The House of a Thousand Floors (CEU Press Classics) Read online

  "Madame Veroni!" he was shouting. "Madame Veroni!"

  A corpulent lady emerged from the crowd, her large bosom overspilling from a gorgeous, long low-cut dress made of green scales. Her erstwhile beauty had disappeared under rolls of fat and her mouth above a multiple chin was higher than the top of the admiral's head.

  "I am bringing you new angels," babbled the old man, "but you'll have to give their feet wings. I think I chose them well for you."

  Madame Veroni observed the pairs of sad little feet through a gold lorgnette, and her rolls of fat quivered with praise. "Excellent job, Admiral," she said. "I've always been happy with your services. Look at these pink darlings. They'd make our old planet proud, even on Venus. Come and see me tomorrow. We'll settle your bill."

  Then Madame Veroni threw her hands up: "By all the suns! This is our Tamara! Admiral, have you been blinded by stardust?"

  The old procurer giggled surrepticiously behind his dark lenses.

  "Do you really think that I catch only small fry when I cast my nets?"

  "Come, my pet," Madame Veroni said sweetly, turning to the princess. "How pale you are! I'll take you to your little villa. Everything is as you left it. You'll see for yourself. Come, you foolish child!"

  The admiral didn't like this: "Why don't you stay with your little angels, Madame? They're tired, too! Give them hot water for a foot bath and leave the princess to me. I'll take her where she needs to go. — Forward, princess!"

  "Go," whispered Brok.

  A fleeting smile passed across the princess's lips and they walked out of the hall: the princess, the admiral and the detective.

  XXI

  Elvira Karp Street · Villa Tamara · Petr Brok decides to follow the admiral · "Tm leavingyou just for a short while... " Berta Bretard Street · Anna Dimer Street

  A square. — Surrounded by palaces made of glass, it looks like the bottom of a large swimming pool with people in fancy dress rushing about. Fantastic wide boulevards radiate into the distance — theatres, cafés, cinemas, museums, casinos and churches, all made of part transparent, part etched glass. Rows of fountains and crystal sculptures, as if chiselled from water, catch the eye with a gleam, then disappear in space as if they had never existed. And above it all, a dome of azure glass, with a never-setting sun suspended in eternal zenith.

  These words screamed at Brok in red letters against a silver background. Brok committed them to memory.

  He had to find his bearings, because if he were to lose his way in Mullerdom... No, he must not lose his way! And he also never lost the princess from his sight. He walked close behind her, synchronising his steps with hers. Then, as he stared at the black-clad stems of her calves, he was suddenly overcome with desire. He imagined them bare, and himself very close, transparent like glass. He imagined his invisble arms outstretched, his hands caressing a sleeping body. He immediately felt disgusted at these thoughts and drove them out of his mind. — He'd promised her his help! Yes, he would touch her but only to show her he was near. That's what he'd promised her!

  They passed boulevards, crossings, palaces. Pavements ended and new ones started. Avenues of giant cacti and palm trees, carpets of flowers, glass houses, lakes and villas cooled by the breeze of swaying date palm fronds — it was obvious they were in the zone where wealthy aristocrats lived. Finally, they reached a villa bearing a rainbow sign:

  VILLA TAMARA

  The old admiral bowed before the princess: "Farewell, you proud sinner! I'm going to see Muller now. Pray to him that he is merciful in his anger! His goodness is eternal."

  He remained at the door while the princess ascended a winding staircase without looking back. She appeared again behind the door, and then dissolved into glass panes that kept multiplying — until she disappeared for good.

  What now? Brok thought. Follow her? No! For the moment, she's safe. But this scoundrel's going to visit Muller! Let me stay with him.

  Brok tore out a page from his notebook and wrote a message:

  Princess,

  I am leaving you for a while. Do not let anyone in. You must hold out. You will know I am here when I touch you. Yourfriend

  He hurried up the staircase and slipped the note into a transparent letter box. Then he set out after the admiral. He caught up with him at the crossing, and it occurred to him that he might never find this street again. What was it called?

  read a silver sign, and below:

  Muller! Muller everywhere! Do all the streets in this city bear the names of his heavy-hearted lovers? Is this god so petty and conceited? Be that as it may, Brok had to remember these names to be able to find his way back. He turned into

  named after a woman who was burned alive for murdering Queen Gertrude out of jealousy and love for Muller.

  This street ended with a palace on crystal columns with a wide staircase full of shiny black top hats. A blood-red sign was burning on its front:

  XXII

  The golden ant hill · Chubby god under a canopy The crystal mouth of the loudspeaker · Stock exchange technology

  · Petr Brok learns something about himself

  · "You can call him — a divine socialist... "

  The admiral paused under the staircase. He smoothed the creases of his trousers, quickly counted the stars on his uniform, and then cautiously walked up. Brok followed close on his heels.

  They entered a vast glass vestibule. Under a gold chandelier of translucent glass globes, a black crowd swarmed. In the centre, a delicate grand staircase rose up to the circular balustrades. In the corner, under a golden canopy, the figure of a terribly fat, double-chinned god was seated in a scarlet armchair. And here, too, the ceiling was fitted with that convex glass, this time with golden rays painted around it that made it look like a sun. Was this a massive lens through which someone's giant eye was looking down as if through a microscope, observing the swarming of bacilli?

