The Fantastical Adventures of Leutenlieb of the House of Munchausen

by Shlomo Kalo

  While executing one of my trademark sharp turns, I caught a glimpse of the great artiste and realized at once that everything said about her – was the truth; her beauty was enchanting and not, Heaven forbid, American-superficial style, her face handsome, the pure features of an angel, and her tenderness, nobility and grace – were the tenderness, nobility and grace of a princess, ranked high above the common herd. But her big and deep eyes, for all their wealth of expression, were glazed with tears, through the combined intensity of excitement and resentment…

  This touched my heart and there and then I decided to put on an impressive show that would divert her thoroughly and erase the tears from her eyes and the resentment from her heart.

  First and foremost I dealt with the fourteen escort vehicles: in a rapid exercise, ingenious and subtle, playing the role of the pursued rather than the pursuer, I led them one after the other towards the deep municipal sewage canal, and making good use of the inertia force of the vehicles – with hairpin turns and impassable surfaces, which I mastered with perfect ease, I left them capsized in the canal. The occupants of the cars, bruised and bloody, were pulled out of the canal the next morning. Then I devoted all my energies to pursuing the resplendent car of Al Capone himself.

  To begin with – I forced it to come back and turn sharply into the Opera House square, not letting it escape via any of the broad access streets. And when the situation was to my liking (the way I had deliberately designed it), exploiting to the full all my celebrated talents, I began "scraping", one after the other, with consummate skill – the four wheels of the armor-plated vehicle before me. Every turn cost Al Capone a wheel, directly before the watching eyes of the great actress, the honored guest of the great city.

  And so Al Capone’s car, so beautifully constructed – sped along on three wheels, on two and on one, arousing hoots of riotous laughter among the well-connected onlookers, packing the pavements of the square by the Metropolitan Opera. I finally succeeded in putting a broad smile on the face of Greta Garbo herself. And when the "spare" had been fitted (I hung back deliberately to allow time for the fitting) and I had "scraped" this one too, in an impressive maneuver, the car came to a standstill at the feet of Greta Garbo, still swaying and vibrating from the impact of the shock that had gripped those trapped inside it. Giving the latter no time to take deep breaths and steady themselves, I "scraped" one after another the handles of the doors, both the bumpers, the doors themselves – first the right-hand door and then the left, paying no attention to the hail of bullets which those inside were firing in totally ineffectual directions. And using the back bumper of my own car, pitched at a lower level, I turned Al-Capone’s car, dents and all, on its roof. And without needing any weapon at all, with elegant and confident gait, fitting for one in whose veins the blue blood of one hundred and ten generations flows, I approached the upturned vehicle and dragged Al Capone out of it, himself and in person, looking bruised and beaten, trembling like a drowned rat pulled from a drain.

  I took a firm grip on his fleshy ear and he regained a little of his composure, and so I pulled him towards the great and inspired performer, and ordered him to kneel at her feet and ask forgiveness for the chaos he had caused, and for disrupting her debut performance on this continent, dimming her glamour and damaging her artistic reputation. He did this like a trained and disciplined dog, and after him I added some words of apology of my own, an aristocratic apology composed of a deep and submissive bow and some poetic phrases expressive of boundless admiration.

  I may point out that the famous actress, just now taking her first steps on the stages of the New World, was moved to tears, flung her arms around my neck and planted on my lips a prolonged kiss of gratitude. She went on to say with enthusiasm that this was her first kiss in the United States of America and it would be deeply ingrained in her memory and never erased from it; it had been so exceptionally pleasant, sublime and intoxicating – and the circumstances of the kiss had been special too. I thanked her with warm words, and a courtly bow in accordance with all the rules of old-fashioned etiquette.

  Al Capone, the pathetic gangster who once cast terror over an entire continent, I handed over, handcuffed, to the authorities. And imagine my disappointment when I was informed the following day that he had been released from detention on his own recognizance. And this supposedly on account of "lack of proof". And in a snap court action, well-orchestrated, those who detained him, i.e. the local authorities and the police department, were sued for the defamation of character he had suffered, the mental distress inflicted on him, and financial losses incurred during his time in custody and the pursuit that preceded it. He won his case and was awarded damages – a round five-figure sum, hard cash, government money, legal tender.

