Chapter 1

                           Arrival

     The subway car was filled to capacity.  Already several
minutes had elapsed during which, for no apparent reason, or
perhaps on account of a power failure, the train, enveloped
in darkness, had remained stalled in the tunnel.  The hum of
the air-conditioners had long since given way to silence.
The passengers, at first surprised by their unexpected
imprisonment, but now on the threshold of fear, spoke only in
whispers, as if by subduing their voices to make audible the
machinery's slightest murmurs, they might also hasten its
revival.  The anxious breathing of almost a hundred
perspiring chests, expanding as if in hope, but all too soon
collapsing in disappointment, filled the constricted space as
with the hum of a single enormous insect.  The two dim
yellowish incandescent emergency lamps, one at either end of
the car, afforded but slight relief from the encompassing
darkness.  An increasingly noticeable and oppressive odor of
bodily emanations suffused the narrow metallic container and
reminded at least Joachim Magus of the remote, but by no
means unimaginable possibility that it might turn into the
gas chamber in which they would all be suffocated.

     With his cheap black cardboard suitcase protectively
clamped within the confines of his legs and ankles, he leaned
and pressed against one of the elongated sliding-doors
through which the mass of humanity had been funneled into
this tight enclosure, and through which, God willing, it
would be extruded, perhaps already at the next subway
station.  In the meantime, however, the door was shut and
locked, and through the large vertical rectangular window in
its upper half, nothing was perceptible except for the
impenetrable blackness of the tunnel wall.

     For all that, Joachim Magus derived a certain feeling of
protection, a strange perverted sense of freedom, from the
opportunity to force his left shoulder and his left hip
against the cold metal door of the subway car, locked though
it might be, rather than being forced to meld into the matrix
of warm moist and spongy animal bodies in which he was
perforce embedded.  Immediately in front of his face there
rose, purplish crimson and swarthy, the cheeks of a corpulent
police officer with watery blue eyes reminiscent of faded
flowers, his dark blue uniform festooned with night stick,
handcuffs and a gleaming pistol, with a gaze that was
impassive and dull, and to Joachim's relief, unmistakably
oblivious of him.  To his right, against his shoulder and
hips, Joachim perceived the soft yielding body of a woman, he
thought of about his own age, surely no more than four or
five years beyond his own eighteen.  Over her shoulders
flowed broad waves of chestnut colored hair in which his gaze
became hopelessly entangled, the while they reflected even in
the dim glow of the emergency lamp a wonderful golden gleam
as if they were illuminated by an otherwise invisible sun.
Inasmuch as her face was turned away from him, he could not
discern its features nor the expression of her eyes, but his
imagination effortlessly supplemented what was masked from
his sight.  Her breasts as well, and they above all, in this
confinement unavoidably, he assumed, pressed into the throng,
were inaccessible to his wistfully curious glances, a
circumstance which Joachim accepted as matter of fact; until
suddenly, although they were turned away from him and
concealed from his gaze by multiple masks, their imagined
nakedness seared his fantasy.  But in the darkness, there was
no danger that any of his fellow travelers, least of all the
swarthy policeman, would notice the redness which suffused
Joachim's cheeks.

     What difference would it have made, if they had been
turned toward him?  For in the spare eighteen years of his
life, Joachim had often enough disciplined himself with the
injunction that it was his duty to resist the charms and
temptations of the flesh; and he was determined that it
should be within his power to fulfill this duty, although as
he grew older, the renunciation presented itself to him as a
task progressively more perplexing and the difficulties that
it caused him loomed more and more intractable.  Here, in the
oppressive closeness of the subway, it seemed to him, that
the quiet satisfaction which he derived from the radiance of
the woman's hair might even have had the implicit approval of
the policeman's indifferent glances; and occasioned, in any
event a significant diminution of the discomfort of his
present position.  In this situation the steel sliding door
against which he nestled all the more deliberately, proved
not unwelcome; for it was less threatening than the blue
policeman, and less ensnaringly seductive than the auburn
waves.

     Joachim wished that he might sit, or even lie down, for
he was tired, and his left foot had begun to hurt.  Since
night before last he had hardly slept, because he had been
awake from dusk to dawn, riding the overnight express train
that brought him from the small town of his childhood in the
South to this metropolis of learning.  To save money he had
refrained from booking a berth, instead sitting up all night,
without sleep, except for perhaps twenty minutes of turbulent
dreaming shortly after five o'clock.  That was by no means
the most consequential ascetic discipline which he imposed on
himself.  This morning he was about to register at the
university.  Within a few days the fall term would begin, his
first academic experience.  How he had longed for this day,
how impatiently he had expected its arrival.  He had perused
numerous books about this city, And all the drawings and
paintings and photographs he could find, he had
conscientiously filed in his memory.  And now the day was
here: what he had for so many months imagined would become
real.

