The White Dominican (4 page)

“Herr Dovecote, if it’s at all possible, do you think you could leave it dark tonight? Please don’t think”, he went on, when he saw how surprised I was, although I felt too timid to ask him his reasons, “that I want to lead you astray and make you neglect your duty, but my wife’s reputation is at stake, if people should find out the job I’ve taken on. And my daughter’s future as an actress would be ruined for ever. What’s going to be done here tonight must be hidden from human sight!” I took an involuntary step backwards, so horrified was I by the old man’s tone and the way his features were distorted with fear. “No, no, please don’t run away, Herr Dovecote. It isn’t anything wrong. Though if it comes out, I shall have to throw myself in the river! You see, the fact of the matter is, I’ve had an order from a customer in the city that’s not quite, well, respectable – the order that is – and we’re going to load it on the cart and send it off tonight, when everyone’s asleep. Yes, that’s about the long and the short of it.”

I gave a sigh of relief. Even if I had no idea what it was all about, I was at least sure it was something completely harmless.

“Would you like me to help you with the loading, Herr Mutschelknaus?” I offered.

The old carpenter was so delighted he almost embraced me. “But won’t the Baron hear of it?” he asked the next moment, his old fears returning. “And are you allowed to come out that late? You’re so young?”

“My foster-father will know nothing at all about it”, I assured him.

At midnight I heard someone softly calling my name from the street below.

I slipped down the stairs and saw a cart standing in the shadows. Pieces of cloth had been wrapped round the horses’ hooves so that they would not be heard as they trotted along. The carter was standing beside the shaft and grinned every time Herr Mutschelknaus came out of his shop lugging a basket full of large, round, brown-painted wooden rings with lids attached, each with a knob in the middle.

I hurried over to help him load them, and in half an hour the cart was filled to the brim and swaying over the wooden bridge before it was lost in the darkness.

With a deep sigh of relief, the old man drew me into his workshop, in spite of my reluctance. What little light that came from the tiny petroleum lamp hanging from the ceiling seemed to be absorbed by the white disc of the freshly planed table, on which stood a jug of weak beer and two glasses of which one, of beautifully cut crystal, was obviously intended for me. The rest of the room stretched away into darkness. Only gradually, as my eyes became accustomed to the light, could I distinguish the various objects. A steel shaft ran from wall to wall. During the day it was driven from outside by a water-wheel; now several hens were sleeping on it. Over the lathe, leather drive-belts hung down like gallows nooses, and in the corner stood a wooden statue of Saint Sebastian, pierced with arrows. Each arrow had its roosting hen. By the head-end of a wretched trestle, which presumably served the old man as a bed, was an open coffin in which a few rabbits shifted in their sleep from time to time.

The only decoration in the room was a picture in a golden frame surrounded by a laurel wreath. It represented a young woman in a theatrical pose, with eyes closed and mouth half-open; the figure was naked apart from a fig leaf, but white as snow, as if it were a model who had been painted over with plaster of Paris.

Herr Mutschelknaus blushed when he saw me stop in front of the picture, and he immediately began to reel off an explanation, “It’s my lady wife, at the time when she bestowed her hand upon me. You see, she was”, he cleared his throat, “a marble nymph. Ah, yes, Aloysia – that is, Aglaia; of course, Aglaia. It was, you see, my lady wife’s misfortune, as a tiny baby, to be christened with the rather common name of Aloysia by her dear departed parents. But you won’t tell anyone, will you, Herr Dovecote? Otherwise our daughter’s artistic reputation would suffer. Hm. Well.” He led me to the table, bowed as he offered me a chair and poured me some of the weak beer.

He seemed to have completely forgotten that I was still not fifteen and little more than a boy; he spoke to me as to a grown-up, as to a gentleman who stood far above him in rank and learning.

At first I thought he was just chatting to keep me amused, but then I realised, from his insistent, worried tone whenever I looked at the rabbits, that he wanted to divert my attention away from the shabby surroundings, so I tried to sit still and not let my eyes wander.

He had soon managed to talk himself into a fine state of agitation. Round red spots appeared on his hollow cheeks. I began to understand that his urgent assertions were a desperate attempt to justify himself – to justify himself to me!

