Lanceheim Read online

  Slowly Reuben and Denise began to go down the stairs. A whisper passed through the assembly, an empathic silence spread. It was unbearable. How had it happened? Who had leaked it? Someone at the hospital laboratory, perhaps? The secretary outside Dr. Swan’s office? It was of no importance. Yesterday he had received his sentence, today he was hung over, and everyone seemed to know what had happened. Flowers had been delivered to Knobeldorfstrasse all morning. As of now, he was the tragic genius, whose career and life were over.

  When he and the ant reached the bottom step, the guests had grouped themselves along the sides and in this way left the field open for the host of the evening. Jack Elephant could greet the late-arriving guests in solitary majesty.

  “Reuben,” the elephant rumbled, “that you manage, that you show up, it’s incomparable!”

  “Incomparable,” agreed Reuben.

  “And Denise Ant,” continued Jack, “more beautiful than ever!”

  Denise clicked her tongue lightly, as she always did when something irritated her, but the smile she had put on remained unmoved.

  They exchanged a few more words with Jack, but moved in toward the hall and ended up beside Vincent Tortoise, the head of the Ministry of Culture.

  “Reuben,” said Vincent in a voice vibrating with compassion, “I heard about what happened.”

  “Anything else would have shocked me,” mumbled Walrus.

  “This is not a topic of conversation for an evening like this,” said Vincent, and Reuben felt deep gratitude toward the politician, who continued, “I’ll be in touch during the week, so we can talk a little, the two of us?”

  Reuben nodded, and Vincent Tortoise was swallowed up by the crowd of animals, who closed ranks and turned up the volume. Walrus snatched a glass of champagne that was being carried past on a large tray, forcing himself to smile politely and listen to the complaints from Countess Dahl. She let all her chins quiver with annoyance as she recounted the ignominy she was subjected to when her chauffeur for the evening proved to be a snake.

  Reuben nodded to the right and nodded to the left, feeling like all eyes were on him as he elbowed his way up toward the high windows where his ant had taken her station.

  “We never should have come here,” he whispered. “Everyone knows! Everyone. How is it possible?”

  But before Denise had time to reply, they were attacked by another wave of admirers or backbiters, it was impossible to decide which; everyone smiled equally ingratiatingly and tenderly, anxious to express their dismay and concern.

  Jack Elephant had become a widower two years earlier, and these musical soirées were expensive pretexts to avoid spending evenings alone. Jack had been president of the Music Academy for many years, and Reuben Walrus did not dare say no to his invitations; he was not an enemy that Walrus could allow himself.

  On his way through the elephant’s sparsely furnished drawing room toward the grandiose dining room, Reuben walked close beside Denise. He had told her about Drexler’s syndrome that morning over a cup of coffee—which did not relieve his headache—at Gino’s. She was livid. How did he dare? To subject her to this? And when it was clear to her how little he knew about the disease, how he had only accepted the doctor’s diagnosis, she promptly got up from the table and left. After the rehearsals in the afternoon, they had met at his place, and then she refused to talk about the matter.

  In some absurd manner this denial was pleasant; an angry look was preferable to a pitying one. Walrus refused to let himself be reduced to a victim, a poor thing. The sentence he had received was unmerciful, anxiety tore at his heart, but he still lived—and heard.

  He walked a half step behind Denise, breathing in the aroma of her perfume, the smell of cloth surrounding her hard-packed body, and for a few seconds he closed his eyes and tried to feel happy about getting to be so close.

  In honor of the evening, Jack Elephant had placed Reuben Walrus at the short end of the table. He sat between a pianist he knew but whose name he could never remember, and a vivid green dog with red eyes from Amberville who lisped when she talked and introduced herself as Annette Afghan. The pianist was dressed in a tight-fitting black dress, which helped Reuben to recall her as a boring, honest, and ambitious stuffed animal. The dog was wearing something lownecked with ruffles.

  Denise Ant was sitting far away, between a duck that Reuben did not know and Tom Whitefish, music director at Radio Mollisan Town, who many considered to be the real power in the city’s musical life.

