‘Strange,’ thought Novak, hurried to the toilet door and opened it cautiously. In the middle of the blue-tiled floor of the urinal lay the barman with his knees drawn up and holding his stomach with both hands. Beside him sat a transparent figure with a piece of paper fixed to its chest. On it was written in large letters: I am his story. Ahoy! Ahoy!
It was regarding Novak attentively.
‘He was lying,’ it said in earnest tones, pointing to the barman. It was writing in a notebook with a pencil, filling page after page with neat writing, while beside it the barman kept on groaning. Ignoring him, the figure rose and looked down at the barman, who was trying to lift his head.
It pointed at him, smiled and went over to Novak. It seemed surprised that he was still there looking at the barman, who was lying still.
‘Can’t you see you’re in the way. Go now,’ it whispered. Its face, with a terrifyingly resolute expression, was coming closer, already it was stretching out its arms towards Novak, who fled, slamming the toilet door behind him, out into the street, not stopping until the door of the bar was nothing but a tiny black rectangle.
He leant against the wall of a house and looked back, since he was afraid the figure might follow him. After nothing had happened for a few minutes he decided to go home. He staggered at every step.
In spite of everything, he envied the barman his story, a story that belonged to him alone, even if it obviously did have a tendency to violence.
Novak kept stopping in his tracks and turning round, hoping to discover his own story. But there was nothing there.
It was depressing, and if Novak hadn’t learnt to control himself, he would have sunk to the ground and surrendered to unrestrained weeping.
‘You just have to make a start. But how?’ he thought.
Perhaps his own story would have comforted him, or told him jokes to cheer him up. That would have calmed Novak down.
As it was, he walked straight past his house and out of the town, obsessed with the idea of finding his own story.
Yet all he had to do was to feel his left shoulder. There sat a figure busily writing in its notebook.
*
Novak could never claim that he was treated with consideration on his way to work. People, and there were a lot of them, stepped over him when he fell down, trampled on his stomach or shoved him without warning off the pavement and into the path of buses, which almost cost him his life every time. On seeing him, women pushing prams crossed over to the other side and the infants shook their fist at him. But the most unbearable, as far as he was concerned, were those who simply dissolved into thin air before his eyes.
And Novak was such a harmless person. His colleagues at the office ignored this trait, squeezing tears of resignation and desperation out of his face and collecting his saline discharges in their teacups.
During the lunch break he attempted to get a meal.
‘But you can’t take the place away from someone else, a strong young man like you,’ he heard the waiters say when he asked to be allowed to have a meal. ‘A little more restraint, if you please. You’re not the only person in the world.’
They were right, of course, even if he did think it was going a bit far to throw him out of the restaurant onto the pavement every time.
‘Nevertheless, one day I’ll be lucky,’ Novak thought as he crossed the street and hurried up the steps to the office.
There his boss was waiting, arms crossed. He was angry, Novak could tell that at first glance, very angry even, for he was hovering an inch above the ground.
‘Too late,’ he roared and pushed Novak so violently against the doorpost that he lost consciousness and sank down onto the parquet floor.
After that excitement he deserved a rest, all his colleagues were agreed on that, patted him on the shoulder, set him down at his desk and brought him their files with concerned looks on their faces. They stroked his hair, whispered encouragement and assured him they held him in high regard.
That usually lasted for five minutes, five minutes of balm for Novak, who recovered consciousness during these blandishments, so that his colleagues could go back to their card game with their minds at rest.
Novak frequently interrupted his work on the account books to feel his head, which had not suffered any damage. He made an effort to cheer his colleagues up with jokes, but they didn’t notice, since the card game demanded their full attention.
After work Novak went out into the street whistling. He had got through a working day without serious damage, he still had arms and his head, which swayed in time with his steps.
Naturally that was a provocation, and a number of those hurrying past had to turn back to hit the smile, that early-evening irritation which was beyond forgiveness.
Novak accepted it, he understood his fellow men, whom he had brought into a dreadful situation with his lack of consideration.
‘After all, I’m part of society, I don’t live alone,’ he thought, protecting his face, which was wet with blood, frightening some of those coming towards him. Others, for their part, kneaded his skullbones, pulled his cheeks tight or stretched them out and twisted his ears until they were satisfied with the result.
