Andres Neuman - Traveller of the Century

Hey, Hans, hey, whispered the organ grinder, are you asleep? No, no, Hans yawned, do you need anything? No, said the old man, I just wanted to ask you to tidy up the cave a bit when it happens.

The organ grinder had not spoken all day. He had stopped turning in his bed. He no longer groaned. He was silent and wide-awake. His features looked as if they were etched in charcoal. His expression was one of pain and apathy, like someone who prefers not to know what he knows. Next to him, alert, in darkness, Hans felt that this waiting was at once the ultimate loneliness and the closest companionship.

Suddenly, the old man began to pray softly. Hans looked at him, alarmed. That very morning, he had offered to fetch a priest, but the old man had refused. Without really knowing what to do, he kissed his grubby beard. He placed his mouth close to his ear and asked if he wanted a ceremony. The old man opened his stiff lips slightly, squeezed his wrist and said: This is the ceremony.

Franz came over and licked his master’s fingers. Hans instinctively glanced towards the cave entrance, even though he knew no one would come: Álvaro had already been by with the hamper, Lamberg was at the factory, and he wasn’t expecting Doctor Müller. The brutal simplicity of the moment took him by surprise. They were together, alone, and there would be nothing more. Not even a great pronouncement. The organ grinder had spoken many words of wisdom during his illness, and now, at the end, he was silent. He only looked at Hans, a brittle smile on his lips, clutching his hand, like a child about to make a courageous leap. Unable to bear the silence, Hans asked: A little more water, some wine, what would you like? The organ grinder moved his head almost imperceptibly and said: I’d like to breathe. Then he closed his eyelids, inhaled, and that was all.

Hans stared at him, incredulous. He did not weep yet. He remained motionless for a few moments, like someone who has broken a glass and dares not open his hand. Then, slowly, he stood up, forcing himself to be aware of every movement. He resolved not to look at the bed, not to break down completely until he had kept his promise. He went round the cave, tidying up, gathering the tools, picking things up from the floor. When he reached the barrel organ, he went weak at the knees. He paused, stepped away, approached once more and pulled off the blanket covering it. On the lid of the barrel organ he found a note weighted with a stone. The note was a scrawl that said: “Hans”.

Franz poked his head out of the cave and barked. The wind had begun to blow hard.

DRIZZLE MELTED THE FIRST big snowfall in Wandernburg. The fine spray didn’t clean the streets so much as make them muddier — the earth on the roads, the flagstones were bordered with dirt, brown water filled the spaces between the cobbles. The days broke half-heartedly, as though hauled aloft by an inexpert arm. Chimneys darkened the clouds. Overcoats encumbered the shadows of passers-by.

Hans stopped in the middle of the market square. He turned his gaze towards the spot where the organ grinder used to stand. The space he had left was imperceptible, cavernous. Hans tried to look at the square the way the organ grinder had seen it, the way he himself had once seen it. He found it bleak and unappealing. He slipped his hands inside his frock-coat pockets, lowered his head, and kept on walking.

Despite having managed to catch up with some of his work, Hans had the impression he wasn’t translating as well. He would spend whole afternoons shut in his room, devouring page after page, shifting words around, and he began to work better, and yet he did not enjoy it. And when he took a break, besides his meetings with Álvaro, he could find nothing to do, nowhere to go. It was impossible to see Sophie — Herr Gottlieb wouldn’t let her out of his sight, and had imposed a strict curfew until the day of the wedding. She was only allowed to go out in a coach with Rudi, who would fetch her and deliver her home. All they had were their letters. Elsa cooperated with her usual mixture of displeasure and loyalty. Each time she went out on an errand, she would leave or collect a letter at the reception desk at the inn, and hurry away down the street.

Sophie’s long, ardent letters left Hans on edge, torn between the desire to stay close to the one who sent them, and the despair at not being able to see her face. Sophie’s face, which was growing ever more faint, which was becoming that of a stranger. In Hans’s memory, flashes of her features, her profile, her different smiles appeared, which refused to meld into a complete image. And yet he did remember, with absolute clarity, her hands reaching out to him. Her hands and her voice. That voice he heard when he read her letters. Which spoke of everything except what was about to happen.

Hans’s terse, anxious letters unsettled Sophie. He continued to write steadfastly, to show her his feelings, to be patient. And yet there was a sense of farewell in all the beautiful things he said to her, as though he had accepted they would never see one another again, as though each letter were a prelude to his departure. Did Hans say those things to her because he knew he was leaving? Or, on the contrary, did he say them because in spite of everything he had decided to stay? And if so what was he expecting? Why was he still in Wandernburg? She couldn’t ask him this kind of thing in a letter. Or rather, they were not things that could be answered properly without being face to face. And what about her? What were her hopes? In the end, this was the most difficult question of all. As far as she could see, she could hope for nothing. Yet if she tried to be honest with herself, perhaps this unfamiliar resignation, this sadness to which she was becoming accustomed, still contained a measure of hope.

In their daily exchange of letters they did not limit themselves to declaring, or to concealing, their tumultuous emotions. They also made love in writing. And they did this as literally as they could. Some mornings, Hans woke up to a mauve note in which Sophie said simply: I’m licking the tip. You open your eyes . Or: I’m sitting astride you. Good morning . Half asleep, Hans would respond: I’m slipping three fingers inside you. I open my hand . Or: I have just soaked you, I’m sorry about your skirts . Then he would masturbate and go downstairs to breakfast.

Hans crossed the square, head lowered, hands in his frock-coat pockets. When he was plagued by doubt, only walking would calm him. Movement gave him the comforting feeling he was leaving everything behind. So, was it time to move on? Was this his fate? Or was he fleeing? Who was freer — those who gradually accept they are beaten or those who insist on staying behind in order to experience defeat? As he walked past the ornate fountain, Hans’s hat flew off and was blown a few yards. The weathervane on the Tower of the Wind creaked this way and that. Birds circled the steeple, they, too, transformed into minutes.

Lisa squinted, wrinkled her nose, and breathed through her mouth. The stench began to blend with the fumes of chlorine and sodium. She tipped a couple of buckets of water into the latrines and gave them a scrub before swilling them out again. As soon as she had closed the doors, she exhaled abruptly and kicked the buckets away. When she grudgingly went to pick them up, she cut her knuckles on one of the sharp edges. Lisa let out a cry, raised her fist to her mouth, and, just before licking her knuckles, she paused, and cursed. She went over to the well to wash her hands. As she scrubbed them with soap, she contemplated them in disgust — how could a man like Hans ever like her if she had hands like this? The marks of the river on her wrists, her chapped knuckles, her split nails, her flayed fingertips. Men like Hans prefer stupid women who have hands like princesses, women like Fräulein Gottlieb who probably didn’t even know how to fill a bucket from a well, assuming she could even pick one up. Fräulein Gottlieb, who always smiled at her falsely when they met on the stairs. Fräulein Gottlieb, who, had it not been for the dresses her father gave her, and the servants who did her hair, would be no better than she. Fräulein Gottlieb, who, incidentally, hadn’t been coming to see Hans for how long was it now? They saw each other little and wrote to each other a lot. This, Lisa concluded, drying her hands, was a very good sign.