The Red Thread Read online

  Waiting patiently in the entrance hall was the landlady.

  “I wanted to talk to you about that girl, what’s her name. Can you believe it, she’s submitted an application to the House Committee saying she’s—”

  “I’ve heard. Go on.”

  “It’s nothing to you. No one’s going to take your eighty-six square feet away. But put yourself in my—”

  “I’m in a hurry,” he nodded, put on his cap, and flew down the stairs.

  3

  On his way home from the office, Sutulin paused in front of the window of a furniture dealer: the long curve of a couch, an extendable round table . . . it would be nice—but how could he carry them in past the eyes and the questions? They would guess, they couldn’t help but guess . . .

  He had to limit himself to the purchase of a yard of canary-yellow material (he did, after all, need a curtain). He didn’t stop by the cafe: he had no appetite. He needed to get home—it would be easier there: he could reflect, look around, and make adjustments at leisure. Having unlocked the door to his room, Sutulin gazed about to see if anyone was looking: they weren’t. He walked in. Then he switched on the light and stood there for a long time, his arms spread flat against the wall, his heart beating wildly: this he had not expected—not at all.

  The Quadraturin was still working. During the eight or nine hours Sutulin had been out, it had pushed the walls at least another seven feet apart; the floorboards, stretched by invisible rods, rang out at his first step—like organ pipes. The entire room, distended and monstrously misshapen, was beginning to frighten and torment him. Without taking off his coat, Sutulin sat down on the stool and surveyed his spacious and at the same time oppressive coffin-shaped living box, trying to understand what had caused this unexpected effect. Then he remembered: he hadn’t done the ceiling—the essence had run out. His living box was spreading only sideways, without rising even an inch upward.

  “Stop. I have to stop this Quadraturinizing thing. Or I’ll . . .” He pressed his palms to his temples and listened: the corrosive pain, lodged under his skull since morning, was still drilling away. Though the windows in the house opposite were dark, Sutulin took cover behind the yellow length of curtain. His head would not stop aching. He quietly undressed, snapped out the light, and got into bed. At first he slept, then he was awoken by a feeling of awkwardness. Wrapping the covers more tightly about him, Sutulin again dropped off, and once more an unpleasant sense of mooringlessness interfered with his sleep. He raised himself up on one palm and felt all around him with his free hand: the wall was gone. He struck a match. Um-hmm: he blew out the flame and hugged his knees till his elbows cracked. “It’s growing, damn it, it’s still growing.” Clenching his teeth, Sutulin crawled out of bed and, trying not to make any noise, gently edged first the front legs, then the back legs of the bed toward the receding wall. He felt a little shivery. Without turning the light on again, he went to look for his coat on that nail in the corner so as to wrap himself up more warmly. But there was no hook on the wall where it had been yesterday, and he had to feel around for several seconds before his hands chanced upon fur. Twice more during a night that was long and as nagging as the pain in his temples, Sutulin pressed his head and knees to the wall as he was falling asleep and, when he awoke, fiddled about with the legs of the bed again. In doing this—mechanically, meekly, lifelessly—he tried, though it was still dark outside, not to open his eyes: it was better that way.

  4

  Toward dusk the next evening, having served out his day, Sutulin was approaching the door to his room: he did not quicken his step and, upon entering, felt neither consternation nor horror. When the dim, sixteen-candle-power bulb lit up somewhere in the distance beneath the long low vault, its yellow rays struggling to reach the dark, ever-receding corners of the vast and dead, yet empty barrack, which only recently, before Quadraturin, had been a cramped but cozy, warm, and lived-in cubbyhole, he walked resignedly toward the yellow square of the window, now diminished by perspective; he tried to count his steps. From there, from a bed squeezed pitifully and fearfully in the corner by the window, he stared dully and wearily through deep-boring pain at the swaying shadows nestled against the floorboards, and at the smooth low overhang of the ceiling. “So, something forces its way out of a tube and can’t stop squaring: a square squared, a square of squares squared. I’ve got to think faster than it: if I don’t out-think it, it will outgrow me and . . .” And suddenly someone was hammering on the door, “Citizen Sutulin, are you in there?”

