Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker(37)

“You took the knife,” said the one perhaps called Pythia. “You took it from us. What is a knife for but opening?”

“A knife can be used for killing, for severing,” said the henchman. He began to stand up. “Or for cracking open the nut-case and finding the kernel. Someone has to do it.” At full height, standing on the rail, he was only a little taller than the dryad or goddess. He lifted his head from where it crunched into his neck. His flanks were ragged fur, and from his matted hair could be noted two curving horns. “Aren’t you ashamed to be so lost? We have our own sorry excuse, but you?”

“I died a long time ago,” said Dirk. “The old man tried to kill me, but I died before he could manage it.”

“Listen to me.” The woman spoke in a cold voice. “We’re all severed—we are, the forest is, you are—it’s the nature of the world. Some agents can recover. For themselves, for us, for others. What are you waiting for?”

“Lost is not an address, it’s not a permission to fail, it’s not an excuse.” With shocking vigor, like that of a young warrior, the creature hopped upon the ground and approached on cloven hoof. “It’s a reason to read the world.” His breath was meaty, his animal nakedness unnegotiated. “Panic,” he said, either a prediction or a directive. “Panic.” Leaning backward so the goat-man wouldn’t be able to press his hands upon his lapel, Dirk stumbled. “Open panic, open the past, open something,” snarled the creature.





48.


Dirk started, jolted by the hand on his lapel. The forest was gone. Its intensity, its panorama turned inside out—a landscape of hills and wildness brushed up close, as close as clothes—it was all gone.

He felt raw and empty—not as if he had voided himself, but been extruded from—from something. From the forest. From life. An all-too-familiar malady.

A hand on his lapel, gripping, shaking it, another touching his face.

“A happenstance such as would delight von Kleist, or that American, Washington Irving. Those who object to the coincidences that drive a romantic novel should think again!” said Stahlbaum.

He was on his hands and knees in the snow, roughing blood back into Dirk’s cheeks. Laughing. Now talking not to Dirk but over his shoulder to someone else, calling something. Now turning back.

“Are you alive?” said Stahlbaum. Stahlbaum—oh, Felix. Yes. Felix.

“What is happening?” muttered Dirk.

“The collapse of Icarus, brought down not by sun but wind and snow. It’s a mercy we weren’t killed. You, too, as we all but ran roughshod over you. Think of the odds!” Felix waved one hand behind him. Now the snow was thinning. The squalling clouds hastened eastward. A wasted light returned through paler, higher clouds. Off to one side of the square lay the remains of a large wickerwork gondola and what looked like gently burning sails subsiding into the snowy gutters.

“We were air-ballooning, Kurt and I. We launched from the von Koenig place outside überlingen in hopes of crossing to Switzerland, but scarcely had we risen above the roof-beams of the estate barns when a brutal storm rushed in from the Untersee. It pummeled down the valley and caught us sideways, sweeping us into Meersburg—exactly where we didn’t want to go. Then, I don’t know, perhaps we got punctured on a steeple. We could see nothing!—we were twirled about like mad Viennese waltzers!—and we buffeted against cornices and slid down the roofs, ending quite by accident in the square. Catching you on the side of our downed runaway chariot in the bargain. You! It might have been anyone in town, it might have been no one. For all I know you provided a brake in our velocity, though you took quite the thumping for your kindness. Now what do you make of that? Destiny or accident?”

Dirk was sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Irregular rips in the cloth of cloud showed ribbons of mocking blue. He could see the younger von Koenig, that university friend, dashing his boots against the cobbles and tearing at his hair. People were emerging from doorways, laughing and pointing. A white collie raced up to the impromptu bonfire, wagging its tail in delight and leaping like a witch at Walpurgisnacht.

“I thought . . .” said Dirk, and stopped.

“What did you think?” Felix looked at Dirk with the same sort of expression that the dog was giving to the conflagration; there was appeal and puppyishness.

“I thought you were in the basket.”

“But I was. Until it tumbled me out on my hinterbacken. Look, are you really all right? I’m afraid we smacked into you pretty hard. You went over like a tree felled for a ship’s mast. You look in shock.”

Dirk shook his head.

“And I was going to try to run into you—! Though not today. I got a note from the Doktor who said he was looking to talk to you. I was going to alert you.”

“I’ve already been to see him—he was saying things—”

“Oh? You surprise me. He alluded to a surprise or two, and wanted you to come back, but he didn’t know where you lived. He didn’t think you’d come back on your own, as you left so suddenly with Nastaran.”

“I wanted you to pull me up. To take me with you.”

“Too late for that. I’m not going anywhere now. The heated gas has all escaped. Look, Kurt is having a fit. I should help him.”