Lanceheim (16 page)

“What's this?” asked Maximilian one day as we sat in the living room, reading.

He got up and stared at me inquisitively. I looked around in confusion. I did not know what he was talking about.

“What?”

“Don't you smell it?” he asked, sniffing the air. “Wonderful. The aroma…I don't know…do you have…?”

But I didn't have anything. Maximilian walked slowly out to the hall, sniffing the air the entire time, and I leaned forward in my armchair to see what he was doing. At the next moment there was a knocking at the door. Maximilian threw it open. Outside stood Duck Johnson. Even he looked somewhat surprised at the forceful jerk with which the door was opened.

Duck held out a small brown paper bag.

Without a word Maximilian snatched it. He breathed in the aroma with pleasure.

“It's chocolate,” Maximilian observed.

“Chocolate-dipped pieces of mango,” Duck Johnson confirmed. “I think it's fun to do something a little extra when I make chocolate.”

“Do you make chocolate, Duck?” asked Maximilian, ob
viously fascinated. “Do you do that often? May I taste?”

“It's yours,” said Duck. “It makes me happy that you appreciate it. If you want, I can come by tomorrow again. Because just at this moment I have a pot on the stove at home.”

With his mouth full of chocolate-dipped mango bites Maximilian had a hard time producing more than an appreciative noise. Duck raised his wing to the brim of his hat, nodded courteously toward me—I had taken a few steps out into the hall to see what was happening—and left.

Today I know that Duck was no confectioner, that he actually started making sweets only for Maximilian's sake, and I admit that his inventiveness—for a novice—was impressive. He visited a few times a week, and the assortment he brought varied: honey-drenched pear slices rolled in almond brittle, milk-chocolate-coated fruit marshmallows, apple cubes in dark and light chocolate with candied figs on top. He also knew Maximilian's favorite: light cola fudge inside a thin envelope of orange marzipan; white balls small enough to eat whole.

Duck never had any treats for me, but always a friendly smile.

Sometimes Adam Chaffinch was at Leyergasse when Duck came with his treats. Then Duck stayed behind. He flattered the deacon so crudely that even I became embarrassed, and he always seemed to want to talk about religious subjects without having any religious insight of his own. Only a fool could shut his eyes to the fact that Duck Johnson had a design with his visits, but neither Adam nor I could find out what the design was.

 

After a seminar one
late afternoon in October—I no longer recall what we talked about—Adam unexpectedly asked Duck Johnson to stay behind a while. Duck suspected no
mischief, but rather accepted with delight. This meant that Maximilian, Chaffinch, Duck, and I remained sitting in the little lounge suite in the living room while the other participants quietly left. I recall this as an uncomfortable moment. Maximilian fiddled with his cake plate. I drank the rest of my cold coffee, seemingly meditatively, pretending like I knew what this was about and staring at the painting above the couch, which depicted a knight on a wall. Only Duck Johnson seemed the same, calm and serious.

“Yes,” Chaffinch began when the final participants had closed the outside door behind them, “I would like to know what caused you to come here, Duck. I mean, you have no religious background, do you?”

If Duck suspected anything, he concealed it skillfully.

“No,” he said, “no, I don't. How I ended up here? I heard about Maximilian, and…Why does a person seek something in life? Why isn't it enough to simply live? To be honest, I don't know. But there are surely explanations…there always are.”

“And if I say Wright's Lane and King's Cross?” asked Chaffinch.

King's Cross was the prison at the end of Eastern Avenue. I held my breath: Had Johnson been in prison? What had Adam found out, and why had he not said anything to me? Duck did not change his expression, but his reply took time.

“If you say Wright's Lane, Deacon,” he repeated at last very slowly, “I can say that you have done your homework.”

“You have an extensive criminal record,” Chaffinch stated drily.

“I don't deny it,” replied Duck Johnson. “But you cannot readily blame me for choosing not to talk about that time of my life. That is behind me.”

I turned toward Maximilian to see how he reacted, but could ascertain only that he wasn't listening. That annoyed
me. He could sometimes turn off his surroundings and go into himself in a troublesome manner, and that had happened now.

“And today?” asked the deacon. “How does Duck make a living today?”

Duck did not reply. He was staring at the deacon, and for the first time I saw a fire flame up in Duck's eye; a genuine emotion. It was hatred.

“You have nothing to do with this,” Duck replied calmly.

“We gladly accept a repentant sinner here in the circle around Maximilian,” said Adam, “but not one who still sins.”

