The Architect (13 page)

“Ah, you too!”

“Yes, I was too voluble with my ideas.”

“You were a fool, like me. It’s better to keep quiet and let people do what they want. This world wasn’t made for men who think. Once you have been fired from such a big project…it is difficult to find work again…To draw a pay-cheque…But come and drink a
bianchino
with me.”

Peter let himself be led into a nearby bar where the ex-foreman ordered two white wines. The latter clasped one of the small glasses in his large fist and waved it about as he spoke, thrusting forward his chin, deep phrases working themselves out from between his white teeth, from beneath his moustache, which seemed as sharp and aggressive as a cutlass.

“That no one can smell the stench of that pig is beyond me. An ass dredged up from the unemployment roles. But that is how the world works these days. Fools are showered with gold, while honest men are thrown aside. Only superficial, useless things are praised—and that fat criminal, that
zucchino
from the north, is throwing who knows how many millions or billions into that castle of straw that will be blown away at the first strong wind, taking with it all those unskilled monkeys he has clambering all over it.”

“So you really think the structure is unsound?”

“Of course it is. But maybe that doesn’t even mean a damned thing. The truth is that half the buildings you see around you are only held together by Scotch Tape and miracles. The people who build them make pacts with the devil so the things stay upright until they are led into the world beyond. Buildings are no longer constructed for their usefulness, but simply as an advanced form of capitalism. God willing, one day the people will awake and set fire to the lot of them, burning up the architects, the bosses and buildings all in one go.”

With wild eyes he drained off his wine.

XXXVIII.

Nachtman, more than a little tipsy, expelled the woman from his tent—a slim red-head from Ireland, a Sister of Future Well-being. He threw himself down on his bed, closed his eyes, and had a dream.

In this dream he was on a vast, golden plain. Very sharp and colourful plants grew from the arid soil, which was cracked, scarred by fissures. He wandered forward, crossed bizarre gorges in which flowed rivers of cow skulls or dead crows or remnants of giants and soon came to a city, magnificent in every aspect, yet completely abandoned it would seem. In the centre of the city there was a large castle surrounded by a moat. A drawbridge was let down and a gate uplifted. He crossed over and went within the walls, was soon climbing a corkscrew staircase, the sound of his footsteps echoing with instrumental timbre as up and up he went and then it seemed like the steps began to slip beneath his feet, as he agitated his thin legs faster and the music gained tempo.

He was now in the middle of a large room. To the sides were suits of grey armour the helmets of which had large beaks and the hands of which clasped huge halberds with blades shaped like moons and stars. In the centre was a throne and on the throne sat a man. The architect looked closer and recognised the great Dr. Körn.

“I have been watching you,” the doctor said.

Nachtman raised his eyebrows. “Well, I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Your conscious. Through unprejudiced contemplation…”

“Let’s not use abusive language.”

“The Universal Brotherhood of Mankind.”

“Do you have something to tell me?”

“Yes. I have a request.”

The architect became obsequious. “You know I’ll try my best, do whatever I can.”

“When you make the altar you must pay attention to certain rhythmic occurrences the ideation of which will result in your casting a statue of me. It should be made of solid bronze and be five cubits in height and four in width. At the base of the statue should be laid a girdle of silk finely woven with pomegranates in scarlet needlework, badger skins dyed red, and pieces of sardius and carbuncle. In the midst of the statue, at the level of the breast, you will put a heart derived from a human entity so that the metabolic process can be fulfilled and the Eastern Star aligned with Venus.”

“And then?”

“I am just saying…outside the sphere of ordinary consciousness…”

A greenish light filled the room as did phosphorescent moths and the architect suddenly felt himself tumbling down stairs, falling through space, clutching at octagonal ghosts and triangular phantoms and the skirts of fast moving entities which flitted off into the infinite distance.

When he awoke, his temples and underarms were moist with sweat. He got out of bed and made his way to his desk, where a half full mug of beer from the evening before sat. After draining off this tepid and bitter liquid, he slipped into his trousers, put on his boots, put a flashlight in his pocket, and went outside. He needed to breathe—to assess his vision, which had left on him a strong impression.