  The black silk of tailcoats rustles and whispers as bodies rub against each other. Eyes are alight in the blurred faces above dazzling shirtfronts resembling white doors leading to the mechanism of these black figurines which look as if they can be wound up and made to move by a spring, hidden under the black tails. Right hands shoot out and lock into each other as if attracted by magnets. Their chubby fingers are fitted with heavy gold rings.

  They are all moving, heading somewhere, and yet their journeys are aimless. They weave through the narrow gaps between the shoulders of others, run around chaotically, return, and form clusters that fall apart as soon as they come together.

  Words explode; laughter drums inside throats; cries whoosh through the air.

  Petr Brok had lost his way in this tangle of paths, directions and narrow passages. He had lost his admiral. He had fallen into an ant hill and become an ant himself. Running from place to place, climbing and crawling, he listened, clinging to the black clusters of conferring goatees, catching the words they were shouting.

  After a while, when his ear began to discern entire sentences, Petr Brok noticed that announcements were coming out of a crystal loudspeaker placed on a high pedestal in the far corner of the hall. Words, slogans, numbers and strange signs were projected onto a white screen and passed on through the lenses of eyes to screens in the brain, inscribing marks on them.

  It was here that Brok could fully imagine who Ohisver Muller was, the entire monstrous enormity of this mysterious man who was everywhere and nowhere. This is where low value currencies of other nations fight an uneven battle with Muller's mulldors. This is where his name is pronounced a thousand times a day by a thousand mouths. — It sounded like desperate howling, like a triumphant scream, like pleading for mercy, like the cracking of bones under a heavy boot. The lens in the ceiling became his eye! The microphone in the wall his ear! The crystal loudspeaker his mouth! His hand could suddenly reach in through the walls and, one day, he himself would appear in the mirror.

  Who knows whether he was not already present, posing as an investor or broker, or one of the fl
unkeys... noone knows him, no-one knows when to expect him.

  Petr Brok started to find his bearings. He watched and listened to the aggressive screaming, to numbers, letters and words coming out of the loudspeaker to be then taken up by the crowd who repeated them and distorted them like an echo:

  LOUDSPEAKER

  – I will buy fifty black stocks!

  SCREEN

  – Rate: 29, 30, 31, 32.50, 33!

  VOICES

  – Hear, hear, Muller needs coal!

  SCREEN

  – Rate: 35, 36…

  VOICES

  – Solium is disappearing

  The miners are revolting

  You can smell the revolution

  They have demolished staircase R

  They have placed mines in shaft

  I bid fifty

  Hold out

  Screen exchange rate 38, 39

  VOICES

  – Vítek of Vítkovice's coming out of his hole

  His head's not above the surface yet

  But when it shows, he'll lose it

  I bid forty

  LOUDSPEAKER

  – Done.

  VOICES

  – A fly has swallowed an elephant

  – Today I'm a millionaire

  – Let's wait some more

  – He's playing us

  – He can't get any richer than this

  LOUDSPEAKER

  – I'll buy 20,000 pairs of hands

  More numbers showing the rates flicker on the screen, but Brok is no longer looking. He's walking around, listening:

  Blacks for two mulldors a piece!

  Muller works with whites!

  I bought yellow ones. They work faster!

  But they wear down faster, too!

  I offer whites at five mulldors a piece, Spanish goods!

  They're dumb and lazy!

  French goods are more delicate. I'll throw them on the market when the franc is higher!

  LOUDSPEAKER

  – Done!

  I'll sell 50 wagons of Okka cubes!

  — Goods number 256!

  — We don't need that! Old stock!

  — The warehouses are bursting at the seams!

  — Last week I bought half a wagon, enough for two thousand stomachs for five years!

  — Yes, Monsieur, the cubes are cheap but the stomachs are expensive!

  — In three months, my factory will turn into a hospital.

  — A strange disease — the drying of blood...

  — Shhh!

  — And what about India, Sirdar, is India thankful? Eh? — Our Okka saved millions during the famine!

  — After all, every machine breaks down sooner or later, but we don't need to manufacture man!

  — He's overproduced by nature!

  — Today, it's impossible to compete without cubes, Grand Vizier!

  — The cube in the stomach is not food; it serves to oil the machine!

  — A hungry, fussy, lazy, sexually sensitive machine — is it worth it?

  — Between us, Mr Ferenc, not even the Chinese can stomach it, let alone dogs!

  — I fed my Patagonians with it for seven years! And lost them all!

  — Shhh!

  — Your Excellency doesn't know how to oil the machine... 250! To hell with it! Mon Dieu!

  — Meine Herren, it will fall even further!

  — We're all overloaded with cubes!

  — Our good Muller will cut the price — for us beggars!

  I'll buy half a kilo of radium!

  — Listen! Listen!

  — Gentlemen, which of you can sell it to him today?

