Andres Neuman - Traveller of the Century

The carriage stopped in front of the Apollo Theatre; Rudi hurriedly clambered down from the carriage and offered Sophie his arm. Unusually, this time she accepted. He stared at her enraptured and said: Your dress looks like a second skin. It makes you glow. It fits your waist to perfection. It enhances your shoulders. It makes you look immeasurably beautiful. You’ll be the belle of the ball. It is very kind of you to say so, my dear, Sophie replied, perhaps I have overstepped the mark, then. Rudi took her arm, beaming. At the foot of the steps, the couple passed Mayor Ratztrinker, on his way down with a woman who was not his wife. His Excellency looked down his nose, bowed to Rudi, and swept on his way. At the ornate entrance to the theatre, Rudi brought his lips close to Sophie’s ear and whispered: Tonight, my love, you are going to dance the best allemande of your life. Then night threw open the doors and the couple were swallowed up by the dazzling lights.

It’s Tuesday already! Herr Zeit affirmed when he saw Hans leaving the inn, tomorrow is another day! Accustomed to the innkeeper’s unsolicited remarks, which to begin with had struck him as banal, but were now beginning to sound enigmatic, Hans replied: How right you are. Herr Zeit, who was wearing striped pyjamas, the tight cord of his threadbare dressing gown digging into his belly, asked whether Hans had dined. He told him not to worry. Herr Zeit gave a snort and turned on his heel. A hand on the doorknob, Hans stood watching the innkeeper shuffle down the passageway in his checked slippers. At the far end the door to the Zeits’ apartment opened, and the dimly lit figure of his wife appeared in the doorway. Frau Zeit was holding an oil lamp and had on the flimsy flannel garment she called her kimono. I’m coming, I’m coming, he muttered. His wife shrugged a shoulder and swung her hips to one side to let him pass. Then Hans closed the door.

Hey, Lamberg, the organ grinder said, don’t go yet, you haven’t told us your dream. It’s late, said Lamberg, I have to go to bed. In that case, the old man smiled, tell us what you’re going to dream when you’ve gone.

On many evenings, as they sat round the fire at the cave mouth, the organ grinder would ask each of his friends to relate their dreams. As he listened, he would remain silent, nodding his head, as though he had already dreamt them or guessed their meaning, which even so he never revealed. Instead of having dreams, the organ grinder preferred to say he saw dreams, and he enjoyed telling them his own, which Hans suspected were too outlandish or too perfectly narrated to be true. But this didn’t matter, for his favourite evenings in the cave were beginning to be these ones when they relived their dreams.

Sometimes, Lamberg said, sitting down again, I dream that the Steaming Eleanor (the what? Reichardt exclaimed), the machine at the mill, my machine, I dream she starts to turn faster and faster until the platform begins to shake and I fall into her jaws. And then what happens? said the organ grinder. Nothing, that’s it, said Lamberg, then I wake up and I can’t get back to sleep. But you have to go with it, said the organ grinder, try going with it until the end, it isn’t good to wake up halfway through a bad dream. When I wake up, Lamberg said shaking his head, I try to forget my dreams as quickly as possible, I dream horrible things sometimes, things I can’t believe I’m doing in the dream. Maybe, suggested Hans, they’re things you think about when you’re awake and they come back to you when you’re asleep. I doubt it, the organ grinder said, dreams have nothing to do with our waking state, on the contrary (why on the contrary? said Hans), I mean, for me dreaming is like being more awake, don’t you see? And sometimes when you wake up, your dreams stay asleep. There are things you only know when you’re asleep. Maybe what you say is true, organ grinder, said Lamberg, but I don’t want to know anything about my dreams. There’s no need to be afraid, said the organ grinder, try to concentrate, don’t wake yourself up, just concentrate on the images and if they’re not good, speak to them. Is that what you do? asked Hans. Yes, replied the old man, and I always wake up happy. The first thing I do when I wake up, said Reichardt, is to count my teeth with my tongue to see if they’re all still there.

I don’t sleep much, Hans confessed, and I often have the same dream. (What’s that? asked the organ grinder.) It’s foolish, I dream I’m crossing a very long suspension bridge, and just as I’m about to reach the other side the end of the bridge begins to give way in front of me, so I turn round and try to run back to the other side, and that’s it. (But do you get there or not? asked Lamberg, his eyes wide open.) That’s the thing, I’ve no idea because I always wake up before reaching the end or falling. (And what’s below the bridge, Hans? asked the organ grinder.) Below it? I’ve never thought about that, I couldn’t tell you to be honest. (Do you see? said the organ grinder. That’s the question, that’s what you need to find out, if you know what’s below you can be sure the bridge won’t give way.) What an imaginative lot you are, Reichardt said, belching quietly, I hardly ever dream, when I wake up my mind is empty. (Perhaps that’s because you’re dreaming of your beer tankard, quipped Hans.) Maybe it’s your head, I’m dreaming about the inside of your head without knowing!

What? Álvaro said, surprised. You don’t know the Apollo Theatre, where do you go of an evening? I go to a cave, replied Hans.

An hour later, having lost their way twice and ended up where they had started a couple of times, Álvaro and Hans found themselves standing in front of the Apollo Theatre. Good grief, what appalling taste, Hans said contemplating the overly ornate friezes. Well, said Álvaro, they were copied from the Redoutensaal in Vienna, but it’s not bad for Wandernburg. Come on, let’s go in.

Indeed, it was not bad for Wandernburg. The large rectangular dance floor was thronged with couples and groups. Some dancers wore masks, which was only legally allowed inside the Apollo Theatre. At the far end of the room, an imperial marble staircase led from the dance floor up to the surrounding galleries occupied by private tables and a small orchestra. The orchestra was playing a lively polonaise without bothering to discriminate between the loud and soft notes. Reaching from the galleries up to the ceilings were huge windows with square panes, classical mouldings, Doric friezes and imitation capitals. Enormous gaslit chandeliers in the shape of vine leaves hung between each window. Álvaro and Hans left their coats in the cloakroom and made their way slowly inside.

Hans hated dance halls, but at the same time they fascinated him, precisely because he never went to them. The crowd was a floating perfume, a shifting blot. In the light from the gas lamps, the ladies’ arms and shoulders seemed separate from their dresses. The rows of dancers twirled and untwirled like threads round a bobbin. Dresses and jackets touched, brushed against one another, merged. Heads glided, hats passed one another like birds, fans fluttered of their own accord. Hans saw a glass of punch float by, and tapped Álvaro on the back, pointing towards the refreshment tables. Walking ahead, Álvaro gestured to him to go over and he would follow shortly. Hans veered towards the side tables, narrowly avoiding being ensnared in the middle of a quadrille. Trying his best not to collide with anyone, his eyes on his feet rather than on faces, he freed himself from the tangle. Just as he was reaching his objective, he raised his head and saw her.

He saw her, and she was smiling at him.

Her décolletage was ample as a map. A map tracing the splendours of her neck, the outline of her veins, the contours of her collarbones. Collarbones that resembled a necklace.