CoDex 1962

by Sjón

  Scratch-scritch-scritch. Silence. Silence. Scratch-scritch-scritch.

  She had noticed the noise after the Inhaberin left; first there was a light tap, then at regular intervals a scratch-scritch-scritch, which seemed to follow her movements around the priest’s hole.

  Scratch-scritch-scritch by the head of the bed; if she moved to the foot, scratch-scritch-scritch there.

  Marie-Sophie put her ear to the wall and listened for a solution to the puzzle. She pressed her ear to the flocked wallpaper and waited for the peculiar sound. But nothing happened, no scratch-scritch-scritch could be heard unless she was moving around the room, and she tested this by pacing back and forth in the confined space, which seemed to have acquired paranormal properties. Immediately the scratch-scritch-scritch moved along the wall with great alacrity.

  At a loss for an answer, she was glancing around when her eye fell on a glass tumbler on the desk; she took it and carried it noiselessly to the source of the mystery. At first she could hear nothing but the hum inside her own head, but when her hearing sharpened she realised that she was listening to someone who was listening to her through a glass on the other side of the wall.

  The girl flushed with rage: predictably, that disgusting Tomas was eavesdropping, hoping to hear an echo of the sin they all seemed to believe was being committed between her and the invalid. Hah, she would damn well let him know that she knew what he was up to in his underpants in there.

  Marie-Sophie moved away from the wall: scratch-scritch-scritch. She listened intently to where the old man’s glass stopped, then paused a moment before crashing her glass viciously against his. A shrill scream carried through the wall and the girl gave a cold laugh: the old sod deserved it; perhaps now he’d stop pinching her when she made his bed.

  Old Tomas had pretty much behaved himself for a while after Karl had torn a strip off him for groping her, affecting a shivering and shaking every time Karl’s name was mentioned. But then this went the way of all flesh, like everything else at the guesthouse. Tomas seized every opportunity to shriek at Karl: “I could show this young whipper-snapper a thing or two, and neither of them pretty, if I was his age, if I had the stomach to knock down a coward who can’t be bothered to fight for his country but hangs around at home, making fun of old soldiers.” And Karl retaliated by asking time and again who the old bag was who loitered all day in reception, whether she had been sitting there long or might even be dead and so whether it wasn’t about time she was boiled down to make soup for the Scots.

  Karl was right that old Tomas had become terribly effeminate with his high-pitched voice, and so shrunken that the waistcoat that reached down to his thighs today would be as long as a ball-gown on him by the time death invited him to dance. But when Karl went too far and smeared lipstick on the ancient face, crammed a woman’s bonnet on his head, thrust a bouquet of flowers into the blue-veined hands and dragged him trembling out into the square to auction to the lowest bidder, Marie-Sophie decided the joke had gone far enough and intervened in the game.

  Karl had been livid with her for defending old Tomas: hadn’t she lent him the lipstick? Hadn’t she laughed with the rest? Perhaps she wanted the old pervert to go on harassing her? Marie-Sophie retorted by saying that in her opinion Karl was spending more time these days getting on his high horse with an impotent old trout than ingratiating himself with her. Karl hit high C: Impotent? How did she know that? Was there something between them? Marie-Sophie cut short the conversation.

  She hoped the owner and Inhaberin would make sure Karl didn’t get wind of her night with the invalid; if he could be suspicious of the servant boy and the old man, he was quite capable of exploding with jealousy over a bed-bound invalid.

  The girl sighed: it was a fearful poison that seethed in the glands that dangled between men’s legs.

  Marie-Sophie was squatting on the chamber-pot behind the screen when the Inhaberin marched into the secret compartment with the girl’s eiderdown in her arms, followed by the servant boy with the mattress on his back, the cook with a tray of cake and milk, the waiter with matches and a bundle of candles, and the owner bringing up the rear with a small Bible-like volume in his hands.