At that time I was still very much a child, and most of what he said went far beyond my comprehension, so that an inexplicable feeling of horror gradually crept over me at the strange dissonances his words aroused. The horror of it etched itself deep on my soul, to reawaken long after I had reached manhood and more intensively with each passing year, whenever chance brought the scene back to mind. With my growing insight into the miseries to which existence condemns us, every word the old carpenter spoke that night grew more piercing, more naked in my memory, until they sometimes took on nightmare proportions. I would experience his wretched fate as my own, feel the darkness surrounding his soul as if I were trapped within it, torn apart by the terrible discord between the ghastly ludicrousness of his appearance and the grotesque yet deeply moving devotion with which he had sacrificed himself to a false ideal, such that even the Devil, had he wanted to delude him, could not have set a more malign snare.

On that night his story seemed to me, who was still a child, like the confession of a madman that was intended for other ears than mine. I was compelled to listen, whether I wanted to or not, held there by an invisible hand which wanted to drip poison into my veins.

There were times when, for a few seconds, I felt as decayed and decrepit as an old man, so vivid was the effect on me of Herr Mutschelknaus’ delusion that I was not a young boy, but equal to, or beyond him in years.

“Oh, yes, she was a great artist, and famous” – thus he began. “Aglaia! No one in this miserable hole has any idea. And she doesn’t want any of them to find out! You see, Herr Dovecote, I can’t tell you the story the way I would like to. I can hardly even write. But it’ll be our little secret, won’t it? Just like all those … all those lids beforehand? There is only one word I can write,” – he took a piece of chalk out of his pocket – “this one: Ophelia.

And I can’t read at all. You see, I’m” – he bent over to whisper in my ear – “a simpleton. My father, you see, was very strict, and once, when I was a little boy, because I let the glue burn, he shut me up for twenty-four hours in a metal coffin he had just finished, and said I was going to be buried alive. I believed him, of course, and all the hours I was in there were like an eternity in hell. I couldn’t move, I could hardly even breathe. I was in such mortal fear, I clenched my teeth until the bottom ones at the front fell out. But”, he added, very softly, “why did I let the glue burn, anyway? When they took me out of the coffin, I had lost my wits. And my tongue. It was ten years before I slowly started to speak again. But it’ll be our little secret, won’t it, Herr Dovecote? If people come to hear of my shameful past, my daughter’s artistic career will be ruined! Hm. Well. – Then when my father was taken from me – he was buried in that very same metal coffin – and left me his business and his money – he was a widower – Providence sent an angel to comfort me, for I felt I would weep myself to death in my sorrow at the loss of my father: Herr Paris, the celebrated theatre director, came to see me. You don’t know Herr Paris? He comes every other day to instruct my daughter in the art of acting. He has the same name as Paris, the ancient Greek god, it was destiny from his earliest childhood. Well. Hm. At that time my present lady wife was still a maid. Hm. Well. That is, I mean, she was still a girl. Well. Hm. And Herr Paris was guiding her artistic career. She was a marble nymph in a private theatre in the capital. Hm. Well.”

From the disjointed way he brought out each sentence, paused involuntarily, then abruptly went on, I realised that his memory kept on disappearing and reappearing. Like breathing in and out, his consciousness ebbed and flowed. ‘He still hasn’t recovered from the dreadful torture of the metal coffin’, I sensed, ‘he remains a man who has been buried alive.’

“Well, and when I inherited the business, Herr Paris came to the house and told me the celebrated marble nymph, Aglaia, had happened to see me at the funeral, as she was walking, unrecognised, through the town. Hm. And when she had seen me crying at my father’s grave, she had said (Herr Mutschelknaus suddenly leapt to his feet and began to declaim, his little watery blue eyes fixed on the empty air, as if he could see the words in letters of fire), ‘I will be a comfort and a support to this plain, simple man, a light that shineth in the darkness, never to be extinguished. And I will bear him a child, whose life shall be dedicated to art alone. I will open its spirit to the sublime, even though my heart should break in the dreary desert of the work-aday world. Farewell, Art! Farewell, Fame! Farewell, ye haunts of glory! Aglaia is departing, never to return.’ Hm. Well.” He clasped his hand to his forehead and then, as if memory had suddenly departed, slowly sat down on his stool.

