The House of a Thousand Floors (CEU Press Classics) Page 6

  At that moment, a face appeared above the resting emigrants. It was pockmarked and bracketed between a sailor's cap and a black T-shirt with yellow half moons. Brok recognized the face at once: this was the drunk who had been singing a lewd song on West-Wester's ring road.

  "Get up, people, and follow me!" he shouted and lit a cigarette from a burning torch. The low-cut T-shirt revealed his chest with a colourful tattoo of a fantastic airship travelling among the stars. His arms were covered with somewhat unsuccessful creations depicting some hideous stellar vegetation.

  He opened a small door leading into darkness and everyone rushed behind him, pushing and jostling. The narrow corridor lazily swallowed them one by one. Damp and long, it rose and fell, like the gullet of an immeasurable snake-like monster. They marched in file, heads low, elbows touching the damp walls. And somewhere far ahead smoked the sailor's torch.

  At last, a bright opening, full of hope. The torch disappeared into an alcove; only its red light flooded the moving bodies. And as soon as the princess, with Brok on her heels, passed through the brightly illuminated opening as the last passenger, a door closed behind them.

  They found themselves in a round velvety black hall, lit from above by a burning purple globe. Then — desperate cries, weeping, hands waving over heads.

  "We've been tricked! We're all going to die!"

  At first, Brok understood nothing. Then he noticed a strange, bittersweet smell that made his head spin. A magical, monstrously beautiful flower with blood-red leaves and a black calyx blossomed in his mind. He held his breath and the flower disappeared. They were all pointing up at some white fog exploding from a metal tube in the wall, then dissolving in the air. Panic was spreading.

  Brok's first thought was to save the princess. He leapt to the wall in which he sensed the door that had closed behind them earlier. But the door was gone. Meanwhile, he lost the princess in the mad crush. People were throwing themselves about, shouting, crying, holding their noses and covering their mouths.

  The former factory owner is circling around the walls with desperate persistence, like a bear in a cage. Richard Alva, the missionary, overcome with the mystical terror of death, is on his knees in the middle of the hall, beating his head against the tiled floor, shouting a blasphemous prayer full of curses and ridicule directed at his god. The poet and the millionaire's daughter fall into a tight embrace, and, without shame in the face of death, they take each other's bodies for the first and last time, with frenzied courage, so that they can die together at the moment of love.

  The painter is dying with tears in his dreamy eyes, the barber pulls at his pompous goatee and the dissipated young man eagerly inhales the deadly fragrance into his lungs with deep breaths.

  The gas is becoming dense; they all have to let their breath out in the end, and then — drink death gulp by gulp. People fall over one another, their bodies pile up on the black marble.

  At last Brok found his princess in the centre of the round hall. She was about to collapse just as he reached her through the crowd. He opened his arms and softly lowered her onto the marble floor. Her eyes widened with surprise.

  "Princess! Princess!" cried Brok, touching her temple with desperate lips. "Hold your breath in, for god's sake!"

  But with these words, the last breath of uncontami-nated air left his lungs. He got up and had no choice but to drink the lethal scent a second time. His head started spinning, he heard the humming of forests in his ears, and the blood-red flower blossomed in his mind again. — This was the end! The end!

  So he had lost his battle with Ohisver Muller even before he could start fighting. He had lost before he had the chance to meet him face-to-face. The humming of the forest is becoming fainter and fainter, the black calyx of the flower is growing larger, it opens up and swallows him. Petr Brok falls. The magnesium globe fades. Darkness... no, not even darkness. — Nothing.

  XVIII

  The dream · Old man with a kind smile · Fates of the emigrants · Lousy material · "And that road sweeper, too!"

  And yet the dirty yellow lamp flickers on. The three-floor row of bunk beds stretches into darkness. There are grey cocoons glued to the bare boards. They appear to have dried out, their surfaces shrivelled. But something is moving inside them, something rank; it's either hatching or already putrefying. There are more of these grey cocoons. They move from time to time, signalling that life inside them continues, that one night a sad velvety butterfly will emerge, a death-head hawk moth.

