Tales of the German Imagination from the Brothers Grimm to Ingeborg Bachmann (Penguin Classics) (31 page)

In the distance, the rocky coast of an island rises into view. Flanagan is bored of waiting and wants to visit the island. The captain counsels against it: the steep cliffs make a landing dangerous. Still Flanagan persists and rows himself ashore in a little dinghy.

He never returns. After completing the repairs on the masts and rudder, the captain waits a little while longer before he finally gives up hope and declares Flanagan a victim of the cliffs. He gives the order to set sail. Later in New York he breaks the news to Warren: that the young reporter failed to return from his visit to a rocky island. Warren mourns the loss of the promising young man.

Thirty years later a luxury liner crosses those same waters in which the schooner lost its way. Armed with binoculars, curious passengers study the rocky coast – and as to their question, what sort of an island this might be, the captain can give no answer. A magnetic disturbance set his pilot off-course, he is unfamiliar with the island and unable to locate it on any of his charts. Suddenly a passenger spies a dinghy approaching from the island. The captain halts his engines and awaits the arrival of the lone oarsman. It is Flanagan, the lost reporter, who promptly climbs aboard.

But it is the unchanged Flanagan, the way he was thirty years ago when he rowed off from the schooner. He has not aged at all, his clothes are perfectly intact. He is in precisely the same condition – perfectly preserved, as it were.

Flanagan soon realizes the secret of the island: it is the island on which people never age, the island of eternal life. Flanagan keeps the secret to himself, revealing not a shred of it to the passengers of the luxury liner, who are stunned by his old-fashioned clothing and ignorance of recent events.

In New York, Flanagan enters the office of his since-aged chief, Warren – and offers him the greatest sensation the world has ever known: the island of eternal life has been discovered. Warren immediately grasps the unique significance of this discovery and wants to buy it off Flanagan. The stakes get higher and higher. Warren finally accedes to Flanagan’s outrageous
demands and invites him over that evening to clinch the deal – says he’ll send his private limo to pick him up. And that very evening, Flanagan is found murdered in the back seat – his notes are filched. He is the first to fall victim to the island of eternal life.

Having laid his hands on Flanagan’s notes, Warren issues them as a serial in his paper. The success is phenomenal. Warren grasps his new-found power: he alone knows the location of the island, he holds the deed to eternal life. He receives fantastic offers for plots of land. But he takes his time. The suspicion arises that it’s all a big swindle. A commission comprising incorruptible individuals is assembled – and, following extensive investigations, their findings are that the ground of this island contains chemical substances that forestall the process of decay and that a thousand-year life expectancy in such a place is a distinct possibility. But Warren himself derives no benefit from their favourable findings. He was found dead in the prison cell in which he was held on suspicion of fraud, pending the return of the commission. Visited in prison by the ghost of the murdered Flanagan, he committed suicide.

Now the notes and chart indicating the location of the island belong to the United States government. It is decided: no one will be able to purchase a plot on this island, on which, in any case, there is only room for a few hundred. A plot of land there and the gift of eternal life will be accorded as the highest honour only to the most meritorious. All countries are hereby requested to submit the names of their most notable representatives – an international committee will decide the worthiness of each candidate.

But what does it mean to be worthy? What merits mark a man as a true representative of his nation? What does it mean to be a hero? Opinions clash. It is impossible to come to an agreement. Human attitudes are simply too diverse. Hatreds smoulder. The world is on the brink of war. Chaos threatens.

The international committee decides: the island of eternal life will be the eternal hotbed of unspeakable evil. The longing for endless, deathless life must release instincts that reduce man
to a beast shamelessly inclined to devour his neighbour. The last shreds of humanity are lost.

This realization is reached at the final hour and the decision is made to destroy the island. A massive explosion is set off – and the island sinks in a cloud of stones and dust into the ocean depths. No cliffs reveal the spot – no navigational chart recalls the location of the island of eternal life.

