Lanceheim Read online

  “Now, Daddy,” said Josephine.

  When she started playing, he strived to connect with her. He listened carefully to her youthful eagerness, her unfeeling clomping in the corridors of musicality, her practiced phrasing, and he tried for the life of him to think of something to say. He could not be too hard, but he wanted to be fair, he had to remain loving but still professional. And exactly like everything else that had to do with fatherhood, the moment became a task, and he himself was transformed from a stuffed animal of cloth and blood to a cliché.

  Josephine stopped playing, lowered the instrument, and looked at him with ingenuous eyes. It was a look he defended himself against, because it hurt to encounter it. There was only hope and love, no dissimulation and no reservation.

  “Yes, dear,” he began, “that was not bad at all.”

  “You didn’t think it was bad?” she repeated.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you like it? I’ve been practicing especially on the change to minor. Was it better now? I was thinking that I could play it on Monday. What do you think?”

  “It’s going to go fine,” he said. “It’s clear that it will go fine. And the change to minor…just take that as carefully as you possibly can.”

  “I’ll do that, Daddy,” she said, and she was radiant. “So you think I can manage it?”

  What could he answer? He was her father; there was only one answer to give.

  “I’m sure it will all work out.”

  “Oh, Daddy,” she said, spontaneously giving him a big hug.

  He felt lousy.

  Back in the studio with the string quartet, Reuben Walrus was drained of energy. Josephine had left, but she left behind the love he could never accept, and he needed energy to repress this miserable performance. The frustration over the unfinished symphony was festering as he listened, yet another time, to the cello.

  Then he realized that the moment had passed, that the string quartet inside the studio on the other side of the glass window was in the midst of one of the final passages. He rose, surprised, from the chair, saw that Sripen gave a start and the violist on the other side stopped playing.

  “Was there…something wrong?” asked Sripen.

  The three other musicians had also set down their instruments, and looked at him uneasily.

  “I…was thinking about something…,” he stammered, “there…was nothing wrong. Not wrong at all.”

  He continued to shake his head; he had a hard time collecting his thoughts, and realized with astonishment that all the expectations being directed at him at this moment did not concern him in the least.

  “I…have to leave to go to a…,” he said. “I have a meeting that…but I suggest that you play through the piece from beginning to end one more time, and if Sripen could record…then I’ll listen to it this evening.”

  He held out his fins, realizing how he had disappointed them. Without waiting to reconsider, he was already on his way to the door.

  “Sripen…I’ll call,” he mumbled over his shoulder.

  He was out in the corridor before the dragon had time to answer, and he walked as quickly as he could without running.

  There is always a female, thought Philip Mouse laconically. Life functions approximately as it was once intended, after a long day comes a long night, the bad animals are more numerous than the good, and whiskey tastes better without ice. Then comes the female—in Mouse’s case a luscious puma who knew how to moisten her whiskers and put force behind her uppercut—and everything turns to chaos.

  Philip pushed his hat up on his head and stroked his chin thoughtfully. It was still tender after the puma’s stern reprimand the night before.

  Why couldn’t he stop thinking about her? Wasn’t she simply yet another in a long series of females?

  He got the ace of spades, but didn’t know where he should place it.

  Through the door’s frosted glass pane Philip Mouse could see the contour of Daisy’s backside as she bent over looking for something in the cabinet next to the desk. Her behind was as big as a beach ball, today draped in a tight red skirt. It would burst if she bent over a few more centimeters.

  Philip Mouse sighed involuntarily.

  He was sitting in the office beyond Daisy’s. He had his shoes on the table and was leaning back in the worn black swivel armchair. The wooden shades in the windows out toward the street were half pulled down, and the room was in a striking semi-darkness. On the ceiling above the desk an old fan revolved slowly, acquired in an antique store not far from North Avenue. Over the back of his chair Philip had hung his wrinkled jacket, and over the jacket hung his empty holster. The pistol was in the middle of the mess on the desk, a .22-caliber automatic weapon he had bought from a rabbit at the Garbage Dump. It was impossible to trace.

  The conspicuous disorder of the office was false evidence of work. During the morning, Philip had tried to play a new game of solitaire, but still after a few hours he did not understand how it was supposed to work out. As usual he wondered fleetingly how Daisy could keep herself occupied. He had not paid her in over six months, and therefore he assumed that she had found a side job to devote herself to. He did not intend to ask. It was beneath his dignity. Philip Mouse was one of Mollisan Town’s few private detectives, and he intended to act like one. There was a code of honor.

  Daisy found what she was looking for and sat down again behind her desk. She sat so that Philip could not see her through the glass in the door. In the inside pocket of the jacket he found a lumpy pack of cigarettes. He took one out, tore off the filter, and lit it with an old gasoline lighter he had inherited from his father.

  Jack of clubs. He put it in the pile to the left.

  She would probably call this evening, the puma. They usually called. Reflexively he grazed his chin again. A hot temperament, he thought, smiling to himself. It boded well.

  When there was a knock on the door to private detective Philip Mouse’s office, the weather was just before lunchtime. Daisy had already taken hers out. She set it on the desk, opened the lid, and with a fork in her hoof started eating directly from the box. Same food every day, saffron-scented couscous with broccoli and ham.

