The Architect

by Connell, Brendan

  At the age of twenty-one, out of necessity, he published a short novel titled Die Toten Augen von Mars, which dealt with themes of spiritualism and romance, describing a visionary journey made by a young couple around the solar system and talked of the spiritual inhabitants of other planets. It was an immediate success, particularly amongst society women, launching young Körn, giving him entrance into fashionable Thursday evenings and opening the doors of the better clubs for gentlemen.

  For the next few years he lived the life of a bon vivant, became passionately fond of gambling and developed a taste for fine horseflesh. He wore a coat with a thick fur collar and bought himself a number of rare paintings by Altdorfer. He visited houses of prostitution, fought duels, kept mistresses, and spent greatly beyond his means, so that he was soon deeply in debt, was forced to hide himself. It is said that at times he went about disguised as a woman, at times resorted to wearing a false beard.

  No longer was he seen at the fashionable soirees or in his box at the opera. For most it seemed as if he had disappeared completely, gone up in a puff of smoke or been taken up on a gust of wind like a djinn. Unceremoniously, without pomp and to the muffled drumbeat of rumour, a veiled period of his life was inaugurated. Some say he worked for the Prussian secret service, others that he smuggled diamonds, while a few averred that he had become involved in the slave trade.

  According to his own accounts, he was studying under a master in Amsterdam, whom he was, for spiritual reasons, unable to name but who was a direct descendent of Paracelsus. After receiving certain occult initiations pertaining to the Order of the Hermetic Brotherhood from this gentleman, he left Europe, travelled in India, China and Tibet. He lunched with swamis and drank tea with Taoist sages, studying under no less than one-hundred different masters. He became adept at the art of snake charming, an expert in Unani medicine and entered a secret society of adepts where he studied the anatomy of the soul.

  Upon returning to the west, he set himself vigorously to the task of writing articles and books, systemising the entire universe, both physical and spiritual, drawing from every science, culture and religion, contributing to numerous periodicals, including Neue Welt, Die Gnosis and Die Sphinx. He did phrenologic investigations of select individuals and espoused theories of cerebral inheritance. Attracting the attention of many wealthy patrons, most notably Franz Salvator, Archduke of Austria-Tuscany, he was soon provided with an annual stipend which allowed him to continue his studies with more leisure.

  The consummation of his spirituality seems to have occurred on April 3rd, 1894, when, at the age of forty-two, he was sitting on the last wooden bench on platform number 3 of the Lehrter Bahnhof in Berlin. He had eaten a plate of roast beef an hour earlier. It was around 6:30 pm. Over the next twenty minutes he became spontaneously enlightened and understood the workings of the entire universe, from its creation to its future destruction and saw both the purpose of mankind and the purpose of life, the celestial scheme of things.

  On March 5th, 1896, he declared that he would form a Universal Brotherhood of Mankind and, indeed, spent the rest of his days attempting to establish the new supramental consciousness on earth.

  Unequivocally inspired, he lectured all over Europe, but found particularly strong welcome in the intellectual circles of Switzerland, Austria and Italy, where he addressed some of the largest audiences ever gathered to hear one man’s thoughts on the religious meaning of life. In the year 1903 alone he was said to have given 291 lectures. He spoke on a vast variety of subjects, ranging from music to gardening, from Greek mythology to alphabetic dance. Occasionally during his discourses, he was known to slip into glossolalia, which he would afterwards apologize for.

  • He entered into ecstatic trances in which his astral body visited other planets and planes, met with other beings, familiars and archangels, the souls of great thinkers. He reported on the states of hell and transcribed the teachings of various celestial attendants.

  • He lived with a circle of close disciples from whom he demanded absolute obedience.

  • He was said to have read the Bible, from beginning to end, once a year throughout his life.

  • Certain journalistic organs accused him of charlatanism, pointing to the fact that he was in the habit of profusely adorning his fingers with costly rings and was known to supply his table with the most expensive wines and delicacies. These accusations he categorically refuted in his pamphlet Why Gold is God Too.

