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Something strange just happened. A little bell rang in the Small Mammal House; very clearly, I heard it ring. The animals heard it too. There was a tossing, a general turnover - coughs, grunts, startled snorts; a lot of short, wary breathing. There are a number of those noises things make when they're trying to keep quiet; joints snap, stomachs rumble, swallowing is loud.
First the bell rang, then the watchman came out of the Small Mammal House. I saw his flashlight nodding. Then I saw this flashing down one of the paths; I think it came from the main zoo gate, and I think the watchman flashed back to it.
Along the fence line, behind my hedgerow, the Assorted Antelopes are shuffling their hooves. Something's up, all right. I mean it; it's midnight and this zoo is wide-awake.
(CONTINUING:)
THE HIGHLY SELECTIVE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIEGFRIED JAVOTNIK: PRE-HISTORY I
10 March 1938: a warm, unsnowy Thursday, perfect for Hilke's one-piece, red wool jersey with the big roll collar.
In the early morning, about the time Chancellor Schuschnigg's train from Innsbruck is arriving at the Westbahnhof - and just after Zahn Glanz had chalked JA! SCHUSCHNIGG! on the black hood of his taxi - a chicken farmer in the outskirting countryside of Hacking begins getting dressed for the celebrations anticipated in the city. Ernst Watzek-Trummer has neglected the eggs this morning and collected the feathers instead. Which is no less strange than the work that kept him up all night - puncturing and wiring together tin pieplates to make a suit of mock chainmail, and then larding the suit to make the surface sticky enough to hold the chicken feathers he now rolls in. Anyone watching Ernst Watzek-Trummer getting dressed would never buy a single egg from him again. But no one sees, except the chickens who squabble out of his way as he rolls back and forth through his feather pile on the hen-house floor. And, moreover, no one could accuse Ernst Watzek-Trummer of being extravagant; this costume hasn't cost him a thing. The pieplates he had plenty of, and they can still be used for selling eggs in; and this is more use than he's ever got out of the feathers before. Why, even the head of his costume is pieplates, a helmet of pieplates, two for the ear-flaps, one for the top, and one bent to fit his face - with eyeholes, and a breathing hole, and two tiny punctured holes for the wire which fastens on the hammered tin of his beak. A beak sharp enough to lance a man through. And between the eyeholes is a decal of the Austrian eagle, steamed off the bumper of Ernst Watzek-Trummer's truck and reaffixed with lard. So that hasn't cost him either. And it is undeniably an eagle-suit of frightening authenticity - or if not authentic, at least strong. The feathered chainmail hangs to his knees, and the pieplate sleeves are made loose enough for flapping. He leaves the head unfeathered, but lards it anyway - not only to make the decal stick, but to make his whole dome gleam. Ernst Watzek-Trummer
, for this day an eagle - and the Austrian eagle in particular - finishes dressing in his hen-house, and clanks fiercely toward the outlying district of the city, hoping he will be permitted to ride on the tram.
And Zahn Glanz, en route to my mother's street, has stopped once, just to let a little air out of his tires to make them squeal, and is now practicing the noise of his cornering in the rotary between the technical high school and Karl's Church.
And Grandfather Marter has decided not to go to work this morning, because no one will be reading in the foreign-language reading room of the International Student House anyway, and so the head librarian won't be missed. Grandfather watches for Zahn's taxi because he can at least indulge the young their optimism, Grandmother has said, and he can certainly indulge himself whatever drink is due a day of celebration.
And Zahn, on his fourth trip around the rotary, sees an early Mass letting out of Karl's Church. Only slightly money-minded, Zahn thinks an early fare would nicely preface his arrival at my mother's. He idles his taxi at the curb in front of Karl's Church, and reads his Telegraph spread over the wheel. Lennhoff's editorial praises Schuschnigg's plebiscite, expresses snide curiosity concerning Germany's reaction.
While at the Hutteldorf-Hacking Station for Strassenbahn Line 49, a sour tram driver refuses a ride to a man in an eagle-suit. Ernst Watzek-Trummer adjusts his beak, thumps his breast feathers and struts on.
And on the Ballhausplatz, Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg peers from a Chancellery window and spots a banner stretched from the balustrade of St Michael's, across the Michaelerplatz, to a balustrade of the Hofburg showrooms. The banner is bed sheets stitched together, the lettering is neat and enormous: SCHUSCHNIGG, FOR A FREE AUSTRIA. And the Chancellor guesses that, in order for him to be able to see it at this distance, the comma must be the size of a man's head. It warms him to the tip of his Tyrolean, to know that beyond the banner, down Augustinerstrasse, to the Albertinaplatz and still beyond - throughout the Inner City - the throng is toasting him.
It would warm him even more to see the determination of Ernst Watzek-Trummer, who is suffering the humiliation of being thrown from a tramcar at the St Veit Station - in full view of the children who've been collected along the way from Hacking, and who've been following at a steady, taunting distance. The eagle leaves a few untidy larded feathers; he struts on. But Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg can't see over five city districts to witness this unique, patriotic demonstration.
Grandfather Marter would say that the Chancellor has never been particularly far-sighted. My grandfather fancies himself as having a monopoly on far-sightedness. For example, he says to my mother, 'Hilke, get your coat, it's Zahn' - while Zahn is still three blocks away, and only now, thinking that early Mass-goers must be walking types, decides to abandon the curb at Karl's Church. But whether it's far-sightedness or plain impatience, Grandfather and Hilke have their coats on when Zahn turns down their street.
'Don't get in any scuffles,' says my grandmother.
'You just read a good book,' Grandfather tells her.
And it's midafternoon before Grandfather Marter has a vision through a smeary window of the Augustiner Keller; he sloshes his beer and hides his face against Zahn's collar. He giggles.
'Father!' says Hilke, embarrassed.
'Are you going to be sick?' Zahn asks, and my grandfather snaps his face around to the window again; he still keeps hold of Zahn's lapel, ready to dive back in hiding if the creature of his vision reappears.
'It's the biggest bird I ever saw,' he mutters, and then his vision looms round the revolving door - is flown into the Keller with staggering, tinny wing flaps, alarming a counter row of men munching sausage; they stumble backward in a wave; a thick slice of meat flaps to the floor, and they all stare at it as if it were someone's heart or hand.
'Jesus!' says Grandfather, and dives for Zahn's lapel again.
The vision with the terrifying wingspan clatters its feathered pieplate breast. 'Cawk!' It cries, 'Cawk! Cawk! Austria is free!' And very slowly, after an awesome silence, drinkers, one by one, rush to embrace the national symbol.
'Cawk!' says Grandfather, with dignity again, and Zahn catches hold of the eagle's chainmail, dragging him to their table; his beak nearly stabs my grandfather, who greets the great bird with a bear hug.
'Oh, look at you,' says Grandfather. 'What a fine eagle!'
'I came all the way to Europa Platz on foot,' the eagle says, 'before I was allowed on the tram.'
'Who put you off?' shouts Grandfather, furious.
'Drivers, here and there,' Ernst Watzek-Trummer says.
'There's very little patriotism in the outer districts,' my grandfather tells him.
'I made it all myself too,' the eagle says. 'I'm just an egg man, really. I've got chickens' - touching his feathers, and tapping the tin underneath - 'and I've got these little pans around, for selling eggs in.'
