The Last Wolf & Herman Read online

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  “I beg the gentleman officers’ pardon for intruding,” (he obsequiously began) “and let me apologize especially to the ladies,” (here he nodded meaningfully in Berta and Lucy’s direction) “but I am certain that you won’t be angry with me if I can manage to have you hear me out . . . For me, especially for me it is most painful to have to speak about this, for after all I am well aware that it is first and foremost the management’s task to safeguard the complete comfort of our guests, the perfect tranquility of their days spent here, but it would be a grave and unpardonable error if I were to remain silent any longer about the unprecedented state of affairs that is not quite without danger for our guests who came to our tranquil little town so free of noisy extravaganzas but offering quiet pleasures . . .” (He wiped his dry forehead with the handkerchief he clutched, and by now he was halfway off his seat, as one well aware his presence is not welcome.) “It’s been already several weeks” (dabbing his still quite dry forehead) “that respectable citizens in our town . . . found . . . various animal carcasses outside the doors of their homes . . . chiefly deer, stag and doe, and pheasant . . . but perhaps I am anticipating myself, please excuse me . . . if I seem a bit absentminded . . . Well then . . . we suspect someone criminally insane is on the loose, running rampant, unhindered, at night to terrorize our innocent population with the horrid carcasses of trapped big game and little birds. Alas, it’s proof of his extraordinary skill that we have so far failed to catch him, even though,” (the manager sent up a weary sigh) “you can believe me, one of the volunteers, we have done everything possible . . . Our cause is no better off now that we’ve found out who is behind these incidents . . . it’s a . . . retired game warden . . . named Herman . . . about whom, let me assure you, no one would have imagined even six months ago that one fine day . . . out of the blue . . . he’d become unhinged, and decide to commit such horrors . . . Now you, gentlemen officers, might ask, but what is so horrible about this? and, more to the point, where’s the danger? Well,” (the manager heaved another sigh, cleared his throat, and nervously picked at his mustache) “we have reason to believe that Herman . . . poor devil . . . will not stop at this, and all of us are convinced that this is just the beginning, and he’s planning to do something unprecedented! Because . . . these carcasses in front of our houses . . . are merely symptoms, warnings . . . but what he might be hatching up . . .we cannot know for sure . . . Naturally” (the manager waved a weary hand) “you now expect me to provide an explanation, what could have set Herman against us. Because that’s what this must be about, we are sure of that by now . . . But we’re still at a loss for answers, we’re all in the dark . . . no one is able to say anything definite. So in any case” (and here he barely noticeably thrust out his chest), “after all this you will understand if I act against myself and my hotel in asking you gentlemen officers, to take my advice, and leave tomorrow morning, for I must confess I cannot take any responsibility for your party. And now, if you will excuse me . . .”

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  It would probably be stretching the truth if I said that his presence and his rant — beyond the unpleasant sensation created by his strained efforts to choose his words carefully, when obviously he felt like shouting — sparked the least flicker of attention in us, because on first hearing, the manager’s muddled story seemed patently absurd and rather ridiculous; but when Oliver gave sarcastic thanks for the “exhaustive briefing,” and the manager in turn proposed, as corroborating evidence, that we take a look in a storage space next to the kitchen, where all the carcasses thus far collected were — as he put it — “placed on ice awaiting the final developments, since the authorities have not given permission to either utilize or to destroy them,” then, with a modicum of curiosity, we followed the brisk little man, only to stop short on the threshold when the heavy door was pulled wide open. The stone floor was covered by a staggering number of carcasses dumped in a heap, deer and who knows what else, the entire pile topped by a layer of ice. “Well now?” shrilled the manager behind us. “Now do you believe me?!” If nothing else, this fatuous intermezzo served to somewhat revive us after the woeful fiasco of the Marietta affair had frustrated the entire purpose of our trip; we ordered drinks to be sent up and locked ourselves in one room where, after a frenzied session of dalliance (this time Gusztáv handled the whip), we all retired for the night. In the morning, at Marietta’s suggestion, we called for the desk clerk to come up and give a detailed account of the current state of affairs in town, and in particular what he himself thought about the peculiar activities of the trapper. In great confusion he hastily pulled the door shut behind him and deflected our request, saying that to his knowledge the manager had given us a detailed account yesterday, and he — as a mere employee — had nothing to add. Only upon Rudolf’s peremptory command did he knuckle under and admit, wringing his hands, that the rumors, “as far as that went, were true, but heaven knows why this calamity befell us . . .” “It’s all right,” Marietta encouraged him, “don’t be afraid to speak.” At this the desk clerk — eyes averted for he dared not look at Marietta who for that matter was still undressed, and her splendid body and dazzling lingerie would have struck him speechless — started to stammer, he wasn’t a very fluent speaker to begin with, and he now addressed his words exclusively to Marietta, as if no one else were in the room.

