Lanceheim (21 page)

“To doubt your neighbor is to doubt the Savior. Behind the false is the true, behind the malicious is the good. Anyone who believes knows that is how things are. Igor was happy for the opportunity to demonstrate his faith. When the neighbor related the episode down at the neighborhood bar that same evening, he made fun of stupid Igor. The high point of the story was the fact that Igor Salmon did not even own a dog.”

This time the Retinue murmured spontaneously and not in key.

“The rumor of the wealthy ‘idiot' quickly spread,” continued Chaffinch from up on the diving board. “Animals from near and far knocked on Igor's door and alleged one thing more unbelievable than the other. Some of them suspected that if they had asked flat out for money, the result would have been the same. But the deception itself, and afterward telling the story about what they had pulled off at Igor's door, was perhaps even more important than the money.

“A nurse who had worked her entire life at Lakestead
House, and therefore was accustomed to lunatics, heard the story of Igor Salmon one day. She felt sorry for the poor fish who not only let himself be fooled, but was reviled so crudely besides. She decided to have mercy on him. She looked for his house, knocked on his door, and asked if he needed any help. Judging by her tone of voice, it was clear that he should say yes, and so he did. The nurse moved in, and they lived together for almost four months. After that she moved out again in a fury.

“During the time they lived together, she realized that Salmon was not mentally defective at all. He was on the contrary a sensitive, talented stuffed animal. And despite the fact that he daily and sometimes hourly let himself be fooled by idiotic, transparent lies, he was happier than the nurse was ever going to be. Angrily she left the house. Things she did not understand had always aroused her indignation.”

The Retinue let a concurring murmur be heard.

“The years passed,” continued Adam Chaffinch, “and one fine day Igor's money ran out. The animals' visits to his door ceased, and he was allowed to live in peace. He lived a happy life. Sometimes he grieved that he had to be so alone, but he understood that this was the trial he was forced to undergo. His faith frightened the world around him; the animals assumed that there were hidden motives behind his goodness. They could not, however, understand what they were. At regular intervals Igor Salmon sold some of the beautiful furniture that was in his parental home, and in that way he kept himself alive.

“At last came the day that comes to all of us. The Chauffeurs steered their red pickup through Amberville and parked outside Igor Salmon's house. The believing fish's days in Mollisan Town were at an end. The Chauffeurs got out of their truck and with heavy, determined steps went up to Salmon's house and knocked.

“No one opened.

“They knocked again.

“Salmon did not open.

“Salmon had been ready to meet the Chauffeurs his entire life. Nothing bad awaited him; his faith was unshakable. The reason that he did not open the door was that he had gone out the back door of the house two minutes earlier.”

A sigh of confused disbelief passed through the Retinue. This was a strange sermon; it was hard to understand in what direction the chaffinch's story would go. One of the stuffed animals in the pool fidgeted nervously, and this started a chain reaction. Suddenly there was an uneasiness in the pool that had not been there before.

“But he didn't go alone!” cried Adam Chaffinch to his congregation. “Igor Salmon did not go alone through his orchard, he did not go alone into the forest, into which he had never dared go before even though he had lived at its edge his whole life. Igor Salmon did not go alone, because a few minutes before the Chauffeurs parked outside his house, Maximilian had knocked on Igor Salmon's kitchen door. And together they disappeared into the forest, the believer and the believed.”

“Amen,” sang the Retinue in its two voices. “Amen, amen.”

Again and again they sang. The uneasiness that only moments before had been in all of them and was now dissolved made the song stronger, more liberating.

“Amen, amen,” they sang.

Adam Chaffinch remained standing on the diving board for a long time. The spotlight that had been aimed toward him gradually dimmed. When the preacher was finally embraced by the same warm darkness as all the others—the light from the thousands of wax candles was yellow and flattering—he slowly withdrew. The Retinue continued to sing, and when the first stuffed animals unwillingly went up the steps in the pool, they were still singing.

Reuben Walrus went along with the others. The performance was over, and he was strangely moved. But Reuben did not manage to go more than a few steps before Philip Mouse pulled on his arm.

“Slowly,” Philip whispered in his ear. “I was thinking we could exchange a few words with the preacher before we leave.”

 

Philip Mouse led Reuben
Walrus to the right of the lobby, where the shadows were deeper and darker than anywhere else in the bathhouse. There they stood quietly and waited for the stuffed animals to disappear out into the night. When silence at last returned, it took a moment, but then they saw.

