I believe that the old mysteries conceal much more dangerous things than knowledge of phases of the moon and eclipses of the sun, things that really had to be concealed - but which do not need to be concealed nowadays because the foolish throng would not believe them anyway, only laugh at them -things that obey the same laws of harmony as the stars and which are therefore similarto them. Well, be that as it may, forthe moment scholars have thrown away the kernel and kept the husk.”
Hauberrisser was deep in thought.
“What do you think of Jews as a whole?” he asked after a long silence.
“Hm. What do I think of them? On the whole they are like ravens without wings: incredibly cunning, black, hooked beaks and can’t fly. But sometimes theythrow up an eagle, no question of that. Spinoza, for example.”
“You’re not antisemitic, then?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. For one thing, because I have no very high opinion of Christians. The Jews are accused of having no ideals. If that is true, then the Christians have only false ones. The Jews take everything to extremes: obeying laws and breaking laws, piety and impiety, working and idling; the only things they don’t take to extremes are mountain climbing and rowing, what they call ‘Goyim naches’ - and bombast, they’re not very keen on that. Christians, on the other hand, overdo the bombast and underdo just about everything else. As far as religion is concerned, the Jews study their sacred books too closely, the Christians not closely enough.”
“Do you think the Jews have a mission?”
“Of course! The mission of overcoming themselves. All people have the mission of overcoming themselves. Anyone who is overcome by others has failed in his mission; anyone who fails in his mission will be overcome by others. If one overcomes oneself, other people don’t notice; if, however, one overcomes others, then the sky turns red and the man in the street calls the phenomenon progress. The feeble-minded think the flash is the important part of an explosion. - But you must excuse me, I’d better stop now.” Neill looked at his watch, “Firstly I must get home as quickly as possible, and secondly I don’t think I could live up to all this clever talk in the long run. So, your servant sir- as people say whenthey mean the opposite - and if you feel like it, come and see me in Hilversum soon.”
He put a coin on the table for the waiter, gave his friend a friendly wave and left.
Hauberrisser tried to get his thoughts back in order.
`Am I still dreaming?’ he asked himself in astonishment. `What was that? Is there a thread of remarkable coincidences running through everyone’s life or am I the only person these things happen to? Are events like rings which only link to form a chain when they are not disturbed by people making plans and then charging after them and tearing destiny to tatters, when if they hadn’t, they could have woven themselves miraculously into a continuous chain?T
Out of the habit of generations and from his own experience, which had so far appeared to make sense, he put this appearance of the same thought at the same time in his mind and that of his friend down to the effect of thought transfer, but for once the theory did not seem to correspond to the facts, something which in the past he had merely accepted and then tried to forget as quickly as possible. Pfeill’s memory of the face with the olivegreen glow and the black cloth over its forehead had a tangible source: a portrait that was supposed to be on a wall in Leyden; but what was the origin of his dream vision of a similar olivegreen face with a black cloth over its forehead which he had seen just a short while ago in Chidher Green’s shop?
‘The reappearance of the odd name Chidher within such a short time as one hour, first of all on a shop sign and then as a legendary designation for the Wandering Jew is strange enough’, Hauberrissermused to himself, `but there are probably few people who have not had any number of such experiences. How is it that names which one has never heard of before suddenly pour down upon one from alldirections? And why is itthat one often finds that people in the street start to look more and more like a friend one has not seen for years, until he himself comes round the comer - not just like one’s memory, no, a photographic likeness, so similar that one’s thoughts automatically turn to one’s old friend; where do such things come from? Do people who look similar also have similar destinies? How often have I found that to be true. Destiny seems to be inextricably bound up with one’s physique and physiognomy; there seems to be a law of correspondence governing it, right down to minute detail. A ball will roll, and so will a die, though in a different way; why should not a creature with a thousandfold more complicated existence not be yoked according to a law as regular, if a thousandfold more complicated, to one pair of shafts? I can well understand why astrology does not die out, perhaps has even more believers than ever before, and that one in ten have their horoscope cast; but people are on the wrong path if they believe the stars they can see in the sky determine the path of their destiny. That comes from other `planets’, from ones which orbit in their blood and around their hearts and have different periods from the heavenly bodies, Jupiter, Saturn etc. If the place, hour and minute of birth were the sole deciding factors, how could it be that the Blaschek sisters, siamese twins who were born at the very same minute, could have had such different destinies, the one becoming a mother, the other remaining a virgin?’
