The Fantastical Adventures of Leutenlieb of the House of Munchausen

by Shlomo Kalo

  "From a purely human point of view!" I stressed.

  "Come with me!" he commanded, turning round abruptly and with vigorous pace, like a soldier in a ceremonial parade, marched straight ahead. I trailed after him.

  Soon we arrived in a spacious chamber, brightly lit by the neon strip-lighting. In the middle of the chamber some apparatus was suspended, more precisely, a metal tube with handles attached to turn it this way and that, resembling the periscope of a submarine, which was precisely the function it served.

  "You drilled a hole in the back of the unfortunate creature!" I protested.

  "I didn’t drill anything, man!" he retorted, "I’m not the vicious or the malicious type. I wouldn’t even hurt a fly!" he declared with some anger. "My periscope was fitted in the water-outlet of my noble beast and it doesn’t hurt him or interfere with him in any way. There’s an automatic valve which closes whenever water is discharged and it passes unimpeded, causing no harm to the animal or the apparatus. Come on now, let’s take a look at these miscreants, with their lethal weapons, let’s see what they’re up to!"

  So we took up our positions – he on one side of the instrument and I on the other, and he turned it in the direction required, since by the nature of things he was the one familiar with the machine, knowing exactly how it functioned. Within moments the scene was revealed to our eyes, on one side the surface of the unquiet sea and on the other – the destroyer and the submarine, which had not dived again following the incident, and they were both at battle-stations, poised and ready to pounce.

  "They’re looking for us, ha, ha, ha, ha!" the red prophet broke into wild, unbridled laughter.

  "You’re mistaken," I said in an effort to cool his premature euphoria, and on the basis of knowledge backed up by wealth of experience, sharpness of eye, ability to foresee the future and thorough understanding of military tactics from every conceivable angle – I stated unequivocally an incontrovertible fact:

  "We’re in trouble! They’ve found us and at this very moment they’re aiming all their lethal firepower at us" – and for the sake of precision I added: "The destroyer has a total of 41 guns mounted on the port bow, and the sub has four tubes armed with torpedoes of the most destructive type in existence. In less than half a minute from now all that ordnance will hit this creature of yours and you – and although I am proof against gunfire" – and here I saw fit to explain to him briefly the episode of the Indian ointment and the immunity which was still valid – "I am on the other hand liable to drown, and within a day or two the two of us, together with this good beast, will be summoned before the highest tribunal of them all, and we shall need to probe our activities on the face of the earth with care and find evidence to back up our claims of virtue, to avoid being sent down into the furnaces of Hell!"

  "I am in no danger of experiencing Hell’s fires, since the word of God is my word!" the Irish prophet declared with peerless confidence. "But as for you, Leutenlieb, there’s no knowing what’s to become of you… insofar as I have been able to observe your behavior, an entirely objective observation, you are nothing other than arrogance personified, with a sense of humour that has grown out of control and become insufferable. From head to toe – unbearable sense of humour! And you won’t be helped there by all the acts of charity you have supposedly performed during your life! You and all your kinsmen will be laid between the perpetual glaciers reserved for the habitually arrogant and those with extravagant sense of humor, until your shameful arrogance is cleansed and your sense of humor is reduced and brought within the bounds of good taste, and then and only then will you be taken down to the furnaces of Hell… but" – the face of the Irish prophet suddenly lit up – "if you behave yourself properly here, submit to my discipline on board this modest living ship of mine – perhaps I can intercede on your behalf with the avenging angels, for you and for all the scions of your house, notorious for their arrogance and love of comedy!"

  "I will gladly submit to your discipline on this strange ship, but since we have only some seven seconds left… what can I do in those seven seconds?"

  "You can shut your mouth and understand once and for all that the gift of prophecy has been given to me and to no one else and as the Jews say – since the new era prophecy has been given to fools alone! I’m telling you, before those seven seconds are up…"

  "Three," I corrected him with exemplary composure.