  And behold! The little yellow lamp with its moonlight glow suddenly bursts into a magnesium flame. Petr Brok opened his eyes. What happened? The dream disappeared.

  There is a purple fire burning above him again but the bottom of the velvet cylinder is smooth. The round wall appears to have cracked in one place — there is light coming through a narrow gap and something is moving inside it... Petr Brok climbed through the gap to find himself in a steel chamber with no furniture, with riveted walls. A transparent human skull is suspended from the ceiling, with clusters of rays shooting forth from the eye sockets and nostrils.

  In the corner is a crowd of pilgrims, half clad, with their hands bound by thin chains. There are no women among them. Brok wondered at first why none of them spoke. Terrible silence emanated from their broken, bewildered faces. Only when he came closer did he realise that they all had metal gags in their mouths. Two drivers in red held them on a harness, each with a cat-o'-nine-tails in his hand. Apart from them and the sailor, there were two other men, whose eyes Brok could look into at close range. He understood at once that these two would decide the fate of the deceived emigrants.

  The first of them was an old man with white hair and small dark glasses, and a surprisingly kind smile. From time to time, he would straighten his stooping body dressed in a uniform with gold epaulettes. Several star-shaped medals, arranged into the form of Cassiopeia, were pinned to the front of his uniform. He sported a naval officer's cap with the words 'Admiral Surehand' and a goatee parted in the middle.

  The other man's face could not be more different. Ruddy and primitive, it was the face of a brutal butcher. He was dressed in an elegant black suit, like a gentleman, with small diamonds glittering on his fingers, cuff links and shirtfront. His left eye under the sloping forehead was kept open by a monocle which was intended to add aristocratic glamour to his brutal features.

  "How many?" the old man good-naturedly asked the pock-marked sailor.

  "Forty-five out of ninety," the sailor reported respectfully. "Fifteen women among them. The rest are already in the furnace —"

  "Lousy material!" the man with the monocle spat out.

  "To hell with them!"

  "You're exaggerating, Milord," the old man cajoled him. "We'll certainly find something."

  He approached the former millionaire and tapped his chest covered with red hairs.

  "See this, Milord! The red-haired ones are resilient and live long. He'll make a good miner!"

  "Alright, Admiral," replied milord. "Throw him into the mines!"

  The sailor wrote something down in a notebook and the assistants dragged the red-haired man to the other end of the hall.

  "We need one for the warehouse," milord remembered and approached the barber who was quivering like a bass string. Milord flicked his nose with his index finger, as if in jest, and commented drily: "Floor 567!"

  The sailor took note of this and the barber found himself in the far corner.

  The admiral noticed the desperate lover whose arms were outstretched towards the iron door heavy with silence.

  "Sir Marko is looking for a young slave," he told him in a voice full of consolation. "You're in luck..." "733!" hissed milord and they went on. "They need a sweeper on Esmeralda Kranova Street," the agile old man rattled, running around in the crowd. He stopped in front of the ex-monarch. "Can you lift a broom?" he asked compassionately. The chubby ex-king, unable to reply, shook his head, visibly offended.

  "This is King Aramis the Tw
elfth," the sailor informed them, having consulted his notebook.

  "Which one?" asked milord, as if he had misheard what time it was. He then made a decision and spat out ominously: "To hell with him!"

  "To heaven, to heaven," the old man judiciously assured him. "Only rags are burned, and bones make powder for West-Wester's beauties. But the souls fly up to the stars, hee, hee, hee — " He laughed so hard his little glasses fogged up. As he took them off, he revealed two flashing, venomously green eyes, extremely cruel and evil. Once his eyes were visible, his kind, wrinkled face could be seen for what is was: a mere mask.

  "Enough!" decided milord. "The rest are all junk! Trash! Burn them!"

  "But we need that road sweeper," wailed the old man and put his spectacles back on. Through them he spotted the powdered young man, whose face was twisted into an inhuman grimace by fear and wailing blocked by a metal gag. The sailor noted the floor number and took the young man to the group huddled across the hall.