There he was, the preacher, in the farther left corner of the bathhouse. He was still wearing his long gown, but without the strong spotlight it looked almost seedy. He walked slowly from candlestick to candlestick, blowing out the candles. He held his wing behind the flame, even if the concern seemed misdirected—it was a long time since the abandoned bathhouse's worn-out, pitted concrete floor had been worth protecting.

When Mouse was certain that they were alone, he carefully pulled Reuben Walrus with him out to the pool. Chaffinch did not raise his gaze, but he must have felt their presence nonetheless. Suddenly he said, “I understand that you have something on your mind.”

Only then did he look up and meet their surprised gazes. The mouse and the walrus halted.

Chaffinch smiled.

“I know my Retinue,” he said, observing them thoroughly. “And I noticed a couple of new animals in the pool. We all did, even if perhaps it didn't seem like it.”

Mouse shrugged his shoulders. He had no desire to end up at a disadvantage.

“Perhaps you'd like to help me?” Chaffinch asked quietly. “Blowing out all these candles takes a while.”

“Of course,” replied Reuben.

Mouse shrugged his shoulders again. He took a few steps over toward one of the swaying chandeliers that made such a powerful impression from the bottom of the pool, and started blowing. During the afternoon he had decided to maintain a certain distance. Walrus would certainly like to talk to Chaffinch in peace. Therefore Mouse selected a chandelier a little ways away.

“I'm looking for Maximilian,” said Reuben Walrus, blowing out a candle.

“So I've heard,” answered Adam Chaffinch amiably.

He had nothing more to say. He continued calmly blowing out the candles, and Reuben Walrus did the same. This went on for a few minutes. They worked from the left corner of the bathhouse in toward the middle, the whole time with Philip Mouse at a respectful distance.

“Maximilian needs protection,” said Adam Chaffinch when they arrived at the pool. “He doesn't think so, of course, but that's how it is.”

All the questions Reuben had, and the hopes he harbored, made it hard to know how he should approach this conversation. He tugged absentmindedly at his mustache.

“Protection?” he asked. “What does Maximilian need to be protected from?”

“Above all, from himself,” Chaffinch replied.

The answer came immediately.

“The external threats,” repeated Chaffinch, returning to his own train of thought, “can never frighten us. But against his own…goodness…Maximilian cannot struggle. Without protection, the surrounding world will destroy him.”

“What did you say?” asked Reuben. “Forgive me, but I didn't hear—”

“If we aren't there for Maximilian,” Chaffinch repeated gruffly, “his goodness is going to destroy him.”

The preacher nodded to himself, and then concentrated on the candles around the pool. A few silent minutes passed as Chaffinch took care of the right-hand long side while Reuben Walrus helpfully worked his way methodically down the left. They met at the short end of the pool. As the wax candles were successively extinguished, the moonlight gained the upper hand. The soft, warm yellow-red glow that had filled the bathhouse was replaced by a cold, white light, which made its way in through the holes in the decaying exterior walls.

“I want to meet Maximilian,” said Reuben.

“You don't want to meet Maximilian,” replied Adam Chaffinch sternly. “You want him to grant you a miracle. For you Maximilian could be anyone at all.”

Reuben was ashamed. Chaffinch was right.

“Forgive me,” he asked. “It's true. It's nothing less than a miracle I ask for. I'm a composer, that's what they call me. I'm in the process of losing my hearing, and the doctors say there's nothing that can be done. Time passes, and…I don't know where I should turn. I spoke with someone who said…there were several who said that my only hope was Maximilian.”

Chaffinch nodded.

“And how do you think the miracle itself comes about?” asked Chaffinch.

Reuben shook his head. He did not know; he hadn't thought about it.

“That he would receive you in an apartment and give you a miracle? That it could be bought? Or that you could beg your way to it? Did you think this was something he stored in a desk drawer and doled out to animals that came to
visit? I don't want to hurt you, but I'm sincerely interested.”

“I don't know,” Reuben answered quietly. “I…met a giraffe who…he had just been walking on a street and—”

“Heine,” Chaffinch nodded quietly. “Didn't it strike you that Heine had never asked for a miracle? That he actually has a hard time believing that it happened?”

Reuben still had no answer.

“I don't know what I thought,” he said at last.

“That honors you,” answered Chaffinch.

“What?”

“That honors you. That you didn't worry about the matter honors you. It speaks for you.”

“Really?”

Adam Chaffinch blew out the last candle.

 

The moon was still
whole and the gentle wind cold against the cloth when Reuben Walrus and Adam Chaffinch left the dilapidated bathhouse. Philip Mouse walked a few meters behind them. His mission was not yet complete; he had been contracted to find Maximilian, and every lead was valuable. Therefore he made sure to hear everything the finch and the walrus said, without intruding.