  Philip had ten cards left in his hand, and had just decided that this was the last round; then he too would have lunch. He usually had a cup of black coffee and smoked a few cigarettes in the shadow of Zeke’s sidewalk café while he read the sports page. The Yok Giants were Philip’s team; most likely they would have another miserable season.

  There was a second knock. With the fork in her hand, Daisy went and opened the door. Philip hardly looked up from the piles of cards. Nine times out of ten the knocking meant that the landlord wanted to let them know about a power outage or elevator repairs. Sometimes he spoke threateningly about the rent.

  “We don’t want any,” Daisy’s determined voice was heard.

  “I…I’m looking for Philip Mouse,” replied a dark voice from out in the corridor.

  Philip’s office was the only one on the third floor; the remaining doors led to ordinary apartments.

  “Is it about the car?” asked Daisy. “I called last week to say that there must have been a mistake at the bank. The money went from here the—”

  By the fact that Daisy fell silent Philip understood that it was not someone who was sent to repossess the car.

  “I…I have a little problem that I would like help with,” said the dark voice.

  A few moments of silence followed, until Daisy realized that this actually was a client standing out in the hall.

  “Absolutely,” she said with a spark of recognition. “Problems exist to be solved.”

  And with a generous gesture she invited in Reuben Walrus.

  Walrus nodded, preoccupied, and stepped into the office. He looked around. The room was empty. There was an odor of saffron. Without performing the scene that Mouse preferred that Daisy would play—she should ask the client to sit down a few minutes on the hard Windsor chair at th
e side of the door—she went right into his office.

  “Here you go,” she said to Reuben with a hint of sarcasm. “Philip Mouse, private detective.”

  Philip adjusted his hat and got up. Across the threshold came a walrus that he knew he recognized, but whom he could not immediately place. Due to the mustaches, walruses looked old even when they were young, and it was easy to be mistaken.

  “It’s a female,” said Philip Mouse.

  With a gesture he invited the walrus to take a seat in the chair in front of the desk, at the same time as he himself sat down again.

  “It’s always a female,” he added.

  Reuben concealed his smile, but sat obediently.

  “No, not today,” he replied, so as not to embarrass the mouse.

  “If she isn’t the question, she’s the answer,” said Philip.

  “Mm?”

  “Tell me why you’ve come to see me, Mr. Walrus,” said Philip Mouse, taking a chance that Walrus was his surname and not his first name.

  “Yes, well,” replied Reuben uncertainly, thinking that this was going too fast; it lacked any sort of introduction. “Well, I don’t know…do you know about Maximilian?”

  Philip thought. This rang no bells. On the other hand, he remembered who the walrus was. Even if Philip Mouse did not listen to classical music, it was interesting that someone like Walrus sought out a private detective. Famous stuffed animals were usually afraid of such things. But when they did…they had very good reasons.

  “Maximilian? Is this a composer colleague?”

  “Ahem, no. Maximilian is…yes, to tell the truth, I don’t really know what he is. That is, what kind of animal he is…yes, perhaps I should say that I don’t even know if he exists. At all. Perhaps this sounds strange, but—”

  “Only the normal appears strange,” said Philip Mouse, letting his hat sink toward his eyebrows. “And why are you looking for…Maximilian?”

  “Yes…,” said Reuben hesitantly, “I don’t know if that really affects the matter. Or…I am certain that it has no significance—”

  “Before we get to the more specific details,” interrupted Philip Mouse, “perhaps we should talk about the essentials? You’ve sought me out because you want me to find Maximilian?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” said Reuben.

  “Good. I get five thousand a week, plus expenses. And as expenses I count all costs I consider necessary to solve…to find the animal in question.”

  “Per week?”

  “Five thousand a week,” answered Philip Mouse, who had a policy of never negotiating on the price. “Obviously I deduct for weeks with official holidays, and it can happen that in stubborn investigations, where the only talent required is patience, I’m prepared to discuss various types of discounts, but taken as a whole then—”

  “No,” interrupted Reuben, “it’s not the price. I…I don’t have weeks. Either I get hold of Maximilian now, or else it doesn’t matter.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  Philip nodded in corroboration and poked a cigarette out of the crumpled pack. He lit it and blew the smoke at the ceiling.

  “And how soon is ‘now’?” he asked.

  Reuben shrugged his shoulders. “A few days.”

  Philip Mouse considered this. He seldom had anything against assignments that dragged out in time. During longer periods of inactivity, which could affect even the best, he unwillingly even took on cases of adultery. This was a matter of pursuing married men and wives to uncover their extramarital relationships. The advantage of this type of work was that deep down the employer did not want to unmask his beloved other. Therefore weeks were added to weeks, sometimes months, before sufficiently incontrovertible evidence could be presented, all while the meter was running.

  An assignment of a few days was something quite different.

  “I’ll pay…,” said Reuben, considering what he thought was reasonable, “five thousand for three days. If you think you can find him.”

  “There are no leads?”

  “I can give you the names of stuffed animals who have told me about him,” said Reuben. “As long as you don’t say that it was me who gave you their names.”