  “Oh, so unexpected,” said Afghan as Reuben pulled out her chair and they sat down for dinner, “getting to sit next to a real TV star.”

  “TV star?” said Reuben with a self-conscious smile. “I don’t know if I—”

  “Do tell,” continued the Afghan, “how you can read the news and look right into the camera at the same time? I stumble even when I read silently from a book.”

  “But I don’t read the news on TV,” Reuben answered with surprise.

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “But…I was sure that…,” stammered the clearly disappointed and shamefaced dog. “Excuse me, but I know that I recognize you from TV. Or somewhere.”

  Reuben told who he was, the Afghan laughed with embarrassment and maintained that of course she knew about him and his work just like everyone else, that she had heard several of his…songs…and that she had only made a mistake because she felt a little tipsy from the champagne. Reuben smiled amiably and asked what kind of work she did.

  “I work with stuffed animals,” she said, suddenly serious, and nodded her sweet head. “There are so many that are doing poorly these days, you know? So many who need someone to talk to. You have to believe in something, you know? There are so many who don’t believe in anything.”

  “And you yourself believe?” asked Reuben amiably.

  The appetizers were served. Walrus saw from the corner of his eye how Denise was laughing at something Whitefish said, and he turned again toward Annette Afghan. The atmosphere was already lively around the table. The cook had blended mild mold-ripened cheese into the ground steak tartare, and white wine was being poured into the glasses.

  “You have to believe,” answered Annette Afghan. “I believe in my inner power, and how I can develop it. Magnus is in all of us, you know? In you too.”

  She riveted her eyes on him, as if what she said was a reprimand.

  “Shall we see if Jack’s white wine is just as good as the red usually is?” Reuben asked, raising his glass to his nose.

  Afghan ignored his attempt to change the subject.

  “Do you know,” she asked, letting him sip the wine alone, “how many there are who come into the store and ask for rainbow stones? Every day?”

  This Reuben did not know. He had not even heard of rainbow stones.

  “It’s not one or two,” Afghan answered her own question. “It’s considerably more. And shall I tell you what they really want? They want to believe. You know? But Magnus is already in them, it’s a matter of discovering him. Or her,” added the Afghan, blushing.

  Reuben took a piece of steak tartare on his fork. It was going to be a very long dinner, he thought unhappily. The Afghan was making sure to completely monopolize him, and he almost longed for the boring pianist on the other side.

  “If Magnus lives in you,” Reuben interrupted at last, “then we can be sure in any event that he’s a good listener.”

  Despite Annette Afghan, it was still the pianist who, right before dessert, disrupted the evening. At that point Reuben had still not given her more than friendly smiles. It was only when Annette Afghan got up to look for the restroom that he got a chance for courtesy. The pianist did not lose the opportunity.

  “It’s so terrible,” she said. “You must excuse me, but I don’t know what I should say.”

  Reuben had consumed a number of glasses of Jack Elephant’s excellent white wine and then a few glasses of the red, but was still relatively sober.

  �
�Say about what?” he asked.

  “About…about…,” stammered the pianist, “about…the tragedy that has struck you. That has struck us all, indirectly. It’s…terrible.”

  With the babbling Afghan Reuben had temporarily forgotten his anxiety, Drexler’s syndrome, and the fate that awaited him. He had partaken of the garlic gratin and the breaded flounder. Like an executioner’s ax, melancholy now fell over him.

  “Hmm,” he replied.

  “We have worked together many times,” the pianist continued, “and I know what hearing means to you. I mean…for you in particular. Oh, I don’t know…however I put it…it sounds so stupid…I…I don’t know what I should say.”

  In all honesty, Reuben Walrus didn’t know either, and therefore it felt like a gift from above that Annette Afghan returned at the same moment. Reuben had an excuse to get up, pull out the Afghan’s chair, and thereby puncture the unpleasant moment. But the pianist was not prepared to let go. She leaned past Reuben, drawing Annette into the conversation.

