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.
He had spent the morning reading, and had lunched in the kitchen before going to the market square to see the organ grinder. He had gone without coffee to economise. Later on, he had called at the Gottlieb residence, but Sophie had just left with Rudi. After supper, not yet sleepy enough, he had gone for a night-time stroll down winding, unfamiliar streets, through High Gate, and along the path to the bridge and the pinewood. And, almost unwittingly, he found himself in front of the cave. Franz had greeted him with excited barks. The old man hadn’t been sleeping, or claimed he hadn’t. I brought you some cheese, Hans explained. Thank you, my lad, the old man had said, is anything the matter? No, Hans had replied, I don’t know, I just came to bring you some cheese. The organ grinder had given him a bony embrace, cupped his face in his grimy hands and said: Tell me about it.
The following morning, bright and early, a loud clatter of hooves came to a halt outside the inn. The postman’s horn surprised Herr Zeit, his razor halfway down one lathered cheek — two dark drops fell onto the towel draped around his neck. The innkeeper muttered a few curses in a thick Wandernburg dialect. When the horn sounded a second time, he thrust out his belly indignantly, sighed and called to his daughter. Go and see what he wants, he grunted, and wake up that sleepyhead in number seven. When Lisa opened the door, the postman stared at her with annoyance, and, without dismounting, threw her a sealed envelope he had taken out of his saddlebag. All around, upstairs and down, like street lights in the daytime, heads peered out of windows.
Lisa raced down the second-floor corridor, stopping just before she collided with Hans, who was still in his nightshirt and a woollen dressing gown. Hans smiled and said good morning. Lisa stared at Hans’s cared-for teeth. She shivered when she saw his unshaven chin, covered in black dots, and without knowing why felt foolish. Will you give me the letter, Lisa? said Hans. The what? she replied. Oh yes, sorry.
Hans tore open the envelope and his eyes sped to the end of the letter. Before he had even finished reading it through, he had let it fall to the ground and was dressing as fast as he could.
After floating from side to side to the floor, the letter had come to rest next to the legs of a chair. The light from the window fell across half the page. On the part in the light, between a colophon featuring a bird and the heading, printed in capitals were the words:
BROCKHAUS BOOKS, LEIPZIG.
As at every lunchtime, the air in the Central Tavern was beginning to thicken with the smell of cooking oil and working men’s clothes. For the first time in months, Hans had a feeling of benign compassion towards the Wandernburgers filling the establishment. So, you’re staying? Álvaro rejoiced, clinking tankards with Hans. Hans nodded, beaming, his lips moist with beer. What a pity, niño! chuckled Álvaro. I was looking forward to seeing the back of you!
In the middle of April, when his savings had first shown signs of running low, Hans had written to the editors at Brockhaus offering his services as a reader and translator. He had enclosed an exhaustive (and partially invented) curriculum vitae and a few publications. In the inflated list of his talents, Hans had claimed to be able to translate into German, with varying degrees of competence depending on the case, any European language of literary significance. Despite his repeated exaggerations about his professional experience, this was not far from the truth. Hans proposed writing detailed reports on authors or books the publishing house might be interested in translating, prologues to their anthologies of foreign poetry, as well as translations of essays and poems for their magazine Atlas. And also, perhaps, if the publisher was interested, bringing out an anthology of European poets encompassing a broad range of languages and countries. Although their reply had taken a long time to arrive, to the point where Hans had begun to fear that some of the fictitious additions to his curriculum might have been uncovered, in the end it was encouraging — the publisher had recently lost two of his collaborators (one deceased, the other dismissed) and were indeed looking for a reliable reader and a more or less permanent translator. They agreed to employ him at once as a salaried assistant on their magazine Atlas. They also took him on as a reader for a one-month trial period. And they acknowledged his idea about a future anthology of European poetry, although they could give no assurances. The best news of all, given Hans’s financial situation, was the inclusion in their acceptance letter of two urgent commissions, one generously remunerated (the other, in the editor’s words, should be submitted without payment “as a sign of mutual goodwill”). As soon as he had received the reply, before going out to meet Álvaro at the Central Tavern, Hans had sat down to write two letters: the first, shorter one, was to Brockhaus, in the most casual tone possible, accepting his conditions; the second, a garbled, exhilarated note to Sophie giving her the good news. Afterwards, he had gone downstairs to reception and announced to the innkeeper: My dear Herr Zeit, I should like to speak to you for a moment about business. Following twenty minutes of calculation, recalculation, mutual haggling and theatrical protestations from the innkeeper, Hans had succeeded in reaching a new agreement for the monthly price of his lodgings plus one meal a day. (Two? Out of the question! Impossible! Do you have any idea, Herr Hans, how much the price of food has shot up! do you want to ruin me? Two meals, out of the question! Impossible!)