Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks
‘You have an architect?’
‘Well . . . He hasn’t done anything yet, but in theory we do.’
‘Could it not be me?’ said Valade.
‘But you are not trained as an architect, are you?’
‘No, but as far as any calculations of weight or stress are concerned, your little engineer could do them, couldn’t he? What was his name?’
‘Geissler. I suppose he could. What about supervising the builders?’
‘I don’t imagine that with you and your sister and your brother-in-law they will be short of instruction. And your wife told me that the stableboy wants to oversee it as well.’
‘Yes. She mentioned that to me. In fact, it might work quite well. Hans could live up here during the week and make sure they do what they are meant to. He has become quite bossy lately. He is a nuisance at the schloss. I imagine most of the builders will live up here as well rather than go up and down by mule, and he could keep an eye on them.’
‘May I make a suggestion?’
‘Of course.’
‘The sooner you get the cable-car installed, the easier it will be. Then you can bring the building supplies up on it.’
During March and April, Jacques and Sonia, with the help of Herr Leopold and a lawyer called Kalman, set about forming a small company to finance the building of the railway and the cable-car. Jacques talked to the mayor and persuaded him that the new schloss would bring renown to the district; he persuaded him to invest some money from the city reserves on financing the rail extension. In return, he conceded that for the first five years passengers would not be charged for this part of the journey, which took them about a third of the way up the mountain, to a place from which there were many walks to be enjoyed. They would build a refuge here, a modest version of the Rubio pavilion in Echo Mountain, with food and drink, lavatories and first aid for blisters, heatstroke and such things. The mayor agreed, knowing that his city’s wealth depended on attracting summer visitors. Jacques also went to the physics and astronomy department of the university and explained that the Wilhelmskogel would offer an excellent site for the telescope which he knew they had not been allowed to situate on the nearby Magdalensberg; in return for funds for the building of the cable-car, he proposed that all members of the university department should receive free transport to the telescope at the summit, an arrangement to be reviewed after ten years. It happened that the university’s endowment exceeded the requirements of the modest number of students it attracted and its treasurer was eager to invest. Thomas then wrote to their old patron Monsieur Kalaji in Paris; he received a reply from the secretary of his foundation saying that Kalaji was abroad and could not be reached for several months, but in view of the success of his investment in the schloss, the secretary was authorised to make another advance up to a certain figure; further funds would have to await Kalaji’s return. The balance of money they needed was raised by a stock issue for the Wilhelmskogel Railway and Cable-Car Company supervised by Herr Leopold’s head office inVienna, and by the time the surveyor’s full report arrived in late April they had funds enough to start the work.
The existing branch line in the valley was served by small steam engines, but Geissler had determined that the Wilhelmskogel line should run on electric traction, and although it was referred to as a ‘spur’, the rails did not actually join those of the steam line. Passengers were to dismount and cross a sturdy wooden platform to join the mountain railway; at one end of the platform was an engine shed and at the other the electric power house. The first spike was driven by Daniel Rebière at noon on May 30th, 1897, his mother holding the hammer in his hands, the moment repeated several times for the benefit of his Uncle Thomas’s Kodak camera. Sonia was appalled to see how grey her hair was growing when the picture was eventually printed.
A photographer from the local newspaper was also present, and his picture appeared on the front page under the headline: ‘All Aboard for the Madhouse! Doctor’s wife inaugurates new railway to proposed mountaintop sanatorium.’ The article went on:
Work has begun on a new private railway line under the direction of Herr Tobias Geissler, the well-known Villach engineer. More than forty labourers, mostly Slovene-speakers from Karfreit in the Julian Alps, are working night and day to lay two kilometres of track up a slope in the foothills of the Wilhelmskogel.
At the narrow-gauge railway terminus, passengers may transfer to an electric cable-car that will take them on a gradient of almost one-in-two, up to the top of the mountain. Here, local alienists Dr Thomas Midwinter, aged 37, from England, and Dr Jacques Rebière, also 37, from France, are to move their existing Schloss Seeblick sanatorium for nervous disorders.
Work is going on simultaneously on ‘grading’the slope for the cable-car lift. Herr Geissler assured reporters that there would be no repeat of the loud explosions which alarmed local residents throughout last week.
‘It was necessary to lay sizeable dynamite charges to clear the rocks at the foot of the cableway,’ Herr Geissler explained. ‘Men were lowered on ropes to drill holes in the rock for the placing of the charges. But I believe the rest of it can be cleared by hand. We apologise for any disturbance caused by the explosions.’
The electric railway will span minor gulfs and ravines in the foothills by means of large wooden trestles which are already under construction. The design of the two electric railway cars is based by Herr Geissler on that of a Viennese tram; it takes power from 600-volt conventional overhead cables, many of which are already in place. The cars are being built by the Neubauer-Hebenstreit iron works in Villach, under Herr Geissler’s supervision.
The most unusual aspect of the work, however, is the steep cable-car lift to the summit. Dr Rebière travelled to California in the United States of America to inspect a similar system last year, and is collaborating closely with Herr Geissler on the construction. The main wheels and cables are being made in Bavaria, but the car itself will be manufactured locally by Blatnik and Sons in Graz.