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  “We simple folk don’t understand any of this. But I am scared. And so is everyone.” (“Really!” urged Marietta, wrinkling her snow-white brow.) “They say this guy Herman is some kind of fanatic, but no matter what they say, that he’s crazy and so on and so forth, don’t you believe it, Miss. He knows very well what he’s doing. He’s not happy with the way things are.” (“What things?” Marietta’s bright eyes sparkled at him as she smiled.) “The things going on here nowadays. Because believe me Miss, anything goes here these days. In today’s world.” (“Really now!” prompted Marietta, and drew up her right leg, languidly clasping her hands around it and resting her chin on her knee.) “Around here, Miss . . . nothing is sacred any more. It’s a godless and lawless world. Folks spend money like water, like there’s no tomorrow, you can’t imagine what’s going on here. Plus everyone’s rutting like rabbits. I am a churchgoing man, I can’t say any more.” (“Rutting?” echoed Marietta, raising her gorgeous eyebrows.) “That’s right. You have no idea, Miss. What goes on here behind closed doors. Our parish priest says it’s a regular Sodom and Gomorrah. And he’s right.” (“And what about this Herman,” Rudolf interjected: “Who is he?”) “Herman? Why, he’s that trapper. So they say. At first he was trapping only noxious beasts” (“Noxious beasts? What are they?” Lucy tittered) “in the municipal woods, that was his assignment. But now he’s trapping useful game. He leaves them on doorsteps. At night. As a warning. A warning to the sinful, Miss. Folks are more frightened by his traps than if he threatened them with a gun. Because that’s what’s coming next. He will round them up like stray dogs. That’s all I can tell you, Miss. Can I go now?” (“But still, what do you say?” asked Marietta, stopping him.) “Who me? I say nothing, Miss. A simple man had better keep his mouth shut. But folks say that he’s gone crazy and his deranged mind can’t tell what’s noxious from what isn’t. But he can tell, Miss, he can tell all right. That’s what our parish priest says too.” (“Tell me, have you ever seen him?” asked Marietta with a lascivious smile, pulling her chair closer.) “Who, the trapper? No, not yet. But they say he’s a strapping fellow. And sly as a fox. They can’t get the better of him. That’s all I can tell you. Now can I go Miss?”

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  “What a stupid sentimental yokel!” remarked Rudolf, when the desk clerk had scurried out the door, quaking in his boots. Still, he could not deny that he too was amused by the story and so we agreed to stay on until we found out something definite. Following an ample breakfast we spent the next day at the small town’s public baths, where — although they had refused our earlier request �
� upon seeing Berta and Zsuzsanna, with Gusztáv joining in, improvise a kind of “water ballet” in the nude for our pleasure, the screeching hags on the staff herded out the pop-eyed, obese retirees and let us have the place to ourselves for an hour, in return for a by no means trifling gratuity. In a trice Oliver and Lucy too immersed themselves in the more and more tempestuous rites, leaving only us voyeurs reclining on poolside raffia mats amidst the mounting giddiness, as well as a few chance gawkers glued to the glass door of the entrance, joyless, wretched captives of craven cravings. The evening and night proved uneventful, save for a slight hitch with Oliver, who must have taken an overdose that made him throw up, but by two a.m. he too was feeling better, and retired to bed accompanied by Marietta. By our third day in town we would most likely have forgotten all about the implausible story of “Herman,” had the bleary-eyed manager not stormed in during breakfast; rushing to our table, ditching his previous polite act, he could now only gasp, “It’s starting!” and left us without further explanation, as if unable to control his agitation. Minutes later, reappearing in a more composed state, he informed us in a somewhat calmer voice that “ ‘Herman’ has gone to war”: the postmaster’s older daughter, a butcher, and the high-school gym teacher all had to be hospitalized today with severe leg fractures, because this morning, leaving for work, they had stepped into large leg-hold traps fiendishly placed in the area between front door and garden gate. “It’s starting!” was the manager’s parting shot, his eyes feverish as he dashed off at last, tearing at his toothbrush mustache. From then on — in return for a liter of riesling per day — the desk clerk’s morning phone calls kept us informed of further developments, and with mounting interest we followed “Herman’s” increasingly scary exploits, as night after night he succeeded in placing fresh booby traps in courtyards and streets, at entrances to schools, public buildings, and parks. He used mostly large leg-hold traps and so-called Berlin swan’s necks and the desk clerk’s morning reports made it clear that in spite of every stratagem the special nocturnal task force organized explicitly for this purpose was unable to apprehend him, because “Herman” operated with extraordinary cunning and was practically invisible, not a soul had been able to catch even a glimpse of him since the start of these events, and so his figure had gradually come to acquire an almost supernatural aura. The supposition, unsubstantiated