The breads—the breads!—had been warm and fragrant, Vollkornbrot, Hörnchen, Laugenstangen, a cornucopia of the staff of life, served with sweet butter, yellow honey, and two kinds of jelly, raspberry-mint and quince.
And he would never forget the exquisite meats: Schlackwurst and fresh farm ham sliced thick, with a generous heel of Leberwurst pâté on the side.
The only evidence there had been a meal was the empty dishes still on the table, all practically licked clean.
Franz was a new man.
And immediately upon finishing, worried that he had ruined his delicate digestive system for good. He would pay for his gluttony, for his gourmandizing, he who, by rights, should be a rigid corpse somewhere in the bowels of the sanatorium, waiting to be claimed by his family.
“As if they would come,” Franz said, and felt shame at saying it. His sisters would come; if not both, then at least one of them, perhaps by drawing straws…
No, he wasn’t going to think ill of his sisters, he had no right.
His father, on the other hand…
No use wasting a thought on him.
Franz didn’t want to ruin the pleasant aftereffects of such a momentous meal.
Gregor had woken him with the breakfast (enough for three breakfasts!), with its heady aroma and his polite, rasping cough, and had said, “I’ll take my breakfast elsewhere. My… eating habits are best left unwitnessed. You’ll thank me later,” and had disappeared. Franz wasn’t sure if Gregor had simply vanished, or if he (it?) had skittered out of the room, as Franz had attacked his repast with such gusto that a stampede of extremely disconcerted elephants could have plowed through the room and he wouldn’t have been able to swear to which direction they went.
Stuffed to his teeth with rich food and without any visible companionship (human or otherwise), Franz faced his first true dilemma since discovering he wasn’t dead.
What was he supposed to do now?
He couldn’t remember the last time he had been out of the bed, and he certainly didn’t feel like returning to it despite his postprandial drowsiness. What, then?
The corridor. A peek outside his room. A sighting, perhaps, of another patient or a member of the medical staff. He’d chance it.
He went to the wardrobe for his robe, and as he put it on he got a good look at himself in the mirror that hung inside the door.
He looked like a corpse.
A recently well-fed corpse, but a corpse nonetheless.
He was normally (although when was the last time he was truly ‘normal’?) on the tall side and lean, with high cheekbones, somewhat prominent ears, strong chin, and pouty mouth, but his emaciation these past seven weeks…
‘Pouty’ mouth.
Dora had called his mouth ‘pouty.’
“I don’t have a potty mouth,” he recalled saying to her when she had said that to him.
She had clarified the adjective, and even then he had argued with her, claiming that he had no such thing.
And pouted.
Dora.
Franz felt the next worst pang after the hunger: longing.
The longing he now felt for Dora gave him ample purpose as he cinched his robe sash around his broom-like waist. He needed to find a telephone. He put his hand on the doorknob.
“Be circumspect,” said a dry voice behind him.
Franz turned. Gregor had reappeared and was clearing the table.
“Be circumspect about what?” Franz asked.
“About everything,” Gregor said, piling the breakfast things onto the tray, “but especially about making yourself known.” He draped the serviette over the tray and slid it under the bed.
“Don’t leave those under the bed,” Franz said. “Do you want this place crawling with…” He stopped. Gregor let up the shades.
“Vermin?” Gregor asked. “Too late.”
“I have to get in touch with Dora,” Franz said.
“Perhaps she’ll come of her own accord.”
“How is she to know I’m alive?”
“Why would she know otherwise? You were never dead.”
“I was on the brink of death.”
“All of us are on the brink of death.”
“You know what I mean,” Franz said. He wrinkled his nose. “Is that you or me?” he asked.
“Both, no doubt,” Gregor said. “When was the last time you had a bath?”
Franz couldn’t remember.
“Then all the more reason to get out of this room,” he said. He turned the knob and nearly wrenched his arm out of its socket.
Locked.
“It’s locked,” he said.
“I know,” Gregor said, humming as he made up the bed.
“Why?” Franz asked. “Why have they locked me in here?”
“For all you know, they didn’t lock you in, you locked them out.”
“Why would I do something like that?”
“Beats me.”
“I just might,” Franz said, with a few useless tugs at the doorknob. “You’re being much more of an opaque annoyance today.” He pounded on the door. It was like hammering on a brick wall, and he hurt his hand. He retreated to the chair and sat.
“Where’s the key?” he asked.
Gregor plumped a pillow. “Don’t look at me, I haven’t got it.”
“How have you been getting in and out?”
“Let an insect have his secrets.”
Franz suppressed the urge to kick over the table, and checked himself. He wondered from where these sudden waves of violent emotion and appetite were coming. The way he had inhaled the huge breakfast was understandable as he hadn’t eaten more than a morsel of solid food in several months, but he couldn’t understand the primal lust he’d felt when recalling Dora or the bestial need, now, to squash Gregor like the bug he was.
It wasn’t like him.
Not at all.
“You’ll get used to it,” Gregor said.
“I don’t like it,” Franz said.
“I didn’t say you’ll come to like it, I said you’d get used to it.”
Franz got up and began to pace.