  The girl stemmed the flow, wiped herself, leapt to her feet, pulling up her knickers, covered the chamber-pot and greeted the retinue that was turning around itself in the confined space. They whispered to one another, walked on tiptoe, moving as slowly as they possibly could, and their consideration for the occupants of the secret compartment was so excessive that what ought by rights to have taken a minute took nearly three-quarters of an hour: would Marie-Sophie like the mattress by the bed or in the middle of the room? A bit nearer, perhaps? Further away? And the book? On the chair by the bed? On the desk? The cupboard? Mmm? And the cake and milk? The eiderdown? Mmm? The candles?

  By the time they had nothing left to do but tuck the girl up in the book, spread the milk and cake over her, put the mattress on the desk so she could read it while she ate the matches and sipped the candle wax, they had had their fill of gawping at the invalid who slept like an angel through all the commotion.

  The Inhaberin snapped her fingers, the retinue formed a single column behind her, then they sang softly but terribly gaily the lullaby of Tanni the Cur as they left the room in single file:

  Two little birds, woof-woof-woof,

  nimble with their fingers, woof-woof-woof,

  sweetly sing, woof-woof-woof.

  Tanni watches,

  Good boy Tanni watches.

  Two little fishes, woof-woof-woof,

  good with their hands, woof-woof-woof,

  sweetly swim, woof-woof-woof.

  Tanni watches,

  Good boy Tanni watches.

  The servant boy’s red head was the tuft on the end of the singing tail; he turned back in the doorway, thrusting a hand inside his shirt:

  — This is for you, the only one that escaped from the kitchen this morning …

  He handed Marie-Sophie a folded napkin and disappeared into the passage after the others.

  Marie-Sophie sat on the edge of the invalid’s bed, fingering the boy’s gift; so this was the object of disgrace itself: a chubby gingerbread boy with an erection.

  The girl laughed to herself: it was a good thing that somebody at the guesthouse was entertainingly nuts.

  The invalid turned over in bed; Marie-Sophie didn’t look up from the crude gingerbread boy; her breathing deepened. The invalid sighed; the girl ran a finger down the sugar-glazed body; her eyelids grew heavier. The invalid coughed; she looked deep into the black raisin-eyes; her head sank on to her chest.

  The gingerbread boy coughed.’

  IV

  9

  ‘The night after my father’s arrival in Kükenstadt, the townspeople’s subconscious lives broke free of their bonds. Everyone dreamed and the angel Freude was hard pressed as he dashed from mind to mind, conscientiously recording what went on there.’

  ‘What did the people dream?’

  ‘There’s no time here to detail every single dream and nightmare, but since you’re keen to get to know the character of the town I’ll tell you a few that seem to me to reflect the story and its times.’

  ‘Please do.’

  * * *

  (FROM THE ANGEL FREUDE’S BOOK OF DREAMS)

  ‘I enter an attic and think it’s my room. Against the wall on the right there’s a desk, with shelves above it containing books, pebbles and a rusty crown.

  A pale child, I can’t see whether it’s a boy or a girl, is sitting on the bed by the window, holding a cardboard box. I go over to the child.

  There’s a small pike in the box: it’s alive but strapped tight with splints and bandages, and there’s a plaster stuck over its eyes.

  I remember that I’ve come to take the plaster off the fish.

  I know this will blind it.’

  Gertrude A—, housewife, 47 years old

  ‘I’m on the deck of a cruise-ship. There are several othe
r people there and they’re all a little underdressed, given that the sky is overcast.

  A girl who can’t be more than seven years old is going from passenger to passenger, offering them a basket of sugar-glazed pig’s trotters. My fellow travellers decline these delicacies with indulgent smiles and this infuriates me; the trotters are so liberally glazed that the sugar is nearly an inch thick.

  I beckon the girl over and grab a handful of trotters.

  The instant I sink my teeth into the first trotter and the sugar coating cracks with a satisfying crunch, the crowd begins to levitate from the deck.

  The people gather over the ship and the more trotters I gnaw the coating off, the higher they rise into the sky.

  I feel it serves them right for being so rude to the little girl and I wolf down the trotters until the crowd has vanished into the sky.

