The Architect

by Connell, Brendan

  XVII.

  When Trudy visited the site, she was inevitably drawn to Peter. Their ages were similar. The one was the daughter of Dr. Herman Enheim, the other the nephew of Maria Venezuela. And they were both enthusiastic about this great undertaking. She always had a dozen questions regarding the project to ask him, and he was more than happy to have someone to listen to his voice.

  And, gazing at her through his glasses, thrusting his long nose forward, he would wax eloquent, pouring forth his bizarre dreams of a future in which architecture was realised for what it was, the greatest of all arts, and nature was done away with, replaced entirely by buildings, cities—forests supplanted by well-planned gardens and oceans spanned by bridges.

  She in turn, in a very quiet voice, casting shy gazes about, spoke enthusiastically about the Society, and about its great work, marching forward into a new spiritual age. She seemed to view things according to their transcendental qualities and her speech was always modified according to esoteric principles.

  “Finally there will be a place where truth-seekers from all over the world can meet and learn in peace. This is true evolution. We will all be able to work together on a trans-dimensional level.”

  “You seem to know a great deal about the Philosophy,” Peter commented.

  She blushed.

  “Yes, I try to put the etheric currents in my body to good use.”

  The young man, murmuring his approval, cast his eyes over her plump arms.

  “And Herr Nachtman is fortunate to have you as his assistant, Peter.”

  “I am the one who is fortunate.”

  XVIII.

  The power Nachtman had been given increased his personal sense of virility, to the joy of Maria, who worshipped, had indeed fallen deeply in love with him. She saw sunsets, white banks of clouds and green forests in his grotesque face. For her, the bark of his voice was as sweet as the song of birds and she wished to clothe him in pleasures. Tenderly she caressed the rough rind of his skin, joyfully offering him her most intimate treasures—her beryls and amber, her amethyst and topaz—performing nude snake dances before him, while to her right and left censors spilled out the smoke of spikenard and dried roses.

  The psychology of love is infinitely complex;—female beetles are attracted to the ugliest males;—woman, primordial, is often suicidally drawn to the sharp horns and lances of the male and casts herself onto his personality like one hurling themselves from a cliff. A swirling sky; some cold and clumsy planet attracting a silvery moon. Black holes that gorge themselves on female energies and spit out nothing in return—the primitive writhing of the worm as it digs into some geological crack.

  So Nachtman took her love as a matter of course.

  She would arrive in his tent and, after rinsing his gums with schnapps, he would enwrap her in his arms and take her rapidly to the temple of debauchery, treating her to vulgarity sauced with plumeria and topinambur and he indeed seemed like the descendent of some ancient god or demi-god, some boar-headed divinity cast on earth in order to perform great deeds, to slaughter men and stack their corpses as high as the heavens, or a creature hatched from an egg, a man-lizard well versed in the obscene arts, which had fed itself for years on Indian and Mongolian love manuals and pickled itself in a cosmic vinegar of procreation. For, whatever one may think, it is often those old reptiles who know best which buttons to push, know how to poke amongst the springs and levers of love.

  “You have given me life,” she murmured.

  “Lucky girl.”

  She lay her head on his chest.

  “When I first saw you, I never imagined that this would happen.”

  “They never do.”

  And a long kiss, filthy and dark as a sewer, followed his words.

  XIX.

  The building site became imbued with an almost apostolic aura. In the evening, members of the work force would often perform some of the complex rituals prescribed by Dr. Körn—group meditations, initiations, cleanses and rites. Mystical texts were read aloud and songs were sung to the rattle of cymbals and the sound of the flute while special initiates revealed magical finger symbols. Dr. Enheim would ceremoniously rip the entrails from just-slaughtered cows and Maria, in a sweet high-pitched voice, chanted out the song of Isis while sugarcane and beans were distributed to her listeners.

  These people, from diverse backgrounds and stations in life, felt a great sense of fraternity sitting together on that mountaintop amidst the blocks of stone and heavy machinery and, gazing into great bonfires, clasping each-other’s hands, they felt indeed to be the chosen few. They were carried away by a sort of mass hysteria. Their one and joint desire was to see this grand structure transport them up to the skies and imbue their poor emaciated frames with immortality. It was a mass monomania, where the community, the Society, swallowed up all individual will, and, converted into a single superorganism, moved in concert. Their energies were channelled toward a single goal, which was to bring Nachtman’s plan to completion and thereafter go to an eccentric universe where they would be born as sexless creatures of light with wings who would receive their nutriment directly from the atmosphere—a variety of moth much loved by the Great Creator who reclined placidly off in some vast and almost unreachable dimension, somewhat bored, while down below the fangs of men, upright wolves, dripped with blood and their claws greedily ripped the life from the very earth itself.

  And so it is that the more desperate men become, the more wild are their dreams. Shunning the world around them, ignoring the blue skies and singing streams, they look for beauty in some great beyond, their diseased minds crippled by stupidity, their senses perverted by occult mechanisms.