  XIX

  ... and now the girls... · The princess lost and found again · Muller's gallantry · "... give me your smiles, please... "

  “And now the girls," the old man babbled with a lecherous expression on his face, fastening onto his chest one of the stars which had become unstuck. Milord, too, pulled out his cuffs with diamond cuff links as they walked into the next room. Brok slipped in behind them unnoticed.

  Inside, a cluster of women writhed and thrashed about on the floor. Brok had seen them moving with the crowd before, lovers and companions, accompanying and accompanied, as well as solitary pilgrims, proudly and quietly following their dream. Their mouths were free; they were not gagged.

  "First of all, the princess," Brok thought as he approached the huddle of crying women. But the princess wasn't among them. She was standing apart, her hands clinging to the wall, dark, proud, waiting without a single tear in her eyes.

  Brok felt an irrepressible desire to deal with the two villains and free the deceived emigrants. But his instinct, which he trusted above all, commanded him to wait and postpone revenge until that great moment when everyone's turn would come. He tiptoed to the princess, brought his lips to her temple and whispered without touching her with a single hair.

  "Do not fear! I am here with you!"

  She turned her surprised face to him and her lips quivered with an as yet unspoken question. Brok said quickly:

  "Quiet, don't ask about anything! Don't move! They mustn't suspect anything! I'm here by your side. Don't look for me."

  He touched her left hand with his finger and whispered: "This is me! This is how you'll be able to tell I'm near you. Will you allow me, please?"

  The princess nodded and smiled imperceptibly.

  In the meantime, the old crook with the mask of kindness was trying to stop all the tears, cries and curses showered on his head.

  "But ladies, dear ladies! — Why all these tears and lamenting? Your noses don't look their best when you're crying!"

  "Give me back my boy, my Janíček!" cried the pink girl who still didn't understand what was going on. "I can't leave without him!"

  "We've been kidnapped!" screamed the film star hysterically. "Robbers! Air pirates!"

  The millionaire's daughter forgot about her poet and mourned her lost luggage.

  "If you don't keep quiet, we'll let you taste our fruit!" threatened the man with the monocle. "Our pears are quite hard, I can assure you!"

  "Smile! We need your smiles, ladies!" the old admiral babbled on. "Show us your smile while there's still time!"

  But the cries, weeping and lamentations only grew louder. The old countess made the worst noise of all. She cried for help, demanded the police, cursed and threatened: "Rascals! Scoundrels! Don't you dare raise your hand against a helpless aristocrat! Where are your stars? In the sky? So you can blackmail, trick and ruin us! — Pirates! Give me back my suitcase! Thieves, I want my money back!"

  "The gallantry of our generous Lord Muller is endless," said the monocle and made a pious bow — but there're limits when you're dealing with such trash! Give me the pear!" he commanded, and before the countess knew what was happening, one of the drivers shoved the steel gag in her mouth. — At once, the remaining women grew silent.

  "There, my dear ladies! And now I'll ask for your smiles once again! — Look, Milord, this little girl's not exactly a beauty, but she can't be any older than seventeen."

  "Of course," the monocle grimaced. "High time for her to join Don Eremis's cabaret."

  After the pink girl, they chose the millionaire's daughter, the botanist's wife with the sad eyes, then two pale, pretty sisters in short skirts and childlike socks, twins, who were like two peas in a pod. They were holding hands and never stopped calling daddy, not understanding anything. The drivers took them away to the corner. There, hanging from the ceiling, swayed a delightful Turkish-style gazebo, upholstered in velvet, with a circle of purple seats.

  XX

  The first mention of Achorgen · The purple gazebo is a lift · The old procurer comforts the princess · Madame Veroni

  The princess was next. Brok pricked up his ears. The admiral smoothed down his uniform trousers with yellow side stripes and razor sharp creases, and approached her respectfully, feigning astonishment.

  "Princess Tamara!" he cried. "What a surprise!" — "Our black diamond, lost and found again! A velvet butterfly that wanted to fly away to the sky... we've been looking for you on every floor!"

