Read Online Imperium by Christian Kracht - Free Book Online Page A

spare, milky-white wooden church marking the edge of the lagoon over there, marches in a southerly direction toward that spit of land, wondering as he rambles whether perhaps the German soul might come from this place, here, from this infinitely melancholy, sixty-mile-long, sunlit strand of dunes where he undresses, at first somewhat timidly, then with increasing confidence, placing his robe and his sandals in a depression in the sand (it is now early evening), and, concealing his nakedness from a couple of summering vacationers dressed in fine white cloth who are sauntering at some distance (he the editor of Simplicissimus , slight ironic twist to the mouth under the groomed mustache, gesticulating; she a freethinking daughter of a mathematician, nodding to him in agreement, in a dress of her own design), stares out onto the Baltic Sea long after the couple disappear and darkness descends, letting the plan to travel forever and for all time to the German overseas territories in the Pacific Ocean, never to return, ripen slowly in his mind, like a small child who has proceeded to build an immense castle out of colorful little wooden blocks. A gentle and somber Lithuanian melody drifts across the shoal, unapproachable like the stars flashing wanly in the firmament and yet immeasurably familiar, sweet, and homey: Wuchsen einst f ü nf junge M ä dchen schlank und sch ö n am Memelstrand. Sing, sing was geschah? Keines den Brautkranz wand. Keines den Brautkranz wand.
    In the morning, three policemen with sabers come and cement Engelhardt’s decision. In Memel the previous evening, the editor, who had indeed seen the nudist on the beach, filed a complaint with the police. There is a long-haired vagabond lying about the sandbars, stark-naked, scarcely two miles south down the strip of dunes. The editor deftly maneuvered his betrothed around the delinquent at some distance, distracting her at the crucial moment by showing her a flock of migratory birds or some such thing on the horizon, and yes, it is indeed a thing of outrage; one ought to arrest him; no, he did not seem drunk.
    Engelhardt awakens, peeps out of the wind-sheltered hollow he had dug for himself that night, and sees three pairs of boots standing before him, uniform trousers tucked into them; the slight chill of the summer night is still in him, a tattered blanket is tossed down and the order given, in the gruffest commanding tone, tinged with Lithuanian, to follow them to Memel; the vagabond is being placed under arrest, offending public decency being the very least they intended to charge him with.
    One of the gendarmes (he isn’t the brightest) places his booted foot in front of Engelhardt—who has barely had time to pull himself together, wrap himself in the scratchy army blanket, and stand up—causing him to stumble and fall face-first into the sand again. Wicked laughter. Actually, they are all three not the brightest sort. As he is lying before them on the ground, an animalistic and cruel desire to humiliate infects them (for they are officious German subjects), and they begin kicking him and working him over with their fists; the ringleader strikes him on the back with the pommel of his saber since Engelhardt has curled up into a ball to escape the blows. He seeks refuge in white-frothy, buzzing unconsciousness.
    After they’ve dunked him in the cleansing sea—suddenly and rather dimly aware that what they are doing is quite wrong and that Engelhardt isn’t moving anymore—they comb his disheveled hair, wipe the still-flowing blood from his mouth and nostrils, dress him in the smock and sandals they’ve found not far from the sandy hollow, and take him (he’s half carried, half walking on his own) to the police station in Memel, where, accused of vagrancy and immorality, he spends what might be deemed a quite agonizing night on a hard wooden bench, surveying for hours the deepest corners of the detention cell’s ceiling with one eye (the other eye is