The Best of Electric Velocipede (16 page)

“You stranger boy!”

(A slap to the face.)

Wilhelm staggered back. Waldmüller advanced, both fists clenched, an ominous dark mass. He reached out and grabbed the young man by the shoulder.

“I am going to show you how we deal with outsiders prying into our women,” the goatherd growled.

He raised a fist and then felt the wrist grasped and, simultaneous with the arm being twisted behind his back, a voice:

“Hands off!”

A moment later the big man was sprawled on the ground, a small knee in his spine and his head pressed against the dirt.

“Let me up!” he cried (he felt his shoulder blade strained out of place).

“You will be pacific?”

“Let me up I say!”

“Get up, but if you attempt violence again it will go badly for you.”

Waldmüller was released and quickly sprang to his feet. He briefly stared, with angry, frightened eyes and then, murmuring discontented phrases, turned and lurched off into the darkness.

“It seems you know how to fight!” Wilhelm said gratefully.

“Aside from being not unskilled in Western pugilism,” the doctor replied, taking him by the elbow and guiding him homeward, “I am also a brown belt in the Japanese art of >柔術. But let this be a lesson to you: Tomcatting in rural villages is never advisable for a young man without adequate means of self-defence.”

Through the minute blackened lanes, toward the edge of town and Knellwolf’s; passing one outlying mass of rock lying partially embedded in the soil and well-rounded by weather; through a lit aperture a moment’s sight of Frau Riemenschneider and two other old dames of the village, their fractured voices scratching out into the night—the mewing of thrice brindled cats mind ordering quasi suppositions:
compacts.
mekhashshepheh wicche
. Ex.
22:18 (remembering—boyhood
tales—decollated men wandering through the marshes on mule back—the pursuit of lights through woods, thickets, briar, footlogs across
sloughs) the
simple fact away from electric device
lines telemicrowaves
information on discs and magnetapes
data midst
mountains forces stronger abnormally misshapen things (him too) of

extraordinary woollen qualities

coverings elastic substance

of the animal body loose nervous

system relaxed.

VII.

The Grotto Wüste was lively that night, old timers sitting square before drinks, pipes and cigarettes hanging from their mouths. Dr. Black sat at the end of a bench, enjoying a cigar and a ratafià, a walnut liqueur, while listening to the talk, letting his ears savour the flavour of the local dialect, which was not without a ragged sort of charm. There were conjectures, insinuations (maybe it was the work of Riemenschneider and her ilk after all—the wrath of heaven and all that sort of thing. . . . Or so said Father Tito).

“Oh this! Why this is nothing my friend!” Old Viktor cried, setting his half-consumed beer down on the table. “When I was younger a rain of flesh fell so heavy that you could barely walk through the lanes. It came down in bowl-shaped disks about twenty centimetres around, and three or four thick. They were a dull yellow colour and had on them a fine layer of short hairs which were smoothed and brushed up. When we stripped away this skin, we found a pink, pulpy substance like soft-soap inside. . . . Which was offensive! The smell suffocated! My family was poor and we were all hungry for protein, but we could not eat those meats, because in the oven they liquefied straight to blood!”

And then the stories went the round:

ludicrous boasting

churning haze of carbonic vapour

creamy accumulations and little shots of liquor:

beef-flakes fell from the clear sky; a thick shower, on the ground, draped in trees, hanging on
fences mutton
or
venison
lung-tissue
shower
of frogs darkened the sky and covered the earth very young minnows, fishes, falling in a straight line, in a space not more than a metre
square or
grain which the goats ate and women ground into flour, made burebrot, decent, but not of the highest quality dried spawn of some reptile, doubtless the
frog each
drop was made up of many thin red blood river worms with transparent
bodies stones
from the
clouds caterpillars,
over beyond the shoulder of the
mountain more
extreme: eggs; barrels of sugar; falls of salt; butter; ham; a typewriter

nectarischnapps

concealed wonder

preternatural (intramural shouts)

and the doctor wandered with steady intoxication into the night, curiosity: migration of larval life forms aside from their lies there is certainly
evidence shower
of perch, fish-rain at Soulac-sur-Mer
France shower
of shells (torrential downpour with rattling sound) pavement covered with
muscles special
local whirls or gusts with high pressure gradient carried heavy objects from earth’s surface to the troposphere possible explanation that a body of water in the area was imbibed (suction established through a partial vacuum) by a passing tornado, and afterwards deposited its live cargo

spiders;
snakes reptiles
in the road, gutters and yards, on roofs, a very dark brown, almost black, thick in some places, tangled together like a mass of wire or
yarn black
worms sweet. nasally

figures he saw, convened

by the fleisch shop:

