I leaped up on my legs and arched my back more than I had ever done in my life - but the howling still didn't stop! Just as I was considering the possibility that I had a screw loose in my head (a kind of tribute to local customs), I realized where the howling, which all of a sudden seemed very real, was coming from. It was like my first nightmare. The sound came from the floor directly above me, and I was surprised that the noise hadn't long ago woken Gustav.
I stood there like a pillar of salt, not able to believe my own ears. Although I tried to soothe my fears by assuming that the local men's choir was serenading a female in heat, or that the gentlemen were already assembled around her, panting and howling and growling at one another, the more rational part of my mind told me that what I was hearing was nothing other than cries of pain.
But what could I do? Not to follow up on the matter meant not only capitulating to fear, but possibly missing out on an important clue bearing on the murders. And who said that someone upstairs wasn't getting murdered? Because that's what the whole commotion sounded like!
My damned, untamable curiosity! If I had to name my own worst fault, then without a doubt it's curiosity. In this world there are the most marvelous hobbies and the most unusual pursuits. Some make detailed collections of pornographic magazines, cataloguing them according to the size of the dildoes depicted in them. Others study UFO's in their free time and try constantly to contact extraterrestrial beings, until one day their wish is granted and they find themselves in a clinic being asked again and again by the staff psychiatrist to tell about their miraculous encounter. Many paint, only to dump their "art" on their friends as birthday presents in the belief that people are particularly pleased to receive something made by hand. Many donate sperm. Many, very many indeed, become connoisseurs of alcoholic beverages and cultivate their knowledge in this field day after day after day … Oh, there are the most entertaining hobbies in the world! But it is my sorry fate to have to stick my sensitive nose into the most perilous affairs, which invariably means I get the shit beaten out of me.
The howling had become louder. My legs a little shaky, I slunk out into the hall. I was aware that this reconnaissance could have disastrous consequences, not least because I had no idea what the upstairs looked like. On the other hand, if I remained downstairs and had to go on listening to what was happening up there, curiosity and a bad conscience would slowly but surely drive me crazy. And so I decided with typically unshakable resolve to clear up the mystery, even though it might spell my doom.
Since Gustav in his inimitable debility had forgotten to lock the apartment door, it was easy for me to open the door by raising myself up on my hind legs and pressing down on the handle with my front paws.
It was pitch black in the entrance hall. Although my eyes need only a sixth of the brightness humans need to perceive the same details of movement and shape, it was well nigh impossible to recognize anything concrete out there. But that didn't mean I couldn't make anything out at all.7 With my whiskers vibrating softly, a diagram appeared to my mind's eye that, although blurry, was sufficient for my purposes: it consisted of varying air currents that reproduced the stairwell architecture surrounding me.
Slowly I climbed the stairs toward the wailing sound, which was getting more and more nerve wracking. When the stairway, after curving 180 degrees, suddenly began to brighten the way it had in my first nightmare, the strain and fear nearly made me throw up. The only difference from my dream was that no glimmering light poured through the door crack, only a flickering glow, which reminded me of the glow that a welding torch emits. Now and then, however, even this light was lost, and it was pitch black again.
The voices were the most terrifying. Almost melodious cries of pain, obeying the laws of a cruel harmony, echoed endlessly throughout the entire building, weaving in and out of one another like the voices in a religious hymn.
The repulsive chemical odor I noticed when Gustav and I moved into the building gradually became so strong that I no longer had to rely on my J organ, but could smell it with my unaided nose. Mixed in with it was the musty odor of empty, rotting apartments.
Now at last I stood at the door and I inched my nose around the doorjamb to risk a look inside. From then on, nothing quite took place the way it had in my nightmare—it was worse, much worse! The scent of hundreds of brothers and sisters came surging out at me. They were out of sight, far to the rear of the large room, and my field of vision was restricted to the dark hallway. But because the door to the room was open a hand's breadth, in addition to the overwhelming smell I could hear a continuous clattering and hopping. A powerful bass now joined in with the cries of pain, and although I could understand nothing of what it said, the voice seemed to be making an important speech in solemn tones.
My God, where was I? A meeting of the Jehovah's Witnesses? I asked myself what might happen if I just marched into the room, and answered my own question: nothing at all, of course, because I would rather kiss a dog than take one step into that place. The thought alone of such a