  — And what does he need it for, Monsieur Franck?

  — He needs rays, Signore, hee, hee, hee — (whispering) for cancer — shhh!

  — For his own use, verstehen Sie?

  — Shh!

  The Persian Shah's throne is for sale!

  — Again?

  — No wonder! Who hasn't tried it...?

  — Allan Gorr didn't last long...

  — People are like a wet rag, Milord: the more you wring it, the less it yields.

  — I was in Egypt, Mister, thirty-five days for 15 mull-dors. an expensive whim. I wanted to be a king, a good one, and make some money as well. — But I was a bad king, and an even worse businessman. mein Gott.

  I will lease floor 564 in Mullerdom

  — Ha! How much?

  — I'll take it right now!

  — For how much?

  — 750!

  — I need office space.

  — I want to set up a finishing school.

  — I'm looking for a warehouse.

  — From floor 900 and up you can see the Garisankar — can you believe it, gentlemen?

  — Why not? That's where the lunatic asylums are, hee, hee, hee!

  — Shhh!

  — On the top of Mullerdom, there's a huge telescope — When his Majesty looks through it as far as the horizon, he sees Mullerdom and himself on top of it — but from behind — ha, ha, ha, ha.

  — Shh!

  I will sell star K99 with this year's complete harvest

  — Was heisst, with the harvest? — Cucumbers, bananas or tomatoes?

  — Go and see for yourself, Herr Serafin, or do you think he'll harvest the produce for you and bring it all the way down?

  — I've tasted an apple from K84! There were only two samples; one was eaten by the Great Muller himself, the other by myself. That little extravaganza cost me 300 mull-dors! — But words cannot describe the miracle that takes place in your mouth! — A taste that's out of this world, your Sunny Highness.

  — I tried fruit from K74, Your Highness. They have a slightly intoxicating effect, like champagne. They contain something like stellar alcohol.

  — And who would go to K99? — I buy it and then who do I sell to? — I'll end up eating it all by myself, or what?

  — I'd try a poisonous cucumber and die, right, signore?

  — Shhh!

  — Now, of course, it's fashionable to have your own star! Imagine, Don Ortega y Costa, even La Marquise de la Rochefoucauld has her own star, ha ha ha...

  — For us, it's dead capital!

  — Who would dare travel there, Herr Apfelbaum?

  — My son lives on Z19. He's been there for five years already.

  — No-one has returned yet...

  — Shhh!

  — Only a fool would return from paradise to hell...

  — But I'm quite happy in Mullerdom, Baron!

  — Our benefactor, our Great Father and Lord...

  — Of course, we're all in the hands of our Lord, since He's above us.

  — And he will forgive us sinners our transgressions...

  1 mulldor – 932.896 Dollars –

  — Look, Your Highness, the mulldor has fallen!

  — Fallen!

  — Today — for the first time!

  — Yes, for the first time!

  — Do you think...?

  — Great Muller forbid!

  — What do you know, Your Highness?

  — I know nothing... nothing.

  — Well, why pretend?

  — Between us, Your Highness, are you referring to the events in that dive called Eldorado?

  — Do you think so?

  — No! — Not at all! — What madness! — Could anything shake Mullerdom?

  — Of course not — but...

  — But?

  — Even Muller Himself knows what happened there! Something quite impossible, something that makes no sense.

  — If you can believe blind Orsag...

  — They're all saying the same thing!

  — I don't understand it!

  — Chulkov heard a voice!

  — Orsag saw him!

  — Who?

  — A glass container in the form of a man!

  — A being made of porcelain!

  — The devil!

  — God!

  — A phan
tom!

  — Chulkov is an old crook!

  — Orsag smokes opium! The man was not made of glass or porcelain but of opium haze!

  — And what about the shootout with the Unknown Man?

  — Drunken delirium!

  — But Orsag was summoned to Muller!

  — Shhh!

  I will sell Mullerdom!

  — Listen! Listen!

  — Muller's selling Mullerdom!

  — Is that possible?

  — What's happening?

  — You're new here, mister? — He often jokes like this with his servants — they say he's weighing up the world!

  — It's certainly far-sighted and generous of him. — You must understand, Sirdar, Muller's not interested in his world; he doesn't value it and is ready to sell everything at the drop of a hat, the whole junkyard! Maybe he'll sell Mullerdom, too, Your Excellency, a miracle!

  — He'll sell...

  — He'll sell...

  — He'll sell...

  — But for that to happen, you need two...

  — And yet, Your Highness, it's very noble of him...

  — Muller is a democrat!

  — An altruist!

  — You could call him — a divine socialist...

  XXIII

  I'll buy iti · Two voices have clashed herei · Petr Brok introduces himself to Muller · Λ meeting in Alice Moore Street

  And while such talk travelled through the hall from ear to ear, the loudspeaker said for the second time:

  "I will sell Mullerdom -“

  "I'LL BUY IT!!!”

  The voice came from somewhere in the centre of the hall and cut through the curtain of secretive whispering, insinuations and touches. It was a stone hurled at the mirror in which the hall was reflected, pensive and compliant.