"HEAD" " HANDS" " HEART" ""Every pregnancy portends a miracle. "" " Joseph Roth" "Theatre is a living organism- partly fascinating, but also something that makes one vomit." "More the latter." "Some moments have real magic, but the environment, the actors and the people in it, are sad." "Those fake smiles of our actresses when they get a letter or invitation from some count or fuddy-duddy," "a portly adulterer or sickly brewer!" "How real and materialistic!" "ham and lager never hurt anybody." "I thought:" "I won't get married." "I don't need to." "Somebody always comes along." "Someone amusing." "Until the time came when he'd say "I have other commitments. "" "make a living, but have no life." "Perhaps that is not the best choice." "Wili is different." "Not a lecher, nor sentimental, nor all business." "Somehow he captivated me." "He is a little... strange." "than the drab others." "Even his uniform does not scare me." "We may not know each other well." "But maybe that is better." "Probably it is better." "Mustafa!" "I suppose it really is better." "Now, now, Heinrich!" "Come on!" "Hurry!" "Again, Heinrich!" "Hurry!" "Again!" "Mustafa!" "What's happened?" "!" "Did you poison him?" "!" " No." " No." "It's that Turkish runt!" "I told you he shouldn't be here!" "You idiot!" "You're making a racket!" "What's going on in there?" "!" "I'm calling the gendarmes!" "Colonel, Sir!" "This is not what we agreed on!" "Your fiance left some personal items in his flat." "Given the seriousness of the case in this difficult time we are forced to investigate." "Unless the deceased willed other- wise, all items without exception will be forwarded to his family." "Because a marriage did not occur, your relationship had no legal character." "I'm sorry." "What's the meaning of this?" "I..." "I... cannot understand this, Sir." "I don't know how it could have..." "Miss Knabelova!" "Miss Knabelova." "Do you remember me?" "I'm the colonel's chauffeur." "I... wasn't there yesterday." "But the colonel said if anything strange happened," "I was to give this wooden box to Miss Knabelova..." "Did he say anything else?" "That he might be gone for a spell, but I did not understand him well." "We'll meet on Sunday at six." "I hope that you will deliver good news." "If all goes well Friday, the sceptre will finally be in your hands." "YourdeeplyloyalHeinrich." "who had two sons, each by a different wife." "one son had a heart- instead of a heart, the other son had a brain." "The king took another young woman for his wife." "She- now queen-captivated the two sons." "However, the king, very soon after the marriage, died..." "I... have we met before?" "Wili told me about you." "Wili?" "I'm not sure if the Colonel ever said anything to me about you, but I now understand why you came." "We have a common situation." "I would say rather..." "our paths cross somewhere." "I'm very sorry for what happened." "I know how close you were to the Colonel." "I felt it, and was even a bit jealous." "Nor was my relationship with the Colonel ordinary." "Extraordinary people make extraordinary ties." "That energy in you." "I could feel it immediately." "I feel a special void." "Maybe I didn't really know him," "but his closeness was calming to me." "I can't shake the feeling someone wanted the two of us to meet." "None of what you think is real." "Just accept the fact some things are beyond your understanding." "A piece is yours, but you must give it back to me at the right moment." "He knew..." "He wanted us to meet." "I beg your pardon, I did not mean to startle you." "What are you doing here?" "My name is Karel Vrana." "Army." "I want to talk to you in private." " I apologize again for my intrusion." " Okay, but I don't..." "I will explain everything..." "or as much as I can." "You should be very careful" "The Colonel's people are dangerous." "Their drivel about a higher power, predestination, strange practices, that's what ultimately led to the Colonel's death." "I told the police everything." "I don't know what you are talking about." "Understand... we're at war." "For a year I've had my eye on activities surrounding Colonel Haukwitz." "Since the assassination of the heir to the throne, they've been active." "Within the High Command certain groups await a new monarch, one better suited to their vision." "They want to liquidate existing structures, the old system of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and take things in a new direction." "They have strong links to Germany." "Their aim: to forge a new doctrine, based on stupid occult practices." "Unfortunately, I have concluded" "Col. von Haukwitz was one of them." "Even though... he probably was in a privileged