"Of course, nothing at all, you airhead!" I said. "That riffraff has been meeting to get into a charged state of aggressive intoxication during which who knows what sort of perverse things happen or could happen. But that, of course, has nothing at all to do with the murders. You lied to me, Bluebeard! What's more, you withheld important information from me. And you know exactly what I mean, my friend. But I'm still puzzled why you did it."
"Well, uh, I thought maybe it wasn't that important." He could hardly get his words out, he was so uncomfortable.
"Not that important? When it's a matter of solving a case as complex as this one, every detail is important, Bluebeard, every single one! Any little thing can unexpectedly become important under certain circumstances. Note this for the future: either you play honest with me, or we don't play together anymore!"
The rising sun now washed the roof landscape in a rich orange. The air was fresh and clear, and the sunlight began to blind us. While we were heading back to Gustav's, Bluebeard, limping laboriously beside me, told all. The sect had existed for years. Practically nothing was known about the facts of its establishment. The only thing that was certain was that Joker—the current master of ceremonies—was the first to begin disseminating the teachings of the afflicted Claudandus. Through the years, he had found more and more adherents for his cause, and, in the end, nearly everybody joined without really being able to explain why. As Felicity had already correctly surmised, it all probably arose from a strong need for religion, security, and a good dose of excitement. Besides the peculiar shock torture, which had become part of the ritual over time, Bluebeard had noticed nothing unusual during the meetings—except, of course, that the whole business itself was out of the ordinary. Bluebeard even rejected the argument that the chemical odor the dilapidated premises emanated heightened the aggressive tendencies of the members. Anyway, he said he was always spent, even ready to drop off to sleep, after the whole affair, but never aggressive. He had no idea who Claudandus really was, either.
All this did absolutely nothing to calm me down. On the contrary, all my questions raised new ones. The murderer had hidden himself in this swamp of secrets and half-truths like a virus in a monstrously complex organism, and was manipulating, quietly and stealthily, the puppet strings of death.
While we were approaching our roof, I glanced down again at the houses and gardens, which the sun had come to illuminate with a scintillating gold. Yes, there weren't only human beings on this planet, I thought to myself, who had built all of this and who fancied themselves the kings of the universe. In every cosmos there was a microcosm, and the latter was always a depressingly loathsome mirror image of the former. But why did this have to be? Why couldn't the world simply be divided into a good and a bad half? The color gray made you feel uneasy, it made things seem complicated and hopeless, it upset the notion of black and white. Good and evil? There was no such thing. There was a little good and a little evil, a little black and a little white. Gray was not an attractive color, but perhaps the one that came closest to reality. The truth, the explanation for the horrible things that had happened, the murder motive and the murderer, all that was concealed behind this gray, behind this camouflage, the best camouflage since the creation of the earth.
At home, a bowl of freshly cleaned cod awaited Bluebeard and myself. Even if Gustav had a screw loose, he was beyond reproach when it came to choosing food for his best friend. Of course, he had to be taught this in a strenuous course through unmistakably clear body language. Human beings never do hit upon the idea that others beside themselves might take pleasure in culinary delicacies. Although they elevate the ingredients and preparation of their own sustenance to the highest level of culture, and not infrequently to that of ideology, they would never admit that other creatures might also have gourmet tastes. Only one thing can help in the face of such narrow-mindedness: go hungry! Don't eat the crap, the garbage, the stinking handouts they put down in front of you, but go hungry, go hungry again and again.9 It is important to be persistent and proud, like a jailbird who goes on a hunger strike when prison conditions get bad. At the beginning of our relationship, through this method of civil disobedience, I was able to get the message through to Gustav that, as for the "tidbits" he thought fit for me, he could shove them you know where; I was in no way willing to so much as sniff at them. Since Gustav's mental capacity, as I have often noted, lies somewhere between that of the famous talking gorilla "Koko" and that of the first Russian space dog, it took a while before he recognized the error of his ways and finally began to prepare choice foods for me. In the course of time, I was even able to get him to sauté or even spice meat; and, in the end, to sum things up, he was "eating out of my hand." This last note is only meant to make it clear that in reality there are no oppressed, only those who submit to oppression. Amen.
Since Bluebeard's stomach capacity was about four times larger than mine, while he was still cramming down fish in record time, I was already well over my limit, and risked an inspection of the living room to appraise the current state of renovation.
It was impressive how much progress the two heavy laborers had made. While Archie was already laying down parquet, Gustav was gluing some kind of avant-garde plastic sheeting on the wall. As
