by Shlomo Kalo
"Drink!"
"I…" the sailor began, in English of all things, which I found rather irritating, because ever since we set sail I had been searching among the crew for someone who spoke English, if only the English spoken between natives of Borneo… and they all pretended to be deaf and mute and shook their sparsely-haired and heavily-bearded heads in blank incomprehension
This was not the time to indulge in accusations and responses. The most important thing was – this wretched Portuguese should stop behaving like an obstinate child and drink the tea while it could still do him some good, in other words, while it was hot and retained its therapeutic properties.
"I," the man with the skull-mask went on to say, with guttural and hoarse solemnity, "am the Flying Dutchman!"
"I don’t care if you are the Flying Dutchman," I responded in a severe and authoritative tone, the kind there’s no arguing with, and added: "Drink the tea first, and change that tattered, moth-eaten blanket you’ve got wrapped around you… I’ve got plenty of spare clothes here. Take off that false arm, get yourself warm, build up your strength – before it’s too late. And then you can tell me whatever crazy story you like, whatever comes into your head!.." Confronted by his hollow look which was trying to express profound wonderment, and even relics of a distant grievance, I concluded in a tone no less solemn than his: "Standing before you is Baron Leutenlieb of the House of Munchausen, great-great-great-grandson of Hieronymus Munchausen, most illustrious of barons. From this you may draw the sound and well-founded conclusion that I do not lack a sense of humor although, like my ancestor, I adhere to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth! After you have drunk your tea, we can sit down comfortably and talk things over and tell each other fairy stories until the light of morning!"
"Esteemed Baron, Your Excellency!" the wretch addressed me again in his polished English although his voice, so it seemed, became more and more grating, as if it was coming from some rusty pipe buried deep in the bowels of the earth – "I am the Flying Dutchman! You are doing me great harm with your strange behavior, incalculable harm! You are melting my frozen heart with your concern for me. If you pursue this line any further, you will melt the whole of me and no relic will remain of me, besides hackneyed legends and horror stories of all kinds…"
"If it’s the skull you’re carrying on your shoulders that you’re referring to," I responded firmly, "it would indeed be better expunged for ever and never again seen on the face of the earth! It doesn’t suit you in the least! Your demeanor is that of an aristocrat and a grandee, and the superior English you speak testifies to a superior education… I haven’t a shadow of a doubt you could easily serve as high admiral of the whole of the Portuguese fleet… and it still isn’t clear to me how you came to be mixed up with this ship and this crew – steeped in ignorance and riddled with superstition!"
"All of this crew, down to the last man, including His Excellency the Baron, will go down with their ship before sunrise!" my interlocutor retorted in his rusty pipe voice, and a faint wisp of mist, like the vapor hanging above marshes and quick-sands, rose behind the eye-holes of his mask.
"Stop declaiming Shakespearean lines at me!" I cut him off severely and hastened to add: "You can’t just go round drowning innocent people whose families are waiting for them at home – even thinking such an idea is despicable and testifies to cowardice, and you’re not like that! Go on, hurry up and drink your tea!" I urged him and added, "In the name of God and all His saints!"
At that instant, a number of things happened all at once: my strange guest suddenly disappeared as if he had evaporated, melted away as if he had never been; my body was left leaning over the armchair, the cup of hot tea in my hand and my intention still to give the clown-sailor a drink even against his will – and the armchair absolutely empty. I wouldn’t deny to anyone that the strange disappearance perplexed me to a certain extent and my heart, which had proved steadfast in coping with all the horrors of the world, for a brief moment beat faster.
