That's at the end. You'll be there soon

Courtesy of ashlyme: The Cicerones (2002). I have not read the original story by Robert Aickman, but it reminds me once again that I should know more of his work than "The Stains," much as I love it. This one is an even more indirect narrative, barely more than a suggestive sketch of encounters, but it chills.

Mark Gatiss looks terrible in a pencil moustache, but it suits his English traveler¹ with his Brylcreemed hair and his spotted scarf, his Baedeker and his insistence on getting into the Cathedral of Saint Bavon in time to see its famous painting of Lazarus. The time is unspecified, as is the setting—perhaps mid-century, as perhaps somewhere in Central Europe. (The sign on the cathedral door appears to be written in Czech.) Patrick Leigh Fermor might have walked through this country on his way to Constantinople, but he would have known at least a few words of the language and he wouldn't have treated an ancient sacred place as just one more box to tick on his tourist's progress. He would have said a prayer for the young couple on the train (her so heavily pregnant, fingers running a constant rosary). Gatiss' traveler doesn't know what to do with people. His small talk is evasive and unconvincing, his smile an embarrassed grimace. We're not so sure he knows what to do with art, either.

In fact, we're not sure about much in this story, which is why it works. In a conventional tale of the supernatural, each of the cicerones of Saint Bavon's would reflect or challenge something about the man they purport to guide, but nothing here is direct, only unsettling. A slim young gentleman with dove-colored gloves and the local accent discomfits the traveler by referring to the cathedral as "holy, holy, holy," an expression of the numinous that echoes like a threat. A brash American youth in a T-shirt as tight as Stanley Kowalski's whisks the dropcloth off a painting he didn't want to see—the bloody martyrdom of a saint—but his provocative assessment of the traveler is even worse. A silent altar boy with the red mouth and dark brows of a fairy tale points him toward a clock, which is made of stone. And at last an English boy dressed in the same oddly bright, rich garments as the altar boy and the heavy, faceless figure the traveler saw or thought he saw slumped in the pulpit like an optical illusion or a late delivery from the Cadaver Synod emerges from behind a catacomb door carved caveat intra muros tacet desine fata deum flecti and offers at last to show the traveler some of the treasures of the cathedral he came to see: "Would you like to see one of the other bishops? There might not be another chance." The traveler, who lives by his timetable, who was so impatient with the cathedral's inconvenient hours, cannot refuse. Turning back would acknowledge a wasted day, even when every instinct of the horror genre screams at him to get out before God knows what. And so deeper he goes into the crypt, led by his insistent, insouciant, unexplained countryman. We are encouraged to expect a nasty shock: some whiplash turn, some appropriate punishment for an unimaginative art-seeker. High in the hollow-lit stained glass of the chapel, we saw a blood-red devil with wasp wings, seizing a pale human figure by the arms and neck. But the sudden stop of his story is even more unsettling. The more you try to make the different pieces of strangeness fit together, the more it diffuses. I have my theories about some of what the traveler walked into, but I cannot make all of it cohere and I don't want to. It's a mood, not a moral. It's thirteen minutes of your time. Surely you can spare that. The cathedral is not yet closed.

1. The character is credited as "John Trant," but I do not believe he is ever addressed by name onscreen. I assume it's a holdover from the original story.

I've had my fill of my way with your will

I have e-mail again! I have a substantial backlog of messages from the last four days! They are coming in all out of order! I am replying to people as I can!

For our first month as a married couple, derspatchel and I wanted to go somewhere slightly special. After discarding a couple of options (accessibility, bus timing), I remembered phi enthusing about restaurants. We declared pretzelversary and went to Bronwyn for dinner.

The thing about the Giant Haus Bretzel is that if you are expecting a pretzel the size of a dinner plate, you have drastically underestimated Bronwyn. The Giant Haus Bretzel is approximately the size of two dinner plates. It is live-steam hot, with a crackling brown crust starred with salt. It comes with horseradish mustard which is full of whole seeds and enough allyl isothiocyanate to flush the sinuses of a normal human being. It is incredibly delicious and possibly it was overkill to have ordered the Knödel as well, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to try Food Not Quite of My People, especially since it was glossed on the menu as "bacon challah bread pudding with brandied prune sauce," which is not how kneydlakh usually go. (I was not quite tempted enough by the beer soup with cheddar kreplach to order it this time, although on a snowier day I might give it a try. I am, however, unironically delighted that one of Bronwyn's winter appetizers is schmaltz on rye bread.) It was as soft as the most overnight-soaked French toast and as savory as if it had been thickly buttered first and I don't believe there was dairy in it anywhere. It vanished very quickly. The little shavings of butternut squash on top, whatever. After a great deal of dithering over entrées, we settled for a pair of dishes we either hadn't had in years or had never seen on a menu before in our lives: Rob ordered the beef sauerbraten with braised leeks and celery root and I got the Blutnudeln. Unless they take it off the menu, I may have a great deal of difficulty making myself order anything else. The noodles themselves are dense, chewy, handmade ribbons the color commonly known as oxblood, although in this case I believe the originating Blut was porcine; they are recognizably a pasta, but they have the same dark, organic, slightly metallic warmth I associate with blood sausage (which I don't eat often enough—there was some included in the Giant Wurst Platter, but that didn't seem like a safe thing for one person to order. And that was before we saw the size of the pretzel). As if that weren't richness enough, the noodles come dressed with a melting-soft veal sauce, almost a bolognese, decorated with bright segments of blood orange and topped with thin shavings of radish and mint. This is not a vegetarian dish. It is a meat-loaded umamibomb. I ate everything except the radishes. I am faintly surprised that we went on to order dessert, except it was also that good. Rob got a pair of lemon-and-raspberry Berliners, I had an Apfeltorte filled to here with shredded sweet apple and redcurrants, we shared bites and he drank coffee and I discovered I could not actually finish the glass of Glühwein I'd ordered, because I think my body had just maxed out on the concept of food. I kind of don't need to eat for a week now. I regret nothing.

And then we had a stupid time getting home—a taxi refused to take us to Davis despite Rob being on crutches and Union Square being slithery with ice; when we finally got a taxi that was not driven by mysterious market forces and/or an asshat, Rob's phone liked it so much that it jumped ship for the back seat and had to be retrieved by calling Green Cab, which does get major points for coming back—but we are home now and warm and I like having been married for a month; I think I should do more of it. I am probably going to read some collected Achewood and fall over soon. Rob's X-ray is tomorrow.