Moving Parts (13 page)

It's John Maybe, a hardened alcoholic. He has not known happiness in life, that much is evident. He's burdened by his wasted talent, by the torments of loneliness, and by the indis-position he has suffered in the mornings for many years, and which aspirin no longer alleviates. He is wearing an overcoat bought from a thief at a flea market; the sleeves are too short. The narrator recognizes the coat. He even knows that the lining
has gray stripes and that the marble is no longer in the pocket. John Maybe would no doubt like the narrator to change something in his past; he believes that the story has not treated him fairly and that he deserves at least one more chance. He believes that a minor revision will not cause any trouble. All that needs to be done is to cancel the departure of a certain train, for example on the pretext of the strained political situation. Every word of his is predictable, even the rancorous tone that accompanies the presumed beginning of his speech; at its end, which there is no need to cite, it would turn to bitter sarcasm. The narrator withdraws quietly so as not to wake the intruder. He should now inform the front desk that some stranger has broken into his room from the balcony, and no more. He could go down there right away – he'll just quickly unlock with a grating sound the door marked with the faded figure of a man. The bathroom, undoubtedly as dilapidated as the landing, would spare no one the sight of its antiquated white tiles and cracked urinal, but the light bulb has burned out. Sure, the narrator uses the urinal; did he even deny it? He couldn't have. He's entered many bathrooms since he left his room in the permanent residents' wing this morning: the one on the first floor of the house with the garden and the one in the back room of the bar. He was in a handsome bathroom with a window and a china tub. And even in the hell of the field hospital located on the lowest floor of the hotel he went behind a screen where there was a stinking bucket. Would it not be easier to live without
a constantly refilling bladder, without that painful discomfort, ridiculous in its repetitiveness, and familiar to the point of tedium to all the characters? The urinal, then. The narrator finds his way in the dark without difficulty, but his fly gets stuck. His wounded arm is of no use now. But the other has managed somehow to unfasten the button, and all would be well were it not for the darkness, were it not for the vague anxiety that exudes from it, intensifying from one moment to the next. The narrator knows the rules and at this point could already predict that he will never return to the room with the balcony. He ought to come to terms with the loss of his comfortable bed, together with his pajamas, which – this much is certain – will fall into the hands of the black trumpeter. With one hand it's harder to fasten one's pants than to unfasten them. The narrator struggles for a long time with the loop of the button. Hurry up, we're on in a minute, someone whispers in his ear, planting an oversized bowler hat on his head.

The narrator's heart sinks. Whose arm is leading him? All around there is a blinding glare, but the bowler hat has slipped down over his eyes. Nothing can be seen. Yet drumrolls are heard. The band plays a flourish. The other sound, resembling the roar of foaming waves, is applause. A moist whisper at his ear informs him that the tightrope walkers' act has just finished. Mozhet has recently been working with Irene. Yvonne was better, but what of it, since she's dead. So which of them was eating breakfast with him in the hotel? Bright, cheerful
makeup hurriedly paints a broad crimson smile on the narrator's cheeks. In his memory the name of Irene Feuchtmeier is lit up, originating from a blue neon sign; the narrator should admit that the news has taken him by surprise. But he cannot linger over it even for a moment. Propelled toward the lights, he'd like at the very least to have his fly fastened. But this can't be done. He trips over something soft. It's his guide's leg, held out deliberately. The narrator flips over and lands on his nose in the yellow sawdust, losing his glasses. A burst of laughter rings out. The echo gives an indication of the size of the place; it's rather large. The guide's helpful hand sticks the bowler hat back on his head as he struggles to his knees, brushing sawdust from under his collar. He gropes his way to his feet, his crimson grin stretching from ear to ear; then he falls down once again. This time the guide has stepped on his pants leg and given him a clownish boot up the backside. The narrator has no choice but to get up again, this time without his pants. Despite the shame it's easier this way; the hand that had to hold the pants up is now freed and has already managed to straighten the battered bowler hat in a gesture closely resembling an obsequious bow. Bewildered, he stands in his checkered boxer shorts amid the whistles and the applause. The perimeter of the ring extends around him. Beyond it are rows of seats, and in the seats the audience, all lined up. Nearby the wise guy in the studded leather jacket is prowling around – the one who apparently once botched a job and was given his marching orders – a man
of all work whose powers are not entirely clear. It seems he has finally been forgiven the two unnecessary corpses; it was evidently hard to get by without his brisk resourcefulness, devoid of any scruples. He was the one who put the bowler hat over the narrator's eyes in the bathroom. Now, making faces for the audience, he makes a show of bringing in a chair. Sure enough, the narrator is to climb onto the chair to retrieve his glasses, which are hanging from a wire, their gold rims glinting. When he is up there he will suddenly remember something. A monologue? Who would have need of a monologue? Entirely sufficient are the shrill exclamations with which the wise guy gladly takes over his part – signs of comic terror that the narrator refuses the audience when the chair is pulled out from under him. The wise guy applauds him enthusiastically: bravo, bravo! He's obviously enjoying the game; he can't stop, and is already dragging in a rickety stepladder. To the delight of the audience the narrator now falls from the stepladder, waving his arms in every direction. Battered and bruised, but still wearing his garish crimson smile, he places the recovered glasses on his nose. Now he can see clearly. In the front row sits the retired professor with the small boy; next to him is Feuchtmeier, yawning and surreptitiously reading a newspaper, undoubtedly the Financial Times. The boy can't sit still; he's fidgeting restlessly, picking wads of fluffy pink stuffing from his quilted vest. He's probably a handful in preschool, too. Gusts of wind whisk away the pink stuffing and lift it overhead in streaks of light toward the realms
of shadow. There it disappears without a trace, in the blink of an eye transformed into a dark fleecy dust. There's nothing more full of promise than fragrant pink stuffing, and nothing more hopeless than a ball of dust trodden underfoot.