  "Three," he agreed, "by then we shall be far from this accursed place!" And while speaking he tugged on a thin, almost invisible cord.

  At that very moment I felt a powerful surge of nausea and it seemed to me that the shells and torpedoes had scored a direct hit on the target and my internal organs were trying to force their way out through my gullet. But at once I regained my nerve and realized the sensation was of a different kind altogether – the nausea affecting people going down in a lift which has not been properly calibrated in accordance with the statutory regulations. And sure enough "we went down in the lift" – the giant fish performed a vertical dive at the command of its grim-faced master, and within a second, no more, it had taken us down to a depth of seven kilometers beneath the surface, to the very bed of the ocean. My ears just had time to take in the echo of distant gunfire and my eyes perceived the silhouettes of the vicious torpedoes setting out on their way. A few seconds later the great masses of water around us seethed and the wondrous fish was capable of maneuvering adroitly and was neither crushed by the weight of water nor diverted to right or left but stood as if frozen, absorbing the excess of energy expended in vain, using a very original method worthy of investigation and international patenting, capable of enriching someone who needs a lucky break.

  The only one injured by the blast, so it became clear to me, was the skipper of the yellow submarine, who was flung from the conning tower of his craft and dragged deep down by the force of the whirling vortex created in the waters of the ocean.

  We watched him, my traveling companion and I, through one of the inquisitive eyes of the fish which, as was later explained to me, the Irishman made a point of polishing at regular intervals. Through the eye we saw the skipper in the same posture I had seen him in just a few moments before on the conning tower of the submarine – erect, all of him speaking of confidence and the self-satisfaction of a victor in combat, in one hand the harpoon and the other hand – clutching the water instead of the rail of the submarine which had disappeared; a malicious smile still glinted in his slanting eyes, and from his half-open mouth, from his eyes and from his two narrow nostrils rose innumerable bubbles of air, of different sizes and moving at a different rate, like the soap-bubbles blown by children playing with imitation pipes.

  "Our friends up there have done a good job!" my traveling companion exulted and immediately backed up his words with a quotation from the New Testament, adapted to suit the circumstances – "He who draws the harpoon shall die by the gun".

  But my opinion differed from his. Without hesitation I ran to the mouth of the hospitable whale, and while apologizing to him I tickled the end of his tongue.

  The whale coughed an awesome cough, and his whole body shook, sending both me and the red prophet reeling, losing our footing on the slippery floor of the creature’s mouth, scrupulously clean as it was. But my objective was realized – by the force of the supercharged cough the skipper, who was doubtless still alive, was hurled up in the air, above the foaming water.

  The whale, as if he understood what I was thinking, sped after him and stopped, in his usual fashion, about half a meter below the surface of the water. I ran to the periscope, paying no heed to the look of foolish astonishment on the face of the Irishman, and was in time to see the skipper plucked from the sea and deposited on the deck of the sub. A grey-haired man, apparently the submarine’s doctor or a medical orderly, attended him. The skipper regained some of his nerve, rose to his feet and shook a menacing fist at the dark water. In response to this the fish which, as previously mentioned, belonged to the order of cetaceans, spra
yed him with a mighty jet of water, with the result that the skipper burst into bitter tears of inconsolable anger and overwhelming joy – anger at his utter impotence and joy at the saving of his life at the very last moment. And then I heard behind my back a faint hand-clapping and a deafening cry:

  "Bravo, bravo!" the red prophet yelled directly into my ear, "you have shown yourself a staunch Christian, displaying unbounded love for your enemy! But," his voice lowered and the fire in his gaze was dimmed – "you have opened up before him the fire-spitting gates of Hell itself!"

  "How is that?" I asked in astonishment.

  "Because from this moment on, the skipper will be subjected to an infinite number of interrogations, which will not end until they have removed the yellow skin from his body, strip by strip."

  "What is likely to be the theme of these interrogations?" I went on to ask in mounting bemusement.