  Upright citizens of Chicago, paying their taxes on time (the minority in other words) – paid the hoodlum with their hard-earned cash, so he could descend on them again with his army, his "boys" with their automatic weapons, so he could torment and oppress and rob them in broad daylight, and build before their very eyes palatial residences in the exclusive suburbs of their smoldering city.

  Needless to say, they dismissed me. And this by means of a cold formal note, delivered by registered post and stamped with the circular metal seal of the mayoral office, with no acknowledgement of my contribution and nothing even remotely resembling elementary courtesy.

  The day after receipt of this notice, that absurd opportunist sent me a delegation of a dozen men with elephantine shoulders and the faces of executioners, bringing me an offer which he perhaps considered tempting, "an offer you can’t refuse" – to join his gang of psychopaths as his personal chauffeur – and this for a round sum of a million dollars per week, tax-free.

  I turned this impertinent offer down flat, with emphatic contempt, and one by one I threw his elegantly dressed minions – heavy diamond rings on their fingers, smoking Cuban cigars in gold-rimmed holders – down the creaking stairs of my apartment.

  And because the whole of this ridiculous game – catching criminals and seeing them released with damages awarded – was reprehensible to me, I sold the few items of property I possessed, bought comfortable hunting clothes, a pair of the six-shooters that had not yet gone out of fashion, and one of the widely renowned Winchester rifles, a broad-bladed hunter’s knife, plenty of bullets, a piebald horse – and in high spirits, humming to myself an old Hebrew melody, I obeyed that primeval and uplifting American cry, guaranteed to boost morale: "GO WEST!" and headed in the direction of the Rocky Mountains and the Grand Canyon, and the region of indistinct national boundaries, where the Indians lived and at that time were still fighting heroically for their living space. The Indians, as is well known, always appealed to my heart with all the wonderful stories told about them, by the man who was my tutor in my younger days, that toothless cowboy who saw the whole world as a target for his lasso, and by those who have never seen them face to face.

  THE INDIAN OINTMENT

  One pleasant morning in early autumn, I found myself riding on the flank of a ridge in the foothills of the Rockies. I was heading towards "Servurite" Canyon, once reckoned a fertile valley suitable for settlement – until a generation ago, when someone spread the rumor that deposits of gold had been discovered there. Overnight, "Servurite" was filled with people of all nations, peoples and tongues, mostly of the unshaven male variety, flaring eyes and all. They swarmed together like ants in their nest, sweating in one another’s sweat and digging tirelessly, twenty-four hours a day, with spades, mattocks, shovels, nails and bare hands, digging deep and broad and long, until "Servurite" turned from a picturesque valley, inspiring hopes and dreams, into a pile of ruins. A strange plague that suddenly erupted among the living skeletons, grubbing in the crevices of "Servurite", changed its landscape once again – its tormented face was covered with a thicket of crooked crosses, hastily fashioned from branches of oak chosen at random and rusty nails.

  As is well known, the valley is crossed by the "Wavafter
wave" River, which floods every year, its tributaries overflowing with melted snow. The minority of settlers who persisted in tilling the soil of "Servurite", earning their bread by the sweat of their brows, finally abandoned hope and left the place, defeated by its tempestuous river. To the west of "Servurite" stretches a wide open plain, most of it populated by Indians. It is this population that has so far prevented the white man settling in the region, cultivating it and dominating it.

  I was riding along one of the most picturesque trails on the borderline between the valley strewn with crosses and the Indian plain, enjoying the lofty sky, the clear air, the singing of birds, the murmur of bubbling streams, the scent of young oaks, memories rhyming into a song recalling a joyful shepherd’s song from the distant past, and rosy dreams of a future that will inevitably come.

  Where the path widened and became a proper dust road, I met a strange man, with a small caravan of mules, laden with some mysterious cargo, trailing lazily behind him.