1919

Franz Kafka

‘It is a curious piece of equipment,’ said the officer to the travelling investigator, casting a somewhat admiring look at the apparatus, with which he was, after all, well acquainted. The traveller appeared, only out of politeness, to have accepted the commandant’s invitation to witness the execution of a soldier condemned to die for insubordination and disrespect of a superior officer. Nor was the interest in this execution particularly great in the penal colony. In any case, aside from the officer and the traveller, the only other people present in this isolated sandy little vale surrounded by barren cliffs were the condemned, a dull-witted, big-mouthed man with unkempt hair and unshaven face, and a soldier holding the heavy chain, to which the former was attached by little chains shackled to his ankles, wrists and neck, these chains, in turn, attached to each other by connecting chains. The condemned, moreover, looked so docile and dog-like that it seemed as though one could let him run around freely on the surrounding slopes and merely had to blow a whistle for him to come running to his execution.

The traveller had but little appreciation for the apparatus and paced up and down behind the condemned man with barely veiled disinterest, while the officer took great pains to attend to the last preparations, now crawling under the device which was anchored deep in the ground, now climbing a ladder to inspect its upper parts. These were tasks that actually ought to have been delegated to a machinist, but the officer attended to them with great zeal, either because he was an enthusiastic proponent of the device, or because, for other unspecified
reasons, one could not entrust the work to anyone else. ‘Everything’s ready now!’ he finally called out and climbed down the ladder. He was inordinately tired out, took deep breaths with an open mouth and had two dainty women’s kerchiefs stuffed into the collar of his dress coat.

‘These uniforms are much too heavy for the tropics,’ the traveller remarked, rather than, as the officer had expected, asking after the apparatus.

‘No doubt,’ said the officer and washed the oil and grease off his hands in a readied bucket of water, ‘but they remind us of the Fatherland; we dare not lose touch with the Fatherland. But do pay attention to this device,’ he promptly added, wiping his hands in a cloth and simultaneously pointing to the apparatus. ‘Up until recently we had to do it by hand, but now the device works automatically.’ The traveller nodded and followed the officer. The latter sought to offset any possible malfunctions and said: ‘Naturally there are glitches from time to time; I do hope we won’t have to suffer any today, but one has to be prepared. The apparatus must, after all, run for a full twelve hours. But if there are any problems I can assure you that they’re of little consequence and can be promptly repaired.’

‘Don’t you want to sit down?’ he asked at last, pulled a cane chair out of a pile and offered it to the traveller, who could not very well refuse it. Now the traveller sat at the edge of a pit into which he cast a fleeting glance. It was not very deep. On one side the dug-up dirt was heaped in a mound, on the other side stood the apparatus. ‘I don’t know,’ said the officer, ‘if the commandant already explained to you how it works.’ The traveller replied with an uncertain wave of the hand; the officer could have asked for nothing better, for it was now up to him to explain the functioning of the device. ‘It is,’ he said, reaching for and leaning on a connecting rod, ‘an invention of our former commandant. I myself collaborated on the very first experiments and was involved in all the fine-tuning that led up to its completion. But he alone deserves credit for its invention. Have you heard of our former commandant? No? It is no exaggeration to maintain that the entire installation of the penal colony is his brainchild. We, his friends, were already well
aware at the time of his death that the colony’s design was so comprehensive that even if his successor had a thousand new plans in mind, there would be nothing in the original concept he could change for a good many years. Our prognosis has been confirmed; the new commandant had to acknowledge this. It’s a shame you never knew the previous commandant! But be that as it may,’ the officer interrupted himself, ‘I’m blabbering on, and his apparatus stands here before us. It consists, as you can see, of three parts. Over the years somewhat popular appellations have evolved for each part. The bottom is called the bed, the top the inscriber and the middle section here is called the harrow.’

