TCOTNK Season 3.6
TCOTNK Season 3.6
The Castle Of The Naked Knights. The origins of the picture book that will change so many lives....
New to TCOTNK? Reading along is free for everyone…discover the slow joys of a weekly serial and enter the The Castle Of The Naked Knights. A whole other world is waiting for you. Go to the INDEX for the introduction and links to all episodes
back to chapter3.5 (last weeks episode)
December 22
I wake up between two sleeping girls. The sun shines through the small window. The curtain to the narrow hallway is closed. As if they were my sisters. Like I belong here. The memory of the night sits in my stomach with a grateful feeling. My bladder is about to burst.
Almost everyone is still sleeping. I pee splashing, half under the car. I am immediately reprimanded and sent to the bucket.
“Pee there. Shit in the hole next to it.”
There is a low windbreak halfway up the field. Without a roof. Without anything. With a view.
The meeting is tomorrow. It's not entirely clear to me what that means. Just before noon another caravan arrives. Pulled by the same stocky horses with socks and hair. Half an hour later, two circus cars drive onto the field and a large semi-trailer remains parked on the road.
Then all the sleepy heads are rounded up and put to work. They don't serve breakfast but do collaborate. A flat wooden floor is set up at the bottom of the sloping lawn.
I'm assigned to three brothers. In other words, I'm being kidnapped. I think that runs in the family. We don't drive to the castle as I expected, but towards the town fifteen kilometers away. Medium hair is called Gorgio. He drives. I'm in the middle. The driver uses the bends to make me lean. Preferably to him. Lots of tight right turns. Half of them unnecessary if you ask me.
We visit various addresses but don't drop off or pick up anything. At least as far as I can determine. Gradually I am almost certain that Gorgio, the eldest of the three young blokes, does not yet have a driver's license. He's not old enough for it. It shows through trying too hard.
Then we stop at a market hall and there is work to be done. Fresh goods. That are not very fresh. A lot of overripe fruit and vegetables that no longer look completely safe. It looks like they're not paying for it. I'm beginning to suspect that the meeting that will take place tomorrow will consist of two parts.
We drive through narrow backstreets for a while till the truck reverses into a garage. The boys are quiet and tense now. They do something they shouldn't do.
Four wooden chests emerge from the shadowy garage. I think there might be fireworks in them. Illegal but cute.
Then it's back to the castle to drop me off. I work in the kitchen all afternoon and evening. With completely different ingredients.
When I walk back at dusk I see the field again for the first time since the morning. It's full. A small village has settled around the mighty tree. Cooking fires. Barking dogs. Music. Meetings. It's a colorful group. Not just the type of travelers who were there first, but a whole range of styles and appearances. Horses, trucks. Luxury tour buses, motorcycles. Leather, lace and knitted cardigans.
I walk between them and feast my eyes greedily. I can hardly find my way back to my camp. I am greeted warmly. Then my gaze falls on the stage. It has grown into a wine-red theater where they are testing the lighting. A broad smile appears on my face.
23 December
People just keep arriving. Even when I wake up early in the morning, the cluster of perched birds has already grown. That's what it reminds me of. Dozens of species of migratory birds that temporarily perch and excitedly admire each other's feathers.
I hear there will be an opening ceremony at the end of the afternoon. As I walk, I tie my night curls together. It is early. The grass makes my shoes wet. A chilly breeze flows between the criss-cross placed encampments. People are foraging here and there. The castle appears in the mist like a massive city on a mountain. It looks like a siege, I think, as I walk up the slope towards the gate and look back at the large settlement.
It is warm in the kitchen. The tense atmosphere of importance is unpleasant. The work is done with haste and determination. It smells terribly good. There's no place for me there.
The rest of the castle still seems to be in deep rest. In the dining room one floor up I steal an unguarded sandwich. I walk into a hallway while chewing. I should make myself useful, but I ignore that feeling.
