‘Out of the way, Knödlseder,’ Andreas Humplmeier, the Bavarian golden eagle, said, snatching the piece of meat the keeper was holding invitingly through the bars.
‘Bastard!’ the bearded vulture croaked, beside himself with fury. He was well advanced in years and had already grown short-sighted during his long period in captivity; all he could do was fly up onto his perch and send a thin jet of spittle in the direction of his tormentor.
It was like water off a duck’s back to Humplmeier. Keeping his head well out of range in the corner, he devoured the meat, just putting up his tail feathers in a gesture of contempt. ‘Come on, then, if you want a good thrashing,’ he mocked.
It was the third time Amadeus Knödlseder had had to go without his dinner. ‘Things can’t carry on like this,’ he muttered, closing his eyes to shut out the sneering grin of the marabou stork in the adjoining cage who was sitting motionless in a corner, supposedly ‘giving thanks to God’ — an occupation which, as a sacred bird, he felt it incumbent upon himself to pursue tirelessly.
‘Things can’t carry on like this.’ Knödlseder went over the events of the past week. At first even he had had to laugh at the eagle’s typically Bavarian sense of humour. One instance in particular stuck in his mind: two haughty, pigeon-chested types, strutting like stiff-legged storks, had been put in the next cage and the golden eagle had cried out, ‘Hey, what the hell’s that? What are you supposed to be?’
‘We’re demoiselle cranes,’ came the answer.
‘Oh, how very naice,’ the eagle replied in a prissy voice. ‘And what’re they, when they’re at home?’
‘Anthropoides virgo.’
‘Virgo? Well I never! I believe you, thousands wouldn’t,’ the eagle said, to general hilarity.
But Amadeus Knödlseder himself had soon become the butt of the vulgar bird’s coarse mockery. Once, for example, he’d hatched a plot with a raven, with whom the vulture had got on very well until then. They’d pinched a red rubber tube from a pram, which the nursemaid had carelessly left too close to the bars of the cage, then placed it in the food trough. Humplmeier had jerked his thumb at it and said, ‘There’s a sausage for you, Maddy.’And he — Knödlseder, the royal bearded vulture, who until then had been unanimously esteemed as the crowning glory of the zoo — had believed him, had flown with the tube onto his perch, grasped it in his claws and pulled and pulled at it with his beak until he was quite long and thin himself. Then the elastic material had suddenly snapped and he’d fallen over on his back, twisting his neck horribly. Knödlseder automatically rubbed the spot; it still hurt. Again he was seized with fury, but he controlled himself so as not to give the marabou the satisfaction of schadenfreude. He shot him a quick glance. No, the obnoxious fellow hadn’t noticed, he was still sitting in his corner ‘giving thanks to God’.
‘Tonight I escape,’ was the decision the bearded vulture came to after turning the alternatives over in his mind for a while. ‘Better freedom and all the worries about where the next meal’s coming from than one more day in the company of these base creatures.’ A brief check confirmed that the trapdoor in the roof of the cage still opened easily — the hinges were rusted through, a secret he’d been aware of for some time.
He looked at his pocket watch. Nine o’clock. It would soon be getting dark.
He waited an hour, then, without making a sound, packed his suitcase: one nightshirt, three handkerchiefs (he held them up to his eye; A. K. embroidered on them? Yes, they were his), his well-thumbed hymn-book with the four-leaf clover in it and then — a melancholy tear moistened his eyelids — his dear old truss which, painted in bright colours to look like a cobra, his mother had given him as a toy for Easter shortly before humans had taken him from the nest. Yes, that was everything. He locked the case and hid the key in his crop.
He decided to have a short sleep before setting off, but hardly had he put his head under his wing than he was startled by a clatter. He listened. It was nothing important, just the marabou stork who was secretly addicted to gambling. At night, when all was quiet, he would play ‘odds or evens’ against himself in the moonlight. He played it by swallowing a pile of pebbles then spitting some of them out: if there was an odd number, he’d won. The vulture watched for a while, highly delighted to see the stork lose one game after another. But then another noise — from the artificial cement tree with which the cage was embellished — drew his attention. It was a low voice whispering, ‘Pst, pst, Herr Knödlseder.’
