B007P4V3G4 EBOK (29 page)

The person who wasn't being listened to was Lex Patijn. He was
standing there with his back towards me, apparently unmoved, a
bored spectator of the row. What was it that sozzled American
had said? 'This motherfucker says he just killed his friend.'

I put a hand on Patijn's shoulder. He turned round and I looked
into eyes I did not know even though they were in Lex's face.

'I only wanted to put the wind up him a bit ... I only wanted to
let him get in a bit of a lather . . .' He went on repeating these little
sentences in a trance. 'I only wanted to leave him stew for a bit ...
put the wind up him a bit ...

He also looked repeatedly at his fingertips, maybe because with
these he had felt Jody's hot breath, 'right through the goo'.

A little later, as if something just occurred to him, Lex said with an
idiotic grin on his face: 'Yes, well, I came here in the end. I thought... I
thought: those Yanks will understand me better than those Eyeties.'

Now the row between the two marines had been settled, those
Yanks were prepared to listen to Lex. But he seemed to want to
retract. 'I only wanted to depict .... to depict his death.'

The SP-s shrugged their shoulders and called the Carabinieri,
who in their turn were a long time in coming, possibly because of
the New Year's rush. For the time being, the world did not seem
to be inclined to take Lex's deed seriously.

Perhaps it was because of the plaster bandaging that it did not
affect me to see my friend Jody Katan lying there motionless. He
was lying in a comer of the studio like a parody of a crashed
wintersport reveller, a joke-figure from a variety show ... But at
the same time I was struck by the similarity to the Pompeiian
displayed in the bathhouse in a glass sarcophagus: lying on his
back, head inclined to the left, raised left lower arm with snapped,
drooping hand, right hand in right-hand groin, fingers at the ready
to raise the too narrow trouserleg by half a The
scissors, with round eyes from which Lex's fingers had hastily
freed themselves, stuck in Katan's side. Jody's bandaged arms
reminded me of bedsheets, wrung out by hand; the hands little
propellers, they might whirr back into their original position any
moment now. The breast plate had burst and crumpled; it hung
round his body this way and that: a harness of jumbled pack-ice.

At the Carabinieri's request, a doctor cut open Jody's suit. Each
piece freed was numbered. The helmet, the felt patches ... No
death struggle could be read from Katan's face. Its expression was
as neutral as that of a tailor's dummy. He had closed his eyes in life
already.

By means of the passport, the body was identified and taken off
by ambulance in the end. Patijn and I were taken along in separate
cars to the station.

When the Carabinieri let me go after the laborious interrogation,
in the early morning, the city's cleansing department was already
busy clearing the New Year's Eve ravages. Slowly, a clear sky
appeared over Naples. All gunpowder fumes seemed to have
still Jody's suffocation seemed to seek to tear my
chest apart. I gave myself some heart: before I choked, I would
have reached the street where the American bars were.

Jan Hofker

Now, the townsfolk have pressed in from all sides. They occupy all
windows, all roofs are black with them. Humming life, warm-stuffy
life, working like a great machine of destruction. It is a continuous
oppression. Like a nightmare, truly, in clear light of day. Oh, Air
... air. If only it could flee the throat, the entire body ... if only it
were gone, that living human mass, reacting in one's head.

That, now, is the End. That, now, is the end of life. That, now, is
life, seen through to the very end. Life entire. Including youth -
and the village - and the heavy servitude - and the peasant-talk.
And all the calculations. All the hope. All the glossing-over. And
all the miserable trudging beneath great burdens. That, now, is the
end.

Now It comes. Can you still hear? Can you still see? How the
legs throb; such tiredness in old legs. Oh, tired, dear, oh
dear.

How the crowd hums. Such a crowd. What a mass of people.
That is destruction. That is total destruction. That is the destruction
of the person right-now before death. Do you not feel that you
have now become the least of all men? Irrevocably? For all
eternity? Now you are timid. Now you are afraid.

Afraid of each and everyone. All can now command you. A
small child might now command you. You move out of the way
for a child. Away, gone; you are gone completely already.

You thought Death so terrible. You were not yet paralysed
then, paralysed by the machine of formality, by the ceremonial.
Now you are paralysed. Do you hear how you do not cry out?
You, who thought to crawl and groan? Do you see how Necessity
works as does Superior Force? Death is nothing.

Oh, that humming crowd and those quiet whisper-men, at their
task of the noose. You no longer cry, you no longer ask for mercy.
They would have to spell it out for you now: mer ... cy; mer ... cy.
Now, only the masses and the quiet-busy men. You are now docile
who never were docile. You are now obliging, ready to help. You do what is wanted. Go where you are wanted to go. You go the
way you are wanted to go. You are now feeble, too feeble to will
the contrary. All is mood. Most-serious mood. You are to die.

It's coming closer now. Now It will happen. How the crowd
does hum. The black-mass crowd in the daytime sun. This, now, is
the Universe, eternity. Eternal pitilessness. Lost, lost. This, now, is
Death.

That man will do It. That man whose breath you can already
smell. That man seen close-by. With the blue eyes. With the
sweating forehead in the hot daylight. And coarse-blond hair. Do
you hear his voice? He utters sounds. That man close-by will do it.
That tiredness the worst.

Oh, that tiredness. That tiredness and that humming crowd. The
heart is feeble. The will is weak. Fear past. That tiredness the
worst.

And that they are close around you. And that they are so quiet.
Quiet-busy around you. Doing thus in quiet haste. It hurts, their
taking trouble for you; it embarrasses you, all those men, the work
you cause them. All those men and hands. You wish their will.

