Lanceheim Read online

  They looked at each other. She was older than he remembered. The fur on the side of her eyes was worn, and her gaze encompassed experience that had not known any detours.

  “You can’t give up,” she said slowly. “What you are talking about has not yet happened. It hasn’t happened. You can’t give up.”

  He nodded. His wise fox. His strong fox. She released her hold, and they continued in silence back to Mooshütter Weg. The night would soon be over, dawn was on its way, he could see it in the sky, a premonition of daylight along the horizon. He was more or less sober when they were again standing outside her entryway, across from Kleine Wallanlagen. Inside his soul it was black, empty and desolate. The panic from yesterday evening had turned into a sort of apathy.

  He would become deaf; he had three weeks’ dispensation from Margot Swan, but then it was over. Whether Drexler’s syndrome was fatal or not did not interest him; if he could not hear, he could not compose. And if he could not compose, the Chauffeurs might just as well fetch him.

  He tried to cheer himself up.

  “Thanks for a wonderful night,” he said.

  “Yes, I guess we’ve reached the age where we have to see this as one,” she replied with a smile.

  “If I can’t take it, I’ll come back this evening,” he warned.

  “You are welcome.”

  She hugged him. But when he turned around to go, she added, “Reuben, forgive me, but that door key you saved—don’t you think I should get it back?”

  He heard, but ignored her. He’d feel better if he kept it.

  WOLF DIAZ 2

  Of Maximilian’s first seven years I have very little to relate, because I know little about them. My own life took me into puberty. When I turned fifteen, I was forced for the first time to become acquainted with Mollisan Town in general and Lanceheim in particular, because Weasel, Buzzard, and I started high school. The school in our extra room was transformed into a memory. The city did not allow higher education to be conducted at home.

  Leaving the forest was thus not our own decision. On the contrary we were upset, and devoted most of summer vacation to cursing the authorities’ lack of imagination. Without a doubt all three of us were terror-stricken. The contempt with which the grown-ups in Das Vorschutz talked about the city had rubbed off on us. Evil, sin, and destructiveness were the result of the artificial life that stuffed animals lived there, and now we too would be subjected to it. It was not strange that we took turns displaying inventiveness and a certain originality as we fantasized endless variations of blowing the Ministry of Education to smithereens.

  All three of us were accepted into Lanceheim’s Normal School, which was customary for us Forest Cubs. The school was in Kerkeling Parish, a less attractive area in northeast Lanceheim, not far from Eastern Avenue, which led past the Garbage Dump and King’s Cross out to Das Vorschutz. Lanceheim’s Normal School was not one of the more sought-after educational institutions, but considering that our grades had been set by our mothers, we could not demand anything better.

  On trembling legs we showed up for roll call. I cannot keep from thinking about it with a slight blush of shame. Weasel, Buzzard, and I roved about in the dark corridors of the massive school as if someone had sewn us together. We never left each other’s side; we were constantly whispering, using language from the wretched novels for young animals we were forced to read when little: “All these stuffed animals!” “All these classrooms!” “All these sounds, streets, and houses!” For several weeks we continued to talk like that, with exclamation points: “All this stress!” “All these lessons!” “This whole city!” “All this evil, anger, joy, and desire!”

  And personally, for me more than for Weasel and Buzzard, “All these beautiful, seductive females!”

  The presence of so many new stuffed animals of the opposite gender set my emotional life swinging so that for several years I would walk around in a constant fog, slightly seasick. The opportunities were too many, the longing too great. On an ordinary day I would fall headlong in love with at least one, but more often two, of my classmates, one of my fellow travelers on the bus, or one of all the beauties that I met on Lanceheim’s streets and squares. In the evenings I was as exhausted as an empty banana peel, and I had a hard time keeping up with my studies.

  I did not devote many thoughts to the strange Maximilian during this period, despite the fact that in secret he executed a magic trick of the greatest distinction.

