by Tim Davys
“It’s not Coral we’re looking for,” Mouse reminded him again.
“Keep at a distance,” Reuben answered.
He did not know what he was most worried about, that the private detective’s presence would sabotage the meeting with Coral or that Mouse’s absence would mean that they did not take the next step toward Maximilian.
“Keep at a distance,” repeated Reuben.
He got out of the car and quickly headed toward the modest entryway that Philip Mouse had pointed out a few minutes before. The square was filthy and deserted, and the building that Mouse had described that morning looked insignificant. Reuben came up to the entry, and there stood a small copper sign that had acquired a greenish patina over the years.
It read “Charlie Bowling,” as if this were a first and last name.
The door was open, and Reuben stepped into an ordinary but worn stairwell. It smelled faintly of mold, and the ceiling light did not work. He glimpsed someone climbing up the stairs, but knew that he was to go one floor down. And there, behind an iron cellar door, he entered a world that he never would have suspected.
Not even Reuben Walrus’s ears, with their few remaining auditory hair cells, could be immune to the thunder from the forty-five parallel bowling lanes, all occupied by playing stuffed animals. The size of this underground hall was immense, as was the number of animals who were there.
“Thousands,” thought Reuben Walrus to himself. “There must be thousands of animals here.”
He would never meet any of them again.
These were the stuffed animals of Yok, and it was only after a few minutes that Reuben realized why he thought the atmosphere was unique. No one was looking at him. No one recognized him. It had been many years since this had happened in a public place in any of the other parts of the city.
Reuben wandered around for a while in a chaos of sound and light, colliding with stuffed animals going one way or another, or the sort who were not on their way anywhere, instead standing apathetically behind the waist-high barrier, observing the bowlers on the other side. Successful throws resulted in scattered applause and shouts, but with so many playing there was screaming and applause the whole time. Philip Mouse was nowhere to be seen, just as he had promised, but Reuben felt reluctantly happy that the private detective was in the vicinity.
After a while he noticed the staircases. They were wide as six bowling lanes—the comparison was unavoidable—and were roughly in the middle of the hall, with stairs from three different directions. The stairs ran together after twenty or so steps in a massive landing with room for at least ten tables, where animals were sitting and drinking and eating. Then you could continue approximately twenty more steps to the upper story.
Reuben noticed a blue neon sign that told him the way to the bar was up. He nodded to himself.
Now it was time.
The bar stool was more comfortable than Reuben expected. He was sitting on a thick, bright blue leather cushion attached to a strong metal pole that in turn was bolted to the floor. Four stools away sat Philip Mouse. Reuben had ordered a Strike—this proved to be a gin and tonic in which ten thin pieces of carrot cut like bowling pins were swimming. He sat sipping the alcohol and tried not to look for the snake. His gaze had locked on the private detective instead when it happened.
Everything went very fast, and only afterward did Reuben realize how it had happened. He felt a powerful jolt through his body, and then the floor opened up beneath him. Literally. Reuben Walrus and the barstool disappeared down into a hole that closed after a few seconds. Philip Mouse reacted with lightning speed, but he was still too late. The last thing Reuben saw before everything went black was the private detective’s astonished expression.
The hydraulics were gentle and quick. He sank four or five meters, and then felt solid ground under himself and the stool again. He found himself in coal black darkness, and when the lamp was lit, right in his face, he instinctively closed his eyes.
“Walrus?”
“Yes?”
“You are…mm…Reuben Walrus?” the voice asked again.
Reuben squinted. The lamp had been lowered. The light kept him from seeing who was speaking, but he could keep his eyes open without being blinded.
“Yes.”
“It’s because…uh…your faith is not sufficient…that you’re with me, huh?” explained Dennis Coral. “If your faith had been sufficient…mm…Adam Chaffinch would already have let you meet him, huh? Now there’s me…uh…and Maria left, huh?”
“I see.”
“You…mm…feel hope?” asked the snake.
