The Architect Read Free Page B

dandelions. One of those places where everyone knows the most minute habits of everyone else, the tranquillity of the day only broken by the occasional creaking of shutters or the lonely steps of an old man making his way to the cemetery to deposit a handful of wilted flowers where his heart lay buried.
    A somewhat seedy stone structure with moss growing on the slate roof—vaguely Italianate—a faded fresco of a saint adorned the outer wall. Rusty gutters crawled from roof to pavement. A lazy balcony stretched out its tongue.
    Peter knocked on a small door which was painted turquoise, but no one answered. A fat old woman appeared at the window of the adjacent house.
    “Excuse me,” the young man asked, “but is this the residence of Herr Nachtman?”
    “A man lives there.”
    “Is he an architect?”
    “I don’t think so. A lecher maybe. A drunk most certainly. But an architect…no!”
    “Are you positive?”
    “I do not speak to him. I am an honest woman.”
    “He is not at home.”
    “Then he is undoubtedly at the bar,” she said, thrusting her chin in a southerly direction.
    Peter, after following this signalling device a short distance, found the place, entered, was accosted by the smell of ancient yeast and frying sausages.
    A few voluble young men. A lumpy middle-aged woman with bright red hair. A television mounted above the bar. Football: dots running around a green field. At a small table in the corner two thin legs jutted out from beneath the barrier of an open newspaper. On the table was an almost empty glass of beer.
    A frowsy looking waitress approached Peter.
    “Sit wherever you want.”
    “I am looking for someone.”
    “And have you found her?”
    “I am looking for a man. Nachtman.”
    “Nachtman?”
    “Alexius Nachtman.”
    “Ah, you must mean Alex,” she said, pointing to the corner, to the man who was foraging through the newspaper, now draining off the last of his beer.
    Peter approached.
    “Excuse me, but is your name Alexius Nachtman?”
    The man looked up, shot a penetrating glance at the student.
    “And if it was?”
    “Then I would be delighted to make your acquaintance.”
    “I do not doubt it. But would I be delighted to make yours?”
    Peter took note of the empty glass.
    “May I buy you a beer?”
    “You may,” the other said, folding the paper in two and tossing it aside.
    He was over fifty years old, had a large, compact torso, like the body of an owl, planted atop two spindly legs, like those of a stork. His arms were long and thick like an ape’s. His nose was bulbous, red, as wrinkled as a prune. And from a muddy complexion, two small, dark eyes emitted a gaze as sharp as a needle. A skirt of wispy white hair fringed his skull, which was as knobby as the trunk of a hundred-year old chestnut tree. He sneered more often than smiled, and his smile was more grotesque than his frown. It was a pit of irregular yellow rectangles, offset by two dull silver flashes, for his maxillary canine teeth were capped with a ductile metallic element. He had the appearance of a deformed root dug from the ground. He was remarkably ugly. But the greatest geniuses are rarely beautiful to look upon.
    After ordering two beers, Peter commenced:
    “I have been looking for you for some time.”
    “I see.”
    “I have been commissioned by the Körn Society to find you. I am in possession of your book, Omegastructures. Fascinating stuff. The Society is currently in need of a meeting place. They wish for a fitting structure to be built. They are currently considering proposals from a large range of architects and—”
    “Architects? They have not existed for hundreds of years! The morons you see today building their feeble prostitutions are nothing more than rats in human form, gnawing at scraps of Vitruvius and gurgling the academic banalities of Alvar Aalto. Architecture is a lost science, buried with the Atlanteans. It is a word bandied about latrine-like universities—those places