War & War (19 page)

5.

It was the name of Voigtel, the
Dombaumeister
, that most often came up, that and
Dombouverein
and
Dombau-fonds
, not to mention terms like
Westfassade
and
Nordfassade
, and
Südturm
and
Nordturm
, and most importantly how many thousand tallers and marks were spent yesterday and how many today, this was what the grumpy Hirschhardt spouted day after day, continuously and unstoppably, while admitting that the cathedral, should it ever be finished, would be one of the wonders of the world, and the world of art, as he put it, was sure to turn its immediate attention to it,
although
, as he immediately pointed out, that would never happen, since the building would never be completed, given such a
Dombauverein
and such a
Dombau-fonds
and the constant bickering between the
Kirche
and the
Staat
about who should pay for what, and he couldn’t see any good coming from it, despite the fact that it was supposed to be one of the wonders of the world, and so on and so forth, though this was Hirschhardt’s manner generally, to be running things down, to be moaning, full of acid remarks and skeptical about everything, cursing now the stonemasons, now the carpenters, now the transporters, now the quarries at Königswinter, Staudernheim, Obernkirchen, Rinteln and Hildesheim, the point always being to curse someone or something, or so it seemed, said Korin, though equally there was no one who knew better what was happening outside his window, so he knew, for example, that at any particular moment there were 368 stone-carvers, 15 stone-polishers, 14 carpenters, 37 stonemasons and 113 assistants engaged on site, was aware of what had gone on at the last negotiations between representatives of church and crown; was informed about disputes between carpenters and stone-carvers, stone-carvers and stonemasons and between stonemasons and carpenters; knew who was sick and when, about shortages of provisions, about fights and injuries, in other words about truly everything there was to be known, so while Kasser and his companions had to put up with Hirschhardt and his grumbling, they were, nevertheless, obliged to him and to no one else for the information in whose light they could interpret events outside, events that might have remained hidden from them, for Hirschhardt also knew about Voigtel’s predecessor as
Dombaumeister
, Zwirner, a man of inexhaustible energy who nevertheless died young, and about long-dead characters like Virneburg and Gennep, Saarwerden and Moers, and not only them but obscure ones like Rosenthal, Schmitz and Wiersbitzky, as well as being able to tell them who Anton Camp was, who Carl Abelshauser and Augustinys Weggang were, how the winches, pulleys and traction equipment worked, and how the carpenters’ tools, the hoists and the steam engines were constructed; in other words you couldn’t catch Hirschhardt out on anything, not that Kasser and his companions even tried of course, in fact they hardly ever asked questions at all, knowing well that they would only be submitting themselves to one of Hirschhardt’s latest rants, merely nodding now and then as he spoke, for what they appreciated above everything else in the beer-hall was silence, that and a tankard of light ale from the tap, in other words the early and midmorning when there was hardly anyone but themselves in the bar and they could sit by the window, sipping at their beer, watching the work on the cathedral outside.

6.

In Boisserée’s
Ansichten
there was already a drawing of the west front, dated 1300, most probably by Johannes, son of Meister Arnold, that was a work of outstanding beauty in itself and revealed something of the remarkable ambition behind the design of the building, but the deciding factor, first for Falke and then, following his summary, for the others, was the print they had seen displayed throughout the empire, a print hung in barbershops and on the walls of inns, that Richard Voigtel colored in after the etching by W. von Abbema for the
Verein-Gedenkblatt
, probably to draw attention to events in Cologne, in other words a print of 1867 originating from the Nurenberg workshop of Carl Meyer, that was all, and it was this that informed their decision where to go, because through their eyes, said the manuscript, the vast scheme depicted in the print immediately revealed the remarkable possibilities of this monumental shelter, a shelter, added Korin, that the four of them, as Kasser told a stranger who had been more successful than others in pursuing the question of who they were, that is to say merely a set of obsessed fugitives, though that was not how they described themselves that day, a week later, to Hirschhardt for example, but as
simply expert defense-works engineers
, in Kasser’s words when it seemed he had to say something to Hirschhardt, and that was all there was to it, he said, that was the chief reason the four of them had come, not simply to research, not only to analyze, but primarily, in fact above all, to admire all that was happening here, and in saying so they were not saying anything they would have had to deny elsewhere, for they did genuinely admire it from the moment they got off the mail-coach, caught their first glimpse of it and could not help but admire it, admire it there and then, the sight immediately and wholly captivating them, immediately for there was nothing with which to compare with it, because imagining it from Boisserée’s book, working it out from the drawing and the print, was entirely different from standing at the foot of the south tower and seeing it in real life, an experience that confirmed all they thought and imagined, though they had to be standing precisely where they were, at the precise distance, at a precise point and a precise angle to the south tower, Korin explained in the kitchen, so that there could be no mistake, but they did not mistake the distance, the point or the angle, and saw it and were convinced that it was not simply the building of a cathedral at stake, not just the completion of a Gothic ecclesiastical monument that had been abandoned centuries ago, but a
vast mass
, a mass so incredible as to surpass any building they might have imagined, one of which every detail would be finished—altar, crossing, nave, the two main aisles, the windows, the gates in all the walls—according to plan, though it was not what this or that aisle looked like, nor what this or that window or gate looked like that mattered but the fact that it would be an entirely unique, immensely high, incredible vast mass, relative to which there would be a point, as Gerhard had said to himself some six hundred years earlier, a specific point, as every
Dombaumeister
right down to Voigtel whispered, a point from which this beautiful piece of Amiens-work would appear to be
a single tower mass
, that is to say an angle from which the
essence
of the whole would be visible, and this was what the four of them had discovered by studying the legend of Gerhard, the drawing by Johannes, the Abbema-Voigtel print, and now, following their arrival, the reality itself, when, astonished, they sought out the ideal place where they might contemplate their own astonishment, a point that was not difficult to find, the beer-hall in other words from where they could watch each day’s progress and so be ever more certain that what they were seeing was not something they had imagined after seeing an architect’s plan but true, extraordinary, real.

