by Sjón
‘An old woman sets a ram, a cock and a horse on me. I run as fast as my legs will carry me.’
Henkel O—, historian, 97 years old
‘I’m sitting in the back seat of a car travelling at high speed. A man in black is sitting in front with Zarah Leander. She appears to have a red velvet ribbon round her neck. The man turns to the woman and it becomes unbearably hot in the car when he says: “Now I’m going to brake!” Her head loosens from her body and falls into my lap.’
Hannah P—, schoolgirl, 16 years old
‘My grandma has a pet tigress.
Grandma’s been raising the tigress in her kitchen for six years but now it’s time to take her outside. Close up she seems nice and friendly to children, but from a distance you can see a gleam of claws and teeth.
It’s my job to take her out for a walk.’
Günther Q—, printer, 59 years old
‘A dress-coat hangs in my wardrobe, dripping.’
Frieda R—, teacher, 39 years old
‘It’s a spring morning and I’m on my way to work. I’m only a few yards from the town hall when evening falls. I stop and wonder whether I should turn back. Then I hear a stuttering engine noise. It’s coming from Pastor Helmuth’s garden.
Before I know it I’m on the other side of the garden wall.
Someone has arranged apples in a wiggly line across the lawn. I follow them. The engine noise gets louder and I find myself behind the house.
There’s no one there. The noise is coming from above.
There are two women standing on the edge of the roof, looking down at me. One of them is wearing a black gown with her hair in a bun, the other has her hair loose and is wearing a sky-blue dress.
The one in the dress is standing behind the one with the bun, with her arms round her and her hands clasped over her lap.
The engine noise is coming from under the woman’s gown and I realise that the stuttering engine is the reason why evening has fallen.’
Manfred S—, council employee, 43 years old
‘I watch Daddy tickling Mummy. She’s laughing so hard that I run into the kitchen.
There’s a man sitting there with a helmet on. He’s staring down at an empty soup bowl.
I go up to him and ask:
— Doesn’t your mummy give you anything to eat?
He asks back:
— Will you be my mummy?
And I answer:
— Until tomorrow.
Then the man picks up some scissors and begins to cut my nails over the bowl. When the bottom is covered with clippings he says:
— Now you must cry, Mummy, or I won’t get any soup.’
Imogen T—, 7 years old
‘I go to the door. The State Prosecutor is standing outside with two police officers; he shows me a search warrant.
I let them into my caravan.
The police officers go straight to a book lying on a chair by the bed, pick a page at random, tear it out of the book and hand it to the Prosecutor.
He folds the page like a napkin, holds it up in the air and nods gravely to the policemen; the crease resembles the profile of the American Jew Ehrich Weiss who taught me the “seven-knot trick”.
I bend my tongue to the root but the skeleton key is not there.’
Dr U—, illusionist, (?) years old
‘I’m standing on a jutting crag with my daughter Hilde. Seven aeroplanes come in from the sea and fly over us with a loud droning. I don’t recognise the make or the markings that flash on their wings, so I’m hesitant to wave at them.
The planes bank and wheel in over the shore, then come in to land on the grassy sward that runs up to the crag where we’re standing.
I walk towards the planes – Hilde shows no interest in them but carries on playing – and I’m nearly there when the pilots jump out and take off their helmets: they’re black goats.
I run towards Hilde but the pilots get there before me.
They corner the child on the crag and begin to scold her for various things I know she hasn’t done.’
Margareta V—, seamstress, 28 years old
‘I’m standing at the altar with my wife; we’re getting married for the second time.
Someone slaps me on the shoulder.
The best man, Air Marshall Goering, smiles at me. I look round and see an empty pew where I thought my son Sigi was sitting.’
Sigismund W—, bank clerk, 63 years old
‘My sister-in-law comes visiting with a bolt of cloth, saying she’s been asked to deliver it to me. I’m to use the material for curtains.
I ask her who the benefactor is. She leaves without answering.
