Glorious Nemesis

by Klima, Ladislav

  Though no heavyweight, Sider was athletic. He delivered the professor two slaps of such force that he slumped to the ground, his body twitching weakly. “I need to get out of here,” flashed through Sider’s mind. “I can’t be arrested now. I need to put him out of action completely so he doesn’t cause a commotion.”

  A lightning-quick blow to the temple – and the psychiatrist lay there like a corpse.

  “Hurrah, hurrah!” Errata cried victoriously and started beating the man’s face with her fists.

  “My love,” Sider pulled her away, “I must leave this place immediately. You are mine forever! Our destinies are inseparably bound! Together we will be victorious! Soon I will release you from here! In the meantime, let hope give you strength! I am with you always, do you hear? As for Her – that storm cloud will turn into an amorous, golden cloudlet! Bye!”

  He gave her a last kiss and rushed out. “I am happy, my Sider, you will come, you will surely come, you will come soon, I believe it!” echoed behind him ...

  •

  In his rapture Sider did not know quite what he was promising.

  As he was fleeing the lunatic asylum he knew only one thing for certain: he must go away at once. Where to, he had no idea. He hopped on a train at random just as it was pulling out, having first purchased several of the most recent magazines and newspapers.

  “Surely I will now read that Barbora was not murdered,” he said to himself, having calmed down somewhat as the train set off. “In that case – back to Cortona!” But at that moment the horrific nature of Errata’s account fully dawned on him ... “I’m not going to have the strength to do it,” he felt. “The hellishness of the whole affair might have tempted me before, now it only crushes me. I’m exhausted, I’m lost.” He picked up a newspaper numbly and read:

  “News of the murder of the oldest woman in our country, one-hundred-and-thirty-seven-year-old Barbora. On the basis of medical evidence, it has been ascertained beyond all doubt that the old woman was strangled. Among other indicators, strangulation marks were found on her neck. The iniquitous, clearly perverted perpetrator of this incredibly heinous crime has not yet been apprehended. Details of his appearance, however, are known (there followed a fairly accurate description of his person), as is the direction in which he fled. His probable destination is the town of N.N., known for its mental institution. The degenerate’s motive was money, as indicated by the statement made by Háta, the ninety-five-year-old daughter of Old Barbora, grief-stricken by the death of her dearly beloved mother, who said a sum of money went missing from the table drawer, as did some jewellery. Everyone hopes that this unprecedented scoundrel will end up in the hands of the penal system before long.”

  At the same time Sider chuckled a chill ran through his body that made him shudder, and this brought him relief. The heavy burden of having to make his own unprompted decision had fallen from his shoulders. – “Where to now?” he asked himself. “Ah, I will go home. The big city is the easiest place to get lost in. – And I have seen Her there on three occasions. I will go to Cliff Street: I feel Old Barbora’s doppelgänger, a wise woman, will provide me with an explanation for all this. Yes, all my hopes lie with her at the moment ... Damn it all, it’s still not entirely certain that Orea is – the spirit of the mountain. Although Errata is not insane, she’s about as far from being able to evaluate matters soberly as I am from having robbed Old Barbora’s place. Yes, that’s the way it is!”

  He calmed down considerably. – He got off at the next station and, travelling by train, automobile, horse, foot, as circuitously as possible to put off his pursuers, he reached his hometown on 10 June.

  He slept all morning and devoted the afternoon to disguising his appearance. Before leaving the house he instinctively took all the cash he had with him and took Orea’s portrait out of the billfold he kept in his breast pocket. He looked at it for a long time and then placed it back in the billfold ... Then he went to an out-of-the-way café, and there he read:

