by Shlomo Kalo
"Alive, but living a dog’s life!" Diogenes exclaimed and went on to expand on this: "He had a run-in with the Ku Klux Klan, and those thugs beat him up. Tonight for example they’re planning to lynch someone in the backyard of that factory, a black man who claims that he’s white and thereby is impugning the honor of the white race in general and of the Klan in particular. Our friend stood up and denounced them – and now he’s lying in hospital with concussion, God preserve us, and multiple bruises and abrasions… Luckily his head is made of cast-iron and his arms and legs are prime quality steel… As it happens, I’ve just come off duty and I’m on my way to visit him, so you can join me if you like."
My friend from old times was bandaged from head to foot. But his eyes were sharp and his tongue – no less so.
"I shall settle accounts with those vermin!" he vowed fervently, "They are ruining the beautiful town of which I had such dreams when I was serving as sheriff of the charming hamlet of Julius Caesar, editing the ‘Washington Star’, the local mass-circulation puzzle-mag, and running the Jose Mojica barbershop."
And at this point, suddenly, my prophet friend stood up from his place, laid his hand with an authoritative movement on the sheriff’s plastered arm and cried out in a thunderous, barnstorming voice:
"I tell you, your hour has come! This evening, those wretched creatures who hide their frightened faces behind puerile hoods will hear the truth of their impending doom and the bitter destiny that God has in store for them… you can rest now in peace and in comfort on your sick-bed… God has heard your cry and your moans of pain have come to His ears!"
My two friends, the former sheriff and the old ticket-clerk, stood open-mouthed and shaking in every limb, ready at that very moment to kneel down and kiss the tiled floor on which the red-bearded prophet was standing, since it was clear to them that his words, resounding in their ears with unsurpassable clarity, originated from some world other than this.
Here I made my modest contribution – intended both to calm those turbulent spirits and to drop the thinnest of hints regarding the work I meant to do that evening, since I had decided there and then that this was the right time for action and there was no longer any reason to defer the decision:
"Every word spoken by my friend the prophet invariably comes true! I am sure that this very evening you will see what kind of a miracle can come about in your town."
I stood up from my place and parted warmly and amicably from my two old friends, wondering whether fate would ever cause our paths to cross again – and thinking it unlikely.
We left the hospital building and made our way towards the premises of Magic Carpet Inc. It turned out that access to the factory was closely supervised, and there was no entering it without special authorization from the staff headquarters of the third paratroop division, affiliated to the general headquarters in Washington, which had a direct link to the Vice-President and through him, to the President himself – unless one happened to be a guest of the Ku Klux Klan and the recipient of one of the tickets of invitation which they distributed surreptitiously to certain favored individuals.
So we paid a call on the manager of the local bank, recognized by the whole town as deputy chairman of the worldwide chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. We introduced ourselves and without further preamble my friend raised his voice and demanded, "in the name of God" that we be given tickets to the nocturnal gathering, so he could preach his sermon to the congregation of hood-wearers. With a slight shudder, and without any attempt at evasion, the bank manager, a plump and ponderous man, pulled from a secret drawer hidden in one of the walls – containing white hood and gown, and a six-shooter dating from the days of the Wild West – the tickets for admission, printed in gold on a black background. So we got what we asked for, left the place and when the evening came, entered the extensive backyard of the Magic Carpet works.
In dribs and drabs the invitees began to gather. By around eight-thirty the yard was humming with Ku Klux Klan members in their absurd costumes, with their enthusiastic relatives and dour supporters. Most if not all took their seats in the VIP section, close to the factory wall. A few plain-clothes cops observed events from a safe distance. The Negro who claimed he was white was brought in, trussed up in a sack, its mouth securely tied. The moans he was uttering did him no good. They rolled the sack as if it was a sack of potatoes, from the back of the pick-up to the yard and pushed it under one of the benches. Then they dowsed the lights, lit torches and raised the traditional cross, which they intended to burn along with the Negro. I sensed that my friend was about to rise and deliver his prophecy and I whispered right in his ear: "The whole of this factory will be going up in the air tonight and collapsing on the heads of these sinners!" It wasn’t clear to me whether he had taken my words in or not, but at that moment he stood up, climbed up on the bench where he had been sitting, and cried out in his full voice, with a sound like the thunder rolling over a stormy sea, with the force of a bolt of lightning capable of subduing a whole tribe of primitive people:
"O you destructive children, seed of evil, Sodom and Gomorrah, Hell and Perdition! It is time you heeded the word of the Lord!" – silence fell all around and fear gripped every heart – "The fire that you are holding in your hands will avail you nothing, the soul confined in the sack is crying out to his Creator, and his cry has been heard! The nefarious building in whose dark shadow you are gathered – will collapse tonight on your disobedient heads, and in vain you will try to hide them under those ridiculous hoods of yours! You will always remember the nightmare you are about to witness. You shall bear for ever the mark of Cain the murderer and of Judas Iscariot the traitor! Hear the word of the Lord!"