The interior design is a battle between old and modern. Sheet steel gas heaters disfigure the decorated paneling. The oak beneath the factory carpet creaks. Where large paintings once hung, jazz posters are pinned, curled and torn without frames. I climb an awkward staircase. The steps are crooked and uneven. The walls are painted with faded scenes under darkened varnish. The dim ascent ends at a door. I push it open. The hinges squeak with the sound of a sick cat.
On the second floor I step back in time. Hundreds of years. I've never seen the inside of a castle before. Every centimeter is special. Everything breathes wealth. How many workers and hours were spent in this hall alone. Everything is painted. Each slat is specially made for its location. The crystal of the chandelier costs more than I will earn in my lifetime. The curtains are quadruple. Handwoven fabrics. Halfway through the long hall there is a concert grand piano that reflects itself in the high-gloss mosaic of the parquet floor. Opposite eight high windows, each on a pedestal, there are eight very different knights.
The visors are closed. Shiny metal in eight different shades and textures. Otherworldly. More arthropod than human. Portable shielding. Iron clothing. Seriously, this is historic? I half expect one of them to make a sudden move. I'm mesmerised. They really look as if they could just step off their scaffold. I walk past the first one with admiration and fearful awe. A lance that reaches for the ceiling. Feather on the helmet. What kind of guy would be in there? I see the muscular body that would be hidden through the armour. The second is a red knight. The color of clotted blood. Long dragon shield, an even longer sword resting on the point. Then a stockier gray fighting monster. Dark and dull metal that looks sturdier than the shiny tin. Battle axes hang from the belt around his chain mail. In his left fist is a short club. The massive iron ball with points gives me a week feeling in my stomach. I can almost hear the heavy nightmare passing through the fragile bone of a skull. Deeply penetrating the delicate tissue.
I keep walking. Past the fourth suit of armour which seems to be more modern. More graceful. But also less effective. More vain. Conceited.
I stroke a glove. A refined work of art made of hinged scales. Each segment has very fine flower patterns. I fall into a trance.
Then, after a door with a coat of arms above it, there is a painting. It is the center of the gallery. Opposite it is a fireplace with a slightly leaning massive mirror above it. I see myself standing in the huge black frame above the fire pit. Behind me hangs the enormous painting that reaches all the way to the floor. It covers the entire wall. I see the whole scene in mirror image. Two figures tower above me to the left and right. A man and a woman. They are in a landscape. On a low hill, behind them, stands a castle. This castle. I spin around on my heel to see it up close. Right in front of it, a meter away, the canvas is dark and shiny with cracked varnish. The image of the castle sits high above me. Difficult to make out. Here I am, I think, amazed. That's where I find myself. I turn around again. The effect of the mirror above the fireplace is wonderful. This is a painting that can only be viewed by not looking at it. By distancing yourself. That's what the mirror is for. This places you in the painting while you stand further away from it. In and out at the same time.
The first note from the grand piano is very soft. Still, the keystroke hits like a bolt of lightning. I startle like a skittish animal. The man from the angel car. Now in pajamas. I didn't see him behind the open flap. Was he there the whole time? He plays a sequence of complex chords that fills the knight's hall with liveliness. It caresses my shocked mind. I can feel the low strings in the floor. I can almost see the wickerwork of the higher vibrations. He lays the beginning of a melody in that tissue. Glistening water with the color of copper oxide. He suddenly stops with a sigh, and stands up.
“It's all fake,” he says, stretching. He has bony white feet and short legs. A streak of dark hair on his stomach peeks out from under his flannel vest as he folds his arms behind his head and stretches his long face even further. There are flowers on his too-tight pajamas.
He points half-heartedly at the large painting behind me.
"That, for example." He walks towards me. Doesn't seem angry about my brazen snooping. “In that painting nothing is what it seems. The house is not this house. It only seems that way. It's like a puzzle picture. Look for the differences. He snaps his fingers. The rolling combination of both hands that sounds like a tap dance and ends with a clap echoes through the hall. “Yes,” he says, walking away, “It's all make believe.”
