The Other Side (8 page)

I will give a typical example. A man with a good position woke up one morning convinced he was destitute. His wife wept, his friends sympathised. In no time at all the bailiff came to impound their possessions, which were auctioned off, and a new owner was already moving in almost before the few items they had left had been taken to a wretched, bare hovel. A month later it was all forgotten; there were happy as well as unhappy turns of fortune.

The upper classes naturally lived in ostentatious luxury. The obverse of this was their misfortune, which was just as conspicuous, with the result that class envy was not a particular problem. People went about their business, they had their pleasures and their problems. As long as things were reasonable they were content. Dreamlanders everywhere loved their country and their city. I worked away happily as illustrator for the
Dream Mirror
and attempted, without success for the moment, to visit my old friend Patera.

It was always impossible, and always for a different reason. Once I was told the Master was so overburdened with business that no one was being allowed to see him; another time he was away. It was as if some malign spirit were determined to frustrate me. Then I heard that tickets for audiences could be obtained at the Archive, so I went there. I felt a pang of guilt as I passed beneath the coats of arms on the gate, like a nuisance come to disturb the officials’ peace and quiet. The porter was asleep. I decided to find my way on my own and entered a spacious ante-room where there were some ten or twelve messengers.

For a good quarter of an hour it was as if I were invisible. Not one of them took any notice of me. At last one asked me in a surly manner what I was looking for without, however, waiting for my reply. He just went on with his conversation with his neighbour. Another of his colleagues was in more obliging mood and inquired what I wanted. When I told him, a severe look appeared on the yellowing, wrinkled skin of his face. He took a couple of puffs from his long pipe then pointed with it at the next room and said, ‘In there.’

There was a sign on the door,
Do Not Knock
, and ‘in there’ was a man asleep. Yes, no joking, I had to clear my throat three times before signs of life began to return to the completely inert pose of the Thinker. I was subjected to a brief scrutiny full of majestic contempt and a rasping voice asked, ‘What do you want? Have you been summoned? What papers have you got with you?’

He was by no means as curt as the messengers outside. On the contrary the information came gushing out. ‘To receive an invitation to an audience you need, apart from your certificates of birth, baptism and marriage, your father’s school-leaving certificate and your mother’s confirmation of vaccination. In room 16, down the corridor on the left, you must give details of your financial situation, education and any decorations you have been awarded. A character reference for your father-in-law is desirable but not absolutely essential.’

At that he gave me a condescending nod, bowed his head low over his desk and started to write–without dipping his pen in the ink, as I could see. I stood there, dumbfounded. I could thank my lucky stars I didn’t have to present all my receipts as well! In some embarrassment I stuttered, ‘I’m afraid it may well be impossible for me to provide the required documentation. All I have is my passport. I came here as a guest of Herr Patera, my name is so-and-so.’

When I had finished I had the shock of my life. The aloof figure suddenly leapt up from his seat. ‘But of course! Your name is already on the list. I will take you to His Excellency immediately.’

He was politeness itself. A dual personality? I couldn’t understand it.

We set off on an endless trek through dreary corridors, offices where clerks started at our arrival, as if caught in some nefarious act, bare reception rooms and closets filled to the ceiling with documents and files. Finally we came to a large waiting room where all sorts of people were sitting around. My guide and I were immediately admitted to a kind of inner sanctum. His Excellency was there alone, at his desk,
waiting
. Despite his elegant bows, the poor official had a few harsh words to hear before he disappeared.

His Excellency was a very superior being. You could tell that from his surroundings alone, but not only from them. There were striking things about his person as well. There was, for example, a lot of gold sewn on to his clothes and a long row of all kinds of ribbons pinned to his jacket. As well as that he wore a broad red sash across his chest. Whether there were further symbols of rank on his body I could not say for sure. Probably there were, but I never saw them.

We were alone. In contrast to all the others in the Archive, he was very friendly. After he had heard me out, he was the soul of courtesy. ‘But of course, my dear sir, of course’, he said. ‘The ticket will be sent off to you immediately.’ Then, as if someone had pressed a button, he stood up and started to address a non-existent audience:

‘Gentlemen! Gentlemen! In the interest of public welfare and our reputation the government fully accepts its responsibility. I will not hesitate to urge all your petitions at the highest level. In questions of welfare provision for the poor you can always be assured of a sympathetic hearing from me. Our immediate goal is to develop the theatre here to its full potential. I hope I can reply on your energetic support in this enterprise. Our experiences in introducing decontrol to certain institutions in the French Quarter, guarantee that … gentlemen … I am convinced I express your own most dearly held convictions when … when … when …’ The speaker lost his fluency and fixed me with a bewildered, glassy stare. I helped him out of the embarrassing situation by taking my leave with bows and expressions of thanks. It all left me with no very high opinion of the Archive. I never disturbed its peace and quiet again.

This experience was something that only happened to new arrivals. Following that route you would never get anywhere. Extremely urgent requests were sent back for the most trivial error in filling out the form. With absolute certainty you could count on that body thwarting your plans. Thus I did receive my ticket for an audience; the next day it was followed by a letter notifying me that it was invalid.

This administration was merely a facade. Take it away and things would have been no better and no worse in the Dream Realm. The bulging files, bought in from all over the world, had nothing at all to do with the Dream state. The truth was that its dry-as-dust atmosphere was needed to cultivate one particular species,
homo officialis
, which contributed to the diversity of the whole.

