Lanceheim (23 page)

Before Maximilian had even recovered his senses and gotten up from the floor, a small collection of animals had formed outside the cell in the corridor. They all had something to offer; no one cared whether the guards came running to push them away. Only Maximilian, knocked out on the floor of the cell, was unaware of what was happening.

 

It got worse.

Already during the first break it was clear that Maximilian could not be let out among the other prisoners. He was run down, jumped on; he was at the bottom of a tumultuous pile of stuffed animals, and the guards barely managed to pull him loose.

But he could not be inside either. There were enough prisoners who realized that when the majority of guard resources were required to maintain order outside or in the dining hall, an opportunity arose at Maximilian's cell. The dream of being channeled to the outside by a miracle animal—Dennis Coral's escape had taken on mythical proportions—made the prisoners bold beyond the bounds of reason; not even fear of solitary confinement seemed able to dampen their eagerness any longer. The prison administration held an emergency meeting, and the decision they made was the only one possible.

Maximilian had to return to solitary. On the question of how long he would stay there, a question I placed directly to the prison warden by telephone when my normal visiting time was canceled for the second time in two months, the answer was: “For the time being.” And because I knew how hard the first twelve days had been on Maximilian, I protested wildly. The warden, however, had already hung up before I got going.

In this context and from the perspective of the authorities, I was of course easy to disregard, but I forced the equally indignant and worried Adam Chaffinch—he was still a former deacon—to go out to the prison and discuss the situation with the stuffed animals responsible. Adam got nowhere either. He was allowed to meet with a dromedary who called himself “Head of Planning” and who pretended to be ignorant of Maximilian's case. The only thing he could offer Adam was, as I had done, to stand outside a door and try to talk with Maximilian.

Standing and shouting at a closed door in front of the eyes of two sneering guards was a humiliating experience. Adam appealed to Maximilian to listen to reason and tell the whole truth about the night in the vault of the National Bank.

Not a sound came from the closed door.

The last thing to leave a stuffed animal is hope, it is often said. We were certain that nothing could budge Maximilian's hope, but when the defeated Adam Chaffinch came back that day, I heartily wished that the same applied to us.

E
xcuse me, but Minister Tortoise is wondering if you have time to meet with him for a little while.”

Reuben Walrus winced. Darkness had fallen over Pfaffendorfer Tor, and the mauve street was a shade of black. The philharmonic musicians had left the concert hall several hours ago, and Reuben had stayed behind with Dag Chihuahua and discussed…possibilities. But Dag did not let himself be provoked either by Reuben's indignation or sarcasm, nor did he let himself be persuaded by flattery or promises. They sat and talked in the auditorium, the stage lights for the orchestra still on and the mighty concert hall silent and deserted.

Walrus was panic-stricken, and he admitted it. Panic paralyzed him. Chihuahua showed no compassion. Walrus told him how it was: So far he had been incapable of completing the composition of his Symphony in A Minor. Chihuahua found this regrettable. Reuben asked for help, but was intentionally vague; he had not said anything he would have to regret. At the same time Chihuahua had to play dumb so as not to understand where Reuben was heading.

“I'm getting nowhere,” admitted the great composer. “And the days are running away. I think that someone else, who knows me and knows the symphony, might even have greater possibilities of bringing this project to a successful close.”

And Dag Chihuahua answered, at the same time sorrowfully shaking his little head and angling his small, pointed ears forward.

“This is very regrettable, Mr. Walrus. But don't give up the ship.”

At last Chihuahua left the walrus to agonize alone by the stage that had seen him triumph many times, but would now experience the opposite.

Reuben climbed up the steep stage stairs and sat at the piano. With one fin he plunked out his theme, over and over again, but without ambitions. It had gone too far. He had played the same series of notes so many times that all he heard was the echo of his own failure in every imaginable continuation, loud or soft, major or minor.

And his hearing was getting worse and worse.

He had started the day with a short follow-up visit at St. Andrews. His hearing had become measurably worse during the past week. When he left the hospital grounds, he decided not to return. Never again. It was equally pointless and demoralizing. And now as he sat playing the piano and knew that his keystroke was louder than he could hear it, he still refused to understand what was happening. He kept it at a distance. It was as if the disease were encapsulated in a closed box with transparent walls. He could see and understand what was going on inside, he could talk about it and feel sorry for himself, but it was still as if someone were playing the part of Reuben Walrus, and he himself was sitting in the audience. If it got too unpleasant, he could get up and go.

