Traveler of the Century

by Andres Neuman

  At midnight, alone once more, Hans and Álvaro zigzagged down Potter’s Lane. They were headed for the Picaro Tavern, where on Saturdays young women would dance without any of the affectations of the Apollo Theatre, to the strains of a small orchestra. Hey, you, Hans spluttered, how can you tolerate them? Who? said Álvaro. Oh them, it’s very simple, my dear, very simple—I never mix business with pleasure; that’s something I learnt in England. Before I knew that I was a little nobler and a lot poorer, if you see what I mean! And I’m telling you, Hans said distractedly, we’ve gone past it, seriously, isn’t it farther back? In that other street, I mean. No, replied Álvaro, how can it be back there? Just follow me, come on! I swear, Hans went on, whenever those men open their mouths it makes me long for the cave. Your organ grinder is a strange bird, said Álvaro, sometimes he talks as if he knows everything, and other times I look at him and he seems like a poor old man in a cave. The organ grinder knows everything, replied Hans, don’t ask me how, but he does. It’s very odd, insisted Álvaro, I don’t know where he gets it from, have you ever seen him read? Does he have any books in the cave? Never, replied Hans, he never reads, he has no time for books or newspapers. When he isn’t playing his barrel organ, he’s gazing at the landscape. When I’m with him I feel a little stupid, as if I’d read everything without having read anything, sorry, did I tread on your foot? Are you sure we’re going the right way?

  The Picaro Tavern was a place where no sooner people entered than the rhythm of the polka and the smell of sweat invited them to relax and cast their cares aside. Anyone who crossed its threshold with a heavy gait left with a spring in his step, wondering what had come over him. The clientele was mixed, everyone except the aristocracy, who preferred more discreet establishments farther from the centre, where they paid much more money to do the same things. On the chalkboard hanging next to a warped mirror, a message (complete with misspellings) announced: “The Picaro Tavern welcomes not ladies and gentlemen, but men and women.” The police never interfered with the tavern’s activities, provided it closed at three in the morning, held no parties during religious holidays and, in accordance with the Rules Governing Public Places of Free Admission in Wandernburg, its patrons did not wear masks. It was not uncommon after suppertime to find off-duty policemen in the tavern.

  As they stepped through the tavern doors, an image of the organ grinder gazing through his fingers at the sun flashed though Hans’s mind. He grinned drunkenly and missed him foolishly, as though he had not seen him in years. He thought instantly: Tomorrow I’ll go to see him. They descended into the gloomy Picaro Tavern, looking for a place to sit. Suddenly, Hans thought he recognised somebody’s back—a stocky figure, hunched over, muscles tensed as though suffering from cramp. The figure instinctively wheeled round and faced him—it was Lamberg, wearing an old mask that covered his eyes and half his brow. Opposite him, at a safe distance, a waiter was trying to persuade him to take it off. Lamberg appeared not to hear him. His arms hung at his sides, tensed, as though pushing down on a spring. For a moment, Hans thought Lamberg was going to tip up a chair or punch the waiter. But all he did was to stagger, tear off his mask, walk over to Hans and embrace him wholeheartedly. His face stank of stale alcohol, his back was rigid. After flashing Hans a look of relief, the waiter disappeared among the dancers. What were you doing wearing that mask? Álvaro asked, coming over. Lamberg slowly raised his head from Hans’s shoulder, and said: I just wanted it to be Carnival. With that, he burst into tears for a few moments. He soon calmed down and remained silent, expressionless. Come on, Hans said, we’ll buy you a drink.

  They approached the bar and ordered three schnapps from the same waiter who had been arguing with Lamberg. The waiter looked at him askance, but Lamberg seemed to be concentrating on something on the ceiling. While the waiter was pouring out their drinks, a candle dropped from one of the cast iron wagon-wheel chandeliers above the bar straight onto his shirt, setting his sleeve alight. The waiter leapt into the air and began flailing his arm about. The bottle of schnapps spilt onto the bar. The customers standing nearby turned their heads. Álvaro and Hans yelled. Someone ran over with a siphon to spray the waiter, who was glaring at Lamberg with a mixture of loathing and bewilderment. Lamberg was still silent, his eyes fixed on the waiter’s shirt.

