The Hanging Artist

by Jon Steinhagen

  The handsome gentleman affects a wounded expression. “I’ve never been an understudy to anyone!” he says.

  There is renewed laughter at that remark.

  “And just remember, my friends,” he continues, “he might be doing the same to me right this moment!”

  “He had some nerve coming in here in the first place,” says one.

  “He had every right,” says the handsome gentleman.

  “It’s an exclusive club,” says another one, draining his beer in one gulp.

  “He’s a member of the profession,” says the handsome gentleman.

  “Like it or not,” says another one. He breaks wind, to roars of laughter.

  “I choose to like it,” says the handsome gentleman.

  “You actually defend him,” says an older man, fanning the air.

  “The world is big enough for everyone,” says the handsome gentleman.

  No one says anything to that; the talk has diffused to betting, drinking, eating.

  The handsome man regards the bunch with what might be bemusement.

  We see him leave the room, and cross the hall in search of the lavatory.

  We see him enter a darker, quieter room.

  He smirks at the sight of two elderly gentlemen asleep in chairs, empty brandy snifters at their elbows.

  We see him turn his head sharply, as he, like we, has heard something unusual.

  He is yanked, suddenly, into the air.

  We hear his cry.

  We see one of the old gentlemen blink awake.

  WE SEE A woman of fifty years return to her modest home.

  She forgets to lock her door as she enters the dark hall.

  We see her absently fumble for the switch before finding it. The light is warm and inviting, shaded as it is by a paper lantern she was once given as a party favor.

  We see her go to the telephone alcove and pick up the instrument.

  We hear her ask for a number and wait.

  We hear her halting words.

  “Son?” she asks. “Yes. It’s Mother. I know. Son, I… we… please listen to what I have to say… please. I… I’ve just seen… Please let me finish—no, don’t hang up, I… Son, I was wrong. Yes. I have been wrong. And I thought, perhaps…”

  We leave her to her conversation.

  WE SEE A swarm of them around the little man with the tray around his neck.

  He’s making change.

  We see tin collars exchange hands.

  Some of the swarm laugh about them; some put them on immediately.

  We see the little man smiling.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  DEPARTURES

  “WHY ARE YOU limping?”

  Franz finished negotiating the stairs from the stage door and met Yitzchak, who had just rounded the corner.

  “I’d be all night explaining,” Franz said. “And…”

  “Kafka, he’s magnificent!” Yitzchak said.

  “He’s what?”

  Franz was taken aback by Yitzchak’s display of euphoria. The actor was practically dancing on his toes.

  “The illusion is so perfect,” Yitzchak said, “as to almost seem genuinely magical! I mean magically genuine! No wonder he’s a sensation! I was completely taken in, Franzel. I, jaded by every trick of the theater, taken in! It was spellbinding.”

  “Calm down,” Franz said.

  “And how I feel!” Yitzchak said. “Positively elated!”

  “By seeing a man hang himself?”

  “It’s not that at all,” Yitzchak said. “At least I hope it’s not that. No, it isn’t, at that. It’s something inexplicable. But I feel… I don’t know… years younger? Unburdened? Full of life, full of energy!”

  “You seem to be annoyingly vital,” Franz said, sitting on the stairs to massage his ankle.

  “I studied the man closely, just as you asked,” Yitzchak said. “I watched his hands, watched for any signs of misdirection. Every time he went to the gramophone, every gesture while he spoke, every minute movement of his body. I didn’t take my eyes off him. I couldn’t! In fact, I was so enrapt by every detail that I nearly forgot to raise my hand when he asked for a volunteer.”

  “He chose you.”

  “Of course he did.”

  “I heard him refer to a celebrity…”

  “You weren’t watching?”

  “Go on.”

  “There’s really nothing much to tell,” Yitzchak said, removing his hat and wiping his brow. “I don’t know why I’m perspiring, it isn’t warm at all tonight. This is rain weather.”

  “What did you see when you took the stage?” Franz said.

  “Nothing more than a man and a rope,” Yitzchak said. “The purity of everything is exactly why the act was so astounding.”

  “The rope?”

  “It’s a rope. Made of silk. It was everything you would expect a rope to be. Not unusually heavy or light. Neither stiff nor supple. A genuine, beautiful, silken rope.”

  “Beautiful?”

  “Beautiful, Kafka. You have to see it up close.”

  “And Henker?”

  “Who?”

  “The Hanging Artist,” Franz said. He was losing his patience.

  “Yes, yes, Henker,” Yitzchak said, nodding. “Just a man. A plain, simple man.”

  “You searched him when he invited you to do so?”

  “Thoroughly.”

  “And?”

  “Franz, if there had been anything untoward, I would have said so immediately.”

  “So: nothing.”

  “No hooks, no wires. Nothing but flesh and cloth.”

  “You had your eyes on him at all times?”

  “Yes. Even when I returned to my seat, so don’t look at me like that. There was one particular play a few years ago in which I was required to keep my eyes on the leading lady as I made my way from her boudoir after she denounced me as a—”

  “All right, all right. Then everything’s as everyone says. He’s a genius.”

  “Or a wizard!”