‘Thanks,’ Novak shouted after them, for he appreciated the fact that they had sacrificed valuable time for him.
And he would have gone on his way in carefree mood, had it not been for the pain, the white-hot pain that brought the tears to his eyes.
‘Even that will change,’ thought Novak, and looked straight ahead, glad that that thought had occurred to him.
*
‘Good morning,’ said Novak to his wife before sitting down at the breakfast table. That was at six o’clock.
He bit firmly into a roll.
‘Tastes good,’ he said to his wife, without raising his eyes. He chewed slowly, methodically.
His eating tackle was well serviced, the daily paper had reached eye-level and rustled as he turned the page. That was at 6.30.
‘The jam, please,’ he said to his wife, starting with a shock of surprise when he noticed his wife wasn’t there. That was at 6.43.
One minute later he had so far recovered that he could immerse himself in the newspaper again. Now he was reading more quickly, not concentrating. That lasted from 6.45 until 6.49.
Suddenly he jumped up, ran round to the other side of the table and went to the balcony door. The sun was saying its morning litany, the heavens were intact. Crows were flying with tape measures to put figures on the distances.
‘That’s nice,’ murmured Novak, impressed, stepping to one side as a high-speed train thundered past and disappeared into the bedroom. That was at 6.54.
Normally at this time Novak had finished his breakfast, the folded newspaper lay on top of his sandwiches in his briefcase and his wife was standing by the door to kiss him good-bye. But something had gone wrong.
Novak scratched his head to facilitate thinking. However, as he touched one spot on the back, his whole head fell off his body straight into his lap. Novak looked down at it in astonishment, but immediately pulled himself together since recently it had often happened that his limbs broke off or he left a hand on his desk in the office.
But today was the first time for his head, and he needed that. There would be problems if he started going round headless.
‘It was probably already loose,’ thought Novak, to calm himself down, and looked at the clock. It was 7.05. That irritated him.
‘Such a little thing and I’ll be late for the office,’ he thought.
Resolutely he pressed his head onto his neck, jumped up onto his two feet and hurried to the front door. His wife was leaning against the doorframe.
‘Well, where on earth did she come from?’ he muttered.
With a smile, he went up to his wife, spread out his arms and kissed her so clumsily on the lips that his head slipped onto his left shoulder.
‘Comedian!’ his wife called out after him as he hurried down the stairs, blushing
as he straightened up his head.
*
Transparent webs formed between Novak’s fingers. They tore, fluttering in the wind as his hands rose up and, fingers splayed, placed themselves on his face. Novak lost his balance. His right arm flailed around in the air, his trunk swayed to the left and right, whilst his legs tried to run away. There was no one at all to be seen, which was unusual on this Saturday morning.
‘Something must have happened,’ thought Novak.
The shops were shut, barricaded with planks of wood and crouching down behind rolls of barbed wire. The queasy feeling Novak had had in his stomach since wakening from a death-like sleep increased and slowly spread throughout his body.
That was inconvenient, as he had prepared himself for a pleasant day devoted entirely to himself. After all, he had come to an understanding of many things, had both feet on the ground and had removed all obstacles, broadening the scope of his mental perspective. In a word, he embodied hope.
His body became weightless and hovered above the asphalt. He rose higher, as if he were being pulled up through the air on a rope.
‘Is there more?’ murmured Novak in astonishment. He was sure that in a few seconds he would wake up in bed, alone, as his wife was away, with the sound of the alarm-clock in his ear and the warm rays of the morning sun on his face.
At that moment his legs fell off his body onto the street, as did his arms, which flailed around in the air until shortly before hitting the ground. It tickled, and Novak looked in astonishment at the stumps of his arms and legs, which were not bleeding. The index and middle fingers of the right arm he had lost spread out in a V, V for Victory.
His head was in its proper place and covered in sweat; his shirt was sticking to his skin and the coat he had bought yesterday was fluttering in the wind sweeping through the town.
‘That’s not fair,’ he shouted, when he finally realised it wasn’t a dream and he had really been on his way to the supermarket to do his weekend shopping.
‘What a time for this to happen to me,’ he panted. His voice echoed down the ravines between the tall buildings and the roaring of the wind became so loud it hurt his ears.
