The Art of Deception by Louise Mangos

Author:Louise Mangos
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008287955
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-01-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

I’m walking out through the gates, although I’m not free. But this is real, not a dream. It’s the first time, and of course I hope it will not be the last, but I feel reckless with the uninhibited view at ground level. The fences are not high, but from my cell the bars are always a reminder, even if I put my head right near them through the open window and concentrate my gaze into the distance.

As soon as the gate closes behind us, a pair of invisible hands releases its grip on my throat. I suck in the air as though I have been holding my breath under water. A tiny voice screams ‘run, run’ inside my head, but there is nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. The cropless fields stretch for miles around, with a clear view to the village in the distance.

This is an unusual sanction. Müller is taking me to the Hindelbank church in the centre of the village. Something she wants to show me. I’m almost in shock to be outside the prison’s fenced perimeter. I’m not sure what to think of my grain of almost-freedom. We drive in the prison van along the narrow road around the fields to the village. We can see the spire of the church from the grounds of the penitentiary, and I would love to have been able to go on foot to the village. But the distance is considered too far for the other guard accompanying us, whose dodgy hip causes her to walk with a swaying waddle.

I feel like the teacher’s pet, the privileged one, although I know that Yasmine has been to the local bakery a couple of times to help deliver bread when one of their ovens broke down. Rarely are the inmates given the opportunity to leave the grounds. This is unprecedented. It’s Müller’s idea. She thinks I could sell my sketches, wants me to check out some sculpture in the church crypt.

‘The man who built Schloss Hindelbank also built this church. His son commissioned Nahl to sculpt a memorial for his father in the church,’ she tells me.

‘Johann Nahl, the German artist? I’ve heard of him,’ I say.

‘It is a miracle the sculpture was not damaged in the fire of 1911,’ Müller explains as we walk up the path to the arched doorway of the church, our feet crunching on the gravel.

The heavy wooden door is protected from the drizzle by a simple square wooden portico. I tuck my sketchpad under my arm to protect it from the damp and hike the bag containing charcoals and pencils over my shoulder.

I feel vaguely uncomfortable about going into the church. The last time I entered a sectarian establishment was on the college field trip to Florence when we stopped off in Milan to visit the ‘Last Supper’. I’m not religious, but feel slightly rueful that Matt and I weren’t married in a church. But that’s not because of my holy sense of duty. I guess it’s more a sense of tradition.

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