7.

Sometimes I would really like to stop, to abandon the whole thing
, said Korin on one occasion in the kitchen, then, after a long silence, staring at the floor for minutes on end, raised his head and hesitantly added,
Because something in me is breaking up and I’m getting tired
.

8.

The day began at five in the morning for him, the time he naturally woke, which he did in a moment, his eyes snapping open, and he sat straight up in bed, fully conscious of where he was and what he had to do, that is to wash at the sink, draw a shirt over the undershirt in which he slept, grab his sweater and his plain gray jacket, slip on his long johns, climb into his trousers fixing the suspenders, and, lastly, to pull on the socks warming on the radiator and the shoes parked under the bed, all within a minute or so, as if time were continually pressing, so that he could be at the door listening out for any other movement—not that there ever was any at this time—before slowly opening it so it shouldn’t creak or, more importantly, that the handle should not click too loudly, for the handle was capable of making a terrible racket if he didn’t handle it properly, then out, out on tiptoe, into the connecting hallway and thence into the kitchen and the stairwell to knock on the door of the toilet—not that there was anyone in there at that time—to take a piss and a shit, return, put the water on to boil in the kitchen, prepare the coffee grounds the tenants kept by the tin of tea over the gas oven, brew the coffee, add sugar and, as quietly as possible, sneak back into his room where things would proceed according to a permanent, changeless routine that was never broken, which entailed sitting straight down at the table, stirring and sipping at his coffee, turning on the laptop and beginning work in the permanently gray light of the window, not forgetting to check first that all he had saved the day before was safe now, then he’d lay the manuscript open before him at the current page on the left-hand side of the machine, and scanning through, slowly trace the text word by word, using two fingers to type up the new material, till eleven when his back would hurt so much he had to lie down awhile then stand up and perform a few vigorous waist movements and some even more strenuous turns of the neck, before returning to the desk and continuing from where he had left off, until it was time to run down to the Vietnamese for that day’s lunch, after which he would go to the kitchen to join the woman and spend a good hour or so, sometimes as much as an hour and a half with his notebook and the dictionary in his lap, talking to her, keeping her informed of each new development, then return to his room to eat and work again solidly till about five, but sometimes only till half past four, because by now he felt obliged to stop at half past and lie down on the bed again, his back, his head and his neck being too painful, though he only needed half an hour of rest by this stage, then he’d be up again to listen out at the door, for he didn’t want to run into his host unless it was absolutely necessary to do so, and having assured himself that they wouldn’t meet, he went out, wearing his coat and hat of course, into the stairwell, down the stairs, and as quickly as he could, out of the house altogether so he shouldn’t meet anyone at all, for greeting people, when the occasion arose, was still a problem for him since he didn’t know whether
Good evening
, or
Good day
or a simple nod and Hi was the most appropriate, in other words it was best not to have to decide, and once he was outside in the street he’d take his usual route into
New York
, as he thought of it, having finished which he would return the same way, enter the house, climb the stairs, often stopping a long time by the door if he heard the rumble of the interpreter’s voice, waiting there sometimes a few minutes but occasionally a whole half hour before slipping down the connecting hallway into his room, closing the door so gently it created hardly a draft before relaxing and letting the air out of his lungs, before daring to breathe again once it was safe to do so, then remove his coat, his jacket, his shirt, his trousers and the long johns, place them on the chair, hang his socks over the radiator, tuck his shoes under the bed and finally lie down, dog tired, but still concerned to breathe as quietly as he could and to turn his body under the blankets with great care so the springs shouldn’t creak because he was afraid, constantly afraid of being heard, for the walls were paper-thin and he regularly heard the voice of the man shouting.