  “New despicable crime committed by the murderer of Old Barbora. This pervert has apparently set his mind on paving his entire journey with the most nefarious crimes. On the fourth day of this month he broke into the mental institution in the town of N.N. There he cut the fetters that had been used to restrain insane patient Mrs E.S. so as to prevent her from committing suicide. No doubt he did so in order to be able to satiate his perverted lust with her. Upon being surprised by the most venerable scholar Professor N.N., he struck him several times in the head with a hammer and fled. A poor victim of his vocation, Professor N.N. was found unconscious by one of the orderlies. This man stated that he had been administered chloroform by the as yet unidentified scoundrel. In view of the fact that the man concerned is the thief from Old Barbora’s place, there is no doubt that the fiend robbed the senseless scholar, even though he himself, having suffered nervous shock and only being able to react to everything by sobbing, cannot remember whether he had much money on him at the time. God willing, he will yet recall this fact. Mental patient Mrs E.S. places all the blame on herself, asserting that it was she who bludgeoned her kindly care provider with her fists. The absurdity of this assertion is self-evident. It is already known in what direction this hyena in human form fled from the institution. He is currently residing in the metropolis of N., and it is only a matter of hours before he is arrested.”

  Sider ran out of the café. At first he was totally beside himself. “Away, away from here, as far as possible, to the edge of the world!” was his only thought. “Somewhere into the inner provinces of China or the ancient forests of Ecuador ... , as long as it is as far away as possible from all this horror so that it can finally end.”

  He jumped into a cab. After a moment he recalled that he was very near Cliff Street. A brief moment of indecision – “Ah, I’ll go there one more time!” he decided. “Those few minutes won’t kill me, should I leave Europe for good without being certain? I think not, I couldn’t bear it, I would go mad abroad. I suspect that all will now be made clear.”

  •

  The sun had just set when he reached the little black house. Dark clouds were rolling in from the south, a continuous bristle of lightning and ominous thunder. Sider hurriedly entered the hallway.

  Once more he was standing before that familiar door. Will he again hear those eerie footsteps from afar, creeping along monstrously, madly, like the passing of time? No – instead he heard the shouting of children and a deep voice scolding them. He lit a match. “Daniel Škopek, Master Cobbler” – he read on the door. He knocked.

  “Well, come in then!” the voice growled.

  He entered. A kitchen modified into a cobbler’s workshop. Four small children were rolling around on the floor; the shoemaker was sitting on his stool looking like he’d just drunk a quart of denatured spirits. A nagging woman’s voice squawked from the adjoining room. “And yet the rooms are the same as they were in Cortona,” he thought to himself as he said in confusion:

  “Excuse me, is there an extremely old woman called Barbora living here?”

  “What?” said the cobbler and stood up. “There’s always only one woman here, and that’s my wife, her name’s Elisabeth, and even though the hag’s already thirty-five, that doesn’t make her extremely old just yet.”

  “About three weeks ago a hundred-year-old woman resided here, and a beautiful young lady was staying with her for a few days –”

  “Holy Virgin, not again!” a woman’s voice cried out, and the cobbler’s missus burst into the kitchen, making the sign of the cross. The children started crying; the thunder roared so loudly that the little house shook. “I keep telling you, Škopek, this place is haunted!”

  “Quiet, old bat! I’ve had just about enough of all this superstitious nonsense! Keep your traps shut, you little brats!” and he raised his knee strap. “Esteemed sir, you seem like the brainy type, so please say if ye’d be serious, or if you’ve come to make a damn fool of me?”

  “Has Old Barbora
never lived here?” his legs were shaking so much that he sat down on the bench uninvited. “I quite certainly saw her here in the hall.”

  “The Lord above be with us,” said the wife, “I also saw her! One evening when I was at home alone all of a sudden she shuffled through this kitchen so slowly it was just awful, and she went over there, to the bedroom! When I’d recovered enough to stand up again I ran after her and she wasn’t there, and she couldn’t have left because no door’s there anymore and the windows were latched from the inside. Other people’ve seen her too, and sometimes also a handsome young gentleman and two pretty ladies, and the three of them dressed old-fashioned, like scarecrows, like the way they say people dressed during the time of Emperor Bonaparte. Husband, Škopek, I have no mind to live here a moment longer, I don’t want to lose my marbles and customers don’t want to come here.”

