The Tragic Fate of Moritz Toth

by Dana Todorovic

  ‘But surely there have been occasions when you discussed official matters over the telephone, Mr Keller. Perhaps you could describe his voice to us.’

  While Tobias remained silent, the Prosecutor derived great pleasure from watching him sink deeper into the abyss of humiliation with each question posed.

  ‘What about touched? Have you ever touched him, Mr Keller? He must have offered you his hand in passing or tapped you on the shoulder as a sign of appreciation for all the hard work you have been putting in throughout your years of service …’

  Tobias was silent because he had nothing to say. The Prosecutor knew very well what to say but was silent because it benefited him to let Tobias’s humiliation last for as long as possible. When he finally spoke, there was not a trace of forced politeness left in his voice.

  ‘My dear lady and esteemed gentlemen,’ he shouted, pointing at Tobias like a scientist at a by-product of some freakish experiment, ‘standing before you is an adviser to the Great Overseer, allegedly in close cooperation with him, yet not only has he never heard or touched him he also does not believe in the Causal Authority Regulations!’ The Prosecutor snatched the Regulations from his desk and waved it over the heads of the Committee members. ‘The more I think about it, I find it reasonable to conclude that Mr Keller meets all the criteria for a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Goodness gracious, could he have made it all up? Mr Presiding Officer, are you certain that Adviser to the Great Overseer is his exact calling? Have you carefully inspected his résumé, compiled by the Personnel Sector and forwarded to you as part of the case documents?’

  Although it was unheard of for a Presiding Officer to render accounts to anyone regarding his official activities – especially to a Prosecutor – the man in question was so baffled by the newly estab lished facts as to the vague relationship between the defendant and the Great Overseer that he completely disregarded procedural hierarchy. The Presiding Officer obediently put on his glasses, letting their wide frame comfortably settle into his fleshy cheeks, and embarked on a search for the aforesaid document among the heap of papers on his desk.

  ‘This does indeed seem to be his calling … so it says,’ he muttered in a low voice after he had found and examined the document.

  ‘There is no reason to doubt my –’ Tobias attempted to explain before the Prosecutor brutally interrupted him with a deafening protest.

  ‘Mr Keller, you are clearly jesting with this Committee! You dare spill philosophical wisdom about the nature of the Great Overseer, yet you fail to give us a single piece of information that would corroborate your communication with him. If you have never seen, heard or touched him, how does he make contact with you? By post?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Dispatcher?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A carrier pigeon?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you ever received an official document from him, such as a stamped approval for operating the Extraordinary Activity Device at your own discretion?’

  ‘No, because it was never necessary. The deed that is the topic of discussion here was my first and only such activity. As you are aware, I failed to seek approval for this deed and am subject to these disciplinary proceedings as a result of that failure.’

  ‘Judging by your recent responses I am inclined to believe that you chose not to seek approval because you knew that there was no realistic chance for you to obtain it, unless you finally manage to convince me of the opposite and specify at least one method of your official communication with the Great Overseer. Every employee must receive some form of feedback about his work from his employer. How do you know when he is addressing you, and how do you know that it is you he is addressing rather than someone else?’

  ‘I … carry an awareness.’

  ‘What kind of awareness?’

  ‘The kind of first-hand awareness of indisputable value, which since the dawn of mankind –’

  ‘Answer my question. What kind of awareness?’ interrupted the Prosecutor.

  ‘An awareness with which each one of us is endowed regardless of –’

  The Prosecutor’s patience was noticeably wearing thin. His stabbing gaze and bulging neck veins clearly commanded an answer from Tobias.

  ‘What kind of awareness, Mr Keller?’

  Tobias’s eyelids suddenly grew heavy, and his eyes fell shut, leaving him alone in the darkness, as if buried under the black earth.

  ‘Intuitive.’