‘The harrow?’ asked the traveller. He had not listened attentively, the sun inflicted all too merciless an assault on this shadow-less valley, it was difficult to gather one’s thoughts. All the more praiseworthy did the officer seem to him, zealously elucidating everything, decked out in his tight-fitting dress uniform hung with epaulettes and aiguillettes, assiduously engaged as he spoke, screwdriver in hand, in tightening a loose screw here and there. The soldier seemed to share the traveller’s disinterest. He had the chains of the condemned man attached to both his wrists, rested with one hand on his rifle, let his head hang down and did nothing. The traveller was not surprised at this, since the officer spoke French, in which language, no doubt, neither the soldier nor the condemned was conversant. It was, therefore, all the more remarkable that the condemned man, nevertheless, took pains to follow the officer’s explanations. With a sort of sleepy complaisance he invariably turned his gaze in the direction in which the officer pointed, and as the latter was interrupted by a question from the newcomer, he, too, turned his attention to the traveller now, along with the officer.

‘Yes, the harrow,’ said the officer, ‘the name fits. The pins are set in a harrow-like arrangement, and the entire device is handled like a harrow, even if only in one place and with a good deal more artistry. You will, by the way, grasp my meaning in a moment. The condemned is laid here on the bed. I would, if you don’t mind, first like to describe the apparatus and only
then to set it in motion. That will permit you to appreciate its operation better. Also, a cog wheel in the inscriber is a bit too worn down; it screeches something awful when in use, so much so that it’s impossible to communicate; spare parts are unfortunately hard to come by here. Now then, here is the bed, as I said. It is completely covered with a cotton wad, the purpose of which you will soon discover. The condemned is laid belly-down on this bed, naked of course; here are straps for the hands, here for the feet, here for the neck, to keep him in place. Here at the head of the bed, where, as I said, the man is laid face-down, you can see this little felt wad easily regulated so as to be pressed into the man’s mouth. Its purpose is to prevent the condemned from screaming and biting his tongue. Of course, the man is compelled to accept the wad, since, on account of the throat strap, his neck would otherwise be broken.’

‘That’s cotton?’ asked the traveller, bending forward.

‘Yes indeed,’ the officer replied, ‘go ahead and touch it.’ He grabbed the traveller’s hand and ran it over the bed. ‘The felt is woven in a very particular way, which is why you can’t recognize it as cotton; I will get to its purpose presently.’ Already favourably impressed, shielding his eyes with his hand against the sun, the traveller gazed upwards at the device. It was quite a large contraption. The bed and the inscriber were both about the same size and resembled two dark trunks. The inscriber was suspended some two metres above the bed; both were fastened at the edges by four brass bars that almost shimmered in the sunlight. The harrow hung from a steel band between the trunks.

Hardly noticing the traveller’s initial indifference, the officer now appreciated his budding interest; he paused in his explanations so as to give the traveller the time to quietly take it all in. The condemned man mimicked the traveller; since, shackled as he was, he could not bring his hand to his eyes, he simply squinted.

‘So the man is laid on it,’ said the traveller, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs.

‘Yes,’ said the officer, pushed the brim of his cap back a bit
and wiped his flushed face with his hand, ‘now listen! Both the bed and the inscriber are powered by their own electric batteries; the bed needs them for itself, the inscriber to power the harrow. As soon as the man is firmly fastened the bed is set in motion. It trembles in tiny, very rapid palpitations, simultaneously to the side and up and down. You will have seen similar devices in sanatoria; only in our bed all the movements are exactly calibrated; they have to accord precisely with the motion of the harrow. It’s up to the harrow, you see, to carry out the actual sentence.’

‘What precisely does the sentence say?’ asked the traveller.

‘You don’t know that either?’ the officer replied, astonished, and bit his lip. ‘Forgive me if perhaps my explanations sound muddled; I beg your pardon for this lapse. It was, in fact, the commandant who customarily presented these explanations in the past; the new commandant dispensed with this honourable duty; the fact that he did not even deem it necessary to inform such an important visitor’ – the traveller tried with raised hands to demur to such lofty esteem, but the officer insisted – ‘to inform such an
important
visitor of the terms of the sentence, that is another innovation which’ – he had a curse on his lips, bit his tongue and simply said: ‘I was not informed of it, the guilt of the condemned is not my affair. That having been said, I am perhaps the best equipped to explain our manner of sentencing, for I have here’ – he tapped his breast pocket – ‘the pertinent drawings and designs of the former commandant.’