  The cave dissolved the remains of the heat like a stomach digesting soup. During the past few weeks the interior had offered a welcome contrast to the heat of midday and a buffer against the night air, which was still chilly. The organ grinder had lit two tallow candles and was examining the inside of his barrel organ. The strings, in groups of three, were looped around screws, the loops worn by the passage of time. The organ grinder adjusted the strings with a key, his bony hand turning it clockwise. Above the screws, written in pencil in the unsteady hand of an infant or one palsied with age, were the notes A, B, C, D …

  Hans was also spelling something out—his last meeting with Sophie at the salon on Friday. He was relaying all the details to the organ grinder, and although nothing was certain (even his next visit to the Gottlieb salon), these uncertainties seemed to diminish when he talked to the old man, as though every tuned string were an eventuality foretold, a doubt resolved. Since their snatched kiss that day, Sophie had been as discreet towards him in person as she had been audacious in her letters. They had not seen one another alone since then, which far from seeming to Hans a bad sign, suggested something was afoot. What flowers were in the house? the organ grinder asked, glancing up with a pin between his lips. What flowers? Spikenards, I think. Spikenards?—the organ grinder gave a start—Are you sure? I think so, replied Hans, they were white and pungent, they must have been spikenards, why, what does it mean? It means, the old man said, smiling as he lowered the lid, pleasure, pleasure and danger.

  The moon was growing bigger and as round as a peephole in a door. Although at that moment, as Franz was lifting his leg on a pine tree, no one in the whole of Wandernburg was gazing at it, just as no one was gazing at the clock on the Tower of the Wind, or noticing it looked like the moon with clock hands. On the outskirts, however, Hans and the organ grinder were sitting contemplating the night from the entrance to the cave. Before he met the organ grinder, Hans had never spent so much time gazing at the sky. Now he had grown accustomed to this calm activity that brought them together without the need to talk or do anything. The stars were few and spaced out, like a spray of salt. The two men looked at them in very different ways. Hans’s expression before the vastness of the universe suggested restlessness, choice, an uncertain future. The organ grinder saw in the horizon a shelter, a protective boundary, an undivided present.

  Hans murmured:

  The stars and the night

  Make the wine of life

  Let’s drink without strife

  Till like them we are light.

  What was that? asked the organ grinder. It’s by Novalis, replied Hans. And who’s he? said the old man. Him? said Hans with a grin. He’s just a friend of mine. Ah, said the organ grinder, why don’t you bring him along one evening?

  Back in his room, despite having walked from the cave at a brisk pace, Hans was unable to fall asleep. Eels of sweat wriggled down his back. His body felt tense. Lying face-up, shirtless, he could hear every sound of the night, the roof beams, the furniture. His feet stirred restlessly. He was breathing through his mouth. Suddenly, he threw back the covers. His hand moved down to his groin. His member was stiff. He cast off the rest of his clothes. He felt the coolness of the air on his testicles and an ardent pressure at the tip of his manhood. He gripped his member and began pulling at it, pulling it almost resentfully. The skin responded like red elastic. A wave of intensity spread up from his groin. Hans bent his knees. His hand swelled. His blood was pulsating. His abdomen clenched. Everything flowed from below upwards. Hans was quaking. It had to come out. Now.

  Behind the lace curtains, a breeze rippled through the half-open window. It was already late but Sophie’s bedside light was still
on. The room gave off a smell of oil—from the thick oil lamp, and from the almond odour of her skin. The clutter of hairbrushes, combs and powders on the dressing table was a sign of recent disquiet. A damp sponge lay on the side of the washstand, whose lower shelf housed a small pitcher, facecloths, aromatic water, a soap dish and two towels, one of which had been used moments before. To the left of the bed on an oval rug sat two small slippers, one on top of the other. To the right, a silk nightgown lay in a tangle on the floor. Sophie let one arm dangle from under the orange-coloured eiderdown, the other writhed beneath the covers. Her lips kept going dry and she had to lick them. She felt an invisible needle pricking her thighs, the tip of her breasts. She lifted her forefinger and thumb to her mouth, once, twice, she moistened them with her tongue. Then she went down again restraining, containing, enduring her sense of urgency. As the fingers slid down she left a trail of saliva from her mouth to her chin, her chin to her throat, from the hollow between her collarbones to her breast, from her breast to the bottom of her ribcage, from her there to her navel, and along the faint outline of her pubic hair to the rim of her clitoris. Its folds opened. The contractions radiated from the inside out. A darting hummingbird finger insisted and insisted. Sophie yielded to herself. She felt an emptiness inside an emptiness.