  • In 1899, England’s Society for Psychical Research (SPR), dispatched Dr. Richard Gibson to investigate the Society. Not only did this latter pronounce Körn to be absolutely innocent of fraud, but later went on to become one of his foremost disciples and was largely responsible for the introduction of Körn’s work to the English speaking world, establishing centres in both London and Edinburgh.

  • The last years of his life he spent largely in seclusion, translating the Akashic Records and often spending weeks at a time in self-imposed silence. Though this work was left unfinished, it was published in sixty-three volumes (Buchverlag der Taweret, Frankfurt 1924).

  III.

  It was a mellow and humid day in spring, atmosphere thick, sky smeared with a white froth of clouds. Peter, after making many inquiries, had managed to find the address of Nachtman. A small, mountain village with cobbled streets which was bordered by cows on green slopes, sheep masticating dandelions. One of those places where everyone knows the most minute habits of everyone else, the tranquillity of the day only broken by the occasional creaking of shutters or the lonely steps of an old man making his way to the cemetery to deposit a handful of wilted flowers where his heart lay buried.

  A somewhat seedy stone structure with moss growing on the slate roof—vaguely Italianate—a faded fresco of a saint adorned the outer wall. Rusty gutters crawled from roof to pavement. A lazy balcony stretched out its tongue.

  Peter knocked on a small door which was painted turquoise, but no one answered. A fat old woman appeared at the window of the adjacent house.

  “Excuse me,” the young man asked, “but is this the residence of Herr Nachtman?”

  “A man lives there.”

  “Is he an architect?”

  “I don’t think so. A lecher maybe. A drunk most certainly. But an architect…no!”

  “Are you positive?”

  “I do not speak to him. I am an honest woman.”

  “He is not at home.”

  “Then he is undoubtedly at the bar,” she said, thrusting her chin in a southerly direction.

  Peter, after following this signalling device a short distance, found the place, entered, was accosted by the smell of ancient yeast and frying sausages.

  A few voluble young men. A lumpy middle-aged woman with bright red hair. A television mounted above the bar. Football: dots running around a green field. At a small table in the corner two thin legs jutted out from beneath the barrier of an open newspaper. On the table was an almost empty glass of beer.

  A frowsy looking waitress approached Peter.

  “Sit wherever you want.”

  “I am looking for someone.”

  “And have you found her?”

  “I am looking for a man. Nachtman.”

  “Nachtman?”

  “Alexius Nachtman.”

  “Ah, you must mean Alex,” she said, pointing to the corner, to the man who was foraging through the newspaper, now draining off the last of his beer.

  Peter approached.

  “Excuse me, but is your name Alexius Nachtman?”

  The man looked up, shot a penetrating glance at the student.

  “And if it was?”

  “Then I would be delighted to make your acquaintance.”

  “I do not doubt it. But would I be delighted to make yours?”

  Peter took note of the empty glass.

  “May I buy you a beer?”

  “You may,” the other said, folding the paper in two and tossing it aside.

  He was over fifty years ol
d, had a large, compact torso, like the body of an owl, planted atop two spindly legs, like those of a stork. His arms were long and thick like an ape’s. His nose was bulbous, red, as wrinkled as a prune. And from a muddy complexion, two small, dark eyes emitted a gaze as sharp as a needle. A skirt of wispy white hair fringed his skull, which was as knobby as the trunk of a hundred-year old chestnut tree. He sneered more often than smiled, and his smile was more grotesque than his frown. It was a pit of irregular yellow rectangles, offset by two dull silver flashes, for his maxillary canine teeth were capped with a ductile metallic element. He had the appearance of a deformed root dug from the ground. He was remarkably ugly. But the greatest geniuses are rarely beautiful to look upon.

  After ordering two beers, Peter commenced:

  “I have been looking for you for some time.”