“Well. Herr Paris sobbed and tore his hair. When the three of us were sitting together at the wedding breakfast. And he kept on crying out. ‘My theatre will be ruined if I lose Aglaia. I’m finished.’ Hm. The thousand crowns I forced on him, so that at least he wouldn’t lose everything, were nowhere near enough, of course. Well. Hm. From then on he’s suffered from melancholy. Only now, since he’s discovered our daughter’s great dramatic talent, has his health improved a little. Hm. Well.

She must have inherited it from her mother. Yes, some children are suckled by the muse in their cradles. Ophelia! Ophelia!” He was suddenly seized by a wild fit of enthusiasm, and grasped me by the arm and shook me violently. “Do you know, Herr Dovecote, Ophelia, my child, is a gift from God? Herr Paris keeps telling me, when he comes to the workshop for his salary, ‘The divine Vestalus himself must have been present when she was conceived, Herr Mutschelknaus.’ Ophelia –”, his voice sank to a whisper, “but this must be a secret between us, like all those … all those … lids – Ophelia was born after only six months. Hm. Ordinary children need nine months. Well. But it wasn’t a miracle. Her mother, too, was born under a royal star. Hm. But unfortunately it wasn’t very constant. The star, that is. My wife doesn’t want anyone to know, but I can tell you, Herr Dovecote. Do you know that she almost sat on a throne?! And if it hadn’t been for me – it brings the tears to my eyes, just to think of it – she could be riding in a fine carriage behind six white horses. And she renounced it all for me. Hm. Well. And that about sitting on a throne”, he solemnly raised three fingers, “is the honest truth; as I hope to be saved, I swear it’s no lie. I had it from Herr Paris himself. In his younger days he was Grand Fixer to the King of Arabia in Baghdad. He used to rehearse the Imperial Harem for His Majesty. Hm. Well. And Aglaia, who is now my wife, with her artistic talent, had already reached the position of first lady-in-waiting at the left hand of the King – His Majesty used to call her his ‘Miss Thérèse’. Then the King was murdered and Herr Paris and my wife fled by night across the Nile. Well. Hmm. And that’s when she became a marble nymph, as you know. In a private theatre that Herr Paris was director of at the time. Until she renounced fame and fortune. Herr Paris gave up the theatre as well; the only thing he lives for now is Ophelia’s future. Hm. Well. ‘We all must live for her alone’, he keeps on saying. ‘And to you, Herr Mutschelknaus, has fallen the noble task of doing your utmost to make sure Ophelia’s artistic career is not nipped in the bud by lack of money.’ So you see, Herr Dovecote, that’s why I accept such unsavoury commissions as … you know what I mean. Making coffins doesn’t bring in much. So few people die. Hm. Well. Her training I could manage, but the world-famous poet, Professor Hamlet from America, demands so much money. I’ve had to give him an IOU, and now I’m paying it off. This Professor Hamlet, you see, is Herr Paris’ foster-brother, and when he heard of Ophelia’s great talent, he wrote a play specially for her. The title is
The King of Denmark.
In it the crown prince wants to marry my daughter, but his mother won’t allow it, so my Ophelia throws herself into the river.” The old man paused for a moment, then shouted out loud, “My Ophelia throw herself into the river! When I heard that, it almost broke my heart. No, no, no, my darling Ophelia, my everything, must not throw herself into the river! Not even in a play. Hm. Well. I went down on my knees to Herr Paris and implored him until he wrote to Professor Hamlet. And Professor Hamlet has agreed to arrange it so that my Ophelia will marry the crown prince and not drown, provided I give him an IOU. Herr Paris wrote out the IOU and I made my three little crosses at the bottom. Perhaps you think it’s silly, Herr Dovecote, because it’s only a play and not real life. But you see, in the play my Ophelia will still be called Ophelia. You know, Herr Dovecote, I’m only a simpleton, but what if my Ophelia really should drown after all? Herr Paris is always saying art is truer than real life, what if she should throw herself into the river? What would become of me then? Wouldn’t it have been better if I’d suffocated in that metal coffin in the first place?!”

The rabbits started to make a noise, scuffling about in their coffin. Mutschelknaus came to with a start and muttered, “Damn bucks!”

There was a long pause. The old carpenter had lost the thread of his story. He seemed to have completely forgotten my presence; his eyes did not see me. After a while he stood up, went to the lathe, put the belt over the drive-wheel and set it going.

“Ophelia! No, my Ophelia must not die”, I heard him murmur. “I must work, work, otherwise he won’t alter the play and –”

His last words were drowned by the hum of the machine.