  “And more than that?”

  Reuben thought. “Nothing else.”

  “That’s good,” said Mouse. “It’s a challenge, like life itself. I’ll take the assignment.”

  He got up and held out his paw across the table. Reuben also got up, astonished at the conversation’s unexpected development, and tried to reach Mouse with his short fin. He didn’t succeed completely, and they both smiled apologetically at the mishap.

  “It’s a deal then,” said Reuben.

  “Three days. You can give the names to my secretary, then I’ll get started this afternoon. And, Mr. Walrus, I always work against an advance. In this case I think that half the total amount is reasonable. Daisy will take care of that detail too.”

  “Unfortunately I don’t have that much cash on me,” said the surprised Reuben Walrus.

  “We take credit cards.”

  “I don’t have a credit card on me either.”

  “How much do you have on you?”

  Reuben took out his wallet from his inside pocket and looked. He had six hundreds and two fifties.

  “Good,” said Mouse. “The advance is set at seven hundred. You’ll get a receipt from Daisy.”

  And with that Reuben left Philip Mouse’s office.

  The gentle breeze had just picked up when Reuben Walrus came out onto baby blue Knaackstrasse again. He began slowly walking toward mint green Eastern Avenue, and could ascertain that the buzz in his ear was a reality. The sun beat down from the blue sky, and the streets were again empty after the lunch hour. He saw a pedestrian or two, but in these anonymous blocks in south Lanceheim there were seldom animals on the street.

  After lunch with Tortoise yesterday and the subsequent afternoon rehearsals, Reuben had devoted the evening to looking for Maximilian. He had called a usually well-informed journalist that he knew, and he had called the deacon in his own parish in Lanceheim. Neither of them had anything to relate, and both dismissed the Maximilian phenomenon as superstition.

  During the night the buzz in his ears had returned. Reuben seemed to notice signs of worsening all the time, but in the darkness it was difficult to be strong. When the buzzing returned this morning, he called Margot Swan, who confirmed that the course of Drexler’s syndrome might very well include buzzing.

  It was then that he decided to hire a private detective.

  He came down on Eastern Avenue and walked under the great oaks in the avenue that separated the western and eastern traffic.

  It was pathetic, he thought.

  Hiring a private detective who was obviously not reliable. Asking him to hunt out a ghost character who probably did not exist, with the intention of then convincing this ghost to perform a miracle that defied all medical expertise.

  I don’t even believe in Magnus, thought Reuben Walrus.

  At least I didn’t.

  A taxi came by going in the right direction, and Reuben took a few steps out into the street and waved the car to the curb.

  Fox would laugh some sense into me, he thought gloomily as he sat in the backseat and gave the address. I should tell her, hear how it sounded out loud, and then she would laugh and bring me back to reality.

  When the car drove away, Reuben’s gaze settled unintentionally on a character standing under one of the oaks in the middle of the avenue. He did not see him long enough to recognize him, but long enough to know that this particular animal, with his stiff posture and purple beak, had just been in the Radio Building.

  Was he being followed?

  But in the following moment the thought went away, as so many thoughts do.

  WOLF DIAZ 5

  Let me tell you about Adam Chaffinch.

  Adam Chaffinch grew up in Kerkeling Parish in east Lanceheim. From an early age his individuality was ap
parent, and this was not simply part of his desire to be different. In school he hardly distinguished himself—he was blandly average, one of those no one remembered later. Nor was there a clear-cut role for him at home. Adam was the second to youngest cub in a group of four siblings. His father was absent for the most part, and when he did join them for meals he was absorbed in himself and seldom said a word. While he was growing up, Adam knew neither what kind of work his father did nor where he spent his time, and when he no longer showed up for dinner one day, they realized that the Chauffeurs had taken him. Adam was then fourteen years old.

  Adam Chaffinch’s mother was an industrious gnu who worked for a cleaning service that specialized in the offices in the skyscrapers of Tourquai. She left early each morning, before anyone else in the family had awakened, and returned home with food for dinner, which she prepared as soon as she came inside the door. After doing the dishes—she refused to let the cubs do dishes because the china was her only inheritance—she remained dutifully awake and listened to the cubs, who drowned each other out telling her what they had done or not done during the day, but Adam seldom got a word out before his mother raised her hand, silenced her group of cubs, and went to bed.

  Adam Chaffinch therefore created his identity outside the home. From an early age he had the power of attraction; he was an animal that other animals wanted to be with. This did not mean that he was inventive or charming; he had neither money nor looks. Yet his classmates were drawn to him. With his intuitive, serious manner, he made them feel chosen and important.

  Adam Chaffinch never showed off. On the contrary, part of his attractiveness was his unflinching integrity. If anything, he might seem blunt. When he expressed an opinion, he always did it definitely, even aggressively. He did not suck up to anyone. He was most often dressed in a wrinkled brown jacket and a white shirt that would never stay in place inside his belt. His short beak was seldom polished, he held his gray-speckled head bowed forward, and his intense way of speaking was in such sharp contrast to his physical image that it was almost comical. And whether he was sitting in discussion groups talking modern philosophy or jogging on the outdoor track, he remained himself.