position and was maybe only a bit odd." "And what are you after, Mr. Vrana?" " Me?" " Yes, you." "I am here to safeguard tradition and common sense." "I want to protect us from the subversive elements that would break up the monarchy." "Truly?" "I know you may not trust me, but believe me that I want the Colonel's body not to be subject to insane occult practices, not to serve the desires of madmen." "If the Colonel voluntarily underwent interventions which cost his life, that was his choice, but his remains should rest in peace." "It is a question of respect and upholding traditions." "Fine." "I agree." "Find his remains, bring them to me for burial and I will co-operate with you." "I must know what you said to Roth." "I know the two of you have met." "There is nothing of value to you which I told Lieutenant Roth." "However my offer still stands." "On that, we can shake hands." "I have the means to get rid of him." "War is a place and time in which physical laws cease to apply." "With the deaths of so many people the bonds fluctuate between corporeal bodies and accumulate the very unusual dark energy needed to transform the world." "The Colonel-his body- will be the cornerstone of the transmutation- the agent- to let us to change the universe." "He has passed the first stage- when live matter is converted into dead" "in the next he will live again." "It will be the Great Return." "Everything will change at once." "All boring constants will disappear:" "spring, dinner, marriage, the need to excrete, the post office, money." "The world will gain a completely different hierarchy." "Only crystal emotions will remain, which braided into columns will support the New Order." "Until today, I felt like a moth- asleep, but now I have awaken." "30 years of waiting and hibernation." "I seemed a rotting corpse." "And now suddenly someone has let blood into my decomposing veins." "But I am no longer a being." "I am an agent." "A chemical compound that enables an essential process." "And that is why I have to be there." "Not because some old geezer calls upon me... the last person who really knows what's going on." "My step-sister has died." "I'll have to go to Moravia." "I need to look after my niece and the family farm." " Dear Klara," " Dear Klara..." "putting a battalion together." "The weather was fine- we had a beautiful summer." "of our great monarchy." "the Officers Club, we told stories about life before the war." "Now I am writing from Serbia, where the front is." "Our weapons will reign victorious!" "as I never could have imagined before." "All of us united, myself included," "the Emperor and his family." "and bring home a war cross, a medal" "Our mood, food, drink are excellent." "per officer per day, which now, as you know, is extremely generous" "and Supreme Commander." "I hope you are well." "I think of you, and I enclose in the package my left hand," "in the first days of fighting here." "With kisses and best wishes," "It will pass." "You'll see." "I experienced it the same place as you." "Here." "I too was eighteen." "I thought I would go crazy." "I thought I would never come back here again." "Taha mahura samuh?" "Taka puha malahid." "Show us, please, Master, the breaking point." "The centre of the magnetic field." "The place of meltdown." "Baghdad." "What is this nonsense?" "!" "Do you keep any chickens here?" "For some reason I can't." "It's okay." "I understand." "Everything was different than it seemed at the beginning." "Nothing happened the way I expected." "Nothing." "We didn't even get there." "Someone blew up the tracks." "We got out the train with shrapnel all around us." "Then firing, darkness and it was over." "No energy there." "Just confusion." "Shit-stained, sweaty cattle in uniforms, confusion, shrapnel, and then darkness." "It must have been horrible." "It wasn't horrible." "It was stupid- sweaty, dirty, idiotic, common, low." "Without any meaning whatsoever." "Let alone inner meaning." "When they amputated it, they didn't even want to give it to me." "The stupidity of the rules won over the power of the moment." "No one gained from multiple deaths." "Nobody could look those dead in the eye." "But paper-pushing, ja!" "They counted, they passed out rations, cartridges, medicine, orders." "Doltishness in its purest form." ""Grandpa" was able to shit his senile diarrhea until there was nothing left other than shit." "Mud and shit." "They just change his diapers, he waves his hand at parades like some automaton, and through the diapers the shit flows over everything..." "I had to bribe some pathetic doctor not to throw my hand into a mass grave with dead cattle... or in the garbage." "Money is the only