I unwind the cloth: printed on the pink linen are pictures of my husband and me in the most extraordinary sexual positions.
I’m not shocked.
I examine the cloth thoughtfully; the further it unwinds, the fainter Boas’s image becomes and the clearer mine is.
In the last pictures I’m alone, making love to myself.’
Gretl X—, female worker, 22 years old
‘I’m flying in a biplane. There are two women in the passenger seats behind me.
They call me Macheath.
I’m immortal.’
Rudolf Z—, servant boy, 17 years old
V
10
‘Gabriel soared over the sapphire-green meadows of the Realm of Heaven, listening devoutly to the eagle-whoosh of his famous wings. His journey home had gone well despite the divine weariness that had spread through every quill and plume of his angelic frame, and when the spires of Paradise City rose scintillating on the horizon, their glorious radiance moved his tongue in a psalm:
O Jerusalem divine,
How my spirit for thee doth pine,
For the light that doth shine
From thy raiment divine.
Where thy children line
Baskets with berries fine.
Gladdened with wine,
Forgotten is all repine,
They glow like a bramble … spine.
Gabriel knew of no more glorious sight than Paradise City when he returned worn out from a long journey such as that which now lay behind him.
But in truth the archangel was not, as he thought, in flight, nor had he accomplished his day’s mission: “To sound the trumpet for battle in heaven and on earth, to fight in said battle, and to conquer.” No, in reality he was hanging like a firefly trapped in a web of deceit spun by eight-footed Satan.
It was night, Gabriel straddled Europe, his supple body frozen in an absurd attitude; his right foot resting on the Greenland ice-cap and his left on the Persian plateau, clutching the robe to his lap, the trumpet jutting obscenely from his hand, his silver-bright head flung back into the depths of space and his mouth primly pursed like a spinster’s.
The only sign of life was his eyes, which quivered beneath their lids, astray in a dream.
On the crystal-clear backdrop of heaven beyond the spires Gabriel saw the Lord’s hosts flocking to the city: Seraphim clove the air with Metatron at their head, singing “Kadosh! Kadosh! Kadosh!”; Ophanim swooped in formation from the clouds on their way home from the life-spark mines, and blazing Cherubim on guard duty circled the seven city gates.
Gabriel beat his wings harder, unaware that the tiredness coursing through his body was spun from an evil thread; it was human – tantamount to corporeal – and had its origin in memories from the ancient of days on earth, when he had caught God’s sons, the giant Grigori or Watchers, fornicating with the daughters of Eve.
The archangel had informed the Almighty of the crime and carried out the ensuing purges with such zeal that the Father Himself had seen fit to intervene and reprimand him before the eyes of all: “Dear child, we do not force anyone to confess to sins he has not committed.”
But as the Almighty knew what motivated Gabriel in the purges – compensation for the fantasies that had seized his mind when he witnessed the sacrilegious union between the incan
descent substance of the Watchers and the doomed flesh of woman – the archangel was allowed to set up as many show trials in Paradise as he wished.
And it fell out as the Father had intended: by the time the raids against the Grigori had ended and the ringleader Röhmiel had been cast into the darkness of hell, Gabriel had managed to suppress within himself any desire to watch the obscenity that must characterise any sexual congress between immortals and mortals.
Right up until the moment when the fiend Satan – in a base attempt to postpone Doomsday – trapped Gabriel in his net.
