Archie, who had slipped into the role of the perfect handyman and jack-of-all-trades, had dragged every screwy—and I mean really screwy—machine into the apartment that he could find within a fifty-mile radius. One of them even looked like it could pick snot. Although Archie and I had ties of great affection, whenever he saw me he could not refrain from saying that Burmese cats were currently "in" and that my breed was no longer fashionable. Thereupon Gustav made some indignant remarks, and tried to persuade me that I shouldn't listen to nasty Uncle Archie.
I didn't. I sprang down from my friend's lap, and trotted back into the bathroom where Bluebeard was waiting for me in front of an empty bowl that he had licked clean. In gratitude for my hospitality, he now wanted to honor his promise of the previous day and introduce me to the "other wiseass."
The meeting with the other wiseass exceeded by far all the promises that bubbled excitedly out of Bluebeard on the way. I am all too aware that many will doubt the truth of what I will now report—and with reason—If I had not seen it with my own eyes, then I myself, I must confess, would have not believed it. But it happens to be the damned truth, and I have made up my mind not to exaggerate.
Bluebeard led me to an old building covered on every side with creeping plants located in the farthest and most secluded corner of the district. Inside, however, this gingerbread house looked like the dream home of a dynamic young manager obsessed by the desire to live like one of those inflated Beverly Hills VIPs who constantly grin out at you from the TV. A miniature chalet, sickeningly fashionable, which a successful interior decorator might have built for his own family. The most distinguishing feature of this house was empty space. The main characteristic of each and every room was either priceless carpeting or highly polished white marble. Furniture and other household articles were sparingly distributed, as if at an exhibition.
It was unsettling. Where the hell did these people put things like sewing kits or shoe polish? Did they keep any mementos of their childhood? Where in God's name did they hide the awful odds and ends every household accumulates over the course of the years? The only objects here looked as if they were on loan from the Museum of Modern Art.
Bluebeard and I managed to get in through the door, which was ajar and led directly from the garden to the living room. The living room was empty except for a heavy leather recliner and a CD player with an assortment of classical CDs. Only two pictures hung on the whitewashed walls. The first was a greatly enlarged photograph of female genitals, the second of the male anatomical counterpart. It was obvious—art connoisseurs lived here! How different Gustav's taste was! (Or should I say lack of taste?) Gustav had even had the gall to rip out a reproduction of van Gogh's sunflowers from a calendar and to tack—please note, tack—it to the wall. Driven half mad by anger, I shredded it to pieces. I asked myself whether the owners of this avant-garde home also had an ugly rubber duck in the bathroom like Gustav. Or whether they would take pride in calling a grandmotherly crocheted tablecloth their own, assuming that they even had a grandmother. They probably didn't eat any meat, either. And if they did, they most certainly didn't make the disgusting sounds Gustav did.
With a speculative smile, Bluebeard was engrossed in the larger-than-life photograph of the vagina.
"Very impressive," I said. "Are we in the house of a pimp or an art professor?"
"Shit, I don't really know myself" He thought it over. "I think the guy who owns this joint does something with science. Mathematics, biology, parapsychology—who knows? Anyway, he must make a lot of dough to be able to afford all this crap."
"And where's the wiseass who's the owner of the wiseass we're here to visit?"
He shrugged. "Dunno. Let's look for our wiseass."
We wandered over carpet and marble, marble and carpet and on and on until we practically got sick of the sight of all the latest fashions from the wonderful world of ultra-ultra interior design. We saw more than enough of African totems, sometimes the only furnishings in a room, of Le Corbusier recliners, Thonet chairs, a lot of Memphis, and Biedermeier wardrobes whose restoration had probably cost more money than was earned during the entire working lives of the dumb farmers who had been cheated out of them for a song in the first place.
And then, at last, we found the goal of our search—and this encounter did indeed cap off our "mission wiseass."
When we entered the second-floor study, I didn't notice him right away, because a portrait on the wall to my right claimed more of my attention at first. The huge painting depicted a broad-shouldered, rather stout man in his mid-forties with a large head, a high brow, and gold-rimmed eyeglasses framing friendly, yet penetrating, blue eyes. His look suggested intelligence and curiosity, and there seemed to be a hint of roguishness around the corners of his firm mouth. He wore the civilian clothing of an ecclesiastic: a black frock and trousers stuck into high, sturdy stove-pipe boots. He stood amid indefinable plants whose branches and leaves enveloped him in such a way that it seemed as if he himself grew like a plant out of all this greenery. Below, in the right-hand corner of the painting, was written in fine, swinging handwriting: Gregor Johann Mendel. Perhaps the master of the house was a religious person, but maybe the painting