thing that works in this cretinous machinery." "The most pitiful pitifulness." "You must rest and try to forget." "It's not hard to forget the sorriest moments of one's life." "What's difficult is to start something new." "It won't let you." "I have to do something now, after lying for months in shit and mud." "What are you going to do?" "In the hospital I was thinking I need to change direction." "I want to start a chicken farm..." " You want..." " No, better said, a rooster farm." "Without hens it wouldn't work, hmm?" "...to raise poultry?" "Sure, what's wrong with that?" "Nothing." "I'm trying to understand." "You want a farm?" "You want to raise chickens for meat and eggs?" "Well... that too, but not only." "I want to raise mainly cocks." "I was thinking about it in hospital." "Just the idea gave me strength." "I know it seems incomprehensible, but it has a meaning of its own." "Trust me:" "A very deep inner meaning." "How many cocks do you think can be in one pen without them killing each other?" "Come here..." "Got it?" "And down below..." "And then my uncle, Ali Ibn Rashid, cut me up again into pieces and the entire family ate me." "And they put my head on the table to watch them enjoy their food" " while I told them funny stories." " So tell us one." "Well..." " Can you hear someone coming?" " Rudi's keeping look-out." "When I was serving in Bosnia, a local beauty entered the barracks, said she needed to talk to a doctor." "Our doctor, a real pig, made himself immediately available:" ""How may I service you, Miss?"" ""Doctor, I am so terribly ashamed." "Could we take a walk and... talk?"" "So they went out, and she said she was married without children, and suicidal because of it." "The doctor asked about her husband then told her to disrobe so he could examine her, he'd certainly help her with her problem:" "Nothing to be afraid of!" "And so we drew lots as to who could cure her." "I can't tell you who it was, but I can tell you 9 months later, she gave birth to a child." "How it happened, I don't know!" "Did I tell you about bathing with my uncle in the Euphrates?" "He went under and when he emerged, on his head there was a..." "Look out!" "He's coming!" " Your wish, sir?" " Nothing, thank you." "And let no one disturb me under any circumstances." "Dearest Miss Knabelova," "As I wrote in my previous letter, our "game" is proceeding well" "will be the most difficult." "My hand is firm, I haven't lost my head, not at all," "I will try to finish things." "to persevere." "I cannot tell you" "disappoint you nor your long wait." "and trust that all is forgotten." "Something stopped." "I don't know if I would have been happy with you, but I live as if I had been, and like I was wounded." "Your death and that I had idealised." "While we were not long together, now we will never know each other." "I live with the feeling a definitive break occurred." "Something inside me." "I cannot pull myself back together." "This one's nice, that one's nice, that one's colourful." " Is he healthy?" " Sure." "I'll certainly take him." "C'mere!" "And the white, and that brown one." "All of them." "I'll take them all." "You don't want a brooder?" "A brooder?" "A beautiful layer." "You'll have plenty of chicks." "And does she like roosters?" "Well... sure." "Fine..." "Fine." "I don't give a damn where you are." "The investigation is over." "Take the first train home." "Nobody cares about Haukwitz anymore." "Give me another two days..." "Don't you know what's going on?" "The Emperor's dying" "Everyone here is nervous." "I can't protect you anymore." "Your activities are starting to arouse suspicion, understand?" "Now there is suspicion because you have been gone a long time." "They have no idea what you're up to." "It is the end of what was... too late for you or me to prevent it." "Return and there'll be no problems." "Once I'm retired, nobody will protect you any longer." "So be reasonable." "The fun and games are over." "These Flemish seem stronger than the Czech hens." "What do you think?" "Which are they?" "That cock for instance." " Like him?" " Hmm." "Yes." "Quite nice." "Head-oblong, broad skull, largish;" "beak-medium, strong, slightly-curved yellow to horn-coloured;" "comb-simple, fixed, upright;" "eyes-large, lively, red, with sharply delimited pupil..." "Want to go for a walk?" "A walk?" "Not right now." "I still have some work." "Maybe later." "Light comes when the cock crows" "Look with your heart and you will feel the light" "He who heralds the light, wears the crown" "It's not that far." "This morning I got on the train in Opava and just after noon I was here." "I had no idea Heinrich kept in touch with anyone in his family." "To