Anarchistbanjo's World

OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel

Reichenbach asks, and Friederike answers; she has taken his hand and leads him among the graves, sure-footed, while Reichenbach stumbles in the deepest darkness.

Only when the Sievering church tower strikes two does Reichenbach regain a sense of time. It has started to rain; the wind lashes water curtains around their faces and shoulders—they must go.

Back in Friederike’s room, the light burns, and the modest space envelops the two intimately. Friederike looks exhausted, her face pale with dark circles under her eyes. Reichenbach sits in a high-backed grandfather chair, takes Friederike’s hands, draws her close so she stands between his knees, and fixes a steady gaze on the bridge of her nose.

At once, as she stands there, Friederike falls asleep.

Yes, there lie the mounds of the dead, and Od light rises from them, though many are completely dark. Reichenbach is strangely shaken. It’s all physically and chemically determined, of course—a natural law, so far explored only by him; everything is interconnected through Od. Only ignorant people, unaware of Od, might turn it into ghostly apparitions. It’s all physics and chemistry; some mounds glow, others are dark, and far from here, in the Blansko cemetery, there’s a mound long since dark. And one has children who have turned away and pursue their father, and how long will it be before one lies under such a mound, sending Od light through the earth until it too fades.

“Can you tell me, Friederike,” asks Reichenbach, “what Hermine is doing?”

Friederike knits her brows: “Hermine is asleep.”

“Not now. What she does otherwise, when she’s awake.”

“Hermine thinks a lot about the child she’ll soon have.”

Oh God, Hermine is to have a child—well, she’s married, it’s part of it, having children. “And do you also see Ottane?”

Friederike frowns: “I see Ottane too. She’s in another land, with great churches with shining domes, streets filled with fragrance. The sea with reddish-brown and yellow sails. And there’s a man with her. But I see a shadow over her.”

So there’s a man with Ottane—a man. Well, what does that matter to Reichenbach? What concern is it of his what his children do? They don’t care about him. “And you?” he asks further, “can you tell me something about yourself?”

Friederike’s lips press together; a twitch flickers around her mouth, her answer comes reluctantly and haltingly: “I will soon have to leave you.”

What does that mean? That Friederike must leave him must? How could that be imposed on him, when he now has nothing but Friederike and is on the verge of penetrating the final secrets with her help? No, for now, he wants to know nothing more; it’s perhaps presumptuous to go so far, an abuse of her gifts. One must always stay grounded in physics and chemistry, not plunge headlong into the unknown. Reichenbach thinks that Friederike should now awaken.

Friederike blinks and opens her eyes. Her gaze returns from afar, adjusts to her surroundings, and then she smiles: “My God, am I tired!”

“It’s gotten late, my child,” says Reichenbach. “Let’s go to sleep now.”