  Now the Prosecutor had him. ‘Esteemed members of the Committee, while the Great Overseer’s Adviser for Moral Issues has nothing but intuitive awareness as proof of his alleged communication with his superior, we, on the other hand … we have the Regulations.’ Having made his point the Prosecutor unceremoniously shoved the Regulations in Tobias’s face. Tobias stared at the large bold letters against the pale background of the front cover.

  ‘Black on white, Mr Keller.’

  The following day, at the crack of dawn, the haunting sound of his name roused me from a deep sleep and followed me throughout the day like an uneasy conscience, for I could sense his proximity with every step I took – through the squeaking sound of my rubber soles during my usual morning walk, through the high-pitched, presumptuous voice of Mr Kis who called to inform me about the rehearsal schedule, through the screech of the violin strings as the bow mercilessly scraped against them like a blunt kitchen knife. All these sounds seemed to ceremoniously attest to the glory of one unusual name – Ezekiel.

  It is said that one is more likely to find inspiration while roaming through dark alleys at ungodly hours of the night, crippled by fear, loneliness, blindness and despair than when endowed with the splendours of a harmonious existence. When out of a dark, remote alley of my soul a melody had formed – a melody as conspicuous as Ezekiel himself – I knew that whoever had said this was telling the truth. I longingly reached for my violin, moved by my own ability to transform my hideous, beaky source of inspiration into an agreeable artistic form.

  And what a melody it was! Surprisingly, it was set in a major key and remarkably simple – perhaps even overly simplified from a theoretical point of view – but the emotional gratification it provided was complete and unremitting. It branched out like a tree and echoed ceremonially and polyphonically from every corner of my living-room, as if accompanied by an ensemble of a thousand bells.

  It is difficult to keep joyous news to oneself. Gently, I knocked on her door, nearly glued to the frame from exhaustion and trying to get my breath back from running. As my heart pounded and streams of sweat poured down my body, I prayed to God that I would find Noémi at home, that my efforts would not be in vain. I also contemplated what I would say to her, searching for the words that would truthfully describe my emotions, but this presented itself as a task far more difficult than I had initially imagined.

  The elongated brass handle gradually lowered, and the door opened to the sweet aroma of rose oil drifting my way. How elegant Noémi looked as she stood there in front of me in her satiny knee-length skirt, a fitted jacket and a string of pearls around her neck … I assumed that she had just returned home from a formal event – perhaps an opening ceremony or a cocktail party – and the thought of it distressed me, although I knew I had no right to be distressed. Where have you been, you temptress? Did you enjoy yourself? Did you have one Martini too many and laugh in the company of strange men so loudly and heartily that your eyes filled with tears? And when one of your many admirers asked you about your line of work, what story did you concoct? A vague expression formed on her face – the same as the last time I had appeared on her doorstep uninvited. I wondered about the true emotion behind her expression, whether it was disappointment, disapproval or simply confusion caused by another unannounced visit on my part, completely overlooking the fact that on both of these occasions the man who stood at her door was a different Moritz than the one she knew – a man like any other, in a woollen V-neck sweater and with barely noticeable traces of red dye at the
tips of his hair.

  When she finally spoke, I could detect in her voice a strange combination of longing and wariness. ‘Tell me, Moritz.’

  ‘Strange things are happening to me … and good things, too. Strange and good things at the same time, Noémi …’ I muttered and sighed, reduced to the size of a shrivelled pea, humbled by my awkwardly constructed sentence and the hot beads of sweat that were rolling down my cheeks as I stood before this beautiful woman. No, Moritz, you cannot allow this visit to turn into that kind of an encounter. You need a friend. Stick to the point.

  ‘Come in.’

  ‘I’d rather not, Noémi.’ I decided not to prevaricate any further and to inform her without delay the reason for my visit. Just as I had opened my mouth to speak, I heard what sounded like hooves approaching in a three-beat rhythmic pattern. I imagined the sound being generated by some monstrous three-legged ungulate, but soon enough Frau Kapelhoff appeared, stiff as a board, in her clumpy wide-heeled shoes, pounding her umbrella resolutely on the floor after every other step – clomp, clomp, CLOMP … Her presence made me lose track of my thoughts, and it must have shown on my face.