Outside, the storm stopped at once. As if someone had cut it with a sharp knife. The thunder was silenced, and flashes of lightning no longer cleft the blackness of the sky with their murderous wrath. Stars appeared and the moon as well, and the sea grew calmer, resembling more and more a Swiss mountain lake, on a fine summer’s day. And beside the door, the door of my cabin which was still open to its full modest width – all the crewmen of the creaking old ship were crammed together, and all the unshaven faces, without exception, sent me looks that were scared/ astonished/ confused/ perplexed/ jubilant. The mouths of all of them, without exception, were sealed by the intensity of the shock, and they crowded together to find support with one another, lest they lose their balance and fall flat on the slippery deck, still incidentally retaining moisture from the torrential rain which had passed as if it had never been.
Finally, one of the crewmen came to his senses and shouted something enthusiastic in Portuguese, which could simply be translated as "Bravo!" And the entire crew shouted with one voice, as if this were a football stadium where the favored team had just scored a goal – "Bravo!" (in Portuguese of course).
And then all of them, without exception, swooped on me and embraced me with typical Latin warmth, lifted me up and carried me on their shoulders straight to the cabin of the captain, who in the interim had found the time to take up his stance in the broad doorway, in his hand – the paper flower reserved for occasions such as this, and his lips issuing a veritable Niagara of thanks, blessings and benedictions, in all the languages of the world that he had heard and had learned something from.
I took the flower, thanked the captain and his crew very politely, and explained in simple Spanish that even the Portuguese could understand, that there was no easy way of comprehending the kerfuffle that had gone on here, and everyone should go back to attending to his business: the man keeping watch on the deck – to the deck, and the off-duty man – to his quarters and his hammock, as the time – I pointed to the luminous hands of my Swiss watch – was ten minutes past midnight.
In response to this, the Portuguese repeated their impassioned, deafening cries which tore apart the deep silence of the night, lit by the great stars, which seemed close at hand against their velveteen background. Crewmen hugged one another and launched into a Portuguese gypsy-dance… Someone fetched a bottle of champagne and handed out glasses of the superior liquor, and then the captain stirred himself and approached me, clinked his glass against mine and explained to me in rhythmic Spanish that I had succeeded in performing a miracle, incredible though it might seem, in "driving away the most evil of spirits, the Flying Dutchman!"
"I don’t believe in spirits!" I declared resolutely, and despite my abstinence from strong liquors I emptied my glass as a gesture of respect towards the captain, the members of the crew who were still celebrating, and the ungainly ship itself. I put the empty glass into the ursine hand of the first mate, turned and repaired to my cabin.
I locked the heavy, safe-style steel door behind me and prepared to put into effect my suggestion to the enthusiastic seamen, i.e. to go to bed and take a break from pandemonium in the sea-lanes and from absurd stories about spirits and devils… and then my glance fell on that highly polished old-fashioned sword – short, broad-bladed and two-edged – the kind carried by naval officers hundreds of years ago…
It’s still with me. My personal property, locked away in my chest of souvenirs, and the only surviving relic of the "Flying Dutchman" who from that day to this, and for good, has stopped harassing peaceable seafarers on their way to and from their homes, and this on account of a little attention, the offer of a cup of tea and mention of the name of God and all His saints. May his memory be blessed and may his soul rest among the souls of the righteous, saviors of the world!
Two weeks later the ship docked in Bombay, and the whole crew came to take leave of me – the faces of all of them bright and with no trace of that mood of dull dejection which had marked the beginning of
our shared journey.
"It is fitting at this time…" the captain launched into a long speech in pure Portuguese which from time to time elicited shouts of approbation from the members of the crew. Finally, for my benefit, he read out a prepared text comprising a few sentences in melodious Spanish:
"It is fitting at this time to attach to your name the title ‘Scourge of Devils and Ghosts’. If need be," he went on to say, "I am prepared at this very moment to accompany His Excellency to the municipality of Bombay, and there to sign a written deposition, witnessed by a few trusted members of my crew, so that the event will be perpetuated in the records, and the proposed title made official!"
Needless to say, I rejected this generous offer in the most polite manner possible. But the story remains with him and with the members of his crew, and with me and now – with you as well. So, you may now round the Cape of Good Hope with confidence! Set sail without fear! The Flying Dutchman will trouble you no more.