A man in a white flannel suit, red tie and Panama hat set at a jaunty angle, his fingers laden with showy rings and a monocle stuck in his dark eye had appeared behind the cover of a Hungarian newspaper at one of the more distant tables some time ago and, by changing his place several times, as if he were bothered by the draught, had inched his way closer to Hauberrisser, although the latter had been too deep in thought to notice.
Only when the other addressed the waiter in an overloud voice, asking for information on places of entertainment and other local sights, did Hauberrisser become aware of him, and the intrusion of the outside world sent his profound reflections scuttling back into the darkness whence they came.
A quick glance told him that it was `Professor’ Arpad Zitter from the Hall of Riddles who was so desperately trying to play the innocent who had just got off the train.
His moustache was missing and his hair-oil had been diverted into different channels, but that had not detracted anything from the characteristic features of a Bratislavan `pigeon-fancier’ on the look-out for his prey.
Hauberrisser had been much too well brought up to give even the slightest sign that he knew who the person opposite him was. It amused him, moreover, to match the subtler wiles of the gentleman against the crude tricks of the vulgar, who always assume a disguise is successful simply because their intended dupe does not immediately underline his suspicion with much furrowing of the brow and rubbing of the chin.
Hauberrisser did not doubt for one moment that the ‘Professor’ had followed him to the caf6 with some Balkan villainy in mind. In order, however, to satisfy himself thathe was the object of this pantomime, he made as if to pay and leave. Immediately a cloud of irritation crossed Master Zitter’s face.
Hauberriser allowed himself an inward smile of satisfaction; “Hmm. Chidher Green and Co. - assuming the `Professor’ is an active partner- seems to have various means of keeping tabs on their customers: scented ladies with page-boy hair, flying corks, ghostly old Jews and incompetent spies in white suits. Quite an organisation!”
“There must be a bank somewhere near here where one can change a couple of English thousand-pound notes into guilders, surely?” the Professor asked the waiter in a casual tone, but once more in a very loud voice. He made a great display of irritation at the waiter’s shake of the head. “Seems to be some problem with the petty cashhere in Amsterdam”, was his opening gambit as he half tamed towards Hauberrisser. “I had the same difficulty back at the chotel.”
Hauberrisser said nothing.
“Yes, hm, chreat deefficulty.”
Hauberrisser did not allow himself to be drawn.
“Fortunately the chotel owner knew the old family seat. All
ow me to introduce myself: Ciechonski; Count Wlodimierz Ciechonski.”
Hauberrisser sketched a bow and mumbled his name as incomprehensibly as possible, but the Count seemed to have an uncommonly sharp ear, for he jumped up in excitement, rushed across to the table and sat in the seat Neill had just vacated with a delighted cry of, “Chauberrisser? Not Chauberrisser the celebrated torpedo constructor? The name is Ciechonski, Count Wlodimierz Ciechonski. May I?”
Hauberrisser shook his head with a smile. “You are mistaken. I was never a torpedo constructor.” (‘A silly performance’, he added silently to himself; ‘pity he insists on trying to act the Polish count; I would have preferred Professor Arpad Zitter from Bratislava; at least then I would have been able to quiz him about his partner, Chidher Green.’)
“No? Pity? But no matter. The very name of Chauberrisser awakes such, oh, such fond memories”, the Count’s voice quivered with emotion, “that and the name of EugeneLouis-JeanJoseph have close ties with our family.”
`Now he wants me to ask who this Louis-Eugene-Joseph is. That is precisely what I will not do’, thought Hauberrisser and silently smoked his cigarette instead.