  “We were just talking about the Tragedy,” she explained, nodding at Reuben as if the walrus were not present.

  “The tragedy?”

  “About Reuben’s illness,” she explained. “Mollisan Town is grieving one of its greatest composers of all time.”

  Annette Afghan turned with an uncomprehending look toward Reuben, who was absentmindedly pulling on his mustache. The pianist was more than willing to tell.

  “But that’s just terrible,” exclaimed Annette Afghan when the pianist was done.

  “The worst is that he won’t be able to compose anymore,” the pianist maintained.

  “But isn’t there anything you can do?” asked Annette. “Aren’t there any medications, any…treatments?”

  “Nothing,” said the pianist, shaking her head ominously.

  “But…this is just terrible!”

  “He got the diagnosis just a few days ago,” the pianist explained, and added in a lower voice, “I don’t know if he’s understood it yet.”

  “He has to go see Maximilian,” said Annette Afghan.

  And she turned directly to Reuben, who had followed the conversation with distress without getting into it. Annette looked him sternly in the eyes.

  “You have to go see Maximilian.”

  Denise Ant wanted to dance before they went home, and Reuben Walrus sat in Jack’s library with a large glass of cognac and waited. He despised dancing and had never—besides the waltz at his own wedding—done it. He sat down on one of the elegantly worn leather armchairs and was immediately joined by first one animal and then another who wanted to complain and dramatize. It was as if they were talking about someone else, and soon Walrus also felt anguish: what this city was about to lose! Cigars were smoked and there was the smell of leather, and on the whole Reuben thought that the role of poor wretch could also have its special pleasure.

  It was not until his third glass of cognac that the pianist from dinner sat down in the armchair beside him, and conspiratorially leaned forward to address him in a low voice.

  “Do you know about Maximilian?” she asked, getting right to the point. “Maximilian that Afghan mentioned?”

  Reuben smiled in collusion. The alcohol had lightened his heart a little.

  “Afghan won on fatigue,” he replied. “And dinner was a pleasure. But you cannot forgive her ecumenicism. And this…Maximilian…is no one that I—”

  “She was right,” interrupted the pianist.

  Reuben looked at her with surprise. Even if he did not remember her name, he knew that she was a talent, a serious musician with a solid reputation.

  “What do you know about Maximilian?” she asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing, really,” he answered truthfully. “It’s clear that I know about the phenomenon, but I’ve never believed that—”

  “I’ve heard a story,” the pianist began, but corrected herself. “I have heard many stories, but I’m thinking about the story about the giraffe in particular. He is still living. I think his name is Heine and he lives down in Yok. The giraffe was sick. Fatally sick. If I’ve understood the matter right, it was cancer of the throat, and metastases down in the stomach. It was a matter of weeks, perhaps days, before the Chauffeurs would come and fetch him. When he was walking around in the neighborhood where he lived, he seemed to often see a red pickup driving by. Because he was in so much pain, it would in a way also be a release.

  “One day, wandering aimlessly on the street—he wasn’t eating anymore, could only drink because the cancer had almost entirely corked up his throat—the Miracle happened. Down from the sky came an animal who did not look like any stuffed animal. I know that you think it sounds ridiculous, Mr. Walrus—I thought so too when I heard it the first time. But since I have heard the same type of story from so many places, with such similar variations, at last I was forced to believe in it. If it was down from the sky or up out of the ground I don’t know; the important thing is that this animal, Maximilian, came out of nowhere.”

  “What do you mean, he doesn’t look like a stuffed animal?” asked Reuben.

  “Exactly that. I don’t know how to explain it, because I haven’t really understood it myself. He lacks a category, he is simply…Maximilian,” the pianist answered, shaking her head lightly.

  “Back to the giraffe,” prodded Reuben, who was curious to know how the story would continue.