“Yes, a heart…” he murmured to himself, kneading his hands together.

The night was warm, silent. The building stood before him, vibrant, colossal—not far from complete.

Without turning on his flashlight, he walked along the north side, and then entered on the west, stepping carefully, like a man entering a temple—admiring the work he had done almost as if it had been done by another.

He went along one side quietly, eventually reaching that place where the altar would be and sat down, turned his head up, towards the unfinished dome. Through the great opening the night sky could be seen. Though there were a few wisps of clouds, stars shone.

Thoughts blossomed and faded in his perverse cranium, which was as fecund as a pile of manure and then presently, sitting there, he noticed a sound, like a dog moving about.

“Some animal must have got in here,” he reasoned.

Just then he saw a shape pass quite close to him. A distinctly human shape, moving swiftly towards the Temple of Isis. He rose to his feet and, on tip toe, pursued, his huge ridiculous shadow cast behind him by the moonbeams which streamed in through the opening of the unfinished dome and which also allowed the figure to be seen, now hunched over against one wall.

The architect extracted his flashlight from his pocket, and flipped on the switch. A beam of strong light shot out, capturing the entity in its glare—a masculine figure with blond hair and a ragged moustache which wilted around his mouth reaching for an unshaven and cleft chin.

It was Fabrizio Fabrizi. At his feet lay a 25 kg sack of ammonium nitrate fuel oil, pink in colour, which he had just set down.

“Ah, it’s you!”

“Yes, it’s me,” the other said, with a look that seemed to be traversing the border of anger and fear, hatred and madness.

“This building site is off limits to you. You are not welcome here.”

Fabrizi gave off a short, ugly laugh.

“I’ve placed explosive charges at all the nerve centres of the building. When they go off…”

“You really are a mangy animal!”

Fabrizi stepped towards him menacingly.

“Help!” the architect shouted. “Help me!”

But as the sounds came from his mouth, the ex-foreman was on him, throwing him to the ground, muffling his mouth with his hand while digging his knee into his prosperous stomach.

“I’m going to kill you, wring the life out of you.”

And Fabrizi set one hand around the throat of the other, began to squeeze him and would undoubtedly have actually killed him if it was not for the fact that the voice of Nachtman had actually been heard, for footsteps were already clattering over the marble flooring, proceeding towards them with excited speed.

“Worm,” Fabrizi said, digging his thumbs into the throat of the older man.

Just then two of the Company of Good Men appeared—Sergei the Russian and Pedro from Columbia.

“Master,” Sergei said in a dull voice. He took in the situation at a glance and moved towards them.

Fabrizi, seeing he was in danger, let go of his grip on Nachtman, who now gasped for breath, clutched at his throat.

“Get him,” he croaked. “Get him.”

But it was Fabrizi who attacked first, throwing a punch at Sergei, which landed squarely on the Russian’s cheek. The brute only grinned. The tendons on his neck were like ropes. A moment later and the ex-foreman was in his hands.

Fabrizi tried to struggle, but it was useless. He was strong, but the other was vastly stronger and with ease twisted the Italian down to the ground.

“What should we do with him?” Pedro asked.

The architect recalled his dream and the words of Dr. Körn.

“Take out the bastard’s heart if he has one.”

And as it was said, so it was done, this thing being preserved in a casket and the architect set his energies to the great statue into which it was to be installed, which, with the help of a few assistants, he hastily made out of plaster of Paris, before having it cast into a single enormous piece of bronze—a thing which looked somewhat futuristic—sharp lines and deep grooves. The face was solemn, eagle-like—slightly imitative of Rodin’s Balzac. The object was certainly grotesque and had a vague quality difficult to decipher, like some archaic representation of fertility or pain to be offered oil and blood sacrifice.

XXXIX.