THE ZIP
The city of Bombay is large and overcrowded, a bustling metropolis on the one hand and on the other – a remote village, a hangover from the Seventeenth Century. Most of its streets are narrow and sinuous and Indians, Pakistanis and Europeans walk there side by side, not to mention cows which must not be touched, as they are sacred, and which calmly deposit their steaming turds among the pedestrians. The typical mode of transport in these streets is the two-wheeled rickshaw whose "driver", an Indian of low caste, is harnessed to it. Anyone who wants to feel like a "sahib", or master, and has time on his hands, mounts such a vehicle and arrives at his destination unbelievably late. Social etiquette is observed, and because of the constant friction and mutual jostling between pedestrians, creaking rickshaws and sacred cows, there is no opportunity to express apologies verbally and these are communicated by means of a mordant glance, flashing in the eyes of the local residents all along the way.
In one of the central squares of Bombay a crowd was gathered which in numerical terms did not exceed a million, staring uneasily at something which was as yet hidden from my view. The crowd expressed its (so far) restrained feelings with lively movements of limbs, heads and eyes, and truncated cries in a melange of languages.
I made my way through the throng with care and courtesy, until I found a suitable vantage point. And then it became clear to me that something dreadful had happened here, dreadful indeed according to Indian perception, something seen as a national disaster – one of the massive temples, soaring up the blue skies, dedicated to the god Vishnu, had been cracked on its rear side as the result of an earthquake, and cracked with it was the back of the imposing statue of the god himself, comparable in height to the Eiffel Tower.
Near the site of the disaster some representatives of the governing class were seen, Indian and British, as well as municipal dignitaries, all rooted to the spot and staring blankly, helpless and clueless.
Naturally, the crowd interpreted the situation correctly and into the void rose impassioned cries, demanding that the men of authority be called to account, as they were the ones who had kindled the wrath of Vishnu and he had abandoned their holy city and left it in the bloodstained hands of the forces of evil.
The impassioned crowds insisted on the immediate repair of the temple and the sealing of the split in the back of the holy statue and failing this – the sinners and sacrilegious apostates would be stoned to death in accordance with the law and their bodies burned on a pyre at the feet of the damaged god…
The situation was grave, all the more so since the celebrated British mounted police were incapable of dispersing even a thousandth of the crowd, which for its part continued to grow and press together ever more densely, backing up as far as the docks and blocking the main transport arteries in and out of the city, paralyzing windmills and causing severe financial losses to various industrialists, shutting down such vital institutions as bakeries and hotels for tourists. And when this point was explained to them in fluent English by the mayor of the city in person, who needed a high-powered megaphone to make himself heard, the Indians, incensed, answered this with a solemn pledge to die of hunger at the feet of Vishnu, rather than go on witnessing his shameful condition. And the threats, of course, remained in force – to stone the guilty ones and incinerate their bodies as a sacrificial offering before the deity.
I cleared myself a way through to the embattled mayor, whose face had changed from its healthy olive color to the ugly pallor of an ancient death-mask, and humbly offered my modest and unconditional services, having introduced myself with a click of heels,
He gave me a strange look, compounded of bitter despair, mild scorn and somewhere, in a forgotten corner, a faint glimmer of hope.
"What is it that you propose to do, Baron?" he asked finally in a despondent voice.
"Within three days," I asserted confidently, "the crack will be fully mended!"
"How are you going to do that?" he asked, still sounding defeated.
I saw that I would have to explain my secret scheme to him, as otherwise the man wouldn’t trust me. And because he was in a state beyond despair, I agreed in exchange for a word of honor on his part, to give a full and detailed answer to his question. The word of honor was given. I leaned towards him and whispered the solution in his ear.