Reuben did not know how he should answer.
He had feared and looked forward to this meeting since this morning. He had practiced certain formulations, a few lines, should he lose the thread, but after experiencing Charlie’s Bowling and its remarkable atmosphere, all these preparations had been blown away. Besides, he had not yet recovered from the shock of the bar-stool trap.
Did he feel hope? He felt despair and confusion.
“I will feel whatever I need to feel to get to meet Maximilian,” he replied.
“That was…hm…not really what we wanted to hear, huh?” said Coral.
Reuben felt a certain respect for the chaffinch. In part this had to do with the situation, but also with the chaffinch’s calm and dignity. Now he noticed that he was starting to get angry. What was the idea of this parodic mysteriousness? Was the idea that he should be afraid? Was it some kind of test?
“Why can’t I see you?” he asked. “I already know who you are. This is ridiculous. Ridiculous.”
Coral let out a quiet but friendly laugh.
“Hmm…we’ll stick to you, Walrus,” he said calmly. “For that’s how you usually like to have it, huh?”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” asked Walrus with irritation, snorting so that his mustache wiggled.
It was hard to sit up straight on the bar stool, and the situation was laughable.
“Back to…hm…hope,” reminded Coral.
“Do you think I would subject myself to this if I didn’t have hope?”
“Did have hope?”
“I’m doing exactly everything I can to try and meet a stuffed animal that no one can even categorize. The doctors have already sentenced me to deafness, and I have put my trust in a miracle. And you ask me if I feel hope? I want nothing better than to—”
“Your wants…hm…I don’t doubt, on the contrary,” answered Coral in a normal conversational tone. “It’s whether you can feel hope that I…uh…am wondering, huh?”
“So you can distinguish them, want and hope?” asked Reuben.
“Can’t you?” asked Coral.
“To want…to believe, and to hope, it would take a preacher to hold those concepts apart,” muttered Reuben.
“And if I…uh…give you a hint?” suggested Coral. “If I…uh…say that the one thing has to do with you, and…hm…the other has to do with others, huh?”
“Others?” Coral nodded, although Reuben could not see him in the darkness. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“To hope for its own sake, it’s that…what’s it called? But…hm…Walrus…isn’t that…to wish for something?”
“Are you asking whether I’m hoping for my own sake? Whether it’s for my own sake that I want to hear again? You can bet your sweet ass on that,” snapped Reuben.
At the same moment the lamp went out, and the room again became black. An instant later someone placed a damp cloth over his nostrils, and Reuben Walrus went out as quickly as the lamp.
Dag Chihuahua lived in a three-room apartment on the sixth floor of one of the white turn-of-the-century buildings on mustard yellow Krönkenhagen. In the bay window in the living room was Chihuahua’s music stand, and in front of that, a tall stool that was wonderful to lean against when rehearsals dragged on. Through the thin white linen curtains Dag could look out toward the Dondau. The river flowed in a soft curve under his windows, and if he
leaned out a little he could see all the way to Eastern Avenue. On weekends the stuffed animals liked to take walks on the paths along the river. Sometimes one of them would turn their head when they heard the notes of a violin, like a melodic buzzing in the air, but they could not see him. He liked observing the stuffed animals as they passed by. It was one of his many ways of cultivating solitude, this physically tangible complaint that had tormented him for many years.
Why had it become like this? In the gentle twilight of the Evening Weather, Dag Chihuahua might let the question pass like a glissando over the neck of the violin. He had no answers. He had not chosen to live alone. On the other hand, he had chosen to say no to…certain invitations. And he had firmly said no to advertising his desperation. To him it had always seemed…unworthy…to go out in pursuit of…someone. It was a terrifying thought to sit alone at a bar, casting discreet glances in all directions in the hope of getting a glance in return. And even if he did read the personal ads in the Sunday newspaper with delight mixed with terror, he would never sink so low that he would take out an ad himself. He would never be that desperate.