  “You old bat, go and peel the potatoes or I’ll find another way to put your mind in order. What a load of rubbish! And here I thought we was living in an enlightened century. I’m no int’lect, just a workin’ man, but a social democrat I’ve always been, and I don’t believe nothin’ – well, esteemed sir, ye’d best be on your way and close the door behind ye proper so we don’t get struck by any lightnin’ bolts God bungs our way –”

  Sider stood in front of the house. All around torrents of rain cascaded down from a blackened sky, glowing sulfurously in the incessant infernal light of celestial flames. The voices of heaven roared like a hundred-strong pride of lions. But he did not hear them, did not see the lightning, did not feel the lashing of rain and hail ...

  “All is vanishing,” thundered in his mind. “All is but a phantom ... And still I have visible proof here!” Quickly he reached into his pocket, took out his billfold, leafed through it.

  The portrait was not there. He looked through it again, thoroughly – nothing! “Yet I know, as certainly as I know that there was just a crash of thunder, that I placed it in one of the compartments before I left the house! She, too, has vanished, all reality has vanished, all reason, everything ... – Away from here, from all of this – – where to, where to?”

  Deliriously he fled into the insanely gleaming, insanely roaring, insane night – where to? Where to? ...

  5

  He tramped round the globe. He lived in the high altitude regions of the Altai and the Cordillera, he lost himself in the wastelands of inner Australia, he walked across Africa. Not so much to elude the law as to flee from his ghastly love. The first he entirely succeeded in accomplishing, the second not at all ... Like Errata, he still loved Orea, with horror, and he loved his horror and abhorred his loving, and it was driving him more and more mad. His eyes no longer beheld his beloved, and unlike Errata, he was not susceptible to “hallucinations,” yet all the more profoundly did She lacerate his thoughts.

  She had complete control of his thoughts, and all his efforts to rid himself of the appalling Lady were in vain. Distractions were futile. Futile were adventures, tiger hunting, intoxication by alcohol, opium, or other women. Futile was study, futile were the desperate efforts he made through stoicism, through viewing everything from a divine perspective. Nothing could banish the Ghost, his life’s Destiny. His paradoxical life was but a vagary of Fate; he was not Its chosen one. Even when victorious, a mysterious torpidity would soon overcome him, and straightaway he would rest on his laurels, each and every one. Never to be able to capitalise on one’s victories is the most awful of fates. Everything has its time, and if that is frittered away, no use raising a corpse from the grave. A true, victorious force continues for years – through the whole of a life on its path to victory – that is the only way to conquer – the Struggle of Life. The day of Eternal Life, which was Sider’s earthly life, had been predestined for something else.

  Above all, he fought with Orea Herself. He reconciled himself to the idea that She was but a ghost, and he was even able to fall in love with Her as a ghost, – and he found it tremendously titillating. “To fear an apparition? What could be more nonsensical? – what could be more alluring, more seductive, than to love it, kiss it, share one’s nights with it?” Her visits in his dreams were at times the most delightful his life had known. Sometimes he would rave in delight for a hundred days after one such night. He was filled with a peculiar subliminal pride that he loves, that he is loved by, a transcendental being. He felt the meaning of his life lay therein. But not all the joy in the world can gratify a person permanently, one merely becomes infatuated with it. A worm lives in order to suffer –: for the eternal Coming Joy, for the Storming the Walls of Heaven.

  All of Sider’s victories later led to a steadily advancing insanity ... As it was with Errata, whom he had promised to help and, needing help himself, was unable to, despite some rather feeble attempts ... –

  “Home! To where I used to see Her!” every part of his soul cried out in the end. “Come what may! Even if I’m executed, death is opening her jaws for me anyway. Let me go mad at once, let me burn in my madness, better than slowly rotting in it! Let the End roar, whatever is to happen, let it happen right now! I am – Her! Let me go up there, where She appeared to me, let me pursue my sacred, glorious Fate!”

  This is what he told himself, and he obeyed, but only because of his irresistible compulsion, a fear of total disintegration, of helplessness, of being hemmed in – it was not the will, which spawns action. The state of his soul, the horror of the past years, were reflected in his face, which had become altered to such an extent it was almost unnecessary for him to use a disguise upon arriving in his hometown ...