     At this moment, Joachim felt overwhelmed by the tasks
ahead.  Was it really nothing more than exhaustion that
paralyzed him?  Or was the entire enterprise beyond his
powers?  Had he bitten off more than he could chew?
Obviously here and now, in the congested subway car it was
physically impossible for him to turn back.  Quite aside from
which there was no place, either in an intellectual or in an
emotional perspective to which he could return.  There was
hardly a house in this wide variegated world where he could
be sure of being accepted.  Temporarily at least this crowded
railway coach was the only place where he belonged.  It was
the only home he had.  But there was for him some consolation
in the immediate proximity of the girl whose body was pushed
by forces unmeasured and unidentified against his own.  Her
presence allayed at least to some small extent, the muted
anguish of his insecurity, and surely he was deceiving
himself when he deliberated whether, if asked, he should
explain to the policeman that she was a proxy for a sister
that he did not have, or for a mother whom he had never
known.

     So deeply was Joachim's mind submerged in the auburn
waves before him, perhaps it was with open eyes that he fell
into a dreamless sleep, and failed to notice that the train
had again begun to move.  Only after it had reached cruising
speed, and the occupants' whispers were once more drowned in
its muted roar, did Joachim awaken to realize that this stage
of his journey, too, was hastening towards its end.  He
noticed then that the deep subterranean roar had given way to
a light metallic rhythm punctuated by a periodic rattle
rather like a basso continuo.  Suddenly he noted that the
darkness beyond the windowpane against which he had been
resting his brow had been displaced by light. Shadows of
trees, of house gables, flitted by.  The train itself
meanwhile continued to rise, and the nonsensical notion that
perhaps the wagons themselves were becoming lighter slipped
through his mind.  Before long it had attained a rather high
bridge from which there opened an expansive view over a broad
river basin, fringed with the skyline of an impressive
metropolis.  Fascinated by this panorama, so marvelous a
contrast to the tunnel's blackness, Joachim now turned
exclusively to his window in the half-conscious effort to
impress on his memory an ineradicable image of this city,
real as it now appeared, which until now he had known only
from pictures.  This effort was abetted by the paltriness of
the public conveyance on which he found himself, for the
train whose speed had already markedly diminished, once again
lost power, bucked and jerked three times, and slowly coasted
to standstill at the apex of the arch of the bridge.

     Joachim, immersed in contemplation of the cityscape that
stretched before him, failed to notice this renewed
interruption of the trip. The little town in Maryland where
he had grown up could boast of hardly more than two
thoroughfares which crossed at right angles, lined with box-
like warehouses, stores after their fashion, where
shopkeepers offered their wares to the public.  The city now
gleaming in brightest morning sunshine beyond the river was
different, unimaginably different, of that Joachim was
certain.

     His somnolent gaze swept across the river's broad
expanse to its banks, then through shady parks past row upon
row of sun-drenched houses, street after street unfolding
before his eyes, broad avenues teeming with traffic, and
sloping upwards to the crest of the hill that was crowned
with the grand cathedral whose golden dome so dazzled
Joachim's weary eyes even from a distance that he had no
choice but to keep them closed.  Several minutes must have
elapsed, while Joachim stood there asleep.  In such
situations time loses its measure.  Who could declare the
duration that his mind remained balanced, as it were, on the
knife edge of two competing worlds, that ridge where it is
arguable and remains uncertain, whether the imagery perceived
is the product of day or of night, of sleep or of
wakefulness, where thoughts blend with dreams, and dreams
blend with thoughts, and constitute the bridge that unites
the realms of mind and makes consciousness whole.

     With the river's banks behind him, he walks slowly and
deliberately, ascending a broad avenue lined with trees.  To
his left a row of stately mansions, to his right, a vast
garden, where, in beds of flowers, under towering elm and oak
trees, bloom white and yellow daffodils and tulips of every
color surrounded by acres of verdant lawn.  In the center
there is a pond, whose waves, incited by the winds of early
autumn, reflect in alternation the verdure of the overarching
trees, white clusters of cumulus, and the deep azure of the
unclouded sky; while on the glittering surface of the lagoon,
swans as large as boats glide past each other.

     To his left, holding his hand, in step with him, walks a
young woman with auburn hair braided into a knot.  She is his
wife, and he knows of her hair, when late at night, she frees
it from the pins' constraints and lets it fall unfettered
down her back, or at times tosses it forward, transparently
to veil the loving fullness of her bosom, now chastely
concealed in a loose bodice.  For today's festivities, his
wife is simply and demurely dressed, humble and proud at
once, faithful above all, as she accompanies him to the
momentous dedication that is in store.  He turns to her
without slowing his gait.  A glance at the classical profile
of her face exhilerates him, confident as he is that it will
accompany him through life, perhaps a long life ahead of him.
He finds the emptiness of the streets astonishing, marvels at
the townhouses on the left, stately substantial stone
structures fronted with small but immaculate gardens, each
one of which is enclosed by an ornate wrought-iron fence.
His own house is further up, on Cathedral Square, almost at
the summit of the hill.  It faces the church with the golden
dome, where today's festivities are to be held.

