"Howard Waldrop - A Better World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

whale-oil fumes.
It was late in the year with a hint of snow in the air under the gray sky. Not the picture people have of
Dresden. It was warm in the tram, however, the few blocks I rode, thanks to the new electrical heating
coils over the seats.
 I stepped out; the Peoples' tram moved away, and I went in and reported to my Section chief.


2
The Union We of All Who Work

DIRKMANN HAD HIS BOOTED FEET UP ON HIS large desk. It had once belonged to some minor
functionary in the Old Regime.
"So?" he asked, cocking his head to one side so his good eye was on top.
"The Minister of Culture died of a coronary, or a cerebral hemorrhage. He had been in poor health.
Evidently it was triggered when Karl Marx, whom he had known, or rather the figure of Karl Marx,
stepped out of his bookcase."
Dirkmann raised his eyebrow, the one over the bad eye. He took down his feet and sat upright slowly in
his chair.
"He saw Karl Marx." It wasn't a question.
"According to the chief clerk."
Dirkmann reached into his desk files and came up with four blue pneumatique letters.
"That makes one Marx, one Engels, and now three Wagners in the last week."
"So ..." I said. "A—"
"—Spectre is Haunting Europe," finished Dirkmann. "Or, spectres. And Dresden, if not the whole of the
continent." He looked over the blue forms. "All to current or former officials who knew them. Your case is
the only one involving death—the woman who saw Engels has been put to sick-bed by her doctor, though.
I've sent copies upward—yours will join them. At least the Leader will not have just statistics to read, if the
copies get that far. Right now I need a three-paragraph summary. Then go home. Tomorrow," he said,
"don't come here. Go directly to the Peoples' Archives. Start learning everything you can about Wagner."
"But," I said, "surely the Department has some expert, someone it can call on?"
"It does," said Dirkmann. "He saw Wagner Tuesday." He pointed to one of the blue letters. "He's been
quite drunk since."
"I'm not the least bit musical," I said. "I can't carry a tune, or whistle. Others who can would be better."
"There's irony for you, Comrade," said Dirkmann. "Someone named Rienzi who can't whistle! I said,
research everything. The music was only about one-tenth the man. Work your way through that on
momentum. I want you to know as much about the man as anyone who wasn't there. Talk to whomever
you must. Find out why this is happening after twenty-three years."
"Surely you can't believe . . ."
"Ah, yes!" said Comrade Dirkmann. "The Peoples' Federated States of Europe does not believe in
ghosts or goblins! It believes in the innate perfectibility of Man! There's your Hegelian dialectic in a
nutshell. We no longer have the Church's Heaven and Hell; we have the Worker's Heaven on Earth!"
"Very well. Why would you be interested in this, then?"
Dirkmann looked at me with his bad eye.
"It's personal," he said. "These ghosts are messing with my town."

Every school, gymnasium, and university student thinks they know Wagner's story. I thought I did, too,
until I was handed this case. The usual precis goes something like this: Born, 1813, Leipzig, his stepfather
perhaps his true father; brothers and sisters; bad acad-emia and gambling; desire to write poems and plays,
then opera: Die Feen; Das Liebesverbot; Rienzi; Der fliegende Holländer; Tannhäuser; Lohengrin;
the start of one on Jesus and one on Buddha; some notes about the Norse. While writing and compos-ing