The Other Side (26 page)

In the noise nothing of the speech could be heard from now on, though one could see His Excellency opening and closing his mouth. Finally, realising his attempts to pacify the crowd were pointless, he made a brief bow and went to leave the dais. When he turned away he heard the mob burst out into a roar of laughter. The seat had fallen out of His Excellency’s gold-striped trousers. ‘Strange, the things that amuse the
hoi polloi
‘, he mused.

There was a sudden explosion, clouds of dust, steam. Many people fainted or were crushed. A bomb had been thrown, but where it came from, no one knew. The dead and seriously injured were carried off on stretchers. It was with a shudder of horror that the Dreamlanders watched the long procession of blood-stained burdens. Both of His Excellency’s feet were blown off and a steel splinter struck his body, kill ing him.

I had not seen any of this, since I had gone to the cemetery. After the desecration that had taken place, I was concerned about my wife’s grave. The mound over it was untouched, but the little iron cross had been completely eaten away by rust.

At the far end I saw fresh mass graves. The dead were now buried with all haste, four foot down at the most. The miasmas they gave off naturally attracted wolves, dogs and jackals who rooted round in the fresh soil and could often be shot while they were enjoying their meal. I must have been very much mistaken if the dark, high-shouldered creature I heard give a whinnying laugh behind the marble ruins of the Blumenstich family vault was not a hyena. A leaden sky hung over the burial ground. Crushed immortelles, boughs and decayed wreaths heightened the already intense melancholy of the place.

I shivered. It was a long time since I had been in a bed.

Then I remembered that some time ago I had seen a notice announcing that blankets were being distributed to the homeless at police stations. There was one built onto the morgue, to which it was joined by a connecting door. Head bowed, I made my sad way towards it. I was pervaded with a sensation of softness, I felt as if I were walking on something yielding, moss, hay, flax. The cypresses seemed to move out of my way. Through the bright shimmer of the gravestones I could see a low building of raw brick. ‘Police Station’ was written over the open glass doors.

The room I entered had a minimum of furniture. There were large, square windows at head height, but their frosted panes only let in a dim light. Regulations in narrow black frames hung on the shabby walls; at the back, above a closed door, I saw a picture of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Primitive, angular gas jets were fixed to the high, whitewashed ceiling. The other piece of furniture in the room was a long, grubby table with a ghastly object on it: a short, swollen body in a uniform covered in gold lace and blood. It was quite rigid, just the legs slightly bent. Both feet were missing, the trousers were tied below the knees.

‘That’s the King of Bavaria’, was the thought that went through my head and I was immediately convinced it was true. His chin, with its black smudge of a sparse goatee was jutting up in the air and I hadn’t the courage to examine the podgy face any closer, for I knew that his malevolent gaze was alive and following me, and I had had more than enough of that kind of look.

There was a strip of light slanting in through the glass door on my right. ‘Perhaps that’s where the policemen are?’ I thought. I looked through the glass and stepped back in horror. What I had seen was a long, narrow room in which
hundreds
of corpses were piled up. They were all in grey cornsacks which had been tied at their necks so that only the heads stuck out, mostly with green faces, apparently laughing and baring their teeth. Many were desiccated and had dusty, crushed pupils, others were completely wrapped up and had addresses glued on. The bulges caused by protruding knees and elbows and the curve of skulls indicated their contorted postures. On the rear wall of this corpse repository hung a sign on which was written in large characters:

MORTUARY FOR THE SUDDENLY DECEASED

Keeping as much distance between myself and Ludwig II as possible, I started to make my way out into the open air. Suddenly I realised that the short man in the gold-braided uniform on the table wasn’t the King of Bavaria at all, but our President.

‘I know a secret’, I said to myself, ‘and I’m going to keep it to myself. Perhaps it is the King of Bavaria after all.’

XIV

The melancholy cawing of ravens caught my attention. The birds were perched in long, black, close-packed rows on the brickworks. Sometimes a whole flight would take off and wheel through the air in precise formation. Over the river the sky was still red from the burning mill.

Suddenly I was almost knocked to the ground by a naked man hurtling across the flats. Behind him was a pack of dogs! He came dashing straight towards me, but veered away sharply at the last moment and climbed up a tree that was little more than a bald broomstick. All he was wearing were patent leather pumps and a turban made of newspaper. With a strength and agility one would not have believed the shrivelled body capable of, he swung himself up into the branches of the lime-tree and climbed higher and higher, as easily as a monkey, despite the object he determinedly dragged behind him. The thing he was carrying kept getting stuck in the smaller branches and he had to free it, which he did with a comically earnest expression on his face. The dogs that had been chasing him stood round the tree, barking excitedly up at him, as if he were a cat.

At that point a platoon of policemen in helmets approached from the cemetery.

The man in the tree dropped his precious burden, let out a cry, jumped down, scrabbled round on the ground to pick it up and dashed off, the dogs following. A large black Newfoundland was close on his heels.

One of the policemen fired at the leading dog. It fell down dead, but the man was hit as well and tumbled to the ground. Now I saw that it was Brendel. We stood round him as he kept trying to get up. He was mad, whimpering, with spittle pouring out of his mouth. Hardly any blood was coming from the small bullet-wound below his right shoulder-blade. Gradually he grew still and cold; his body was convulsed with one final quiver and he was dead.

Curious to see what it was he had been so determinedly shielding with his body, the policemen lifted him up. A decomposing head with long, chestnut hair was revealed. It appeared to be alive, there was movement in the eye-sockets and around the lips, which looked as if they had been stuck on. It was a squirming mass of maggots.

