The Movie from the Marble Hall

Katie Bell, heart still pounding from the vision of the deadly vampire, sat on the edge of the bed and motioned the young German man with the glass eye to pull up the only chair.

He sat on the plump velvet chair as though he were still standing, not seeming to put weight on it. His left eye studied her closely through the monocle. “You saw the monster you feared most, yes?”

She swallowed and nodded. “As though it stepped right out of a moving picture. In fact it was

from a moving picture, a powerful frightening film which I saw in your country, sir, about five years ago. In the Marmorsaal

of the Berlin Zoological Garden.” She pronounced the German word for the ornate marble hall correctly. “I loved it but I confess, I’ve had nightmares since where that vampire stalked me.”

“Nosferatu, by F.W. Murnau. The actor Max Schreck, he makes quite the impression. Yes, I understand.”

“But it wasn’t really there?” She looked at where the bald, rat-faced vision of evil had stood until Mr. Fenster and the one-eyed German man had burst into the room. “It couldn’t have hurt me?”

“I am unsure myself even now of exactly how they work. It was real in some sense and yes, it could have hurt you badly. That was why I persuaded your Mr. Fenster to allow me to go where I was certain you had gone.”

She shivered and put her right hand on the cross. “You give me chills, sir.”

He put both hands on his right knee and leaned forward. “If you will allow me to carry away the items I have purchased, this danger will most likely leave your life and the dark will be only for passion and for sleep once more.”

She had nearly forgotten that he had just paid her a great deal of money to buy certain items off of her. She replied instantly, “I’ll sleep when I’m planted in the ground, sir. Until then I shall take what adventure comes my way. Tell me what they truly are and why you want them, and why a vampire come to life from a film was in my room.”

But when she referenced “them” a subtle shifting of her body in their direction, barely physical, betrayed their location. The young German rose and with two long strides was at her bedside table. His long-fingered, well-manicured hands reached for her jewel box and she slapped a hand down on it first. His hands covered hers but made no other movement.

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Her dark eyes lifted and met his. “If I scream for Mr. Fenster, don’t think he won’t come running. He’s a good man.” She decided not to mention the tongue lashing she would certainly receive later. “Tell me what they are and why you want them.”

For the first time he showed amusement. “You have surprised me, Miss Katie Belle. Very well, I will satisfy your thirst for knowledge.” His hand spread wider on hers. “I feel them in there, even through your hand.” But he made no move to trap her hand or to force her to open the box.

To her surprise, his warm hand (why had she expected it to be cold) sent a pleasant thrill up her arm. “I’ll fetch them out, sir. You would never have found them.”

The amused twitch of his lips told her he probably would

have quickly mastered the secret drawer. Defiantly she opened the jewelry box, reached under the top compartment and triggered the hidden latch. A small drawer popped into view and there they lay. She picked them up.

There were five of them. They shone through her hand. She had closed her hand around them before and seen her hand blood red. As always, they hurt like a doctor’s inoculation but they seemed to drive away itches, warts, disease, lice – certainly she always felt that any venereal disease would have blanched and shriveled before that merciless shine.

But to the naked eye, they were just crumbs of broken glass, such as a Helga Amundsen might have found in her running shoe by the side of the road or a Sally Yan might have found glittering in the ashes of an exploded crypt.

They had a displeasing lack of any symmetry or pattern and yet they were not pieces of a bottle or a drinking glass or a window. They were clearly jewels of some sort and both their ugliness and their attraction came from the harsh light they put out. That light, she saw now, reminded her of the creepy light in the horror movie and the glare of the film projector.

She weighed them, looked once more at the pair of eyes that watched her, the glass eye fixed on the wall to her left, the other eye sharp in the monocle. Then she held out the jewels. “You may have them. But please tell me what they are. And incidentally, sir, I would like to know your name, if I may.”

He delicately raised to his lips the hand not holding the jewels and for the first time a delighted Katie Bell had her hand kissed. “Hendrik Casselberger,” he said. “And now, please allow me…”

From the same pocket where he kept the cigarette case he drew out a coffin.

A startled Katie Belle saw a moment later that it was just a stone box that gleamed like polished marble. He opened it. It was lined with chips of reddish wood. “Put them in there, please.”

She turned her hand slowly, seeming to take much longer than she should have, and let the jewels slide from her steady palm. They landed silently and the young man closed the lid and turned a catch which sealed the box shut.

His body lost none of its straightness but every joint seemed to expand and soften with relief. He put the marble coffin away in that inner pocket.