The real anxiety, the night-black unendurable anxiety,
came over him for brief moments. And such a moment suddenly occurred as he played the sequence B, F sharp, D on the piano. Reuben pulled back his fins as if he had burned himself, and stared spitefully at the keys. They were his enemies. He got up, quickly left the spotlight, and gathered his coat and things in the large dressing room next to the performers' dressing rooms behind the stage.

 

Reuben knew that Denise
was expecting him to stop by. Not that he would stay the night, but that he would come up for a drink before he went home to Knobeldorfstrasse. He had no desire. Not this evening. He disappointed her, but in the midst of all this misfortune and grief he could only take responsibility for himself. Hardly even that. When he left the concert hall through the unmarked door to the performers' entrance on the back side, the darkness struck him by surprise. Perhaps, he thought, he could stop by Fox von Duisburg's and see what she was up to.

Then he felt a grip on his fin. A stately owl whose facial features were concealed in the shadows loomed up at his side.

“Excuse me, but Minister Tortoise is wondering if you have time to meet with him for a little while.”

The owl spoke directly into Walrus's ear. The voice was harsh and deep, but still distinct. This was a stuffed animal who was used to getting what he wanted.

Walrus wriggled instinctively out of the owl's grasp and took a step to one side in order to better see who he was talking with. The owl had a military appearance, his back was as straight as if he had steel wire for a skeleton, and his stuffing was ready to burst.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Armand Owl,” replied the owl, making a kind of salute that looked strange in relation to his long,
black coat and the civilian suit that could be glimpsed beneath it. “I have worked for Minister Tortoise for many years.”

“Really? How is it that I've never encountered you? I'm a good friend of Vincent, and I haven't—”

“We have never had reason to…take you seriously before,” said Owl, without trying to soften the tenor of his words by his expression. “I have a car waiting over here. If you would be so kind…?”

 

“Reuben, I beg your
pardon a thousand times for this,” said Vincent Tortoise, with a gesture inviting the walrus to sit down on one of the many chairs around the conference table. “You must not construe this as anything other than a practical solution, evidence that I'm really looking after you.”

Reuben Walrus knew the minister of culture well enough to know that nothing Vincent Tortoise did was by chance. The abruptness, the autocratic attitude behind sending the owl to fetch Reuben outside the concert hall, had been clearly evident.

Reuben informed his old friend of this.

“No, no,” Tortoise dismissed, “that's not true at all.”

But the denial lacked feeling.

Reuben was sitting as far away from Tortoise as he could get.

“Now I'm here,” he said. “What did you want?”

“I'll get right to the point,” Tortoise began.

“What'd you say?”

“I will get right to the point,” repeated Tortoise in a louder voice. “You've been seen as part of what is called ‘Adam's Retinue.' I got the report this morning, and I understood how things stand. You ignored my advice the other day. You're in pursuit of Maximilian.”

“‘Adam's Retinue'?”

“Don't put on airs,” said Tortoise dismissively. “The last time we talked about this matter, I asked you to give this up. Now I'm asking you again, albeit more firmly. I do not want to see you together with…those stuffed animals.”

“You have nothing to do with who I meet,” said Walrus.

The anger caused him to breathe through his mouth. He took short, quick breaths but controlled himself, experienced enough not to show Tortoise what he was feeling. The fact remained. They were keeping him under surveillance. Or else it was Adam Chaffinch they were spying on. In either case this was at odds with the democratic freedom that Walrus had always believed prevailed in Mollisan Town.

“I have nothing to do with your private life, Reuben,” said Tortoise in a friendly tone. “But you are a public animal. That means that what you do is not only your private concern. And what you are doing now…affects security in the city.”

Reuben swallowed. The wisest thing, he thought, was probably to get up and leave without saying another word. Nonetheless he could not refrain.

“This, Vincent,” he replied quietly, “shows that I am on the right track. I have had my doubts regarding Maximilian and what he can do…but this…that even you…send lackeys…are afraid—”

“I am not afraid!” roared Tortoise. “You…you still believe that this is a game, don't you?”

“I'm not playing—I'm in the process of losing my hearing.”

“Reuben, for once take me seriously. I don't intend to ask you again. And I don't intend to threaten you. Give up this thing with Maximilian.”

Reuben Walrus sat awhile and observed the minister. Then he got up and left the office without another word.

 

He woke up early
the next morning. It was the silence that woke him, and it had been like that the last few days. No longer hearing the creaking of the floorboards, the breeze that set the curtains in the bedroom window in motion, and the water running through the building's old pipes: This silence was more effective than the sound of the loudest alarm clock.

And in the solitude on Knobeldorfstrasse, when the black night sky outside did not offer an ounce of hope, he got up and shuffled out to the kitchen, where he measured out coffee, sat down at the kitchen table, and watched the vapors rising from the coffeemaker without being able to hear its suppressed snorting. During the time it took for the approaching dawn to color the sky red and then blue, he held sorrow and fear in check by concentrating on household chores and planning for the approaching day. He succeeded only partially.