‘Yes, what is it?’ the vulture replied in an equally quiet voice, gliding down silently from his perch.
It was a hedgehog. He too was Bavarian born and bred but, in contrast to the odious eagle, he was a plain, simple fellow who abhorred coarse practical jokes.
‘You’re going to escape,’ the hedgehog said, with a nod at his packed suitcase. For a moment the vulture wondered whether, to be safe, he ought to wring the little animal’s neck, but the honest creature’s frank, open expression was disarming. ‘Know your way round Munich at all?’
‘No,’ the vulture admitted, somewhat disconcerted.
‘There you are. I can give you a few tips. First of all, head off left round the corner soon as you get out, then take a right. You’ll see when you get there. And after that,’ — the hedgehog shook a pinch of snuff from his snuff box onto the back of his paw and took it with a loud sniff — ‘and after that just keep straight on till you come to an oasis of peace, we call it Daglfing. You’ll have to ask again there. Bon voyage, as they say, Herr Knödlseder.’ And with that the hedgehog went off.
Everything had gone well. Before dawn began to break Amadeus Knödlseder, quickly swapping his own shabby braces and hat with the embroidered, edelweiss-bedecked articles belonging to the eagle, who was snoring away like a steam engine on his perch, cautiously opened the trapdoor and launched himself up into the air, clutching his little suitcase in his left claw. The noise did wake the marabou stork, but he didn’t see anything for, still drowsy with sleep, he’d immediately gone into his corner to give thanks to God.
‘Flat as a pancake,’ the vulture muttered as he flew through the rosy dawn over the dreaming city, ‘and just about as interesting. To think it calls itself the city of art.’
Soon he had reached the delightful purlieus of Daglfing and, hot from the unaccustomed exertion, descended in order to purchase a pint of beer.
He strolled in leisurely fashion round the deserted streets. Nowhere was there a bar open that early. The only exception was a shop, Barbara Mutschelknaus’s ‘emporium’. For a while the vulture inspected the motley collection of goods in the window, then an idea suddenly occurred to him. Making his mind up at once, he reached for the door handle.
There was one thing that had been bothering him during the night: how was he gong to keep body and soul together? By hunting? A short-sighted old bird like me? he asked himself.
Hmm. Or establish a guano factory? But the prerequisite for that was food, lots of food. Nothing comes of nothing. But now he had conceived a different plan. He went into the shop.
‘Jesus, Joseph and Mary, what an ’orrible beast!’ old Frau Mutschelknaus screeched at the sight of her unusual early customer. But she soon calmed down when Amadeus Knödlseder gave her cheeks a friendly pat and intimated, in elegant German, that, in order to complete his wardrobe, he intended to make substantial purchases, above all of brightly coloured ties of all shapes and sizes. Captivated by the vulture’s jovial manner, the old woman soon had the counter covered in mountains of the most magnificent neckties.
And ‘Sir’ took the lot without demur and had them packed in a large cardboard box. He selected just one bright scarlet tie for himself and asked her to tie it round his long, bare neck, all the time giving her fiery glances and warbling seductively:
One burning kiss from those cherry lips
Reminds me of
The rosy blush of dawn —
Tally-ho, tally-ho, tally-ho!
‘There, that suits you down to the ground,’ said the old woman, tickled pink, when the tie was neatly knotted. ‘Makes you look like’ — a real fancy man, she almost said — ‘like a proper gen’lman, it does.’
‘And may I trouble you for a glass of water, dear lady,’ the vulture begged in dulcet tones.
Charmed out of her usual suspiciousness, the old woman hurried off into the rear quarters of her establishment, but hardly was she out of sight than Amadeus Knödlseder grabbed the cardboard box, darted out of the shop without paying and the next minute was soaring up into the heavens. He was soon pursued by a flood of shrill curses from the despoiled entrepreneuse, but the malefactor, with not the slightest twinge of conscience, sailed on through the empyrean, his suitcase in his left claw, the cardboard box in his right.