He tried to sit down again on his bench but was prevented from doing so – members of his audience who at a certain point during his tirade had somehow regained their composure, recovering from the shock of the thunder and lightning unleashed by him – laid hands on him and in a moment had him cuffed (the cops moved with all the agility of circus performers, outclassing even the legendary Houdini), and dragged him with them to a dark corner of the arena, nailing his manacles to a stout post, used for climbing exercises by those paratroopers who were loitering in the town, and spat in his face and jeered at him:
"Every lunatic ends up hanged! After the nigger, it will be your turn to peep at us through the noose of a thick rope!"
"Gang of criminals, sinners of the world!" my friend cried with unparalleled fortitude – "For every syllable of abuse you shall pay with one hundred years in Hell, where there will be gnashing of teeth and unquenchable fire!"
The white-robed weirdoes laughed in his face through their masks and walked away.
I approached him and commented:
"Seems to me you went too far. I may not be able to do the job now – and what fate is in store for you?"
"The fate of every prophet!" my friend cried proudly, his eyes shining with a pure light, purer even than the North Star.
"Not tonight!" I declared, and in my heart I resolved to rescue him at any price, even at the cost of my own life – since he was more deserving of this than any other man.
Meanwhile, preparations for the raising of the burning cross and the hanging of the Negro alongside it proceeded at a headlong pace.
I approached the northern wall of the factory, the one closest to me, without taking any particular precautions. All were engrossed in their repulsive activity and had no leisure to pay attention to me or to anyone else. My friend’s prophetic words, despite the thunder and lightning delivery, had elicited no reaction in them beyond a fleeting chuckle or a sardonic smile.
Examining the thick wall, I noticed a shallow depression in the north-eastern corner.
Without hesitation, I released the whistle from the ancient Egyptian chain, using the sense of touch rather than any other sense, since around me almost total darkness prevailed.
I "whistled", or more precisely – I blew a stream of air from my lungs into the mouthpiece of the "w
histle" which, had it been a normal whistle would immediately have emitted a sharp and piercing sound.
Nothing happened. I remembered that from the moment of "whistling" I had three minutes and thirty-three seconds at my disposal. I inserted my right hand into that depression in the north-western corner of the factory wall. And then – I tried to lift…
I freely admit, for the first time in my not so short life on this earth, which had not been impoverished in terms of fateful predicaments – my heart seemed to stop beating and all my limbs were shuddering convulsively, and I felt how my festive attire was soaked in a cold liquid that I had never known until that time – my sweat streaming in quantities that I am ashamed to estimate…
Will it work, the mechanism that the "whistle" is supposed to activate? Could the whistle have been damaged over the course of time, from the First World War to the present day? Was there some detail missed by my stalwart friend from that time, the scholar-architect, something disregarded or something he forgot to share with me? Does the "whistle" work on whole walls and buildings and not just individual rocks, like the rock with which the experiment was performed before my eyes – irrespective of size and weight? Will the walls really be detached from the solid concrete foundations of the factory, in which those walls are so firmly embedded?
All these fearful thoughts passed through my mind with lightning speed, and without being aware of it I prayed inwardly: "My father in Heaven, my God, please, don’t let me fail…"
And meanwhile, without any sensation at all, with a movement that could be described as involuntary, instinctive and pure – my hand moved upwards…
And how great was the marvel and the grandeur of the spectacle that I was privileged to witness with my own fleshly eyes, such as no man had seen before or ever expected to see, and would never again see – and even of he did see it, he would not believe the testimony of his eyes… And to tell the truth – even I myself, an avowed believer in all the stories that people tell me, however implausible they may seem – did not believe what my eyes were seeing! For the first moment I was stunned to the marrow of my bones, petrified, struck dumb and sinking deeper…
The whole gigantic building with its soaring walls, each weighing more than several battleships combined, with all its departments and roofs – was gradually detached from its foundations and hoisted high in the air…
I held my breath, but not the motion of my hand which went on lifting a weight of perhaps 100,000 tons of reinforced concrete – higher and higher! A huge building in its entirety, as if it was made of thin paper, as if it was painted in the sky, as if the uprooting and the raising aloft were all a dream…
I had no leisure to spare for substantial enjoyment of the truly awesome spectacle of the decisive victory of mankind over nature – with a bold and resolute flourish I lifted the whole building over my head and from this high point, hurled it as if it were a pebble towards the hooded fools, before I had time to assess the impression that the grotesque spectacle was likely to make on their complex-ridden minds and if indeed any one of them had seen me, had glanced towards my corner, shrouded as it was in darkness, and realized what was going on there.
In retrospect it emerged that someone did indeed see the apocalyptic vision but tried to ignore it, such was the intensity of the trauma that hit him; he managed to point to the building as it was lifted higher and higher into the air, as his whole body shook, and then he performed an involuntary bowel movement in his smart white robe. A moment later the others realized what was about to happen in less than three seconds time, and with a shriek unlike anything ever uttered by a rational human being, they threw away their blazing torches and fled in all directions to save their skins.
The building fell to the ground and was shattered there and then with a thunderous impact, a sound that a thousand howitzers firing simultaneously could not have rivaled, sending up a huge column of thick dust and fanning the flames of the discarded torches which began licking the ruins.