be honest, I don't know anything about his family." "It's been ages since I had any news." "When he left cadet school and became an officer, he broke off with us completely." "Didn't come to his father's funeral." "We let him know about it, but he just doesn't communicate with us." "It really bothered my sister, but I think he doesn't want anything to do with us anymore." "He's moving in different circles, a railway clerk's family is nothing." "Already at school he adopted fancy manners, I think we embarrassed him." "You know, that's interesting." "I never would have guessed he was from a humble background." "Me, I'm happy, I grew up here." "Is there anybody else in the family still living?" "No close kin." "I guess I'm it." "If I may be so bold, forgive me, but do you two live together..." "Miss?" "Hard to say." "It's complicated." "Fate brought us together and we helped each other." "But now?" "I really don't know." "I returned here from Prague when my step-sister died." "I take care of my niece and Heinrich lives with us." "Sorry, I have to tell you something:" "Heinrich has not been at his best." "He's taken the loss of his hand hard and he's not entirely OK." "Mentally, I mean." "I don't know if your meeting will be pleasant." "Do you truly wish to see him?" "I don't quite catch you, Miss." "I came to speak with my nephew." " Where are we going?" " You'll see." "Halt!" " Surely I'm not going in there." " Why not?" "It's too low." "I'd crack my head." "And it's kind of..." "You are unable to be with me." "I can't live like this any longer." "So either get in there and try to do something or we're through." "Hmm..." "They sent us to see you." "He's had a serious injury..." "Careful." "Yah!" "When I was little, we often played on train tracks." "We had to listen if a train was coming, and when it did, we'd jump down and hide from that wheezing and snorting beast." "I ran, scared, but it attracted me." "Then one time I saw a boy whose leg was amputated by the train." "He tried to jump, but it got him." "His leg was lying a few yards away." "I saw it: a boy and a leg." "Nothing between them." "All the king's horses..." "They each had to go their own separate way." "My turn." "May I?" "A complete man has one head, two arms and two legs." "Right?" "An incomplete man- simply incomplete." "Thoughts will not put him together." "I have separated from you and started to live my own life." "When I was with you, I thought the same as you." "Now I can think what I want." "If I don't go back to you," "your thoughts will not integrate." "What should I have done?" "You never should have given me away." "You should have kept me near you." "I would've liked to feel your heart." "Or you could have eaten me." "If you had eaten me, entirely, I would have become part of you." "The thought never occurred to me." "I'll get it." "Thank you." "You have no idea what this means to me." " So let's sit down, shall we?" "Coffee?" " Thank you..." "Excuse me for not introducing you." "This is my niece Anna." "Anna, this is my very close friend, Mr. Karel Vrana." "Vrana." "Anna, would you make us some coffee?" "How long will you be staying?" "I..." "I cannot go back to Prague." "In fact I have no place to go." "But why?" "I should have returned a month ago." "I have no suitable explanation." "And nobody to whom I can explain." "Now they're probably looking for me." "But I used false papers, so they probably do not know where I am." "If you'd like, you can stay." "Nobody visits, no one will look for you here." "What about him?" "Is he here?" "Not now, but he will return." "He's harmless." "Let me talk to him." "Heinrich..." "This owl here would like to ask you something." "Of course, by all means." "Owl would like to know why the lion is the king of the beasts and not, for example..." "Owl." "If there were a lion here, Owl would have a definite answer." "Because Owl would be eaten." "In the lion's belly, Owl would realise his bid for the throne of the king of the beasts was foolish." "So he who can eat almost everyone and who cannot be eaten himself ...can be King?" "It is the first prerequisite." "I don't know." "Seems too easy." "So ask Owl, if he's so smart." "Why ask me?" "Gone." "Good-he was watching me with his beak." "Too curious." "Getting on my nerves." "It's nothing-for God's sake, it could happen to anyone." "I've let everyone down:" "The Emperor, Colonel Vaverka, and now you." "This is not a betrayal." "You've done much for me." "Few have done so much for me." "It's not that important." "And tomorrow is another day." "I have no strength." "I'm losing my mind." "You need to relax-you're too tense." "Everything's all balled up inside." "I