Brodeck Read online

  It was a frosty morning. I was Brodeck the Dog. Scheidegger, my master, was walking me. I was wearing the collar, and attached to the collar was the leash. I had to walk on all fours. I had to snort like a dog, eat like a dog, piss like a dog. Scheidegger strutted beside me, looking like a prim office worker. That day, we went all the way to the camp infirmary. Before going in, Scheidegger tied the leash to an iron ring embedded in the wall. I curled up in the dust, lay my head on my hands, and tried to forget the bitter cold.

  That was the moment when I thought I saw Ulli Rätte. When I saw Ulli Rätte. When I heard his laugh, his very peculiar laugh, which sounded like a combination of high-pitched sleigh bells and gaily rasping wooden rattles. He was standing with two other guards a few meters away, and his back was turned to me. All three were trying to keep warm by pounding their hands together, and Ulli, or his phantom double, was speaking: “Yes, I’m telling you, it’s a little slice of heaven, but right here on earth, not two miles from this shitty place. They’ve got a lovely stove that purrs and whistles all the time, and they serve their beer cold, with a thick head of white foam. The waitress is round as a ham, and not at all shy! You can sit there and smoke your pipe for hours, lost in a dream, and forget all about this grubby vermin here, ruining our lives!”

  He finished his speech with a loud laugh, which was taken up by the others. Then he started to turn around, and I buried my face in my hands. It wasn’t that I was afraid he’d recognize me. No, it wasn’t that. It was me. I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t want to meet his eye. What I wanted was to preserve, deep inside my mind, the illusion that this tall, stout man, so happy in his role as torturer, this man who was standing so close to me but who actually lived in a different world from mine, the world of the living, could be someone other than Ulli Rätte, my Ulli, with whom I had spent so much time in former days, with whom I’d shared crusts of bread, dishes of potatoes, happy hours, dreams, and countless arm-in-arm promenades. I preferred doubt to the truth, even the thinnest, most fragile doubt. Yes, that’s what I preferred, because I thought the truth might kill me.

  Life’s funny. I mean the currents of life, the ones that bear us along more than we follow them and then, after a strange journey, deposit us on the right bank or the left bank. I don’t know how the student Ulli Rätte became a camp guard, that is, one of the perfectly oiled and obedient cogs in the great death machine we were being fed to. I don’t know what trials he’d had to endure or what changes he’d had to go through in order to wind up where he was. The Ulli I’d known wouldn’t have hurt a fly. How could he have become the servant of a system that crushed people, that reduced them to the lowest form of existence?

  The camp’s only advantage was its vast size. I never saw the guard who could have been Ulli Rätte or heard his laugh again. Was the frozen morning scene nothing but one of the many nightmares that visited me and not a memory at all? Perhaps so, but that particular nightmare seemed exceedingly real. So much so that on the day when the camp was liberated, I wandered all over it, going from one mound of corpses to another. There were many such piles. The dead were mostly prisoners, but there were a few guards as well. I turned their bodies over one by one, thinking maybe I’d come upon Ulli, but he wasn’t among them. I found only the remains of the Zeilenesseniss. I contemplated them for a long time, the way one contemplates an abyss or the memory of unspeakable suffering.

  On the morning following what later came to be called Pürische Nacht, after I slipped my letter into the unconscious Ulli’s pocket, I hurried to Amelia’s. She was sitting calmly near the window of her room, absorbed in her embroidery. Her comrade Gudrun Osterick was similarly occupied. They looked at me surprised, both of them. They’d stayed inside for the past two days, just as I’d requested, working steadily in order to finish an important commission on time, a large tablecloth destined for a bridal trousseau. Across the white linen background, Amelia and her friend had scattered hundreds of tiny lilies mingled with large stars, and when I saw those stars, I felt my body go numb. Gudrun and Amelia had clearly heard the sounds of the crowd, the shrieking and howling, but their neighborhood was some distance from the Kolesh quarter, the scene of most of the murders and devastation. The two women knew nothing about the violence that had taken place.