I ran like a maniac along the exposed corridors of the former factory building and following the precise guidance of my inventor friend I soon found the clumsy machine in which I was supposed to be changing one of the modules. And indeed I did this with speed and skill, but during the process which was far from simple, the "whistle" fell from my hand and quite inadvertently – I trod on it and crushed it… The delicate, ancient mechanism was completely destroyed. I regretted this intensely. It wasn’t only on my account that I was grieved, but also and especially for the sake of the whole human race, deprived of this ingenious invention, owed to their ancestors who had kept the secret for many generations and finally – no sooner was it out in the open than it was doomed to disappear again into the abyss of oblivion.
I had to cut my grieving short because time was pressing. I checked again to be sure I had done what needed doing, and I was satisfied with the knowledge that the dud module had taken the place of the original, which was safely stowed in a deep trouser-pocket.
I turned at a run and reached my friend, the red-bearded prophet, just as the flames were about to get to him. With my famous penknife, made of stainless steel, I released the springs of the handcuffs, doing this with more dexterity and in a shorter space of time than Houdini himself could have managed – and that is no idle boast.
I pulled my coughing friend along with me, though he insisted on walking amid the ruins at a stately pace and even tried to preach one of his hell-fire sermons, an attempt foiled by the smoke that was clogging his throat. In the end he gave up and ran with me to the bench under which the unfortunate Negro had been stowed.
We were pleasantly surprised to find the man quite unharmed. The sack was wet for some obscure reason and even the smoke had failed to penetrate it. We were happy to extricate him and ran with him till we were outside the electrified fence of the factory, now reduced to rubble, and parted from him with a firm handshake – the Negro ran on towards the east while we, my prophetic friend and I, your obedient servant, turned westward.
Meanwhile, the traumatic rumor was spreading through the town – how the "wrath of God" had been unleashed on the hooded heads of the Ku Klux Klan, exactly as the red-bearded prophet had warned explicitly, and the citizens came out of their houses and streamed through the brightly-lit streets armed with whatever weapons came to hand, and woe betide any hooded Klansman who crossed their path… but they had all been sensible enough to dispose of their ludicrous masks and white robes and to mingle with the crowd, shouting in unison with the others: "Down with the Ku Klux Klan! Death to the Ku Klux Klan!"
We paid a lightning visit to my friend, the retired sheriff and found him in a state of emotional flux such as he had never known before: tears streamed down his habitually dour face, pure tears of happiness; he was constantly uttering barely coherent cries, testifying to the kind of exceptional exhilaration that a human being experiences only once in his life, when he sees with his own eyes his boldest dreams and most extravagant hopes taking on skin and sinew. All the while he was waving his giant fists in the air and inviting all the hospital employees to join him in a champagne toast, celebrating "the glorious day that saw our beloved city cleansed of the hooded vermin that use to defile its streets!" – the words of the honorable former sheriff, distinguished editor of the Washington Star puzzle-book and proprietor of the Jose Mojica barbershop, the oldest barbershop in town. A moment later my friend Diogenes, the permanently old ticket-clerk, turned up, grabbed me by the elbow and whispered in my ear that the populace was out searching for my red-bearded friend, intent on appointing him mayor of the city, since the former mayor, a member of the "Klan" had been unceremoniously evicted from his home.
I passed on the message to my friend, making it plain to him that as far as I was concerned, he could stay on here where he would no doubt make an exemplary mayor, perhaps eventually becoming a senator and some day even President of the United States of America. Whatever he decided, I was leaving that evening anyway since time was pres
sing and I had plans of my own.
Without a moment’s thought my red-bearded friend declared with firm solemnity:
"I’m with you!"
We parted with firm handshakes from the former sheriff and the perpetual ticket-clerk, ordered a taxi and extricated ourselves from the tumult which was spreading and taking hold of the city like wild fire.
As we sat in the taxi I saw fit to explain to my friend, the red-bearded prophet of wrath, the way I had operated and by precisely what means I had succeeded in lifting up the whole building and hurling it down on the hooded heads of the Klan – as he had prophesied.
My friend listened to my words with dignity and when they came to an end he was silent for a long moment, an emphatic, stressful silence, concentrated and focused; then he raised his majestic head, turned to me, fixed me with his blazing eyes, no trace of a smile on his cracked lips and cried:
"Leutenlieb – you are acting again just like your deluded ancestors, confusing imagination with reality and reality with imagination!" And at once he proceeded to elucidate, in a voice of such thunderous volume that the driver was alarmed into accelerating to maximum speed: "You tell a most extraordinary story about an Egyptian whistle which can work miracles that are beyond the power of man, that no man is capable of doing – and you expect me, with pathetic naivety, to give credence to your account? And the conclusive proof of this of course would be the whistle, which by your own admission was damaged and is buried on the battlefield!" – a note of derision crept into his voice, good-natured derision, like an attempt at humor, as if he was dealing with a novice who had not yet learned to wipe his nose.
"But you saw with your own eyes how the building was uprooted and carried up into the air!" I retorted in my defense.
"I certainly saw it!" my friend agreed.
"And didn’t you notice this little hand of mine" – I held out my hand to him as living and emphatic proof, waving it this way and that – "and how it lifted it all up?"