thought of you all the time." "First, I was driven by the passion to carry out my mission, the desire to do something great- and my love for you." "But the death of the old man changed everything." "After Istanbul..." "I've nothing left." "All I used to believe in is gone." "Heinrich, Lion asks if should he eat you, or if you'll recognise him as the king of all and sundry." " Why doesn't he eat you?" " Why me?" "So I could finally have some peace!" "And resolve this thing between us." "Look, Lion, I accept Your Highness as the King of All-and-Sundry, once you eat the hand." "Once you eat my hand, which has separated from me and now does whatever it pleases." "Was I hungry!" "4 days without food." "I forgot to take anything with me." "What's wrong?" "Where is your hand?" "A lion ate it." "Doesn't matter, we were through." "We have a visitor." "The whole time I felt no hunger." "Never realized I had nothing to eat." "But when I saw the lion, I got a terrible craving for meat!" "Can I stay?" "What did he say?" "I told you not to worry." "You have nothing to be afraid of from him." "But you two..." "I offered him a roof over his head, the same as you." "Either he respects my rules, or he has to go." "And don't ask me again!" "That's good... very good." "What did you put in it?" "Bay leaves..." "loads of bay leaves." "Bay leaves?" "It's..." "It's good... really good." "It's good." "So good." " And what are these?" " Forest mushrooms." "Forest mushrooms?" "Aha..." " And this?" " Liverwurst." " Liverwurst?" " Hmm..." "I never paid much attention to food, never interested me." "I never cared what I ate." "But now..." "As if I'd just discovered taste buds." "Everything is so very, very good." "I don't understand a thing, and I don't know what to do, Wili." "This situation has no perspective..." "Will nothing new come into view?" "Don't underestimate yourself, Klara." "If anyone here understands anything, it's you." "And you feel it, too." "I'll tell you a fairy tale..." "who had two sons, each by a different wife." "one son had a heart- instead of a heart, the other son had a brain." "The king took another young woman for his wife." "She- now queen-captivated the two sons." "However, the king, very soon after the marriage, died." "Both sons bore their share of blame." "One's hand delivered death upon him;" "the other's hand refused to help." "The king's body was quartered, so as to receive a new body after death." "But the body parts were lost;" "they were said to have magic powers." "once something happened." "What did then actually happen?" "Nobody ever explained it to me." "the human body and a chemistry set?" " Between an esophagus and an alembic?" " No." "The stomach and a chemical bath?" "There is none." "But why cut you up?" "Who did this and what are they using you for?" "Perhaps it's not so important what someone has: rather who has it." "are complete morons, and those whose" "are the real recipients." "Perhaps." "It's a dog's life." "Heinrich has lost his hand, his potency and his mind..." "Never had them in the first place." "And Vrana, from the same lack of self-confidence is impotent, too." "To love somebody, first you have to like yourself." "But you put me into this." "If I only had something to give me hope..." "And one day the queen was pregnant." "Below her heart she bore a miracle:" "a new king." "The step-sons hated her." "both their branches would die out," "would take the throne-the miracle." "They understood if they did nothing, it would be their end." "What are you doing?" "Are you mad?" "!" "Get out!" "Leave!" "I blame myself." "I wanted to look after you, to bridge the difficult moments in your life." "I've only complicated it." "Not at all." "You've helped so much." "You gave me courage." "Without you I'd have never found it." "It was the same for you." " But I found courage on my own." " But that's the same thing." "What is it?" "It's nothing, Anna, I'm not feeling my best." "Are you ill?" "Should I go for the doctor?" " I'm fine." "I'll be okay." " Are you sure?" "I'm sure." "Don't worry." "I'll write letters to friends in Prague." "They'll help you set up." "You see!" "You had no one in Prague." "Times have changed." "I'll let you go, but you must promise to write." "Or course I will, I promise." "I just need to get out of here." "What are we going to do with that?" "Well... you wanted to kill them all." "Sure, but enough is enough." "There must be at least eighty there." "We could cure them somehow." "The army needs meat." "They'd buy." "But we can't manage it ourselves." "So I'll find someone." "I'll go ask in the village myself." "Every pregnancy portends a miracle." "If I had a son, I'd name him Wili."