by Shlomo Kalo
"What must I do?" – he raised a gloomy eye and asked, his voice hoarse – "This is the most severe punishment ever inflicted on me, since I can remember! Those hundreds of skulls will pursue me day and night and allow me no rest – until I go crazy or top myself… What must I do?" he almost whimpered and went on to say in that strident voice, all dejection and utter helplessness, "I feel like Cain in ancient times… I don’t want the life of Cain… if I’m given no opportunity to atone for what I’ve done… if only a partial atonement – I’ll put an end to my accursed life!" For the first time in our brief acquaintance, I sensed sincerity in his voice.
"There is a way you can atone, if only partially, for the terrible evil that you have done to your fellow humans!" I told him.
"And that is?" he asked eagerly, wiping the mixture of sweat and dust from his brow.
"Do something to help them," I pointed to the Indians around me.
"What for example?" poncho-man pressed me, all tension and fear, lest his new hopes be dashed.
The truth is, at that fateful moment my prodigious brain-cells were not visited by so much as half an idea on how I could answer him. I was tense, which is not like me at all, as well as dejected and almost perplexed. And then I did what is customarily done in situations such these, at times of impasse, and which is hereby sincerely and wholeheartedly recommended to anyone caught up in a similar predicament: I prayed. In my heart I addressed our Father in Heaven and begged Him most fervently to forgive this unhappy man, who like me was created in His image, and offer him the help that he needed, and release him from the darkness of his destructive and predatory instincts.
Before finishing my prayer, without being aware of it at all, I said:
"Harness this murderous river, the ‘Wavafterwave’. Build a dam on it – and again ‘Servurite’ Canyon will be a fertile and verdant valley, gladdening the heart of mankind and sanctifying the name and the glory of God… you are a master-builder after all…" I concluded this speech which astonished my hearers and me in equal measure. I could hardly believe it was I who had spoken.
He fixed me with a long, heavy look, something completely new, a look from his single eye that he himself did not know he was capable of or could ever have imagined – open and sincere, though still shaded by the remains of his depression.
Without saying a word, he dismounted from his horse, turned towards the tribesmen and prostrated himself on the ground at their feet. The Indians were astonished, standing and watching in silence as the weirdest of all weird scenes unfolded before their eyes. Then he rose, mounted his horse, held out a firm hand to me which I gripped warmly, and rode away into the blue of the evening descending gently over the Rockies.
The next day I took my leave of the tribe as all its scions, young as well as old, accompanied me for many miles along the way.
Before I parted from Bat-Feather, he made a point of warning me in unequivocal terms:
"Pay attention – the immunity lasts for only twenty-five years. Don’t forget the exact date!"
I thanked him wholeheartedly, responded with emotional expressions of farewell to the spontaneous cries of my many escorts and sped on my way. Needless to say, I didn’t forget the exact date.
The regal gifts presented to me by the Indians: the magnificent horse, white as snow, his saddle tooled in silver and gold, studded with precious stones, and my festive attire with its surfeit of gleaming rubies – I sold in a turbulent public sale at the New York stock exchange, for a quarter of a million dollars, cash. I sent the whole sum, anonymously, to Chief Bat-Feather and his tribe. A rumur reached me that with this money they bought agricultural equipment of superior quality (tractors and combines), ploughed and sowed the fertile plains in the vicinity of "Servurite" and when the time came – they reaped the fruits of their labors which they sold at full price, and with their new found wealth they began building themselves permanent structures to replace the antiquated wigwams and sending their children to good schools. When these children grow up, becoming intrepid investigators and eminent scientists, perhaps they will succeed in finding an answer to the question that has plagued the human race for generations on end – how to put a stop, once and for all, to mutual killing.