  ‘Come on in, Moritz. Don’t be a child,’ Noémi whispered as Frau Kapelhoff walked by with her nose in the air, pretending not to notice us.

  Noémi’s flat had always been immaculate. One would think it belonged to a pharmacist rather than to a woman with a professional calling as dubious as hers. The only detail that suggested any form of decadence or vice were the bottles of cheap Pinot Noir stacked on the top shelf in the corner of the living-room – she called them the ‘fastest road to oblivion’ – but as I set foot in her flat that day I noticed that even the wine was gone. The thought crossed my mind that if Noémi no longer had reason to seek oblivion, if she no longer had anything to run from, then this would certainly explain the change I noticed in her during my previous visit.

  Without waiting for an invitation, I allowed my perspiring body to collapse on to the sofa, in spite of being aware of the large damp stain I would leave behind the moment I stood up.

  ‘Would you like something to drink? Tea, coffee?’ she asked while removing the pearls from her neck and placing them on the table in front of me.

  A bottle of Jack would do. ‘No, thank you,’ I replied.

  Then she pulled a chair over from the dining room, pushed the small table aside and sat opposite me, so close that our knees were touching. She posed the following question, and only an honest and straightforward reply could release me from the shackles of her piercing gaze, ‘What’s troubling you, Moritz?’

  To begin with, it was the question itself that troubled me – I had come to her in a moment of inspiration, bearing joyous news, yet she suggests to have detected in my voice an anguish deep enough to be worth the mention. I cannot say that I was aware of any anguish I was experiencing other than what was caused by my insatiable desire towards her. But the truth always seems to appear before our eyes without warning, like a soldier in an ambush, and the words that follow tend to come out uncalculated.

  ‘I created a wonderful melody, Noémi. A melody I could never have dreamed of creating.’

  ‘I’m very pleased to hear that, Moritz,’ was her sincere and warm reaction. As much as I had hoped for this particular reaction a few moments earlier, the second it had left her lips it struck me as illsuited and mundane.

  ‘No, you don’t understand … it’s so beautiful it’s as if … as if it’s not of this world, yet it originated from a ghastly creature. I don’t see how this is possible, and I find it all very confusing.’

  Noémi took a moment to think before deducing the following. ‘If those two statements are indeed contradictory as you claim – that the melody is beautiful and that it originated from a ghastly creature – then perhaps one of them is untrue. Perhaps the melody is not as beautiful as you had initially thought or the creature not as ghastly.’

  I was unable to present a single argument that would refute her impeccable line of reasoning, and yet I found the lack of subjectivity in her words disturbing. I suppose that, much like a child takes comfort in its mother’s tender embrace, I took comfort in the belief that she would think quite differently were she to lay eyes on that creature or hear my music.

  ‘Noémi,’ I insisted, ‘that ghastly creature left numbers in front of my house … appalling numbers … redder than blood and more sinister than evil itself. His name is Ezekiel.’

  Noémi flinched. ‘Ezekiel, like the prophet?’

  Although the name did sound familiar, and I had even assumed that it was of Hebrew origin and that it carried a Biblical connotation, my fundamental lack of religious knowledge prevented me from expanding on this assumption. Seeing that an explanation was necessary, Noémi rose from her chair and headed towards the bedroom. I could hear the drawer opening on the antique wooden dresser in which she kept all sorts of cherished objects and paraphernalia. She returned carrying a lavishly produced, leather-bound book. She carefully laid it on the table in front of me and opened it at the contents page. Centered at the top of the page was the title, Old Testament, printed in a stylized font. At this point I knew that I had indeed been correct in assuming that Noémi’s life had changed profoundly during our months apart.

  I glanced at the contents. The aroma of rose petals continued to permeate my senses, fusing with the stench of my sweat, and it all reminded me of us – of my sticky palms pressed against her hips, of her lustful gasps. Then I accidentally came across his angular name in the contents and took a plunge into the abyss of hell, for just as my erection was becoming generous the image of his grotesque face flashed before my eyes.

