The Hanging Artist

by Jon Steinhagen

  She put the canes down and rubbed her swollen, misshapen knuckles.

  “It never attacked me again, and later we discovered why, when Hans had done some research on the chair, its legend, the rope within. It never attacked me again because Hans never touched it with his bare hands again.”

  “And he told me, later, that it was at that moment—when I was struggling against the rope—that his hatred for me, his resentment towards me that he had endured and held in for all those years, had disappeared, like a candle flame being blown out. Seeing that unholy thing wrap itself around me terrified him no end, and he knew he didn’t wish me to die.”

  There were tears in her eyes.

  “Why the performances, Fraulein? Why has he taken to the stage to loose this avatar of evil upon the world?”

  “Because it is his punishment,” she said. “He dies at every performance. He dies an inhumane, violent death, and is then resurrected to live that death again and again. His volunteers, the people who approach him with either noble or corrupt hearts, feed the dark forces that have allowed that wretched instrument to survive the centuries. My brother has chosen to survive for my sake, Herr Kafka. If he doesn’t appease these malignant, unseen jurors, if he decides to turn the rope’s justice on himself… Well, who will take care of me?”

  Franz wanted to turn on the electric lights, but he couldn’t bring himself to see the wretched woman in more than shadow at the moment. He wanted to put a comforting hand on hers, but he felt that doing so would make her withdraw in revulsion, sensing false pity in him.

  “Now that you know these things,” Mathilde said, looking into Franz’s eyes, “you must…”

  “Find a way to stop him?” Franz asked.

  “My brother is not a monster,” she said. “He is the unfortunate slave to this monstrous thing. Perhaps the darkness of his own heart is what led him to find the rope in the first place—or led the rope to him, I don’t truly know—but he, himself, is not an evil man.”

  “But he’s allowing these people to be murdered,” Franz said.

  “And one day,” she said, “he will have to answer for it… to a power higher and greater than the evil forces he now faces.

  “It has ruined him,” she said, staring off into the darkness. “It has ruined him as a human. His hatred is now only for himself. Even if there were a way to end this nightmare, Franz, it would only end for others. Not for Hans. He is ruined for good. There’s nothing we can do.”

  “It went after my father,” Franz said, “because of me, because of the hatred I’ve nursed for him… my entire life, I suppose. So I know what it’s like to be ruined.”

  “You said it didn’t kill your father,” she said.

  “It didn’t,” Franz said. He stood. “If there was any true justice in this world, it should have killed me.”

  He went to the door.

  “Goodbye, Tillie.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  A HANGING ARTIST

  HANS HENKER SAT in his empty dressing room, eyes closed, and began the process of escorting every trace of himself away from his mind.

  He couldn’t do it.

  He couldn’t raise the gray wall that would separate Hans Henker from The Hanging Artist.

  It took time, and it took dedication. He was finding neither.

  The show had begun.

  He turned to his words.

  He knew his words, and would probably know his words until his dying day, perhaps even longer. He knew his words but said them anyway, because they were of The Hanging Artist. There would never be any variation to his words, because variation indicated contemplation—a fiddling about, making things better or worse—and Hans did not require variation or improvement. What he needed were the words, and…

  Why had none of them come for him tonight?

  Why had no one stopped him, prevented him from going on?

  Hundreds of people out there. And hundreds more come Monday.

  Twice daily.

  Three at a time, on the stage, with him, touching, thinking themselves great sports for volunteering, reveling in a few minutes of fame…

  No. Out. Away, down, in, shut, locked.

  Good evening, my friends, my dear new friends.

  THE HANGING ARTIST leaves his dressing room and closes the door behind him.

  He walks down the spiral staircase, one hand on the railing.

  He hears the audience laugh, but he hears the strain in their laughter, because they are waiting, waiting for The Hanging Artist. They’ve been waiting all week, all day, all night. Any other reaction is automatic: surprise, appreciation, laughter.

  He does not step aside as a clutch of barely-clothed dancers rush to get to the stage. They flow around him, southbound geese parting and rejoining around an unexpected weathervane.

  He waits where he always waits, next to the harp case, which may or may not contain a harp.

  He knows the dancers are doing their brightest routine. The music is wicked, the stamping insistent, defiant.

  He hears the applause for their efforts, plentiful but meaningless.

  The dancers swarm backstage, all tearing off their beaded headdresses at the same time, file up the stairs, their shoes making sounds like cannonball raindrops falling into tin pails.

  The Hanging Artist hears his music.

  It is the music of sunshine and romance.

  The violin has never sounded sweeter, the muted trumpet more coy.

  A young man in a cap and shirtsleeves, his powerful arms prepared to haul up the curtain, nods to The Hanging Artist, who smiles, but does not return the nod.

  The curtain and the olio rise.

  The orchestra stops. The conductor nods to the musicians. They douse their lights.

  The Hanging Artist walks onstage. He stops center stage and gives the audience a moment to take in his smart linen suit the color of fresh caramel, his pomaded hair, his spring green necktie, his polished fudge-brown shoes, his butter-colored calfskin gloves.