Duck looked down at his shoes. They were the same ones he had on at the first meeting two months ago, the black ones with holes in the soles.

“Then I would answer,” he said slowly, and met the deacon's gaze in a way I perceived as challenging, “that the greater the sin, the greater the reason to listen to Maximilian's wisdom.”

With that Duck got up, bowed stiffly in the deacon's direction, nodded to me, and left the apartment. We sat silently and listened to his steps on the stairs. I did not dare look at Maximilian, but I admit that I felt a certain relief. Duck's ingratiation had been irresistible at the beginning, but with the sweets it became obtrusive and unpleasant. If this had anything to do with jealousy, I do not know, but I felt relieved to be rid of him.

 

We left the place
with light steps that evening, Deacon Chaffinch and I. Never could we have sensed that Maximilian would receive Duck Johnson in his home again as soon as the next day, and that we were the ones, the deacon and I, who were put to shame.

It would take another month or two before Duck had maneuvered me out completely and, through his manipulation and his chocolate-coated fruit pieces, won Maximilian over to his side.

The day I came to bark brown Leyergasse and was evicted at the door by the manipulative duck was one of the two or three worst days of my life.

I am not blaming Maximilian. He was a victim; he could not guess the duck's shady intentions, because Maximilian was simply unequipped to believe bad of anyone. Maximilian was above loyalty and friendship with an individual stuffed animal; he was loyal to the collectivity that was Mollisan Town. He loved all of us. I, if anyone, knew all about that.

But it did not hurt any less.

I
t was night in Lanceheim, and in the blocks around mauve Pfaffendorfer Tor life could finally resume. Every morning dawn arrived and broke up the party; the day was one long wait for darkness, and only at twilight could the neon lights swagger again: their yellow, green, and red sheen fell soundlessly against the sidewalks and in the shadows beyond their glow, where couples aroused one another with promises of what the night would hold. At bars and restaurants the atmosphere was loud; through open doors and windows culinary aromas and the laughter of fellowship invited guests to the tables. The stuffed animals of the night were like migratory birds on their way toward dawn; they flew off in flocks from one bar to the next, deeper and deeper into the night and the narrow blocks around Pfaffendorfer Tor, where gloom and shadows ruled and where anonymity promised happiness and freedom. Here the facades stood dark and silent, here doors and shutters were closed.

At one of these bars, far belowground in a cellar that smelled of mold and dampness during the day, sat Duck Johnson. At least I am imagining that this was how it came
about, the background to everything that happened in the time before he showed up at Leyergasse for the first time. He was sitting at a round table; he had a bottle of whiskey before him, and in the overflowing ashtray a cigarette was smoldering.

Across from him a stranger had sat down. Duck was pleasantly drunk, but understood enough that this stranger, an owl, wanted something. No one came to this place voluntarily. The place was neither large nor charming; one lightbulb blinked nervously over a worn billiard table, and on the sticky floor around Duck's table were food scraps and splinters of glass. Behind the bar over by the stairs, the one that led up to the exit, stood a bald ape. How had Johnson become a regular at this miserable dive? He did not know. Perhaps because the alcohol was not diluted, and you could drink more of it here than at other places in the neighborhood?

“Duck Johnson?” the owl on the chair across from him asked.

Duck nodded. At the same time he lit a fresh cigarette, forgetful that the last one was still glowing in the ashtray.

“I'd like to ask you a favor,” said the owl. “Are you sober enough to get what I'm saying?”

Duck giggled. “Why the hell should I do you a favor?”

“Because you're going to get something for it,” the owl replied. “Let me tell you. The Ministry of Finance has quietly started its collection. This happens every ten years. The bills we use get worn out, they fall apart and start to discolor. Without making a big deal of it, the National Bank gathers them up.”

Armand Owl fell silent and observed Duck to see if he was listening and understood. When Owl felt convinced, he continued.

“The collecting goes on for a few months. The bank systematically takes care of all the old money and stores it in
a large bank vault until they finally drive it out to the Garbage Dump and throw it into the Hole. The night before, the amount in the vault is…enormous. The following day the newly printed money goes out into the whole system.”

“And?” wondered Duck.

“There is one individual in this city who can make his way into the vault.”

“The bank director,” said Duck.

“There is a stuffed animal who can go right through walls of steel and metal,” said Armand Owl, undisturbed. “His name is Maximilian, and I want you to become his friend.”

