The Other Side (12 page)

IV

No one had noticed me enter. It was getting dark outside, the street lights were lit. I sat at a table by myself at the back, trying to collect my thoughts, to make sense of the horrifying episode and get rid of the unpleasant dizziness I felt. I was not alone for long. A dignified old gentleman wearing a white cravat came into my corner and sat down at the table.

‘It’s a little quieter over here’, he said.

I made no reply; my head was still awash with a maelstrom of thoughts and images. After a while he spoke to me again in a soft, sympathetic voice:

‘That must have been the first time you have been through it. You found it a great strain.’

Now I looked at him, there was something gentle and friendly about the man.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, exhausted.

‘What do I mean? The Brainstorm, of course. Just take a look around.’ He gestured at the rest of the café.

It was only then that I realised something must have happened. It was surprisingly quiet for the number of customers that were there. On every face was an expression of exhaustion and distress.

‘What on earth was it?’ I was beginning to feel afraid again.

‘Just look at the people. It’s all over now, by the way.’

I felt I could trust him, he was harmless and engaging.

‘I noticed straight away that it was the first time for you. It’s a curse!’ He sighed. The customers were all sitting silent, lost in thought, a few were whispering. Here and there the odd loud word reappeared. In the middle of the room broken glass was being swept up. The two chess players were like wooden dolls, each seemed to be spellbound by the other. I asked my companion to tell me something about the strange atmosphere, since I was completely ignorant. With his beautiful white locks, which went well with his sentimental, oddly fantastic eyes, he must have been well into his sixties.

‘You can’t have been in the Dream Realm long, at least not many years?’ he began.

‘It’s nearly two now.’

I gave a sign to the waiter and Anton, who was his old self again already, brought a brandy. The coffee house was gradually coming back to normal. The old man continued:

‘Of course, it’s difficult to find your feet if you’ve been used to something different. Here we are all
under the Spell
. Whether we like it or not, there is an inevitable fate which works itself out through us. And we have to be grateful that it isn’t something worse. As things are, at least we can sometimes have a good laugh at the nonsense going on in the big wide world. But there are many–oh, how many!–who are not always willing to submit; new arrivals in particular try to kick against the pricks. Whenever that inner resistance against our immutable fate grows too strong, the Brainstorm comes and everyone suffers. Today was such a day.’

He was silent. A dreary, resigned smile flitted across his face. I was speechless. Here I was on the track of a mystery, perhaps the great mystery that had been disturbing me for so long. And now I told the old man what strange and unpleasant things had happened to me, even the dreadful secret of a few minutes ago which still had my heart in its grip. I left out nothing.

My companion heard me out with a thoughtful, sympathetic expression. He shook his head a little and leant over to me, ‘My dear young friend, do not rack your brains for nothing, never fight your inner voice. You are quite right, there are mysteries everywhere here, but they are inexplicable. It is people who are too inquisitive who tend to get their fingers burnt. Seek your consolation in work, Pearl is an excellent place to work. I used to feel the same as you. You are looking at a nature-lover, and I am sure you will believe me, when I tell you how much I suffered from the artificiality of this land. But with time one gets used to it. I have been living here for almost thirteen years, I have adapted to the conditions and have found much to interest me. One has to lower one’s sights, that’s all; even the smallest things can be a source of pleasure. I, for example, collect lice, dust-lice.’ His eyes lit up and he grew animated as he went on, with a mysterious smile on his face, ‘I am on the track of a new species. Yes, the Archive contains wonders that the
hoi polloi
have never even dreamt of. Room 69 is my hunting ground at the moment. His Excellency has graciously put it at my disposal, it contains all my hopes! But now I must be off.’

With those words he took an old green case out of his pocket, extracted a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and put them on. Before he left he gave me an old-fashioned bow and introduced himself, ‘Professor Korntheuer, zoologist.’

I felt warmth towards him as I watched him leave. I liked everything about him: his eccentric attitude, his thick, snowy locks framing a likeable face still full of youthful enthusiasm, the fastidious cleanliness of his clothing, right down to his grey spats and galoshes.