  The man was not young. He was wearing a poncho patched with broad stains that had turned black, bloodstains as I later discovered. He himself rode a black, thoroughbred stallion, one hand gripping the reins and the other – the rifle resting on his knees, cocked and ready to fire. His face was crooked, as if a powerful blow had landed there, leaving the left side lower in comparison with the right. His smile, which seemed to be a permanent fixture on his bony features, like the face itself was crooked, somewhat contemptuous and at the same time – dry and aggressive. One of his eyes bulged unnaturally, so much so that the lids were incapable of covering it – a colorless glass eye. The look in his other, tiny eye, was sharp and quick, like the eye of a hawk. On his head he wore a black broad-brimmed hat, tilted slightly to the side.

  As he came closer to me he called out a name that I didn’t take in on account of his hoarse, strident and yet expressionless voice. Having introduced himself he saw fit to apologize for not taking off his hat when greeting me, adding a plausible enough excuse – he had been scalped quite recently, and his skull was not a pretty sight. Despite this, he went on to say, I should take it as if he had done so, as this had been his longstanding practice before he was scalped – doffing his hat to show respect to every living white man. In other words, he explained, it was not very often that he was granted the sublime privilege and precious opportunity to remove his hat.

  He stopped beside me, twisted his crooked smile into the most grotesque form imaginable and with emphatic, almost impressive dignity he proceeded to explain that if it had been his habit to remove his hat when encountering the corpses of white men – the effort of repetition would have been too much for him. And at this point he revealed to me, with strange intimacy, as if confiding a secret, that for a white man knowing how to keep himself alive in these parts, there was a simple and abundant source of income – and he pointed to the sacks on the backs of his mules.

  "What’s that supposed to be?" I asked, turning my horse and falling in beside him, intending to skirt the valley from the west and climb the Rockies on their southern, friendlier side.

  "Skulls," he answered me off-handedly.

  "Of human beings?" I pressed him, maintaining my composure with remarkable success.

  "No!" he declared vehemently.

  "Whose then?" I asked, my curiosity aroused.

  "Indians!" he explained, giving me a sidelong glance that was part glass eye and part cunning smile, arrogant, almost dismissive.

  "There’s someone who pays for it!" he saw fit to assure me with a strange look of triumph, and at once he went on to describe the "someone who pays":

  "A fine gentleman. White, and worth millions. He bought up all the territory round here at a public sale, bought it dirt cheap, but as long as the redskins are here he can’t get any income or benefit from the land. He pays an honest wage. Ready cash, in gold. A gold dollar for every skull, a tidy sum. Enough to put something aside for the future. Since yesterday up to now – there’s sixty-eight dollars worth crammed into those sacks, tax-free. Incidentally, he doesn’t impose any limits at all, meaning – age or sex. Any Indian skull, male or female, young or old – is worth a dollar from him!"

  He left a moment’s silence for emphasis and then continued:

  "In the past I used to be a construction worker, a foreman too. But I didn’t make enough to feed myself. I was always hungry, and as for my family – don’t even ask! And now, business is booming!" – he gave me a proud, sharp-eyed glance and pointed to the bulging sacks.

  Shocked and scandalized, I pulled up my horse, an instinctive act reflecting utter dismay. He followed my example, not as an expression of solidarity or out of any intention to keep me company, but for a different reason altogether.

  At that moment, as he turned back to leer at me proudly, his trained, alert eye had picked out the faint silhouette of the head of an Indian against the backdrop of the mountain range, coming closer and rising up, revealing the body below it, riding a piebald horse.

  Without saying a word, like a primed and well-oiled machine, activated automatically, the strange man lifted his rifle and took aim at that handsome mounted profile, standing out upright and frozen against the nearby mountain range. Quick as a flash, I deflected the aimed barrel with a blow of my fist. The strange man did not lose his concentration, in fact – he stopped in time, didn’t pull the trigger and saved himself an expensive bullet. Instead of this, he turned at once and aimed his firearm again – this time straight at my chest, slightly to the left of center, the location of the heart. All this in full view of that Indian who stood on the mountain ridge, proud and indifferent.