Duck took the bottle of whiskey and brought it to his beak. He drank a few gulps, and nodded to himself.

“You're cracked,” Duck declared, looking at Armand. “Completely disturbed. What kind of money are you talking about?”

Armand explained. It was not every day that he carried out this type of assignment for Vincent Tortoise, but it happened. Minister Tortoise did not know exactly what Armand was up to or what methods he used; it was the overarching goal that mattered. And Armand felt uncertain after the meeting with Duck whether this would really work. Armand did not himself believe the stories he had heard about Maximilian.

 

The night of the
third Thursday in October, Duck Johnson and Maximilian were standing on cucumber green place St. Fargeau in northwest Tourquai, looking across the street. The National Bank was on the other side, a heavy stone building of granite and concrete, gray and awe-inspiring with a thick flagpole pointing straight up from the facade like a rhinoceros horn. Behind the rows of pillars on which the bank's projecting roof rested, the entry doors could be glimpsed.

For three weeks I had been up knocking on the door to Maximilian's apartment on Leyergasse every other day without being let in. I tried to convince myself that it served me right, that I had fallen into the classic trap of defining myself through others; that it might actually be useful for me to realize that I was Wolf Diaz, not simply Maximilian's Recorder. But that sort of self-deception is not for me. I cannot describe painfully enough the shame and terror I felt as I went up the steps on Leyergasse, aware that all that awaited me on the second floor was the uncompromising Duck's vacant gaze.

I should have given up, accepted my fate, and resumed some sort of life, but I did not do that. I spent hours every day outside Maximilian's entryway, and I sought support and sympathy from everyone I encountered. I knew I was making a fool of myself, but I did not care.

Excuse me.

This emotional digression has nothing to do with the night when Maximilian and Duck stood on the sidewalk across from the National Bank. Nothing. Back to the matter.

 

The Midnight Breeze was
playing with the mauve, richly embroidered caftan that Maximilian had put on, and Duck nodded brazenly.

“Not much to wait for,” he said, stepping out into the street.

Maximilian followed a few steps behind. They were a strange pair. In the glow from the streetlights they crossed the deserted place St.-Fargeau, one in hat and suit with his lightly swaying and at the same time stiff gait, the other close behind, soft and lithe but nonetheless uncomfortable in the peculiar body the factory had allotted him.

“Are we really going to get in?” Duck Johnson asked nervously as they approached the bank.

He had been here a few times the week before to reconnoiter. On the street level the bank consisted of two halls, more than twenty meters to the ceiling and large as small cricket fields. There were cashiers and all the rest of the customer operations. The offices were in the building's upper stories, and in the cellar was the vault. In order to get there, Duck and Maximilian would be compelled to force three doors of bulletproof glass and then make their way through the almost absurdly thick vault.

On recommendations from Armand Owl, Duck had kept Maximilian ignorant of what the intent of this nighttime expedition was. Duck did not know, of course, who the owl was or why he had chosen him. At the same time this was of no importance.

“We'll go in here, and go down to the cellar,” Duck explained. “Do you think you can help me?”

“I can help you,” Maximilian replied.

“Because it's locked this time of day,” Duck clarified.

They were almost at the bank. Maximilian reached out his hand and took hold of the duck's wing.

“Close your eyes,” said Maximilian.

Duck closed his eyes and reduced his speed, but Maximilian kept walking. When Duck dared open his eyes again, they were inside the bank's first hall.

“How…?”

“Are we there?” asked Maximilian, looking around.

He had never been in a bank before. After first growing up in Das Vorschutz and then being shut up at Leyergasse, there were many things in our ordinary lives that Maximilian did not know about.

“There? Not yet, really,” said Duck.

Presumably they had already set off some of the alarms. There ought to be motion detectors in the bank, perhaps heat sensors. The opportunity was in acting quickly.

“We'll go down one flight,” said Duck. “Follow me.”

Duck walked quickly, and when they came down the stairs, they saw the great vault right ahead of them.

“Here,” said Duck.

The procedure from the street was repeated: Maximilian took hold of Duck's wing and together they went right through the vault door. Duck was less surprised this time, and the sensational feeling from before was suddenly colored by discomfort. Duck and Maximilian stood silently next to each other in the darkness. The stench in the vault was nauseating; it reeked of excrement and rotten fabric.

“Are we there?” asked Maximilian.

