Brother of Sleep: A Novel (19 page)

But one man, and one only, could not help reacting. He was one of the four pallid professors, the one
who had cried “That's impossible! That is not possi­
ble!” at the beginning of the fugue. Some forty days after the disappearance of Elias Alder, Seff's wife received a letter accompanied by a large banknote, invit­ing Musician Elias Alder to present himself at the vicariate-general forthwith. A respected citizen had placed a considerable sum at his disposal, which would enable him to take a place at the Institute of the Liberal Arts without any worries.

The respected citizen was, of course, the author of the letter himself. But the letter was too late. By this time Elias Alder was already dead. Not even Seff's wife knew that, because she thought her son was still in Feldberg. No one knew apart from Peter.

When the friends set off for home, Peter was unrecognizable. He kept embracing Elias, who walked apathetically onward, he whooped with joy, danced a few steps farther, stood in the road with his arms outstretched, hugged Elias, kissed his forehead, and would not stop shouting and talking. The townspeople had never seen anything like what he had just done, he said excitedly. He, Johannes Elias Alder, was the king of that night, he added with feeling, bowing to his friend. And what a glorious future blossomed ahead of him now, he babbled. Elias could make a fortune with his organ playing–and he pulled the dark paper and the coins out of Elias's pockets, letting them clatter in his hands. He himself would sell his farm and move with Elias to Feldberg. From Feldberg they would go on great journeys in elegant coaches with damask carpets. They would travel the country, maybe even as far as Inns­bruck. And over time the organ would make Elias immensely wealthy.…

Peter would not calm down, and not for a second did he notice that his friend's mind was on quite differ­ent matters. Even the soothing coolness of the night did nothing to calm the hothead's spirits. However, as Elias was not answering any of his questions, Peter fell silent as well. And they walked for three hours without exchanging a single word.

At dawn they reached Götzberg, and when Peter wanted to take the fork for Eschberg, Elias suddenly opened his lips. He wanted to walk to Eschberg along the river, he said thinly. It was an old and painful path. Many people from Eschberg had walked along it when
the fire had destroyed their lives. Peter did not under­stand
the strange wish and objected that he was tired from the day's and the night's exertions. But Elias would not be put off and said in a mysterious voice that other exertions still awaited them. It was thus that they climbed ponderously toward Eschberg, making big detours to avoid the waterfalls, until they finally arrived at their home or, more precisely, at the water-polished stone.

There Elias sat down in silence, folded his arms, and said quietly, ‘My friend, I did not betray you when you set the village on fire. So swear to me now that you will not betray me either. Swear that everything that happens now and subsequently will stay locked in your heart until the Day of Judgment!'

Peter looked at him with tired yet helpless eyes. But he raised his fingers and swore eternal silence. Elias told him to return to the farm, go to bed, and sleep there very conscientiously. After which he should spread the word in the village that they had kept him in Feldberg and that he could not return immediately. Peter should come back here toward evening, with some hempen ropes and enough provisions for a week. No one, Elias said, almost menacingly, should know that he had come home.

“And if Elsbeth asks after you?” Peter said warmly. Elias said nothing and looked at him with such empty eyes that Peter's forearms were covered with gooseflesh.

Peter stood up and did as Elias had commanded.

COME, O DEATH, O COME, BROTHER OF SLEEP

PETER
had just gone to bed when he heard Lukas Alder's clogs heavily mounting the stairs. During his absence Lukas had taken care of the cattle, milked them, and led them back to the pasture. Peter rose from his pallet, went to find Lukas, and told him what had happened in Feldberg. And he constantly repeated that the professors had wanted to keep Elias there for a while, in order to investigate his extremely curious natural genius. Lukas remained silent, not understanding, and asked only whether he should go and milk the cows because he had the impression that Peter looked very much in need of sleep. But Peter took five hellers from his pocket, held out his crippled arm, and told him to go home. In the morning Peter walked over to Seff's wife's house and told her the same lying tale. Just by chance the Lamparter gossip crossed his path, so he
could be sure the whole village would soon know the reason for Elias's absence. And in fact the gossip turned on the spot, headed straight for the village school, and awarded the waiting children a holiday.

Peter could not sleep, although he had gone back to bed at midday. The sultry heat did not help, so he set about packing the hempen rope and the provisions. In the afternoon he lay down again, this time in the cool walls of his cellar. He slept an agitated sleep there, tossing and turning. He had nightmares.

When the sun had disappeared behind the mountains of the Rhine Valley, he put on his rucksack and took a series of detours to the bed of the Emmer, not suspecting that he would be witness to an incredibly long and tormented suicide.

Elias was sitting in the place where everything had started and where everything would now come to an end. He had cut his hair, which had reached his shoulders; the slate he had used, as thin as a leaf, lay beside him. He had the tuft of hair in his mouth, and Peter could not understand what he was trying to say with this. Elias's eyes were staring at the lively water of the Emmer. He had stayed awake, he had not slept for a moment. Peter went over to him, kissed his forehead, and took his burning head in his hands. He saw that Elias had gone mad.