* * *
Archangels such as Michael and Uriel have many tasks to wear them out, and it is thus inevitable that they should from time to time grow weary. (In his important work De Civitate Dei or ‘The City of God’, St Augustine of Hippo, for example, puts forward the following explanation for the existence of the same species of animal in lands separated by sea, that in the days of the Creation the angels flew around the globe with the beasts, setting them down according to the orders of the Creator. And one need hardly add that this was no easy task. – Ed. H.G.) In general, the fatigue of angels is most unlike the weariness that we mortals know, as it does not threaten their lives in the same way as toiling from morning to night can cripple the human labourer and shorten his lifespan … These divine beings are immortal, they have a refuge at the high seat of God and from Him they derive their spiritual and physical nourishment. (Here the author is speaking figuratively; he is not claiming that angels are made of flesh and blood. On the contrary, it was the author’s contention that the heavenly ‘flesh’ in fact consisted of rays of light emanating from the divine love. – Ed. H.G.) … On the other hand, God’s angels experience sin in a similar way to how we experience the diminution of our strength: sin dulls the glittering tissue that constitutes the angels’ bodies, and instead of reflecting the incandescence of Jehovah, they absorb it. They become filled with pride – and fall.1
* * *
The frisson of lust, which Gabriel in his innocence mistook for weariness, now assaulted him like a nightmare. Even the flood of light from the golden roofs of Paradise City could not restore his strength; his legs grew heavy as lead, his wings would not obey his commands. Losing the power of flight, he plummeted to earth with a deafening shriek.
Gabriel came to his senses in a woody grove: a blue sky with a single sun shone through the canopy of trees – the ten thousand suns and crystal vault had vanished – but the rays of the single sun were so strong that they made his eyes water.
When the angel had wiped the tears from his eyes and blinked until he grew accustomed to the glare, he almost let out a shriek of terror: he was lying with his head in the lap of a young maiden who was passing the time by plaiting a garland of rose petals (Rosa rubrifolia) and rosemary sprigs (Rosmarinus officinalis).
Gabriel choked back his scream and clamped his eyes shut in despair. He felt so faint that he wouldn’t be able to lift so much as a finger in self-defence if the maiden were to make advances to him, let alone flap his wings and fly away before someone caught him in flagrante delicto, as it was called in the books of the Last Judgement. He couldn’t follow this thought through to the end – to be caught in these demeaning circumstances, no, it would be too cheap an entertainment for that hellish pimp Pharzuph and his queens of shadow.
He decided to feign sleep; the instant he recovered his strength he would shoot up the blue arc of heaven like an arrow from a bow.
Gabriel was startled out of his lamentations; something wet had brushed against his foot. What was happening? Had she started to grope him?
He opened one eye a slit: a unicorn calf (Monoceros imaginarius) was snuffling interestedly at his soles, seemingly about to lick them. O Lord! How was he supposed to feign sleep under this sort of torture?
But just as the unicorn was about to apply its tongue to the defenceless angel, the maiden looked up from her pastime and shooed him affectionately away. The calf bleated crossly but obeyed the gesture and trotted off.
This good deed altered the angel’s view of the maiden.
He saw through half-closed eyes that she was not only good-hearted but wondrously fair, and he drank up her beauty like the very elixir of life: clear blue eyes, a tip-tilted nose, rosy cheeks and a well-shaped mouth graced her snow-white visage like a constellation. Her fair hair fell loose over shoulders that had never known the burden of sin, her delicate hands deftly plaited the flowery garland, her small virginal breasts rose and fell under the fine weave of her dress.
Well, the archangel could hardly feel threatened by such a beautiful, unspoilt maiden – the latter quality attested to by her power over the unicorn calf, which now stood in the middle of the grove, chewing the buds off a Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) which grew beside the trunk of a pomegranate tree (Punica granatum).
Gabriel had never before been in such close proximity to the weaker sex – not even when he announced to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she was to give birth to the Saviour. The great tidings had been delivered without physical contact: the future Mother of God had been standing at the kitchen table, kneading dough, while the angel had knelt in the larder doorway, and the glorious words had hovered in the air between them, blazing with fire. Though the angel had lost count of the paintings that supported his impression of the event, he was now so intoxicated by the maiden’s beauty and the warmth from her lap that for all he could remember he might have pressed his lips against Mary’s right ear and kissed her.
