man’s voice as they entered the house, she turned into the sitting room and walked to the large window that looked out over the street. The house wasn’t far from Unter den Linden and people were everywhere still, passing by below the window, heading towards Napoleon. She watched them, indifferent, could only think of the boy she’d seen.

From down the hall, her aunt’s voice. ‘Elisabeth!’