“Then I’m in Hell, right?” he asked. “Is that what this is? I’m consumption-free and well-fed, but I’m to be trapped in a room with a giant… what exactly are you, anyway? Cockroach? Beetle? And don’t tell me I should know because I created you…”
“I used to be a salesman,” Gregor said, “if that helps, but… well, you told me I shouldn’t tell you things you already know…”
Someone was knocking at the door.
“One thing you really need to know right this very minute,” Gregor said. “Other people may or may not be able to see me.”
“You mean you don’t know?”
The knocking continued.
“I’d rather you erred on the side of me being invisible to others,” Gregor said, lowering his voice. “I mean, I could leave if it’s more convenient, but I don’t necessarily control my appearances and disappearances, so it’s best that if you can still see me while someone else is with you, don’t talk to me like I can be seen by others, because if they can’t they’ll think you’re insane.”
“But I am,” Franz said. “I am definitely insane.”
The knocking increased.
“At any rate,” Gregor said, “there’s no need for pointless comedy. Just don’t address me, even if I say something to you.”
“Why are we whispering?”
“I don’t know.”
Franz turned to the door and shouted. “I’m terribly sorry, but the door’s locked, and I don’t have the key.”
The knocking ceased, the knob turned, and the door opened.
The person who entered smiled at Franz and said, “Just the man I’ve been waiting for.”
CHAPTER SIX
A VISITOR
THE FIGURE THAT now bustled in wouldn’t stop talking.
“You’re looking extremely well,” it said, “for someone who’s been in a place like this
as long as you, which is to say not as long as others, but certainly not as short as some, if you know what I mean, and if you don’t, I mean the hopeless cases, the ones that go out in a box, if I may be indelicate about such things, and I often am. You’re not dressed; am I too early? I’m sometimes too early. I try to be on time, but because I take such great pains to ensure I’m somewhere on time I often show up earlier than is socially acceptable, but then again this isn’t a social call, although I try to be a sociable—social?—person. If you’re in the midst of dressing, don’t mind me, I’ll turn away, although I’ve seen everything, not of yours specifically, of course, but you know what I mean, nothing embarrasses me, nor should you be embarrassed by my presence, because we’ve so much to discuss, so many details to sort out. This is a very pleasant room, very pleasant, and on the top floor, too, I’ve never been here myself, either as visitor or patient, knock wood, is this wood? It’s wood. Very nice, too. If you’ve a summer suit, I’d recommend that, it’s hotter than blazes out there, but I’m getting ahead of myself, you don’t know me from Adam, and why should you? Here’s my card.”
The figure produced an embossed card and handed it to Franz. In embossed black letters on a smooth cream background were the words:
BEIDE
Inspektor
“You’re reading the reverse,” Beide said.
Franz turned it over. The obverse, in embossed cream letters on a glossy black background were the words:
Inspektor
BEIDE
Franz took a moment to take in the card’s owner.
He was a bright, lithe young man with a boyish softness to his features. The deep blue eyes were merry, the lashes long. He was dressed in a uniform of some sort that Franz did not recognize, its blackness set off by deep red piping along the tunic’s clerical collar and narrow lapels. The outfit was dominated by a long black cape pinned to the red-piped epaulets, matched with a smart black cap on his head, set at a jaunty angle.
“Inspector of what?” Franz asked.
“All sorts of things,” Beide said, “but mostly crimes—you may keep the card—because that’s what the world’s come to, although if you ask me the world has always come to crime, and after all it keeps me busy, keeps me busy…”
“Are you local law enforcement, or…?”
“I get around, to be sure,” Beide said as he opened the wardrobe, “here and there and everywhere, because there’s crime everywhere, or should I say evil? Well, evil is a rather lazy term for all that’s bad in the world, wouldn’t you agree, as is the word bad, I suppose, but our vocabularies are so limited, we have to make do as best as we can with the words we know… I see you have a summer suit, excellent, and you have… oh, I see all of the shirts are plain white, well, that’s makes it so easy to dress, I mean, white shirts go with anything, I think this necktie would go smartly with this suit, now, what about shoes? Or do you have boots?”
The effect was not unlike listening to an amateur musician warming up on a flute, yet it was a forceful, urgent flute, and a great contrast to Gregor’s.
He turned to look for Gregor, assuming he’d disappeared, but there he was, standing in the far corner. Gregor waved a limb.
“Remember, don’t say anything to me,” Gregor said. “And I don’t know what this is all about, anyway.”
Franz turned back to Beide, who was standing in front of him, holding out the suit and shirt.
“Something the matter?” Beide asked.
“I think you might have the wrong room,” Franz said, handing back the card.
Beide put the clothes on the bed and took back the card. “Kafka, Franz, of Prague. Age forty,” he said. “Although I’d put you at thirty, thirty-five at the oldest.”
“Yes, I’m Kafka.”
“I know; those weren’t questions. Are you sure you won’t keep the card? It might come in handy someday. As a bookmark, perhaps, when you’re reading something and just have to put it down in order to answer the door, or as a beer coaster, or maybe to get you into a locked room?”
“What do you want?” Franz asked.