     On the post at the corner an enameled sign reminds him
of the name.  It is called, significantly, Joy Street.  What
feeling should he have, other than gratitude?  Here they
turn, and a few paces further, close to the crest of the
hill, stands their house.  His wife unlocks the heavy oaken
door, and follows him inside.  The entrance hall is familiar,
spacious; its walls are white, and from the ceiling, high
above his head, is suspended a cantilevered chandelier of
gleaming brass like a crown about to be lowered onto his
brow.  He turns to enter his study.  There his desk, its
surface of oak and maple inlaid with mahogany, faces a row of
large muntinless windows, and an expansive view of the
harbor.  Here he pauses momentarily.  It is his favorite
view, a view indeed, as he confides to himself, of the
parameters of his existence: he orients himself once more to
the familiar landmarks.  In the foreground, the steep
declivity of the hill.  Further out strechtes the harbor,
studded with sailboats, excursion steamers, an oil tanker and
several freighters.  Beyond them, the harbor islands, on
whose sandy edges he recognizes the foam of breaking waves;
and even further out, beyond all evidence of human effort,
the wide open ocean with scattered whitecaps glistening in
the sun, extending to a horizon lightly veiled in fog, that
merges there with the endless untextured blue-gray vault of
the sky, the object of his yearning.  He cannot say for what
it is that his gaze is searching. He is uncertain whether he
is sleeping or awake.

     His wife's voice startles him.  "It's time", she says,
"Come, let us go."  The while she opens his slim attache case
and shows him the notes and the text of his inaugural
address.  "Need anything else?" she asks.  He leafs through
the pages.  "Thank you," he says, "It's all there."  "What
time is it?" he asks.  "Five of," she replies.  Together they
step through the tall double doors onto the porch above the
plaza.

     The scene has been transformed.  White and blue banners
too numerous to count flutter from tall flagpoles which line
the streets.  In the cathedral square, draped above the main
portal of the church is a banner with a legend, of which
Joachim had expected, had known that would be there, so it
comes as no surprise to him: "JOACHIM MAGUS, PRESIDENT OF THE
FREE WORLD" Even before he and his wife descend from the
porch, there appears a guard of honor of six corpulent police
officers with purplish crimson swarthy cheeks and watery blue
eyes reminiscent of faded flowers, their dark blue uniforms
festooned with night sticks, handcuffs and gleaming
pistols.  They are to conduct him to his inauguration.

     His predecessor in office and the chief justice are
waiting.  The chief justice looks at him and asks: "Do you",
then mouths something which is supposed to sound like Joachim
Magus, but in fact remains incomprehensible to the
uninitiated, and proceeds, somewhat relieved, "solemnly
swear," Joachim repeats after him, and hears himself say
infront of the assembled crowd: "I Joachim Magus promise and
swear before God faithfully and conscientiously to discharge
the duties of the President of the Free World, and to protect
and preserve the constitution of the Free World with all the
resources at my disposal."

     His next move is totally unexpected by his audience, but
since he is now the President, one pretends that even the
most unexpected action is wholly in order.  Of the hundreds
of people assembled in the Cathedral none makes a move.
Joachim walks to the organ desk and sits down before it.  His
wife appears with the notes and slips onto the bench next to
him, setting the score on the music stand.  It is the
Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C Major that he has selected for
his inauguration.  He pulls out the stops.  Cautiously and
responsibly he touches the keys.  The cavernous sanctuary
resounds with the mighty opening chords, and every listener
knows that a new epoch has begun.

     Effortlessly, as if charmed by the music, his fingers
trace the sequences of notes, measure for measure.  Calmly
reflective they tell the secrets of the Adagio then to ascend
with self-confident determination to the magnificent edifice
of the great fugue, to its end and its victorious conclusion.
It is the first and the most significant of his official
actions.  He has absolved it faultlessly, without a single
mistake.

     Now he strides to the lectern.  Here too his wife
accompanies him.  On the inclined wooden table, she unfolds
his manuscript, of which in fact he has no need, because what
he is about to say, is imprinted in his heart and flows
effortlessly over his lips.

     He articulates his conviction that the world, once and
for all liberated from tyranny and tyrants, is subject to
perfect laws of harmony, comparable if not indeed identical
to that which even now was made immediate in the Adagio he
has just performed.  He reiterates his conviction that men
and women fulfill their mission in this world by echoing and
resonating with, by becoming part of this harmony which is
expressed in the good and virtues action of each and every
individual one, and that through mankind's progressive
evolution to virtue a perfect social order will imminently be
established, perhaps as soon as within the first hundred days
of his presidency.  The individual will be integrated into
his nation, the nation integrated into mankind and mankind
will reveal itself part of a universe of perfect cosmic
harmony.  This is the harmony of reason which shall banish
all poverty, make all evil to disappear, and all crime to
cease.  There shall be perfect laws which shall be perfectly
obeyed.  All wars and conflicts shall be relegated to the
past.  Men shall henceforth live in happiness and peace as
brothers and sisters one with the other.  At this juncture he
pauses, made uncomfortable by the contradiction that his
wife, who is standing beside him, is not and may not be his
sister. He glosses over the incongruity to proceed.  He would
not be candid, he says, were he not to point out that with
his assumption of the presidency, with the musical performance
of a few moments ago, this epoch of humanity has actually
already set in.  Inasmuch as so many if not indeed all social
and economic problems are about to be solved, there remains
only one further task, namely the task of inaugurating and
introducing a new age of universal fraternity and sorority,
the age of neighborly love. And accordingly he, President
Magus, therefore urgently invites all citizens, including
those who have opposed him in the past, to join with him, and
to support him in this noble endeavor.

