Andres Neuman - Traveller of the Century

When Lisa handed him the envelope, he felt the same pang of excitement he always felt when he received one of Sophie’s letters. As he sat down to read, his brow wrinkled — this wasn’t Sophie’s notepaper or her writing. Inside the envelope Hans discovered an ominous surprise. A white visiting card, substantial and stiff to the touch, embossed with heraldic insignia and military crosses. The card, he read, was that of Herr Rudi P von Wilderhaus, the younger.

The letter, polite but to the point, was an invitation to dear Herr Hans, with whom he had not yet had the opportunity to converse as quietly as he would have liked, to accompany him on a shoot the following day at dawn, assuming that he had no previous engagements and that he enjoyed fresh air and nature. So that, if Herr Hans saw fit to honour him with his company, he would pick him up in his carriage at six-thirty sharp. And with this, he ended the letter, sincerely yours, etc.

After weighing up for a moment the possible inconveniences of accepting this strange invitation against the possibly even greater ones of refusing it, Hans sent a note to Wilderhaus Hall (taking care that it sounded neither overly aloof nor overly enthusiastic) thanking Rudi kindly for his generous invitation, which he accepted with pleasure, in the meantime bidding him goodbye until the morrow, etc, with my sincerest gratitude.

Hans’s first thought was: What does Rudi really want? And his second: My God, I have to get up at the crack of dawn. Followed by: What boots shall I wear? He had never cared for hunting. Or rather, he had an instinctive loathing for it. And yet he knew he should go. Not simply out of courtesy, but in order to wheedle information out of Rudi about his betrothal to Sophie, and to gauge how suspicious he was, if at all. Because of the hour, his apprehension or both, Hans was unable to sleep a wink, and the lordly clip-clop of hooves found him wide-awake, standing at the window.

Rudi greeted him from the top of a long shooting brake drawn by four black horses. The driver’s seat towered aloft, and from behind a caged partition the dogs barked at the dawn. Rudi had pinned to his lapel an eight-pointed star with a falcon at its centre and an inscription that read: Vigilando ascendimus . He had on baggy breeches tucked into slender knee-length boots. Hans found them distasteful, yet felt ridiculous when he glimpsed his own as he clambered onto the carriage. Did you sleep well, Herr Hans? You look tired. Rudi’s face shone like polished marble. Oh, extremely well, replied Hans, indeed, I slept so soundly I confess I had difficulty waking up. Did you? smiled Rudi. I did indeed, smiled Hans.

As Rudi’s shooting brake sped north through the countryside along dirt roads Hans had never before been on, dawn burst on the scene, lighting everything as if catapulted into the air. Rudi appeared calm, or at least sure of himself. He spoke little and only about trivial matters. Occasionally, he would stare fixedly at Hans with an ominously friendly expression. Isn’t it beautiful? he said, pointing at the woods. Then he would become absorbed in the landscape and inhale deeply. Only when he noticed Rudi’s burly chest rising and falling did Hans realise he was scarcely breathing himself.

They descended from the vehicle and Rudi ordered the driver and the footman to wait there until they returned. Hans, who had been interpreting Rudi’s every gesture since their first greeting, was even more alarmed by this command — what did until they returned mean exactly? That they’d be a long time, that he didn’t know how long they’d be, or that the driver and the servant weren’t to go looking for them however long they took? Rudi slung his gun over his shoulder. He offered Hans another and quickly nodded his head.

They made their way into the wood. The dogs followed, sniffing the damp ground. Rudi walked forward, shoulders hunched, back straight. The weight of the gun clearly didn’t hinder him in the slightest. Hans, on the other hand, was not sure which shoulder to carry it on. He had only handled a gun three or four times in his life, and on each occasion he had felt an awkward mixture of power and guilt. They walked in virtual silence for fifteen or twenty minutes. They came to a place that to Hans seemed identical to all the others. Rudi halted, lifted a finger to his lips and began noiselessly loading his gun. He did this with ceremonial slowness or with almost rehearsed precision, as though he were giving a demonstration. Each of Rudi’s fingers moved with a dexterity that could not fail to produce admiration or panic. His expression was relaxed, almost indifferent to the weapon he was caressing. And yet, as soon as he took aim with his gun, Rudi was transformed. His features hardened. His jaw tensed. His gaze was that of a predator. The dogs shot forward like barking missiles as the gunpowder exploded. While the bloodhounds went to retrieve the prey, Rudi recovered his graceful indolence, smiled amiably, and said: Now your turn, my friend. Hans refused the invitation as politely as possible, and said that he was quite happy simply to accompany Rudi. In order to learn? Rudi enquired. Just as an observer, Hans explained. Ah, I see, Rudi replied, reloading his gun, but remember that by watching you are also taking part in the shoot.

Rudi hunted partridge, quail and rabbit. His quarry plummeted from the sky, crumpled as it attempted to flee, was blown from its hole. The dogs scurried back and forth excitedly. A string of dead animals hung upside down from Rudi’s belt. He was an undeniably excellent marksman — he rarely missed and when he did it was out of carelessness rather than incompetence. As the morning went on, he kept insisting Hans try a shot, but Hans would refuse with a nervous gesture that seemed to bolster Rudi’s confidence. Rudi’s real ammunition, reflected Hans, was not the deafening cartridges flying through the air before falling to the ground, but his knowledge that he wasn’t the fearful one. Rudi gradually fired less and laughed more — it seemed what he liked about hunting was not shooting but being able to shoot.

Yes, more than likely Rudi had brought him shooting to impress him, to assert his authority on his own territory. But precisely because this territory was not his, Hans preferred to relinquish any claim to it from the outset rather than entering into a futile contest. He thought that by leaving Rudi to shoot on his own, to show off unrivalled, his fervour would burn itself out and his eagerness to triumph would gradually subside until he realised no one but the partridge, quail and rabbit had been defeated, because, when all the shots had been fired, Hans would still be looking him in the eye without having pulled the trigger. Hans was fully aware that his pacifism was an attempt to match up to Rudi. And, like Rudi, he was trying to do so on his own territory.

Hans was prepared to keep up his passive resistance at all costs in order not to give up an iota of rage to Rudi. This was his strategy, and he intended to follow it calmly and with complete cynicism to the end. What Hans hadn’t foreseen was what actually happened — as the sun rose high above the thicket, Rudi’s strength began to wane forlornly. Without uttering a word his shots became spaced out, his pace slowed, his reflexes slackened. Finally, he stopped shooting altogether, his shoulders drooped and he sat down on a rock, leaning on his gun butt as if it were a cane. The barking stopped. The air grew calm. Strings of birds sailed across the sky once more. Ill at ease, Hans sat down opposite him at a prudent distance. Rudi raised his head, and for the first time Hans was able to look into his eyes — his gaze was one of firm memories and uncertain future. Rudi sighed. He let his head drop, and sat examining the furrows in the ground. Then he smiled with a disarming tenderness that (against his will) Hans found touching. Do you think, said Rudi, that Sophie loves me as much as I love her?