Auto-da-fé (27 page)
Authors: Elias Canetti
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Literary, #Literary Criticism, #German, #Novel, #European, #German fiction
For three weeks ne enjoyed his new freedom. With admirable diligence he made use of every minute; when the three weeks were over he had exhausted every book shop in the town. One afternoon he did not know where else he was to go. Begin again at the beginning, and visit all over again in the same order? He might be recognized? He would prefer to avoid unpleasantness. His face — was it one of those which anyone would remember from a single glance? He stopped in front of the mirror outside a hairdresser's and surveyed his features. Watery blue eyes, and no cheeks at all. His forehead, ridged as a rock-face, from which his nose plunged at right angles towards the abyss, an edge dizzily narrow. At its base, almost hidden, cowered two minute black insects. No one would have guessed them to be nostrils. His mouth as the slot of a machine. Two slurp lines, like artificial scars, ran from his temples to his chin and met at its point. These and his nose divided his long and lean face into five strips of a terrifying narrowness; narrow, but strictly symmetrical; there was no room to linger anywhere and Kien did not linger. For when he saw himself— he was not used to seeing himself— he suddenly felt very lonely. He decided to lose himself among a crowd of people. Perhaps he would then forget how lonely his face was, and perhaps he would think of a way of carrying on his activities.
He turned his eyes to the names above the doors, a feature of the town to which he was otherwise bund, and read The Stars of Heaven. He entered with pleasure. He thrust back the thick curtains over the door. An appalling fog almost took his breath away. Mechanically, as if in self defence, he walked two steps further. His narrow body cut the air like a knife. His eyes watered: he opened them wide to see. They watered more and he could see nothing. A black figure escorted him to a small table and told him to take a seat. He obeyed. The figure ordered him a large black coffee and disappeared in the fog. Here in this alien quarter of the world, Kien clutched at the voice of his escort and identified it as male, but blurred and therefore distasteful. He was pleased to find yet another creature as despicable as he held all mankind to be. A thick hand pushed a large coffee in front of him. He thanked it politely. Surprised, the hand paused a moment, then pressed itself flat against the marble and stretched out all five fingers. What can it be grinning for? Kien asked himself, his suspicions aroused.
By the time the hand, with the man attached to it, had withdrawn,
he was once again in possession of his eyes. The fog was parting. Kien's glance followed the figure, long and thin as he was himself, with distrust. It came to a halt in front of a bar, turned itself round and indicated with an outstretched arm the newcomer. It said some incomprehensible words and shook with laughter. To whom was it speaking? In the vicinity of the bar, on every side, not a soul was standing. The place was unbelievably neglected and dirty. Behind the bar there was most clearly to be seen a heap of many coloured rags. These people were too lazy even to open a wardrobe door; they used the space between the bar and the mirror at the back of it to throw their things down. They were not even ashamed in front of their customers! Those too now began to interest Kien. At almost every little table sat a hairy object with a face like an ape, staring doggedly in his direction. Somewhere at the back strange girls yelled. The Stars of Heaven were very low and daubed between smeary grey-brown clouds. Here and there the remains of one of them broke through the dreary layers. Once the whole of the sky had been sprinkled with golden stars, but most of them had been extinguished by smoke, the rest were dying for lack of daylight. The world beneath this sky was smalh It would easily have been got into a hotel bedroom. Only as long as the fog deceived the eye it had seemed wide and wild. Each little marble table had its own planetary existence. The stink of the world was generated by each and all. Everyone was smoking, silent or battering lus fist upon the hard marble. From tiny alcoves smothered cries for help could be distinguished. Suddenly an old piano made itself heard. Kien looked about for it in vain. Where had they hidden it? Old fellows dressed in rags, with cloth caps on their heads, pushed the heavy door-curtains aside with tired movements and slowly drifted about among the planets, greeting this one, threatening that, and finally settling down where they were least welcome. In a short time the place changed entirely. Movement became impossible. Who would dare to tread on the toes of such neighbours as these? Kien only was still sitting alone. He was afraid to stand up and remained where he was. Between the tables insults were bandied about. Music inspired these people with strength and fight. As soon as the piano stopped they slumped down wretchedly into themselves. Kien clutched at his head. What kind of creatures were these?