It was only late in the afternoon — the departing rays of the setting sun were already preparing to kiss the glowing Alpine peaks goodnight — that he descended once more. As the balmy air of his native mountains caressed his cheeks, he revelled in the magnificent views.
The plaintive song of the shepherd boys floated up from verdant pastures to vertiginous, icy peaks, charmingly interwoven with the silvery tones of the homeward-bound herds.
Guided by the natural instinct of a denizen of the skies, Amadeus Knödlseder was delighted to see that fortune had smiled on him and led him to a prosperous little marmot town.
True, as soon as he appeared the inhabitants made for the safety of their homes and locked their doors, but when they saw that Knödlseder did not tear an ancient hamster — a corn merchant who had never been able to run away fast enough — limb from limb, asking him instead for a light and enquiring about lodgings, their fear quickly subsided.
‘You’re not from around here, to go by your dialect,’ he remarked affably once the hamster, quivering so much he could hardly speak, had given him the information he sought.
‘No, no,’ the old corn merchant stammered.
‘You’re from the south?’
‘No. From — from Prague.’
‘Aha. Of the Mosaic persuasion then, I presume?’ the vulture enquired with a grin and a wink.
The hamster, afraid it might be a Russian he was facing, immediately denied it. ‘Me? Me? How can you say that, Herr Vulture! Jewish? Me? On the contrary, for ten years I was shabbes goy for a family that, though Jewish, was poor.’
Knödlseder inquired about all sorts of details of life in the town, expressing particular pleasure at the fact that there was no night club of any kind; then he let the poor hamster go — he was so frightened that by this time he was almost suffering from St Vitus’s dance — and went in search of suitable premises.
Once more fortune smiled on him and before night fell he had managed to rent a nice little shop with a room adjoining and several side chambers, all of which had their own exit.
The days and weeks passed peacefully. The townsfolk had long since forgotten their fear and once more the streets were filled with cheerful chatter from morn till eve.
A board had been fixed above the new shop. On it was written, in a neat round hand:
Ties — All Colours and Styles
Prop. Amadeus Knödlseder
(Green Shield Stamps)
The crowd gathered round to stare at the glories on display.
Previously the mood in the town had always been one of bitterness and despondency when the flocks of wild duck flew past — they were so puffed up with pride at the splendid shimmering green neckties nature had given them. How times had changed! Now everyone who was anyone had a top-quality tie, but much, much gaudier. There were red ones and blue ones, one favoured yellow, another checks and the burgomaster had such a long one his front paws kept getting tangled up in it when he scampered along.
Knödlseder Neckwear was on everyone’s lips and the proprietor was considered a repository of civic virtues: thrifty, hardworking with an eye to profit and sober (he only drank lemonade).
During the day he served his customers in the front shop. Just occasionally he would take a particularly discriminating client through to the back, where he would stay for quite a while. Presumably he was bringing his ledgers up to date; at least at these times he was heard to belch, loudly and frequently, which, in businessmen such as he, always indicates strenuous intellectual activity.
That the customer in question never left the premises through the front shop was no cause for surprise — there were so many exits at the rear.
After closing time Amadeus Knödlseder loved nothing more than to sit on a precipitous cliff playing soulful melodies on his reed pipe until he saw the object of his secret affection — an ageing chamois, a spinster with horn-rimmed spectacles and a tartan shawl — come trotting along the narrow rocky ledge opposite. He would offer her a silent, respectful greeting and she would reply with a chaste bow of the head. There were already rumours going round that they would tie the knot and all those who knew about their mutual attachment could not get over their astonishment and kept saying how pleasing it was to see with their own eyes the beneficial effect of a well-ordered existence even on someone with such an unfortunate genetic inheritance as a bearded vulture must of necessity have.