  Those workers, those devotees, suffered truly great hardships. They laboured fourteen hour days, seven days a week. Their diet consisted for the most part of thin soups and white bread. While working, the members were told to repeat mantra-like clichés to keep up their stamina and so there was a constant murmuring, like around a huge bee-hive.

  The entire mountainside was crowded with tents. The number of people was more than it was possible to properly facilitate. They slept crowded one next to the other. Latrines were formed between the rocks and the people bathed in the unhealthy trickles of water which issued from between outcrops of mossy granite. Due to the unsanitary living conditions, many became ill, were seen vomiting in shrubs.

  Dr. Enheim rallied the disciples, shook their hands, gave frequent speeches—giving them spiritual food in place of physical, talking about the comforts of other planes, where in some future time they would dine on the most exotic fruits and drink wine from the blossoms of flowers. They would write with solar beams rather than ink and harvest the energy of far away planets.

  One evening, amongst the tents, before a great fire whose flames lurched towards the stars, a crowd of thousands gathered around him:

  “In a time in which many are experiencing a crisis of spirit and search for meaning, we offer a chance to work and celebrate through service and community-building in which all participants flourish. We must gather together and oppose all selfishness!”

  As he spoke, his voice grew more resonant, its rich tones flowing out over the multitude. He seemed a new Moses, who, with shittim wood in hand, pointed the way even beyond Horeb.

  “With your hands, my friends, you are building a temple of universal brotherhood, where truth can be learned and spiritual endeavours nurtured. Let us sail together to this place, this future where the zodiacal constellations and five planets converge, and the Mysteries will be unveiled to all, in a context of light and friendship!”

  There was a general sigh of approval. A teardrop rolled out of one woman’s eye.

  “I realise that much is being asked of you,” the doctor continued, “but I also realise that, fortified by the wisdom of the great Maxwell Körn, you are up to the task. For from him we have learned that these bodies are not our true bodies, but only an illusion and we realise that our suffering and hardship are unrea
l.”

  It was well that the doctor spoke so, since suffering and hardship had most certainly become part of these disciples daily lot, dragging along Cyclopean blocks of stone, weighing as much as twenty tons each, mixing cold mortar before the sun rose and still finding themselves balanced at precarious heights when the moon came out. And yet, through it all, they were for the most part cheerful—for these were all people who had gone through years of thought reform, mystical manipulation which made them always put the Society first.

  With glazed eyes and hungry bellies they listened to his words. Many were gladly willing to be devoured by the structure, to let it crunch their bones and chew off their heads. Many—but not all, for there were others, inspired by fear or some innate sense of self preservation, who were not quite so keen.

  A few whispered together, a few openly sneered—some wandered off into the darkness, cursing the mountain on which they stood.

  XX.

  Even though the group seemed to be compelled by some sort of mass hypnotism, madness, it was seen that the intensity of the labour soon caused infractions. Though minor at first—a man leaning on his shovel, a woman sitting down for a quarter of an hour to rest—a few more serious incidents soon occurred.

  A young man from India complained rather too volubly about the living conditions saying that even on the streets of Calcutta one might do better—sleeping on the sidewalk with dogs and dining off nauseous waste. An Italian couple insisted on being fed better. An elderly gentleman from Morocco began to scream violently and declared that he would soon return home, even if he had to walk.

  “We cannot let this sort of behaviour go unchecked,” Nachtman said during the next board meeting. “Discipline is the key to the completion of the project. These workers are all we have. If they abandon us, the project is doomed.”

  “They will not abandon us,” Dr. Enheim stated.

  “No? Some of them are already beginning to murmur, a few to shout.”

  “But even if we lose a few people, I don’t see how—”

  “We cannot afford to lose anyone! If one goes, others will follow. The distance from a whisper to open rebellion can be covered in an instant and, as you well know, mankind is a gregarious animal and acts as a herd rather than as a group of individuals. Humans are like plagues of rats. They clew together, follow one upon the next like parcels of penguins. Furthermore,” the architect added with a pompous wave of his hand, “Körn himself, in his Vienna lectures, said that educational discipline was the key to the betterment of mankind.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “Well, there is obviously only one solution.”

  “Which is?”

  “Corporal punishment. Severe corporal punishment for those who don’t give themselves to us, from the ends of their toes to the follicles of their hair. Their very minds and individuality. Corporal punishment for those who don’t conform to the requirements of the Society.”

  Borromeo smiled uneasily. “Don’t you think that would be somewhat…brutal?”

  “Come man! Do you think the pyramids would have ever been built without the help of the whip? In grand projects, the workers need whatever stimulation they can get. They should be shown what dedication means. It is simply a matter of healthy respect for authority. And I am quite sure, if Dr. Körn were with us today, he would agree with my point of view. After all, He that spareth his rod hateth his son.”

  “But from a strictly spiritual perspective…”

  “Aren’t you listening to me? Am I shouting at walls? It is the spirit that I am concerned with. We must be willing to chastise the flesh if we hope to cleanse the soul. Only by suffering can these poor bastards hope to find the light!”

  “I am afraid he is right,” Maria said quietly. “These people need us. They need our guidance. We cannot be cowards. We are not doing them any favours by treating them so delicately. A small amount of hard-living will only help them”

  Peter was dumbfounded.