Of the man with the poncho (to this day I don’t know either his first name or his surname) – I heard nothing, but I was interested to read in the New York Times some forty years later, under the headline "ONE MAN AND HIS DAM", about the building of a dam of great aesthetic charm and prodigious strength near the headwaters of the "Wavafterwave" river in the Rocky Mountain region, and the turning of the marshy valley known disparagingly as "Servurite" into a fertile site with no equal anywhere in the world – by the efforts of one man. For forty solid years this man – the doughty New York Times journalist went on to reveal – had been hard at work, quarrying stones by himself, transporting them with his own mules, dressing them with his own hands and setting them in place with remarkable skill, without revealing anything to anyone, without requiring any assistance – public or private. And thus he had saved the American tax-payer a considerable sum of money – the journalist laid particular emphasis on this last point and added that henceforward the "Wavafterwave" would cause no further damage but on the contrary would bring great benefit, and "Servurite" Valley would attract pioneers from all the states of the North and the South, if in the meantime the local Indians, who had proved their agricultural prowess, did not make haste to add it to their own territory, populating it and working it and enjoying its produce. And at the end, in letters that for some reason grew progressively smaller, the New York Times correspondent reported that the builder of the dam, a one-eyed man advanced in years, refused absolutely to reveal his first name or his surname, and all that he could be induced to say in answer to questions about his identity was the inexplicable and enigmatic statement that he uttered before disappearing from the place: "I am the least of the sinners". The local Indian chief suggested that the dam be known as "Least of the sinners" as a tribute to him.
ENCOUNTER IN MADRID
I wandered across the wondrous land of the Americans and scoured it length and breadth, and there remained no secluded spot in which I did not set foot and whose friendly residents I did not regale with the light of my ingenious ideas, making a considerable contribution to their greater prosperity and comfort. I acquired for myself good and steadfast friends from all the various national and ethnic strata – those who found a new homeland here and those who had seen it as their homeland since time immemorial. And with the conclusion of my mission as promulgator of superior European culture and guide on the enlightened Leutenlieb path towards the happy life of truth upon the earth – I began to feel a quite natural stirring of longings for the Old World. And after a brief period of practical contemplation – the decision was taken to return to it if only for the very shortest of stays.
It was at this time that the Spanish Civil War erupted, arousing in me certain presentiments, in the classic Leutenlieb mode. It was obvious to me this was not just a war, but a laboratory for the testing of horrors of doomsday proportions, the like of which the world was yet to experience. A red light flashed on in my mind. I saw it as my duty to be there, to gain impressions from first hand, and in whatever way might prove possible, make my modest contribution to the arresting of this nightmare.
So I expressed my earnest desire to travel to the Iberian Peninsula, and then I was informed that a private citizen, even one as decent and as upright as myself, was absolutely prohibited from going there – unless that citizen happened to be a correspondent reporting on behalf of a paper and for the benefit of its readers, entitled as they were to know about all the events unfolding there. I decided to try my luck with one of the most prestigious papers circulating in the United States of America at that time, namely the "Washington Star", the editor of which was a friend of mine. The paper sold no fewer than a hundred copies every month without exception and was printed by the retired sheriff who was also propri
etor of the "Jose Mojica" barbershop in the township of Julius Caesar in North Carolina, a bustling metropolis with an electoral roll of two hundred and thirty-two names. In the past I had happened to visit this friendly place, with its extensive agricultural lands which would be worked by the hands of generations to come, and I was able to help the retired sheriff, owner and editor of the "Washington Star" – most of which consisted of crosswords and puzzles copied from old issues of papers such as the "New York Times" and "Washington Post". Anyway, we became friends, and over the course of time the retired sheriff turned into one of my most ardent admirers – that brotherhood of worldwide diffusion. Incidentally, he had another loyal assistant to help with the work of copying out crosswords and puzzles, none other than Diogenes, veteran ticket-clerk at the local railroad station – on a line catering exclusively for freight and livestock. He looked at all people, including us – the retired sheriff/ newspaper editor/ barbershop boss and me, the ace copier of crossword puzzles – with a scornful, though not an arrogant smile. Old Diogenes had a kind heart, and was always ready to extend a helping hand to anyone who needed it.