  He assumes a casual but authoritative stance: legs together but feet turn slightly outward, one foot an inch forward of the other, the left hand in the pocket, the right hand, unconcerned, at his side.

  He speaks.

  “Good evening, my friends, my dear new friends—and, I hope, new friends who have become old friends who have returned. You are welcome, and I thank you. Thank you for finding me.”

  He turns to his right and crosses to the gramophone perched on its delicate table. He winds the machine until the spring has no more give. He pushes the turntable brake, and the record spins. He lifts the reproducer and lowers it onto the spinning disc; the needle slides into the groove.

  He crosses back to center as the elegant, spry music—“Gigolette,” performed by Marek Weber & His Famous Orchestra—flows from the gramophone’s flowered horn, sounding as if smothered beneath a wet woolen blanket.

  He smiles.

  “I propose to hang myself,” The Hanging Artist says.

  He waits for the reaction to abate. It is much the same as it always is: the low, rolling expressions of alarm and disbelief, one or two nervous laughs.

  He continues.

  “Because justice must be done. And who am I, you might ask, to judge myself and pass sentence? Who am I to take my own life? Why, I am myself, and who else would know better than I for what sins I must answer?

  “The sins of living, my friends. The sins that live in my thoughts, my desires, my regrets, my hurts, my slights, my envies. Are these sins or are they demons? They are both.

  “But are all of our internal demons just that—internal? Perhaps they are real: external, and gnawing at us. Perhaps those demons are your friends, your neighbors, your lovers, your spouses, your children…

  “The list, my friends, goes on and on.

  “And so, the rope, fashioned into a noose and slipped around the neck. The noose that cuts off air, cuts off consciousness, cuts off your relationship to this place of suffering and offers�
�what? Peace? Perhaps. An escape? Definitely.

  “Am I taking my own life? No. Do I do this to encourage you to take yours, to pass your own harsh judgments on yourselves? I would never do that. I would never encourage anyone to do something that I myself have not done.

  “Lastly, who am I to ask you to sit there and watch me do it?

  “I am The Hanging Artist, my friends.

  “It is expected of me.”

  He sketches a military bow to his audience and returns to the gramophone, as “Gigolette” is over. He replaces the record with another, winds the gramophone, and drops the needle on the new record. Everyone recognizes the tune: “Ausgerechnet Bananen,” although most of Europe has been singing the nonsensical American song in its English iteration: “Yes! We Have No Bananas!” The audience loves this record, loves this popular band—Efim Schachmeister Dance Band—and toes start tapping.

  While the audience adjusts and is soothed by the music, The Hanging Artist walks upstage to the chair. He takes up the rope coiled on the seat and returns to the audience.

  He shows them the rope, spooling it out as he speaks, until the noose is revealed.

  “This,” The Hanging Artist says, “is the artist’s instrument, the finest there is, delicate silken strands braided together into a larger and stronger form. And why shouldn’t this rope be made of excellent silk and not ordinary Manila hemp, or jute, or common straw? One could argue that the sinner deserves nothing more than the roughest fibers, that the demons must be routed by the coarsest means possible.

  “But this is the theater!”

  He raises the noose so all can see.

  “Does the sight of this strike fear in your heart? Terror? Be calm. Be sensible. Be joyous! There is no need to fear anything—for, as you know, whoever turns his mind to true goodness will be met with fortune and honor, and forever be free of sinful shame! Observe.”

  He gently shakes the rope, and the noose becomes undone.

  The audience responds in awe, because they think it’s impossible to undo a hangman’s knot so quickly. The Hanging Artist nods, holds up a hand.

  “Please, it is no miracle. I’m just showing you there is nothing to fear. This is just a rope. And to prove it to you—to prove myself to you—I will need a volunteer, someone to come up here, with me, to inspect this fine silken rope and my own person, to demonstrate that, after all, there is no trick. Now—who will do it?”

  A hundred hands, two hundred, three hundred.

  One arm rises from the front row, slowly but with confidence. Its owner signals as if hailing a taxi: index and forefinger.

  The Hanging Artist points to the front row, the calm, confident arm and its owner.

  “You, miss,” he says, “the young lady in the lovely pale green frock. Please.”

  The Hanging Artist returns to the gramophone, just in time to lift the needle from the record as its last calamitous sounds play out. When he turns, he will have a new friend. He selects the next record, but a fresh needle in the reproducer, cranks the machine, and plays the new selection: “Tutankhamen.” Exotic, lively, mysterious.

  The Hanging Artist returns to center stage to meet the young lady.

  Franz Kafka stands before him, looking like Death.

  Kafka holds out his hands to The Hanging Artist. “Please,” he says.

  Hans Henker stands still.

  Kafka takes a step towards him, arms outstretched, palms up.

  “Please,” Kafka says. “You’re my only hope for salvation.”

  Hans Henker takes a step backwards.

  The audience murmurs.

  Kafka takes another step towards him.

  “Please, Hanging Artist,” Kafka says, “show me what it is to pay for my sins.”

  The music ends.

  The needle is trapped in the dead space on the record between the grooves and the label.