  The captain comes down from the bridge, thanks me with a firm handshake and says: “Those clouds are like scorpions.”

  The captain is Axel the butcher.’

  Conrad B—, optician, 68 years old

  ‘A black-haired girl in a pink dress beckons me to join her in a woodland clearing.

  I don’t recognise her at first but then realise that it’s Elisa, a girl who was in my class at school.

  In the middle of the clearing there’s a pram that is iced over with frost, though the sun’s beating down.’

  Ferdinand C—, watchmaker, 35 years old

  ‘I’m standing outside a hotel, waiting to pick up a woman.

  When I enter the lobby a nurse comes towards me and I realise that it’s a hospital.

  She asks me what I want.

  I say I’ve come to pick up the pictures.

  We walk along wallpapered corridors and she orders me to wait in a large ward. I look around and the beds appear to be luxury four-posters.

  When the woman comes back she is naked.

  I’m filled with lust and put my arms round her, running my hand over her crotch.

  When I stick my fingers inside her, her belly suddenly expands, then contracts again.

  I’m holding a roll of film.’

  Wilhelm D—, railway guard, 23 years old

  ‘I’m standing by the cooker, waiting for the water to boil for tea.

  When it begins to simmer I arrange a saucer, teaspoon and cup on a tray.

  I snatch back my hand: a spider has spun a web over the sugar bowl.

  I try to fish it out alive with the spoon but discover that it’s dead.

  It falls into the bowl.

  I stir the sugar carefully in search of the spider’s corpse; the legs break off its body and scatter through the sugar.

  I go to the window and scrape the sugar out. Other things come to light: the flesh and skin of a trout. I chuck them out of the window too.

  I’ve been doing this for quite some time when it occurs to me that it might not be such a good idea as there could be someone below; children playing, for example. I lean out and find myself looking down on two shiny top-hats.

  There are two men under the hats. They are being hoisted up the wall of the house in a basket.

  I’m just withdrawing inside the window when they become aware of me and look up.

  They’re women.’

  Helmuth E—, pastor, 51 years old

  ‘I’m holding Klara’s little boy by the hand. We’re on our way to church but it’s taking us a long time; the ribbons on his shoes keep coming undone.

  I tie them up again.

  They must be properly done up when the pastor christens him.’

  Käthe F—, midwife, 80 years old

  ‘Georg holds out a red balloon to me. I refuse to take it.’

  Axel G—, butcher, 56 years old

  ‘I’m at Café Berserk. Facing me across the table is a man absorbed in the weekend edition of the Kükenstadt-Anzeiger.

  I read the front-page news: “Last blind man executed in Milchbürg!”

  The paper is upside down.

  I find it side-splittingly funny but I can’t laugh.

  I feel as if I’ve got a great lump of clay in my mouth that I can neither swallow nor spit out.’

  Elisa H—, secretary, 29 years old

  ‘I’m quarrelling with my mother. She’s lying under a quilt on the living-room floor.

  — Get up! We’re going skiing with Tristram and Isolde.

  — Skiing? But you can’t even swim …

  I start to cry.’

  Gisele I—, cook and housekeeper, 62 years old

  ‘Everyone in the house has come into my sitting room and the street outside is filling with people. There’s something wrong with my wireless.

  Günther, the horse dealer, is sitting in the window, relaying what comes out of the set to the crowd below; it’s like a mixture of laughter and singing.

  I can tell people are not sure what to make of it.’

  Carl ‘Blitz’ J—, pensioner, 73 years old

  ‘A drunk comes into my shop and asks me to mend a split seam in the armpit of his jacket.

  I tell him to leave but he won’t listen and asks me to sew on a button that’s hanging by a thread from his flies.

  I say I’ll get the police to take him away if he doesn’t leave the shop at once. Then he asks for a glass of water.

  I’m about to dash past him to fetch help when I notice the teasing glint in his eye. I hesitate a moment, then say: “Of course, sir, in Kükenstadt we don’t begrudge a thirsty man water.”