  Franz rolled his eyes. “Help me up,” he said, and Yitzchak helped him to his feet.

  “It was one of the cleanest, most miraculous things I’ve ever seen,” Yitzchak said, quieter. “Isn’t that what you hoped to hear?”

  “I didn’t say what I hoped to hear.”

  “I thought you wanted to ensure his exoneration from all these killings.”

  “When I was recruited,” Franz said, putting his weight on his ankle and breathing a sigh of relief that the pain had abated, “all signs seemed to point to this man, but…”

  “Well, I don’t know if my opinion exonerates him or not,” Yitzchak said, “but in my eyes he’s a consummate conjurer. This is no luncheon party magician pulling rabbits out of hats and colored scarves out of his pocket. I don’t know how he does what he does, but what he does is sheer artistry.”

  “Were you even listening to the things he was saying?” Franz asked.

  “Of course,” Yitzchak said. “Every word! It’s given me a great deal to reflect upon, I’ll tell you that much.”

  “Such as?”

  “Our demons!”

  Franz cast a glance at the imposing, solid, black stage door.

  “What do you mean by that?” he asked.

  Yitzchak looked at the ground. “I rather embarrassed myself earlier,” he said. “I had gone ’round to the Aktorhalle after dinner…”

  “To where?”

  Yitzchak looked at Franz. “It’s a club for actors and theater folk,” he said. “Men only.”

  “Are you a member?”

  “Not this Aktorhalle, no.”

  “Then why the hell did you…? Never mind, I know why you went. You wanted to see Proxauf about that wretched play of his. Oh, Yitzy, did you make a fool of yourself?”

  “Almost immediately.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I’d rather not reenact the scene, if it’s all the same to you. I don’t give encores.” />
  “Oh, you do, too, I’ve seen you. Was Werdehausen there?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you made a fool of yourself in front of Werdehausen.”

  “Not entirely in front of him,” Yitzchak said, “but he was at the bar, which is sort of set back from the main part of the—”

  “Never mind,” Franz said. “When, pray tell, did you make it back to the theater?”

  “In time for The Hanging Artist, obviously.”

  “Oh, Yitzy,” Franz said. “You made a fool of yourself.”

  “Yes, I admit it, I was a first-class horse’s ass, but it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “And why is that?”

  Lowy filled his lungs with air and blew out, thumping his chest. He employed the grandest, most sweeping gesture in his repertoire to indicate the world around him.

  “Life is beautiful, Franzel!” he said. “Don’t you see it? I mean, don’t you understand by now? This pettiness between me and Werdehausen means nothing when up against the scope of life’s beauty!”

  “Don’t tell me you’re giving up acting.”

  “Not at all. I’m going to return to it, with renewed gusto, my boy! Let Werdehausen do whatever it is he does, and in whichever plays to whatever approbation. Why should it matter to me? I’m Yitzchak Lowy, and nobody can be Yitzchak Lowy better than Yitzchak Lowy!”

  Who has gone completely mad, thought Franz.

  “And to hell with Proxauf and all the other playwrights and producers.”

  Franz shook his head. “Perhaps you ought to meet Henker and thank him for your new outlook,” he said. “He said he’d meet me here after the performance.”

  “No time,” Lowy said. “I’m returning to Prague.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Sooner, if possible!”

  “Well, sooner isn’t possible, but tonight? It’s a quarter past eleven!”

  “There’s a 12:05, the last of the night. Or first of the morning, however you wish to look at it.”

  “I think there’s something wrong with you, Lowy.”

  Lowy hugged Franz. “Thank you for insisting I come here,” he said. “It’s made all the difference in the world to me. And it’s so splendid to see you alive and well and thriving. I mean that, I really do.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And am I still under a vow of silence?”

  “You’re not a monk, Itzy. What are you talking about?”

  “Am I to continue to keep your whereabouts and condition a secret to one and all?”

  Franz shrugged and turned away. “Do what you like,” he said.

  “Dora will be thrilled.”

  Franz spun around.

  Dora.

  Dora would come to Vienna.

  He glanced at the stage door again. He thought of the oppressive blackness behind it. The unseen dark masses that watched you. The invisible winged creatures.

  The world as it came closing in on you.

  He couldn’t have Dora here.

  Even if he alone in the world had been a witness to the silent, insistent malevolence that had made itself overwhelmingly present during The Hanging Artist’s performance, he couldn’t share it with anyone, not until he’d done something about it.

  But what?

  What could he do?

  His clumsiness had left him trussed up like a hare throughout the performance. He’d seen nothing, only felt a hundred suffocating things, all of which, now, he could rationalize.

  The blood had rushed to his head. He had been on the verge of blacking out; only the pain in his leg and ankle and foot had kept him conscious. Ergo the hallucinations.

  Of course, he could be wrong. The evil could be real, and otherworldly; and he couldn’t do anything about it.

  In fact, he’d been completely ineffectual the two days he’d been alive.

  Alive?

  Had he been dead?

  Why did he think that?

  Regardless, Dora couldn’t come here.

  He said as much to Yitzchak, but Yitzchak was gone.