He walks a bit like a cowboy.
"Feel free to look further," he calls without looking back. His damp soles leave temporary marks on the parquet. He points to the door with the shield, 'there's the library,' he says, turning a pirouette and raising a warning finger, 'don't make too much noise.'
He walks a few steps and then stops.
"Although," he says, scraping his unshaven chin, "today is a great day to rabble up a rattle, what do you think? Shall we raise a rucus?”
And with that, the man disappears through a panel that looks like a display case but turns out to be a door.
In the middle of the library there is a drum set on a large brown doormat. Where there are no tall bookcases, the room is lavishly decorated with paintings. An obsessive busybody has painted scenes and illusions on every single panel. There are reading tables under the windows. Here you look out onto the imitation circus tent in the courtyards.
Before I know it I'm reading. I browse and dream away. A cupboard contains games, toys and all kinds of normal family things. I can't imagine growing up here. There are also drawing supplies. Colored pencils and expensive paper. I hesitate. As soon as I decide I will draw, and walk to a table with the found materials, I hear voices approaching.
There's a quick bass phrase being played on the grand piano in the knight's hall and at the same moment the library door swings open. Two dark men enter, chatting loudly. They both carry a few suitcases. Guitar cases and amplifiers. I get casual air kisses on both cheeks. They smell like nuts. Almond? Their language is unknown to me. It rattles. The drum kit takes a hit. Boing, ksssssssjh. A third comes in and stands looking up at the painted ceiling. He's talking to me. It sounds like he’s asking detailed questions. Kisses me admiringly left and right, then puts an arm around me and points out all kinds of details with a deep black crooked finger. Meanwhile, he is not silent for a second. Some birds sound like that too. Secret language that enchants and opens doors in me. He sees the drawings and the pencils and his eyes widen. He grabs a rococo chair, takes a seat and presents his head in various ways. I have to portray him.
There is no escape. And so I spend the next hour sketching the trumpet player, because that turns out to be him, while the band grows and the rehearsal gets off to a chaotic start. There is picking, playing and talking. Voted and hooted. Unintelligible bawdy jokes are told to which everyone listens silently and then bursts into an avalanche of infectious laughter. My model cannot sit still and the colored pencils are of the worst kind imaginable, but slowly and in sync with the sounds around me, it takes shape. I sit in the corner. From there the light is more beautiful. And I start with the man who is writing out sheet music. He's sitting still. When he is done, he hands out what he has been changing. And something starts that sounds uneven and cacophonous. Everyone tries out the phrases for themselves. And I'm focused on capturing the whole thing. With the tip of my tongue in the corner of my mouth. This will not be a portrait.
Without a countdown or a clear starting point, something tickles my ears. It's so pure it's almost painful. They go through a series of notes together. My pencil falls silent. The sum of the instruments produces something that pierces me with a loving arrow. It is a living being that distorts the room before me and around me. I'm tumbling through time. Without anything to hold on to. Without understanding. I am home.
Then the drummer picks exactly the points where you can secure the line so as not to fall to pieces. And then I can draw again. Like a madman. My pencil flies to capture it. During that one long song that seems to go through endless metamorphoses, I sketch a whole series of pages. Not just the men with their instruments. Everything suddenly seems worth capturing. Doorknobs. A dead butterfly on the windowsill. A detail of a sword in the knight's hall. The copper wheel under the wing. In the reflection of a large tobacco plant, I follow the bouncing winter light from place to place, and it mixes with the iconoclasm in my liquid interior.
And then I stare at the large painting again and my pencil stagnates. I can only watch. Sitting on the ground. My back against the piano leg. While the jazz bounces from the library, I am completely silent inside. I'm full to the brim. I'm busy finding.
Seduced