     He has finished.  A meditative silence falls over the
crowd.  Then music begins once more: "O Freunde, nicht diese
Toene," a tenor is singing.  "sondern lasst uns froehlichere
anstimmen, und freudevollere," and soon the quartet of voices
appeals for happiness and brotherly love.  Joachim is much
taken with the style and with the sophistication of these
inaugural ceremonies.  He is completely satisfied.  Indeed
his enthusiasm is such that he cannot resist participating in
the exhilarating celebration, in this hymn to joy which he
finds all too human and at the same time extraordinarily
humane.  So he joins in the chorus:

     "Freude trinken alle Wesen
     An den Bruesten der Natur,
     alle Guten, alle Boesen
     Folgen ihrer Rosenspur.
     Kuesse gab sie uns und Reben
     Einen Freund geprueft im Tod,
     Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben
     Und der Cherub steht vor Gott."

     And because the chorus is large and the music is loud,
Joachim too sings at the top of his voice: "Und der Cherub
steht vor Gott."  and shouts, as the score dictates: louder
and louder: "Vor Gott ... Vor Gott" until finally his voice
dominates the chaos in the subway car.

     It is a rather forceful blow on his shoulder that shakes
and wakes him from his dream.  "Hey, man, are you crazy?
You're not supposed to sing in the subway.  You're disturbing
the peace."  It was the voice of the bleary eyed policeman,
which Joachim heard, with the ominous sequel: "Are you on
drugs?"  "Oh, I'm sorry," Joachim said, "I must have slept.
I'm so tired. I was up all night."  The explanation seemed to
satisfy the policeman, all the more when from beyond the
flowing hair there sounded the melodious voice of a woman, "I
thought it sounded very nice; you shouldn't have woken him
up."  The approval of his unknown beloved caused redness to
suffuse Joachim's face, without however attaining the rubor
of the policeman's temples.  The endorsement of the attactive
young woman seemed for the moment at least to compensate
Joachim for the evaporation of the presidency that his dream
had bestowed on him.

     The motors of the train had likewise woken up, and it
began once more in jerks and starts, but then more fluently
and faster, to descend from the top, from the apex of the
bridge to the other side of the river into the open gorge of
the tunnel.  The magic image of the city which had
precipitated Joachim's fantasy also began to move, and
inexorably to disappear behind a low wall at the edge of the
embankment.  It took him a moment to realize that he was once
more engulfed in darkness.

     Beyond the elongated window, Joachim could discern
somewhere in the blackness of the subway tunnel, the fading
afterimage of the cathedral's gilded dome; and in his ears
there echoed, blending with the rattle and roar of the train,
the strains of the majestic fugue with which he had
inaugurated his term in office.  Although the bleary-eyed
police officer had roused him from the dream of his
cosmopolitan presidency in a most uncouth and impolite
manner, Joachim Magus felt nonetheless that in principle he,
Magus, had prevailed, if only by virtue of the circumstance
that the policeman, after all, had been ordered to
participate in the honor guard for the inauguration.  In any
event, Joachim was now no longer afraid of him, and began as
well as he was able, given the ferocity of the prevailing
noise, to sing along with the notes that he thought he heard:
tih ti ta tih ta tih ta tah.  With his tired temple, he
pounded the beat against the bolted exit.  He felt no pain.
Considering his state of exhaustion, and particularly given
the congestion of the subway car which he had endured already
for a period so protracted that he could not estimate its
length, Joachim felt surprisingly well, and it was with
stupid disappointment that he became aware of the diminishing
speed of the train which even now was finally entering the
next subterranean railroad station.  Joachim might reasonably
have hoped that an appreciable number of his fellow travelers
would seize this opportunity to escape their confinement, and
thereby ameliorate the crowding in the train.  But this was
not at all what Joachim wished, because he reasoned that in
such a case the girl immediately to his right also would move
away from him, perhaps even step out of the subway car, and
depart for ever, a notion which discomfited him, given that
in these alien surroundings, her nearness provided him with
an inexplicable sense of security.  Not even did he wish the
policeman to disappear, given that it was the officer to whom
Joachim owed the license to immerse his imagination and his
longing in the auburn undulations, a licence renewable from
moment to moment, as the policeman, expressionless in his
blue uniform, held silent watch over Joachim's weary
yearning.