  From the same faraway place came the muffled and barely audible voice of the landlady. “He’s in there. Must be asleep.”

  Sutulin broke into a sweat: “What if I don’t get there in time, and they go ahead and . . .” And, trying not to make a sound (let them think he was asleep), he slowly made his way through the darkness to the door. There.

  “Who is it?”

  “Oh, open up! Why’s the door locked? Remeasuring Commission. We’ll remeasure and leave.”

  Sutulin stood with his ear pressed to the door. Through the thin panel he could hear the clump of heavy boots. Figures were being mentioned, and room numbers.

  “This room next. Open up!”

  With one hand Sutulin gripped the knob of the electric-light switch and tried to twist it, as one might twist the head of a bird: the switch spattered light, then crackled, spun feebly around, and drooped down. Again someone hammered on the door: “Well!”

  Sutulin turned the key to the left. A broad black shape squeezed itself into the doorway.

  “Turn on the light.”

  “It’s burned out.”

  Clutching at the door handle with his left hand and the bundle of wire with his right, he tried to hide the extended space from view. The black mass took a step back.

  “Who’s got a match? Give me that box. We’ll have a look anyway. Do things right.”

  Suddenly the landlady began whining, “Oh, what is there to look at? Eighty-six square feet for the eighty-sixth time. Measuring the room won’t make it any bigger. He’s a quiet man, home from a long day at the office—and you won’t let him rest: have to measure and remeasure. Whereas other people, who have no right to the space, but—”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” the black mass muttered and, rocking from boot to boot, gently and even almost affectionately drew the door to the light. Sutulin was left alone on wobbling, cottony legs in the middle of the four-cornered, inexorably growing, and proliferating darkness.

  5

  He waited until their steps had died away, then quickly dressed and went out. They’d be back, to remeasure or check they hadn’t under-measured or whatever. He could finish thinking better here—from crossroad to crossroad. Toward night a wind came up: it rattled the bare frozen branches on the trees, shook the shadows loose, droned in the wires, and beat against walls, as if trying to knock them down. Hiding the needlelike pain in his temples from the wind’s buffets, Sutulin went on, now diving into the shadows, now plunging into the lamplight. Suddenly, through the wind’s rough thrusts, something softly and tenderly brushed against his elbow. He turned around. Beneath feathers batting against a black brim, a familiar face with provocatively half-closed eyes. And barely audible through the moaning air: “You know you know me. And you look right past me. You ought to bow. That’s it.”

  Her slight figure, tossed back by the wind, perched on tenacious stiletto heels, was all insubordination and readiness for battle.

  Sutulin tipped his hat. “But you were supposed to be going away. And you’re still here? Then something must have prevented—”

  “That’s right—this.”

  And he felt a chamois finger touch his chest then dart back into the muff. He sought out the narrow pupils of her eyes beneath the dancing black feathers, and it seemed that one more look, one more touch, one more shock to his hot temples, and it would all come unthought, undone, and fall away. Meanwhile she, her face nearing his, said, “Let’s go to your place. Like last
time. Remember?”

  With that, everything stopped.

  “That’s impossible.”

  She sought out the arm that had been pulled back and clung to it with tenacious chamois fingers.

  “My place . . . isn’t fit.” He looked away, having again withdrawn both his arms and the pupils of his eyes.

  “You mean to say it’s cramped. My God, how silly you are. The more cramped it is . . .” The wind tore away the end of her phrase. Sutulin did not reply. “Or, perhaps you don’t . . .”

  When he reached the turning, he looked back: the woman was still standing there, pressing her muff to her bosom, like a shield; her narrow shoulders were shivering with cold; the wind cynically flicked her skirt and lifted up the lapels of her coat.

  “Tomorrow. Everything tomorrow. But now . . .” And, quickening his pace, Sutulin turned resolutely back.

  “Right now: while everyone’s asleep. Collect my things (only the necessaries) and go. Run away. Leave the door wide open: let them. Why should I be the only one? Why not let them?”