  He arrived on the evening of 31 May, almost three years after having fled.

  •

  First thing the following morning, while it was still dawn, he was awoken by a furious pounding on the door of his room in the hotel where he had found temporary accommodation, not having had the courage to go to his own former apartment on the previous evening.

  He opened. Errata stormed in. Her clothing was muddy and in tatters, her haggard face grimaced wildly, Eternal Madness glared from her eyes as if they were windows.

  “Salutations!” she guffawed loudly and spat in his eyes. “So, that was the one thing I still wished to do, you wretch, and now the devil can take me! I ran away from those curs in the madhouse, they’re hard on my heels, but let them come and bark, I couldn’t care less! You villain, you’re worse than those scum! I placed all my hopes in you, but you didn’t come to save me, you lied like a dog, I knew back then that you’re a pathetic braggart, an impotent cripple, a measly phantom! Actually, you’re de facto nothing but a miserable harpist whore, or a Debrecen sausage, I’m not quite sure which of the two just yet. You only came to me, you only slapped that cur around, to bring me even more misery. Oh, the beating they gave me after that! ... At that point I truly did lose my mind; I’m still sane only to the extent that I know my sanity’s gone. You were spineless in running away, as you run from everything, that’s what I was told – by Her! But I have found you! Even though I didn’t know where you were, I went with certainty, led by instinct, like a newly hatched turtle crawling unerringly towards an ocean it does not see, like a migratory bird finding its nest box from the previous year, like a cat taken miles away in a sack – I have found you, you ankle-biter, how thin your calves are, yuck! Hee hee hee!”

  “Sit down, Errata! Let me get you some decent clothing,” he was hardly able to string a few words together, and he placed his hand on her nape.

  “Don’t touch me, you harpist!” she shrieked and punched him in the face. “You, you are the cause of my ruin and – Hers! Just so you know: back in the loony bin I told you the most exquisite lies, not a word of it true, hee hee! I had told myself: the best thing would be if I punish the scoundrel by tricking him into thinking Orea is a ghost. And he, the lunatic, really believed it! Now my best revenge will be to tell you the truth: She is a real female creature just like myself! I had known Her for years before I met you in Cortona, you dunce. She was a wealthy l
ady who stayed every year in a summerhouse on the other side of Stag’s Head. As we’re both a bit eccentric, we became friends, and we made an agreement that we would frighten superstitious fools to amuse ourselves. We cared for each other. But when a male scumbag like you gets in the way, female friendship is over. That evening in the ravine we made a pact to make you lose your marbles, seeing as you really didn’t have any. Then on that Sunday we, stupid ninnies, both fell hard for you and became jealous of each other, like cats. You twit, She didn’t vanish from me up there, we just had a catfight because of you, you wretch. She was bleeding from the lip because I had punched Her. ‘You can gobble him up for all I care, bon appétit!’ I told Her when I’d tousled Her hairdo, and then I ran down. ‘Let him have his way with Her up there, the slut,’ I said to myself, ‘so he can see what shrivelled breasts she has.’ I ran past you on purpose, as if I didn’t see you – and only once I got to the bottom did I holler: ‘A fine whore you’re clambering after!’ I later lost my mind only because I loved you just a wee bit and couldn’t find you – everything is becoming muddled – She kept crawling after me, but it wasn’t a hallucination, just lesbianism –”

  Exhausted, she slumped into a chair. “My dear Errata, you know what? Put on one of my suits, that will be the most sensible thing to do, that way they won’t recognise you, and then let’s leave this town! This time I will save you –”

  Her eyes closed, she did not answer for some time. Then she reached between her breasts and pulled out a piece of chalk. “Look,” she laughed triumphantly, “I found this for you! On the street, of all places! Things like this are rolling around outside!” and she started to draw something resembling an animal on the door. Suddenly she jerked violently. “Hah, do you hear that? They’re coming after me already, those curs! Do you hear them barking? They’re coming, they’re coming, it’s the end, the end of everything!”