  “The giraffe was out on the street, and suddenly Maximilian was standing in front of him,” said the pianist. “He knew it was Maximilian, because Maximilian introduced himself. What the exact words were, I don’t know. Some say one thing, some say another. It seems as though the giraffe began some kind of conversation, where he complained about no longer being able to eat corn on the cob. Or corn. Before the giraffe had clarified that it was due to cancer of the throat, Maximilian said: ‘Go and buy corn. As of now you can eat as usual again.’”

  The pianist fell silent with an urgent look.

  “And so?” said Reuben.

  “And so it was,” said the pianist. “There and then, at the same moment as Maximilian said the words, the cancer disappeared from the giraffe’s throat. It was a miracle.”

  The walrus sipped his cognac. The pianist’s story made him ill at ease.

  “There are hundreds of stories about Maximilian,” she said. “But I happened to think of this one.”

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Walrus,” said the pianist, looking him straight in the eyes, “Maximilian can perform marvels. I have heard stories…he can fly…he has performed miracles…he can heal the sick, Mr. Walrus. He can heal the sick.”

  Reuben nodded but looked as if he were thinking about something else.

  “The Afghan is right,” said the pianist, getting up. “You have to go see Maximilian. It is your only hope.”

  She stood a moment, staring at him, with melancholy in her gaze. Then she left, and Walrus remained sitting with his cognac glass in his fin, and his thoughts in disarray.

  WOLF DIAZ 3

  The outing to Sagrada Bastante was mandatory, and not just for us Forest Cubs but for all sixth-graders in the city. The magnificent cathedral with its thirteen towers was located at the Star. The archdeacon of the city, Penguin Odenrick, was responsible for Sagrada Bastante. He was also the superior of the four prodeacons, from Amberville, Lanceheim, Tourquai, and Yok. In each part of the city there was a series of parishes led by humble, industrious deacons who did their best, most often with limited resources. The church was prosperous, and it intended to remain so. That explained the extreme thriftiness.

  In Das Vorschutz we had all been brought up religiously. It was part of who we were; the forest was the creation of Magnus, and we were his humble servants. For that reason it was a solemn experience to enter the massive cathedral for the first time together with your schoolmates, and see with your own eyes the fateful ceiling and wall paintings, which depicted portions of the Proclamations in a manner that must be called
dramatic. I recall it as if it were yesterday. I walked slowly so as not to stumble. Despite the massiveness of the church and its windows tall as flagpoles, an ominous darkness rested over the floor of the cathedral. Shadows of carved ornaments and decorations stuck out from walls and pillars, and the intention was surely to instill proper respect in the poor Magnus-fearing visitor. I thought it impossible that the church had been built by the paws, claws, hands, and tails of stuffed animals; this was a work by Magnus himself.

  The church in Mollisan Town saw its mission as being to remind the stuffed animals in all situations about their pitifulness, smallness, and mortality. The thirteen towers of Sagrada Bastante rose high above the surrounding neighborhoods and functioned as a part of this constant reminder.

  I was sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast the morning my mother, Carolyn Nightingale, led her sixth-grade class to Sagrada Bastante. She had only two pupils who were twelve years old, Maximilian and Weasel Tukovsky’s little brother, Musk Ox Pivot, and therefore she had arranged the showing with one of the schools in Lanceheim. Her good friend Theophile Falcon worked there, and in his school there were five parallel sixth-grade classes.

  “Good morning,” I greeted.

  Maximilian and Musk Ox looked suspiciously at me. Even if I often visited Mother and Father at home, I was no longer one of the residents of Das Vorschutz, and so the Forest Cubs viewed me with skepticism. I recognized the behavior; I had acted the same.

  That morning it was almost exactly five years since Maximilian and I had met the wounded badger in the forest. For me the experience had led to existential brooding of the most painful sort, and many times I wished nothing better than to be able to tell someone what I had been involved in. Still, I said nothing. Something held me back.

  Sometimes there was talk about Maximilian. He was an odd character; his gifts were beyond the ordinary, and he radiated a sort of integrity that could feel annoying, especially considering his age. No one yet identified this radiation as “goodness” that came later. I refrained from taking part in these discussions, but no one asked why. I had a reputation for being a taciturn wolf.