He took it in only after I had repeated the same sentence seven times, in rapid succession, without changing even a jot or a comma. And then he turned on me eyes sunk in depression, gaped with the full awesome width of his mouth, and for a moment it seemed he was about to lose his senses altogether and his consciousness too – and not just temporarily.
Without wasting so much as a second, I picked up a fire-bucket full of water and flung the contents in his face. Policemen swooped on me, revolvers drawn, and truncheons were brandished above my head. But the mayor recovered his wits just in time and raised his hand in an imperious gesture which forestalled any violent act directed at me, put a gentle and radiant smile on his fleshy lips, the smile of an infant who has received the gift he was promised, turned at once to face the massed crowds and said:
"Listen, citizens of Bombay, noble-hearted and pure of spirit! I have sensational news for you! With us today is the celebrated Baron Leutenlieb of the House of Munchausen, great-great-great-grandson of the no less celebrated Baron Hieronymus of the House of Munchausen!"
Here the crowd interrupted him with cries of scorn and caustic remarks, saying quite clearly:
"What has a baron, celebrated or otherwise, he and his ancestors and his ancestors’ ancestors – to do with the mighty Vishnu, so sorely injured?.."
It was no easy matter for the mayor to silence the mouths of his unruly citizens and for this reason he needed to call upon the good offices of the elderly British governor, who among other things ordered a renowned snake-charmer to intone the new Indian national anthem, using the sophisticated megaphone that he held.
Thus a golden opportunity was given to the mayor and he made appropriate use of it: in the emphatic silence that fell, still with the infantile, beatific smile on his face he gave the solemn promise that within two days, or three at the most, the temple would be repaired and Vishnu’s back put back together again, by the celebrated Baron Leutenlieb of the House of Munchausen, great-great-great-grandson of the no less celebrated Hieronymus of the House of Munchausen.
The crowd grumbled but eventually, on the advice of its leaders, agreed to disperse, not before swearing a solemn oath that if within two days, or three at the most, everything needing repair had not been repaired, and if the repair itself were not entirely satisfactory – the city of Bombay would be burned to the ground.
The threat was serious and the situation – infinitely more so.
Without losing my legendary composure and cool-headedness, I ordered the workers in local factories, those manufacturing western-style clothing that was no longer in fashion – to prepare for the statue with the split back a gigantic zip fastener, according to the dimensions of the fissure.
&n
bsp; One hundred thousand workers, male and female, were at once recruited for this unprecedented project, as ingenious as it was simple, and every one of them was allocated a definite function and a specific place. The work began.
Within twenty-four hours (the laborers worked in shifts) the zip was ready, made of tensile steel and burnished brass, which no destructive weapon in the world could damage. The zip was fitted into place and glued to the two sides of the split with famously all-adhesive Japanese glue, and its jointed end was anchored beneath the ancient stone wall of the temple, deep in the bosom of the holy soil of India.
Raising the tongue of the zip was done (another stroke of genius on my part) by tethering it to a barrage-balloon, which pulled it to the top of the broad back of the gigantic statue, finally sealing the breech.
The mayhem came to an end. The fault had been repaired, with the guarantee that it would never happen again. If an earthquake were to hit Bombay in the future, accompanied by floods or otherwise, then to forestall splitting of the heavy stonework of the body of the statue – the zip would be opened, thus maintaining the balance of the destructive forces, and when things were back to normal, the burghers of the city could use a barrage-balloon to zip up the statue again from base to top, without incurring excessive expense.
In addition to the joining function, the gleaming ridges of the zip also served as a safety ladder for the more enthusiastic devotees of Vishnu who wanted to climb up to the beloved and revered head, laying flowers on his massive shoulders or fruit – to be scoffed with glee by the resident monkeys.
The celebration held on the third day was, according to the cognoscenti, the biggest, most impressive, most heart-warming and uplifting since Asoka was king of India – i.e. some two thousand two hundred years ago. At that time, as is well-known, also walking on the face of the earth was Prince Gautama, "Buddha" in popular parlance.