  Hans sent her a billet in which he called her Fräulein Fräulein, and Sophie wrote back with the heading Dear Silly-Billy. He signed his letters Respectfully, your future abductor and she ended hers with the words Until never, at seven o’clock, at my house. He sent her a comb in an envelope with a note that said: So that my memory is never far from your thoughts. She replied by sending a lock of her hair wrapped in tissue paper with the words: So you may see that your wish has been fulfi lled. They had tea together almost every afternoon and took the precaution, but also the risk, of including Herr Gottlieb in their conversations—it is easier to hide what is plainly visible. They derived a perverse pleasure from using the polite form of “you” while staring at one another like lovers. Sophie did not know, or did not want to know, what might happen. But she did know that while what had to happen was happening, what she wanted was not to think. She was officially betrothed, and did not intend to renege on any of her commitments, but that would be after the summer, and what did that matter now?

  That Tuesday Hans had got up in two distinct moods. Much to his surprise he had woken early of his own accord. He had hummed a tune as he took a bath and shaved in front of the watercolour. Suddenly, however, he had found himself staring out of the window like someone recalling an accident. Seated on his trunk, he had steeled himself to do the sums he had been avoiding, and had concluded silently: Two, three at the most if I stop eating out. Afterwards, full of anticipation and trepidation, he had gone downstairs and looked enquiringly at Herr Zeit. The innkeeper had shrugged and sighed: No letter today, if it arrives I’ll let you know.

  He had spent the morning reading, and had lunched in the kitchen before going to the market square to see the organ grinder. He had gone without coffee to economise. Later on, he had called at the Gottlieb residence, but Sophie had just left with Rudi. After supper, not yet sleepy enough, he had gone for a night-time stroll down winding, unfamiliar streets, through High Gate, and along the path to the bridge and the pinewood. And, almost unwittingly, he found himself in front of the cave. Franz had greeted him with excited barks. The old man hadn’t been sleeping, or claimed he hadn’t. I brought you some cheese, Hans explained. Thank you, my lad, the old man had said, is anything the matter? No, Hans had replied, I don’t know, I just came to bring you some cheese. The organ grinder had given him a bony embrace, cupped his face in his grimy hands and said: Tell me about it.

  The following morning, bright and early, a loud clatter of hooves came to a halt outside the inn. The postman’s horn surprised Herr Zeit, his razor halfway down one lathered cheek—two dark drops fell onto the towel draped around his neck. The innkeeper muttered a few curses in a thick Wandernburg dialect. When the horn sounded a second time, he thrust out his belly indignantly, sighed and called to his daughter. Go and see what he wants, he grunted, and wake up that sleepyhead in number seven. When Lisa opened the door, the postman stared at her with annoyance, and, without dismounting, threw her a sealed envelope he had taken out of his saddlebag. All around, upstairs and down, like street lights in the daytime, heads peered out of windows.

  Lisa raced down the second-floor corridor, stopping just before she collided with Hans, who was still in his nightshirt and a woollen dressing gown. Hans smiled and said good morning. Lisa stared at Hans’s cared-for teeth. She shivered when she saw his unshaven chin, covered in black dots, and without knowing why felt foolish. Will you give me the letter, Lisa? said Hans. The what? she replied. Oh yes, sorry.

  Hans tore open the envelope and his eyes sped to the end of the letter. Before he had even finished reading it through, he had let it fall to the ground and was dressing as fast as he could.

