The Last Bell by Johannes Urzidil

The Last Bell by Johannes Urzidil

Author:Johannes Urzidil [Johannes Urzidil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782272588
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2017-05-20T16:00:00+00:00


The following morning, Schaschek didn’t show up at the bank. The manager waited an hour. Then he went to the director.

“Schaschek didn’t come.”

“Maybe he’s sick.”

“That’s what I mean. He lives all alone.”

“You should check on him.”

“I’ll stop by on my lunch break.”

The manager asked Paní Kralíková which apartment he lived in.

“Herr Schaschek? He left this morning.” The manager heaved a sigh of relief. At least Schaschek wasn’t seriously ill.

“Do you know where he went by any chance?”

“No idea,” said Paní Kralíková. She would have answered the same even if she had known, for it was always safest not to give out information. The manager went back to the bank. “Schaschek is in good health, at any rate,” he reported to the director. “I know,” the latter replied. “He’s been back at his desk for a while now. He had something urgent to attend to.”

That same day the evening paper printed the following news item: “The Bronzino portrait of the Duchess of Albanera, whose disappearance was recently reported, was returned to the State Gallery today undamaged. The circumstances surrounding its restitution were just as mysterious as those of its disappearance. While the gallery doorkeeper was in his lodge taking a call on the newly installed telephone, the painting was deposited by an unknown individual on the porter’s desk in the entranceway. It was carefully wrapped in an old silk scarf and packed in brown paper. The painting is being returned to its former location and, with heightened security precautions, can be viewed by the public once again, weekdays (Mondays excepted) from nine to four, Sundays from ten to one.”

Ferda, the assistant, was about to slice fifteen dekagrams of Hungarian salami when Schaschek interjected: “Ham!”

“Very well, sir,” said Ferda, “but if you’ll pardon my saying so, wasn’t yesterday ham day?”

“Yesterday? Yesterday was a long time ago. But when I say ‘Ham!’ it’s ham day. Or am I not a free man?”

“Surely, at your service,” said Ferda. And when Schaschek left the store with his package, the assistant commented to his boss: “It’s strange indeed. Very strange. When I put one and two together, the thing with the ham and the salami, his suddenly not eating at ‘Zum Prinzen’ anymore, his talking to himself, the violin-playing you can hear from the gallery, and the most suspicious thing of all, his remark about being a free man: Taken together it leaves a peculiar aftertaste.”

“Delicatessen stores are home to uncommon tastes,” said Herr Mader. “The goods we carry are exceptional, which is why our customers are extravagant. Anyway, there’s no one in the world who doesn’t have their special secret.”

So was everything back to normal now? The painting back to where it was before, Schaschek back to his rotating sequence of ham and salami and Sunday roast at “Zum Prinzen”? Was this incident, by all accounts so outwardly and inwardly outrageous, destined to fizzle out into nothing? Hardly. An important point had yet to be considered in the various resolutions to the problem and of which Schaschek knew nothing at first.



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