The Architect

by Connell, Brendan

  Nesler was swept away by his own enthusiasm. He had been the most resistant to the architect, but once converted, that black belt in financial jujitsu would have spilled the blood of his entrails for the man. He had become the most avid henchman, ready to go to almost any lengths for the cause, restlessly searching for funds—willing to dive to the bottom of the sea for a few coins and traverse deserts to lay hands on a soiled banknote or two. In almost constant motion, he went from place to place, travelling over the face of the earth at great speed. He scraped together rupees in India and filled his hat full of kronor in Sweden, shaking hands with others like an automaton, rattling off little speeches and then climbing into a taxi to make his way to the next destination—whether it were some great institution where he hoped to gain millions—or the house of some destitute widow that he might pillage of its silverware.

  He would beg five-franc pieces, convince welfare mothers to crack open the piggy banks of their youngsters, and elderly couples to donate their pensions. In Third World countries he stepped through lanes that abounded in itchy dogs, squeezed the last bits of copper out of peasants’ purses, emptied the begging bowls of lepers and then, come evening, could be seen at some dinner of important people, whispering into the ears of old women and pestering prominent men as they made their way to the toilet.

  He stayed in cut-price hotels, dined at street stands, filling his belly with the meanest viands so as to have a few more pennies to bring back to Switzerland—squeezing his thin lips around fly-blown pakora and inflating his paunch with lentils and other pulses—anything that would provide his frame with energy on the cheap.

  Bill by bill, coin by coin he gathered up funds, passing the cap at Körnosophical societies around Europe, browbeating members, frightening them with threats of cosmic retribution and promising lands of jewelled fruits as recompense for compliance. Like a good salesman, he would tell a person anything, as long as he left with their money—seething at the mouth like a rabid dog, howling like a jackal, the pockets of his over-sized trousers bulging with wadded-up bank notes and greasy centimes.

  He caught planes and took rail transport, scurrying about, briefcase in hand, the eternal cheap grey suit hanging about his person, the same phrases upon his lips at every doorstep.

  “We are asking you to dig deep in order to help defray expenses incurred by the construction of the Meeting Place. Your gift will be used to bring light into a dark world. I am sure you realise how costly equipment is, how quality materials need to be paid for and how numerous the expenses are in such a grand scheme, and if you could manage to give us just thirty or forty percent of the capital you have on hand, it would be helpful.”

  One day he arrived by bicycle rickshaw at the home of a registered member in Khajuraho, India—a small, two-room dwelling in the middle of a great field—in the distance temples dedicated to Brahma and Vishnu—buildings that looked like elaborate cake decorations, as if they were made of icing, of buttercream and sugar.

  He was greeted by the owner, one Tushar Biswas, with exaggerated politeness and offered tea.

  “Let me introduce you to my family,” the man said. “This is my wife, and these are my three children. This gentleman here is my brother-in-law, Ashok, who lives here together with my sister and their children—which number two.”

  Nesler looked over the ensemble gathered before him, who all bowed deeply, except for the small children, who gazed up at him in wonder.

  “So, nine of you live here together?”

  “Indeed we do. It is very fortunate that my job pays me twenty-thousand rupees a year, for regrettably Ashok is out of work, and I am the one privileged to support us all.”

  “Yes, that is along the lines of what I have come here to talk to you about.”

  “Proceed,” the Indian said, becoming suddenly quite serious.

  “You are aware that we are building, in Switzerland, a great meeting place for the members?”

  “I most certainly am, and I was delighted to have been able to make a small donation of one-thousand rupees towards defraying the expenses.”

  “For which we are all of course very grateful. Unfortunately, the sum will not suffice. We are asking for further funds.”

  “Further funds?”

  “Naturally. Whatever you have laid away.”

  “Only a very small amount—a few thousand rupees which I have put aside for my daughter’s dowry,” he said, casting his glance at a thin girl of about twelve who stood shyly off to the side with her hands behind her back.

  “Fine. That will do to start, and you can donate more when you receive your next wages.”

  He then climbed back into his rickshaw and went away, the family gazing after him as his driver pedalled on with all of his force, the vehicle bouncing over ruts and then climbing over a rise. The Swiss gentleman still had six more visits to make in the area before dark.

  XXII.

  It was fall. The forests below displayed their yellow and bronze leaves and smoke began to rise up from distant chimneys while the sun hung somewhat low in the sky—slowly, clumsily making its way from one side of the horizon to the other.

  Peter, holding a stack of notebooks under one arm, visited Nachtman in his tent. The latter was lazily smoking a cigarette, gazing dreamily into space while a dying fly buzzed about the room.

  “I have come to mention something to you,” the young man said.

  “Mention away.”

  “Have you ever considered flying buttresses?”

  The question seemed to awaken the architect from his abstraction. He looked significantly at the other.

  “Are you in a humorous mood this morning?”

  “No. Well, you see…I have been doing some calculations…”

  “Your first mistake.”