  In a thousandth of a second I drew one of my revolvers and before the skull-hunter grasped what was happening, and this despite the remarkable dexterity which he had displayed just moments before – I fired into the barrel aimed at me.

  The rifle disintegrated and the bolt flew out of its track, slightly grazing the right cheek of its owner, as if trying to balance it with the flaccid and drooping left cheek.

  All fury and blind rage, the wounded man threw away what was left of his rifle and pulled out from under his poncho a razor-sharp and broad-bladed butcher’s knife, at the same time drawing a loaded pistol from his belt and aiming it at me. But at that very moment, and without either of us realizing what was happening, we were surrounded by scores of Indians, on horseback and with weapons at the ready, as if the ground with its long and fragrant grass had spewed them out.

  We didn’t have time to take in the half-naked figures, before the fine loops of lassoes snared us, one after another in quick succession, trussing the upper parts of our bodies as if we were dolls at a fairground – on the hoop-la stall…

  With the primeval grace for which the Indians are renowned, the grace that captivates the hearts of all those of refined taste wherever they may be, and with supreme efficiency – our captors unseated us from our horses and began dragging our bound bodies over the grass, which fortunately for us was soft and tall and as previously mentioned – fragrant, luscious it could even be called.

  The ropes, produce of a reputable manufacturer, were bound around us with astonishing tightness, so much so they threatened to choke us. I tried to bite through the fibers of the rope that was covering my lips and sealing them, almost hermetically, and I could not do it. The fiber was long, flexible and strong. For a brief moment I imagined I was dreaming, and in the next moment I would wake from my dream and find myself in our palace, surrounded by attentive servants and smiling tutors. But this was no dream and the body, dragged at the speed of a galloping horse over those broad grassy plains, was riven by acute pains which the brain tried, in vain, to dispel.

  My partner in destiny tried to display some resistance, and to put a stop to this frenetic journey, by yelling at the top of his voice, but his efforts only made his predicament worse – the rope was tightened and cut into his flesh, especially his lips and chin. His protuberant glass eye definitely proved its worth, protecting his good eye from ch
afing by the rope.

  For my part – I did everything possible to draw the proverbial sweetness out of strength; ultimately, it was feasible to compare this headlong dragging with sliding down a green hill in spring, with the aid of a trimmed wooden panel – something I often used to do back in my homeland, as a child. There was one minor difference: the current "sliding" was taking place in the reverse direction, upwards, and it seemed to me we should be grateful for this. I, at any rate, was grateful. I didn’t even try to imagine what it would be like, if my bound and bruised body were to be dragged by a speeding horse in a downward direction, unable to exert any control over the "sledge" – this being the body itself, resembling a helpless mummified figure.

  In the Indian camp we were greeted with stirring pomp and the regal esteem appropriate to us, a solemn reception in every respect: a dense and excited crowd, on all sides, crying out in spontaneous enthusiasm, a manic horse race, from which the horses dragging us behind were not disqualified, and the hurling of everything that came to hand in the direction of the "guests" as they were sledged backwards and forwards between and around the shabby wigwams, at an entertaining speed. This time we blessed the tight and densely packed ropes, which proved a very effective defense against the hail of clods of earth, stones and spears improvised from oak-branches which descended on us. Of course, the odd spit here and there was of no particular concern. In a "sledging" episode such as this, a man finds the right way to distinguish between illusory honor, for the sake of which duels are fought, and true honor, which is not offended even by the most fragrant of spits.

  Later, when the exuberance was tempered by a degree of intelligence, the festivities were channeled in a more rational manner. The horse race was to be conducted properly, and instead of wild riding – certainly spontaneous but lacking in dignity – the piebald horses were required to demonstrate their skill in jumping over obstacles. The only two "fences" placed on the improvised race course were nothing other than our bodies, cocooned in ropes which certainly proved their superior quality, in the most practical way, unbroken and apparently not even frayed, after all the treatment inflicted on them.