  “I see.”

  “I have been commissioned by the Körn Society to find you. I am in possession of your book, Omegastructures. Fascinating stuff. The Society is currently in need of a meeting place. They wish for a fitting structure to be built. They are currently considering proposals from a large range of architects and—”

  “Architects? They have not existed for hundreds of years! The morons you see today building their feeble prostitutions are nothing more than rats in human form, gnawing at scraps of Vitruvius and gurgling the academic banalities of Alvar Aalto. Architecture is a lost science, buried with the Atlanteans. It is a word bandied about latrine-like universities—those places where, when originality occasionally shows its face, like the bloom of the century plant, it is instantly put to death, stoned like a blaspheming Naboth.”

  He leaned back in his chair, his ample belly pushed forward, and reached for the cylinder of beer before him. He drained half the glass at a draught and, after licking his pale and flaccid lips, continued:

  “For long now has the human race been covering the earth with brutish structures, committing edificial sins and wallowing in an orgy of architectural shame. The modern city is nothing more than an incongruous salad, a hodge-podge of gross ugliness and blatant stupidity where glass beer halls contend with concrete chalets in a putrid barbarism not unlike the archaeological remnants of an ancient muscovite outhouse. Decisions are made by people with as little taste as intelligence and the patrons of the arts are cliques of men in suits and ties, bands of brigands who briefly pause from selling washing machines and circuit boards in order to piss out their inadequate millions on giant gypsum board barns. The intelligent man has no choice but to either bury himself in some hole in a mountainside like the saints of old, or bandage his eyes with the numbing fumes of vodka and quietly await the apocalypse when the earth will be cleansed of all inequilibrium.”

  Peter was impressed. He gazed at Nachtman as one would a prophet, for the latter’s words touched the inner being of the younger man.

  “But there is still hope,” he murmured, a hint of desperation apparent in his voice.

  “Hope? When you speak of hope you might as well be speaking Eskimo.”

  “But good men…can build a better world.”

  “Maybe by stacking block-heads one atop the next…”

  “But the project—are you interested in submitting a design?”

  “Me? What do you want with me? Why do you want me to submit a design? I am not, after all, either pinhead or worm, either sycophant or numbskull, and will not have either my person or intellectual property toyed with. My ambition is as tame as an old eunuch. Give me a patch of sunlight under which to sit, a piece of meat to eat and a bottle to drink, and I am content. What need have I to mix with the world and contend with younger men—cringing gigolos who would trade their pallid thighs for the merest hint of fame.”

  “I can promise you my full support. And my aunt, who is a member of the board, will be your advocate.”

  “It takes money to build.”

  “There is money—plenty of it!”

  “And…I am wanted?”

  “You are, um, expected.”

  “Well, if there is lots of money…”

  IV.

  The board waited in silence. The windows were open, letting in the warm spring air. Dr. Enheim stood silently beneath the portrait of Körn, occasionally running his fingers through his beard in a thoughtful manner. The others sat as still as statues.

  “I don’t like waiting for people,” Enheim observed.

  “Yes, they are late,” Borromeo said, looking at his watch.

  Maria: “Only ten minutes.”

  “Still, not a propitious beginning.”

  Presently however the architect did arrive. Accompanied by Peter, he entered into the room, pompously, a bundle of papers tucked under one arm.

  Handshakes. Formalities. Uncertain glances wandering over Nachtman’s grotesque form.

  “You wish to submit a proposal?”

  “I am willing to let you look at some plans I have drawn up.”

  Dr. Enheim nodded his head gravely; Nesler sneered; Maria smiled slightly; Nachtman spread his papers out on the table and waved his hand before them as words came marching from his mouth.

  “The structure will be audacious, as brave as God himself, as lyrical as Die Zauberflöte, that greatest opera of Mozart. It will be poetry in stone, a symphony of wood and steel. The exterior will be violently coloured, embedded with painted glass and lit by interior search lights. The central dome will be higher than St. Peter’s in Rome—a half-oval that will dwarf Brunelleschi’s Florentine masterpiece, and represent the cosmic womb which spits forth all life.”