Suddenly a vast hump appeared close to him and asked, could he sit there? Kien looked down fixedly. Where was the mouth out of which speech had issued ? And already the owner of the hump, a dwarf, hopped up on to a chair. He managed to seat liimself and turned a pair of large melancholy eyes towards Kien. The tip of his strongly hooked nose lay in the depth of his chin. His mouth was as small as himself— only it wasn't to be found. No forehead, no ears, no neck, no buttocks — the man consisted of a hump, a majestic nose and two black, calm, sad eyes. For a long time he said nothing; he was doubtless waiting while his appearance made its own impression. Kien accustomed himself to the new circumstance. Suddenly he heard a hoarse voice underneath the table:
'How's business?'
He looked down at his legs. The voice rasped, indignantly: 'I'm not a dog, am I?' Then he knew that the dwarf had spoken. What he was to say about business he did not know. He considered the all-pervading nose of the manikin, it inspired him with mistrust. As he was not a business man he shrugged his shoulders slightly. His indifference made a great impression.
'Fischerle is my name!' The nose pecked at the table. Kien was distressed for his own good name. He did not therefore respond with it and only inclined himself stiffly, in a manner which might have passed equally well for dismissal or for greeting. The dwarf interpreted it as the latter. He dragged two arms into view — as long as the arms of a gibbon — and reached for Kien's brief-case. Its contents provoked him to laughter. The twitching corners of his mouth, appearing on both sides of the nose, at last proved the existence of the mouth itself.
'You're in the paper racket, or aren't you?' he croaked, and held up the clean folded paper. At the sight of it the whole world beneath the Stars of Heaven broke into neighing laughter. Kien, well aware of the deeper significance of his paper, felt like shouting 'Insolence!' and snatching it out of the dwarf's hand. But the very intention, bold as it was, appeared to him as a colossal crime. To atone for it he put on an unhappy and embarrassed expression.
Fischerle did not let go. 'Here's a novelty for you. Ladies and gentlemen, here's a novelty! A dumb salesman!' He waved the paper about in his crooked fingers and crushed it in at least twenty places. Kien's heart bled. The cleanliness of his library was at stake. Was there no means by which he could rescue it? Fischerle climbed up on to his chair — now he was just as tall as the sitting Kien — and sang in a cracked voice. 'I'm a fisherman — He's a fish!' At 'I' he clapped the paper against his hump, at 'he' he flicked it at Kien's ears. Kien bore it all patiently. He thought himself lucky that the raving dwarf hadn't murdered him. But his behaviour was growing painful. His clean library was already defiled. He grasped that a man without a racket was of no account in this company. During the long drawn out interval between 'I' and 'he' he stood up, made a deep bow and declared resolutely: 'Kien, book racket.'
Fischerle broke off before the next 'he' and sat down. He was satisfied with his success. He shrank back into his hump and asked with utter humility: 'Do you play chess?' Kien expressed his regret.
'A person who can't play chess, isn't a person. Chess is a matter of brain, I always say. A person may be twelve foot tall, but if he doesn't play chess, he's a fool. I play chess. I'm not a fool. Now I'm asking you; answer me if you like. If you don't, don't answer me. What's a man got brains for? I'll tell you, or you'll be worrying your head about it, wouldn't that be a shame? He's got brains to play chess with. Do you get ine? Say yes, then that's that. Say no, I'll explain it all over again, for you. I've always liked the book racket. May I point out to you that I learnt it on my own, not out of a book. What do you think, who's the champion in this place? I bet you don't know that one. I'll tell you who it is. The champion's called Fischerle and sitting at the same table as you are. And why do you think he came to sit here? Because you look such a misery. Now maybe you'll be thinking I always make for the miseries. Wrong, rubbish, not a bit of it. Have you any idea what a beauty my wife is! Such a rare creature as you don't"often see! But, say I, who's got the brains? The miseries have got brains, that's what I say. What's the good of brains to a handsome fellow? Earning? His wife works for him. He wouldn't play chess because he'd have to stoop, might spoil his figure; now what's the conclusion? The miseries get all the brains there are. Look at chess champions — all miseries. Look here, when I see a famous man in the picture paper and he's anything to look at, Fischerle, I say to myself, there's something fishy. They've got the wrong picture. Well, what do you expect, piles and piles of photos, every one supposed to be someone famous. What's a picture paper to do? Picture papers are only human. Tell you what, it's queer you don't play chess. Everyone in the book racket plays chess. No wonder, considering the racket. They just open the book and learn the moves by heart. But do you think one of" them's ever got me beaten? No man in the book racket ever beat me. As true as you're in it yourself, if you are.'