Use of the cable-car will at first be restricted to patients and staff of the sanatorium, though it is hoped that it will be opened to the public when the summit has been sufficiently developed to afford privacy to the patients and recreational facilities for the paying public. Viewing platforms, a restaurant and a small zoo are envisaged.
‘It is important to get the cable-car running as soon as possible,’ said Dr Rebière. ‘Then we can use it to take building materials to the summit.’
The famous Parisian architect Monsieur Pierre Valade is a consultant to the building work, which is being overseen by Schloss Seeblick employee and local man, Hans Eckert, aged 29. It is expected that the work will take eighteen months to complete.’
As the labourers cleared and smoothed the cableway, they discovered they could not dispose of the debris without blocking the run below, so had to drag it fifty metres up the hill and tip it down a side canyon, a vertical gash that ran all the way to the top, parallel to the gentler Incline up which the cable-car would run.
Progress through the summer was extremely slow.
‘Do not worry, gentlemen,’ said Geissler. ‘It is always this way. Once the electric railway is complete, it will be much faster to take what we need to the foot of the cable-car. Once the cable Incline is graded, the rails are down and we can pull a wagon up, the work at the summit will rush ahead. At the moment, everything waits on everything else. It is just hard labour, hacking rock, night and day. Life is sometimes like that. There is a time to dance and a time to keep hacking rocks, but one must not lose the faith. When it lifts, it will all lift at once.’
Geissler moved into the schloss and sat up late with Jacques in his consulting room, where the new electric lights illuminated the plans he spread across the desk. He stabbed his forefinger at the paper.
‘The car will have the capacity to carry twelve people. To reduce the weight, I propose a tin roof, though of course we must have closed wood-and-glass sides in our climate. I calculate i
‘A hypothetical horse,’ said Jacques.
‘Precisely. I also calculate that perhaps a third of the necessary power can be generated and stored by the descent.’ Geissler laughed. ‘Not quite perpetual motion but a damned good effort. The main power source, as you know, is a series of two hundred storage batteries.’
Jacques had a sudden picture in his mind of old Signor Volta with two hundred batteries beneath his tongue. Suppressing a smile, he said, ‘How is the water supply?’
‘Almost ready. The stream from the summit, which will provide your daily needs, has been diverted into a reservoir. A narrow pipe runs down to a 75-horsepower waterwheel at the foot of the Incline. The volume of water is small, but the pressure is intense.’
The main cable was only four centimetres in diameter. It was spliced round grip wheels at the top and bottom of the Incline; the lower wheel was placed below the platform with access for engineers to go in and adjust the tension. Geissler had it tested to twenty times its maximum load and specified a second, independent safety cable that could stop a full car in less than a metre. The car was to be detached each night and the cable wound on a fixed distance daily to prevent uneven wear.
‘The main wheel is cast-iron,’ said Geissler, ‘three metres in diameter, attached to an electric motor. If the wheel itself is geared to turn at twelve revolutions per minute, then the Incline should, I calculate, take six minutes to ascend. How’s that, Doctor?’
‘I think anything faster would scare the patients, Tobias.’
On through the summer, the autumn and deep into the winter, the Karfreit workers toiled. They moved into the buildings on the summit and at night made conflagrations in the huge stone fireplaces from spare railway sleepers.
Hans watched over them fiercely, excited by his first position of authority and determined to make sure his employers were not cheated by the workforce. Food still had to be brought up by mule, but they established a cook-tent halfway up the mountain for the midday meal. The Slovenes were dark, lean men who liked eating, particularly when once a week they had breaded veal with cheese sauce; they also liked wine – and dancing if they were given a chance – but were prepared to work in all weathers and, so far as Hans could see, with minimal rest.
Jacques was taken in the coach by Josef to inspect the work once a week, but he seldom went to the top since it took a further hour by mule. He relied on daily despatches from Geissler and a weekly report from Hans when he came back for his day off at the schloss.
By the following summer, the railway was almost complete, but a fall of rock on the cableway took six weeks to clear and extra men had to be drafted in to try to complete the work by Christmas 1898. This would still allow a year for the work on the sanatorium itself to be completed in time for a move in the last days of the century.
Life in the Schloss Seeblick seemed to slow down, because everything – appointments, repairs, planning – became provisional.
Sonia watched Daniel wander round the garden with the handle of a wicker basket of toy animals digging into the flesh of his right arm. She regretted the imminent move, because, although she saw that it was inevitable, and a measure of their success and optimism, she did not see how they could be more happy than they were. Never mind, she thought; her husband had regained some of that imaginative fire that had first made her love him; she could see that the move would be good for him and so, in a way, it must be good for her and Daniel too. The unexpected bonus in her life was that she had come to love Kitty, who made her laugh immoderately, particularly when confiding in her about Thomas’s peculiarities, though Sonia could never quite stop herself thinking of her as an invalid.