Things that had been far away now seemed close to his ear: the jangle of the tram below him, the stuttering engine of a car, the sudden cry of a child in a park, the rustle of a macintosh, glass shattering, the town hall clock ticking a mile away, a telephone ringing, a computer humming as it was switched on, fat sizzling in a frying pan.
Every sound, every noise was an explosion and startled Novak, who was flying up and down the street. Sometimes he dropped down in an air pocket, but before he hit the ground he was caught on an upcurrent which flung him back into the sky.
Suddenly it was silent and down on the footpath – he happened to be flying along the gutter of a house – he recognised his wife, Tamara, Kurt, Georg, the caretaker and her husband. They had linked arms and were crossing the street in close formation.
‘You’re staying, aren’t you?’ they called out to Novak.
Directly below him, outside a cake shop, Brustbein was just picking up one of his wife’s white gloves.
‘Come on,’ she too shouted up at Novak.
‘And hurry up, if I may make so bold,’ added Brustbein.
‘Come on, never say die!’ They were all trying to spur him on and clapped their hands in time. ‘Don’t be afraid.’
‘But it’s too early,’ thought Novak, who had allowed himself to be distracted and only just managed to avoid a pigeon crossing his flight path.
‘Bravo!’ came the cry from the street below. Novak felt flattered and performed a few somersaults in the air, though because of his lack of arms the sleeves of his coat slapped him round the ears.
‘Are we going for a meal?’ he shouted when he had his flight under control once more. ‘Or to the zoo? Perhaps to the fairground? You decide, I’ll go along with whatever you want,’ Novak shouted, but he realised they couldn’t hear him, for they went into a restaurant while he was flying through the air, while birds darkened the skies, while huge clouds of dust rose from the streets, while bricks slowly floated up like balloons and disappeared in the black of the sky.
Novak pumped air into his lungs, pulled his head in and tried to become as small as one of the birds that accompanied him up here, hoping to lose all memory, all thought of his future, simply to be there, whatever might happen to him, and he felt feathers growing under his shirt, and in his chest was a bird’s heart, transparent and warm, beating like mad.
But suddenly his flight came to an abrupt halt, he crashed into the air, simply got stuck, and when he panicked and looked down he saw the barman with his story on his shoulder. They were both watching Novak and whispering to each other while the barman held up a long pole on which an old man was balancing, arms outspread.
‘You can’t do anything without a pole,’ the man called up sadly to Novak, who was still stuck above the street, on a level with the sixth storey. The old man jumped down onto the street, broke the pole the barman had dropped and disappeared round the corner.
‘Please stay,’ Novak called after him, whilst the barman, with his story sitting on his shoulder busy writing in a note-pad, followed the old man.
Meanwhile Novak’s wife, Tamara, Kurt, Georg, Frau and Herr Brustbein, the caretaker and her husband had come out of the restaurant. They were in a good mood and looked up at the sky.
‘Where is he? He can’t even wait for us,’ they said, ‘how selfish can you get.’
‘Here I am,’ shouted Novak, but he was caught in a gust of wind. With his last reserves of strength he managed to hold on to a gutter. When he looked down he saw the young woman from the coffee house. Butterflies were fluttering up to him from her hair.
‘There, it worked out after all,’ thought Novak and forgot his precarious situation for a moment when the young woman saw him and shouted up to him, ‘There you are at last!’ and he shouted back, ‘Of course,’ and suddenly the gutter broke away from its fixing, a gust of wind flung him high into the air and carried him out of the town, towards the horizon. No longer was Novak pushing it away from him, now it was zooming towards him.
The End
Copyright
Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited,
24-26, St Judith’s Lane, Sawtry, Cambs, PE28 5XE
email:[email protected]
www.dedalusbooks.com
ISBN printed book 978 1 903517 13 0
ISBN e-book 978 1 907650 60 4
Dedalus is distributed in the USA & Canada by SCB Distributors,
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Publishing History
First published by Dedalus in 2003 and reprinted in 2008
First ebook edition in 2013
Translation, compilation and introduction copyright © Mike Mitchell in 2004
See Acknowledgements for copyright for individual stories.
It has not been possible to find all the copyright holders and we would be grateful to hear from any not yet contacted.
The right of Mike Mitchell to be identified as the editor and translator of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Printed in Finland by Bookwell Ltd.
Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
890-2000
The Dedalus Book of Austrian Fantasy;1890-2000 Page 41