  "Nobody looked for anyone and nothing was lost!" Milord snapped at him. "Nothing is ever lost in Mullerdom!"

  But the old man was already happily wagging his chin under a hollow mouth: "Prince Achorgen, Third Secretary of our benefactor Lord Muller, fell in love with you at first sight... He insists that he must be the first to see you perform the crystal whirl, or perhaps second, in case He Himself chooses to. For our benefactor himself has shown interest in you and the progress you are making in dance. But woe betide you now should you, instead of his grace, taste his wrath!"

  They brought the princess into the gazebo and Brok followed. The old man made himself comfortable and gave a sign with his raised finger. Iron shutters rolled down the sides and the gazebo began descending as a lamp illuminated its interior.

  Inside the enclosed cylinder, Brok couldn't tell how fast they were falling, especially since everything around him remained motionless and the lift descended without the slightest sound or tremor. It seemed that the cylinder was standing still and yet he felt that they were plunging into an abyss. For a moment, the little yellow lamp flickered in his mind, but he drove it away.

  The old procurer watched the tearmarked faces around him with great interest. There was still the occasional sniffle, a tear rolling down a cheek, but all mouths were quiet. The despair subsided and was replaced with fatigue, and then something new, a momentary flicker of curiosity. Against all expectations, the admiral was on his best behaviour in the falling bell of the gazebo, and he treated the ladies with utmost respect. He was sitting with his trousers upturned, knees pressed together and hands in his lap, so as to avoid any suggestion that he might be keen to touch the women next to him. But he pushed his cap with the gold lettering back and addressed them jovially:

  "You see, dear ladies, nothing's happened to you, and nothing will. You were afraid you wouldn't reach your little planet? — I swear by Almighty Muller that we are now flying to a far more delighful star... the star of dance... dance and love... Madame Veroni will teach both of you in her salon. — She no longer dances herself, being somewhat rotund, but she manages a dance academy with renowned artists from the old world. Rest assured, it wasn't just your pretty faces that made us select you, but your bodies and feet also made a difference in the contest of Sleeping Beauties. I even plucked these two rosebuds," he said and his wrinkles deepened in a smile full of kindness. "I couldn't leave such beautiful symmetry behind. We'll find you a father, sweet orphans — you'll have one and you'll have one — but first of all, you'll be sent to school.
Madame Veroni will give you a primer of love. — And you, Princess, will return to Villa Tamara, and I strongly advise you to learn the crystal whirl — without dance, there's no career in Gedonia. And seek reconciliation with Prince Achorgen. Don't you understand that all the women down there desire him, and there are princesses among them, too. He's a great man, the right hand of our ingenious divine Muller. And what a gentleman! He occupies an entire floor in Gedonia, three thousand rooms. and he is a generous patron of Mullerdom's artists. If you please him, he will marry you! And he'll take care of you, although he already keeps fifty others in his water harem."

  The princess was looking at the ceiling and said nothing. Her pride, like a light shining inside of her, was as cold as marble and just as unbreakable. Brok was all ears. The admiral's words fell into his mind like seeds on fertile ground.

  The bell-shaped gazebo suddenly stopped, smoothly, without a jolt. The shutters flew up and the light inside it went out. The gazebo stood in the middle of a spacious rose-coloured hall. It seemed to Brok as if the music that had been playing somewhere suddenly faded out. All around, people were eagerly running towards them. The open bell was soon surrounded by a sweltering circle of human bodies. Exquisite faces of women with moist, glittering eyes half covered under heavy eyelashes, lips sharply accentuated with lipstick. The men's faces were also made up to look younger, but what was bizarre about them were the goatees most of them sported: black, blond or red, all parted into two strands. Brok recalled some of the faces he had seen in the Adventurers' City; even the kind, wrinkled face of the old procurer was adorned with this strangely shaped formation of facial hair. Brok began to understand that this style must be the current height of fashion in Mullerdom. But there was no time to think about such trivialities. The admiral was the first to step out of the gazebo, smoothing his trouser legs to make their sharp creases stand out.