Lanceheim (11 page)

Every afternoon I went
home to Maximilian at Leyergasse and helped with household tasks: he did not seem to care about either dishwashing or laundry. We conversed, on his special terms, of course, and I wrote down the things he said as well as things deciphered from his own fastidious notes.

The thought of leaving my legal studies had been on my mind for several semesters. At the time of these events, Maximilian was fifteen years old going on sixteen, and I was ten years older. If I had had a genuine interest, I would already have finished my law degree, and the reason for my continued uphill struggle—with deferred exams, requirements postponed, and more and more pressure—was that I did not dare tell Mother and Father about my decision. I had my own small apartment on Hüxterdamm; I was living on student loans and the money I earned as a tutor. The law program felt less and less urgent as my fascination with Maximilian grew.

At last I gathered my courage and drove out to Das Vorschutz and Mother and Father. My life was about to take a different direction, and I felt content. That ought to be enough for them too. But there I deceived myself; it was a terrible evening that did not flatter any of us, and I would rather let it remain sealed up in my memory.

I do not have a confessional nature, but this I admit: without Maximilian, my own life would hardly be worth anything. I became his biographer, his permanent secretary and clerk, long before Adam Chaffinch appointed me as the Recorder. I found meaning in an existence that otherwise would have remained a mystery to me.

The church in Mollisan Town talked about love. Each and every one of the three preachers wrote, in different ways, about the all-encompassing love of Magnus for us
stuffed animals, and how we were unworthy but nonetheless compelled, according to our pitiable capability, to repay it. Like all other messages that the church had interpreted from the Proclamations, there was an underlying threat in this talk about love. No promises were given to the one who could love, but clear threats were whispered to the one who loved wrongly. There were elements of obligation and compulsion in Magnus's love for his creation, and thereby our love for Magnus should have a similar makeup.

Maximilian's message was a different one. Personally, I believe that it was one of the contributing factors to the fact that, over time, he came to have such a large following. The faith he preached was free from threats. All-deacon Chiradello saw “goodness” in him, but that should not be mixed up with “niceness.” Maximilian's morality was absolute and his ideas a clear guide.

The story of the miller and his daughters had a clear moral for me. It was about being able to lavish love so that it extended to everyone. And this was exactly my nature; something I had been ashamed of until then. Growing up in an environment where you stayed together, where love between a he and a she was something absolute and irrevocable, I had always felt deviant. When passion struck me—and that happened several times a month—I was so ashamed that I didn't dare talk about it with anyone. In every beautiful, mysterious, and fascinating female I met, I seemed to see an opportunity. But until then my happy, aching, and double-beating heart had been my dark secret. I too lavished my love—my love for females, anyway—and through his story, Maximilian freed me from guilt.

From that moment my place was with Maximilian, and nowhere else.

M
aria Mink pressed herself closer against the brick wall.

Her long coat dragged on the sidewalk, and just moments ago the first drops of the Afternoon Rain had fallen on her coat sleeves. The thick tweed fabric immediately soaked up the liquid, and Maria regretted that she hadn't put on a raincoat. At the same time she assumed that they never would have let her stand here in a coat that shone bright red or festive blue. There were no written instructions, no rules that she had heard mentioned; and yet she knew. Those who were getting in line on the cramped, dark turquoise Herzoger Strasse right before the Afternoon Rain were all wearing dark, anonymous clothing. And the tweed-patterned gray coat she had inherited from her mother was the gloomiest piece of clothing Maria Mink owned. In addition it smelled of mothballs, and every time she put it on she started to sweat.

Of the four streets that surrounded the church in Kerkeling, Herzoger Strasse to the east was decidedly the narrowest and least traveled. In that direction the facade of the
church was windowless, and apart from a small door used by the church caretaker to take out garbage, the dark stone wall rose lifeless and without openings straight up to the sky. The building opposite housed the long-defunct Halz-bank Verlag book printers, and even if the well-formed windows were large and lovely, no one was ever seen at the large machines and conveyor belts.

 

Down on Herzoger Strasse,
squeezed between its hefty office buildings, the alley was so narrow that a car could not drive through it. There was no room for either lampposts or hanging streetlamps, which meant that when the sky darkened, as it did now, a merciful dimness fell over the stuffed animals assiduously lining up along the street. This was not the first time for Maria Mink. She had made an attempt the week before, and a few times last month. But if you arrived too late, the line was much too long. And if you arrived too early, you were shooed away by one of the church caretakers.

Today she was in luck. There were only two animals ahead of her.

“What's a beautiful mink like you doing in a place like this?”

The ox in front of Maria turned around and addressed her. She gave an involuntary start. She did not talk to strange males; she was scared to death of this sort of confrontation. For that reason she lowered her gaze toward the street and acted as if nothing had happened.

“Yeah, yeah,” said the ox, obviously annoyed. “I don't look that freaking dangerous, do I?”