Better hopeless than humiliated, he thought, raising the bow in the air.
But the moment he let the tense horsehair of the bow land softly against the string of the violin, there was a banging on the door.
With his nose anxiously wrinkled Dag put down his instrument on the little stool, carefully set the bow on the music stand, and went with hesitant steps out toward the hall. Who could it be, this late in the evening? The only one he could think of was his father, who as of three years ago was also living alone, a few blocks farther east in Lanceheim. They had never had any relationship to speak of. His beloved mother had been the cement that held the family together, and when she was no longer alive, nothing held them together. Dag did not believe that his father minded. He had always been something of a lone wolf, never amused by social life. Dag Chihuahua knew that this might just as well be a description of himself, and this made him worried and melancholy.
He opened the door with the safety chain on, peeked out into the stairwell, and was frightened by the stench of alcohol.
“Well, now, let me in, then!” exclaimed Reuben Walrus. “Do you intend to let me stand here?”
Dag Chihuahua quickly closed the door, unhooked the safety chain, and opened again. He took a step to one side so that the great composer could come in, but despite that, Walrus only narrowly avoided hitting the doorpost.
“My friend!” bellowed Walrus. “The time has come at last for a candid conversation!”
The walrus continued into the apartment, and Chihuahua followed. It was apparent that Reuben was drunk beyond the bounds of decency.
“Would you like anything, Mr. Walrus?” asked Chihuahua. “I could make some strong coffee?”
“What?”
“Should I make some coffee?”
“What?”
“Coffee!” shouted Chihuahua.
“Coffee? Absolutely not! Coffee? I want alcohol! I want vodka! Do you have any vodka at home?”
Dag Chihuahua had no vodka at home; he had no alcohol whatsoever. Walrus did not believe him, and decided to investigate for himself. He veered off to the right, out into the kitchen, and rummaged around on shelves and in cupboards while the violinist stood in one corner and watched. When at last Walrus got tired and gave up, Dag confessed that he had a few bottles of vintage wine, from Yunger, in the sideboard in the hall.
“There’s better,” asserted Walrus. “But I’m not stingy.”
Chihuahua took out the wine, uncorked it, and then watched as Walrus filled an ordinary drinking glass to the brim.
“Good,” he said. “Let’s sit here in the kitchen. It feels better. You have one heck of a nice place here.”
Chihuahua shook his head. It was fine with him. Reuben nodded, took a large gulp of the wine, and grimaced a little.
“Don’t you think you—”
But Walrus did not finish the sentence because he did not care where it was going.
It seemed as though Reuben could not concentrate on the violinist at all as long as the wine bottle was on the table, but soon he had emptied it and remembered his business again.
Dag Chihuahua waited patiently in silence. He suspected that Walrus would once again air his anxiety and his impotence over the situation in general and the unfinished symphony in particular, and Dag was not a good consoler. On the contrary, he thought it was crazy to begin rehearsals without having the finished composition. For a long time he had harbored a well-concealed contempt for Walrus; in Chihuahua’s eyes Walrus had always been a populist. It was lamentable that the old geezer was losing his hearing, but that this was a matter of civic grief—as the newspapers claimed—Chihuahua could not agree.
“You are my friend,” said Reuben, thereby causing Dag to feel ill at ease. “You are my friend, you have always been. And now…now…”
Reuben lost the thread. For being so intoxicated, he still spoke clearly and distinctly. He must have practiced, thought Dag acidly.
“Chihuahua, you are my only hope,” said Reuben. “I am now planning to ask you for something that is going to surprise you, but you must not…must not…”
Once again Walrus lost the thread. He looked stupidly at the empty wine bottle on the table, and then looked up at Chihuahua.
“You have several, did you say?”
But Chihuahua shook his head; that would have to be enough for now.
“Do you remember Bill?” asked Walrus. “Blazes, he could drink. He always said he drank for the camels. For the camels!”