Jacques counted the days impatiently until he could make a new start and put behind him the irksome memories of his professional failures at the schloss. He liked the buildings well enough, but he had not cured his brother and he had not made his name. Thomas shared his excitement; he felt there was something propitious about their moving at the start of a new century. They had paused; but now they would move on with new heart to fulfil the youthful ambitions they had declared at Deauville.
Kitty loved her South Court home, the chestnut tree and the room where the girls had been born. When it was being cleaned for a new arrival, she went to visit Number 18, where she had lived as a patient. She remembered how Thomas had stepped in off the balcony, then seemed to unravel in front of her; how he had seen himself whole for the first time. It was a moment of privilege, and one on which she knew her own life had turned. She remembered, too, how he had gone down on his knee to propose to her, with the mountains behind him; and for these and many other reasons, she was sad to leave. Yet she had been the newcomer; she had tactfully restrained herself, particularly with Sonia who, while she could not imaginably have been more generous, sometimes spoke her mind with a directness that Kitty found unnerving. On the mountaintop they would all begin again as equal partners, and she shared Thomas’s delight in the fact that while they would be removed from the world, high above the clamour of the cities of the plain, she could be in the best shopping street in town in half an hour.
The work was not finished by Christmas, nor by February when there was further delay while the workers celebrated the Slovene festival of Kurenti. Hans was informed by their foreman that no work would be done for a week because the men needed to drive out the ‘evil spirits of winter’.
Extra consignments of wine were brought by mule; in the evening the men built a huge fire outside and dressed themselves in animal masks and old furs. They ran through the woods shouting and banging drums; they commanded the evil spirits to be gone, to throw themselves from the summit of the mountain and let the spring begin once more. Hans watched in trepidation, wondering if the exorcism really needed a whole week, and so much wine.
The railway was complete, though the car was not yet ready, and in April the cableway, too, was finished. Horses were led up the mule tracks to the top and attached to a wooden windlass, whose rope was in turn attached to the steel cable itself, which, under Herr Geissler’s agitated supervision, was hauled up to the summit. It took two days to attach the cable at each end and to tension it to Geissler’s satisfaction. The car itself was still being weatherproofed and painted in Graz, but it was possible to attach an open truck to the cable and it was proposed that this first ascent should be marked by a celebration. Although the mayor had agreed to officiate at the formal opening, whenever that should be, Sonia was selected to break a bottle of champagne on the top wheel at four o’clock on April 20, and so inaugurate the run.
XVII
‘SO, YOU SEE, we are all of us happy in our different ways,’ said Thomas.
‘As happy, at least, as we have any right to expect,’ said Kitty. ‘There are philosophers who tell us that happiness is not a proper goal for humans. They say it is infantile to expect to feel happy. It is just an emotion, a transitory feeling, not an adequate purpose for a life. They say you should make your life’s work something more enduring.’
‘Yes, I think I have read some of those philosophers. What they say is logical, but it does not seem especially true. It is not how we experience life, is it, Kitten?’
‘I try to think that way,’ said Kitty. ‘But I think being happy is one of the few things I am any good at, so I am reluctant to throw it away. Especially since I have known what it is to be unhappy.’
‘You hold fast to it, my love. We shall need it on the mountain top.’ Thomas frowned. ‘Of course the only person one cannot say is looking forward to the move, or to anything at all so far as we know, is Olivier.’
‘Do you think he is ever happy?’
‘It is impossible to say. To hear those voices day and night would make you or me most desperately miserable, but with Olivier you cannot always be sure what he feels.’
‘Why won’t he get up? Why
‘Lazy. Good for nothing.’
‘Today he must do it. He must end it.’
‘He is a sodomite. The world is better without him.’
‘They have made a railway for him.’
‘Look at him.’
‘Why doesn’t he do what he is told and just put an end to it?’
‘They let him have a razor now because they know he is too feeble to do any harm.’
‘Too much of a coward.’
‘He killed his mother. He split her cunt, so she died when the next baby came.’
‘They needed a proper child. The second time they got the one they wanted.’
‘But she couldn’t survive. Not after what he had done to her.’
‘What is he doing here?’
‘Why is he infecting the world? Look at all the people he has made ill with his thoughts.’
‘All he is good for is to lie and play with himself.’
‘Cunt-splitter.’
‘Ape.’
‘This railway. It’s for him, isn’t it?’
‘They have given up hope that he will do the right thing.’
‘He doesn’t even know what the right thing is any more.’
‘Sodomite. He should have died when the cities of the plain were burned.’
‘How did he escape? He who dreams of fucking the young women and the boys? Fucking them in the shithole like an animal.’
‘The Englishwoman. He wants to fuck her, doesn’t he? When he rubs himself?’
I must move, thought Olivier, I must get dressed. Here is a shirt on the chair. I must move ahead. I must not melt. I must find my edges.
I cannot concentrate on what the Seamstress is telling me because of the people I see. All these seen-people with their faint voices, too faint for me to catch.
Here is the seen-girl.
‘Good morning, Olivier. It’s just your old Daisy again. Nothing to fret about. It’s time for breakfast.’