“No, no,” the worried Maria hurried to reassure him, “not at all. It was just that I—”

“You uptight females are the freaking biggest downers I know,” the ox spat out, as if he belonged to a different decade.

To this Maria had no reply, and she looked down at the street again.

“What are you standing here for?” asked the ox in a somewhat friendlier tone, and added with a nod at the grasshopper at the head of the line, “You hardly need to ask him.”

The grasshopper was standing upright with the help of a pair of crutches, and pretended not to hear. His right leg was bent at an incomprehensible angle and stood straight out from his green body. Maria could not even guess what had happened.

“I…,” she began carefully, “have a little pain…”

“A little pain?” repeated the ox.

“Pain,” she nodded. “I have pain. Lots of pain.”

“Where does it hurt?”

“Here and there,” she said, but corrected herself when she saw his stern look. “I have pain in my shoulders. Most often in my shoulders.”

“I can massage you a little, sweetie pie,” the ox suggested, licking his mouth with a long, dark red tongue. “Pending a miracle, may I massage you a little? At my place?”

“No, thanks,” Maria replied politely and turned away from the ox.

She was scared to death.

“Are you turning your back on me, you stuck-up little—”

“No, no,” said Maria, turning back again. “It wasn't my intention to—”

“Oh, what the hell,” sighed the ox, turning so that Maria Mink was staring at his broad back.

 

They were called in
at the same time: the grasshopper with the broken leg, the unpleasant ox, and Maria Mink, all rescued from the rain when the modest door at the back side of the church was opened from within.

I can imagine how they experienced it, because I was the one who opened the door. I had opened it every day for several months at that time, always equally uneasy that someone might see me. With a pounding heart and alarming buzzing in my ears, I whispered, “Come in, come in,” to the one who stood first in line.

On this day it was a grasshopper.

There was always the risk that one of the all-deacons in Kerkeling's church would pass by, even if I had never seen them walking on gloomy Herzoger Strasse. Perhaps I sensed the danger because deep inside I wanted to be revealed? The subconscious can play those kinds of tricks on us; if we knew our own soul as well as we know our desires, we would all be happier stuffed animals. I had a continual bad conscience over the fact that we were doing this to Adam Chaffinch. He was our friend and protector.

“Come in, come in,” I whispered.

I took in three animals on this day; we had only half an hour at our disposal during the afternoon sabbath.

“Wait here,” I told the visitors, and ran off into the church to see if Maximilian was ready.

 

Maria Mink looked around.
I had asked them to wait in a storage room, small as a cubbyhole and dark as a cellar.

“What the hell is this?” roared the ox, but he no longer sounded as impudent.

Maria made no reply, nor did the grasshopper. There was a faint odor of cumin in the room, and Maria noticed that the ox smelled of alcohol. She had never had any dealings with drunken stuffed animals. She stared straight at the light that seeped in through the cracks in the doorway. She did not like darkness. Her shoulders ached even more, but she did not make her torment audible; the ox would only make fun of her. Then the cramped room became com
pletely dark, and in the following second the door opened.

“Grasshopper,” I said, “we'll start with you.”

The grasshopper made his way out bravely on his crutches, and while he was hopping away into the church I quickly explained to the ox and mink, “You have to keep quiet. Stay here and remain quiet. I will get you when it is time. If anyone hears you, that will be the end of it. They would…I do not even want to think about what they would do.”

“Aw, what kind of melodramatic crap is that?” the ox protested without using the low, almost whispering tone I myself had used, and which was usually contagious. “No one's going to do a damn thing.”

I admit that his attitude made me feel embarrassed. I could not recall anyone questioning my rules up to that time.

“I have a buddy,” continued the ox, “who has done this. He didn't say a thing about you, Wolf. You're not the one we came to see.”

“I am merely a humble—”

“Where's the magic animal?” asked the ox.

“There is no magic animal here,” I replied.

“Aw, but lay off,” said the ox.

He was a normal-sized animal, but his broad shoulders gave his form a certain physical advantage and inspired respect.

Maria Mink had squeezed herself as far into the cubbyhole as she could get. She was whimpering in a way that made me realize how scared she was, or else it was the rheumatism that attacked her with its cutting pain.

“No wizardry goes on here,” I said in a valiant attempt to cheer myself up and regain control. “And if you remain calm, you will see it with your own eyes. This is a matter of believing.”

“I don't believe shit,” announced the ox. “And least of all you.”

“It's not what you think that you believe,” I explained. “This is for real.”

A sound was heard from within the church, a kind of thump, and it made me nervous. Outside the Afternoon Rain was pouring down. The church was empty, all activity in abeyance. I was in constant fear that someone would come upon us. We were borrowing the church without permission, and during the sacred sabbath besides.

“Wait here for your turn,” I said once again, and carefully closed the door on them.

Then I ran off to see what had happened, and to help the grasshopper up on the podium where the altar was.

The ox opened the door the same moment I had left.