The
real
government was elsewhere. After these experiences I gave up the idea of visiting Patera for the time being. Anyway, I had other matters to occupy my attention.

V

In my mind’s eye I can still see the house where we lived, as clearly as if it were only a few weeks ago. On the ground floor was the barber’s shop. He was a blond, very well read young man, a bachelor, with a gold pince-nez and a passion for philosophy. He pursued it by giving his ideas free rein to romp around to their heart’s content. His knowledge was profuse and he didn’t hold back with it. ‘There are things I could tell you!’ he would say with a piercing look.

God knows what he thought I was, but at the beginning I enjoyed his confidence. ‘Kant, that’s the big mistake! Ha! You can’t sail round the
thing-in-itself
just like that. The world is above all an
ethical
problem and no one’s going to persuade me otherwise. Space courts time, you see; and the point of union, the present, is death, or something else you could just as well posit in its place–the deity, if you like. And right in the middle, the great miracle of the incarnation: the object. Which is nothing but the exterior of the subject. Those, my dear sir, are fundamental propositions. There you have my whole theory.’

‘Ali yes, but then, you’re a thinker’, I would generally say in acknowledgment.

He spent all day, every day, in these rarefied spheres and the barber’s shop would have suffered badly had it not been for Giovanni Battista. He was only a monkey, but what a monkey! He was an uncommonly gifted and ambitious beast. With an assistant like that you could quite happily devote yourself to the problems of ethics. Giovanni had started working in the shop on the lowest rung. His talent had been revealed one day when he had worked up a lather without having to be shown. The barber found him a willing learner and exploited his skill. His swift and sure hand with the razor was famous throughout the district. On Wednesdays and Saturdays he even made home visits to private clients. We often used to see him, bag in hand, going down Long Street in his earnest, businesslike shuffle. More honest and reliable than any man in the world, he was the soul of the hairdressing establishment. There was only one thing that pained his master: he had no interest in philosophy.

‘You’re a Stoic!’ the barber would shout after giving him a long lecture. He still secretly hoped to lead him to higher things.

I must admit that whenever I think back to my first year in the Dream Realm I am overcome with sadness. Mostly things went well, I had some of my best times during that year. With the stimulation of all the new experiences, my work simply flowed. At five in the afternoon I met with friends in the coffee house. From the window we could see everything that was going on outside. Not that there was very much, in Pearl people preferred to stay at home, it was striking how deserted the centre was. But despite the sparseness of the street life, what there was to see took on the aura, through its very familiarity, of a well-loved routine. Gradually I became more and more a part of it. I found things I could hold on to, things that gave me a firm foothold in all the confusion.

The buildings played an important role in this. I often felt as if the people were there for them, and not the other way round. It was the buildings that were the strong, the real individuals. There they stood, mute and yet eloquent. Each one had its own story to tell, you just had to be patient and wring it out of the old edifices bit by bit. These houses all had different moods. Some hated each other and spent their days in mutual vilification. There were crabby crosspatches among them, like the dairy next door, while others seemed saucy and had a loose tongue. My café was a good example of that. The house where we lived was a bitter old aunt: the windows squinted with malice, ready to pick up any scrap of gossip. Max Blumenstich’s store was bad, very bad, the smithy next to the dairy rough and jovial, the river warden’s shack built onto it carefree and easygoing. My particular favourite, however, was the corner house on the river, the mill. It had a jolly face, whitewashed with a mossy slate roof as its cap. High up on the street side it had a massive beam sticking out of the wall, like a good cigar. I have to say, though, that it did have a sly, crafty twinkle round its skylights. It belonged to two brothers. Or did they belong to it, like a mother with her two sons?

There is much that I could tell, if only I could feel sure my readers would see these complex conditions in the way I would like. After a while I came to feel that the houses in a street had something of a family about them. They would quarrel among themselves but close ranks against the outside world. In the deserted streets of Pearl ideas blossomed in my mind in a way they never would have done in the noisy cities of the world outside. My integration into the local culture became much more intimate with the miraculous sharpening of my sense of smell. It happened after a mere six months. From then on it was my nose that determined sympathy and aversion. For hours on end I would prowl round all the old corners, sniffing and smelling at everything and anything. A new, unlimited field of study opened up. Every one of these used objects revealed a tiny secret to me. My wife would often smile. She found it funny to see me giving a knowing sniff at something, a book or a musical box, for example. I was almost like a dog. I couldn’t really explain it very precisely; it was a matter of sensations so subtle words were inadequate to express them.

In the first place there was a quite particular, though indefinable odour running through the whole of the Dream Realm, clinging to everything. Sometimes it was quite strong, sometimes you scarcely noticed it. In high concentration this bizarre smell could be described as something like a mixture of flour and dried cod. I never found out where it came from. Much more specific, however, were the smells of individual things. I subjected them to close analysis, often being seized, as I did so, with a strong revulsion. I was quick to take offence at people who, to my mind, smelt wrong. Yet despite their heterogeneity, having been brought together at the behest of an eccentric whim, all these living beings and apparently inanimate objects still managed to exude an indefinable aura of belonging together.

VI

Everything you came across in the Dream Realm was drab and dull. How far this went I noticed one day whilst being shaved. Giovanni was performing the task with his usual elegance, the only blemish was the state of his razor and the copper bowl: they looked tarnished.