Somewhere in the audience the hotel receptionist is glimpsed in the company of a soldier of the Wehrmacht and a dark blue Polish policeman. She's sitting between them, on the best of terms with both. Her shift at the hotel is evidently over. Amid the young women with short-cropped hair dyed red is the sullen youth with dangling suspenders. Elsewhere there is the all-knowing hobo with his torn sleeve and his earring, a sign of illusory freedom. There's also the old man in the red dressing gown. And the auto mechanic, head of the household, who boasted his whole life of having a heavy hand. They're almost all there, even the two arrivals from the Balkans, a pair of workmen in blue overalls, probably brothers. With them is the girl from the photograph. Clearly their complaint eventually reached where it needed to; perhaps it was decided that two men who have nowhere to go back to may always come in useful. Here and there is a solitary black man, dark as the night, though these, too, are only appearances, a sort of costume. Among the dockers from the ports of the Far East are groups of Russian sailors of the merchant navy who after the show will immediately set off once again in search of ever more outlandish adventures. Kind-hearted black women exchange comments and slap one another on their fat thighs, continually
laughing in raucous and slightly hoarse voices. People never want to be reminded of their own suffering. All they want is to be entertained. The wise guy will not let the narrator rest; he already has him by the collar. From beneath the bowler hat he pulls out a large polka-dot handkerchief. He tweaks the narrator's nose painfully; the French horn sounds out like a ship's foghorn. The narrator of course tries to break loose; he swings his legs in place to the rhythm of a ragtime played so unevenly it sounds as if the band has begun a crazy chase among the instruments. All of this pleases the children mightily. They even ask for the hilarious scene with the polka-dot handkerchief to be repeated. But the end of the act is drawing close. A well-aimed slimy apple core hits the narrator in the face. The wise guy in the leather jacket twists his neck with an iron grip, and forces him to bow over and over. The audience warms up again, because in a moment the elephant is to emerge from the wings. From the better seats its trunk can already be seen. Drumrolls sound. The audience goes wild. It's obvious that everyone was waiting only for the performing elephant.

The band plays and the elephant, raised on its hind legs, dances a tango; its trunk sways to the rhythm of the music, and a splendid pink bow flutters on its flat forehead. The leather-clad wise guy cracks a whip for effect. The audience grows quiet, mightily amused that the elephant is dancing solo, and that it keeps misstepping. Festoons of colored lights are turned on around the ring. The standing ovation goes on and on. From
one bar to the next the tango turns into a circus march – it isn't clear exactly when, as hardly anything can be heard. The chaotic finale is drowned out in a storm of applause and cheers. The elephant makes a triumphal lap of the ring. In a moment it will be led offstage. The leather-clad wise guy suddenly leans out from behind its immense body, makes a face and in lieu of a farewell throws something at the narrator. A crumpled ball of paper. The narrator smoothes out the letter, once torn up and now taped back together. He would read it, but it's too late. As the spotlights go out, everything is swallowed in darkness.

The sentences will be shorter and shorter. They do not have the strength anymore to break away toward the expanses of the future tense. They contain less and less sky and more and more fog and earth. Hardly anything is possible any longer. And no truth will appear until the secure forms of the past tense impose order. Toward the end, the story descends into chaos; words go missing, lost between the lines. The life slowly ebbs out of them. The narrator had not thought about this before. Made weary by the burden of the story, he had not asked himself what kind of future awaits him when all the story lines come to an end. When the circle is complete. When the last of the sentences falls silent. And the last bar of the circus march. The band plays ever faster, as if it were being pursued. Let those crotchets be allowed to sound out, for goodness' sake! But the musicians are already leaving; the final chord has vanished somewhere, unheard by anyone. They carry out their instruments:
French horn, bugles, and side drums. But where are the violins? Those that at the beginning sent the sound of open strings into space? It was they who imitated the buzzing of flies, starting with the first one hatched from some word to show the way. Could the violins have slipped away without waiting for the finale? The memory does not stretch far back; in it sounds have already been erased. Nothing more will be seen or heard. The silence is like a boundless ocean in which worlds are submerged. Against darkness and inertia no one has ever yet prevailed.

 

 

 

 

 

Moving Parts
by Magdalena Tulli

was designed by David Bullen Design and printed at

The Stinehour Press in Lunenburg, Vermont.

The paper is 60lb Mohawk Vellum.

The text typeface is Dante.