  The apartment was indeed sleepy and dark. Sutulin walked down the corridor, straight and to the right, opened the door with resolve, and as always, wanted to turn the light switch, but it spun feebly in his fingers, reminding him that the circuit had been broken. This was an annoying obstacle. But it couldn’t be helped. Sutulin rummaged in his pockets and found a box of matches: it was almost empty. Good for three or four flares—that’s all. He would have to husband both light and time. When he reached the coat pegs, he struck the first match: light crept in yellow radiuses through the black air. Sutulin purposely, overcoming temptation, concentrated on the illuminated scrap of wall and the coats and jackets hanging from hooks. He knew that there, behind his back, the dead, Quadraturinized space with its black corners was still spreading. He knew and did not look around. The match smoldered in his left hand, his right pulled things off hooks and flung them on the floor. He needed another flare; looking at the floor, he started toward the corner—if it was still a corner and if it was still there—where, by his calculations, the bed should have fetched up, but he accidentally held the flame under his breath—and again the black wilderness closed in. One last match remained: he struck it over and over: it would not light. One more time—and its crackling head fell off and slipped through his fingers. Then, having turned around, afraid to go any farther into the depths, he started back toward the bundle he had abandoned under the hooks. But he had made the turn, apparently, inexactly. He walked—heel to toe, heel to toe—holding his fingers out in front of him, and found nothing: neither the bundle, nor the hooks, nor even the walls. “I’ll get there in the end. I must get there.” His body was sticky with cold and sweat. His legs wobbled oddly. He squatted down, palms on the floorboards: “I shouldn’t have come back. Now here I am alone, nowhere to turn.” And suddenly it struck him: “I’m waiting here, but it’s growing, I’m waiting, but it’s . . .”

  In their sleep and in their fear, the occupants of the quadratures adjacent to citizen Sutulin’s eighty-six square feet couldn’t make head or tail of the timbre and intonation of the cry that woke them in the middle of the night and compelled them to rush to the threshold of the Sutulin cell: for a man who is lost and dying in the wilderness to cry out is both futile and belated: but if even so—against all sense—he does cry out, then, most likely, thus.

  1926

  Translated from the Russian by Joanne Turnbull

  FOR AS WITH ANIMALS, SO IT IS WITH MAN; THE ONE MUST DIE, THE OTHER LIKEWISE

  Alfred Döblin

  THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE in Berlin. The various structures, halls and pens are bounded in the north-east of the city, from Eldenaer Strasse, taking in Thaerstrasse and Landsberger Allee as far as Cothenius Strasse, along the ring road.

  It covers an area of 47.88 hectares, or 187.5 acres. Not counting the buildings on the other side of Landsberger Allee it cost 27,093,492 marks to build, with the cattleyard accounting for 7,682,844 marks, and the slaughterhouse 19,410,648 marks.

  Cattleyard, slaughterhouse and wholesale meat market make up one fully integrated economic entity. The administration is in the hands of the committee for stockyards and slaughterhouses, comprising two city officials, a member of the District Board, eleven councillors and three members of the public. It employs 258 officials, including vets, inspectors, stampers, assistant vets, assistant inspectors, clerical staff and maintenance workers. Traffic ordinance of 4 October 1900, general regulations governing the driving of cattle and the supply of feed. Tariff of fees: market fees, boxing fees, slaughtering fees, fees for the removal of feed troughs from the pork market hall.

  Eldenaer Strasse is lined by dirty grey walls with barbed wire on top. The trees outside are bare, it is winter, they have secreted their sap in their roots and are waiting for spring. Butchers’ carts draw up at a steady clip, yellow and red wheels, light horses. Behind one runs a skinny horse, from the pavement someone calls out, hey, Emil, what about the horse, 50 marks and a round for the eight of us, the horse goes a little crazy, trembles, nibbles one of the trees, the coachman tears it away, 50 marks and a round, Otto, else we go. The man smacks the horse on the cruppers: deal.

  Yellow administration buildings, an obelisk for the war dead. And either side of that long halls with glass roofs, these are the pens, the waiting rooms. Outside notice boards: Property of the Association of Wholesale Butchers Berlin, Ltd. Post no bills: special permission only, the Board.