  I took Amelia in my arms and held her tight. I told her that I was going away, I was going away and never coming back. Above all, I told her that I had come for her, that I wanted to take her with me to my home, to my village in the mountains. It was another world there, I said, we’d be protected from everything; that land of crests and pastures and forests would be for us the safest of bulwarks. And I told her I wanted her to be my wife.

  I felt her shivering against me, and it was as though I held a trembling bird in my arms. Her tremors seemed to reach into the deepest part of my body and make it more vibrant and alive. She turned her beautiful face to me, smiled, and gave me a long kiss.

  An hour later, we left the city. We walked quickly, hand in hand. We weren’t alone. Men, women, children, old people, entire families were fleeing, too, bringing with them a great deal of baggage. Some carried suitcases crammed to overflowing and impossible to close, so that the linen and crockery they contained were visible. Others pushed carts loaded with trunks and badly tied bundles. Everyone looked serious, fearful, uncertain. Nobody spoke. We all marched along in great haste, as if compelled to put as much distance as possible between us and what we were leaving behind.

  But what was actually driving us away? Other men, or the course of events? I’m still a young man, still in my prime, and yet, when I think about my life, it’s like a bottle too small to hold everything that’s been poured into it. Is this the case with every human life, or was I born into a time that has abolished all limits, that shuffles human lives like cards in a great game of chance?

  I didn’t ask for very much. I would have liked to remain in the village and never leave. The mountains, the forests, our rivers—all that would have been enough for me. I would have liked to stay far from the noise of the world, but people in these parts have killed one another in large numbers throughout History. Many nations have died and are now only names in books. Some countries have devoured others, eviscerated them, violated them, defiled them. And justice hasn’t always triumphed over nastiness.

  Why did I, like thousands of others, have to carry a cross I hadn’t chosen, a cross which was not made for my shoulders and which didn’t concern me? Who decided to come rummaging around in my obscure existence, invade my gray anonymity, my meager tranquillity, and bowl me like a little ball in a great game of skittles? God? Well, in that case, if He exists, if He really exists, let Him hide His face. Let Him put His two hands on His head, and let Him bow down. It may be, as Peiper used to teach us, that many men are unworthy of Him, but now I know that He, too, is unworthy of most of us, and that if the creature is capable of producing horror, it’s solely because his Creator has slipped him the recipe for it.

  XXVIII

  ————

  ’ve just read over my account from the beginning. I’m not talking about the official Report; I mean this whole long confession. It lacks order. I go off in all directions. But I don’t have to justify myself. The words come to my mind like iron shavings to a magnet, and I shake them onto the page without worrying too much about emending them. If my tale looks deformed or monstrous, that’s because it’s made in the image of my life, which I’ve been unable to contain, and which is in disarray.

  On June 10, the day of the Schoppessenwass in honor of the Anderer, everyone in the village and quite a few people from outside gathered in the market square and waited in front of the little platform Zungfrost had built. As I’ve said, it had been a long time since I’d gazed upon such a dense concentration of humanity in so restricted a space. I saw only merry, laughing, peaceful folk, but I couldn’t help thinking about the crowds I’d seen back in the days when the Capital was seized by madness, right before Pürische Nacht, and with
that thought in mind, I perceived the tranquil countenances around me as masks hiding bloody faces, constantly open mouths, demented eyes.

  Viktor Heidekirch’s accordion was playing every tune we knew, and in the warm, soft air of that late afternoon, various strong aromas—of fried food, of grilled sausages, of doughnuts, of waffles, of Wärmspeck—mingled with the more delicate perfumes given off by the hay drying in the fields around the village. Poupchette inhaled them all with delight and clapped her hands at every old song that came out of Heidekirch’s squeezebox. Amelia and Fedorine had stayed home. The sun was in no hurry to disappear behind the crests of the Hörni. It seemed to be taking its time, extending the day a little so as not to miss the party.