I traveled in haste to Julius Caesar and on arriving at the local station jumped down from the passenger train (which didn’t stop there but slowed down for my benefit) onto the long narrow strip of concrete which had just been trampled by herds of choice steers, and made my way at once to the barbershop of my old friend, former sheriff of this flourishing township. He soon realized what I had in mind, and there and then he issued me with a press pass, identifying me as an accredited journalist on behalf of the "Washington Star" and a special war correspondent. And not content with his flowery signature, he stamped the document with his personal seal – the angular lines of his old sheriff’s star against the background of the American flag and under the first stanza of the national anthem – all of this resplendent in purple ink. The document was a real work of art, and all those officials I encountered along my way, whether representing governments or secret police forces, were genuinely impressed by it and treated me with the most profound respect, ready and willing to cooperate with me in every way and extend to me all the help that I required.
I made my way to Spain on a luxury liner, and it was a truly delightful voyage. Most of the passengers knew me, and were glad to treat me with respect. The captain made no attempt to hide his profound feelings of admiration towards me. He was distantly related to a friend of mine from former times, that frozen skipper whose life I saved by breaking him down into his individual cells and reconstructing him. He was curious to know the details of my method, and throughout the thirty-one days of our voyage he was constantly asking me questions. Finally, we agreed that as a first step he should make a thorough study of the principles of the game of assembly – the "jigsaw" in common parlance – and only after this move on to a live experiment, with a chimpanzee for example, and should the experiment prove to be entirely successful, he could turn his attention to human beings, travel to the North Pole and offer his reliable services to the Eskimos, without asking for anything in return.
Thirty-one days after boarding the ship I set foot on terra firma – the solid ground of Barcelona in fact. From Barcelona, by a road that was a road only in theory, I arrived in Madrid, the capital, which at that time, as it soon emerged, was under siege, and under bombardment from both air and land at a rate of four thousand three hundred and eighty explosive units per minute, in other words – in those days Madrid was being pounded by some seventy-three explosive units per second.
I never had any fear of bombs or shells, a striking quality that I inherited from my great-great-great grandfather Baron Hieronymus of the glorious House of Munchausen, who as is well known, used to spend his leisure time meandering between the lines on the Turkish front, riding on cannon-balls as they flew, and leaping from one to another with astonishing agility whenever he felt like changing direction. For this reason I hardly missed a single bombardment worthy of the name, and no air-raid, heavy or otherwise, prevented me from taking an invigorating stroll along the streets of Madrid, and in particular – through its impressive squares and somber boulevards. I was lodging at that time in the Continental Hotel near the Prado Gallery, in the very heart of one of the Spanish capital’s most exclusive quarters.
I dodged with the greatest of ease between missiles landing to my left and bombs liable to explode to my right. Local citizens imagined that I was a professional acrobat performing tricks to entertain them and they threw down from their usually shuttered windows coins of various denominations – coins that in those days were worth no more than the value of the metal from which they were minted.
In the course of one of my strolls I came across a narrow alleyway, not characteristic of the planning profile of the capital and not matching its architecture in any respect at all. The inhabitants of this alleyway had either abandoned it in panic, or had all been killed, since its houses stood with windows and doors wide open and no sign of a living soul. At the end of the alleyway I noticed a tank, its gun drooping in a kind of emphatic impotence. The sight worried me and I hurried to the tank, climbed on the turret and opened the hatch, in the hope of finding a living person inside. I could tell at a glance, the tank was empty. Perhaps the members of the crew had evacuated their injured comrade, perhaps they had left him behind…
Until that day I had never driven a tank, and this seemed a never-to-be-repeated opportunity…
Without hesitation I threaded myself into the vehicle and very quickly, by virtue of my highly developed technical senses and well-honed innate intuition – not to mention intelligence which Einstein might have envied – I activated the clumsy machine, feeling so much at home there I could have been doing this all my life.