  He got bigger.

  Eva Whippoorwill did her best to conceal this disturbing fact, but nonetheless we could all see it. The little bundle that Sven Beaver had found in the forest was not so little anymore. If Maximilian had been tall as a table leg to start with, after seven years he was twice as tall. And as he grew, he changed appearance. This did not happen overnight; it was a subtle, drawn-out process, and among the stuffed animals of the forest, amazement at the phenomenon decreased and increased like ebb and flow. At times there was much talk about the matter, on other occasions less, but one thing stayed the same: we talked only with each other. No one outside Das Vorschutz knew anything about Maximilian; we had the feeling that no good would come of that.

  Eva Whippoorwill did her best to protect her son from curious gazes. It was not the case that she hid him—she was far too intelligent for that. On the contrary, this would have led to even more gossip. But she participated sparingly in social gatherings, and she let Maximilian go his own way.

  As I have already admitted, I was absorbed in my own emotional life and was far from being as attentive as I should have been. My attitude was like everyone else’s: when Maximilian came up in conversation, I experienced a certain discomfort. I did not think the peculiarities that surrounded him were either exciting or interesting. We were already sufficiently vulnerable as it was in Das Vorschutz.

  This meant that if Eva Whippoorwill took care to keep her adopted son to herself, we would do our best to avoid him.

  I do not recall the reason that I took Maximilian along on a walk. It was not uncommon that I walked by myself in the forest. I had just turned seventeen and was filled with existential torments due to the endless series of more or less unhappy love affairs that fate—as I called Magnus at that time—had thrown in my path. The forest had always been my refuge; its heavy gloom and tender melancholy suited me fine. On this day someone asked me to take Maximilian along.

  True, I was irritated—I specifically remember that—but the irritation quickly went away. The cub was still only seven years old; he had a serious, taciturn disposition, and thus did not disturb my equally lovesick and profound trains of thought.

  We took the road toward Heimat, but turned off to the east before we came up to the lake. The air was clear after the Afternoon Rain, and Mother had forced both me and Maximilian to put on clothes that withstood the cool breeze. I recall that we were told that we should be gone for a full hour, but what sort of preparations set this time frame I do not remember. However it was, I went ahead, deeply submerged in brooding. My love on that occasion was named Sarah, and she let me taste her beautiful ears but then pushed aside my paw when it glided down across her cheek.

  Maximilian followed a few meters behind. Like me, he was the son of a forest guard and therefore naturally knowledgeable about the forest. He moved lithely; he walked silently and expertly. Deeper and deeper into the pine forest we penetrated, on paths that our fathers’ predecessors had trod. And because this Sarah was at that point the most beautiful but also the most standoffish stuffed animal I had ever met, I do not know how long Maximilian and I trod on eastward.

  A sound, so terrible that I myself let out a cry, caused me to waken abruptly out of my musings.

  Ten or so meters ahead, to the right of the path, was a wounded stuffed animal, a badger, and he was whimpering as though he had already landed in hell. His entire body was torn, and in some places the tears were so large that I could see the cotton inside, despite the fact that I was standing some distance away. He ha
d heard us coming, and his whimpering was in reality a cry for help.

  I stopped where I was and simply stared. I was young and inexperienced, and what I felt was fear. My impulse was to turn around and run away. I am being brutally frank, but that is the least you have the right to expect of me. I was simply scared to death.

  As I stood there, considering this cowardly retreat, Maximilian forced his way past me on the narrow path and hurried over to the badger. I was astounded to say the least, because I had managed to forget that Maximilian was even there.

  Before I could say or do anything, he turned around and said, “Water. The badger must have water.”

  Then I heard. The moanings that the dirty, torn stuffed animal was forcing out were unhesitating variations on this very word: “Water.”

  In Maximilian’s eyes was a force I had never seen before, and that made me even more confused.