“My mother already told you no; why do you bother me when she is not here?”

“You can influence her.”

“I won’t—not for you!”

“Come now . . .”

“Disgusting—don’t touch me!”

“Come now; otherwise it will go hard . . . for both of you.”

And then one shape pulled away and the other cursed, was gone, the doctor continuing his intoxicated course towards bed.

VIII.

The next morning Dr. Black awoke early, according to habit, splashed water on his face, dressed and stepped into the kitchen. Wilhelm was there, just completing the process of making espresso over the wood stove. He greeted the doctor and handed him a cup, and the latter, after admixing two spoonfuls of sugar in the black sap, stepped outside, the petite porcelain vessel poised between his right thumb and index finger. He took a sip, smacked his lips and blinked his grave eyes. Presently Wilhelm joined him.

Künz.
(Hypothesis) A whirlwind takes up cows and pigs from some near distant farm, decimates them and disperses their remains.

Black.
An interesting proposal, or starting point of reasoning, but utterly fallacious. Examine: A whirlwind picks up objects of the weight of cows and pigs, but refrains from picking up objects of equal or lesser weight, such as plant life, timber, small stones and fence posts. Thus, for your hypotheses to work, a whirlwind would need to segregate the cows and pigs from other matter. And the laws of nature, the laws of science, state that a whirlwind can do no such thing. And what of the flesh?

Künz.
The flesh, Doctor?

Black.
Yes, the flesh Wilhelm. —The flesh, unlike the vascular fluid, was not dispersed evenly, but primarily in the vicinity of Frau Riemenschneider’s.

Künz.
But when it rains, it often rains more in one spot than another.

Black.
But when it rains, it generally does not rain both flesh and blood.

IX.

peeping

demons flourish forshortened

in pouches carrying tongues

which taste wet fur marlaceous some creatures who live on

juice of lichens

muttering effigies marble pushed the day

the skin of a bison

is called a robe

immortal calf ate the moon leaping

titubating before

footsteps on the air and water of singing splendid worms in skeins

sun never old such things such things

choreographed planets learned from the lesser bear

amber fruits hooking leg such things things

X.

When the next rain commenced, Wilhelm was having a rendezvous with Piera in the chestnut grove; the emerald, primary light, echoing off luxuriant black hair, the pink crease on her oval face; and then a blast of wind made the branches quiver. Crowding together; osculation.

“The sky is growing dark,” Wilhelm murmured.

“I hope it is not another one of those awful storms.”

“They must be terrible for you.”

“Oh, I don’t mind the storms themselves. It is just that people seem to blame Mamma.”

“It is the priest. He stirs up trouble.”

Her, blushing: “I . . . I know.”

As conciliation, there was further contact of curved surfaces; caressing of the fleshy edges of the mouth. The dark cloud moved through the valley, a crimson tail dipping behind it.

Wilhelm pulled himself away from the young woman. “I must go,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “The Doctor will be expecting me.”

They touched hands and he departed, the shower, a deep and vivid purplish red, dashing at his heels. Past the fleisch shop he went, Frau Riemenschneider at her doorstep, giving him the evil eye, the cloud beating overhead. The doctor was standing in the lane, legs apart, arms akimbo, his beard bristling fiercely from his face.

“Where have you been?” he growled.

“I am here, Doctor.”

“Come; inside; under cover; the cloud is emptying itself!”