To obey and to listen was the same for Kien. Since the manikin had got on to the subject of chess he was the most harmless little Jew in the world. He never paused, his questions were rhetorical but he answered them himself. The word chess rang in his mouth like a command, as though it depended on his gracious mercy, whether he would not add the mortal 'check-mate'. Kien's silence, which had irritated him at first, now appeared to him as attentiveness and flattered him.
During games his partners were far too much afraid of him to interrupt him with objections. For he took a terrible vengeance and would hold up the foolishness of their moves to the general derision In the intervals between games — he passed half his life at the chessboard — people treated him as his shape and size warranted. He would have preferred to go on playing for ever. He dreamed of a life in which eating and sleeping would be got through while his opponent was making his moves. When he had won uninterrupted for six hours and managed to find yet another victim, his wife interfered and forced him to stop, otherwise he would get above himself. He was as indifferent to her as if she were made ofstone. He stuck to her because she provided his meals. But when she snapped off the chain of his triumphs, he would dance raging round about her, hitting her in the few sensitive parts of her coarsened person. She stood it all quietly, strong as she was, and let him do as he liked. Those were the only expressions of conjugal tenderness with which he favoured her. For she loved him; he was her child. Business considerations forbade any other. She enjoyed great respect under the Stars of Heaven, because she alone of the poverty-stricken and low-priced girls of the establishment had a regular elderly gendeman, who for eight years had visited her every Monday with undeviating fidelity. On account of this regular income she was known as the Capitalist. During her frequent scenes with Fischerle, the whole place roared, but no one would have dared to start a new game against her orders. Fischerle only hit her because he knew this. For her clients, he felt tenderness, if indeed his love for chess left him any to spare. As soon as she had disappeared with one of them he could race across a chessboard to his heart s content. He had priority claims on any stranger whom chance brought to the place. Each one might be a world champion who might teach him something new. But he took it for granted that he would beat him. Only when his hope for new combinations had been shattered he introduced his wife to the stranger and got rid of her for a time. Secretly he advised the man to stay with her as long as he cared to; he, Fischcrle, had always liked the man's particular racket; she was easy going, she knew how to value a man with a bit of life in him. But he begged not to be given away, business was business and he was acting against his own interests.
Earlier, many years ago, before his wife was a Capitalist, and when she had too many debts to be able to pack him off to a café, whenever she brought a client into her narrow little room, Fischerle, in spite of his hump, had to creep under the bed. There he listened carefully to everything the man said — he didn't care what his wife said — and soon he developed an instinct whether the man was a chess player or not. The moment he was sure of this, he crawled out as fast as he could — often hurting his hump very much — and challenged the unsuspecting visitor to a game of chess. Some men agreed at once, as long as the game was for money. They hoped they would win back from the shabby Jew the money they had given his wife under a more insistent pressure. They thought themselves well justified because they would certainly not now have agreed to their original bargain. But they always lost as much money again. Most of them refused Fischerle's offer, tired, suspicious or indignant. Not one of them was puzzled by his sudden appearance. But Fischerle's passion grew with the years. Each time it was harder for him to postpone his challenge long enough. Often he was forcibly overcome by the conviction that just above his head an international champion was lying incognito. Much too early he would appear at the bedside, and with his finger or his nose tap the unknown celebrity on the shoulder until he became aware not of the insect he suspected but of the dwarf and his challenge. This was too much for all of them, and not one but instantly used the occasion to demand his money back. After this had happened several times — once an infuriated catde dealer even fetched the police — his wife declared categorically that things must change or she would get herself someone else. Whether things were going well or not, Fischerle was sent henceforward to the café and was not allowed to come home before four in the morning. Soon after that the regular old gentleman who came every Monday settled himself in and the worst times were over. He stayed all night. Fischerle would find him still there when he came home, and was regularly greeted by him with 'Hallo, World Champion!' This was intended for a good joke — in time it grew to be eight years old — but Fischerle took it for an insult. If the gendeman, whose name nobody knew —he even concealed his Christian name —was particularly satisfied, he took pity on the little man and quickly let himself be beaten by him. The gentleman was one of those people who like to setde the superfluities oflife all at once. When he left the little room he had got rid of both love and pity for a week. His voluncary defeat by Fischerle saved him the pennies he would otherwise have had ready for beggars in the shop he presumably kept. On its door was a notice which ran: 'Beggars will be given nothing here.'