     Yet the crisis resolved itself differently from what
Joachim had expected.  The train soon came to a stop in a
brightly lit subterranean expanse.  Still, the sliding door
on the left, against which Joachim had been leaning and
beating out the rhythm of the fugue, remained closed, because
the platform abutted not Joachim's but the other side of the
train.  After those doors finally slid open, and numerous
passengers availed themselves of the newly accessible route
of escape, it took yet additional time before the developing
space expanded to the territory where Joachim, his woman and
his body-guard had been confined.  But then, with a start,
the policeman in blue roused himself, with rapid wooden steps
walked toward the door, and promptly disappeared on the
platform, far beyond the auburn hair.

     These were the moments, and they must have comprised
several seconds, which would determine how far the girl,
which internal dynamics had impelled against him in the
subway car, would be separated from him, for the number of
departing passengers made it obvious that already at this
subway stop the congestion would abate.  With respect to
himself, Joachim was determined to maintain his station,
leaving the black suitcase wedged in its place between his
feet.  His own position as its guardian he wanted unchanged.
Were the girl to exit the train at the present stop, then
aside from his diffidence and shyness, practical
considerations would preclude his pursuing her.  But if she
remained in the car, then no matter where she moved, nothing
would prevent him from following her with his gaze.

     The woman, however, appeared in no hurry to make any
move at all, and Joachim flattered himself with the notion
that perhaps inspite of his all-night vigil in the express
train from Maryland, and notwithstanding the dissheveled coat
and the crumpled trousers, his proximity was not necessarily
objectionable to her.  Finally however, when no further
passenger made any gesture to leave the car, and when on the
opposing bench a seat had become vacant, she moved quickly to
claim it, tossed her hair with seeming determination to
disentagle some strands that were not to her liking, seated
herself, and alternated between staring at Joachim with his
decrepit suitcase, and glancing at the colorful
advertisements plastered on the rounded edges of the ceiling.
Joachim had followed her movements with his eyes, and was
even now glancing in her direction, but deliberately above
her head, and avoiding to look in her face.  Then, when he
noticed that she was scanning the advertisements, he took the
occasion to assess her from head to toe.  Her face he found
was rigid and expressionless, a disappointment to him, and
concealed by the ample pleats of her overcoat, the
configuration of her body was indiscernable.  Joachim was too
fatigued, and perhaps also still too much under the
impression of his inauguration, even to make the effort to
try to summon his imagination to substitute for what his eyes
could not see.  Finally she looked down, directly at him, and
when he met her gaze, he returned it dispassionately, without
commitment.

     Before long, the train was once more in rapid motion,
racing to the next, the final destination, where he, Joachim
Magus, also would have to get off, and where unavoidably the
girl would have to follow him through the sliding door, or 
vice versa.  Joachim as yet had no idea how he would manage
this departure; for on the one hand he did not wish
arbitrarily to curtail the all too brief togetherness, but,
on the other hand, he was determined not to chase her.  He
did not wish to abandon her, but neither did he want to be
abandoned.  He tugged at his dilapidated suitcase with a view
to testing its integrity; lifted it, to assure himself of
strength enough to carry it, but also to make certain that
its insubstantial frame had not prematurely disintegrated,
and that it would survive the presumably brief journey to his
new quarters.

     While preparing himself to get off the train, he
remembered the landscape, the skyline which had so impressed
him from the apex of the bridge, and had provoked his
unusual, and in fact hightly disconcerting dream, even now
once more so vivid, as if he were transported a second time
into the fairyland of sleep.  Especially embarrassing and
humiliating was the circumstance that obviously the dream
represented the fulfillment of his wishes, the gratification
of his cravings for wealth, for power, for fame and for love,
desires which he considered impure and therefore prohibited,
because, as he explained to himself, they distracted and
burdened and corrupted the soul, and were in no way offset by
the comprehensive harmony of which he had also dreamed.  For
that harmony, Joachim now became acutely aware, was
unavoidably disrupted by the struggle for wealth and fame,
not to speak of the chaos precipitated by sexual desire.  Oh,
this dream, however satisfying it might have been, presumed
to reconcile ultimately irreconcilable contradictions; and
for that reason was profoundly flawed and fraudulent, worthy
of nothing but repudiation.  And yet, gazing at the woman on
the opposite bench, who at this moment seemed to be lost in
thought while looking at him with her gray-green eyes,
Joachim considered that there was no prohibition against
fantasy and that he might from time to time permit himself
the extravagance of just such a dream as he had enjoyed and
endured on this trip.  That indulgence would make the
imminent separation from his girl friend considerably less
painful.

