Traveler of the Century by Andrés Neuman

see it—every tune tells a tale, nearly always a sad one. When I turn the handle I imagine I’m the hero of that tale and I try to feel at one with its melody. But at the same time it’s as if I’m pretending, do you
see? No, not pretending, let’s say that even as I’m getting carried away I have to think about the end of the tune, because I know how it ends, of course, but maybe the people listening don’t, or if they do they’ve forgotten. That’s what I mean by touch. When it works nobody notices, but when it doesn’t everyone can hear. (So, for you the barrel organ is a box that tells stories, said Hans.) Yes, exactly! Goodness, what a way you have of putting things, playing the barrel organ is like telling stories around the fire, like you the other night. The tune is already written on the barrel and it may seem like it’s all done for you, a lot of people think you just turn the handle and think of something else. But for me it’s the intention that counts, just turning the handle isn’t the same thing as really applying yourself, do you see? The wood also suffers, or is grateful. When I was young, because I was young once like you, I heard many organ grinders play, and I can assure you no two tunes ever sounded the same, even on the same instrument. That’s how it is, isn’t it? The less love you put into things the more they resemble one another. The same goes for stories, everyone knows them by heart, but when someone tells them with love, I don’t know, they seem new. Well, that’s what I think, anyway.
    The organ grinder lowered his head and began dusting his barrel organ. Hans thought to himself: Where did this fellow spring from?
    Light snow had begun to fall outside. The old man finished tuning his instrument. Excuse me, he said, I’ll be back. He went out into the snow and lowered his trousers, unembarrassed. A slow light shone through the leafless poplar trees bordering the river, entangling itself in their branches before filtering through the other side and onto the organ grinder’s scrawny buttocks. Hans stared at the old man’s urine melting a hole in the snow, his meagre excrement. Common or garden shit, plain old shit, shitty shit.

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    How beautiful you look this morning, daughter, said Herr Gottlieb, taking Sophie by the arm as they stepped into St Nicholas’s Church. Thank you, Father, Sophie smiled, there’s still hope I’ll return to normal by the afternoon.
    The parishioners had formed a queue along Archway, opposite the entrance to the church. St Nicholas’s Church was set back from the market square, shielded by a small park with some wooden benches. The church was Wandernburg’s oldest and most peculiar building. Looked at from nearby, from where the parishioners were now gathered, the most striking thing about it was its brown brickwork, which looked like it had been baked by the sun. Besides its main portal, which fanned out into pointed arches within arches, it had numerous side doors shaped like keyholes. Stepping back a few yards and examining it as a whole, what most stood out were the church’s asymmetrical steeples. One ended in a sharp point like a gigantic pencil, the other, more rounded, housed a toneless bell in a tower with such narrow openings that the wind could barely pass through. And yet what most bewildered Hans was the facade slanting perceptibly towards him, as though it were about to topple forward.
    Since his visit to Herr Gottlieb’s house, Hans had continued to be friendly towards him. What worried Hans was that, despite greeting him warmly and stopping to chat with him when they met in the street, Herr Gottlieb had not extended him another formal invitation to the house. For the moment he was content to drop vague comments such as “How nice it was to see you” or “Let’s hope we bump into one another again”, courtesies too casual to