  All at once, you could tell that the ceremony was about to begin. Something like a wave ran through the crowd, gently moving it like the leaves of an ash tree stirred by a breeze. Viktor Heidekirch, perhaps at a signal arranged in advance, silenced his instrument. You could still hear a few voices, a few laughs, a few shouts, but they gradually died down, fading into a great silence. That was when I smelled the henhouse odor. I turned around and saw Göbbler standing two steps away. He greeted me by raising his odd beret, which was made of woven straw. “Going to the show, neighbor?”

  “What show?” I asked.

  With a slight wave of his hand, Göbbler indicated everything around us. He sniggered. I made no reply. Poupchette pulled my hair: “Black curls, Daddy, black curls!” Suddenly, about ten meters away on my right, there was movement, the sounds of shoes scraping the ground and shuffling as people stepped aside. We could see Orschwir’s great bulk cleaving the crowd, and behind him, following in his wake, a hat, a hat we’d come to know over the course of the previous two weeks: a sort of black, shiny bowler outside of age and time, unconnected to places or people, for it seemed to float freely in the air, as if there were no head beneath it. The mayor reached the platform and mounted it without a moment’s hesitation; then, as it were from on high, he made a ceremonious gesture, inviting the person under the hat, which was all we could see, to join him.

  Very cautiously, accompanied by cracking sounds from the green wood, the Anderer climbed up and stood at Orschwir’s side. The platform was only a few meters high—less than three, in fact—and the stair that Zungfrost had nailed together comprised only six steps, but as you watched the Anderer hoist himself from one to the next, you might have thought he was scaling the highest peak of the Hörni mountains, so slow and effortful was his progress. When he finally reached the mayor’s side, the crowd uttered a murmur of surprise, because it must be said that many of those present were seeing for the first time the person they’d heard so much about—seeing him in flesh and blood and clothes. The platform was neither very wide nor very deep. Zungfrost, who was as thin as a lath, had made a guess as to the appropriate dimensions, probably basing his estimates on his own body. But Orschwir was something of a giant, tall and broad, and the Anderer was as round as a barrel.

  The mayor was wearing his fanciest getup, which he generally put on three times a year for the grandest occasions—the village festival, St. Matthew’s Fair, All Souls’ Day. The only feature that distinguished this outfit from his everyday attire was a green braided jacket fastened by six frogged buttons. In order to survive where we live, it’s better to blend in, to not let anything stand out too far, to be as simple and crude as a block of granite emerging from a stubble field. This is a truth which Orschwir has long since understood. He keeps the pomp to a minimum.

  The Anderer’s attitude was obviously different. He’d dropped in from the moon or somewhere even farther away; he knew nothing about our ways or what went on inside our heads. Maybe if he’d worn less perfume and pomade, and fewer ribbons, we would have found him less distressing. Maybe if he’d been dressed in coarse cloth and corduroy and an old woolen overcoat, he would have blended in more with our walls, and then, little by little, the village would have—not accepted him; acceptance requires at least five generations—at least tolerated him, as one tolerates certain cats or dogs that arrive out of nowhere, from the depths of the forest, most likely, and enliven our streets with their silent movements and their measured cries.

  But the Anderer’s toilette, especially on that day, achieved the opposite of blending in: white jabot, frothing between two black satin lapels; watch chain, key chain, and chains for I don’t know what else covering his paunch with golden hardware; dazzling cuffs and matching buttons; navy-blue frock coat, woven belt, impeccable gibrette, braided trousers; polished shoes and garnet gaiters; not to mention the rouge on his cheeks—his fat cheeks, as full as perfectly ripe apples—his shiny mustache, his brushed side whiskers, or his rosy lips.

  He and the mayor, squeezed together on the little platform, formed an odd couple better suited to a circus big top than to a village square. The Anderer was smiling. He’d doffed his hat and was holding it with both hands. He smiled at nothing and looked at no one. People around me began whispering: “Teufläsgot! What kind of a queer duck is this?”

  “Is it a man or a balloon?”

  “A big ape, I’d say!”

  “Maybe that’s the fashion where he comes from.”