XV

The city was seething with open revolt. The army approached from the castle gardens and several squadrons of cuirassiers took up position outside the Palace. They were fine-looking men, hand-picked and not showing much sign of the terrible times we had suffered during the last few weeks. Their breastplates and helmets did show some traces of rust, but were otherwise in good condition.

The rebels were ensconced behind hastily erected barricades. Led by de Nemi, the only one of Patera’s officers to desert, they had stormed the arsenal a few hours ago and had all the weapons they needed. They outnumbered the army by ten to one and that gave them their courage.

In the opposing ranks the horses impatiently stamped their feet. The commander, honest old Colonel Duschnitzky, was extremely concerned by the fact the mob had rifles. And he didn’t like the look of his horses, either. They were nervous, poorly fed and poorly groomed. He had intended to wait for the promised reinforcements before attacking, but it couldn’t be put off any longer. By the time they arrived the insurgents could have taken the Archive and then his cavalry would be no use. Besides, the ramparts of cobblestones were growing higher by the minute.

Some of the lieutenants were laughing and smoking cigarettes. They were looking forward to clearing the streets, they’d simply sweep these fellows aside, this kind of thing was meat and drink to a young officer. The men stood there at attention, waiting, with slightly stupid looks on their faces.

A shot rang out and one of the cavalrymen fell to the ground. The colonel gave a signal and rode to the front of his troops. It was a moment in which his soldier’s face, with its grim expression and leathery, bronze complexion, looked truly beautiful. He saluted up to the silent Palace–as if to say
Ave Caesar, morituri to salutant
–then the bugles sounded and with a loud ‘Hurrah!’ the massed ranks of the cavalry threw themselves at the barricades. Sabres stretched out in front, their ghostly horsehair tails streaming out behind them, the riders hung low over the necks of their galloping mounts, to be received by the sharp crackle of a salvo. Maybe five cuirassiers fell from the saddle but, and this was far worse, the horses went completely to pieces. They bucked and shied and stood up straight, throwing off their riders. They tore round the large square in a wide curve, whinnying shrilly, then leapt over the barricades, trampling anyone who got in their way, rebels or soldiers, beneath their terrible hooves. In their panic the horses were like beasts possessed and seemed to have supernatural strength.

At that moment the expected reinforcements rode up, but only exacerbated the disaster. The newly arrived horses sensed the tremendous commotion and were immediately swept away by it. Rotten girths and bridles snapped and the riders, with nothing to hold on to, found themselves tumbling down and rolling round on the ground before they had any idea where the enemy was. Freed of their burdens, the herd set off for the barracks at a wild gallop that made the sparks fly.

I was standing in Long Street when I heard a sound of approaching thunder. Instinctively I clambered up onto a low wall running along the side of the coffee house. Hardly was I there than the hooves came clattering over the cobbles and I was staring into frenzied, bulging eyes, flaring nostrils, twisted mouths. For a few seconds I smelt the sharp tang of horse sweat, then they had all disappeared in a swirl of dust, heading for the fields.

Fat and lethargic, the huge vultures sat on their pedestals–the stumps of the trees along the Avenue–and watched apathetically as the horses raced past. Only one, a bay hobbling along at the back and constantly going round in circles, aroused a flicker of interest.

The frantic gallop went right round the city. Individual horses lost contact with the herd and tore blindly through the twisting alleys until they finally smashed their skulls against the corner of some building. Several times the main body were crushed together in narrow passageways and blind alleys until eventually they came to the rubbish tip. There was no way out. The weaker were kicked to the ground by the strong, hooves flashed and entrails spewed out, spreading a foul stench.

The old colonel would have been delighted if he could have seen the success of his charge, for countless rebels were trampled to death. However, a hand in a white gauntlet was the only identifiable piece of him that was left; the rest was scattered among the mangled heap of limbs, breastplates, splintered bones, saddles and bridles.

XVI

Before it collapsed completely, the interior of the coffee house had become so dilapidated that customers refused to enter it any more. It was his head waiter that the owner blamed. ‘You look like a filthy pig’, he told him. He said it in a calm, soothing tone, so that it can only have been the content that inspired the perfidious waiter’s evil scheme. One night he pushed his unsuspecting boss down into the cellar and slammed the trapdoor shut. The owner broke his arm, but otherwise landed softly, like a rubber ball, thanks to his layers of landlord’s fat. Although annoyed at Anton, he had no idea how great a danger he was in. With his experience in the catering trade the waiter was counting on accomplices to assist him in his crime, namely the millions of rats that infested the underground vaults and catacombs of Pearl. The innkeeper, for the moment in the dark and groping his way in the wrong direction, ended up in the passage in which I had had that terrible experience.

In vain he looked for a way out. His broken arm had swelled up and was starting to hurt badly. He was tiring. A soft squealing could be heard, a rustling and a scuttling, at first just single sounds, then more and more, by the hundred, the thousand. He suddenly realised the trap he was caught in and tried to run, to lash out at his attackers. He could feel the tiny paws clutching at him, the heavy lumps hanging on to him. He tried to brush them off, his arm was covered in sharp, tiny bites. He tried to shake them off. Four, five times he succeeded, then he threw himself onto the ground to rid himself of his hungry tormentors. Rats were crushed and trampled to death, perhaps a hundred, but they were replaced by a thousand others, praising their Creator for the bounty He had sent His faithful rats.