Walking along the streets of Wandernburg after dark, passing mouldy arches and isolated street lamps, Hans experienced the same sensations as when he had first arrived. He could see that the city’s inhabitants went home early, almost scuttling back to their houses for safety. Their place was taken by cats and dogs, disporting themselves as they pleased, gnawing at any scraps of food they could find in the streets. As he was entering the inn and reflecting that the Christmas wreath had disappeared, Hans heard the cry of a nightwatchman. He was coming round the street corner, wearing a hood, and carrying a long pole with a dim light on the tip:
Time to go home, everyone!
The church bell has chimed six,
Watch over your fire and your lamps,
Praise be to God! All praise!
Herr Zeit seemed surprised to see him, as if he had been expecting his guest to vanish into thin air without warning. Everything in the inn was as quiet as before, although as he passed by the kitchen Hans counted six dirty plates piled up next to the sink, from which he deduced there were four other guests. His calculation turned out to be wrong, however, because as he headed for the staircase a slender figure emerged from the door to the Zeits’ apartment bearing a Christmas tree and a box of candles. This is my daughter, Lisa, said Frau Zeit in a hurried introduction as she scurried down the corridor. Still wedged between the counter and the wall, Herr Zeit himself noted the ensuing silence and shouted: Lisa! Say hello to the gentleman! Lisa smiled mischievously at Hans, calmly shrugged her shoulders and went back inside without saying a word.
The Zeits had had seven children. Three were now married; two had died of the measles. Still living with them were Lisa, the eldest, and Thomas, a boisterous child who wasted no time in bursting into the dining room where Hans was eating dumplings with bread and butter. Who are you? asked Thomas. I’m Hans, said Hans, to which Thomas replied: Then I don’t know who you are. With that he stole a dumpling, wheeled round, and disappeared down the corridor.
When he heard Hans’s footsteps going upstairs, the innkeeper struggled to prise his belly free and came to ask if he were planning to leave the next day. Hans had already decided he was, but Herr Zeit’s insistence made him feel as if he were being turned out, and so in order to contradict him he said he did not know. The innkeeper seemed extraordinarily pleased at this reply, going so far as to ask Hans whether he needed anything for his room. Hans said he did not, and thanked him. When Herr Zeit still stood there, Hans added in a friendly tone that apart from the market square, the streets of Wandernburg seemed to him rather dark, and he mentioned the gas lighting used in Berlin or London. We don’t need all that light here, declared Herr Zeit, hitching up his trousers, we have good eyesight and regular habits. We go out by day and at night we sleep. We go to bed early, and get up early. What do we want gas for?
Lying on his back in bed again, Hans yawned, tiredness mingling with bewilderment. He promised himself: Tomorrow I’ll gather my things and move on.
The night barked and meowed.
Atop the Tower of the Wind, piercing the mists, the weathervane seemed about to fly off its hinges.
After another stroll over the frosty ground, Hans had the strange feeling that the city’s layout somehow shifted while everyone was asleep. How could he lose his bearings so completely? It was beyond him — the tavern he had lunched at the day before was on the opposite corner from where he remembered it, the clangs from the smithy, which should have been on the right as he turned the corner, surprised him by coming from the left, the sloping street that went down now went steeply up, a passageway he remembered walking through which should have opened onto an avenue was a dead end. Feeling his pride as a seasoned traveller challenged, Hans booked a seat on the next coach for Dessau, and then resolved to familiarise himself with the maze of streets through which he was wandering. And yet, no sooner had he congratulated himself on two or three successes than he realised to his dismay he was lost again. The only easy place to find was the market square, which he kept going back to in order to get his bearings. Killing time before his coach left, trying hard to memorise the city’s cardinal points, he was standing in the square like a sundial, his thin shadow cast over the cobblestones, when he saw the organ grinder arrive.
Moving laboriously yet gracefully, as though as he shuffled along he imagined he was dancing, the grizzled organ grinder came into the square pulling his barrel organ, leaving its track in the fresh snow. With him was a black-haired dog. With an innate sense of rhythm, the dog always kept the same distance from its master, respecting his every pause, stagger, change of pace. The old man was dressed after a fashion in a threadbare-looking dark overcoat and a translucent cape. He came to a halt on one side of the square. Slowly and carefully, he spread out his things, as though miming what he was going to do later. Once installed, he untied the battered umbrella fastened to the cart handle. He opened it and placed it on top of his instrument to protect it from the flurry of snow. This gesture touched Hans, who stood waiting for the organ grinder to play a tune.
The old man was in no hurry, or he enjoyed dawdling. Beneath his beard Hans saw him smile knowingly at his dog, which gazed up at him, its triangular ears pricked. The barrel organ was of modest size — sitting on the cart, it barely reached the organ grinder’s waist, obliging him to stoop even lower to play it. The cart was painted green and orange. The wooden wheels had once been red. Enclosed by a metal hoop barely holding them together, they were not round but a more uneven shape, like the years they had spent rolling. The front of the organ had once been decorated with a naive landscape of a tree-lined river.
Hans never felt nostalgia for anything: he preferred to think about his next journey. And yet, when the organ grinder began to play, something touched the edge of something. When he heard the barrel organ’s metallic past, Hans sensed that someone else, some past self, was trembling inside him. Following the melody as if it were words streaming on the wind, Hans experienced something unusual — he was aware of what he was feeling, he could see himself being moved. He was listening because the barrel organ was playing, the barrel organ was playing because he was listening. Hans had the impression that the organ grinder was not so much playing as trying to remember. With an airy hand, his fingers stiff with cold, he turned the handle. As he did so the dog’s tail, the square, the weathervane, the light, noon itself, went spinning round and round, and as soon as the tune was approaching the end, the organ grinder’s timekeeping hand created not so much a pause, or even a silence, more a slight tear in a fabric, before turning the handle again, so that the music started up once more, and everything carried on spinning round, and it was no longer cold.
Coming back down to earth, Hans found it odd that no one else seemed to notice the barrel-organ music. Used to it, or in too much of a hurry, everyone walked by without even looking. Finally, a small boy stopped in front of the organ grinder. The old man said hello with a smile to which he responded shyly. Two huge shoes planted themselves behind the boy’s loose shoelaces; a voice leant over saying: Don’t look at the man, can’t you see the way he’s dressed? Don’t bother him, come along now, come along. In front of the old man was a shiny dish into which people would occasionally drop small copper coins. Hans noticed that those showing this consideration did not stop to listen to the music either, but left the money as if they were giving it to a beggar. This did not seem to spoil the organ grinder’s concentration, or the rhythm of his hand.