  “He’s a Dumkof, that’s what he is. Off his rocker!”

  “Quiet down, the mayor’s about to speak!”

  “Let him speak. We can still admire the prodigy next to him!”

  With great difficulty, Orschwir had extracted from one of his pockets two pieces of paper, each folded four times. He smoothed them out for a long moment, trying to put on an air of self-assurance, because it was obvious to his audience that he was somewhat overwhelmed and even uneasy. The speech he read was worth its weight in gold, and I’m going to reproduce it in its entirety. Not that I remember it verbatim; however, a few days ago I simply asked Orschwir for it, because I know he archives everything relating to his office. His reply was, “What do you want it for?”

  “For the Report.”

  “Why are you going back so far? We didn’t ask you to do all that.”

  He made that last observation in a mistrustful tone, as if he suspected a trap. I said, “It’s just that I thought it would be a good idea to show what a friendly welcome our village gave him.”

  Orschwir pushed his ledger aside, took the pitcher and the two glasses that the No-Eyed Girl handed him, poured two glasses of beer, and shoved one over to me. It was plain that my request annoyed him. He hesitated for a while, but in the end he said, “If you think it’ll be good for us, then do it.”

  He took a little piece of paper, slowly wrote a few words on it, and held it out to me: “Go to the village hall and show that to Hausorn. He’ll find the speech and give it to you.”

  “Did you write it?”

  Orschwir put his beer glass down and gave me a look that managed to be both irritated and sympathetic. Then he spoke to Die Keinauge in a gentle voice I’d never heard him use before: “Leave us, Lise, will you?”

  The little blind girl inclined her head in a slight bow and withdrew. Orschwir waited to answer me until after she’d closed the door behind her. “You see that child, Brodeck? Her eyes, as you know, are dead. She was born with dead eyes. Of all the things you can contemplate around you—that sideboard, that clock, this table my great-grandfather made, that corner of the Tannäringen forest you can glimpse through the window—of all that she can see nothing. Of course, she knows it all exists because she feels it, she inhales it, she touches it, but she can’t see it. And even if she should ask to see it, she wouldn’t be able to see it. So she doesn’t ask. She doesn’t waste time making such a request because she knows no one can fulfill it.”

  He stopped and took a long pull on his beer.

  “You ought to make an effort to be a little like her, Brodeck. You ought to content yourself with asking for what you can have and for what can serve your purpose. The rest is useless. All it can do is distract you and put I don’t know what kinds of ideas in your head and set them boiling in yo
ur brain, and all for nothing! I’m going to tell you something. That night when you agreed to write the Report, you said you would say ‘I,’ but ‘I’ would mean all of us. You remember saying that, right? Well, tell yourself that all of us wrote that speech. Maybe I read it, but we all thought it up together. Be content with that, Brodeck. Another glass?”

  At the village hall, Caspar Hausorn made a face when I handed him the mayor’s note. He was about to say something, but he restrained himself at the last instant. He turned his back to me and opened two large drawers. After shifting several registers, he took out a dark-brown cardboard box, which contained dozens of sheets of paper in various sizes. He glanced at them quickly, one by one, until he came to the pages with the speech, which he handed to me without a word. I took them and was about to stick them in my pocket, but he stopped me abruptly. “The mayor’s message says you have the right to read the pages and copy them, but not to remove them.”

  With a movement of his head, Hausorn indicated a chair and a small table. Then he adjusted the eyeglasses on his nose and returned to his desk and whatever he’d been writing. I sat down and started copying the speech, taking great care to record every word. From time to time, Hausorn raised his head and gazed at me. The lenses of his glasses were so thick that if you looked through them they made his eyes seem disproportionately large, the size of pigeons’ eggs, and although he was a man whose fine, well-modeled features women had always appreciated, when I saw him like that I thought about an enormous insect, a kind of giant, furious fly attached to the neck of a decapitated human body.

  “My dear friends, both those from our village and those visiting from elsewhere in the vicinity, and you, my dear sir, Mister … It is with great pleasure that we welcome you within our walls.”