“We can't stay here,” he mumbled, as much to himself as to Maria Mink. “There's no damn danger. Come on, let's go check it out.”

But the ox did not dare step out of the waiting room alone. Instead he reached for the poor mink, and with a forceful tug he shoved her across the threshold.

“Good,” he said sarcastically as he continued to push the resistant mink ahead of him, “now we'll see what this is about.”

In this manner the ox and mink made their way into the church. In the darkness the already terrifying sculptures and decorations were even more threatening; the stillness that prevailed was unnerving, not peaceful. From where the stuffed animals were standing they could, if they bent forward, see up toward the altar. I had, as usual, lit the fifteen tall candles that I carried with me in a bag every morning and evening, and which I placed in a half circle around the altar ring. The glow of the wax candles was the only light; outside the windows, as I already mentioned, the dark rain clouds prevailed in the sky.

Maximilian and the lame grasshopper were standing in front of the altar, outside the altar ring, quietly conversing.
In comparison with the stately shadows along the church's massive vault, the animals there looked ridiculously small. In the ominous silence that prevailed, Maximilian's voice was clearly audible. The mink and the ox sat down quietly at the far end of the nearest row of pews.

Up at the altar the grasshopper was executing a kind of strange bow. The broken leg made this difficult. He crouched as well as he could, making his right leg look even more grotesque where it stuck out.

Maximilian placed a hand on the grasshopper's head, and asked him to tell what was the matter. It was difficult for the ox and Maria to catch what the grasshopper replied. Like many stuffed animals before him during the past months, the grasshopper was filled with a nervous humility caused by the church's splendor and gravity, the long wait that had at last allowed him to stand before Maximilian, and finally the friendly address; the grasshopper did not venture more than a quiet and partly snuffling mumble.

The ox soon tired of trying to listen to the conversation. At first the glow from the candles at the altar did not seem to suffice, but as his eyes adjusted, it allowed more light than the ox had thought, and he looked around. He had never set his hoof in the church before and was astonished by its size and splendor. This was not apparent on the outside. The parish had not always been poor. The entire inside ceiling—thousands of square meters—was decorated with a massive painting. The image had been taken from the Proclamation of Fox: It depicted the occasion when Magnus returned up to heaven from the forests. Several hundred angels hid themselves in the painstakingly painted crowns of trees, and they all seemed to look down at the ox where he sat. In the three large church windows on the short side behind the altar, the mosaic was subdued and beautiful. Here too, in colorful patterns, images from the Proclamations were incorporated, but they were harder to identify; the ox had
not read the sacred texts since confirmation. To the left was the church organ with its hundreds of pipes, an instrument so monumental that the ox did not even realize what he was looking at when he turned his gaze toward it.

“Stand up!” exclaimed Maximilian.

The ox winced. He had been mesmerized by the church building itself, and for a few moments forgot the two at the altar. When he now directed his gaze there, he saw something that caused him to blanch. Before his eyes, in the mild light from the wax candles, the grasshopper's broken leg slowly resumed a normal appearance.

The ox gaped.

The grasshopper up at the altar was also staring at the miracle that had occurred. He seemed just as surprised as the ox. He got up, gingerly put his weight on the suddenly healthy leg, and found that it held. He set aside his crutches and bowed again before his savior; this time he did it with no trouble.

This was more than Ox could handle. Pale as a ghost and without a word, he got up from the pew, turned, and ran out of the church. He did not know what he had expected, but not this. He ran because what he had witnessed scared him, in the same way that we had frightened many others during the past months. Ox would tell about the demon that reigned in the church in Kerkeling for several years to come, and in my naïveté I did not understand that such stories had already spread all over Lanceheim.

 

One morning, months before,
Maximilian had woken up, sat up in bed, and exclaimed, “All this suffering. All this pain.”

That was how it started.

Everywhere, Maximilian encountered stuffed animals who were weighed down by the deepest anxiety and who time and again had been struck by the unpredictability of
life: the handicapped and the accident-prone, the mortally ill and the abandoned. By talking with them, touching them, and understanding them, he could ease their afflictions, fix them, and heal them. For me this was no surprise; I already knew what he was capable of.

The reason that we ended up in the church during the sabbath was practical. We needed a place to be, somewhere where the sick could find us, and we did not want to attract attention. In the beginning Maximilian received visitors at night at home on Leyergasse, but the neighbors soon complained about all the running on the stairway and slamming doors, and therefore we were forced to find someplace else.

We found an unlocked trash room a few blocks away, approximately halfway between Maximilian's apartment and Kerkeling High School, and continued our activity there. Throughout the night Maximilian received stuffed animals, while I tried to help to the best of my ability. I maintained order in the line and took care of the practical aspects. Sometimes the police came past; here too there were complaining neighbors, and the animals who stood and waited did not always know how to behave. We thought we could make the police listen to reason, but after a few weeks they brought us in for interrogation and gave us a proper warning.