  Hans Henker can feel them watching, waiting, pressing down on him.

  He throws the rope over his shoulder.

  He removes his gloves, revealing his beautiful, delicate, smooth hands.

  He throws his gloves to the stage, takes up the rope, holds it above his head.

  He turns to the audience, triumphant.

  “And now,” he says, “we begin… the end.”

  He looks at Franz.

  “The gramophone,” he says.

  Franz crosses to the gramophone, removes “Tutankhamen,” and places the final record on the turntable. The music is delightful. There’s not a member of the audience doesn’t recognize the tune. Is that Eric Borchard’s jazz band? It is.

  The Hanging Artist speaks the loudest he’s ever spoken.

  “What, after all, is a trick?” The Hanging Artist says. “By definition, a trick is a cunning or skillful act or scheme intended to deceive or outwit someone.

  “But I have no intention of deceiving or outwitting you. I am here to do what I proposed to do. I intend to pass judgment on myself and live.

  “Do I deserve to live?

  “I leave that to…”

  The rope coils itself around The Hanging Artist in one swift, sickening movement, dropping the noose around The Hanging Artist’s neck.

  He clutches the noose.

  The rope flings itself across the stage, dragging The Hanging Artist along, and then, to the astonishment of all, flies to the top of the gallows and anchors itself to the beam.

  The Hanging Artist kicks and struggles, but it’s almost as if he is struggling with the rope to pull himself down, harder, further, aiding gravity all that he can.

  The song shouts from the gramophone:

  “Ev’rybody shimmies now.

  Ev’rybody’s learning how.

  Brother Bill, Sister Kate

  Shiver like jelly on a plate.

  Shimmy dancing can’t be beat,

  Moves ev’rything except your feet.

  Feeble folks, mighty old,

  Shake the shimmy and they shake it bold.

  Oh! Honey, won’t you show me how?

  ’Cause ev’rybody shimmies now!”

  There is a long cracking sound from The Hanging Artist, as if dried wood wrapped in wet blankets was being torn asunder.

  The Hanging Artist’s face becomes the color of a dark cloud obscuring the moon.

  His eyes start from their sockets.

  He becomes still.

  The music ends.

  The rope disappears.

  The lifeless body of The Hanging Artist plummets to the stage.

  Many in the audience rise from their seats in horror. They find their voices, inflamed with terror. They push to the aisles, to the exits. They look to the stage, they look away from the stage.

  Franz Kafka hears a great shrieking from the darkness offstage, from all sides, from above. He can barely distinguish it from the shrieking of the audience.

  He crosses to the gramophone and takes the needle off the record.

  He smashes the record against the machine and waits for the curtain to come down.

  It doesn’t.

  He is alone onstage with the body of The Hanging Artist.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  THE INSPECTOR

  “HOW WE’RE GOING to explain this to the reading public completely escapes me,” Inspector Beide said to Franz. “I don’t suppose I can just fob them off on Leo Kropold, can I?”

  “It would be a disservice to him,” Franz said. His voice had hoarsened considerably, and his throat felt raw and hot. “Don’t have the memory of that poor man be that of a homicidal maniac. He didn’t deserve what he got, and we shouldn’t compound it with the crimes of another.”

  “Particularly when that other is… Well, whatever it is. Was. Is?”

  “Is, I fear.” Franz coughed and choked at the same time.

  “I’m very sorry, Franz,” Beide said. “May I get you anything?”

  Franz held up a hand until the spasms subsided. When they did, he drew a grateful breath.

  “A taxi,” he
said.

  “Where are you going?”

  “The train station.”

  “And then where?”

  “Has my father gone back to Prague?”

  “I had someone drive him back immediately. He was still hollering.”

  Franz nodded and allowed Beide to help him from the empty lobby of the Traumhalle to the curb, where Beide blew a whistle.

  “The rope?” Franz asked.

  Beide gave him a troubled look. “No sign of it.”

  “But the chair?”

  “Still in the dress room. Empty.”

  “I don’t know if burning it will do any good…”

  “…but what the hell, right?” Beide asked, and smiled.

  “Send along my things to the station,” Franz said. “I’m not sure where they are. I last saw them piled onto the Daimler back in Schwechat.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Beide said, and blew the whistle again.

  “Tillie?” Franz asked.

  “Don’t try to speak so much,” Beide said.

  “I’m not. Tillie?”

  “I don’t know what will become of her.”

  “Look into it,” Franz said as a taxi pulled to the curb. Beide opened the door for him.

  “If she needs care, we’ll find a way to see that she gets it,” Beide said.

  “No ‘if,’” Franz said. “She needs it. Don’t abandon her.” He sighed. “It’s bad enough that I have to abandon her.” Beide helped him into the taxi.

  “You have my word,” Beide said.

  Franz groped in his pockets.

  “My card,” Franz said. “I won’t be needing it anymore.”

  “Card?”

  “Inspektor Kafka.”

  “If you ever find it, keep it. You might need it again. We might need you again.”

  Franz smiled weakly.

  “Oh, and thank you,” Beide said.