“A product that arises out of desperation and wounded pride cannot be good. The hummingbird, the size of a bumblebee, never invented anything in its life, but in a long process has perfected itself beyond the limits of our imagination. Fifty wing beats per second! We can only wiggle our ears. But I am not talking about externalities. What is at stake is the art, the art of existence.” With a silver rippling gaze, Habib appears to be seeping into the essence of things he does not understand.
“I must have been dazzled, believing all this time that we were different from birds. We may have invented the fridge and the telephone — perhaps that was a necessary deviation. But in doing so we took a long way around the tree of life from which we fell and to which we will hopefully return. Perhaps it really did have to happen this way.” Levadski’s voice is shaking.
“Good things come to those who wait,” Habib says, shrugging his shoulders.
“Now here we stand again, in front of the magic tree, the last representatives of the evolutionary line of hominids. We are so lonely, Habib.”
“You are not lonely.”
“We are so lonely, so terribly lonely. Like the horses, who are the last representatives of equids. Not surprising that we have fraternized with the horse. We are the last.”
Gigantic floes of ice collide with each other in Habib’s eyes. Crystals of ice flash like daggers. With a sigh Habib lets his head drop to his shoulder.
“Think about it, Habib, think about it, there have always been several species of humans. Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons and many others, God knows how many there really were. Now we are alone. And have been for almost 35,000 years.”
“Not alone, no …” groans Habib.
Levadski peers into Habib’s round face. The cawing swan with the wooden dagger beak and the bellboy on his arm drags itself to the edge of the ice floe.
“We are the only survivors of our line of ancestors, Habib, a temporary appearance on earth.” Habib listlessly rubs his cheek against the padded shoulder of his butler jacket. The wind plays in the à-la-Liszt hairstyle of the swan. Motionless, the animal stands on the edge of the ice floe, silently snapping its wooden beak open and shut, as if in prayer. The wing on which the bellboy sleeps is a bloody bone.
“Not alone …” Levadski hears Habib hoarsely telling the wind in defiance. “What’s in a name? You yourself said, a name is nothing. We do not bear a name, it bears us.” Habib’s voice is lost in the squawking of the seagulls.
“Oh, Habib, you are a precious young man, you are right. Whether hominids or equids, they are only names, aren’t they.” Levadski nods and shakes off a little ice floe that is obscuring his vision. Another and another. “When I think of centaurs and sphinxes, of mythology where men and animals were one … all of it has a genuine core. The definition of animal is essentially a foolish idea. That it is a lower being, a thing, a non-person. High time we abandoned this anthropocentric way of thinking that is thousands of years old. Heaven is meant to be sublime? Don’t make me laugh.” Levadski laughs and chokes.
“Paradise,” the butler’s voice is a brown trout, “has always been alive with animals,” a brown trout in the belly of a snake, “go to the museum if you don’t believe me.”
The snake, like a rapid little stream, curls around Levadski’s forest hut, nuzzles up to Levadski’s mother’s feet, to the red shoes with their buckles which, blinded by the water, Levadski can’t tell if they’re rusty or golden.
“In the museum you can see for yourself that earthly paradise has always been represented in the same way by painters of all ages and peoples: it is alive with animals.”
Smiling, Levadski tilts his head to one side. “I won’t go to the museum any more, Habib. I believe you.”
~ ~ ~
Chemotherapy and radiation to prolong life (several months) recommended. Severe weight loss, night sweats, fever, metastasis, feelings of faintness. In the advanced stages: metastases in the brain, liver, skeleton; skeletal pain, morphine, tablets or patch, Fentanyl, Methadone.
~ ~ ~
What am I to do with that?
~ ~ ~
You have the choice.
~ ~ ~
I have nothing.
~ ~ ~
I am fine. No complaints, nothing. I can hardly feel anything. I am a feather, I could say. Now I know what it is to molt, Professor Doctor. Experienced it myself, Professor Doctor. Levadski gropes his way to the window. That darkness has descended, he didn’t notice. Has he been sleeping? It is evening. An evening in fall, with hooded crows. Like in a coffeehouse, Levadski smiles, that’s the way they are sitting there on the branches, back to back, the hooded crows, like at tables in a coffeehouse, airing their behinds, as if they intended to pull their wallets from their plumage and pay … An evening in fall with hooded crows and a bird’s nest. Levadski picks up his opera glasses and tries to look into the crow’s nest. But his window is too low, and the nest is too high.
Drop dead in two weeks … Habib did not say a word to that. He has always had something to say to everything, and now? Each to his own, my mother would have said. She would have removed her glasses, blinked at me through her shrunken eyes and laughed. Without glasses her eyes were naked; naked and dull. God knows whether they were green, gray or blue. But they were naked with-out glasses. As naked as I must be for others without my dentures. Where are they all? Where is Habib? Shall I ring for him?
Levadski’s gaze wanders to the telephone and the button with the butler. On his unwavering calm hand he is balancing a tray with steaming coffee cups. Over the last few days Levadski has not pressed the button, but Habib has come anyway, appeared in the doorframe every day, swearing to the beauty of the morning. And now? Levadski pokes his head through the curtains. An illuminated streetcar with two passengers drives past: a lady with a puffball hairdo is wiping a child’s nose. A rocking horse hangs over it like a threatening cloud. A balloon on a thin thread, which Levadski can only divine from his lookout post.
Levadski makes his way to the door. The northern bald ibis flies over the Alps, headed south. Its foster father in a small plane leading the way. Inaudible is the sound of the inner clock ticking, inaudible the turning of the propellers. He steps out. The babble of voices spreads out from the foyer over the gallery, like a scent. In two steps Levadski reaches the elevator and presses the button, keeps on pressing until the elevator arrives. The bartender with his mixing glass in hand steps aside smiling.
“Good day, did you sleep well?” Levadski thanks him, he had a nice dream. “Which floor?”
“Five.” The bartender smiles and lets his forefinger glide across all the buttons. A rascal, Levadski thinks.
On the first floor the bartender gets out and turns left, shaking his glass vigorously. The chambermaid from Novi Pazar nimbly walks past the open elevator door and waves to Levadski by raising and lowering her wicker basket. It is exactly the same movement that Levadski once saw in the window of a lighthouse in a spa town on the Black Sea, shortly before a black-headed gull ripped a piece of cake from his hand. You stole my joy! he most likely shouted at it, stamping his foot, red in the face. The elevator door closes with a slight squeak, the chambermaid is singing in the corridor. Levadski can barely understand her, but he can hear her, he can make out the words: Joy. Beautiful spark of divinity? He dives towards the elevator door and presses his ear against the cool metal. He must have misheard.
On the second floor the elevator jolts to a halt. The door opens hesitantly. If only the bartender had not pressed all the buttons, Levadski thinks. The rascal … Once more the barman is standing before him. Levadski steps aside. “Sleep well?” The bartender thanks him by giving his mixing glass a short, energetic shake.