An incarnate mist began to fall, succeeded by the bloody drops. The blast swept over the village; rivulets formed, red as if fire ran along the ground. The substance seemed to almost cry out as it shed from the sky; and it stank and the pigs in their pens wallowed in it; and the children stood dazed staring at their doorsteps and then hid within.

“It is too awful!” Wilhelm said.

Then there was a flicker of sunlight and the black cloud was past.

“Come,” the doctor demanded.

“Where to?”

“Into the car. We have things to learn; we must chase that cloud.”

Minutes later the two men were pulling onto the road, the gravel bursting from beneath the tires with the car’s impulsive movement. The motor revving; gears switching; and away.

“Drive, Wilhelm; drive!”

“I feel like a tornado hunter!”

“The accelerator pedal; use the accelerator pedal!”

The car flew through the narrow valley, trailing after the dark, airborne mass. The doctor aggressively stroked his beard, peering through the windscreen with furrowed brow and intent eyes. Wilhelm bent over the steering wheel. The ball of his foot applied the maximum pressure to the gas pedal and the needle of the speedometer crawled into high numerals.

“It looks like it is heading over the mountain, Doctor,” he cried in exasperation.

“No, it is settling up against the saddle. It is alighting, Wilhelm!”

“A strange cloud . . .”

“We will get it yet.”

“But it is so high up.”

“No, drive further on. I see lines descending from the mountain. There is a funicular leading up by yonder arête.”

Ten minutes later they were gliding up the side of the mountain on a seldom-used funicular line, the pines spiring up beneath them and the road shrinking behind. The vehicle pulled into its station on the saddle of the mountain and the two men leapt out and began pursuing their way along the descending foot path. The doctor’s svelte legs worked well, guiding his torso and crown of cranium down the steep trail with rapid ease. Wilhelm followed in his wake, every now and again adjusting the glasses which sat unsteadily upon the bridge of his nose. Presently the doctor veered off the trail, to his right, through the alpine woods, and on through shelves of blueberry bushes.

“You hear them,” he said in an undertone.

“I hear something, Sir.”

“Ahh!”

“Yes?”

“We are coming into their vicinity.”

“What is it Doctor?”

“Lepidopterans, Wilhelm. Lepidopterans.”

“Doctor . . .”

“Come, let us advance.”

The two men entered their midst, the delicate wings brushing against their faces, clinging to the doctor’s beard and adhering themselves to the frames of Wilhelm’s glasses.

“Note their ommatidia, Wilhelm; they are watching us!”

“Doctor, they are strangely beautiful! What variety are they?”

“I cannot be certain. They have obviously been pulpating on the opposite ridge and, while migrating across the valley, ejecting their meconial fluid!”

“The blood, Doctor!”

“Exactly!”

“So this explains it,” the young man said, gazing at a butterfly that had mounted his forefinger.

“Almost.”

“Almost?”

“There is still the little matter of the flesh, Wilhelm. We can certainly not regard that as meconial fluid.”

There was a moment’s silence. The small, murky-winged insects filled the surrounding woods and began to slowly clothe the two men, alighting on their faces, heads and vestments. Thousands of wagging and knobbed antennae, slender bodies, curling proboscises; as the daylight waned the insects descended, perched mellowly, and observed.

“Then what is the answer to the mystery?” Wilhelm asked, almost in a whisper.

Dr. Black grinned. “Come,” he said, “it is getting dark. Let us see.”

The doctor and his assistant stood, backs against the outer wall of a stone dwelling, feet resting in a few centimetres of relatively fresh gore. He, Black, felt sorely like igniting a D’Orsay, but refrained;—it was, in any case, his last.

“Piera and her mother are asleep,” Wilhelm murmured. “Why do we watch their house?”

“Shhh!”

They waited; the moon swung over the peaks, its dim light slashing across the valley, filtering through the village. Wilhelm yawned and leaned his head against the wall. The doctor stood alert, eyes scanning the zone before him. Presently there was a sound, footsteps trodding through butterfly slurry. A hulking silhouette appeared at the end of the lane. It stepped cautiously, one arm occasionally flying off to the side: as Millet’s
Sower
; prowled the vicinity, with lumbering care, and was soon around the corner of the fleisch house.