Andres Neuman - Traveller of the Century

They approached the bar and ordered three schnapps from the same waiter who had been arguing with Lamberg. The waiter looked at him askance, but Lamberg seemed to be concentrating on something on the ceiling. While the waiter was pouring out their drinks, a candle dropped from one of the cast iron wagon-wheel chandeliers above the bar straight onto his shirt, setting his sleeve alight. The waiter leapt into the air and began flailing his arm about. The bottle of schnapps spilt onto the bar. The customers standing nearby turned their heads. Álvaro and Hans yelled. Someone ran over with a siphon to spray the waiter, who was glaring at Lamberg with a mixture of loathing and bewilderment. Lamberg was still silent, his eyes fixed on the waiter’s shirt.

The cave dissolved the remains of the heat like a stomach digesting soup. During the past few weeks the interior had offered a welcome contrast to the heat of midday and a buffer against the night air, which was still chilly. The organ grinder had lit two tallow candles and was examining the inside of his barrel organ. The strings, in groups of three, were looped around screws, the loops worn by the passage of time. The organ grinder adjusted the strings with a key, his bony hand turning it clockwise. Above the screws, written in pencil in the unsteady hand of an infant or one palsied with age, were the notes A, B, C, D …

Hans was also spelling something out — his last meeting with Sophie at the salon on Friday. He was relaying all the details to the organ grinder, and although nothing was certain (even his next visit to the Gottlieb salon), these uncertainties seemed to diminish when he talked to the old man, as though every tuned string were an eventuality foretold, a doubt resolved. Since their snatched kiss that day, Sophie had been as discreet towards him in person as she had been audacious in her letters. They had not seen one another alone since then, which far from seeming to Hans a bad sign, suggested something was afoot. What flowers were in the house? the organ grinder asked, glancing up with a pin between his lips. What flowers? Spikenards, I think. Spikenards? — the organ grinder gave a start — Are you sure? I think so, replied Hans, they were white and pungent, they must have been spikenards, why, what does it mean? It means, the old man said, smiling as he lowered the lid, pleasure, pleasure and danger.

The moon was growing bigger and as round as a peephole in a door. Although at that moment, as Franz was lifting his leg on a pine tree, no one in the whole of Wandernburg was gazing at it, just as no one was gazing at the clock on the Tower of the Wind, or noticing it looked like the moon with clock hands. On the outskirts, however, Hans and the organ grinder were sitting contemplating the night from the entrance to the cave. Before he met the organ grinder, Hans had never spent so much time gazing at the sky. Now he had grown accustomed to this calm activity that brought them together without the need to talk or do anything. The stars were few and spaced out, like a spray of salt. The two men looked at them in very different ways. Hans’s expression before the vastness of the universe suggested restlessness, choice, an uncertain future. The organ grinder saw in the horizon a shelter, a protective boundary, an undivided present.

Hans murmured:

The stars and the night

Make the wine of life

Let’s drink without strife

Till like them we are light.

What was that? asked the organ grinder. It’s by Novalis, replied Hans. And who’s he? said the old man. Him? said Hans with a grin. He’s just a friend of mine. Ah, said the organ grinder, why don’t you bring him along one evening?

Back in his room, despite having walked from the cave at a brisk pace, Hans was unable to fall asleep. Eels of sweat wriggled down his back. His body felt tense. Lying face-up, shirtless, he could hear every sound of the night, the roof beams, the furniture. His feet stirred restlessly. He was breathing through his mouth. Suddenly, he threw back the covers. His hand moved down to his groin. His member was stiff. He cast off the rest of his clothes. He felt the coolness of the air on his testicles and an ardent pressure at the tip of his manhood. He gripped his member and began pulling at it, pulling it almost resentfully. The skin responded like red elastic. A wave of intensity spread up from his groin. Hans bent his knees. His hand swelled. His blood was pulsating. His abdomen clenched. Everything flowed from below upwards. Hans was quaking. It had to come out. Now.

Behind the lace curtains, a breeze rippled through the half-open window. It was already late but Sophie’s bedside light was still on. The room gave off a smell of oil — from the thick oil lamp, and from the almond odour of her skin. The clutter of hairbrushes, combs and powders on the dressing table was a sign of recent disquiet. A damp sponge lay on the side of the washstand, whose lower shelf housed a small pitcher, facecloths, aromatic water, a soap dish and two towels, one of which had been used moments before. To the left of the bed on an oval rug sat two small slippers, one on top of the other. To the right, a silk nightgown lay in a tangle on the floor. Sophie let one arm dangle from under the orange-coloured eiderdown, the other writhed beneath the covers. Her lips kept going dry and she had to lick them. She felt an invisible needle pricking her thighs, the tip of her breasts. She lifted her forefinger and thumb to her mouth, once, twice, she moistened them with her tongue. Then she went down again restraining, containing, enduring her sense of urgency. As the fingers slid down she left a trail of saliva from her mouth to her chin, her chin to her throat, from the hollow between her collarbones to her breast, from her breast to the bottom of her ribcage, from her there to her navel, and along the faint outline of her pubic hair to the rim of her clitoris. Its folds opened. The contractions radiated from the inside out. A darting hummingbird finger insisted and insisted. Sophie yielded to herself. She felt an emptiness inside an emptiness.

Hans sent her a billet in which he called her Fräulein Fräulein , and Sophie wrote back with the heading Dear Silly-Billy . He signed his letters Respectfully, your future abductor and she ended hers with the words Until never, at seven o’clock, at my house . He sent her a comb in an envelope with a note that said: So that my memory is never far from your thoughts . She replied by sending a lock of her hair wrapped in tissue paper with the words: So you may see that your wish has been fulfilled . They had tea together almost every afternoon and took the precaution, but also the risk, of including Herr Gottlieb in their conversations — it is easier to hide what is plainly visible. They derived a perverse pleasure from using the polite form of “you” while staring at one another like lovers. Sophie did not know, or did not want to know, what might happen. But she did know that while what had to happen was happening, what she wanted was not to think. She was officially betrothed, and did not intend to renege on any of her commitments, but that would be after the summer, and what did that matter now?

That Tuesday Hans had got up in two distinct moods. Much to his surprise he had woken early of his own accord. He had hummed a tune as he took a bath and shaved in front of the watercolour. Suddenly, however, he had found himself staring out of the window like someone recalling an accident. Seated on his trunk, he had steeled himself to do the sums he had been avoiding, and had concluded silently: Two, three at the most if I stop eating out. Afterwards, full of anticipation and trepidation, he had gone downstairs and looked enquiringly at Herr Zeit. The innkeeper had shrugged and sighed: No letter today, if it arrives I’ll let you know.