But all the excitement of the day had taken its toll of me. My head thumped with a dull ache as I mounted the stairs to my apartment. It was just as I had expected. My wife was stretched out on the sofa, completely exhausted. She said nothing, and for my sake she tried to pull herself together. I maintained a tactful silence, for I was unwilling to tell a lie.

In bed, I tossed and turned restlessly. I kept imagining I could hear a rumbling noise and see a vacant, wide-open eye. My mind was almost completely taken up with what I had learnt from the Professor. So there was a Spell. And the Brainstorm? I pondered over the meaning of these words. I had certainly witnessed enough unusual things here. Only recently I had seen a few lads who were making a racket behind the house with rattles and drums. When I asked them what they were doing they told me, ‘We’re making background noise.’ Now I was beginning to find the nonsense irritating, it all had a touch of the madhouse. At the beginning it had been new, we had sat at our window just waiting for the grotesque scenes we would see below. For the last few months, however, laughter had vanished from our home. My wife’s health was slowly but steadily going downhill. At the same time the weird incidents increased. There were now things I had to keep from my wife if I did not want to put her life at risk. So I bottled up my worries inside me and felt moody and disgruntled all the time. Where was it all leading? I was going to rack and ruin myself.

V

A few days later I went out. New Year was just around the corner, but that did not mean much in this winterless land. I stole past the well-known facades. Here in Pearl everyone adopted a particular gait: quiet, hesitant, uncertain, prepared for misfortune to strike at any moment. A few lonely streetlamps guided my path. Real Dream-Realm lighting! Out of the general gloom, which blurred everything and enlarged it to gigantic proportions, there emerged unnatural physical details: a post, a shop sign, a gate.

I was coming out of the old, Gothic convent, one wing of which contained a children’s hospital, where I had collected two bottles of medicinal wine as a tonic for my wife. As I passed the church which was attached to it I noticed a black bundle in the shadow of the doorway. I heard a few indistinct words and the bare stump of an arm was raised in pleading. Unthinking, I threw a few coins into the dark corner, but the next moment I stopped as if rooted to the spot. What a strange old woman’s face it was in those filthy rags! I had to look at it more closely, there was some mysterious force compelling me. Reluctantly and with a feeling of disgust, I bent down to the old beggar-woman. It was not her stinking breath or toothless mouth that held me, but her two horrible, bright eyes; like the fangs of a viper they lodged in my brain. I arrived home half-dead with the shock. Was it real or the fearful product of an overstimulated imagination? I felt as if I had looked into a bottomless pit.

Such fits were too much for my nerves. I decided I would go to see Patera the very next day. If necessary, I was determined to scream, to
force
my way into his presence. He was my friend, he had invited me, it was up to him whether we went to rack and ruin or not. The mindless inhabitants of the Dream city certainly had a wrong impression of him. Why were they so timorous, so shrinking and evasive whenever I mentioned the man? My friend did not deserve that.

That day was particularly ill-starred. My wife had a migraine and was groaning; I made a few cold compresses for her and then collapsed on my bed, exhausted. Then, it must have been about one o’clock in the morning, there was a ringing and knocking at the door of our apartment. ‘It’s that drunkard from next door’, I thought angrily. Soon I heard him bawling my name as well, time after time. I was furious at his lack of consideration, leapt out of bed, slipped on my dressing-gown and took my walking stick from the corner of the room. I was going to teach the fellow a lesson he wouldn’t forget! I opened the door onto the landing and there he stood, breathing beer fumes right into my face. Did I have a few cigars? -just as a loan–why didn’t I pop across to his flat–my wife was invited too–he was going to make a hot toddy.

I could hardly control my fury. ‘This is outrageous! I think you might spare other people your scandalous behaviour! You’d better be off quickly before I throw you down the stairs, you bounder!’ I yelled at him as loud as I could. I was boiling over with rage. With a vacant, drunken laugh, he stammered, ‘Come on, just pop over.’ As he spoke, he grabbed me by the arm and tried to drag me. I lost my self-control. As quick as lightning I kicked him in the stomach so that he tumbled to the ground. The insolence of the fellow! An avalanche of thoughts poured through my mind.