“Eugene-Louis-Jean-Joseph was my godfather, you see. He died in Africa immediately after I was christened.”
`Probably from pangs of conscience’, Hauberrisser muttered to himself. “Died in Africa, did he, how very unfortunate.”
“Unfortunately, yes, unfortunately. Poor Eugene-LouisJean-Joseph! He could have been Emperor of France.”
“He could have been what?” - Hauberrisser thought he must have misheard - “He could have been Emperor of France?”
“Assuredly!” Proudly Arpad Zitter played his ace, “Prince Eugene-Louis-Jean-Joseph Napoleon IV. He fell on 1st July 1879 inthe war against the Zulus. I even have alock of his hair”, he pulled out a gold pocket watch the size of a steak and of quite fiendish tastelessness, opened the lid and pointed to a tuft of black hair. “Me watch came from him, as well. A christening present. A mechanical marvel.” He explained, “If you press here it strikes the hours, minutes and seconds and at the same time a pair of mechanical lovers perform on the back. This button starts the stop-watch, this one stops it; if you push it in a bit farther the current phase of the moon is shown; even farther in and the date flips out. Push this lever to the left and it squirts out a drop of musk-oil, to the right and it plays the Marseillaise. A truly royal present. There are only two of its kind anywhere.”
“That must be a comfort”, Hauberrisser conceded with polite ambiguity. He was highly amused by the combination of brazen effrontery-and total ignorance of good manners.
Count Ciechonski, encouraged by Hauberrisser’s friendly expression, became even more familiar, told him about his extensive estates in Russian Poland which had unfortunately been devastated by the war (luckily he was not dependent on them for his income, his intimate connections with the American Stock Exchange allowed him to earn a few thousand pounds with speculations on the London market every month), moved on to horse-racing and bribing jockeys, the scores of eligible young billionairesses he knew, to land in Brazil and the Urals going for a song, still-undeveloped oil wells by the Black Sea, and remarkable inventions which were his to exploit and which were sure to bring in a million a day; then he got on to buried treasures, whose owners had died or fled, to infallible methods of winning at roulette, told Hauberrisser about huge sums for spies that Japan was just itching to pay out to reliable persons (of course one would have to put down a deposit first), prattled on about underground brothels in the big cities to which only those in the know had access, and even went into great detail about King Solomon’s golden Ophir, which, as he knew from the papers of his godfather Eugene-Louis-Jean-Joseph, lay in the land of the Zulus.
He was even more versatile than his pocket watch and dangled a thousand hooks, each more crudely baited than the last, in order to tempt his prey. Like a shortsighted burglar who tries a whole set of skeleton keys without ever finding the keyhole, he reconnoitered Hauberrisser’s mind without finding an open window to climb in through.
Finally he gave up in exhaustion and asked Hauberrisser in a rather deflated voice whether he would not mind introducing him to some gentleman’s gambling club. But even here his hopes were dashed, Hauberrisser excused himself, pointing out that he was a stranger in Amsterdam himself.
The `Count’ took a disgruntled sip of his sherry-cobbler.
Hauberrisser looked at him reflectively. `Perhaps the best thing would be to tell him straight out that he is a confidence trickster. I would give something to hear the story of his life, it must have been colourful enough. This man must have waded through a sea of filth. But he would deny it of course, and even resort to insults.’ A feeling of irritation came over him; `Life is becoming unbearable with the people and conditions of today: mountains of empty shells everywhere and if you do come across something that looks like a nut worth cracking, it turns out to be a lifeless pebble.’
“Jews, Hasidic Jews!” muttered the confidence trickster contemptuously, pointing at a group of figures in rags and tatters - the men at the front with tangled beards and black caftans, the women behind them, their children in bundles tied to their backs - who were hurrying silently down the street, their wide-open eyes staring wildly into the distance. “Emigrants. Not a cent in their pockets. They believe the sea will part before them when they come. Mad! Not long ago in Zandvoort a whole crowd of them would have been drowned if they hadn’t been pulled out in time.”