Gabriel puckered up: then what objection could there be to his offering this young maiden something similar? What was acceptable to the Holy Virgin ought surely to be welcome to this little sister of hers who was cradling his head in her lap. He opened his eyes wide and grabbed at the maiden.
But she was not as preoccupied with her flower arranging as Gabriel had supposed.
Nimbly eluding his hands she sprang to her feet and laughed at him as he rolled over, heavy as a sack of coal.
Gabriel sat up in the grass, trying to get his bearings.
The unicorn was lying beside the Venus flytrap, making idiotic ruminating noises, but the earth seemed to have swallowed up the beautiful young maid: what foolishness had led her to flee from him as if from an old satyr? It didn’t take a theologian to see that he was an archangel. Who else would have sixteen wings and a halo?
The unicorn shot him a dirty look.
The angel clambered to his feet, wiping the sweat from his brow with the hem of his robe. He had to find the girl: she mustn’t think he wished her any harm. No, it would be most unfortunate if she were to spread that about.
Forming a trumpet with his hands, he walked around the grove, shouting in every direction: “I am an angel! I am an angel!”
But his calls received no response apart from the ruminating noises emitted by the unicorn calf, which grew louder every time he uttered the word “am”.
Gabriel soon tired of his conversation with the calf’s digestive system, but decided to repeat one more time for form’s sake that he was an angel, now adding that he was the special friend of virgins. And would you know it, at that the maiden jumped giggling out of the bushes.
She ran to him, placed the garland on his head, skipped away from him and halted just within reach, but the moment he stretched out a hand to her she frisked away with a squeal.
The angel clapped a hand to his brow: the symbolist who had put together the unicorn and given him to maidens was a genius indeed: the state of virginity was obviously nothing but absurdity piled upon absurdity. If he wanted to offer the maiden a thing or two, he would have to follow the example of the fabulous beast with the head of an antelope, the body of a horse, the beard of a goat, the legs of an elephant, the tail of a pig and the horn protruding from the middle of its forehead, two ells long and twisted.
Emitting a loud neigh, Gabriel lumbered off in pursuit of the maiden.
The chase led them the length and breadth of the grove. It was rather mismatched on
account of the large age gap between the players: the angel was coeval with the world, the maiden in her thirteenth year. She was as fleet as a hind and instantly retreated whenever he was lucky enough to catch hold of her dress or ankle. But the feel of the young flesh was so inflaming that the angel was unable to stop and pursued the maiden until finally he tripped over a knotted root and was unable to rise again, however much she teased him.
Gabriel lay back, his chest heaving with exhaustion. He admitted defeat: clearly the maiden didn’t want an annunciation and he would have to respect the fact. But perhaps she would like to play with him later?
The angel glanced over at the maiden and saw the unicorn come trotting up behind her with its spear in the air. He was about to yell at her to look out when the animal feinted at her and she fell screeching into Gabriel’s arms.
The maiden seemed to like it there.
She immediately started making her own annunciation to the angel.
These maidens certainly were odd creatures.’
‘Has he fallen then?’
‘Dew glitters on the onion fields around Kükenstadt…’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Let’s go there.’
VI
11
‘Marie-Sophie thought she had only nodded off for a moment when she came to under the eiderdown on the mattress on the floor beside the invalid’s bed: from the square outside came the rattle of cart-wheels and the lethargic hoof-beats of the dray horse.
The girl started up with a jerk: she must throw on her clothes and get the dining room ready before the regulars turned up for their morning coffee. No, what was she thinking? She had to stay here in the priest’s hole with the invalid until he left – if he left.
I’ll die of old age in here …
She reached out for her clothes which lay neatly folded on the chair by the desk and blushed: what was this? She didn’t remember having folded them. Could the invalid, a strange man, have undressed her and put her to bed? And her book was open as if she had been reading it – or he had been reading to her as if she were a child. Had the night turned the world upside down, converting patient into nurse and nurse into patient? It wasn’t as if she didn’t know what to think, but it was most embarrassing.
