by Tim Davys
Maria C. Terrier moved in with me on Hüxterdamm later that same week. This was the start of a stormy three-year-long marriage. Maria C. was hotter than a gas stove. I do not wish to assert my qualities as a lover and male—practice gives proficiency even to the meek, and I had practiced quite a bit—but this did not go far.
At home Maria C. insisted on walking around in her underwear, extravagant little garments of red, black, and white she purchased in an elegant boutique two flights up on light blue Up Street in Amberville: garters and corsets, push-up brassieres and thongs. She liked to sit on the kitchen table as I had breakfast, leaning back theatrically and asking if there was anything else I was hungry for.
Why did we separate? Maria C. Terrier was notoriously unfaithful to me. I sensed it for a long time, but finally confirmed it. I do not intend to go into any sordid details. Let me simply say that her profound abilities in theoretical philosophy did not help that day. I was not the one who threw her out, I was not the one who petitioned for divorce; she carefully packed her bags and left me on her own accord for one of the many lovers who, befogged by the special sweetness of love, happily took her in.
This was a defeat, and I grieved for Maria C. for several weeks. Without Haddock Krausse and her warmth and empathy, it would have taken time to get over the terrier, but that is another story; perhaps I can come back to it. What I was about to tell was about the day when Duck Johnson showed up.
That week, a month or two after Maria C. had moved out, the Seminars on Faith, Hope, and Love were devoted to the incident of the colors.
Maximilian and I had been out walking when we found ourselves due north of Krönkenhagen, in the middle of Lanceheim’s commercial center. On a gray asphalt wall, the backside of one of the many stores—a black ventilation grate was the only decoration on the facade—someone had painted graffiti. A kind of pattern, it might perhaps be called, broad round rings of yellow, green, and orange that together created a feeling of motion, confusion. To be honest, I would not even have noticed it if Maximilian had not stopped, apparently fascinated, and asked me to copy the graffiti in the notebook. I did as he asked, and on the same page wrote down his commentary: “Without lines to stay inside,” he murmured, “color is nothing other than variations of mood.”
The incident became a part of that day’s notations. I did as I usually did, and read the incident aloud to Adam the following morning. It was a few weeks, however, before the deacon returned to the matter, and at the first seminar where the incident was discussed—another week or two later—Duck Johnson was present. He must have come recommended by two previous seminar participants, but which two I was never able to find out.
Duck distinguished himself from the first moment. He came dressed in an old-fashioned black suit, white shirt and dark spotted tie, shiny shoes, and a small hat. No one else was dressed like that. When he sat down on the couch by the window, an odor of mothballs and aftershave spread around him. He made a stiff, somewhat antiquated impression, and smiled courteously at everyone who happened to look at him.
Furtively I noted, however, that the suit was a few sizes too small, the shirt collar was almost laundered to bits, in the middle of the tie someone had failed to remove a grease spot, and when Duck put one leg over the other, I saw that there were holes in the soles of both shoes.
The seminar followed its usual pattern. After the first hour we took a break for coffee, and then Duck Johnson caught sight of me. I was standing in the kitchen, setting out a modest buffet.
“You really have a pleasant voice,” he said.
Surprised and blushing slightly, I raised my eyebrows at the same time as I poured coffee for the guests.
“There aren’t many,” Duck continued, “who can read with such feeling, and at the same time preserve completely clear diction.”
He was clever, that I will grant him. Reading aloud from the Book of Similes was a standing feature of the seminars. I had practiced, I had exerted myself, and I was secretly proud of my reading. For that reason Duck’s flattery worked.
“Did you think it was interesting?” I asked.
“Very interesting,” Duck replied with genuine warmth. “Maximilian is a fascinating being. And Chaffinch handles the situation masterfully.”
“We are all impressed by Maximilian,” I confirmed proudly, and added, “even if we don’t always understand what he says.”
This was an inside joke, a jargon that we maintained in the innermost circle; Maximilian’s similes could be interpreted in so many ways that we sometimes jokingly called the exercises “Seminars on Faith, Hope, and Confusion.”
Duck Johnson was about to comment on this when Adam showed up. The deacon took a cup of coffee and greeted the new guest.
“It’s Johnson, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Duck confirmed, extending his wing. “And I not only wish to thank you for allowing me to come, I also wish to take the opportunity to say how deeply impressed I was at your manner of conducting the questions and conversation just now, Deacon. That requires not only the greatest sensitivity and talent, but integrity as well. And it seems to me that you possess all that in abundance.”
Deacon Chaffinch, who like most of us was not unduly accustomed to praise, did not know what he should say. And when Duck realized that he had placed the deacon in a somewhat uncomfortable situation, he added, “Wolf and I were just talking about this, that the bewildering requires its interpreter. And that Maximilian no doubt requires even more clarifying.”
Chaffinch laughed, I laughed too, and Duck laughed with us.
He was quick, I noticed. He had perceived where the limits were, and he had made Chaffinch feel at ease again. And despite the fact that even then I realized that Duck Johnson should not be underestimated, I fell into the trap.
