‘You would have regretted it,’ she said calmly, ‘the people they appear to here never talk about it afterwards.’
‘Why ever not?’ he joked. ‘Do they die from it?’
‘You said it,’ she smiled. This took him aback, but then he told himself he was a fool to be chatting to a whore about ghosts instead of making the most of the opportunity.
‘So what?’ he cried, ‘I’ll risk it and more, my pretty little ghost!’ and he drew her to him as she reared up with a snakelike thrust. But then he felt himself pulled down, as if he were clasping a block of marble, and he yielded to her, overcome by the self-absorbed, icy sensuality of the way she took him. As he entered her, he sensed her lack of response; giving nothing herself, she received him coolly, eyes half-closed. Her coldness whipped him up to a furious compulsion to squeeze one groan, one sob of passion from her, but he spent himself in vain. She bestowed her favours with a sovereign disdain that made the slightest twitch of her high, taut shoulders an act of the utmost condescension. He sought her lips, but she withheld them with a sharp, ‘Not yet,’ and however much he twisted and turned, he could not manage to kiss them. He was about to plant his mouth on them when, with a shrill laugh, she slipped from under him and pushed him away. ‘Enough!’ Her voice was so firm that he gave up any idea of a further assault. She lay back in the pillows and stretched, staring absently at the ceiling, as if she were alone.
The lieutenant felt he looked a fool. He racked his brains for a topic of conversation that would offer a bridge between them, for with this creature violence would just mean further humiliation. ‘Do you live here?’
‘No, across the market place.’ She pointed towards the corridor.
‘But that must be where the cathedral is?’
‘Perhaps,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘It varies. Once I did live here, and every evening I used to feed the black swans with the purple beaks. Did you see my swans?’
He recalled the dark shadows gliding over the water below the window. ‘Yes. But why do you call them your swans?’
‘My husband gave them me as a present. Oh, he was a wild lord and his swans protected me when he put out to sea. One of his brothers once thought he would swim down the canal till he reached my house, but my favourite swan sailed out to meet him, and beat him with its wings and pecked him with its beak until he sank. When my husband heard of it on his return, he killed the swan and me – and – ’
The lieutenant felt everything around him dissolving into confusion until he was no longer sure who he was and whether it was not his own fate he had just been listening to.
‘Stop!’ he croaked and clenched his fists at her as she went on speaking in a monotone, as stony as her embrace had been, ‘ – since then I have belonged to anyone whose fate it is to meet his end in my lord’s town; but first of all – ’
He had been about to throw himself at her, but some inexplicable fear grabbed him by the throat and thrust him into the armchair, where he collapsed as if his spine had been broken.
‘Stop!’ he panted once more, but she finished what she had to say in the same soft, level tones, ‘ – but first of all I kiss them. Wait!’
As if she were a viper, he dashed her from his lips as she suddenly struck upwards at them. ‘No!’ Then she began to laugh; softly at first; but then it swelled, becoming loud, shrill, and the lieutenant could not stop her; kneeling on the floor, he stared at the woman and she laughed and laughed, her mouth unmoving. Or was it still the woman laughing? That was more like a stone statue, the head and overslender body with its small, imperious breasts held rigidly erect! A spasm of hatred jolted his body. She must be silenced! She must! He thrust himself up and grasped at her throat – something dark seemed to crash down on him; blindly he clawed about him as he plunged into a bottomless abyss.