  “THERE YOU ARE, monsieur,” Henker said. He was standing at the top of the stairs, holding open the stage door. He held a tin collar. “Is this yours?”

  “What the hell goes on here, Henker?” Franz asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Are your people still here?”

  “My people?”

  Franz bolted up the stairs, his ankle smarting, and pushed past Henker, who followed him in.

  “I don’t understand, Monsieur Choucas,” Henker said.

  Franz saw Jan and his fellow riggers tying everything down for the night. He saw Schmeide returning sand buckets to the hallway. The gramophone was gone. The scaffold was gone.

  “I’m not Choucas,” Franz said, turning to Henker. “I’m Kafka. Franz Kafka.”

  Henker smiled. “Oh, I know that,” he said.

  “You do?”

  “I just said I did.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I assumed you already knew you are Kafka.”

  “I mean, why did you keep calling me ‘monsieur’ and all that?”

  Henker shrugged. “If you want to go around pretending to be a Frenchman, who am I to spoil your fun?”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Since this afternoon.”

  “How? What gave me away?”

  “The manuscript in your room.”

  Franz had to think about that one. What manuscript?

  “The Hunger Artist,” Henker said.

  Of course. He had brought it with him from the sanatorium.

  “How did you get my manuscript?” Franz asked. “What were you doing in my room?”

  “The Borgia goblets.”

  “The what?”

  “The goblets my sister gave to you as a gift. Who do you think delivered them to you? Tillie? It would have taken her all day, even if she could have carried them herself.”

  “Do you mean the famous Borgia family?”

  “We never had them authenticated,” Henker said, “but we trusted their source.”

  “Why would your sister give me such a…”

  “…valuable gift?” Henker asked, amused. He lit a cigarette. “You ought to ask her yourself. I certainly have no right to speak for Tillie.” He drew deeply on the cigarette. “Mmm,” he said, “strangely soothing on the throat at the end of the day.”

  Franz felt he was being diverted, somehow.

  “How do your people manage to come and go without anyone seeing them?” he asked.

  “I never ask,” Henker said. “Tricks of the trade; professional secrets. I have mine, you have yours…” He shrugged. “They have theirs.”

  “I don’t have any tricks of the trade,” Franz said.

  “Your little story.”

  “I began writing that story long before I even knew of your existence, Henker,” Franz said. “And as its subject bears no relation whatsoever to your… whatever you want to call what it is you do…”

  It was the first time Franz saw Henker without some degree of smile on his face.

  “What I do is incomparably important,” Henker said.

  Schmeide passed them with the last sand bucket. “No smoking on stage,” he said to Henker, holding out the bucket. “Rules is rules.”

  Henker tossed the cigarette into the bucket, and Schmeide tipped his bowler hat and went about his business.

  “Closing up, gentlemen,” he said as he disappeared into the wings.

  “We should go,” Henker said. “There’s no more show tonight, Herr Kafka.” He handed him the tin collar, and smiled again. “Don’t forget your souvenir.”

  “It’s yours.”

  “No it isn’t.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “I gave mine away the moment I came in,” Henker said. “I only bought it off the man to be a sport.”

  Jan, whistling, passed them on his way out. He was fastening a tin collar to his throat. “G’ni
ght,” he said as he left the building.

  “I mean, how would it look for The Hanging Artist to be seen with one of those things on his person?” Henker asked. “It must be yours.”

  “I gave mine away as well,” Franz said.

  “Then we have a mystery. Perhaps we can discuss it over a drink?”

  Franz recalled the look on Julia Dierkop’s face when he had given her the collar.

  “Herr Henker,” he said, stepping closer to the man, “there are people who think you are in grave danger.”

  Henker laughed. “We’re all in danger, Herr Kafka.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “You look it. And which people think I’m in danger? Yourself?”

  “Perhaps you don’t know because you’re out there, onstage, performing. But back here, when it all goes black, when your unseen people are supposedly running things…”

  “Yes?”

  Franz heard a distant door slam, and its echo alerted him to the fact that he and Henker were now all alone in the theater. The only light came from the lone lamp that had been placed on the stage to illuminate the night. The ghost light, they called it, to make the night less lonely for the theater ghosts.

  “Herr Henker,” Franz said, “I know that I am a highly imaginative person, but the things I imagine are nothing compared to what I experienced tonight.”

  “And what, exactly, did you experience, sir? My goodness, you’re as white as a winding sheet!”

  Two figures in black stepped up behind Henker.

  “Hans Henker,” the shorter of the figures said, “you’re to come with us.”

  Henker, who hadn’t flinched at the sudden appearance of the men in coats, turned to greet them. “Am I?” he asked.

  “Yes,” the taller of the two said.

  “Whatever for?”

  “You’re wanted.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes.”

  “By whom?”

  “Just come along,” the shorter of the two said.

  “To answer a few questions,” the taller said.

  “About?” Henker asked.

  “The murder of Leo Kropold,” the shorter said.

  “Whom?” Henker asked.

  “Come along,” the taller said.

  They led the unprotesting Henker out the stage door, which slammed behind them.

  Franz blinked.

  Now he was entirely alone in that horrid theater.