“A million things,” Beide said, continuing his sweep of the room, “but, please, won’t you dress? Not that your current apparel isn’t presentable, it’s just… well, do as you please, I really want you to be comfortable, as what I’m about to tell you will possibly make you uncomfortable, in a roundabout way, although it might affect you in a more profound way, shake you to the core, if you will, and by that I mean you may find what I have to tell you so chilling that… but I have to hurry, there are so many facts, and by facts I mean features of the situation, or situations, actually, because there are now so many, but I hope you’ll see they are all linked, and that connection, Herr Kafka, that link, will, I’m hoping, allow you to see there is, if possible, hope of tying everything together into a neat little package upon which we can act.”
Franz, dizzy, sat down. He had only been able to follow a little of what Beide had said, but felt that some sort of force was about to compel him to give this curious little man his attention, despite the feeling of dread that now crept up on him.
“All right,” Franz said.
“Trousers first, or socks and shoes first?” Beide asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your habits,” Beide said. “Some fellows put on their socks and shoes first, and then pull their trousers over.”
“Why would someone do that?”
“In case there’s a fire.”
“Shirt first, actually,” Franz said, shaking himself out of stupefaction. Beide handed him his shirt.
“Interesting,” Beide said, “very interesting. Most original. I’ll leave the rest to you. Now: to begin. It’s always a conundrum, isn’t it, as to how to begin, don’t you think?”
“Begin at the beginning,” Franz suggested as he began to dress. If nothing else, he’d humor the man, and perhaps derive some entertainment from whatever tale awaited him.
“Excellent,” Beide said, eyes alight. “This is why I knew I’d come to the best person. All right. The beginning. The actual beginning, I’m sure, actually precedes the beginning I’m about to relate, as I’ve no doubt this whole affair has its roots well-grounded in histories and situations beyond our comprehension or acquisition, but for the purposes of why I’m here, now, with you, having such a delightful one-sided conversation, the beginning begins nearly two months ago, with the murders of several people.”
Beide paused for effect, and for air.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A LITANY OF DEATH
“MURDERS?” FRANZ PROMPTED.
“Yes. As of the tenth of April.”
The date itched Franz’s memory for some reason. “Go on,” he said.
“On April the tenth,” Beide said, “the body of Ulla Stach, age twenty-one, was discovered, in her flat in Rannersdorf, dead. Fraulein Stach was discovered by her mother in the morning; the time of death was placed at somewhere between midnight and one in the morning. Do you know Rannersdorf?”
“I can’t say I do.”
“It’s in Schwechat. Are you familiar with Schwechat?”
Franz hesitated.
“Why do you ask?”
Beide smiled. “I’m trying to gauge if you are oriented. The location is, I think, important.”
Franz pulled on his stockings. “Yes,” he said, “I know Schwechat. It’s south of Vienna, I think. The river runs through it. I went on an excursion, once. On the water. We—the people I was with and I—stopped at an inn for supper. I don’t know much more about it. It seemed a pleasant place.”
“So it is,” Beide said, “and thank you for supplying more information than I needed, you make an excellent suspect.”
Franz, shoe in hand, stopped. “Is that what this is about?” he asked. “You suspect me of murdering this young lady?”
“There’s no shame in being a suspect. Now, please, you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Beide said, and laughed. “Wait. Be pat
ient. I’ve barely begun.”
“You’re making me nervous.”
“I don’t mean to. I rather think my countenance and demeanor have been most congenial.”
“That’s what’s making me nervous.”
“To continue: Ulla Stach, dead. Medical report showed she had been strangled. And not just strangled, mind you, but strangled with a heavy rope. A hangman’s noose, in fact, an opinion offered by the medical examiner who, I understand, had some experience with such things arising from his early years assigned to a prison.”
“The girl hanged herself. A suicide. Did she leave a note recounting why she would have done such an awful thing?”
“Oh, I knew you would be like this. You ask excellent questions,” Beide said, barely suppressing glee.
“I only asked the one,” Franz said, lacing his shoes.
“So you did. Ah. Well, then. Suicide. If that were the case, she would have been found dangling from the rope.”
“I take it she wasn’t.”
“You are correct. And yet there were signs indicating that a rope had been used, not merely on her neck but also on the broad beam in her room, under which she was discovered. And, to answer your question, no. She did not leave a note.”
“Go on. I believe you said murders earlier, plural.”
“I did indeed. Ulla Stach, as far as we can tell, was the first suicide that wasn’t a suicide.”
“Who was the second?”
“Walter Furst.”
Franz paused in the buttoning of his waistcoat. “So,” he said, “Furst was… the second.”
He heard Gregor suppress a chuckle and looked to see him hastily put a leg in front of where his mouth might be, if what he had could truly be called a mouth. “Sorry,” he whispered, and Franz wondered why he needed to whisper if Franz was the only person who could hear him.
“Yes,” Beide said, “Furst was the second. Very clever. And now I suspect you’re thinking this is all too ridiculous.”
“I’m past that,” Franz said. “Go on. Walter Furst. In Rannersdorf, as well?”
The Hanging Artist Page 3