  "Secret contact with the enemy, a rendezvous in the depths of the sea! He will be accused of staging the whole episode, meaning, he jumped into the sea at the agreed time, he wasn’t swept overboard, perish the thought, and in the depths he encountered the revisionist-reactionary-cosmopolitan-imperialist-capitalist enemy, received instructions on microfilm and his sole purpose is to undermine the foundations of the enlightened socialist-communist society where equality prevails in all things relating to the destitution of the workers, and the dictatorship of the proletariat leads it towards the sublime goal… and it will be up to the unfortunate skipper to choose – removal of his skin strip by strip in the course of interrogation or – full confession and expression of remorse for betrayal of the homeland and the socialist ideal in the faint hope that the interrogation will stop and instead of peeling off his skin strip by strip, as the law and tradition demand, they will simply put a bullet in his head, and he will in relative comfort give back his soul to whoever he gives it back to… do you realize what you have done to the hapless skipper?" – my host scanned the features of my face with a look of reproof and bitter disdain combined – "If you had let him die, even by drowning, he would have blessed you for it, and his soul would already be cheerfully accepting its punishment in the furnaces of Hell… instead of this you have inflicted upon him the more terrifying Hell that exists on earth, the Hell of ideological interrogation, which has no equal in the Heaven above, no match on the earth beneath, or in the Hell that lies under the earth!"

  "My esteemed friend!" I addressed him with all dignity and with the respect due in these circumstances – "Had I not intervened, that man would now be providing a meal for several varieties of shark and other common marine predators… you see, by virtue of my excellent education I am commanded to act always and without hesitation in the interest of rescuing any living creature, mankind included, from trouble of whatever kind and most of all – to save life. The man is still alive and his fate, like the fate of every one of us, is in the hands of God, that God whose chosen envoy you purport to be, Sir."

  "I don’t purport to be anything!" the red-bearded one protested – "I was, am and shall be His chosen envoy and every word that emerges from my mouth – is His word!"

  "And it was He who commanded us not to kill but to save life!" I declared, not sure which text I should be relying on.

  "You ignorant fool!" the prophet cried in a thunderous voice, while deadly lightning flashed in his eyes which had turned red as glowing embers, and his body was racked by a seizure, reflected particularly in his thick and heavy beard – "Hear the word of the Lord!" he stressed and at once added, allowing me no opportunity to protest or comment:

  "Who is the man who will live and not see death, will he deliver his soul from the grave, Selah!"

  I was so stunned by this, I could only stare at him open-mouthed. It was obvious to me he was quoting the Scriptures, but as to the source from which this verse was taken and more importantly, regarding its relevance to the case at issue – I had no idea.

  He relaxed to some extent, and something resembling his trademark sardonic smile twitched at the corners of his lips; confronted by my obvious bemusement, he set me right on both the points that concerned me:

  "Psalm 89, verse 49," he declared and went on to clarify as I hoped he would, "If the person is a man, in other words, if he stands firm and keeps the faith – he will live and will not see death having been flayed alive… If he is not a ‘man’ and doesn’t stand firm and keep the faith – he will not only see death, he will lose all his skin before being fed to the sharks and the other predators that you were so keen on starving!" – a final shot in my direction from those flashing red eyes, and now he seemed quite composed.

  In the course of time it became known to me that the skipper was indeed a ‘man’ and he stood firm in his resolve and did not see death by flaying, nor was he torn apart by the sharp teeth of the hungry predators of the deep, but endured all his interrogations with dignity until the time of the "Cultural (counter-) Revolution" when he was released from detention, went on to greater things and insisted fervently that he owed his happy life to the sublime communist ideal, which has its devotees, so it seems, even in the depths of the oceans. These devotees know how to distinguish between foe and friend, which to drown and which – to save. According to him, his ally in that famous battle, which all the world’s newspapers reported – wore the menacing shape of a gigantic sea-dragon, an authentically Chinese phenomenon, which hunted down and swallowed the enemy – some degenerate toff, whereas he, "Elephant’s Tusk for Brains" (so the hero was called) was lifted up by a prodigious and sincere proletarian belch, high above the foaming sea and deposited, whole and healthy, on the deck of his highly esteemed submarine, loyal servant of the elevated proletarian vision.