Finally he found a hold and shovelled his way up through invisible, glutinous mud towards the half-light – reached it – was sitting – at the table in his room – with a guttering candle – opposite a huge cross – no, it was the wood of the window set off against a pale-red sky; but the laughter still continued. He stumbled over to the bed and tore back the drape – it had not been slept in. A dream then, apart from the laughter, that horrible laughter, now it was coming in hoarse gusts, from below by the sound of it. From the earth? No, the old woman’s bedroom was down there! An icy hand laid itself on his heart. He turned the door-handle: locked. He kicked it in. From the corridor he could see something dimly flitting to and fro across the market square, which was veiled in clouds of crimson smoke; at the same time there was the crackle of a distant rifle skirmish. ‘Partisans!’ was the lieutenant’s immediate reaction; they had presumably lit damp wood and were waiting until the smoke would force the trapped soldiers out. He shouted for the sergeant, tripping, as he did so, over something soft in the smoky corridor; when he touched it, it felt sticky and warm. The light of the match revealed the guard from the hall who, with his throat cut through, had dragged himself to his doorway to report the attack. Now clouds of smoke were billowing up the stairs, and still the laughing continued, although weak and ailing now. He threw himself into the fumes of the stair-well, heard voices pleading his name; shadows whisked down to the hall, hung in the air, sank to the ground; and there was the door to the old woman’s room, wide open – but where was the young soldier? He raised his light. She had gone, and a whimpering bundle was writhing about on her bed like a worm on a pin; it was tied hand and foot to the bedstead, its clothes hanging in tatters, dripping blood down to the knees. A scream of horror rose to the lieutenant’s lips, but before he could help the mutilated soldier, he was torn away by cries from his men as the infernal uproar outside seethed ever closer. In the hall he met up with what was left of the platoon. They had managed to drive the insurgents out of the house, but only with difficulty, and they would be no match for them when they returned with reinforcements. Quickly, he glanced around to assess the situation. ‘Men!’ he ordered, ‘we must get across the square. We can only hold out in the church tower. Save your ammunition! Fix bayonets!’ A metallic click, and they set off.
In a few seconds they had stamped out the rampart of glimmering brushwood and were facing the enemy, who scattered in surprise, without waiting for the onset. Lips clenched, blackened with soot, fingers on the trigger, they set off for the cathedral, led by the lieutenant. But now the partisans, after the initial shock of the platoon’s sudden sally, had recovered their nerve. The one out in front was hurling screams from a mouth set like a foaming abscess in his face, and from around him black waves surged towards them. They approached in swaying clusters amid a cacophony of raucous shouts, jeers of abuse from the women and adolescent squeals; fists punched the air, here and there the gleam of firearms. The outnumbered unit seemed lost in the maelstrom of attackers, but finally the cathedral steps came down to meet them and they shoved their way up, hobbling, half naked, brushing the tangle of pursuers back with a few well-aimed shots. Then they were inside, hastily shutting the bronze doors, barricading them with pews and heaving a sigh of relief in the cool of this high nave which had probably not witnessed any fighting since the days of religious conflict. Now axes were smashing against the portal; it would surely hold until they were in the tower. Safe for a while, the soldiers swept their torches up and down the church. Along the side walls stone knights surveyed them from memorial slabs, hands on swords, small lions beneath their spurred feet. Impossibly emaciated saints gazed at them ecstatically from the niches in the massive clustered columns. Looking for the door to the tower, they came to the chancel and one of them lit the candelabra by the choir-screen. The high altar rose in terraces behind it, square grey blocks and faded gold, with a drop of blood floating in the air in front: the eternal flame of the sanctuary lamp. At the north side they turned back and found the confusion of figures on a baroque pulpit surging towards them: on the base Lucifer was being cast down into hell with a force that seemed to burst through the stone flags, whilst Saint Micha