  I looked around. How far had we really gone? The forest around us consisted mostly of fir trees, and it was difficult to glimpse the sky between the dense treetops. To my surprise I realized that the sun had already started to go down, which meant that we must have wandered for more than two hours due east. There was no water here.

  I shook my head.

  “There’s no water here,” I replied stupidly. “What’s happened to him?”

  I asked as if Maximilian were an interpreter between me and the badger. Maximilian did not seem to have heard what I said.

  “He needs water,” he repeated. “Help out.”

  Maximilian went over to the badger, taking one of his arms and putting it around his own neck. I hurried over and did the same thing, on the other side. The badger was hanging between us as if we intended to dry him in the wind.

  “That way,” said Maximilian.

  Afterward I wondered why I didn’t react, why I didn’t refuse. It would have been natural, I knew the forests better than Maximilian—there was no water in the direction in which he wanted to go. But I kept silent and, without asking, did as I had been told.

  We walked quickly, with the badger between us. He was no longer mumbling; he had used the little strength he had, and I doubted that he was even conscious. The fear had not released its hold on me, and perhaps that was why I simply continued to walk. I had no idea where we were going.

  No one knows how far east the mountain range that we call Pal extends. No one has gone to its end and come back again. What is no more than a hill within Lanceheim becomes a ridge at the city limits and first forms what might be called a small mountain a few hundred meters south of Das Vorschutz. Twenty or thirty kilometers into the forest, the mountain rises so high that it takes a whole day of climbing to make it over to the other side.

  Together Maximilian and I hauled the badger straight toward the mountain. My mental recollection was that the cliffs at the pine forest rose both abruptly and steeply, but because Maximilian seemed so single-minded, I thought perhaps there was a crevice, a ravine that I did not know about. And what if there was also a mountain spring, a natural well that I had not heard about? We were walking at a rapid pace. The badger hanging between us rattled unpleasantly when he breathed, and even worse, this rattling was coming at longer and longer intervals.

  Soon I saw the cliffs. And just as I thought, the mountain rose like a wall before us. It was impossible to climb. Despite the fact that Maximilian must have seen this too, he did not slow his pace. On the contrary, he seemed to walk a little faster, as if now he was in the vicinity of where he wanted to go.

  “Shut your eyes,” he said.

  We were walking quickly alongside each other. I was starting to get a little tired; I have never been an athlete. I tried to protest.

  “Shut your eyes,” he repeated, still without reducing speed.

  Once again I did as he asked me. He was seven years old, I was seventeen, and I obeyed him. Soon this would prove to be the least remarkable thing about this late afternoon.

  I closed my eyes. When I could no longer see, my other senses were sharpened. I felt the weight of the badger’s arm around my neck much more clearly, heard the pine needles that crunched under my shoes, the wind that whispered in the branches of the trees, and felt the gentle breeze against my whiskers.

  Then it suddenly got cold. First around my face, then around my whole body. It was a very tangible, physical experience, and involuntarily I opened my eyes. This happened at approximately the same time as the sounds of the forest abruptly disappeared, as if someone had hastily turned nature’s volume control down to zero.

  The shock was…I cannot describe it.

  I stopped, blinked, my jaw dropped, and I was not capable of intellectually comprehending what was obviously a fact.

  We were inside the mountain.

  Before me was a type of deep, high grotto where a brook was purling by our shoes. From above, daylight forced its way in as finely sliced sunbeams through what must be cracks in the stone. Maximilian hauled the badger down to the water vein while I remained standing.

  I closed my eyes, opened them again—nothing was changed. I turned around. There was no opening, no entrance, only thousands-year-old rock. And deep inside I knew what had happened without daring to admit it.

  The badger, Maximilian, and I had passed through the ancient, solid rock as if it had been air. Our molecules had been dissolved and put together again during the course of a few seconds. Or else it was the mountain that dissolved before us. That didn’t matter. What had happened was impossible, yet I was standing there.

