B007P4V3G4 EBOK (34 page)

It became dark and started to blow. But the web held out splendidly and the force of the storm pressing on it was distributed
so magnificently across all the threads that there was not the
slightest threat of it breaking. Late that evening, a horse and cart
came down the road. The farmer himself, driving it, had to smile
from time to time. He had wanted to go by car but he hadn't been
able to get it going and then he had left in the little carriage that
had stood for years already in the stable, without being used. 'Take
the carriage then,' his wife had said. Now he was on the dark road
and they were heading for home. The lanterns did not give much
light and the horse's hooves on the road were so calming that
anyone would have had to smile. The whip was in its holder, to
the right on the box, sticking up in the air, but the farmer did not
think of using it. He had taken it into his hand for a moment at
first, when he had driven away from the yard and they had all
roared with laughter at that coachman in his carriage and they had
cried prrrt, prrrt to make the horse run. But on the road the farmer
at once had put the whip back in its holder and there it was now,
in just the same state, and now he was going, very calmly and
inevitably and, who knows, righteously, right through the web in a
tree, close to the farm, of Baldur D. Quorg.

There wasn't a sound.

The web was left hanging from the whip like a pennant and
Baldur calmly clambered down the whip to the floor of the box.
There he settled, the hind legs leaning on the wood and the front
ones resting against the two planks making up the corner. He was
sitting beneath the whip holder. When the farmer got back home,
he put the carriage in the stable. Not in the big one but in the little
one that had been built up against it, and which was much chillier
and more draughty and which only contained things that were old
and no longer used. The farmer did put the leather cover, lying on
the box to protect the coachman against wind and rain, right over
the box. In deepest darkness, beneath that leather cover and in the
even deeper darkness underneath the whip holder, sat Baldur.

He has been sitting there a fortnight now and he is still alive.
He hasn't moved during that time, it is true, and his eyes are
closed. It is darker there than blackest black can depict but should
he wish to, Baldur would still be able to open his eyes. That's no
movement worth mentioning and he would be able to close them
again too. He would not see anything and we would not be able
to perceive him either. But, were we able to see in the dark, then
we would still notice that the bitterness in those eyes no longer glows, almost no longer exists, and is about to be expressionless
calcium.

No one observes this death. Nobody visits the faun, by the last
train and the last bus, by cars standing at night on the verge, on
bikes put askew against the barn. There are no people standing in
this draughty barn in the dark so that you see the fiery tips of their
cigarettes flare up or describe arcs when they take their cigarettes
from their mouths. And so there isn't any hushed conversation
either. As dark as it is, that's how silent it is too, and so deserted,
and there isn't a single sign of life except for that of the wind
blowing across the earth precisely the way it already did millions
of years ago.

The spider's heart is still beating.

That's annoying! When Baldur no longer leered, his much
shrunk brain switched to observing this beating. It became hollower
all the time and it made an echo beneath the calcium, reverberating
dome of his skull.

Now that dome had to be freed of everything still there within:
Baldur's brain. So it shrank and withered away.

Thus the heart tolled away perception. Both grew dim in
time with one another, for the beating of the heart diminished and
the echo died away. The dome became larger and empty. And
silent.

Millions of years ago the wind blew the way it does now. It
could not set anything in motion except the waves and the dust.
At that time, in a swamp or deep down in the sea, in vaporous
light or in a violet darkness, movement came about. Movement
which was sealed into a form; movement that became beating, the
beating of a heart, the beating of Baldur's heart, the tolling in this
dome of calcium that is empty and silent once more.

Calcium.

It beats one more time.

Calcium.

And No, no more now. It is over.

A dead spider! It is as though the shapes have become vaguer
already: the legs, the maulers, the head, the body. Granules are
what remain. Barely, really.

'No one, never,' Baldur said, and this was right.

0 wondrous life that began to move in a swamp or a sea.

O sweet promise of a heart that beats; this was Baldur D.
Quorg, spider.

Frans Kusters

I awoke from a deep, dreamless sleep. At the foot of my bed stood
four figures: two men and two women, all of them well past fifty.
They wore starched white coats; in front of one of the women's
throats hung a paper theatre mask. They looked pale with fatigue
and didn't move a muscle. Why, I could not say, but I was quite
sure that the foursome had been observing me for some time already.

'Am I ill then?' I uttered, seeking to support myself on my
elbows. Barely had I posed the question when, that instant, they
lost all interest in me and, to my amazement at first, but soon to
my indignation and annoyance, began to gambol about like little
children and to grab one another by the hair, the nose and the
ears. These can't be real doctors, I thought, they're nursing staff; if
they get caught here, they'll be given the boot, you bet.

'Would you please cut out those pea-brained goings-on!' I cried.
'Let somebody tell me what's wrong with me, instead.'

My words did not have the desired effect: on the contrary.
Things got ever wilder and more vicious; they rolled about on the
floor more than that were on their feet, and where only recently
there had been boisterous and teasing laughter now the first cries
of anger, fear and pain resounded already. As far as I could see,
each fought for himself; where there were any alliances, these
never lasted longer than a few seconds. The most remarkable of all,
however, was how the women kept their end up.