He continued to show up at seminars, and soon he was one of our most visible participants. Always formally dressed, stiff, and with a smile on his beak. Always with a well-aimed compliment and taking care to let the others shine, strongly and clearly, at his own expense.
I realize that I am describing Maximilian as if he were almost otherworldly. This is of course a result of my own priorities. For long periods Maximilian was like any stuffed animal, but this is hardly interesting to a Recorder. It is not my intention to paint a portrait; it is my cause to reproduce words and actions in a way that allows the observant reader to draw his own conclusions.
Let me now make a small exception.
One of Maximilian’s commonplaces was that he loved sweets. This is not something I recall from his early youth, but over the years he had developed a clear weakness for pastries and desserts, chocolate and candy. I will not go so far as to maintain that he gorged on sweets, but if the opportunity was there, he took it. Duck Johnson, the sensitive and attentive guest in our group, took unerring note of this weakness.
“What’s this?” asked Maximilian one day as we sat in the living room, reading.
He got up and stared at me inquisitively. I looked around in confusion. I did not know what he was talking about.
“What?”
“Don’t you smell it?” he asked, sniffing the air. “Wonderful. The aroma…I don’t know…do you have…?”
But I didn’t have anything. Maximilian walked slowly out to the hall, sniffing the air the entire time, and I leaned forward in my armchair to see what he was doing. At the next moment there was a knocking at the door. Maximilian threw it open. Outside stood Duck Johnson. Even he looked somewhat surprised at the forceful jerk with which the door was opened.
Duck held out a small brown paper bag.
Without a word Maximilian snatched it. He breathed in the aroma with pleasure.
“It’s chocolate,” Maximilian observed.
“Chocolate-dipped pieces of mango,” Duck Johnson confirmed. “I think it’s fun to do something a little extra when I make chocolate.”
“Do you make chocolate, Duck?” asked Maximilian, obviously fascinated. “Do you do that
often? May I taste?”
“It’s yours,” said Duck. “It makes me happy that you appreciate it. If you want, I can come by tomorrow again. Because just at this moment I have a pot on the stove at home.”
With his mouth full of chocolate-dipped mango bites Maximilian had a hard time producing more than an appreciative noise. Duck raised his wing to the brim of his hat, nodded courteously toward me—I had taken a few steps out into the hall to see what was happening—and left.
Today I know that Duck was no confectioner, that he actually started making sweets only for Maximilian’s sake, and I admit that his inventiveness—for a novice—was impressive. He visited a few times a week, and the assortment he brought varied: honey-drenched pear slices rolled in almond brittle, milk-chocolate-coated fruit marshmallows, apple cubes in dark and light chocolate with candied figs on top. He also knew Maximilian’s favorite: light cola fudge inside a thin envelope of orange marzipan; white balls small enough to eat whole.
Duck never had any treats for me, but always a friendly smile.
Sometimes Adam Chaffinch was at Leyergasse when Duck came with his treats. Then Duck stayed behind. He flattered the deacon so crudely that even I became embarrassed, and he always seemed to want to talk about religious subjects without having any religious insight of his own. Only a fool could shut his eyes to the fact that Duck Johnson had a design with his visits, but neither Adam nor I could find out what the design was.
After a seminar one late afternoon in October—I no longer recall what we talked about—Adam unexpectedly asked Duck Johnson to stay behind a while. Duck suspected no mischief, but rather accepted with delight. This meant that Maximilian, Chaffinch, Duck, and I remained sitting in the little lounge suite in the living room while the other participants quietly left. I recall this as an uncomfortable moment. Maximilian fiddled with his cake plate. I drank the rest of my cold coffee, seemingly meditatively, pretending like I knew what this was about and staring at the painting above the couch, which depicted a knight on a wall. Only Duck Johnson seemed the same, calm and serious.
“Yes,” Chaffinch began when the final participants had closed the outside door behind them, “I would like to know what caused you to come here, Duck. I mean, you have no religious background, do you?”
If Duck suspected anything, he concealed it skillfully.
“No,” he said, “no, I don’t. How I ended up here? I heard about Maximilian, and…Why does a person seek something in life? Why isn’t it enough to simply live? To be honest, I don’t know. But there are surely explanations…there always are.”
“And if I say Wright’s Lane and King’s Cross?” asked Chaffinch.
King’s Cross was the prison at the end of Eastern Avenue. I held my breath: Had Johnson been in prison? What had Adam found out, and why had he not said anything to me? Duck did not change his expression, but his reply took time.
“If you say Wright’s Lane, Deacon,” he repeated at last very slowly, “I can say that you have done your homework.”
“You have an extensive criminal record,” Chaffinch stated drily.
“I don’t deny it,” replied Duck Johnson. “But you cannot readily blame me for choosing not to talk about that time of my life. That is behind me.”
I turned toward Maximilian to see how he reacted, but could ascertain only that he wasn’t listening. That annoyed me. He could sometimes turn off his surroundings and go into himself in a troublesome manner, and that had happened now.
“And today?” asked the deacon. “How does Duck make a living today?”
Duck did not reply. He was staring at the deacon, and for the first time I saw a fire flame up in Duck’s eye; a genuine emotion. It was hatred.