  “But what exactly are you planning on doing?” he asked.

  “You will see,” Nachtman said, standing erect and thrusting his index finger in the air like a spear. “Leave the matter in my hands and all will be well.”

  “You are the architect,” Enheim pronounced gravely. “You are in charge of the project and of course must do what you think fit.”

  “Indeed he must,” was Nesler’s comment as he bobbed his head deferentially.

  The next day the young and voluble man from India, he who had compared his sojourn in Switzerland disadvantageously to life in the streets of Calcutta, was busy smoothing the side of a giant block of marble. Nachtman, carrying in one hand a rattan cane, approached him.

  “You have been refractory.”

  The other looked somewhat confused.

  “I am not sure that I understand…”

  “You have been belittling the community and disturbing their composure with your pusillanimous complaints.”

  “I am sorry about it.”

  “I am glad to hear that, my friend. But now, if you would be so kind as to step over here and touch your toes.”

  “My toes?”

  “Touch them.”

  The man did as he was told.

  The architect, majestically holding his head high, violently applied the stick to the other man’s slim buttocks twelve times. With each stroke the poor fellow let out a painful cry. Afterwards, he was allowed to return to his work, which he went about with much vehemence.

  Throughout the rest of the day the teams worked on in nervous silence, going about their business obediently, with heads hung low. Many felt inner joy at being part of something so great. Some felt fear and pressed their lips tightly together. Unfortunately however, this was not the last disciplinary incident. Nachtman had his eye on several who he considered to be trouble-makers and infractions were not tolerated. Behaviour modifications were doled out to those who did not conform one-hundred percent to the requirements of the Society. These punishments were referred to as purges and were said to expel the demon of softness. Some were made to wear sackcloth and others, the more refractory, were smeared with honey and exposed to flies and wasps. Those who were caught uttering unflattering comments regarding either the project or the Society were made to wear branks—a bridle with a sharp iron to restrain the tongue. There were whippings and humiliations, cries which tore the calm of the mountain and tears of repentance.

  And though in truth there were very few who had not consigned themselves body and soul to the project and fewer still who openly complained, the punishments gradually grew more severe. It being the nature of our species to be ever searching for new sensations, unlike bees who are satisfied with the dust of flowers, it came to pass that simple floggings no longer sufficed and the penalties became not so much a matter of discipline as being a demonstration of Nachtman’s authority—a sacrifice to that man and to the great structure he was building, a thing which seemed to grow larger with every drop of blood spilt, a fungus that seemed to flourish in conditions of human suffering.

  One day a young Spaniard was found asleep high up on a wall during working hours. It seemed probable that he had fallen asleep involuntarily, but the architect was still merciless.

  “Shall we whip him?” Maria asked.

  “No,” was Nachtman’s reply. “His crime is too severe for that. Cut off his leg.”

  And as it was said so it was done, the architect showing no particular signs of pleasure while meting out this chastisement, but also not showing the least repugnance.

  XXI.

  Mr. Daniel Nesler directed two organisations, the Körn Business Association (KBA), and the Association for Responsible Living (ARL), and with these was in charge of vast resources, gleaned from multiple sources—from investments to charity. From a unique line of herbal and homeopathic products to an arms manufacturer in Zürich—for the KBA was composed of 43 medium-sized businesses, all with their tax bases in Liechtenstein, which generated considerable we
alth, while the ARL, though not involved in commerce, was still a formidable financial institution, as it took donations under a vast variety of headings. There were programs for feeding the hungry in Africa and for curing the blind in India. Conveniently however, only a small amount of money given for these causes managed to find its way through the infinite maze of bank accounts and routing numbers, financial rubrics and Byzantine computations, to the place where it had been destined. The secret holdings in the banks of Switzerland and Nassau grew ever fatter, while a truly minute amount was dribbled into those needy Third World countries where it was gobbled up in an instant by blind beggars and weeping mothers, indigence opening its parched lips, displaying its decayed and unappealing mouth.

  But, as wealthy as the Society was, it did not seem to be able to meet the needs of the structure. Huge sums had been spent on costly marble and exotic woods. Machinery had been purchased and millions expended on enormous stained glass windows which were being made in Murano. The building was indeed ravenous, swallowing down fortunes, drinking molten gold and dining off beefsteaks of silver.

  Carried away by a kind of infatuation, the Society seemed to have lost its bearings, and poured money into the Meeting Place without thought or discretion and went about emptying its coffers at a dizzying speed. The gun business was bought by a Russian multinational, the homeopathic product line by an entrepreneur from California. Funds were funnelled in from right and left, vaults once full were swept clean, so not even a coin remained.

  When Nesler reported to the architect that the Society had divested its portfolios of most of its holdings, the latter merely shrugged his shoulders. Due to his ambitions, the unannounced grandeur of the structure, more money would need to be found. Construction was expensive, and it was vital that the flow of cash continue unabated.

  And that accountant, that individual with eyeglasses and yellow skin whose clothes never seemed to fit, felt himself equal to the task.