another to disturb the stillness. Here I am, the one creature, and I’ve decided that it is a grand misuse of silence just to sit here and drink. The night is this city’s single resource. Well, that and disease.”
He tried to stand, to gesture broadly and include the entire city in a momentary act of drama, but he lost his balance and sat heavily again in his chair. “This is the time for art,” he muttered. “I shall make of the city either a living statue or a very boring play. Whichever, I shall present it before the restless audiences of my former home. Then won’t I be welcomed back! I’ll let the others worry about what to do with these mean people, these most malodorous buildings, and all this sand. I’ll drop it all down in the middle of Lausanne, I think, and let the proper authorities attempt to deal with it. I shall get my praise, and they shall get another city.”
He fretted with his clothing for a few moments, fumbling in drunken incompetence with the buttons of his shirt. He gave up at last. “It is the time for art, as I said. Now I must make good on that claim, or else these gentlefolk will be right in calling me an idiot. The concept of presenting this city as a work of art, a serious offering, had a certain value as amusement, but not enough of enchantment to carry the idea beyond whimsy. So, instead I shall recite the final chapter of my fine trilogy of novels. The third volume, you may recall, is entitled
Ernst looked up suddenly, as if he had heard a woman calling his name. He closed his eyes tightly and continued. “This enigmatic suprina,” he said, “is a very important character in the trilogy. At least I shall make her so, even though she does not appear until the final book. She has certain powers, almost supernatural. And at the same time, she is possessed of an evil nature that battles with her conscience. Frequently, the reader will stop his progress through the book to wonder at the complications of her personality.
“She is to be loved and hated. I do not wish the reader to form but a single attitude toward her. That is for Friedlos, my protagonist. He will come riding across the vast wooded miles, leaving behind in the second volume the bleak, gelid corpse of Marie, lying stiff upon the frontier marches of Breulandy. Friedlos will pass through Poland, I suppose, in order to hear from the president there a tale of the Queen Without a Name. I must consider how best to get Friedlos from Breulandy to Poland. Perhaps a rapid transition: ‘A few weeks later, still aggrieved by the death of his second love, Friedlos crossed the somber limits of Poland.’ Bien. Then off he starts for Carbba, intrigued by the president’s second-hand information. Ah, Friedlos, you are so much like your creator that I blush to put my name on the book’s spine.”
Ernst dug in his pockets, looking again for his outline. He could not find it, and shrugged carelessly. “Gretchen, will you ever learn that it is you he seeks? I have put you on a throne, Gretchen. I have made you suprina of all Carbba, but I have given you my own life.”
He longed to see Steven, his son. It had been years; that, too, wasn’t fair. Governments and powers must have their way, but certainly it wouldn’t upset their dynastic realms to allow the fulfilling of one man’s sentiments. How old was the boy now? Old enough to have children of his own? Perhaps, amazingly, grandchildren for Ernst? Steven might have a son; he might be named Ernst, after his funny, old grandfather.
“How unusual it would be, to bounce a grandchild upon this palsied knee,” he thought. “I doubt if ever a grandchild has been cuddled in all the history of this city. Surely Kebap could not accurately identify his own grandparents. Would they be anxious to claim him? He is, after all, somewhat of an objectionable child. And he has had only nine years to develop so remarkably offensive a manner. It is truly an accomplishment — all emotional considerations aside, one must give the wretched boy his due.
“There is something about him, though, that obsesses me. If there were not, I should without hesitation inflict some kind of permanent injury upon him, to induce him to leave my peace unspoiled. I detect an affinity. I cannot dispute the possibility that I, myself, may be the lad’s own father. What a droll entertainment that would be. I shall have to explore the possibility with him tomorrow. Indeed, the more I consider it, the better the idea becomes. I hope I can remember it.”
He heard the rattling of M. Gargotier drawing the steel gate across the door and windows of the small cafe. The sound was loud and harsh, and it made Ernst feel peculiarly abandoned, as it did every night. Suddenly, he was aware that he sat alone in a neglected city, a colony despised by the rest of the world, alone on the insane edge of Africa, and no one cared. He heard the click of a switch, and knew that the Fee Blanche’s own sad strings of lights had been extinguished. He heard M. Gargotier’s slow, heavy steps.
“M. Weinraub?” said the proprietor softly. “I will go now. It is nearly dawn. Everything is locked up. Maybe you should go, too, eh?” Ernst nodded, staring across the avenue. The proprietor made some meaningless grunt and hurried home, down the street.
The last of the whiskey went down Ernst’s throat. Its abrupt end shocked him. So soon? He remembered M. Gargotier’s last words, and tears formed in the corners of his eyes. He struggled to order his thoughts.
“Is that the whiskey? I need some more whiskey,” he said aloud. There was an unnatural, cracked quality to his voice that alarmed him. Perhaps he was contracting some disgusting rot of the city. “There had better be some more whiskey,” he thought. “It isn’t a matter of courtesy any longer. I require a certain quantity of the stuff to proceed through this. Gretchen would get it for me, but I cannot find Gretchen anywhere. Steven would get it for me, but I haven’t seen Steven in years. One would think that someone in my position would command a bit more devotion.”
He wondered about his sanity for a moment. Perhaps the day’s excitement, perhaps the liquor, had introduced a painful madness into his recollections. He realized that, in point of fact, he had never been married. Gretchen, again? Where had that name come from? Who could she be? Steven, the fantasy son? Ernst’s father’s name had been Stefan, perhaps there was some connection.
He called to M. Gargotier. “More whiskey, straight, no water.” He wanted to believe that there was still some darkness left, but he could already make out the lines of the hotel across the street, just beginning to edge clearly into view from the mask of nighttime.
“I have never traveled
He could almost read the face of the clock across the street. He picked up his glass, but it was still empty. Angrily, he threw it toward the clock. It crashed into pieces in the middle of the street, startling a small flock of pigeons. So it was morning. Perhaps now he could go home. He rose from his creaking latticed chair. He stood, wavering drunkenly. Wherever he turned, it seemed to him that an invisible wall held him. His eyes grew misty. He could not move.
“No escape,” he said, sobbing. “It’s Courane that’s done this. Courane and Czerny. He
He sat again at the table. “They’re the only ones who know what’s going on. They’re the ones with all the facts,” he said, searching tiredly for M. Gargotier. He held his head in his hands. “It’s for my own good, I suppose. They know what they’re doing.”
His head bowed over the table. Soon he would be able to hear the morning sounds of the city’s earliest risers. Soon the day’s business would begin. Not so very long from now, M. Gargotier would arrive again, greet him cheerfully as he did every day, roll back the steel shutters and bring out two fingers of anisette. Now, though, tears dropped from Ernst’s eyes onto the table’s rusting circular surface. They formed little convex puddles, and in the center of each reflected the last of the new morning’s stars.
Introduction to
The Plastic Pasha