el and all the angels thrust with their spears from the canopy; in the quivering candlelight it almost came to life. They opened the door next to it, but it was not the stairs they were hoping to find. It gave onto the curving, filigree stonework of a courtyard surrounded by cloisters and two figures running across into the adjoining convent; quickly they barricaded this door as well. But now the hammering on the west portal had stopped, a crescendo of noise surged in from the cloisters, the marble floor blazed in a swirl of colour from the flames shining in through the great rose window. Shots ripped through the side-door and clattered against the walls. Finally their assailants grouped together to batter the door down with brief thrusts, accompanied by the screech of metal and the groan of splitting wood. Then the lieutenant found the stair and called to his men. But at that moment the barred door yielded under the impact of the cheering blow, cutting them off and sweeping them back against the pulpit, which they quickly climbed to pour shot after shot into the howling mob. At this the attackers divided into two groups: the cautious mass squeezed along the rear wall farthest from the soldiers towards the spiral stairs leading up to the pulpit, and in so doing shut the door to the tower, behind which the lieutenant was hiding; the rest furiously stormed the pulpit head on. That brought the unequal struggle to a rapid conclusion, and the lieutenant could do nothing but watch from the organ, where he stood panting. Amongst the tangle of plaster figures, which seemed to join in like demons, the struggle foamed its way up to the platform of the pulpit, swallowing up the defenders one by one. They were all engulfed in the storm of triumph echoing back a hundredfold from the groined vaults. It pierced the lieutenant to the heart, and without thinking he raised his revolver and emptied the whole magazine into the snarl of bodies. The shock of the attack stunned the mob for a second, then their howling fury erupted against the tower steps. The lieutenant threw away his empty revolver and set off at a run. There was only one thought left in his mind: to stay alive until the reinforcements arrived! But then this hell-hole would explode in fire and blood! Now he was inside the first of the gigantic twins, the mutilated tower. He flew up the winding wooden steps, past the thudding from the housing of the huge clock; rats squeaked below, bats swept up past him, kestrels shot mewing out through the narrow slits in the masonry, whilst nearer and nearer came the raging thunder of the pursuit. That did not worry him, he knew they could only climb the narrow spiral in the tower one by one. Moreover, where he turned into the open gallery along the facade that led to the completed tower, he managed to use his bayonet to dislodge the ladder giving access, thus putting a temporary gap between himself and the enemy. He was bathed in warm air as he stepped out into the open. He was standing in the full, strong light of the morning sun, which glowed through the dissolving mist like a sharply incised disc, whilst in the town laid out below him only the spikes on the gables were caught in its rays and blazed up, as if in a presentiment of the revenge to come. For grains and threads of grey were trickling down the hillside opposite. The lieutenant realised what it was and gave a scream of wild delight. Fifteen – no – ten minutes hidden in the stone forest of the pinnacles of the second tower, and then the battle-cry of his liberators would freeze his pursuers to the marrow and drive them back into their hiding-holes; but this time they would find them, all of them! They only needed to ask him, him! He rushed on, panting. Gargoyles jutted out in his way; he crawled underneath them. The royal forebears of the stem of Jesse stuck their sandstone arms into his chest; he broke them off with a blow from the bayonet handle and threw the crumbling rock to the ground below. Nothing could stop him now, not even if the whole façade should come to life against him and swarm with men, as at the time when it was being built. Now he held the fate of this town in his hand, a remorseless, merciless fate! He had to steady himself for a moment. His lust for revenge was almost making him drunk, and his eye was already fixed on the square below, choosing the sites for the gallows.
But abruptly the enormous statue of a woman barred his path along the gallery, as if it had stepped out from the wall. Her profile seemed familiar, as did the imperious posture of her thin body, which pushed visibly against the thin folds of the drapery. He could only get past by climbing behind her, over the iron bar attaching her to the masonry. He quickly twisted himself into the gap; there was a crackling and crumbling of sandstone, but here was no place to pause for thought. For a mere heartbeat he had to step on the iron, but even that was too much. The bar bent and he was clinging to the woman in desperation. He swung round onto her front, the abyss below him: one more swing would take him to the safety of the gallery on the farther side! To get a good push off, he pulled himself up until he was close to the stone face, that regarded him with a fixed smile. It was the face of the unknown woman he had spent the night with! He was about to scream out loud, but at that moment the overthin neck broke, and, as he plummeted in a breathstopping fall, his last sensation was of those lips, which she had withheld from him, now harshly sucking at his own.
Shadowtown
Franz Theodor Csokor
Sixty-five!
Set your face firm! Steel your muscles till the skin stretches tight, fit to burst!
Seventy-five!
The red car is turning into a raging animal trying to buck sky-high, but we stay in the saddle, clamping it between iron-hard thighs, furiously spurring it on!
Ninety!