  ‘It seems that neither of us is as we once were, Moritz,’ Noémi remarked, as though she had read my thoughts.

  ‘It certainly seems that way,’ was my reply.

  I opened the first page of the Book of Ezekiel. Skimming through, I noticed it contained forty-eight chapters. Then Noémi posed a question that made my blood run cold. ‘The numbers you mentioned … what numbers were those, Moritz?’

  In the hope that I had finally come across a lead, I began to turn the pages in a frenzy, reading and interpreting the chapters and verses with the relevant numeric combinations. I was completely focused on the book, and had Noémi not let out a quiet whimper, I never would have noticed that I was crushing her bare foot with my shoe. I stepped away and read out chapter 7, verse 19, which seemed the most logical even though its numeric combination did not contain the number 3. The verse, unfortunately, proved itself irrelevant – something about silver and gold – and Noémi agreed. Then I remembered to reverse the numbers and searched for chapter 39, verse 17. I read the following:

  And thou, O son of man, saith the Lord God, say to every fowl, and to all the BIRDS, and to all the beasts of the field: Assemble yourselves, make haste, come together from every side to my VICTIM, which I SLAY for you, a great victim upon the mountains of Israel: to eat flesh and drink BLOOD.

  Indescribable is the state of horror in which I found myself after reading that verse, and I shall thus try to illustrate it through an allegorical account. Several words from the verse cut through the air around me like a two-edged flaming sword. As I attempted to evade them, flinging myself left and right, I slipped into a body of water that I knew had not been there before but had appeared out of thin air just to spite me. The water was cloudy and laden with silt, grime and parasites, leading me at first to believe that I had fallen into some sort of a contaminated lake. However, the deeper I sunk, the clearer it was becoming to me that this was not a lake of any sort but a bottomless oceanic pit like the ones I had read about in science-fiction novels. I could detect on the surface the outline of a female figure reminiscent of Noémi’s leaning towards me. Although I desperately tried to reach her, all my attempts were in vain, for I suddenly didn’t know what to do with my limbs, as if I had never swum before. The image of the figure progressively deteriorated the deeper I sank, until all that was left was a da
rk silhouette that could or could not have been human. Then I heard a muted, drawn-out voice calling my name, followed by a tight grip on my hand, which sent shivers down my spine as though I had been shocked by an electric eel. It must have been this sensation that finally tore me away from the state I was in and jolted me back to reality.

  Once again I found myself in Noémi’s living-room. Abruptly, I pulled my hand away from hers, my greatest concern being to remain lucid enough to make it to the door. I ran down the stairs – I may have even tripped a few times and fallen. Noémi followed me all the way to the front gate, attempting to console me as I headed off down the street.

  ‘Moritz, please don’t go. It doesn’t have to mean anything … It might all just be a coincidence. Moritz, please …’ until I was no longer in sight.

  The course of proceedings against Tobias Keller may serve as a perfect example of how Chamber C of the Second Wing could transform the selfless into the self-indulgent, the humble into the presumptuous, the insightful into the insane. The proceedings held in Chamber C of the Second Wing would distort without exception not only the defendants but also all other participants – the Presiding Officers, prosecutors, members of the Committee – making them the collateral products of some higher mysterious force. Their grimaces would assume unnatural shapes, their reactions would become odd and inappropriate; even the occasional episodes of underhanded humour would vanish entirely. Much like Tobias, other defendants would also initially disregard the horrifying myths they had heard about this place, only to discover halfway through the proceedings that their opinions about Chamber C had changed, having had the misfortune to learn about it from their own experience.

  Why did all the people who had ever been under examination in Chamber C of the Second Wing and who had at some point violated the Causal Authority Regulations share the same fate? How many of these people were – like Tobias – driven by honourable intentions? Was their every attempt to present their good intentions to the Disciplinary Committee destined for failure? Does a conflict of convictions always cause a conflict of interest? Is there any hope for Tobias Keller?