to the very last, that “Herman” really existed was founded on, beside the acts perpetrated in town, the discovery on the fourth day of our sojourn of traps in the thickets of the municipal woods, obviously abandoned there because he no longer needed them. Among others they found several tilt traps the malevolent ingenuity of which stunned the populace. This was simply a plain wooden crate inside which, on the longitudinal axis “Herman” installed a plank tilting on a fulcrum that worked in the manner of the playground seesaw, that favorite recreation of children, with the difference that when a noxious predator ran up on the plank to reach the bait at its end, the plank tilted under the weight, releasing a catch that snapped the entrance door shut tight, closing off the escape route for good. At least as much consternation was caused by several snares that — as the desk clerk explained — consisted of a simple noose that caught the ground-nesting bird stepping into it, and tightened as the bird struggled to free itself. People chose to see all of this as evidence of a sophisticated cruelty, although it was obvious even to us, unfamiliar with the art of trapping, that “Herman” must be a fanatical professional obsessed by his craft, who relied on ancient traditional methods to build his contraptions. And as the incidents recurred, and the terror if possible grew even more frantic in what was to follow, we too came to look forward with excitement to the desk clerk’s news, not that the mounting panic had affected us but because by the fifth or sixth day we all began to suspect that there must be some interconnection between “Herman” and ourselves. We spent days discussing the breaking news (we even got to handle one or two leg-hold traps through the good offices of the manager who apparently was one of the leading figures in the crusade against “Herman”), until we realized with astonishment that whereas our group — or to use Gusztáv’s favorite expression: our detachment — as monsters of forward progress was playing the role of pioneers in a world only hesitantly liberating itself from the controlling machinery of goodness, “Herman” had all this while been acting as a fanatic obsessed with the centripetal forces of restraint. And whereas our techniques — having realized in the wake of our sorry experiences that we were not questing heroes but merely dumb victims of the thinking mind — were based on paraphiliac fulfillment, unbridled pursuit of pleasure, the ceaseless apocatastasis of an Eden missing from primal imagination, and took refuge in transgression, Herman’s deliberately paltry means were called into being by hubris, a hubris that believed in the invincibility of weakness. We realized that even as we (again only Gusztáv managed to find the right words) brutalized things, violating their frail integrity precisely because of their perfection, “Herman,” driven by the pressures of ancient ingrained compulsions, managed to monumentalize destructiveness. After the foregoing, it was understandable why we accepted the hotel manager’s invitation when he informed us that for the purpose of apprehending the trapper several so-called public- and self-defense groups had formed in town, and that he felt that since we were well aware of the intolerable situation, we too might take part in the hunt. And so there we were the very same night, the four of us holding our loaded service revolvers with safety off, patrolling the streets, and although we lacked the violent hatred flushing the faces of local citizens, we still searched diligently, turning our heads and firing a few prudent shots at shadows flitting by here and there. It was useless: neither we nor the outraged residents were able to accost the mysterious trapper, and since for several days after that he suspended his activities, it appeared that, recognizing his impotence in face of our overwhelming forces, he would take to his heels. But it did not happen that way, although the havoc he had created ended as natural disasters do: without the citizens’ countermeasures attaining their goal, “Herman” himself decided to end his campaign through a peculiar action. One day at dawn, when the Catholic cathedral’s deaf pew-opener set out toward the high altar to change the water under the potted plants, he suddenly came to a standstill seeing a frightful object on the red carpet a few steps away from the Crucified One. It was one of “Herman’s” swan’s-neck traps, presumably: the last one. And since the town understood this to mean their trials were over, the contraption was not removed until that evening, so that every single one of the citizens who flocked there for the spectacle should witness this solemn moment when it became obvious that here was the irrevocable end of an attempt, a profession, an ancient craft. The disquieting question, whether “Herman” had intended the trap for those approaching the altar or perhaps for Christ descending from the cross, was to remain unanswered, because the demon, the ever tormenting, absent antagonist to our heroic struggles, had most likely left town early that morning, never to be heard of again. By now the local residents must have exorcised every trace of his memory, and only we are left to relish the magic bouquet of this escapade, with the exception of our thrilling and delicious Marietta, who has since become the victim of a regrettable accident.