“You have nothing to do with this,” Duck replied calmly.
“We gladly accept a repentant sinner here in the circle around Maximilian,” said Adam, “but not one who still sins.”
Duck looked down at his shoes. They were the same ones he had on at the first meeting two months ago, the black ones with holes in the soles.
“Then I would answer,” he said slowly, and met the deacon’s gaze in a way I perceived as challenging, “that the greater the sin, the greater the reason to listen to Maximilian’s wisdom.”
With that Duck got up, bowed stiffly in the deacon’s direction, nodded to me, and left the apartment. We sat silently and listened to his steps on the stairs. I did not dare look at Maximilian, but I admit that I felt a certain relief. Duck’s ingratiation had been irresistible at the beginning, but with the sweets it became obtrusive and unpleasant. If this had anything to do with jealousy, I do not know, but I felt relieved to be rid of him.
We left the place with light steps that evening, Deacon Chaffinch and I. Never could we have sensed that Maximilian would receive Duck Johnson in his home again as soon as the next day, and that we were the ones, the deacon and I, who were put to shame.
It would take another month or two before Duck had maneuvered me out completely and, through his manipulation and his chocolate-coated fruit pieces, won Maximilian over to his side.
The day I came to bark brown Leyergasse and was evicted at the door by the manipulative duck was one of the two or three worst days of my life.
I am not blaming Maximilian. He was a victim; he could not guess the duck’s shady intentions, because Maximilian was simply unequipped to believe bad of anyone. Maximilian was above loyalty and friendship with an individual stuffed animal; he was loyal to the collectivity that was Mollisan Town. He loved all of us. I, if anyone, knew all about that.
But it did not hurt any less.
It was night in Lanceheim, and in the blocks around mauve Pfaffendorfer Tor life could finally resume. Every morning dawn arrived and broke up the party; the day was one long wait for darkness, and only at twilight could the neon lights swagger again: their yellow, green, and red sheen fell soundlessly against the sidewalks and in the shadows beyond their glow, where couples aroused one another with promises of what the night would hold. At bars and restaurants the atmosphere was loud; through open doors and windows culinary aromas and the laughter of fellowship invited guests to the tables. The stuffed animals of the night were like migratory birds on their way toward dawn; they flew off in flocks from one bar to the next, deeper and deeper into the night and the narrow blocks around Pfaffendorfer Tor, where gloom and shadows ruled and where anonymity promised happiness and freedom. Here the facades stood dark and silent, here doors and shutters were closed.
At one of these bars, far belowground in a cellar that smelled of mold and dampness during the day, sat Duck Johnson. At least I am imagining that this was how it came about, the background to everything that happened in the time before he showed up at Leyergasse for the first time. He was sitting at a round table; he had a bottle of whiskey before him, and in the overflowing ashtray a cigarette was smoldering.
Across from him a stranger had sat down. Duck was pleasantly drunk, but understood enough that this stranger, an owl, wanted something. No one came to this place voluntarily. The place was neither large nor charming; one lightbulb blinked nervously over a worn billiard table, and on the sticky floor around Duck’s table were food scraps and splinters of glass. Behind the bar over by the stairs, the one that led up to the exit, stood a bald ape. How had Johnson become a regular at this miserable dive? He did not know. Perhaps because the alcohol was not diluted, and you could drink more of it here than at other places in the neighborhood?
“Duck Johnson?” the owl on the chair across from him asked.
Duck nodded. At the same time he lit a fresh cigarette, forgetful that the last one was still glowing in the ashtray.
“I’d like to ask you a favor,” said the owl. “Are you sober enough to get what I’m saying?”
Duck giggled. “Why the hell should I do you a favor?”
“Because you’re going to get something for it,” the owl replied. “Let me tell you. The Ministry of Finance has quietly started its collection. This happen
s every ten years. The bills we use get worn out, they fall apart and start to discolor. Without making a big deal of it, the National Bank gathers them up.”
Armand Owl fell silent and observed Duck to see if he was listening and understood. When Owl felt convinced, he continued.
“The collecting goes on for a few months. The bank systematically takes care of all the old money and stores it in a large bank vault until they finally drive it out to the Garbage Dump and throw it into the Hole. The night before, the amount in the vault is…enormous. The following day the newly printed money goes out into the whole system.”
“And?” wondered Duck.
“There is one individual in this city who can make his way into the vault.”
“The bank director,” said Duck.
“There is a stuffed animal who can go right through walls of steel and metal,” said Armand Owl, undisturbed. “His name is Maximilian, and I want you to become his friend.”
Duck took the bottle of whiskey and brought it to his beak. He drank a few gulps, and nodded to himself.
“You’re cracked,” Duck declared, looking at Armand. “Completely disturbed. What kind of money are you talking about?”
Armand explained. It was not every day that he carried out this type of assignment for Vincent Tortoise, but it happened. Minister Tortoise did not know exactly what Armand was up to or what methods he used; it was the overarching goal that mattered. And Armand felt uncertain after the meeting with Duck whether this would really work. Armand did not himself believe the stories he had heard about Maximilian.