  The badger lay on the floor of the grotto and drank directly from the clear mountain brook. Maximilian sat alongside, holding him by the shoulders. I observed them a while without seeing them, and then turned around again and searched for the opening in the rock.

  I knew there wasn’t one, but I was still compelled to look.

  And the impossible would happen again, when we left the grotto after an hour. By then, the badger had recovered to the point that he could walk by himself. Maximilian asked us to hold his paws, and after that he told us to close our eyes. We did so.

  This time the chill that embraced me for a few, to be truthful, unpleasant moments was even more ghastly, and the relief when I again felt the breeze against my ears was enormous. I did not dare look at either the badger or Maximilian when I withdrew my paw and continued walking.

  We returned to Das Vorschutz; it took a little more than an hour, and I went directly home and up to my room. I did not want to see or talk with anyone. Obviously I did not say what I had been involved in, for the reason that my reader will very well understand. Who would believe me?

  I never did find out who the badger was and what he was doing out in the forest, but the wound on his body was due to an encounter with a forest animal, a fox.

  I myself had witnessed a miracle.

  REUBEN WALRUS 3

  It was a matter of taking a deep breath, making yourself invulnerable, throwing open the doors to the large hall, and exceeding expectations. Be brilliant, humble, and empathic. Be eccentric, stately, and tragic.

  At the same moment that Reuben Walrus heard the murmur, perceived the aromas, and saw the glow from the massive chandeliers, he regretted that he had let Denise Ant convince him. He took a firmer hold of one of her arms, as though he were clinging tight with his small fins, and she smiled encouragingly.

  Denise Ant loved Reuben Walrus when he was miserable.

  Every year Reuben led a course in free composition for the graduating class at the Music Academy. He maintained that it kept him young to meet, and be challenged by, the coming generations. In the office, the refined hens gossiped that he used his position to pursue young females at the school.

  Denise Ant had been one of his pupils, the most critical of him in her class, and also the most yearning. So as not to feed the gossip, Reuben had been careful to avoid Denise the whole semester, and he only phoned her six months after she had finished at the school. They met at a gloomy pizzeria that smelled of old oregano, loca
ted a stone’s throw from Denise’s apartment in Amberville. At the restaurant she gave him a good dressing-down. First she scolded him for not calling her. Then she scolded him because he had called her, thereby exploiting his position as her former teacher and model.

  He had ordered a pizza with mushrooms and onions; she had chosen a vegetarian combo. When the food arrived, Reuben ate in silence while Denise dissected one of his symphonies and, stanza by stanza, showed where he had stolen the various sections. Over coffee it was his lack of talent as a lecturer that she tackled. He longed for the check and to be able to leave this angry ant to herself, but when he finally got up, she asked if he wouldn’t like to accompany her home. In pure astonishment he answered yes, and then they cuddled the whole night.

  Denise Ant did not move in with Reuben. She refused to give up her life, refused to give up her apartment, her pride, and identity. Reuben was careful not to agree too quickly; a single thoughtless nod might very well cause her to move in on Knobeldorfstrasse the same day.

  She appeared indifferent to the outside world’s contemptuous looks, which suggested that she was only one in a series of Reuben Walrus’s young lovers. She was unruly but reasonably predictable in her fierce defiance, and she had an energy that he found irresistible. He missed her on those days that they didn’t see each other, but got enough of her after only a few hours when they finally met. Hundreds of times he rehearsed in his imagination the quarrel that would finally put an end to the relationship, and just as many times he refrained from saying the words out loud.

  He assumed that she was just as divided as he was.

  And with that, the first year was added to the second, and Reuben and Denise remained a couple.

  They were standing at the top of the stairs in the entranceway of the music hall, and heads were turned in their direction from everywhere in the murmuring room. Reuben could see some he knew well, others he knew vaguely, and some he had never seen before; thirty-some stuffed animals who were sipping colorful drinks and who all felt they had a special, close relationship with him.