  But when I go round the back there’s no more running water and the cups have all disappeared. I call out to the man, pretending I have to wash up a glass and asking him to be patient.

  Then I sneak out of the back door and knock at the barber’s but he tells me sadly that the water has run out and all his cans of shaving foam are broken.

  It’s the same story wherever I go: the baker is in despair; he has neither water nor measuring jug. There’s a state of emergency at the café where unscrupulous customers have drunk all the water and stolen all the glasses and cups.

  I go from house to house and street to street, out of the town, across fields and meadows, until I come to a thick forest – there I give up.

  I’m standing by a low hovel that hadn’t been there before.

  I think to myself that if the wealthier citizens of the country have neither drink nor anything to drink out of, it’s pointless seeking help from the inhabitants of a poor dwelling like this.

  Then an old man with a grey beard appears in the doorway of the hovel, pushes a rusty ladle at me and asks: “What will you give for this poor ladle?”

  I answer: “My soul.”

  He passes me the ladle and asks: “Oak or vine?”

  I assume he means the handle of the ladle and answer: “Oak.”

  The old man smiles at me and reaches up into an oak tree that stands behind the hovel, overhanging its roof. He tears a leaf from a twig, lays it in his palm and closes his fingers over it.

  A crystal-clear juice trickles from his fist and fills the ladle to the brim.

  I mean to thank the old man but find I’m now back where my journey began. I hear the drunk coughing out front in the shop.

  I walk slowly into the shop, taking care not to spill any of the oak-juice, hold out the ladle to the drunk and apologise for having nothing else to offer him. And he says: “My thirst offers thanks, my good woman, for the elixir of life that it seems to see here in this noble chalice.”

  I pass the drunk the ladle; he takes it in both hands, drains it in one gulp and sighs gustily.

  After that he says thoughtfully: “Oak or vine?”

  I gasp; for there stands not just the hermit who gave me the ladle but none other than the Führer himself in one of the many disguises he adopts as he travels about the land, keeping an eye on his subjects.

  But I know I haven’t sold him my soul; it was already his.’

  Ilse K—, draper, 52 years old

  ‘Fräulein R— has asked me to see he
r after school. I’m waiting for her in the corridor outside the classroom.

  She calls out to me from inside the room.

  Fräulein R— is standing by the blackboard with the class register in her hand, watching a white cat that is lying on an open atlas on the desk, giving birth to black kittens on the Atlantic Ocean.

  The kittens slide out of the cat as if they were on a conveyor belt, and answer Fräulein R— with a feeble squeaking when she reads out the names of my classmates.

  I wait in terror for my turn to come.’

  Heinrich L—, 13 years old

  ‘We’re playing Cowboys and Indians; me, my brother Tomas and our friend Hermann from next door. Tomas is the Indian and he’s hiding.

  We find him in the boiler room and tie him up.

  Tomas is quick to free himself but instead of continuing the game and choosing one of us to be a cowboy with him, he opens the boiler, takes off his clothes and throws them into the furnace.’

  Klaus M—, music teacher, 39 years old

  ‘I run along the ridge of a roof, slide down the tiles and come to a halt on the edge. I’m not alone.

  A few yards away something is bumping about on the eaves.

  At first it looks like some kind of armour-clad animal, a mole or a large hedgehog, but when I get closer it turns out to be one of Rossum’s universal robots; it’s the size of a newborn baby and it’s climbing up the roof.

  I decide to follow the robot to find out if it can talk.

  But when it clambers over the ridge and rolls down the other side with a loud clatter, I hear women’s voices.

  I hide behind one of the chimneys and peer round it:

  Standing on the edge of the roof below are the mother and daughter from next door.

  They’re laughing at the robot, which is lying on its back in the gutter, helpless as an insect. I want to call out to them but I can’t remember their names – and I feel that without those there’s nothing I can do.

  I watch the mother and daughter until they’ve laughed their fill, then the daughter spins the robot round with the toe of her shoe while the mother lifts her dress to mid-thigh. The robot starts to climb up her leg.’

  Erich N—, chimney sweep, 31 years old