“Do you mean that seriously or is it just a joke?”
“No, no, I’m perfectly serious. Didn’t you read about it? Religious mania is breaking out everywhere you look nowadays. For the moment it is mostly the poor who are infected by it but”- Zitter’s irritated expression brightened up at the thought that perhaps the time was coming soon when his chickens would be there for the plucking - “but it won’t be long before the rich catch it too. I know about these things.” Happy to have found a profitable topic of conversation - he had noticed how Hauberrisser’s attention had been caught - his tongue was loosened once more. “Not only in Russia, where the Rasputins and Jan Sergeis and other holy men keep popping out like rabbits, the mad idea that the Messiah is coming has spread over the whole world. Even among the Zulus in Africa things are happening; there’s a negro running round there who calls himself the ‘Black Elijah’ and performs miracles. I know all about that from Eugene-Louis” - he quickly covered up his error- “from afriend who was outthere recently hunting leopards. Iknow one famous Zulu chief myself, from Moscow” - his face suddenly showed a certain unease - “and if I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it: the man’s a complete ass in all other respects, but, as true as I’m sitting here, he can perform magic, he really can. Magic! Don’t laugh, my dear Hauberrisser, I’ve seen it myself and no trickster can pull the wool over my eyes” - for a moment he completely forgot that he was supposed to be playing the role of Count Ciechonski - “I can do all that to a T myself. Devil knows how he does it. He says he has a fetish and when he calls on it he’s fireproof. What is true is that he heats up large stones until they glow red - I’ve inspected them myself! - and then walks slowly across them without burning his feet!” In his excitement he started chewing his fingernails and muttered to himself, “But just you wait, my lad, I’ll find out how you do it.” Suddenly worried that he might have given himself away, he quickly assumed the mask of the Polish count and emptied his glass, “Nazdravje, my dear Chauberrisser, nazdravje, cheerio. Perhaps you will see the Zulu yourself; I have cheard he is in Cholland, appearing in a circus. But shall we not go to the Amstel Room next door for a bite … “
Hauberrisser stood up quickly. He was not in the least interested in Arpad Zitter as a count. “Awfully sorry, but I am otherwise engaged for this evening. Perhaps another time. Goodbye. So nice to have met you.”
Baffled by his sudden departure, the confidence trickster watched him leave open-mouthed.
> Hauberrisser rushed through the streets of Amsterdam, in a fever of excitement, though he could not say why.
As he passed the circus where Usibepu’s Zulus were appearing - it must have been the one `Professor’ Zitter had in mind - he toyed with the idea of going in to see the performance, but then let it drop. What did he care if anegro could do magic tricks! It was not a lust for novelty that was racking his nerves, there was something in the air, something intangible, imponderable that whipped him up into a nervous frenzy: the same noxious fumes which, even before he had come to Holland, he had found so suffocating that his thoughts had automatically turned towards suicide.
He wondered where it came from this time. Had he caught it, like an infection, from the Jewish emigrants he had seen?
He felt it must be the same mysterious influence which had driven him from his home that sent these religious fanatics on a wild chase over the face of the earth; only the individual motivation was different.
It was well before the War when he had first had this eerie sensation, as if something was squeezing his brain, only at that time it had still been possible to suppress it by throwing himself into work or pleasure. He had found various ways of explaining it away: it was wanderlust, it was nervous exhaustion, it was the result of his unhealthy way of life; when war raised its bloody standard over the Continent he assumed it had been a premonition of the carnage. But why, now the War was over, was the sensation becoming daily more intense and driving him to despair? And not only Hauberrisser himself, almost everyone he talked to about it had a similar tale to tell.
They had all confidently assumed that when peace descended on the nations of the world it would also return to the hearts of men. Precisely the opposite had occurred.
As usual the empty-headed were loudest in proclaiming their shallow explanation that the fever raging in the hearts and minds of the survivors was merely the result of the disturbance of their comfortable existence. The cause went much deeper.
The Green Face Page 3