  After floating from side to side to the floor, the letter had come to rest next to the legs of a chair. The light from the window fell across half the page. On the part in the light, between a colophon featuring a bird and the heading, printed in capitals were the words:

  BROCKHAUS BOOKS, LEIPZIG.

  As at every lunchtime, the air in the Central Tavern was beginning to thicken with the smell of cooking oil and working men’s clothes. For the first time in months, Hans had a feeling of benign compassion towards the Wandernburgers filling the establishment. So, you’re staying? Álvaro rejoiced, clinking tankards with Hans. Hans nodded, beaming, his lips moist with beer. What a pity, niño! chuckled Álvaro. I was looking forward to seeing the back of you!

  In the middle of April, when his savings had first shown signs of running low, Hans had written to the editors at Brockhaus offering his services as a reader and translator. He had enclosed an exhaustive (and partially invented) curriculum vitae and a few publications. In the inflated list of his talents, Hans had claimed to be able to translate into German, with varying degrees of competence depending on the case, any European language of literary significance. Despite his repeated exaggerations about his professional experience, this was not far from the truth. Hans proposed writing detailed reports on authors or books the publishing house might be interested in translating, prologues to their anthologies of foreign poetry, as well as translations of essays and poems for their magazine Atlas. And also, perhaps, if the publisher was interested, bringing out an anthology of European poets encompassing a broad range of languages and countries. Although their reply had taken a long time to arrive, to the point where Hans had begun to fear that some of the fictitious additions to his curriculum might have been uncovered, in the end it was encouraging—the publisher had recently lost two of his collaborators (one deceased, the other dismissed) and were indeed looking for a reliable reader and a more or less permanent translator. They agreed to employ him at once as a salaried assistant on their magazine Atlas. They also took him on as a reader for a one-month trial period. And they acknowledged his idea about a future anthology of European poetry, although they could give no assurances. The best news of all, given Hans’s financial situation, was the inclusion in their acceptance letter of two urgent commissions, one generously remunerated (the other, in the editor’s words, should be submitted without payment “as a sign of mutual goodwill”). As soon as he had received the reply, before going out to meet Álvaro at the Central Tavern, Hans had sat down to write two letters: the first, shorter one, was to Brockhaus, in the most casual tone possible, accepting his conditions; the second, a garbled, exhilarated note to Sophie giving her the good news. Afterwards, he had gone downstairs to reception and announced to the innkeeper: My dear Herr Zeit, I should like to speak to you for a moment about business. Following twenty minutes of calculation, recalculation, mutual haggling and theatrical protestations from the innkeeper, Hans had succeeded in reaching a new agreement for the monthly price of his lodgings plus one meal a day. (Two? Out
of the question! Impossible! Do you have any idea, Herr Hans, how much the price of food has shot up! do you want to ruin me? Two meals, out of the question! Impossible!)

  While Hans was finalising his agreement with the innkeeper, Sophie was shutting herself in her room so she could read the note she had just received. Lying face down on the orange taffeta eiderdown, ankles folded in the air, she couldn’t help giving a cry of joy when she reached the part that said: … therefore, if all goes well, you will have no choice but to suffer my presence in Wandernburg for the time being. On hearing her mistress, Elsa burst into the room to see what the matter was. Concealing the letter under a cushion, Sophie sat up nonchalantly and replied: Nothing at all, why? I thought I heard Miss cry out, said Elsa, puzzled. My dear, said Sophie, is it impossible to sneeze in this house without creating a scandal?

  That very afternoon, after lunching with Álvaro and downing three black coffees in a row, Hans went back to his room, bounding up the stairs two at a time. He flung open the door. His eyes fixed on his trunk, he strode across the room. On the oak table were three thick volumes, some carbon paper and an ink pot with a closed lid. Hans knelt beside the trunk. He tried shifting it, confirming how heavy it was. He heaved a sigh. He ran his fingers along its curved top, then unfastened its locks and clasps one by one. Inside, stacks of books lay in disarray from all his travels. The first volumes he saw were his old Greek dictionary, a manual of Italian verbs, a slim book of poems by Novalis, and a dog-eared guide to French grammar.