“You must prove yourself worthy,” said Chaffinch.

“What'd you say?”

Reuben had a harder time understanding what the chaffinch said when the treacherous breeze carried each and every word with it westward.

“You must prove yourself worthy,” repeated Chaffinch.

“Yes, yes, I understand that,” answered Reuben politely.

“Maximilian himself will certainly meet you; he wants to meet as many as possible. The problem is that…there are getting to be too many…. We must make a selection.”

“We? Meaning who?”

“It becomes unmanageable otherwise. We select which
ones get to meet him, but that is not the same as having your dreams fulfilled. He is a Savior, not a spirit in a bottle.”

“What?”

“He's not the spirit in the bottle that fulfills wishes.”

“I realize that.”

They had come halfway through the deserted landscape of ruins that surrounded the bathhouse. It was just as silent and still as it had been a little more than an hour ago, but the shadows that the moonlight produced seemed longer and sharper now.

“What should I do?” asked Reuben.

“Do?”

“To be…worthy?”

Adam Chaffinch stopped and looked intensively at the old walrus.

“You will be tested,” he said.

Philip Mouse stopped too, a few meters away. They stood at a crossroads. A narrow asphalt path led back up onto the street, another slithered away toward the outer area of the ruins. It was obvious that Adam Chaffinch intended to take leave of them here.

“I know that you are short of time. If we can, we will take that into account. I promise nothing.”

Chaffinch extended his wing, and the walrus shook it as well as he could. After that he turned for the first and only time directly to Philip Mouse. The chaffinch spoke very clearly, as if it were Mouse that was deaf.

“It's no use searching, Mr. Mouse. Better animals than you have tried and failed.”

The words hung in the air a few moments before they fell to the ground. Chaffinch turned around and continued quickly down the long path toward the ruins. Walrus and Mouse remained standing and watched him.

“And now?” asked Reuben at last.

“I wouldn't say no to a whiskey,” said Mouse.

T
he moment Philip Mouse opened the door to his office, they attacked him. The Morning Rain had just ceased, and his trench coat was still wet. He took a heavy blow to the neck, and they were over him before he realized what had happened. They dragged him through Daisy's office, and the sight that met him inside was macabre.

With a rope that he had never seen before, they had hung one of the Windsor chairs up in the ceiling fan. In the chair sat Daisy. Her dress was torn to shreds, and they had taped her mouth shut. Her hands were secured behind her back, her legs tied to the legs of the chair. With a mechanical screech the fan still managed to turn, so that Daisy was twisting around and around.

Mouse tried to take in the situation. There were three of them. They had pulled nylon stockings over their heads. They were dressed in black from top to toe, and judging by bodies and movement patterns, he guessed that they were mammals. More than that, it was hard to say.

They pulled Philip up from the floor and pressed him down on the desk chair. Two of them remained standing
behind him, holding him in place, while the third placed himself at an angle in front of the desk, screaming something that at first was impossible to hear. The voice was shrill. “It goes like this! It goes like this! It goes like this!”

He got a hard blow to the face. It came without warning, from the right. Two days had passed since Philip Mouse and Reuben Walrus had visited Adam Chaffinch, and this was the result of too many questions in too short a time. A reward for quickness, thought Philip, taking the next blow.

The animal that had screamed went up to Daisy and the whirling chair. This caused Mouse to stiffen. There was no reason to mix Daisy up in this.

“She knows nothing,” he protested. “She hasn't asked any questions.”

The masked stuffed animal went over to the bookshelf and reached for a table lamp that Philip had bought many years ago from a poet who changed professions and nowadays sold spices.

Sparks came out of the wall outlet as the masked animal tore the lamp loose and used it as a weapon. He struck wildly around himself. Books and decorative objects fell to the floor. He attacked the paintings and the armchair.

“Bloody hell bloody hell bloody hell bloody hell bloody hell bloody hell bloody hell!” he screamed. “Bloody hell bloody hell bloody hell!”

He turned around and attacked the desk, tossing aside papers that whirled as if the Evening Storm was blowing right through the room. The pistol that had been concealed under a folder on the table slid down onto the floor right next to Philip's left paw. The masked stuffed animal then began hitting the lamp against the floor, striking like a maniac, and he was not content until the desk gave way and with a crack broke in two.

Then he turned around, taking a few steps toward Daisy. He raised the lamp that he was holding in his paw, aiming
a violent blow. He hit her cheek, and she screamed loudly in pain. The adrenaline was pumping in Philip's body. The hoodlum struck Daisy a second time, and she jerked back so violently that the chair on which she was sitting fell to the floor, the fan fell down over her, and Philip tore himself out of his attackers' grasp.