I would have to get out of bed and try all that was possible to
put a stop to this bizarre and horrifying pantomime. I had already
thrown off the covers but suddenly all my attention was taken up
by the shirt I was wearing. It was so beautiful, that shirt; it was
made of dark-grey damask and the patterns woven into it changed
at the slightest movement I made. I just continued to stare at that
dark, mysterious fabric that was so soft I could barely feel it, and
the banging and shrieking seemed to be coming from very far
away, now.

Then a very bright light shone in the room and a small, slight
little man was standing on the threshold. I quickly wrapped the
blankets round both my shoulders and the moment I went and lay
down again I saw that the men and the women had let go of one
another and, contrite, were brushing the dust from their coats and
smoothing down their hair. Flanking the little man on both sides,
they took up positions at the foot of the bed once again.

'The chef de clinique,' the woman without the mask whispered,
bending forwards. Nothing in her appearance or behaviour indicated that, just now, she had had to perform a tremendous feat of
strength, and this applied to her three colleagues likewise.

Am I ill then?' I asked once more, raising myself upright.

It was like flour, the head of the chef de clinique, cocked incessantly from left to right, and the exaggeratedly wide-open eyes
within it were large and moist.

'Young man,' he spoke severely, 'now just you take it easy.
With us you're in very good hands. We know exactly what's
wrong with you. We know what it is, how it comes about and
how it progresses. We've even got a name for it. It's just that
we're not quite far enough advanced to combat it effectively. As is
the case with cancer, I mean to say, and important discoveries are
made in both areas, daily, so best not despair.'

He was silent and grasped his black, almost square moustache
between thumb and index finger.

'The hairline recedes,' he went on, having cleared his throat, 'the
body sags and wears out: that's our diagnosis.' During those last
words he took a stethoscope from his doctor's coat, tossed the
gleaming instrument into the air, caught it, and nonchalantly put it
away again. Then he bowed his head a moment, glanced fleetingly
and irritatedly over both his shoulders and indicated by demonstratively drumming with his right-hand fingers on the back of his left
hand that he considered his visit to have come to an end.

'The patient has a right to the full diagnosis,' one of the men
protested. He added a curse to his remark and it was because of
this that, as if by magic, I recognised him and the other three.
They were Hans and Monica, Margreet and Rudy, my best friends.
Disbelieving, I looked from one to the other. No wonder I hadn't
recognised them at first sight: they'd become thirty years older, at
least. But it was them: no doubt about that in the slightest. Hans
and Margreet were standing on the doctor's left hand side, Monica
and Rudy on his right. Yet Monica belonged with Hans and Rudy with Margreet. The chef de clinique, too, I had seen before at some
time or other, I realised, but I no longer knew on what occasion.

'Out of the question,' he said decisively. He took a step
backwards. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' he continued, 'you doubtless
know that there are other patients awaiting us. Would you mind
following me, please?'

Monica laughed encouragingly at me. Hans stared fixedly ahead
of him. He had taken out glasses with half lenses like you see
politicians and successful businessmen wear at times. Margreet
whispered something into Rudy's ear; he nodded gravely.

'Oh, help me then, please,' I wailed, 'haven't we always been
friends? Why won't you tell me the full diagnosis?' But they turned
away and followed the strange little man who, with coattails
flapping, had almost reached the door already. 'Patients come and
patients go, the full diagnosis endures even so,' he cried over his
shoulder, giggling. It was not clear whether that remark was
intended for me or for his assistants instead.

They looked at me one more time and then they were gone.
Only Hans halted on the threshold, looked around restlessly and
then retraced his steps. The light had become less bright again
now. He sat on his heels next to my bed and without losing sight
of the doorway he began to speak, softly, hurriedly. There was
also a touch of solemnity in his voice as if he was reciting an old
and affecting poem.

'Listen,' he said, 'the full diagnosis runs as follows. The hairline
recedes, the body sags, the parts wear out. The arrival of nocturnal
guests. They knock on the back door; two shadowy figures against
rain-stained, ink-black glass point at stomach and mouth and chew
through all the food that now still stands on the kitchen shelves.
Husband and wife they are, clad in rags; you don't know their
names and why precisely you must be the one to regale them. And
why specifically at night, not by day or in the evening hours. You
give them ham: they want honey; you give them honey: they
want ham. Behind their backs, you walk to and fro, an apprentice
waiter who will never learn the craft. No, they do not eat, they
just pretend, so their arrival has nothing to do with hunger. Only
you have heard their knock on the door, only you have opened up
to them. You don't know how long they will stay. They do not
eat, nor do they speak. And you're afraid: you walk up and down
the kitchen, busily.'

He was silent and regarded me fleetingly. 'I have to go now,' he said, 'farewell.' With the flat of his hand he stroked the metal bars
of the bed, and before I was able to say anything he had already
left the room. And the door swung to behind him and clicked shut.