‘Now I really am going to complain, I won’t put it off any more, I will get justice or else. I can’t stand this confounded hole a moment longer!’ You can understand my situation. For weeks I had been prey to the most horrible experiences, I was worried about my sick wife, our money had gone, and all around me I found nothing but hostility and scorn. A violent hatred of the whole of the Dream Realm made me lose my head. Quivering with fury I tore down the stairs and rushed straight off to the Palace, just as I was. I was going to demand satisfaction for the humiliations I felt I was being subjected to the whole time. I would do it, even if I had to drag Patera from his bed. I raced up Long Street towards the Great Square. Thick fog had descended and the flames of the gas-lamps appeared as glowing patches of yellow. I did not see a single passer-by, only the wet, filthy flagstones. I was almost raving, my mind had no room for anything other than how I was going to describe all these infamies to Patera. I just poured out my accusations aloud, eloquent phrases came to me without effort and I found touching words for my misfortune. Then I began to feel the cold. When I looked down, I had to admit that I was hardly correctly dressed to visit a gentleman. My whole costume consisted of an old dressing-gown with a floral pattern, a nightshirt under it and one slipper–the other must have fallen off while I was running. In the Great Square the fog was a little thinner. There was the Palace, towering up to the heavens like a gigantic cube. The bright disc on the clock-tower looked like a moon. The damp and cold brought me back to my senses; I recognised the foolishness of my plan. No, it was not the right moment, nor the right dress, to lodge a complaint. What did I look like, bare-headed, in my dressing-gown and with a walking stick at one o’clock in the morning? It brought me back to earth, and I turned round to make my way home. I took a short cut down a narrow side street, the cold was becoming decidedly uncomfortable and my wife would worry until I returned. But tomorrow,
tomorrrow
would be the day of reckoning! To warm myself up, I fell into a gentle trot. A brightly lit window appeared and I ran towards it. Music, a tinkling piano, hoarse voices, singing! There was a strip of light across the street. My God! I mustn’t let people see me like this! But I had already been spotted.

‘Hey, you there! Step this way.’ Some suspicious figures approached. Now I knew that I had taken a wrong turning. I was in the French Quarter.

Things were still pretty lively there, and I was soon the centre of attraction. I was annoyed and embarrassed; they were laughing at my strange get-up. With an oath, I hurried on, more and more people following me. They were making coarse jokes, and I could see how it was going to end. It was all very embarrassing; I would never find my way in these unsavoury alleys and culs-de-sac. Castringius would have had no problem. If only I had known where the police station was, but all I could see on either side were grubby dives and dens of vice; the gutters gave off reeking fumes. I strode out as fast as I could. A fellow with make-up on grabbed the tip of my dressing-gown and pulled it down. Smack! There was a slap across the face for his pains. But it would have been better if I hadn’t bothered, for now the hubbub really started. With shouts and screams the hunt for me was really up. A gigantic, bloated woman stepped into my path and tried to trip me up. I easily jumped over her and lost my walking stick as I did so. She rolled around in the mud, clutching my nightshirt as a trophy. That gave me a slight lead, but now I knew it was a matter of life and death. I lengthened my stride like a demented greyhound. Never before had I been so sure in my strength. But behind me the wild uproar was increasing, half the French Quarter was on my heels. Piercing whistles rang out, the ground became slimier and slimier, I had to be careful I didn’t slip. ‘I’ll soon be exhausted, I’m not going to escape’, I thought, fear pounding at my temples. They threw bottles and knives at me as I ran to and fro through the alleys, crying as loud as I could at every corner, ‘Help! Police!’ But no one came to help me, and from behind I could hear the scornful laughter of the wild mob. Mouth gaping, naked and despairing, I literally flew along. No safety, no hope anywhere to be seen! Finally, I was already quite weary, I saw a tall narrow house. It blocked off the end of the alley, all the windows were lit and there was a red paper lantern over the entrance. The door was open; I rushed up the brightly lit stairs. The walls were painted in vivid colours and decorated with palm-trees. On the first floor there was a woman coming towards me, a sublime vision, superb in a long, glistening silver chemise with her hair loose and magnificent arms. She was not particularly surprised to see me in the state I was in, and said with a smile, ‘Not to me! You must have made a mistake, sir. That’s room five.’