After that, everything happened very fast.

Philip Mouse threw himself down under the desk and got hold of his pistol. With the weapon in hand he rolled away from the animals that had been standing at his side and who now threw themselves after him. He managed to kick one of them with his shoe; it landed right over the head. The other could not catch up with him. The private detective quickly got up on his knees and fired the pistol at the animal that had struck Daisy.

The bullet went through the hoodlum's leg. With a howl he fell down on what remained of the fan. Right next to him Daisy lay on her side, still tied to the chair.

The pistol in Philip's hand changed the situation. Instead of taking up the battle, the three attackers reacted as if they had been talking about it and come to agreement in advance. They fled.

The one with the hole in his leg was limping, and the one who got Philip's foot in the head was dazed, but they were running anyway. As well as they were able.

Mouse set aside the weapon and bent over Daisy. He carefully pulled the tape from her mouth. And when he had stroked her across the forehead and assured himself that she was all right, he went out to her office to find a knife to free her from the rope and tape.

What the hell was that? he thought. What the hell was that?

 

Fassbunden Church is in
central Lanceheim, built in the bombastic eighteenth-century style that would be so scoffed at
during the centuries that followed. While many buildings in the same style were torn down during the late nineteenth century, the church remained. Today it is the foremost example of the grandiose, not to say megalomaniac, idea of good architecture of that bygone age.

A stone's throw from the church is the monastery, the only one of its type in Mollisan Town. There is a convent in south Yok, not far from the retirement home, but it was to the monks that Philip Mouse embarked that same afternoon. He had been there to visit Brother Tom before, but it must have been more than fifteen years ago. That visit was, as Philip recalled, very brief. On the other hand he recalled, strangely enough, a detail that had etched itself into his memory in the mysterious manner that details have a way of doing. If the cowl Brother Tom had worn was gray or dark red, Philip had already forgotten that same day. But in contrast, the detective could, even fifteen years later, see Tom's shoes in front of him, the red leather sandals that he had never seen either before or since.

Not until today.

One of the three intruders that attacked Daisy and him had just that kind of sandals on.

Now Philip Mouse stepped up to the impressive monastery gate and used the door knocker. The monastery was built like a regular fortress of red brick. No one came in through the gate without being invited, and—looking at it a different way—it was not easy to get out.

A rooster appeared. It looked funny when the little stuffed animal stuck his head out through the enormous gate.

Rust red, thought Philip. The tunic was rust red.

The rooster looked kindly at the private detective, who explained that he had come to see Brother Tom. With a nod he was let in.

The monastery received visitors in a gloomy stone hall from which three stairways led, one in each direction. The
daylight filtered in through a series of small openings up under the ceiling, which meant that the floor of the hall was in darkness. The rooster went off, and Philip was left alone. There was no furniture, not even a bench to sit on, and there was a damp chill in the air.

The mouse leaned nonchalantly against the wall and prepared to wait. He was just about to sit down on one of the stair steps when Brother Tom came down the middle staircase.

“Tom!” exclaimed Philip. “I thought someone would come and get me? Last time I got—”

“We both remember what happened last time,” replied Tom.

With the rust-colored tunic Brother Tom looked less like a spider than he usually did. He radiated a kind of calm, there was a gentle friendliness in his gaze that had not been there before, but at the same time one of the reasons for Tom's considerable success as a poker player had been that he was difficult to read.

“I'm sorry about last time,” said Philip Mouse. “It was simply not—”

“That was ages ago,” answered Brother Tom. “Nothing to talk about now.”

The last time Philip Mouse had come to visit was to find out how Tom became a believer and monk overnight. About how it was that this had happened the night when the largest winnings of the century had been paid out at VolgaBet. No one knew who had won, or if the betting that night had been manipulated, but Mouse had a feeling that Tom was involved in some way.

They had thrown the private detective out of the monastery that time. To his great surprise, Philip had ascertained later that Brother Tom had remained within the monastery walls.

“No, I have a completely different type of errand today, Tom,” the mouse confirmed.

When Brother Tom showed no signs of going anywhere,
Philip assumed that the meeting would take place here, in the darkness of the hall. And that it was just as well to make the best of the situation. He breathed in the damp, close air and shrugged his shoulders.

“Nowadays I…investigate things,” said Mouse. “It can be a dirty job sometimes, but I do it anyway. And now I am searching for a stuffed animal—”

“Is it someone in the monastery?”