There was, however, one type of men in the world whom Fischerlc hated — International Chess Champions. With a kind of rabid fury he pursued every important tournament which came to his notice in papers or magazines. Once he had played them through for himself, he could keep them in his head for years. Owing to his unchallenged championship in the café, it was easy for him to prove to his friends die worthlessncss of these great players. Move by move, he would show them — they relied unquestioningly on his memory — what had happened at this or that tournament. When their admiration for such a match reached a pitch which annoyed him, he made up a few false moves and thence carried on the game just as it suited him. Rapidly he would steer towards the catastrophe; they knew, of course, who had suffered it, for here too, names were a fetish. Voices were raised to say that Fischerle himself would have done no better. Nobody had recognized the mistake made by the defeated party. Then Fischerle would push his chair so far back from die table that his outstretched arm could just reach the pieces. This was his particular way of showing contempt, since his mouth, the organ which other men use for the purpose, was almost entirely hidden by his nose. Then he would croak: 'Give me a handkerchief. I'll win the game blind.' If his wife was there she would hand him her dirty scarf; she knew that she must not interfere with his chess tournament triumphs which only took place about once every few months. If she were not there, one of the other girls would put her hands over his eyes. Swift and sure, he would take the game back move for move. At the place where the original mistake had occurred he would stop. It was the very point where he had began to cheat. Cheating again he carried the opposing party with equal boldness to victory. Every move was breathlessly followed. Everyone was amazed. The girls fondled his hump and kissed his nose. The men, even the good-looking ones who knew little or nothing about chess, beat their fists on the marble tables and asserted, in just indignation, that it would be a dirty swindle if Fischerle were not to become the world champion. They shouted so loudly that they at once recaptured the girls' attention. Fischerle didn't care. He pretended that their applause meant nothing to him, and only remarked drily: 'What do you expect, I'm only a poor devil. If someone gave me the deposit, now, I d be
world champion to-morrow!' 'To-day!' they all cried. That was an end of their enthusiasm.
Thanks to the fact that he was an unrecognized genius at chess, and thanks to the regular customer of his wife s, the Capitalist, Fischerle enjoyed one important privilege beneath the Stars of Heaven. He was allowed to cut out and keep all the printed chess problems in the papers, although these, which had already passed through half a dozen hands were — after several months — sent on to an even more miserable café. But Fischerle did not keep the scraps of chequered paper; he tore them into tiny fragments and threw them down the lavatory with disgust. He lived in mortal terror lest anyone should want to refer to one of them. He was by no means convinced of his importance. He racked his brains over the actual moves which he concealed. Therefore he loathed world champions like the plague.
'Where would I be, d'you think if I was given a stipendium?' he said to Kien. 'A man without a stipendium is a cripple. Twenty years I've been waiting for a stipendium. You don't think I'd take anything from my wife, do you? I want peace, and I want a stipendium. Move in with me says she. I was a boy then. No, I said, what does Fischerle want with a wife? What do you want then, says she, she couldn't leave me alone. What do I want? A stipendium's what I want. Nothing for nothing. You wouldn't start a firm without capital. Chess too's a racket, why shouldn't it be? There's nothing that isn't a racket, come to think of it. Very good, says she, you move in with me and you'll get your stipendium. Now, I ask you, do you understand what I'm talking about? D'you know what a Stipendium is? I'll tell you in any case. If you know already, it'll do no harm, if you don't it'll do no. harm either. Now listen: stipendium is a refined word. This word comes from the French and means exactly the same as capital does in Jewish!'
Kien swallowed. By their etymology shall ye know them. What a place! He swallowed and was silent. It was the best thing to do in this den of thieves. Fischerle made a minute pause in order to observe the effect of the word 'Jewish' on his companion. You never can tell. The world is crawling with anti-semites. A Jew always has to be on guard against deadly enemies. Hump-backed dwarfs and others, who have nevertheless managed to rise to the rank of pimp, cannot be too careful. The swallowing did not escape him. He interpreted it as embarrassment, and from that moment decided that Kien must be a Jew, which he certainly was not.