I moved at speed through that abandoned quarter with its narrow, rather sad alleyways, bemoaning their bitter fate to the harsh and strident sound of silence.
I arrived at the central square, which was crowded, and reached the famous gate known as "Puerto del Sol" – Gate of the Sun. Despite the name, the Inquisition had taken no action against the architect and the designer of the gate, and had not denounced them to the last generation, on charges of heresy and idolatry.
As I was pondering this, and trying to think of all the famous Spaniards who had not suffered at the hands of the Inquisition, and coming up only with El Greco, the painter of genius, whose pedigree was in fact emphatically Greek – I, or rather the vehicle in which I was traveling, suddenly came under heavy and sustained machine-gun fire.
At the first moment, almost instinctively, I meant to repay my assailants in kind, but I soon realized that those who abandoned the tank had left no ammunition behind – neither shells for the gun nor bullets for the machine-gun. Perhaps it was shortage of ammunition which had forced the crew to abandon it.
I had no other choice but to retreat ignominiously, and as quickly as possible, towards the famous "Puerto del Sol" and from there – to find shelter in a side-street.
I followed this strategy and reached a side-street, but here too I was under fire from all sides. Fortunately for me, the shooting, although at very short range, was not well aimed and most of it missed the target. This was authentically Spanish shooting, intended not so much to wound as to make an impression and issue a challenge, whereby the gunman proves to himself and to the world that he still exists, is still a force to be reckoned with.
The bullets clattered loudly on the rounded corners of the tank – the model which at the time was reckoned top of the range, but which has long since been obsolete.
In the meantime, I noticed not far away the famous ambulance driven by Hemingway.
Hemingway was watching my beleaguered tank patiently, apparently waiting for me to be injured before offering me first aid and evacuating me from the battlefield. And then my sharp eye picked up the shapes of a number of ruffians crawling towards Hemingway’s ambulance – with live fragmentation grenades in their hands.
I tried to draw the attention of
the ambulance driver, future writer of "For Whom the Bell Tolls", to the danger approaching him – by moving the short barrel of the gun in the direction of the ruffians, counting on his fertile artistic imagination. When the hint wasn’t taken, I began moving the barrel, with a feverishness bordering on panic, in every possible direction – up and down, right and left, almost right and almost left, almost up and almost down; I swung the barrel in a circle, something only a lunatic or a consummate genius like myself would contemplate doing – and it made no impression on him at all.
Having no other choice, I turned the barrel again at an acute angle in the direction of the ruffians, who went on crawling, inch by inch – three young hoodlums, each with a grenade in his hand – and still no result. He refused to interpret the hint. I caught a glimpse of his face, courtesy of a ray of sunshine passing through the window of the ambulance – he was tense and on edge, waiting for me to fall victim to the relentless gunfire, so he could do his duty as a soldier and a medic. This, quite simply, was the most important thing in the world to him. When I saw the ruffians pulling the pins from their grenades, I jumped down from the tank and with one leap I was standing above them. Without losing a precious nano-second, I stooped and one after the other plucked the live grenades from the hands of the youths, and immediately threw them far away – onto a thorny patch of ground at the end of a deserted street, which at the time served the few inhabitants of that quarter as a general-purpose garbage dump and latrine.
The grenades exploded simultaneously, with a loud report, sending flying in the air, in rather picturesque flight, rusty cans, torn shoes, bits of chairs and a smiling theatrical mask, made of metal. And then I was free for the most important part of my project, the educational bit. I took a firm grip on the ears of the erstwhile bombers, and when the oldest of them tried to respond with a crude and most discourteous gesture, I gave him a resounding slap across the cheek. Later it transpired that these were not "youths" but grown men, although this was not immediately obvious, judging by the looks on their faces, their movements and behavior. There was simply some fatal flaw in their psycho-emotional-physical development.