9.

Now he keeps talking about this guy Kirsárt or whatever his name is, said the interpreter to his partner, shaking his head incredulously, like the other night there he is in the kitchen again and he is beginning to feel that the man is literally stalking him, hiding in wait somewhere between the front door, the kitchen and the hallway, just looking for that moment when he might “accidentally” bump into him, and what a ridiculous state of affairs, trying to evade someone, having constantly to be on the alert in his own apartment, having to hesitate before entering the kitchen in case the guy should be there, it really was intolerable, for after all he is perfectly aware of what the man is up to, hanging around behind doors, listening, but there are times he just can’t avoid these so-called “accidental” encounters, like the one last night when he pounced on him too, asking him if he could spare a moment while he babbled on about how his work was progressing and about this Misfart, or Firshart, or whatever his name was, unloading all this nonsense on him, nonsense of which you can’t understand a single word of course, because it’s all confused and he talks as if he, the interpreter, should have some clue as to who the hell this Dirsmars was: the guy was crazy, crazy in the strictest sense of the word, crazy and scary, there was no doubt about that anymore, scary and dangerous, you could see it in his eyes, in other words it was time to put a stop to all this because if he didn’t, he felt things would come to a bad end, and in any case it was fair to say that Korin’s days were numbered because Korin would be out on his ass now that he’d had this great offer, which was the chance of his life, believe me, said the interpreter to his partner, and if it worked out, and the way it looked was that it would need divine intervention to foul things up now, it would mean the end of poverty for them, they could get a new TV, new video machine and everything, whatever she wanted, a new gas stove, a new pantry, in other words an utterly new life down to the last saucepan, don’t you worry, and Korin would be sent packing too, there’d be no more need to hide from him or to scurry about like rats in their own apartment in order to avoid him, nor would she have to spend hours listening to the affairs of Birshart, no, Hirschhardt, Korin corrected him in confusion for he didn’t know how to conclude the conversation he had unfortunately become engaged in, for Hirschhardt was his name and Mr. Sárváry should picture him as someone who hated any kind of mystery, for mystery meant ignorance, which was why he loathed mystery, was ashamed of it and tried to dispel it whatever way he could, in the case of Kasser and his companions, by taking note of any incidental, casual and, for the most part, misunderstood remarks and, in his own fashion, drawing quite unfounded conclusions from them, constructing an entirely arbitrary view of affairs on the basis of extremely shaky foundations, presenting himself to his fellow citizens as someone wholly in the know when he sat down at various tables and told tales about them, quietly so they shouldn’t hear, suggesting that they were of some strange monastic order, the four of them there by the window, never saying anything, mysteriously coming and going, nobody knowing the least thing about them, what with their foreign names, not even where they were from, and of course they were all peculiar creatures, but they should regard them as refugees from the triumph at Königgrätz, or rather the hell of Königgrätz as anyone would say had they witnessed the Prussian victory on that notorious July 3 three years ago, a victory bought at the price of forty-three thousand dead, and that was just the Austrian casualties, Hirschhardt told the local drinkers, forty-three thousand in a single day and that was just the enemy, and, well, I ask you, he said, anyone seeing forty-three thousand dead Austrians is never going to be the same again, and that lot, said Hirschhardt indicating the four of them, were part of the entourage of the famous general, members of the strategic corps, in other words no strangers to the smell of gunpowder, and must have come face to face with death in many engagements, Hirschhardt concluded, his voice lingering on the word “death,” but the hell of Königgrätz had shocked even them, for that was hell, it really was, for the Austrians he meant of course, he quickly added, in other words they were heroes of Königgrätz, and that’s how they should be regarded, nor should they wonder that they did not seem in exactly high spirits: and, having heard this, people naturally did regard them as such, saying to each other as they walked into the bar, oh yes, indeed, there are the heroes of Königgrätz, before looking round for a vacant table or for their friends, calling for beers while surreptitiously casting sidelong glances in the direction of the window, assuring themselves that there, indeed, sat the heroes of Königgrätz, as Hirschhardt had told them time and time again, participants in that heroic battle, that great victory, which was a triumph looked at from one point of view but absolute hell from another, what with forty-three thousand dead, which was part of the history of the four men over there who were involved in the glorious battle and had had to witness the death of forty-three thousand people, all on a single day.