Anarchistbanjo's World

The Strangling Hand
by Karl Hans Strobl
translated by Joe E. Bandel
Copyright Joe E. Bandel
The Strangling Hand Ch 1 pg 5-8

The Frau who wanted to visit Eleagabal Kuperus had to wait a while before the heavy door opened. The faint light from a nearby lantern engaged in battle with the fog and brought the carvings on the door into sharp relief, then slid across the hand with the key as it radiated out to the edge of the darkness that lay heavy over the end of the street. The portal slowly opened and a long passage led the Frau into the interior of the house as she walked silently over soft carpet. To her left and right were glowing letters that arranged themselves into words which were not recognizable, as well as hieroglyphics, cuneiform and glimmering symbols. They gave off so much light that in the dim twilight dark paintings and statues could be seen high above all along the entrance corridor. A fountain pattered a wistful melody in a red-lit room, in which a collection of paintings were hung on the walls. A servant waited there, whose hairy head, whose pointed little ears and whose evil glimmering eyes made him look like a wolf. He raised his hand in a silencing movement.

The Frau followed him down a narrow path between two walls of books, until he took a ball from out of a bowl and dropped it back in producing a silvery sound. From out of the folds of a curtain, a cool breeze blew against her hot face as she stepped beneath a glass dome that arched above a room of marble. It was like a temple with two rows of supporting columns, but the broad capitals of these columns were decorated with scrolls and animal heads that looked down on her and did not in any way support the dome. They apparently served no purpose except to divide the bottom portion of the chamber, while the dome itself remained unsupported and free above like a symbol of the infinity of heaven. There were all types of colorful marble collected in this chamber, from white fragments of Tyrolean marble to flaming , starry and miraculous colors of the rarest kind. Water trickled down a wall, as if a little stream of blood poured from out of some hidden opening above and silently slid down the flat surface. Nearby were tiles like those that maps were painted upon, but these showcased delicate ferns, moss or bush like veins encased within the stone, as well as blossoming corals that spread their branches out wide, as if they contained the power of unchained expansion. The impeccable surfaces of white, yellow and ivory colored marble glowed in ever changing displays of color.

This chamber presented lifeless stone, while at the same time radiating an intense sense of life and peace, which was driven by an infinite source. It was possibly like a head in which confused thoughts stormed, in which confused thoughts dwelled, and of which no one would dare speak or act upon in real life. Up above, the dome itself remained completely detached from the confusion, containing it so that none of it could escape; arched and glassy like the cornea of an eye, upon whose retina these most precious and wonderful colors played.

Eleagabal Kuperus sat at a marble table in the center, guarded by columns on the left and the right. His hand lay on the table, his finger traced some vein in the marble and his lips moved. Then he looked up and his gaze wrapped the Frau in a veil of questions. His questioning eyes lay deep inside a head that was just as much that of a patriarch as it was that of an old predator. A high forehead rose above them, furrowed with so many wrinkles that people would find it laughable in anyone else. Down below grew a wild beard that bushed out on all sides, yet remained forced down onto his chest. Beneath his mustache gaped the dark cavern of his mouth from which two canines protruded. The incisors were long lost, the canines of the upper skull had transformed into fangs through a rare power, and when Eleagabal Kuperus laughed, they crept out like daggers from their sheaths. Around his bald head lay a thin wreath of white hair, which stood out straight like bristles as if from an electric shock.

The Frau hesitated and then stepped up to him and laid a round package on the table in front of him which she had carried beneath her coat.

“You are welcome here,” said Eleagabal Kuperus and he waved away the servant with the face of a wolf, who had been crouching like a predator behind the Frau. “You are welcome here,” said Eleagabal Kuperus once more, and the Frau felt how his gaze penetrated through her. Then he added, and his hand pointed to the round package:
“You have brought me the head of your husband.”

A trembling came over the Frau, and the table, at which Eleagabal Kuperus sat, began to spin quickly around its axis, so quickly, that it seemed as if the man in front of her multiplied. Fainting, she grabbed at one of the columns for support, but she quickly pulled her fingers back, because the stone was so hot, that it almost burned her skin.

“Take it, just as it is. Death is a powerful master, almost as powerful as life itself, and often it seems as if it overcomes life. I honor your pain, and I want to fulfill your desire.”

“You know, what I want to do with it?”

I know. Your love is great, and I bow down before that love.”

Then the Frau broke out into tears and looked despairingly around her, because she felt so weak, ashamed that she had allowed herself to show weakness. Eleagabal Kuperus stood up and stepped over to her; he laid one arm around her shoulders. And then a strange thing happened, Frau Emma Rössler, despite her horror and fear of this notorious old man, this weird man she had come to, sobbed as she hid her head in the thick brush of his beard. They both stood completely still, and the silence crackled like a small blue flame. Then he led her to his chair at the marble table and asked her to sit down.

“Tell me about your husband, who was a poet and the things that shaped – his life.”

“It seems, that you knew him.”

– Eleagabal Kuperus smiled, and both fangs crept out of the hole of his mouth, while his hand motioned for her to continue –

“His name was in the mouths of all the people, and his future stood before him, brilliant and wonderful. But despite all of his promise and ability, his advancement remained bleak and gloomy. He didn’t understand how to market himself and his works with ostentatious boasting and self advertising.

People always gave him support along the way and recognized his talent., He didn’t have the proud consolation of being unrecognized. But they only bought enough of his books so that we could live in common comfort. Yet he thirsted after more, and his artistic moods continued to bring forth even more beautiful, unheard of things. But we were not rich enough to rise above the common folk, and not poor enough to give up poetic speech entirely.

He continued on indifferently, along a path that was neither difficult enough nor successful enough until in the end he became tired, and that was his life. He could not be called a fighter, but he was also no fortunate child, to whom the stars dropped fortune into his lap.

With calm, disciplined work he achieved enough to lead a life that was similar to that of a thousand others, until he sank without too much pain, without a trace of tragedy, except that a voice was silenced, which the fates should have established, and allowed his final wishes to be expressed.”

Eleagabal Kuperus stood in front of the Frau and listened to her, while he stroked his long beard with his hand like a gardener strokes his bushes. The furrows of his high forehead moved. It seemed as if his thoughts ran across them.

“His life and his death was not so bleak, as might appear to your love. His life was not allowed its full brilliance, and I know, that his power dissolved into a soft twilight. But it could have been richer and deeper, if he could have had your love. And that is why I tell you, that he did not understand how to achieve it. From out of the depths comes all happiness. Yet his death was not in vain, because of that which he was able to give to the world in the end.”

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