“Elias,” he whispered, “why are you hurting yourself like this? You've become a famous man.” And he added craftily that he had seen a handful of young women in Eschberg cathedral gazing at the organist with love in their eyes. He was trying to give him hope. But the idea that Elias might take a wife and abandon him hurt him too much, and so he let it be.

Elias took the tuft of hair from his mouth. “Did you sleep conscientiously?” he asked with hollow eyes.

“I couldn't sleep,” said Peter. “I had a terrible nightmare.” And he let go of his friend's head.

“Let's go, before night falls, and collect deadly nightshade, amanites, and belladonna,” said Elias. “I'll need that when I get tired.”

Peter knew the intoxicating effect of these substances, but he still could not understand what Elias really had in mind. “Do you want to wait here until the Day of Judgment?” he asked with an affected smile, and Elias gravely answered that he did. “You need some sleep,” Peter repeated irritably. “Your head is burning with fever. Be reasonable, and let's go back.”

At these words, Elias stood up on the rock, stretched his limbs, and suddenly jumped into the icy water of the mountain stream. He dived to the bottom, came back up, shook his limbs, and rubbed his head and arms in wild circles. “How good cold water is!” he cried to Peter. “A man dives in, and as if by itself sleep leaves his limbs!”

When Elias had clambered up from the pond,
Peter noticed that he was having considerable diffi­
culty coordinating his movements. Peter was not surprised. For a day, a night, and another day his friend had not slept. But everything would get more frightening still.

Once Elias had revived his strength with bread, dried semolina, and raw eggs, they set off in search of
the deadly nightshade leaves, belladonna, and am­
anites. They came close to being seen, for a Lamparter was committing incest with his sister in the forest. But the woman's cries for help warned them in time. When night fell they returned to the water-polished stone. They had found what Elias needed. During their walk Elias had revealed to Peter his current way of thinking, which grotesquely reflected the disturbance of his mind.

Elias asked whether he could still remember the carrottop, the wandering preacher. He certainly could, said Peter. And could he remember the words he had cried when he had fallen in a faint? Peter said nothing. Then Elias grew wider awake, and his movements became very agitated. While he had been playing the organ in Feldberg it had occurred to him that he had only loved Elsbeth halfway. That was why God had refused him Elsbeth, for his love had been too lukewarm. His so-called love had been nothing but a pile of lies and halfheartedness.

How, he stammered, could a man who was pure in heart claim that he loved a woman his whole life long, when he had done so only by day, and then perhaps only for the duration of a thought? That could not be true. For when sleeping–Peter must see that–one did not love. One was in a state of death, which was why it was no coincidence that death and sleep were called brothers. So sleeping time was a waste and conse­quently a sin. The time a person spent sleeping would be added on after death to his time in purgatory. So he had decided to live his life awake, as new. And this new awakened life would bring him Elsbeth's love and the certainty of eternal bliss in heaven.

Peter felt he had nothing more to say. Elias spread his frock coat on the edge of the stone and sat down upon it. Then he moistened a leaf of deadly nightshade with his spit and twisted it into a tiny roll. He laughed and said he felt like his father's old nag, which had only waked up when those leaves had been stuffed up its arse. Peter tried again, in vain, to persuade him to abandon this demented plan, but Elias only gave an indifferent laugh. He gruffly told Peter to go now, and get some conscientious sleep, for in two or three nights' time he would have to be vigorous enough to watch over him. Then he picked a belladonna berry, bit it, and ate half of it.

The symptoms were quick to appear. About half an hour after Peter left, Elias entered a great state of euphoria. He began to sing. He got up and danced to his own melodies. Then he suddenly had convulsions and finally burst into long fits of sobbing. When he had calmed down after midnight, he felt dead tired. His head fell heavily on his breast, but when he noticed that he had dozed for a few moments, he reprimanded himself in the most violent terms, jumped into the river, and wallowed in it like a heavy great stag. And that was what he felt like, for he thought he had put on weight.

When morning came, when the first bright rays of sunlight played in the leaves of the mixed forest, his brain was already suffering from persecution mania. He thought he could see fur-covered beasts with small but sharp-toothed mouths in the moving leaves. The whole sky filled up with these menacing creatures, and they were jumping back and forth, shooting dangerously toward his head and yet not attacking him. In the morning of his second night without sleep, his hearing seemed to have grown more acute, while at the same time his eyesight had weakened.

In the morning Peter came back down to the water-polished stone, but Elias was no longer sitting there. Only the hempen rope and the black frock coat lay on the stone. Peter called out to him and waited for more than an hour, but in vain. He climbed back up the hill, believing that Elias had abandoned his intentions. Toward evening, he crept to Elias's farm and threw pebbles at the window of his room, but nothing moved behind the window and he grew sad. He went down to the Emmer immediately, but there was no sign of Elias.