Only the ascent still. With the tired legs. And that narrow rope
that forces a going-up, a going-up backwards behind the man
ascending first. Humming, oh, humming - black, black is the
fullness - terrible humming. Do not go mad, poor fellow.

Do they not weep? That ladder wobbles. We both shall fall. Oh
God, how heavy with these throbbing legs, this ascending backwards, and a ladder that wobbles. We both shall fall. Hear now the
drums rolling close-by. That stomach-searing roll. Hear, hear.

Hear the terrible townsfolk,

mounting the tide of High Pleasure.

Frans Kellendonk

'No, I won't get up for you. I no longer get up. When I was
young, I don't know how long ago, long ago, if there were
visitors, I would hide behind a door. Then I would trip, knees bent
and on tiptoe, into the room. Not this room. A different room.
Everybody was charmed. I'd better not bother with such pranks
nowadays. My ankles would collapse. Even with two servants
supporting me, my ankles would collapse. Can you see what gout
has done to my hands? They lay chalk stones nowadays. I can no
longer run along like a chicken, but twice a year my hands lay a
little chalk egg. I keep them in that um there, to have a gravel plot
laid out with them on my grave.

If you're afraid of le catch-cold, as they say in your ravaged
fatherland, then I'd be happy to ring for my gruff Swiss manservant.
However, I would advise you rather to close the window yourself.
Philippe is on the booze and he keeps his ears quite deaf to me. I
myself no longer catch any colds, not since I abandoned wearing
hats.

Meet Tonton. Shake paws with the young man, Tonton. Tonton
is too fat to shake paws with the young man. He was left to me by
your much lamented countrywoman Madame du Deffant. ']e suis
tombee dans le neant ... je refombe dans le neant,' she used to say,
and now I repeat her words. Tonton can't move because he's too
fat and I can't because of my gout. We have been condemned to
each other's company and to this settee. One lives and lives and
then, one day, one wakes up dead.

Were Philippe not so ill-tempered then I might have asked him
to show you round this gingerbread castle of mine. Alas, Philippe
is always ill-tempered nowadays. But I shall tell you what you
must see. Something that certainly will interest you is my collection
of armour and weaponry. Oh yes, I have noticed that you are a
martial young man: I gleaned it from your build, your thighs in
particular. That collection's housed in the stairwell. Shields of
rhinoceros skin, hand-bows, arrows and quivers, all having come from - that is what's said, at least, and I genuinely believe it - all
having come from my distant forebear, the renowned Sir Terry
Robsart!

Sir Terry Robsart. The English crusader. Knight of the Garter ...

Francois Premier, does the name mean anything to you? Your artloving monarch, indeed. As a Frenchman, you are sure to be
interested in his suit of armour. Inlaid with gold. You will find it
in the entrance to the library. Should you then walk on, into
the library, you'll come face to face with another prize exhibit, the
painting depicting the uniting in holy matrimony of our Henry the
Sixth and your Margaret of Anjou. Two highly talented people
but an unhappy marriage. Our countries were at war then, just as
they are now. Would you mind also looking up a moment then, up
at the painted ceiling? Designed it myself. At the centre, pride of
place, my family escutcheon. Do this for me, please. I have not
seen it for months.

And then I have another request. Would you mind not looking
with your fingers, not under any circumstance? Last week a vicar's
wife from Birmingham broke one of the pipes which Admiral
Tromp smoked during his last sea battle. A few days later it turned
out that my Roman eagle had lost its beak. It's a miracle that I still
have all my teeth. I just sit here all day like an antique. The flesh
withers on my bones. An old bunch of faggots is what I am, only
fit for the fire. I'll be eighty this coming year. Recently, I heard a
visitor say: 'Just take a look at this, Annabel, see that mummy
there? That's what the fops looked like in grandfather's day.' Soon
they'll be fiddling with me, too. Ah, just look: he's bald underneath
his switch. An ear breaks off, and an eye runs across the floor.
Better put it in your pocket, Annabel, quick, then no one'll notice.

You do have a ticket, don't you? You know that tickets for
admission must be requested in writing. I'm sorry to
have had to institute this rule, but as this edifice consists merely of
breadcrust, wallpaper and stained glass, I cannot receive more than
four visitors a day. And definitely no children.

You do not have a ticket.

You have not come to see the exhibits.

Have I ever met you before?

Do you play faro? D'you play loo? Would you like a cup of tea?
Or ice-water, perhaps? I only drink ice-water, because of my
complaint. No? Take some snuff? I do enjoy taking some snuff, be
it from my finger tip, for I have been obliged to sacrifice my tabatiere anatomique to the gout. Finest tobacco, from Fribourg's.
No7 Again no.

Then I will tell you a charming story. It's about Madame de
Choiseul, in more youthful days, when she had two lovers, Prince
Joseph of Monaco and Monsieur de Coigny. As if that wasn't
enough, she fervently wished to possess a parrot as well, one
which would be a miracle of eloquence. Macaws, parrots, cockatoos
and what have you, Paris has these a-plenty, as you know, and the
Prince rapidly managed to lay his hands on a Jaco which was
appointed her secretary by the grateful nymph. Not to put Monsieur de Coigny at a disadvantage, she also acquired a fierce
longing for a monkey. Strangely enough, monkeys were a rare
commodity in Paris in those days - not so now, I believe - but,
with great difficulty, the other paladin managed to find one in a
restaurant, where the creature was working as a kitchen boy.
Madame de Choiseul was delighted and appointed the monkey her
chamberlain. Monsieur de Coigny, however, had neglected to
purpose or out of forgetfulness, it's not for me to
say - in any case, he had not mentioned to her that the chamberlain,
in his previous place of employment, had gained great dexterity in
the plucking of birds and when Madame, one evil day, returned
from making a