     The train had long since entered the brightly lit
caverns of the University Square station, had slowed with
uncouth squeaking of its brakes, and with a feeble lurch, had
come to complete standstill.  Joachim understood that
instead of procrastinating with vacuous fantasies, he needed
promptly to clear out of this car not only himself, but also
his baggage, cumbersome enough; else perhaps he and his heavy
suitcase would end up in some railroad shed, or at whatever
other destination this decommissioned train might have.  The
sliding doors, again on the opposite side, had opened, and now
Joachim lugged his big black cardboard suitcase as quickly as
he could through the doors and across the platform to the
tall turnstile gratings which, to foil freeloaders, blocked
the exit.  Two such rotating lattice doors had been installed
in front of the escalators, toothless meat-purveyors as it
were, into which passengers needing to get out of the subway
were constrained to squeeze themselves, only to let the
mechanical monsters promptly disgorge them, more or less
intact, onto the adjacent moving stairs.  For Joachim,
however, the exit was anything but simple.  He was in a
quandry, because the suitcase he was dragging was obviously
too long to fit into the constricted cavity of the turning
grid.  Wavering and irresolute he watched the steelstaved
doors go round and round.  He had no idea what he would do,
when he heard behind him the vaguely familiar voice of a
woman.  He turned and saw immediately that it belonged to the
girl on whom he had lavished so disproportionate a measure of
attention during the subway ride that had turned out to be
exhausting in so many respects.  "You've got to put it up on
end," she had said, "This way."  And without waiting for
Joachim to follow her directions, she grabbed the suitcase,
tilted it up, and determined to test the feasibility of her
instructions, dragged the shabby, but inordinately heavy
piece of baggage with her into the rotating cage.  Mindful
that the entirety of his worldly possessions was about to be
taken from him without his permission, Joachim, in pursuit of
the girl with his suitcase, thrust himself into the metal
crevice just as it was closing.

     With implacable constancy, the law of inertia impelled
the tripartite prison around its central axis.  It forced its
two detainees one against the other, with the heavy black
suitcase a mere inanimate accessory after the fact, and
forced them to become entwined one with the other, or so it
seemed to Joachim, like some monstrous four legged creature,
if only transiently.  It can't have been more than a matter
of seconds, that the boy and the girl, caught together in the
narrow compartment of the revolving door, in the close
quarters of the rotating cage, all the more cramped on
account of the bulk of Joachim's heavy suitcase, found
themselves trapped in intimate physical proximity.
Immediately thereafter, pursuant to the laws of rotational
interia, they were released. Stumbling and flailing they
regained their freedom.  The physical closeness had lasted
but a matter of moments, long enough however, for Joachim's
heartbeat to pound his throat, and from his Adam's apple to
the spine between his shoulder blades he felt as if his chest
had been pierced by a knife.  "Oh thank you, thank you very
much." was all he managed to say.  The girl for her part also
seemed overwhelmed by the unexpected mechanical confusion.
With a furtive glance she assured herself that her
acquaintance and his baggage were uninjured, and with a hasty
"Good Bye" she scurried up the electric escalator, speeding
her ascent by bounding up the moving stairs, which would have
taken her to the surface in any event, two steps at a time.
Joachim and his suitcase followed her up the fluid treads,
but at such distance that when he finally reached the head
of the stairs, although he looked everywhere, he could see no
sign of the girl in any direction.

     Joachim paused at the head of the stairs and glanced
down the escalator enclosure through which he and his heavy
suitcase had been delivered into the daylight.  No one else
was coming.  He was the last.  Even without the subway
adventure from which he had just emerged, the trip through
the night had been tiring enough.  The oppressive congestion,
the exotic, irresponsible dream, the unwitting seduction by
the woman with the auburn hair who, it turned out, was far
from reticent, or in any event, not nearly as reticent as
Joachim himself, which led ultimately to the bizarre and
terrifying moment in the turnstile cage, the sum total of
it all had exhausted him.  He was relieved, but admittedly,
also disappointed to have lost what seemed the first and
only girl friend he had ever had.  But then he reminded
himself most forcefully of his duties and obligations, of
his intentions, and of the goal that he had set himself. 
Looking around a second time, he was undecided in which
direction to turn.  The sidewalk was crowded.  Old people,
very old people with canes and even walkers blocked the
paths of stately, determined looking professors. 
Scurrying students darted unpredictably from among the older
pedestrians and disappeared again into the maelstrom.
Joachim concluded it would be best to try to intercept one of
the younger people to inquire how to get to his dormitory.
His hands searched his pockets and found the letter from the
housing office which informed him of the dormitory to which
he had been assigned.  Although back in Maryland and on the
train, he must have read the name, he said to himself, a
hundred times, now to reassure himself, he read the name
again: Das Eulenhaus.  Strange that it should be so German a
name in an American university.  When he had the opportunity,
he would ask someone who knew, how or where the anomalous
designation had originated.  Das Eulenhaus.  He had
practiced, he thought, until he could pronounce it like a
native.  But just to be sure, he repeated it again, under his
breath.  Das Eulenhaus.