For three days and three nights he was not to be seen. On the morning of the fourth day, Peter thought of breaking his oath and summoning a handful of men to go out searching for him at midday. But he did not have time; when he returned to the polished rock to have another look, Elias was sitting there again. Peter watched him from a safe distance and saw that Elias could no longer sit up. He saw that he had still not closed his eyes.

“Where have you been?” asked Peter loudly. Elias did not seem to hear the question. Peter asked even more loudly, and Elias's face pulled a painful grimace. After laborious interrogations he finally discovered that his friend had wandered up to the highest mountain, the
Kugelberg, got lost, and had only now found his way back.

At this stage, Elias could still have spoken clearly, but the intoxicating effect of the amanites, along with the stimulant of the deadly nightshade leaves, made speech a torment. Elias's lips were swollen and stiff. It took several attempts for him to express what he had to say. He could not go on, he managed to say by dint of obstinacy. He wanted Peter to stand him upright, he said, and tie him to the trunk of that young ash tree. How could he ever appear before the eyes of Elsbeth and tell her he loved her for life if he did not stay awake? Peter grasped the emaciated body in his arms and tied it to the tree trunk. Elias was thirsty; he needed a great deal of water. Peter gave him some mouthfuls with tender care, but within a few minutes Elias brought up all that he had drunk.

In the afternoon, when it grew sultry even in the cool of the forest, the effect of the intoxicating herbs wore off, and it looked as though Elias's strength was returning. At least he managed to speak more clearly again. Indeed, he even laughed once and said that sleep robbed man of the finest time of his life. He had a sense that time was of greater duration than we generally thought. What had previously seemed like a moment was now as long as a morning. And he asked Peter gravely how long he thought a moment of eternity would last. Peter did not answer but hung the water-drenched frock coat over his head and chest to cool him down. Elias thought, he said from behind the coat, that a moment of eternity would amount to between seven and nine mornings of our earthly time. Maybe more. Maybe less. At any rate, it was certainly three. From now on Peter stayed with the bound man. He did go to the farm in the evening to milk the cows but then hurried back to the stone.

Peter must pinch him, Elias blathered, in his cheeks, in his legs, or slap him if necessary. He had to have deadly nightshade, he needed water, leaves in his arse. He must untie him; he could stand no longer. Peter patiently did as Elias demanded, took a few steps with him, pushed half a belladonna berry between his
teeth, and bound the feeble body again. He was or­
dered to wrap a hempen rope around his brow, throw the end over the branch, tighten it, and finally attach it to his own toes. That way they would be prepared for the night. If his head fell forward, Peter would immediately notice, wake up, and force him awake, beat him awake, for when one slept one did not love.

So the sixth night fell on the forest, and Elias stayed awake and did not sleep. But only with immense effort, for Peter had to keep untying him from the tree, walking a few steps with him, and immersing him in the cold water. Hardly had Peter gone to sleep than the madman cried out that he could stand no more and was afraid of going to sleep himself.

In the morning of the seventh day of keeping watch, Peter left for a quarter of an hour to do what needed to be done at the farm. On his return, he saw that Elias had gone to sleep. He also saw that he was no longer capable of holding back his excrement. Urine was dripping from Elias's shin, and on his martyred skin Peter discovered yellow stains as big as nuts. Peter felt such a pang of anguish that he slapped the sleeping man awake and yelled in his face that he could no longer bear to see this. If Elias did not bring his torture to an end he would go and get his sister, bring her down here, and expose her to this terrible sight. He would tell her why Elias was inflicting this kind of pain on himself. In the twilight of his mind, Elias groaned and stammered in words that were barely comprehensible that Peter had to keep his oath. He had kept his own in the past.

Those were his last attempts to speak, for he was no longer capable of moving a single limb, let alone his jaws or his tongue. With impotent rage Peter whipped him awake again and again, supported the dying body, dipped him in the water, and forced little pieces of belladonna into his mouth. Because he could no longer keep his eyelids open, and his eyes were already dimmed and septic, Peter took some pollen wax, molded it, and placed it between his eyelashes so his lids could no longer fall closed.

At around the fifth hour of the afternoon something happened that Peter found quite inexplicable. A sudden disturbance hit the area. The undergrowth crackled and rustled all around them. Never had Peter
seen a deer come so close to a man, so close he could have touched it. The young chamois, shyest of all mountain animals, drank from the water of the Emmer without the slightest fear. It did not even make as if to flee when Peter stood up on the rock. Lower down, beside the grotto, three roe deer were grazing. A bat danced out of the darkness of the grotto, and it was not long before salamanders were crawling on the water-polished stone. At the same time, and only now did Peter hear this, the dogs of Eschberg began to bark. He could not imagine, let alone hear, the dying man talking anymore. But his voice was ringing out in the frequency of the animals. He was singing in the ultrasound of bats, whistling inaudibly in the vibrations of foxes and dogs. The last message of his wretched life was heard only by the animals of the forest.