  “…And the changes you have written into your plan—the extra towers and expansion of the dome—will add a significant amount of unexpected weight, especially the great cap stone. The walls might not be able to support this. Flying buttresses would—”

  “Be both unnecessary and look absurd,” Nachtman interrupted. “It seems to me young man, that you have presumed a great deal too much! You are my assistant, not my advisor.”

  “I only thought…”

  “Your second mistake. It is an unpleasant habit which you must learn to repress if you wish to continue working for me. Use your ears and mouth in their proper ratio and you will learn a great deal. But do not advise me. This project is visionary, and I will not move a damned aesthetic centimetre from the path I have set!”

  Peter bowed his head and, murmuring an apology, made his way from the tent.

  He walked forward, towards that eccentric mass of walls and scaffolding, that confusion of men and machines which struggled against stone, seemed to be battling with earth and sky in order to achieve something impossible, to fulfil some kind of egotistical dream of which even they were not aware.

  He looked at all this and felt utterly lost—like one without home or family—like a man with sight living in the Valley of the Blind. He had read Körn and felt stimulated by the man’s intellectualism. But what he saw around him was anything but intellectual. These were people who felt rather than reasoned, who were chained to each other by emotions—by hidden fears and the strange quivering of their subverted egos. He often wished that he too could be so, with faith in the impossible. For astral bodies and pantheons of winged deities did seem to him just that, and when he asked himself truly about the existence of God, about the possibility of the soul voyaging on after death, he had to admit that he was a non-believer. And, though he did not despise those who thought differently, he could not manage to fully align himself with those who believed it all without either reason or pragmatic proof.

  But this he could forgive if the building, the great structure, were completed—for in the end his religion, his cult, was that of stone and steel, of towers and high-rises, sandblasted aluminium and high-gloss steel.

  There were howe
ver certain things that bothered him. He had done his math and could not help but think that the grand dome that was soon to rise out of the structure proper was being put up on slightly unsound principles. He recalled the words of Fabrizi, about buildings requiring not faith, but science, and found himself suffering from that most terrible of things: doubt.

  “Trudy would probably not approve of me,” he thought.

  And he very well might have been correct.

  XXIII.

  • Nachtman scurried about in a constant state of excitement, intoxication, sometimes staggering around the structure with a whip in hand, at others wielding a giant bull-horn, into which he would exhale oaths mixed with technical lingo, a vocabulary riveted with screws and armed with hammers. Drunk on both spirits and power, he seemed to have dismissed the fact that he was a mere mortal and stood before the world a deformed titan—a man-eater endowed with proto-cosmic knowledge.

  • He spent his evenings drinking heavily and listening to Swiss-German music—frenzied folk tunes bespeaking the glories of fresh air—spirited marches, waltzes and yodels;—the sound of the Schwyzerörgeli, the jolly Swiss accordion, seemed ever present, frenetic and bizarre as it accompanied him on these bouts of drinking wherein his head became some monumental dome and his eyes scraped against the sky.

  • Maria curled herself up at his feet, great misshapen lumps clogged with hair. She had dark circles around her eyes, and her face, having become very pale and thin, made it seem as if Nachtman had inserted his bayonet-like proboscis into her and sucked the very blood from her veins—this woman who had foolishly laid herself down in his nest, thrown open her arms and wildly exposed her breasts to that feeder.

  • The building itself seemed to tremble, sigh—quiver like an embryo, stretch out its wings like a bat. Sometimes, deep in the blackness of night, Nachtman could be seen wandering around its premises, placing himself in its midst, eructing yeasty fumes. He spoke to it, dribbled coddling words onto its walls and invested its heights with strange romantic phrases that seemed to have been leeched from the poetry of Dante.

  XXIV.

  Peter did not question Nachtman’s genius, but he had begun to seriously question the administration of the project. Fortunes were being swallowed up by the building. He knew that many people had given money that they could ill-afford to part with. And then he also realised that, though the work had progressed at an astounding pace, there was still a good deal to be done and the future seemed uncertain. The workers were overworked. Herr Nachtman drove them like slaves. His ambitions seemed to outstretch the imagination, launching themselves into the vague wilderness of what seemed like impossibility.

  The thing that oppressed young de la Tour the most was not the fact that the architect was cruel. Though he himself was a gentle enough soul, he was not completely adverse to the idea of human sacrifice. He considered art to be more valuable than compassion. When it came to ethical questions, he was monochrome. Moral considerations were easily pushed aside by those cerebral.

  No, it was not Nachtman’s indifference to human suffering that bothered him most, but rather something else.

  Architecture is a science, and has its laws. They are mathematical and precise. There are truths that are always true.

  The young man was, as has been pointed out, fascinated by Nachtman’s scheme. He had no doubt that this was a great and noble undertaking. But he saw, as has been noted, certain inconsistencies in his master’s calculations. He had tried, very humbly, to point these out, but the architect had not been willing to take into account the logic of his conclusions, seeing in them the ambitious meddling of an inferior.