  His eyes became glazed over like those of a visionary. He uttered his words in the manner of one reciting holy scripture.

  “I can promise you,” he said, his voice erupting from the depths of his torso, “that this will be the greatest structure built in the post-Atlantean age! It will be a symbol of the liberated spirit, of mankind’s final dominance, not only over nature, but over physicality itself.”

  His enthusiasm was apparently contagious, for the eyes of all present had grown wide. They were no longer looking at the hodge-podge of lines and paper before them, but a massive edifice rising out of their dreams—each one’s spirit stimulated, inflated by a mirage of future glory, gilded and dripping with arabesques.

  The architect, thrusting his fingers here and there like daggers, baring his teeth like an angry dog, held forth:

  “First we need to level this mountain. We will create a flat plateau upon which the structure, the Meeting Place, will be built. For the entrance, I suggest a hyperbolic paraboloid, and the interior will be a combination of upside-down and right-side up arches. The entire building, upon completion, will be 159 meters long and 119 wide and will mirror the cosmos, not only for its profundity, but also because it will be a harmonious system, modelled to some degree on the ideas of Petrus Apianus—a gemstone with the wings of a dragon, an ocean wave kissed by the moon.”

  And in long phrases piled one atop the next the architect set forward his scheme. He spoke of a building of great spiritual depth, of a place as wonderful as anything ever created by man and indeed which might more justly have been compared to some natural theamata, such as are found in the deserts of Utah or the depths of Australia—a thing that would easily rival the wonders of the ancient world and attract gods as readily as men.

  “But this would take centuries to build!” Nesler objected.

  “For an ordinary man, yes. But, fortunately enough, you are not dealing with an ordinary man. I propose to have the structure completed in four years time.”

  “That is not long,” Borromeo commented.

  “I have known postcards that have taken longer to be written,” Maria said.

  Nesler threw his hands up in the air, like a man half defeated, and it was indeed clear that, as extravagant as had been the architect’s claims, his audience was not entirely ill-disposed towards his plan. For though the thin gentleman whose hands were lost in the cuffs of his shirt objected, the others gazed at the plans wi
th dreamy eyes and seemed to be imagining themselves already strolling through its vast interior, hearing the voice of Körn echoing through its halls.

  “Mr. Nachtman,” Dr. Enheim said gravely. “Your presentation has been undoubtedly interesting. Of course we will need to deliberate this matter amongst ourselves.”

  “As you wish. I can go for a drink and come back in half an hour.”

  “Normally the decision making process takes weeks if not months.”

  “That is all very well. It is the same to me whether you hire me or not. For I must tell you that there are others currently seeking my service and, naturally, I work on a first come first serve basis.”

  “Naturally.”

  “And it is spring. If you expect me to get started this year, you had better give me a definite answer—today if possible.”

  “Let him come back in an hour,” Maria said, “we can surely tell him something by then.”

  And so it was that the architect and the young man found themselves at a nearby bar, awaiting a word from the board.

  Nachtman ordered a beer, Peter an espresso.

  “My aunt was very impressed. I could tell.”

  “Your aunt, young man, is a minotaur in skirts.”

  “She is a remarkable woman.”

  “Hell, in the end women are all the same. Pretty, ugly, intelligent or idiot. Good for one thing.” He took a swallow of his drink. “For a hundred and fifty francs…”

  “What?”

  “You can get yourself the best of them.”

  Dr. Enheim stood behind his beard, one hand stretched before him dramatically.

  “Mr. Nachtman” the man said gravely. “The Society has decided to accept your proposal. You will build the Meeting Place!”

  “I will need money.”

  “You will have it.”

  “And full, undiluted authority concerning both the architectural and engineering aspects of the project.”