Roots of Evil(60)

There was a brief shot of Alraune standing in front of the house, her eyes on the trapped figure of her mother, her eyes huge with terror, thrusting her fist into her mouth to force back her own screams. And then the music spiralled upwards, shrieking out panic-notes like sirens, throbbing like the boiling blood in a burning woman’s veins…The flames blazed into the night sky – a matchwood house frontage had been built for the scene and then set alight, and the prostitute was a dummy-figure, manipulated on the end of a long steel rod. Everyone had been a bit worried about how it would look, but Alice thought it looked convincing.

And now, at last, here was the room that Alraune had prepared for the scientist: the room with the velvet hangings and the trailing greenery framing the silken couch. The film slid seamlessly into the second of the scenes written in – that of the darkened and altered climax to Ewers’ book. Despite herself, Alice felt again the sick apprehension at the sight of Alraune approaching the prepared death-chamber, the glittering stiletto in her hand. Take it slowly, they had said to her when they shot that. Go catlike and menacingly towards the door. There won’t be any sound, of course, but let people feel your footsteps. Pad-pad, I’m-going-to-kill…Hold the stiletto up as you go along, let’s see it catch the light, let’s signal to the audiences that you’re intent on murder.

Alice leaned forward, gripping the sides of her seat, knowing she was being absurd, but a tiny ridiculous part of her hoping that in some undreamed-of way it might come right after all, that Alraune might not commit that last appalling act…

It did not come right, of course. Conrad’s music was filling up the auditorium, echoing the thrumming of a mind embittered and corroded by the need for revenge, and the sound of Alraune’s footsteps were inside the cadences. Pad-pad-I’m-going-to-kill…And for the second time tonight Alice had the curious impression of scudding emotions pouring down from the future…

As Alraune raised the stiletto, and as the once-mesmeric figure of the scientist turned his head and widened his eyes in horror, the stiletto came flashing down on to his face…Once…Twice…

The screaming music reached its impossible heights, and the final frame came up: shocking, pitiable. As the music began to fade in a long and terrible moan, the man who had created Alraune pawed in helpless agony at the dark bloodied holes where once his eyes had been…

Alraune watched for a moment, and then took the man’s hand and led him solicitously to a high-backed chair. While he thrashed in his death throes, as if in macabre echo of her years in the convent she lit votive candles which she placed on each side of him. A sacrifice. A libation. The dark flames burned up, casting unearthly shadows on the dying man.

Alraune studied the effect, and adjusted one of the candles. Then she sat on the ground at the feet of her creator, and watched him die.



It was not until the lights were turned back up in the auditorium that Alice became aware again of the packed theatre, and the looks being sent in her direction, half-admiring, half envious. A very dark film, people were saying to one another. Very dark indeed, and far more shocking than the version done by Brigitte Helm a few years ago. Very disturbing. That final scene…Ah, that had not been in the original book? Most explicit it had been, one felt quite upset. And were they to understand that the scientist had died from Alraune’s attack on him or not? Oh, left to the imagination of the audience, was it? Very modern. Er – was it correct that champagne was to be served in the foyer now? Ah, it was correct. And a little supper as well? Caviare and smoked salmon? Well, that would be very acceptable indeed.

It was necessary, as it always was, to remain cool and distant; to appear unmoved by the attention and the curious looks. But actually, thought Alice, sipping her champagne, actually I’m loving every moment of it, although I mustn’t let anyone guess that. And yet at the deepest level of all was still the thread of anxiety that seldom left her, because it would be so easy for this to suddenly end. If I were to be recognized – if I were to be confronted with a visitor to the house where I was a maid, or even a man from those shameful, shaming nights near to St Stephen’s Cathedral…

I could be anywhere, in any company, she thought, and someone might suddenly fling out an accusing finger, and say, But this isn’t a real baroness at all. This is only some drab little servant girl, brought up in an English village, aping her betters, pretending to be grand and rich and beautiful, drinking champagne as if she’s used to it, wearing expensive clothes instead of the ones suitable to her rightful station…What would I do if that happened? thought Alice.

She would not contemplate it. She would keep Lucretia’s mask firmly in place, and she would make sure that no one ever connected the dazzling baroness with a little brown-haired lady’s maid who, once upon a time, rather than face starvation, had sold her body in Vienna’s streets.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN




It was rather odd the way that word, secret, had kept cropping up while Edmund was having that meal in Lucy’s flat. Edmund had always thought that Crispin was the only one who knew about the secrets in this family, but after that evening he had several times caught himself wondering. ‘I’d have thought Ashwood would be the last place you’d want to visit…’ Lucy had said. And when Edmund had asked why, she had said, ‘Well, because of Crispin…’