  Of course, old Ivory Brains (as he was known, for short) did not forget to add, with all the humility appropriate to the circumstances, communist ingenuity and initiative also played a part – and he didn’t hesitate to elucidate in detail: "I was thrown into the depths on a Party assignment, and not for a moment did I forget this, meaning – I held on with my right hand to the highly polished harpoon, according to plan, and when I confronted that monster, which did indeed display clear solidarity with the ideal, my harpoon was pressed against his temple. He knew how to evaluate this properly, and he belched in the way he belched and I returned in the way I returned… unlike that degenerate lackey of the West, who preferred to be swallowed by the monster which swooped on him with commendable zeal, rather than die honorably, speared by an honest proletarian harpoon."

  These words of wit reached my ears, as stated previously, some years after the event and they filled my heart with joy, proving beyond doubt that the man was not only alive but offering conclusive evidence to all-comers of a contented and active life, i.e. – telling fascinating stories and being guided by the light of pure truth, in which respect he and I are birds of a feather.

  THE BELLY OF THE WHALE

  We moved deeper, my friend and I, into the interior of his sophisticated craft. He had a larder located close to the aperture giving access to the whale’s colon, an extensive larder, which any royal palace from any period in history would have envied. Chests and barrels discharged from wrecked ships, or jettisoned for whatever reason, floated or sank in seas and oceans and were picked up by the nimble red-bearded opportunist, hoisted aboard his vessel and recorded with a meticulous efficiency not normally associated with the Irish.

  I noticed several chests containing tea of various brands, coffee, dried fruit, cooking oils of all kinds, barrels of herrings, boxes of spices and a wide range of preserved foods.

  We returned from the larder to the small intestine, which could easily have accommodated coaches and horses and any other traffic; London’s Trafalgar Square and the Parisian Place de la Bastille would seem paltry provincial thoroughfares in comparison.

  My friend was adept at exploiting every corner and every depression for his greater comfort. Every fold in the gut of the whale had been converted into a cabin, fitted out with the kind of
ancient and heavy furniture that had once crammed luxury liners and especially the V.I.P. cabins, occupied by the super-rich, politicians of renown and those boasting of their family-trees and blue blood – not to mention, of course, kings and queens who left their mark behind them, symbols of royalty with copious gold letters and inlay of diamonds. What worried me about all these pieces of furniture were the legs, which for some reason were pointed and embedded in the noble entrails of our wondrous beast. I commented on this, a mild and measured comment aimed at my friend and sometime lifesaver, and yet – uncompromising.

  My friend objected and tried to evade my scrupulously polite remark with a dismissive wave of the hand, as if I had uttered something foolish and childish, not even meriting a proper verbal response. But when I repeated what I had said in the same mild but decisive tone of voice, hinting at the ingratitude we were displaying in our treatment of this generous and kind-hearted creature, doing whatever we asked without so much as a faint sigh of complaint, carrying us wherever we wanted to go and realizing our most extravagant dreams – my words took from my friend the strength to resist, and for all the legendary Irish obstinacy he was unable to withstand my pressure and absolve himself with a simple and dismissive wave of the hand, however grand and stylish such a gesture might be. Anyway he began speaking, or to put it more accurately – he virtually yelled into my ears:

  "And how are we going to manage without sofas and loungers and tables and footstools and chairs of all kinds – what are we supposed to sit on?"

  "On cushions!" I answered him with a smile and at once set about the task of house-clearing, which was no simple matter: my host had amassed an awesome collection of 237 seating units with all accessories and 78 drawing-room tables, of all ages, colors, shapes, weights and designs. And moving them to the "vomit-position" took us three full days of hard and unremitting labor.