As the structure neared completion, the number of workers rapidly decreased—all eager to sacrifice their physical beings to that demon-building whose entire purpose it would seem was to help depopulate the world. A solemnity ruled the place. Not only were there no smiles or laughter, but there was hardly any speech. Most communication was done by signs. A nod of the head; a jerk of an arm. The wind swept over the mountain, its lonely whistle audible as it blew over the crags and against the walls, interwrapped the towers.

One by one those workers disappeared, were transmuted, not into gods or trees, not into flowers or birds, but rather bricks dull-red in colour which mute, without even the echo of a whisper, found their place atop that grotesque megastructure, that drunken lump of stone and flesh.

The Company of Good Men, having been prohibited from sacrificing themselves, with promises of a special place amongst the elect, worked with an almost superhuman force and in the end, aside from the board members themselves, it was only these that were left, these formidable troglodytes who had, through continuous labour, through vast artificial means, become things it would have been difficult to call human. They seemed to make the earth quake when they walked and their craniums rested on huge necks which in turn descended into pillars of muscle. These fellows now gave up almost all sleep, only napping for ten minutes every now and again, and spent all their time up on the heights of the structure, putting in place the bricks that were hoisted up to them with a crane which was operated by Nachtman himself.

Enheim and Borromeo lent all their time, helped put into place those last blocks made from workers who but a short time before had been by their sides, and it was something marvellous indeed to see these individuals mounted atop the great building, crawling over its dome in excitement, fearless—recklessly going about the work as if the fate of the world rested in their hands.

The sun watched throughout the day; the moon at night.

And finally, the work was all but finished…

“We will place the last stone, the capstone, tomorrow,” Nachtman said.

“And then it will be done,” added Dr. Enheim, an odd, hollow note in his voice.

“Yes, it will be.”

“And the real work can be begun. Gathering new recruits to our ranks and inaugurating a new era—when the people of the world can be united under our banner, be taught to adhere to our philosophy.”

The architect ratified the statement with an affirmative grunt.

XL.

The mountain was tranquil.

Peter, having parked his car below, hiked up the trail, the small road that had been carved in the side of the natural elevation. He had been informed that the Meeting Place was to be completed that day, the capstone put in place, and he could not resist venturing to the site.

It was spring and flowers pushed themselves up out of the earth. A bird sang timidly in a tree and down below, in the valley, one could faintly hear the sound of the church bells of the distant villages strike the noon hour.

And yet this calm seemed somehow false—seemed to be tinged with a grim whisper and the sleepy trees and lazy grass seemed unreal, especially for one whose mind was constantly on man-made things, who had been brooding for long over that acropolis on the mountain from where he had once been banished.

He made his way up, and as he ascended, noted that all the trees at the higher elevation had been done away with, the earth ravaged, ripped away at—strewn with dislodged boulders and mutilated stumps.

As he rounded a bend, he looked up, was confronted by the site of an edifice such as the world had never known—a thing extracted from the wildest dreams, a nightmare harnessed and dragged into the physical world. He adjusted the glasses on his nose and for a moment stood there gazing at that gigantic place in the distance, violently coloured, as if it had been decked in the vestments of some scarlet woman, painted with blood, strewn over with the guts of its victims. It stretched out of the mountain top like some monstrous claw looking to snatch God from the very heavens. Strange spires sprang and lurched off from the sides, some of them looking like horns, others like tentacles. Its massive doors, which stood open, were like the gaping mouth of some obscene beast which could have swallowed entire four or six elephants at a time. The whole was capped by a dome, negligently clothed in strands of cloud, out of which jutted several snouts at the ends of which were rounded windows, like the eyes of a chameleon.

Peter could vaguely make out a small group of figures standing before it, and hurried his pace, putting one thin leg before the other, panting as he gained altitude, as he made his way up the steep and lengthy incline.

The trail was strewn with bizarre objects, the origin of which was difficult to determine: a plastic comb, the leaves of an old Bible, a large bone, the body of a dead cat;—and then pieces of broken, junked machinery—huge springs and sidecutters, tractor canopies and crankshafts, trapezoidal screws and nuts.