Despite this, the mood among the inhabitants of the marmot town remained sombre, a circumstance that was solely due to the fact, as baffling as it was disturbing, that the size of the population was decreasing in a way that was both frightening and inexplicable, on a weekly basis, so to speak.
Hardly an hour passed without some family reporting a member ‘missing’. They racked their brains as to what might have happened, they waited and waited, but none of those who had disappeared ever returned.
One day even the spinster chamois went missing! They found her smelling salts on the rocky ledge, she must have had an accident caused by an attack of vertigo.
Amadeus Knödlseder’s grief knew no bounds.
Again and again he plunged, wings outspread, into the abyss — in order, as he said, to find the body of his beloved. In between he would perch on the edge of the gorge, chewing on a toothpick and staring fixedly down into the depths.
He completely neglected his neckwear business.
Then, one night, the horror was revealed. The owner of the house where the vulture lived — a grumpy old marmot — went to the police station and demanded his tenant’s shop be compulsorily opened and the goods inside confiscated, since he was not willing to wait any longer for the rent he was owed.
‘Hmm. Strange. Herr Knödlseder hasn’t paid the rent, you say?’ The officer could hardly believe it. Was Herr Knödlseder not at home? Surely, he said, all they had to do was to wake him?
‘Him? At home? The old marmot gave a shrill laugh. ‘Him? he never comes back before five in the morning — and then drunk as a bat!’
‘Is that so? Drunk?’ The officer gave his orders.
The first rays of the rising sun were already appearing and still the bailiffs were sweating away at the heavy padlock on the door leading to the rear part of the tie shop.
An agitated crowd was milling round in the market square. ‘Fraudulent bankruptcy!’ — ‘No, speculation. With dud cheques!’ went the cries from snout to snout.
‘Fraudulent bankruptcy. Hah! I told you! Hah! What’s that I keep hearing? Fraudulent bankruptcy?’ said the ancient hamster, who had also turned up. It was the first time he’d appeared in public since his terrifying encounter with Knödlseder.
The general unease grew and grew.
Even the elegant marmottes, driving home from revelry and entertainment wrapped in their expensive furs, stopped their carriages and, craning their delicate necks, asked what was going on.
Suddenly there was a crash — the door had given way to the pressure. Grisly was the sight that greeted them.
A ghastly stench poured out of the store room and wherever they looked: spewed-up pellets, gnawed bones piled almost to the ceiling, bones on the tables, bones on the shelves, even in the drawers and the safe, bones upon bones.
The crowd was paralysed with horror. At once it was clear where all the missing marmots had gone. Knödlseder had eaten them up and taken back the goods they’d bought. Just like Cardillac, the jeweller in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Fräulein von Scuderi!
‘Well now,’ the hamster mocked, ‘Fraudulent bankruptcy was it, eh?’ They gathered round him, astonished that he’d had the foresight to keep himself and his family well away from any contact with the two-faced killer.
‘But how could it be,’ they all cried, ‘that you were the only one to distrust him? The obvious conclusion was that he’d mended his ways and —’
‘A bearded vulture mend his ways?!’ the hamster cried scornfully. Pressing the tips of his thumb and fingers together, as if he were holding a pinch of salt between them and waving them expressively to and fro before his audience, he said, ‘Once a vulture, always a vulture, right to —’ But he got no further. Loud human voices could be heard. Tourists!
In a flash all the marmots had vanished.
The hamster too.
‘Vunderfol! Charmink! Vot a sunrise! Aaach!’ squealed a human voice. It belonged to a spinster with a pointed nose and idealistic views who followed it onto the plateau, leaning on her alpenstock, her bosom heaving for all it was worth, her guileless eyes round and wide, like two fried eggs. Only not so yellow! (Violet) ‘Ach! Now, surrounded by ze charms of ze Natur, vich is soo beautiful, you cannot, Herr Klempke, say vot you said in ze valley below about ze Italian people. You vill see, ven ze var is over ze Italians vill be ze first to come and hold out zeir hand to us and say:
“Dear Chermany, forgive us, ve haf mended our vays.” ’