Duck found the electrical panel to the right of the vault door, and turned on the ceiling lights. The reason for the overpowering smell was a few meters away from them. Fifteen, perhaps twenty pallets of old bills, impossible to trace and already deregistered; early tomorrow morning they would be driven away—escorted by the military in armored vehicles—out to the Hole at the Garbage Dump, where they would go up in smoke forever.

Duck gasped for breath. Maximilian looked around and realized where he was.

“We are in a bank vault,” he declared without surprise. “What are we doing here?”

Duck had opened his long coat, and from the specially sewn inside pockets he took out four linen bags. They had been carefully folded, and when he unfolded them, they proved to be larger than you might think. He gave two of them to Maximilian, who took them but stood still.

“What are we doing here?” he repeated.

Duck had discussed this situation with Armand Owl. It was unavoidable that Maximilian would ask the question at last, and that it must be answered.

“We're in a bit of a hurry,” Duck explained.

The pallets of money were secured with rope and covered with plastic. Duck took out a small pocket knife and made
a long cut in the plastic, at the same time as he started gathering bundles of bills and placing them in the first bag.

“I'll tell you later. The money belongs to no one, it's going to be burned, and when I think about the poor stuffed animals in Yok…it simply doesn't feel right. We have to save the money. For Yok's sake. And…if you want…everything you see here can be yours.”

Duck dug deeper into the nearest pallet, but Maximilian remained motionless.

“Here,” said Duck, pointing with his wing to the cut he had made with the knife. “Go ahead. I'll take another one, take this one here.”

Duck went deeper into the vault, and the sound of yet another cut with the knife was heard. While Duck continued working in silence, Maximilian remained mute.

 

How great was the
chance that this coup would succeed? Probably negligible. Armand Owl had devoted great care to assuring Duck Johnson that whatever alarms might be set off, they would have at least fifteen minutes in the vault.

This had been a lie.

Duck had not even had time to fill the first bag with bills before he heard the sound of a series of mechanical clicks from the vault door; it sounded like iron pipes dropped on asphalt. The vault was about to be opened from outside.

After that things went very quickly.

The police stormed in, ten specially trained attack police in riot gear from the renowned Nashville district in Amberville.

As soon as Duck and Maximilian had gone through the hall on the upper level, they had set off the alarm, and the call-out had highest priority. Before the police force arrived, they had received information from command central that the thieves were in the vault; in principle motion detectors
covered every square decimeter of the premises. When a few minutes later the police themselves investigated the place, they found that the vault was closed and locked. To open it required authorization from the bank management, and only after repeated confirmations from command central did the police receive this authorization. The sigh that met them when the vault door glided open was tragic and comic at the same time.

A single, grotesque being dressed in a long caftan and with a kind of shawl wrapped around his head was standing before a pallet of bills. On the floor beside him was a bag half filled with money.

No trace of Duck Johnson was seen, but at the same time the police were not searching for anyone else. It was obvious who had committed this crime.

 

The prosecutor's office found
us through the dry cleaners. After Maximilian had spent a few days in jail, one of the guards discovered the pink receipt that the Siamese always clipped to the collar on Maximilian's mauve caftan when I made use of the Siamese's establishment on Hüxterdamm. On the receipt was a telephone number that the guard dialed, and the Siamese recognized the item of clothing from the description; the embroidery on the caftan depicted a swan with a rhinoceros horn on its forehead. In that way the guard got my name and telephone number.

They called late in the afternoon, when the breeze had slackened and the blue of the sky had intensified, and the joy I experienced when the acting prosecutor described the peculiar individual who was jailed for attempted break-in at the National Bank cannot be exaggerated. I struggled not to scream out loud. I confirmed Maximilian's identity, provided information about family situation and address, and then ran the whole way over to Adam Chaffinch to tell
him the good news. Fortunately there were no more than five minutes between us; I have never been a very athletic animal.

That same evening I made my way to lemon yellow Kaufhof and the peculiar police station that was the headquarters for this part of the city's constabulary: a mauve building reminiscent of a fairy-tale castle, complete with towers and pinnacles. The jail—the largest in all of Mollisan Town—was directly connected to the police station, and the contrast could not have been more conspicuous. From the outside the jail resembled an aboveground bunker, an almost windowless monolith in which Maximilian was imprisoned.

I had never been in the police station before, but I had still heard a lot about it. Here the legendary Major Fendergast had command, and he was one of the primary reasons that Lanceheim remained underrepresented in the crime statistics. At least that was what was said, but who knows. Perhaps it was Fendergast himself who spread that rumor?