‘Faster!’ hisses the woman. It’s folly, intoxication, drunken madness – and we feel like whooping with exhilaration. The road pours into us; the air whishes past our ears with the sound of scythes through cornstalks; behind us the dust is swept up, heaves and billows, swirls and tussles with the storm we raise; fields flit past; bushes bristle at us with a menace of twigs, gnarled willows grin. Something scurries into in our path. Animal? Human? Over it we go!!
I noticed how grey and wretched we looked, all of us. The director at the wheel, his thin lips frozen in his courteous smile; his wife beside me, just as when I found her with gaping lips: the dose of veronal was not quite enough. And me, reflected in the rear-view mirror, hollow-cheeked, bedaubed with dust, a poor harlequin.
A hundred and ten!
The horn squeals as if the car were in unbearable pain.
Was that not the bulge of a town on the horizon? It disappears in a smudge of dust; another glimpse, and it’s gone again. Barns resembling monstrous coffins spin past with the ploughed fields, gliding like silent ships through the swell of the earth all around. Spires scribble all over the blue of the sky. Poplars bubble up along the road, standing on parade: straight as arrows, atten-shun! As if we were driving into a churchyard, I think; I can see the town gate glooming up ahead, distant but growing, blocking our path; masonry, lath and plaster is piled up around it, pushes up against it as if the stones felt the cold.
A jolt: the director at the wheel is roused from his inertia to give a genuine laugh such as I have never heard from him before. It disconcerts me. Then a red net wraps itself round my skull and my pulse starts to ripple and slither, but that doesn’t frighten me any longer: praecordial trauma my doctor calls it. A lasso tightens round my heart, dragging it through all my arteries, then slackens off, again and again.
As it does now! I come up for air, up from the depths of my body, my blood is released, its thunder drowns the engine. Hurrah! In front: the town we shall take by storm, the gate girt with walls, a slim belfry, crumpled gables; it rushes towards us, expands, devours us. And inside we ease up, we glide along softly, as if everything were submerged beneath water. We are tamed by the narrow street; it runs on ahead of us, silent and empty of people, although the air is warm and inviting, redo-lent with the rich, balmy sun of a spring twilight. It is May.
May. The actress beside me cannot see my caressing glance, she is watching her husband. They have been tormenting each other for nine years now, nine years to equal a thousand. They inhabit adjoining territories, the words between them are weary and silent; she has lovers, he always has a new mistress, the
only thing that attracts him is the act of seduction. But at heart she loves only him, he only her, with a clear, merciless, inescapable love, as if it were predetermined from the beginning of time. Occasionally they come together, and then they do not know whether to kill each other or to die for each other.
The director looks up from the steering wheel and turns to his wife, he turns to me as well, but at the same time his gaze, dispassionate as ever, is toying with the distance beyond us. ‘Shadowtown,’ he says, but I do not know whether that is the name of the place or whether it is something he has just thought up. And why does he throw a challenging look at his wife as he says it? She must be the loser, I suddenly realise, he is a hundred times more of a woman than she, and with a man’s mind and will power into the bargain!
These alleys squeeze us, lead us round in a circle or shrink to a stump. A wall keeps returning; over it we can see a lake shimmering. An old woman comes out of one of the very low houses – there is nothing but low houses here, with their roofs pulled down tight over their ears! She hardly gives us a glance. ‘Which is the way out?’ I ask. She shakes her head, as if it were impossible and disappears into one of the cellars.
We can’t get lost in a little town like this? Or are we never going to get back out into the open again? A ridiculous idea! The tall, red church I saw as we entered is our marker now. We were heading straight for it. It stood like a huge animal, guarding the tangle of alleyways at its feet; round curves and corners it drew us towards it. But then the road forked, mocked us whenever we thought we were almost there. A close of canon’s houses, ancient masonry, presumably the presbytery, all of them devoid of life, blocked our path; finally the square embraced us. There the cathedral towered up, gothic brick, twin-towered, an adamant monk with his arms stretched up to heaven. On the sills a profusion of grass and saplings: structure returning home, to nature.
The Dedalus Book of Austrian Fantasy;1890-2000 Page 21