The Coral Merchant: Essential Stories

Career 1920 He had been the junior bookkeeper with the firm of Reckzügel & Co., a wholesale exporter of saddles and bridles, for twenty-three years, and he earned 350 crowns a month. And his name was Gabriel Stieglecker. The other thing to be said about him is that, to keep from starving to death, he went looking for more work to supplement his income, and found some. For a few days at the end of each month he helped out at the firms of Pollacek Brothers, Simon Silberstein and Brother, and Rosalie Funkel. Altogether, Gabriel Stieglecker received 675 crowns a month. And he had now been dying on that amount for three years and five months. He was an excellent, prompt and reliable bookkeeper. Thanks to his efforts, the firms of Pollacek Brothers, Simon Silberstein and Brother and Rosalie Funkel were able to manage without a bookkeeper of their own. He kept their accounts in order, knew what had to be hidden from the taxman and the police, and was as discreet as a borehole. Gabriel Stieglecker loved his job. He preferred green ink over blue, and red above that. But his favourite was violet. Every other bookkeeper in the world wrote their figures in black imperial ink. But all of Gabriel Stieglecker’s figures were violet. He claimed to know for a fact that the violet ink was more permanent than the others, and soaked into the pores of the paper with unparalleled intensity. Yes, one might even suppose that numbers written in violet ink would go on existing long after the paper had disintegrated, as transparent images in the air. As for the numbers written by Gabriel Stieglecker, it is worth remarking that they could never be mistaken for anyone else’s. They had a personal touch, a distinct character, they were individuals. The 3 had no belly, the 2 no hunchback, the 7 no tail. All the numbers had a “nice line”, they were slender and willowy like modern women, and their artistic panache was second only to the drawings of models in the latest fashion magazines. For Gabriel Stieglecker loved the numbers he created. He breathed his own breath into them, so to speak, and that was why they looked so undernourished. He played with them as a boy plays with tin soldiers, mustering them in double rows, and marking the edge of his parade ground with a grass-green line. Or he would use red ink to start a bloodbath among them – though it was never permitted to spill everywhere willy-nilly, but channelled into neat furrows with a ruler. Order had to prevail at all times. If you didn’t know this, it would be impossible to understand that Gabriel Stieglecker has now entered the sixth month of his fourth year of dying on this income of 675 crowns. I use the word “dying” not, say, out of forgetfulness; it is entirely deliberate. For the story is true: Gabriel Stieglecker is not this man’s name, but he is a living person. The story is in any case too remarkable for anyone but Life to have come up with it – as you will see. Gabriel Stieglecker had a seat at the regulars’ table in Café Aspern, where he went every Sunday for a black coffee with saccharin. And every Sunday, while he was busy thinking about the strange sheen of the violet ink he’d purchased the day before, the other regulars would reproach him. Why hadn’t he asked for a raise yet? Couldn’t he see that he was being despicably exploited? In this day and age? By that firm? That honest company? In order to forget these reproaches quickly and completely, Gabriel Stieglecker went into the office every Sunday afternoon and wrote out numbers. Gabriel Stieglecker completed all his work for Monday morning and would have gone to bed well pleased with his efforts, had he not been plagued by the worry that the next morning, he would have nothing to do. And so Gabriel Stieglecker’s Sunday nights were tormented and anxious. Gabriel Stieglecker was generally not in favour of Sundays.