KRISTALLKABINETT

… and now it is late, certainly past two, a few hours more and there will be enough light…

I found exactly the right place, where the pavement seems thin and worn… A few more hours and I’ll find it… perhaps I’ll find it… pink quartz maybe, jasper with yellow circles with a meaning… And then perhaps the houses around Stephansplaz will slowly start to crumble… Don’t worry, I will not show it to anyone, nor will I give it back to my beloved grandmother in exchange for the one that looked like a seashell… I’ll take it elsewhere.

Old Moritz … the name I heard on the third or fourth night… then… that week at the end of winter… when I started coming to Graben after school… I came in the afternoon, waited for the lights to turn on… I believe I started coming because of those lamps in the pavement… and he was better than other street musicians and assorted buffoons around Stephansplazt, he really knew how to play violin, even though I remember thinking at first how pointless it was to bother about such music, some kind hicupping vintage jazz. He could play a bit more than that though: a Bach suite, some sentimental salon pieces, and with time he even learned Stairway to Heaven, because I asked him to –

Moritz, have you earned a beer?

A Japanese woman three benches away was trying to attract audience by playing some instrument with a single string.

No, not a beer.

Sitting nearby, on the steps of the monument of the plague, I listened to them talking. They are friends, I was thinking, that old Moritz, and the Japanese woman, and pale fire eater. They are friends, as S. would say, and when they’re apart they can still talk to each other…

Come on, Moritz, it’s my turn today anyway…

It was the third of my evenings there, yes, the third one.

I cannot, sunshine, he said, and those were his exact words, sunshine. Invite Alexander, he’ll be pleased, I have an important meeting, he added and she laughed. Oh, it’s your mysterious business again!

Pssst! replied Moritz, the less said the better. This boy is the one I need to talk to…

He turned to me. Japanese woman waved and left.

Now, I would not only take the stone from grandma’s cabinet, I would break all cabinets in the word, steal the entire collection of Naturhistorischesmuseum, if only it could make a difference…

Come on, come closer, he said, putting the violin in its case. You come here quite often… I was absolutely not in the conversation mood, supposing he’d ask me about the school and such…  He asked nothing.

You’ll be my pupil. I’ll be Mephistopheles, and you my apprentice.

But Mephisto is…

Part of the force that wishes evil and does good?… Don’t worry, I’m joking.

He counted the money he earned that day.

Okay, there’s enough. You have plenty of time, so come with me. Today’s an important day.

Where are we going? I said and hated myself because I did not refrain from asking.

We’ll buy something. It’s not far.

I managed not to ask what he intended to buy. I was kind of angry at him, I went with him out of that anger, decided not to say a single word… He said not a word either. He whistled.

I didn’t expect we would stop in front of such a shop window. It was a surprise… surprise like that on the school trip when for a moment everything came into balance, the lake, and the alcohol, and the words we were saying… I was expecting some kind of discount, cheap wine or something, and we were standing in front of a jewellery shop.

Oh, Mr. Maurizius!

A saleswoman with coloured curls glowing under artificial light run up to greet him. – You’re come for your stone?

Yes, I finally came, said the old man, enjoying every word.

I put it aside for you, as we agreed…

She disappeared for a moment behind a partition.

They take me for an eccentric, Moritz whispered, and, for that matter, they’re right. But they also think I’m rich! He smiled. – What do you think?

I think, now… No, I don’t think anything but sorrow and anger… and a sort of doubt… for now I could, not saying anything to anyone, just follow his path: learn to play, sit on the steps of that monument to the plague, take over my true heritage… I could try the other way too, a way they would consider as acceptable, study law, work with my father – and then reach out for the same…

Look at it, the yellow quartz! It’s also called rock crystal, but only when it’s completely transparent. If you turn it to the light, you see a darker tint, see, that’s why it’s so special…

The saleswoman put the large crystal in a box lined with velvet. – Come in a week, we’ll have something new, I can show it to you, if you wish, before I put it in the shop window…

They kept talking for a while. The voice, the smile, the movement while he was putting the box with the stone in his bag, I often imitated all that later. I imitated the melody of his voice, the colour of his somewhat protracted vowels, I started speaking in dialect even at home repeating his entire sentences, smiling all the time. Even when I started replying mom with “yes” only, it was that word, a little darkened and lazy “yes”, pronounced by Moritz confirming his purchase.

Now go home, he said at the shop’s door. Tomorrow you can come again. I’ll be happy to show them to you, but I do not know how happy would it make you to look at them.

I did not say anything. I went back to the Graben.

At night time passes more slowly. I don’t know what time it is, the clock is still. I took it apart to take the shiny parts of the dials and hands. Everything that makes light, everything that shines! But it did not help.

I didn’t come the next day. I went home with S. Taking all the detour routes. She walked with me and could not be avoided. She was convincing me again, but I don’t know what it was about. I can never say exactly what these conversations are about, circuitous and convoluted, but never the right thing. I told her I wanted someone to be with me. I do not know if she understood what I meant.

The next afternoon, it was Friday already, I came early. I came up with some excuse and left the school earlier. It was warm, there were many people on Graben. Moritz noticed me, he played a little, then put the violin in the case.

Today we did well, he said. I wanted to tell him he should not stop playing because of me, but it’s just one of those sentences that I’m unable to say.

Today we’re not counting the money. Come!

We crossed Stephansplatz, around the church, went into quiet backstreets. We passed that corner where I was standing last fall listening to some jazz players, they were playing under two red and white umbrellas. They didn’t want any contact, have driven me away, they managed to drive me away although they didn’t say anything, I didn’t say anything either…  We entered a dead end.

The apartment was rusty and damp. We walked through the hallway and an untidy big room, then a smile beamed on his face: he opened the door of the chamber.

Here we are, he said. Now you can call me Maurizius. Mr. Maurizius.

I didn’t understood at first. In the small room there were no usual furniture, but the three walls were lined with closed compartments, labelled in Latin: Dentales, Vulgares, Vermiculares, Stalactitae … The fourth wall was a window, and below it a black lacquered table, empty. That was all, except for a small upholstered chair.

Kristallkabinett. A chamber of transformation.

Moritz opened one of the drawers and pulled out a box from the day before. He laid it on the table and took out the stone.

I’m still in wonder before it, I still don’t know it well.

We watched it for a while, in silence.

But you have more than this one…

Of course, my half-question sounded stupid. He opened another drawer and reached for a smaller box.

Why are they locked up? Why are they not all immediately visible on clear glass shelves as in a museum?

Listen, young man, there’s no rush. You open the drawer, take the box out, although not all of them are in boxes, you put the stone on the black-topped table and look at it. Just one at a time.

He opened the smaller box.

But it’s your first time here. Your natural curiosity probably justifies a faster viewing. See, this chrysoberyl is of a special kind. They are rarely green like this. It’s because of the iron in it. There’s a great deal of variety in beryls, they may be blue-green, yellow, pink, sometimes with white hexagonal prisms, I’d love to have one of those…

There wasn’t a single speck of dust on the black table, thick glossy carpet muffled step and voice, but the inscriptions on the boxes were taped disorderly, and some compartments were empty.

Moritz’s voice never changed colour.

– Sometimes it is enough just to enjoy their names: jasper, chalcedony, dark red garnet… take it, take it in your hand, it is lapis lazuli, never really cold… There, one compartment further to the left, where it says Selenitae, all are red: hematite, sanguine, carnelian, cinnabar and cuprite…

Moritz knew the names of the stones, but he did not know Latin. And the labels with names were put around carelessly, “according to the hue.”

(beginning of a story from the book Wien Fantastic, translated by the author)