  The long halls are fitted with numbered doors, 26, 27, 28, black openings for the animals to enter through. The cattle building, the pig building, the slaughter halls: courts of justice for the beasts, swinging axes, you won’t leave here alive. Peaceful adjacent streets, Strassmann-, Liebig-, Proskauer Strasse, parks where people stroll. Close-knit communities, if someone here has a sore throat, the doctor will come running.

  But on the other side, the rails of the circular railway extend for ten miles. The beasts are brought in from the provinces, ovine, bovine, porcine specimens from East Prussia, Pomerania, Brandenburg, West Prussia. They come mooing and bleating down the ramps. The pigs grunt and snuffle, they can’t look where they’re going, the drovers are after them, swinging sticks. They lie down in their pens, tight together, white, fat, snoring, sleeping. They have been made to walk a long way, then shaken up in rail cars, now the ground under their feet is steady, only the flagstones are cold, they wake up, seek each other’s warmth. They are laid out in levels. Here’s two fighting, the bay leaves them enough room for that, they butt heads, snap at each other’s throats, turn in circles, gurgle, sometimes they are completely silent, gnashing in fear. In panic one scrambles over the bodies of the others, and the other gives chase, snaps, and those below start up, the two combatants fall, seek each other out.

  A man in a canvas coat wanders through the passage, the bay is opened, he parts the combatants with a stick, the door is open, they push out, squealing, and a grunting and screaming begins. The funny white beasts are driven across courtyards, between halls, the droll little thighs, the funny curly tails, red and green scribbles on their backs. There is light, dear piggies, there is the floor, snuffle away at it, look for the few minutes that are left to you. No, you’re right, we shouldn’t work by the clock, snuffle and rootle to your heart’s content. You will be slaughtered here, take a look at the slaughterhouse, it’s for you. There are old abattoirs, but you are entering a new model. It’s light, built of red brick, from the outside one might have guessed engineering works, shop or office premises, or a construction hall. I’ll be going the other way, dear little piggies, because I’m a human, I’ll be going through this door here, but we’ll see each other soon enough.

  Shoulder the door open, it’s a swing door, on a spring. Whew, the steam in here. What are they steaming? It’s like a Turkish bath, maybe that’s what the pigs are here for. You’re going somewhere, you can’t see where, your glasses are misted over, perhaps you’re naked, you’re sweating out your rheumati
sm, cognac alone doesn’t do the trick you know, you’re shuffling along in your slippers. The steam is too thick, you can’t see a sausage. Just squealing and gurgling and clattering, shouts, clatter of equipment, lids banging down. The pigs must be somewhere in here, they made a separate entrance. The dense white steam. There are the pigs, some are hanging up, they’re already dead, they’ve been topped, they look almost ready to eat. There’s a man with a hose, washing down the white split carcasses. They’re hanging on iron stands, head down, some of the pigs are whole, their forelegs are in a wooden stock, a dead animal can’t get up to any mischief, it can’t even run away. Pigs’ feet lie there in a pile, chopped off. Two men emerge from the fog carrying something, it’s a cleaned opened animal on an iron spreader. They fasten the spreader to a hoist. Lots of their fellows come trundling along after, staring dully at the tiled floor.

  You walk through the hall in fog. The stone flags are grooved, damp, and also bloodied. Between the stands the ranks of white, disembowelled animals. The killing bays must be at the back, it’s from there you hear smacking sounds, crashing, squealing, screaming, gurgling, grunting sounds. There are big cauldrons there, which produce the steam. Men dunk the dead beasts in the boiling water, scald them, pull them out nice and white, a man scrapes off the outer skin with a knife, making the animal still whiter and very smooth. Very mild and white, deeply contented as after a strenuous bath, a successful operation or massage, the pigs lie out on wooden trestles in rows, they don’t move in their sated calm, and in their new white tunics. They are all lying on their sides, on some you see the double row of tits, the number of breasts a sow has, they must be fertile animals. But they all of them have a straight red slash across the throat, right in the middle, which looks deeply suspicious.