Walrus snorted a laugh, and his mustache quivered. Chihuahua had not thought about Buffalo Bill for many years. Now he remembered, but vaguely, that Bill had been one of Reuben’s best friends. But that was long ago, before Walrus’s breakthrough.
“I remember Bill,” he said. “He was a pianist, wasn’t he? But he…disappeared?”
“One time,” Reuben continued without having heard Chihuahua’s comments, “we had been out on the town…you did that at that time…went out on the town…and on the way home we were thirsty. Then it appeared that Bill had the key to Monomart’s warehouse up in Tourquai on him, and we took a taxi up there and drank up all the—”
“There was no Monomart at that time,” said Chihuahua, but Reuben did not hear this objection. “The Chauffeurs must have taken Buffalo Bill, but I don’t remember when it was. For he was never at the Music Academy.”
“Are you sure you don’t have another bottle?” asked Reuben. “That was sour as hell, but if there’s nothing else—”
“Mr. Walrus, tomorrow is also another day. When you rang, I was just going through the passage before the andante in the second movement—”
“Dag Chihuahua!” Walrus suddenly roared. “Let me talk! You…you play my harmonies…my melodies…for yourself in the evening. That is why I…Now I intend to ask you for something, do you understand. Something that is going to surprise you.”
Reuben thought.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Chihuahua nodded, without curiosity, without enthusiasm.
“I want you to finish my symphony,” said Reuben. “For you…to finish…my symphony. But when you’ve done that…it’s still mine. Mine! It will always be mine. Do you understand?”
Dag Chihuahua refused to believe his ears. It was the alcohol talking. It was the desperation talking.
“Mr. Walrus, this is foolishness.”
“What’d you say?”
“This is foolishness!”
“Oh, get down off your high horse! This is not foolishness. Why should it be foolishness? It will be a little…secret. Between you and me. Nothing more. You get the money, I get a little honor. It is my symphony, after all, my composition. You…are simply helping out a little. For the sake of friendship. And money, of course.”
Dag got up from the kitchen table.
“It’s time for you to go home now, Mr. Walrus,” he sai
d.
“But don’t you understand? This is the first time in ten years…It must be all right? You can, Dag. Of course you can!”
“Mr. Walrus, this is foolishness. Go home and sleep. Forgive me for saying this, but you are not sober. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Reuben got up. He did it so forcefully that the chair he had been sitting on fell to the floor, but he didn’t notice.
“You are worried because you can’t,” he mumbled. “My friend Dag. Worried. You shouldn’t be worried, Dag. Of course you can.”
Chihuahua shook his head.
Reuben took a few steps toward the dog with the intention of hugging his old friend. Chihuahua recoiled in terror. He had difficulty with all forms of physical touch, and the old composer, reeking of alcohol, disgusted him.
“Go home now, Walrus,” he repeated firmly, keeping the disgust out of his voice. “Then I will forget that you were ever here.”
It took him almost half an hour to coax Walrus out into the hall. He did it with flattery and threats, and one thing was quite certain: He would not forget what Walrus had proposed. He would never forget it.
The sun was shining in through the windows on sea blue Knobeldorfstrasse the next morning, and when the sharp rays reached Reuben’s eyelids, a pain cut through his head that caused him to waken with a gasp.
He understood why Dennis Coral had rejected him. Just as he knew why Adam Chaffinch had done the same thing. When he woke up in the middle of the night after the visit to Charlie’s Bowling, sweaty and nauseous from the ether they used to chloroform him, he had hobbled out to the kitchen to get some water. He knew exactly what had happened. He lacked the right faith. He lacked hope, at least in the sense that he suspected Coral was looking for.
I am a worthless stuffed animal, he thought gloomily.
And love?
He had loved. Was it not true that he loved Fox von Duisburg? Could he use that love as an entry ticket to Maximilian? The third guard must be the “Maria” that Coral mentioned, and Adam Chaffinch had said that it was a matter of faith, hope, and love.