     It was a large muscular young man who advanced from the
sidewalk crowd to the place where Joachim was standing.  It
was remarkable, he thought, that although fall was in the
air, and he himself felt rather chilly, the athlete, for that
is what he surely must be, was dressed only in shorts and a
snug-fitting T-shirt on the front of which the name of the
university was emblazoned in large ornate red letters, while
on the back in smaller characters, the name, Chester.
Joachim deemed him to be a fellow student and addressed him
in a voice inadvertently much louder than he had intended.
"How do I get to "Das Eulenhaus", Joachim asked, well
satisfied with the studied pronunciation of the foreign name,
all the while clutching more tightly the handle of the
suitcase, which in the rays of the morning sun appeared even
more battered than in the murkiness of the subway.  The
football player rudely continued on, pretending not to have
heard Joachim's question, but then, on second thought he
turned on his heel and with a disdainful look took Joachim's
measure.  The incongruous appearance of the stooped and
dissheveled freshman bending under the weight of a
provocatively shabby suitcase aroused his curiosity.  With
condescending helpfulness Chester asked: "What did you say?"
Joachim, now less sure of himself, repeated: "Das Eulenhaus."
Chester shook his head.  "Never heard of such a place," he
said.  "You're in the wrong place, my lad."  Joachim
protested: "But its right here, written here," and unfolded
the letter from the housing office.  "Right here it says:
Your assigned room is Eulenhaus #3."  "Oh, Youlenhouse,
that's where you're heading, Youlenhouse is how we pronounce
it.  It's over there," said Chester as he pointed to an
ornate building whose bricks glowed crimson in the morning
sun.  "Where you from, anyway?" he asked.  "I'm from
Maryland," Joachim said humbly.  "So that's how they talk in
Maryland?"  Chester's sense of superiority made him
loquacious.  "Youlenhouse," he proclaimed grandly, "is next
door to University Hall.  That's where the president's
offices are.  In this place, you know, they change their
presidents the way the rest of us change our underwear.  You
might just knock on the door.  If there's no one sitting at
the desk, it means they've just booted the old one out, and
you might have a job.  You could be the new president.
Surprise! Surprise!"  But it was Chester's turn to be
surprised, because Joachim's features, contorted first into a
pitiful grimace, then disintegrated into sobbing that Joachim
tried vainly to control. It was more than Chester could take.
The athlete looked at poor Joachim with disgust.  "What's the
matter with you?" he sneered, then said to himself under his
breath, "Must be some sort of freak. What a nut."

     As soon as the burly one was gone, Joachim regained his
control.  He wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of
his hand.  He was relieved that Das Eulenhaus was in fact
close by, no more than five-hundred feet beyond the gate in
front of which the two of them had conferred.

     A gilded owl, mounted on a sable tablet which was in
turn anchored with bright brass bolts in the red bricks of
the portico-facade, confirmed that he had reached his
destination.  Joachim paused, clamped his suitcase between
his ankles, and took stock of his new home.  He hadn't
thought that it would be so impressive.  It was a masonry
structure of five storeys, perhaps a hundred fifty feet long
and half as broad, built with a blend of neo-roman and neo-
gothic detail. The windows of the first floor were set under
smooth romanesque arches.  The second floor windows were
capped with blunted gothic cusps, while on the third and
fourth floors the lintels consisted of unadorned horizontal
granite slabs; and these were most pleasing to him because
they were plain and simple.

     The letter from the authorities, he now remembered, had
made it explicit that his room was No. 3, and he assumed that
it was located on the ground floor.  He surveyed the
building's facade and noted that his room would indeed be
situated only a few steps above the ground.  He approved and
thought that he should be satisfied.  Accordingly he scanned
the lowest row of windows wondering behind which one his own
quarters would be located, then permitted his gaze to climb
up the fiery red facade, and said to himself that it really
wouldn't make sense, merely because of their more attractive
lintels to have to climb up and down three or four flights of
stairs several times each day. Although he hadn't spoken to
anyone, the frivolity of his musings made him feel foolish.

     Along the front of Das Eulenhaus, - Joachim couldn't
accept Chester's anglicized pronunciation, and still thought
of it by that name, stretched a terrace also surfaced with
brick, which terminated at each end in roofed porticos
enclosing the entrance doors.  He had no clue which of these
portals led to his room.  They both stood open. He chose the
northerly one and carried his suitcase inside.

     He hadn't expected that it would be so dark.  Under the
tall elms and oaks in the yard outside, his eyes had become
adapted to vivid illumination.  Here, in what he thought must
be a hallway, he couldn't see anything at all.  He hoped it
was only transient, but he could not quite disabuse himself
of the fear that he was going blind.  Or was he just dreaming
and was it his exhaustion that was paralyzing his sight?  But
before his eyes had accommodated themselves to the dark,
there sounded a voice, of which at first, he couldn't tell
from what direction it came: "You there, you're in the way.
what is it that you need?"  The words had an unexpected
inflection that seemed familiar and inspired Joachim with
confidence.  "Room 3,"  he said, "I've been assigned Room 3."
he answered.  "Did you get your key?  It's Mac. Mac is here
to take care of each and every one of you."

     Joachim's eyes has begun to get used to the darkness,
and he was now able to discern the shape of a man who stood
in the doorway of a small office.  To the moulding over his
head was stapled a placard of white cardboard, obviously
improvised and home-made, with a legend, inked on two lines:
Mac Super.  In the intervening space someone had scrawled in
pencil the single word "is", an emendation which summarized
everything.  "Where do I find Mac?" Joachim asked.  The man
shook his head: "You found him," he said, beningly tolerant
of Joachim's confusion.  "Can't leave your luggage in the
hallway.  Someone will fall over it.  Set it here in the
office, where the others are.  Then go register and get your
key."