The telephone rang when he was through with his morning toilet, and he considered not answering. He assumed that it was Denise Ant, since he had avoided her the whole day before. He nonetheless felt obliged, and sullenly he picked up the receiver.

“Good morning, Daddy,” said Josephine.

“What'd you say? Josephine?”

She called so seldom that Reuben was surprised every time by how light and young her voice sounded on the copper wires.

“Josephine?” he repeated, even though he knew.

“You have to wish me good luck today, Daddy,” she said. “I need a good start to the day.”

He had to concentrate to hear her.

“Good luck?”

“Not like that,” his daughter laughed. “For real.”

Then he remembered. It was today that admissions to the
fall courses at the Music Academy began. He was on the jury, which he had been for the past twelve years; it was a task that confirmed his authority in a way that elevated him above daily criticism and trends.

Josephine had reminded him, most recently the other day in the studio, but he had forgotten it again. She had been called to the first day. That was both good and bad. The jury was interested and positive the first day—at the end of the week it was not possible to maintain the same enthusiasm—but at the same time they were stricter, in the hope that greater talents were expected on subsequent days.

“Good luck, my cub,” said Reuben.

Then he added, as if he were talking to one of all the hopeful, and then disappointed, students he had met through the years, “It will work out the way it works out, and that doesn't make you either a better or a worse stuffed animal.”

“Oh, don't be silly, Daddy.” Josephine giggled happily.

She was more than hopeful, she was certain of being accepted. They hung up. No one, he thought as he returned to the kitchen and his coffee, could take her ambition away from her. He readily admitted that she was technically proficient.

 

It had become an
agreeable ritual, the members of the jury meeting in the teachers' lounge before the sometimes painful, sometimes stimulating work of admissions week began. They had tea, the Shetland pony brought cookies every year that he had baked the evening before, and they gossiped about the academy in general and its rector in particular. Reuben had announced early on that he would not serve as dutifully as usual this year, because he was in the middle of his rehearsals. But the academy gave him great scope; he was now one of the oldest members of the jury and therefore had a senior position.

When they met right before the Morning Rain, it took a few minutes before the right mood was established. Despite the fact that Reuben had still not announced his diagnosis of Drexler's syndrome in any official way, they were all aware of his condition and eager to express their sympathy. But he quickly lured them onto another track by bringing up the rector's latest misstep—a failed attempt to breathe life into the old academy tradition of a rowing team on the Dondau—and merry laughter and abuse took the place of gloom.

Cookies were eaten, the coffeepot was emptied, the gossip ebbed out, and outside the rain was about to recede. In other words, it was about time, and the members of the jury got up, brushed the cookie crumbs from their clothes, and went into the large auditorium, where according to tradition they sat down at the table up on the stage.

“Well, then,” said Reuben with the natural authority that came from many years' experience, “you can start sending them in now.”

The academy caretaker, a koala who had worked in the building as long as anyone could remember and who was rumored to live down in the cellar, nodded seriously. He backed out of the auditorium and went around the corner out into the corridor, where the tension was like a dense fog over the stuffed animals already there, some wet from the pouring rain. The moisture was the least of their worries on a day like this.

“Anaconda, Gabriel,” the caretaker read from the list of names that was set up in alphabetical order, and with a certain trembling Gabriel Anaconda, with his flute on his back, wriggled after the koala into the auditorium.

The snake glanced up toward the stage, where the terror-inspiring admissions jury sat, and sweat broke out on his forehead.

“Come, come,” the Shetland pony called amiably, “we're not dangerous.”

But the pony was not fooling anyone.

 

It was Josephine's turn
right before lunch. Reuben had been afraid that as her free choice she would choose a piece he had written, but thankfully she refrained. Instead she played some passages from a cantata by Rachmolotov, and this indicated good taste. There were friendly nods from the jury table, and Josephine herself looked content when, with a nod, she left the auditorium after her ten minutes.

“Lunch and deliberations!” said Reuben as the door closed behind his daughter, and he got up from the table and stretched.

This was completely in line with the procedures. They listened through twenty or so applications, broke for lunch or afternoon coffee, and went over what they had heard while impressions were still fresh. Lunch was taken next to the teachers' lounge in a small cafeteria that was seldom used. During audition week the menu was always the same, and the first day cabbage with pork was served. The discussion followed the order of performance, and therefore it took a while before, over coffee, they came to Josephine Lamb. The food was consumed, and the jury was ready to break up.