There was no worry in Brother Tom's voice, but no surprise either.

“No, I don't believe so.”

“For it has happened before. That stuffed animals have hidden in here….”

Philip felt uncomfortable standing there, in the middle of a massive hall, and he decided to get to the point.

“I only know the name,” he said. “The stuffed animal I am seeking is named Maximilian.”

Despite the darkness the reaction was apparent. Brother Tom's eyes widened, his chin fell down, and his mouth opened. Several of his many arms stuck out of the tunic.

“Shh,” whispered Tom. “Not here. We'll go…to the garden.”

And without further ado the monk led the mouse up the left stairway, through a series of smaller, vaultlike rooms and along a colonnade alongside the magnificent courtyard that was surrounded by a dense, high hedge. It was a walk of a few minutes. Brother Tom said nothing in the meantime, but he got more and more out of breath.

“Here,” he said at last with a nod.

In the hedge next to the colonnade a small arch opened. The garden that was concealed behind it caused Mouse to involuntarily sigh. To the right hovered a heaven of pink and white cherry blossoms; to the left was a labyrinth of boxwood-lined gravel pathways between which mimosa trees and a jungle of pink and red rosebushes had burst into
full bloom. The scent of flowers and the explosive display of color, intermingled in the midst of the stern monastery building, were overwhelming. Even for someone dressed in a beige trench coat and a dark hat.

“Unbelievable,” exclaimed Philip Mouse.

Brother Tom conveyed the mouse with unaltered haste along the winding gravel paths, and he did not stop until they had reached a bower of grapevines over a green wrought-iron bench. There he signaled to Mouse to sit down, and he himself sat down close beside.

“That name,” whispered Brother Tom breathlessly, “may not be said out loud in this monastery.”

“Maximilian?” asked Mouse, startled.

“Shh!” admonished Tom. “I'm begging you.”

“But…,” Mouse began without arriving at which of all the questions he should ask first. “But—”

“There are those who maintain that he is the Savior, the Messiah.”

“Messiah?” echoed Mouse. “Maximilian?”

“Dear friend, stop that immediately!”

Brother Tom's cheeks were red. He believed that Mouse was provoking him. Now that they had sat down on the bench, the birds resumed their concert, and Philip sensed that was why they had sat just here. Their words were drowned in an extravagant chirping and twittering.

“Where is he?” asked Philip, not beating around the bush.

“I don't know,” replied Tom. “No one knows. If we knew, we would take him prisoner and put him on trial.”

“Take him prisoner?”

“He pretends to be the Messiah!”

“Does he?”

“He has never denied it.”

“But the police can't arrest someone who—”

“Not the police,” interrupted Tom with a contemptuous
snort. “We're the ones who will hold him accountable. The church. This is a matter for us.”

Philip Mouse nodded thoughtfully, as if what Brother Tom had said was reasonable and sensible. He dug in the inner pocket of his trench coat and took out a pack of half-smoked cigarettes; a kind of reserve pack for when he forgot to buy a new one. He found one of the longest butts, lit it, and took a deep puff.

“Have you seen him?”

Brother Tom shook his head. “Never. But we've been talking about him for many years. At the beginning no one listened. And when we finally understood that…others were listening…it was too late.”

“Too late?”

“Then he had already…been heard of. If you try to stop it now, in the wrong way, he becomes a martyr. That is probably the worst thing that can happen. Now you have to…consider.”

“In the wrong way?”

“He has several friends. A chaffinch and a snake. They're not saying anything new. Talk about faith and hope and love. There was a mink too, who was especially troublesome. We tried to make her see reason a few times. I mean, not here, but…yes…our animals talked with her. She refused to listen. I thought we ought to have been…more definite.”

“You haven't got hold of Maximilian?” asked Philip with surprise. “I thought you had enormous resources.”

“We do. That's what has made certain parties…extremely worried. And we have devoted a number of years to this.”

Philip put out his cigarette in the gravel under the bench. The church had tried for several years; he thought he could manage it in a few days.

There was not much more to say. The mouse and the
monk wound up the conversation, and went back together.

On the way through the colonnade they encountered an elderly deacon who blocked their path and looked searchingly at Philip.

“Brother Tom,” he said without releasing his gaze from Philip. “A visit, I see?”

“I'm following my old friend to the exit,” explained Brother Tom, doing nothing to conceal his restlessness. “He's in a bit of a hurry.”

The deacon extended his claw.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, smiling gently. “Your name?”

Philip extended his paw and thought about saying just what his name was, when the elderly deacon held up a claw.