     "What's your name, anyway?" Mac added, as if inquiring
after the student's name were an afterthought he had almost
neglected.  "My name is Joachim Magus," he replied,
meticulously enunciating the rough "ch", the bland "a" and
the sharp "g" of his name; and then he felt more poignantly
embarrassed than ever, because he knew his first name was
unpronounceable, and his last name, he thought, was
pretentiously exotic, especially since he considered their
faithful German pronunciation an obligation to the integrity
of his unknown past, although he himself was only moderately
proficient in that difficult language and the mere
enunciation of his name would unavoidably betray the sombre
secrets of his origins.  Mac, on the other hand, to whom
innumerable students had confided their names on occasions
such as this, and whose ear was experienced in parsing them
for their social, perhaps even for their psychological
implications, responded authoritatively, as if he were
personally offended: "My goodness, what a difficult name to
pronounce!  Mac will end up tying his tongue into a knot, if
he even tries.  Mac will never learn to say it.  Change your
name. Change it right now so we can talk to each other.  Why
not Johnny. Johnny sounds much nicer and is ever so much
easier to say; Johnny will keep Mac's tongue from tying
itself into a knot."  Thereupon Mac's facial expression and
his voice became solemn: "In the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Ghost, I baptize you Johnny. From now
on Johnny shall be your name."  and then in a lighter tone he
added: "Now scram, Johnny, get over to the administration and
get your key, so you can get into your room."

     Was it Mac's unquestionable authority, was it the gloomy
darkness of the place, the novelty of Johnny's situation, his
state of exhaustion, or all of them in concert which so
impressed him that he felt overwhelmed an unable to assess
the unexpected baptism to which he had been subjected, and
which had been forced upon him.  His old name, Joachim, had
been torn from him against his will, expropriated as it were,
and he suspected that now, entirely without an opportunity to
advise or consent, as a result of secret determinations in the
university, he was committed to, and would be bound by a new
name in the selection of which he had had no voice
whatsoever.  Nor was he at all certain that the new name
should meet with his approval; for in one moment the name
Johnny seemed endearing and somewhat of an honor, while in
the next, its banality seemed a mockery of the serious person
he wanted to become.  Aside from his own reactions and
feelings, he felt a sullen obligation of allegiance to this
name with which he had been so unexpectedly baptized, at
least if he expected to flourish, if not indeed even to
survive, in this new world into which he had been thrust,
which he had so ardently longed for, and in which now,
finally, he had found a place.

     As he meditated, he became uncertain, whether the re-
christening that Mac had carried out on him, might not have
been a consequence of Mac's own initiative, or whether the
change of name had actually been ordained by the university's
authorities, as an initial stage of his naturalization into
the academic society of which he had undertaken to become a
member.  He understood from his reading that in the
monastery, the initial consecration of the novice entailed
the assumption of a new name to distinguish the novice's new
vocation from the old nondescript existence he had forsaken.
Nontheless his new name was to Johnny a source of continuing
distress.  Wasn't his old name the essence of what he had
been thus far, the nucleus of what he was even now?
Suddenly, if his name were changed, would he not unavoidably
become a different person?  He didn't want that.  He didn't
want to become someone else.  He wanted to remain the person
he was.

     But then he saw the contradiction and reminded himself
that he had come to this place to get an education, which
clearly meant that he had made this great effort, that he had
undertaken this long journey to become someone else, someone
different from the Joachim that he had been; and wasn't it
reasonable that as a new and different person he should also
have a new and different name?  And suddenly it dawned on
him, what an awful mistake it must have been, if he really
wanted to remain the person he was, to make all these efforts
to get an education to become someone else.  At this point he
was so confused, he didn't know what he wanted.  He had hit
upon a contradiction, which at least at this moment, he felt
incapable of resolving.

     Drowsiness and exhaustion overwhelmed him once more.  If
only he had a place to lie down and sleep, sleep until he had
recovered from this ordeal.  Afterwards, when he woke up,
this confusion, this tangle of intentions and consequences
might perhaps appear more accessible to solution.  But the
room that had been assigned to him, that was rightfully
his, was locked and inaccessible, although he couldn't understand
why Mac shouldn't have had a key.  If Mac's job in this place
was in fact as he claimed, to help the boys, and not just to re-
baptize them, then surely it would be in Mac's power to
unlock his room where right now he needed so badly to sleep.

     But then Johnny himself realized that this was
impossible, that he could not be spared the trip to the
Administration.  He would have to absolve it himself, and the
sooner the better, to that he could have his key, get into
his room and have some rest.  It was inconceivable, no matter
what the circumstances, that in his present state of
exhaustion he could get started on his studies.

     He pulled himself together and started to look for Mac
to find out the exact location at which he would receive his
key, and to get directions how to find his way.  But Mac was
nowhere to be found, and Johnny concluded that it should be
possible for him to get to the Administration even without
Mac's instruction.

                      * * * * *

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Copyright 2006, Ernst Jochen Meyer