  Peter’s temperament was not one of unquestioning loyalty, even less was he a man of undying faith. His mind, exceedingly active, was too keen to let itself be blinded by matters extra-intellectual. And he was stubborn and felt it his duty to make sure the building would be finished with success and maybe there was even some pride at play at having discovered flaws in the plans of his master.

  Nachtman was on the south side of the structure, standing with legs wide apart and gazing up towards the heights before him.

  Peter approached.

  “Mr. Nachtman,” he said.

  The other did not reply, but seemed lost in meditation.

  “Herr Nachtman,” was repeated.

  “Yes, I am here,” the architect said moodily, turning a sharp gaze towards the young man.

  “It will soon be time to begin on the dome.”

  “Indeed it will. We are about to cross the Rubicon.”

  “I know that you asked me not to mention this again, but…”

  “If you have something to say, then spit it out.”

  “My calculations regarding stress…”

  The architect looked at him blankly.

  “My calculations regarding stress,” the young man repeated. “I have crunched the numbers in many different ways, and have come to the conclusion that, if we build the dome as planned, its weight could be too great for—”

  “Basta!”

  “For—”

  “Listen you jealous little idiot,” Nachtman said, decapitating the other’s phrase, “you are here to assist me, and yet it seems that you wish to hinder me, to steal my glory with your feminine trembling, with the cowardly ways you learned from those sciolists which at the schools they refer to as professors. I need an eagle by my side, and you are a butterfly. I had hoped to find in you a lion, but instead I see that you are a grub,”

  “But if my conscious tells me—”

  “Your conscious, you young bastard! You want to speak of your conscious? I’ll beat it out of you!”

  And so saying, he began striking the young man, slapping his cheeks and rapping his head, kicking him in the shins and stomping on his toes.

  “Herr Nachtman!” Peter cried out.

  “Get out of here,” the other cried out viciously. “You are unwanted! Get off my building site. I don’t want to see you here anymore. You make me want to vomit.”

  Peter was about to say another word in his defence, but looking over noticed several of the Company of Good Men, who had apparently been alerted by Nachtman’s raised voice, coming to lend their assistance.

  And so the young man retreated, his feelings genuinely hurt.

  XXV.

  The doors were brought under discussion, Nachtman revealing sketches of two enormous panels vaguely resembling those in the old Kong film—things indeed that looked as if they would be made to keep in check some gargantuan monster rather than serve to adorn a gateway of learning and human understanding.

  “Magnificent!” Enheim said with enthusiasm.

  “Yes,” Maria agreed, “the entrance is, in a sense, the most important part of the structure, and no trouble should be spared to make it extraordinary.”

  “Are they to be done in bronze?” Borromeo asked.

  Nachtman smiled enigmatically before proceeding:

  “These doors should be made of something really special—wrought from a sturdy yet precious substance—not gold or platinum or anything of that nature—but a decidedly masculine metal. Something that will geo-magnetically orient the whole, tapping into the earth’s currents and attracting men as a flower does bees.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “Iron.”

  “A sturdy material, yes, but hardly precious.”

  “Certainly it is said that this element, this ferrum as the ancient Roman’s called it, is the sixth most abundant in the universe. But I am not speaking of ordinary iron, but rather of the bones of the gods, a variety more precious than platinum—a variety of iron mined not from the bowels of the earth, but from individuals, from mortal shafts.”

  “Human mines?”

  “Precisely. The average human has around five grams of iron in their body. This is approximately how much iron it takes to make a single nail.”

  “You wish to make nails?”

  “No. The door, my friends, should be distille
d from the blood of disciples—those disciples deemed most worthy.”

  There was a significant moment of silence.

  “It is an original idea,” Dr. Enheim said, running his hand through his lush beard.

  “On principal I am not opposed to it,” Borromeo added, “but there are obviously many technical complications.”

  “Leave that to me.”

  “We could take out a subscription,” Nesler added eagerly. “They could donate their blood while, at the same time, making over their earthly possessions to the Society.”

  “Yes, we could call it the Ten-Thousand Club, or something of that sort.”

  And as it was said, so it was done—with old men from Russia being drained of their living fluid, so they could live again, cast in those two huge panels, where their iron would merge with that of rich widows from Australia and forlorn millionaires whose home was the Midwest United States. The fluid arrived in large oil drums and was distilled, using a high gradient magnetic separator, in a laboratory in Zürich—the metal then being transported to Milan where Nachtman personally saw to its smelting.

  The members of the board themselves, in order to show solidarity, each donated a pint of blood, and waited eagerly for the material to come back from the chemist. When it did, there was but a small amount of iron dust, greyish and slightly lustrous, resting in a glass vile.

  “It is so little,” Borromeo commented.

  “Yes, there is not much of it,” Nesler agreed, holding the glass tube up to the light and examining it.

  “That may be,” said Dr. Enheim, with a strange glow in his eyes, “but in a hundred thousand years, when our spirits will have long before made their home in the highest spheres of paradise, this bit of iron might be all that remains of us here on earth and will be part of the doors which usher aspirants into the realm of knowledge.”