Chapter 15
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Translator: Silver Dragon
Chapter: 15
Chapter Title: Mold Grows in the Shadow of the Tower of Babel
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The tuxedo from yesterday hung over the back of the chair. Like a snake's shed skin left behind.
The glossy satin lapels and the stiffly starched shirt. That wasn't me. It was just a mask I'd borrowed for a moment to take the stage at Alma Mahler's salon, that lavish theater.
I picked up the work clothes rolling around on the floor without hesitation. Paint stains everywhere, knees worn through on the corduroy pants. The sharp stench of turpentine hit me full force.
"Haa."
I took a deep breath. Finally, I could breathe easy. Perfume gave me headaches. No doubt about it—I was a guy who suited this acrid oil stink.
"Teacher, you really going?"
Franz poked his head through the door. Instead of the new clothes I'd bought him yesterday, he was back in his old rags. But they looked oddly awkward on him now. Just a few days of clean living, and the street grit was gone, replaced by an air of refinement. Kids adapted with terrifying speed.
"Gotta go. Got too bloated. Need to sweat off some grease before the paintings come out."
We slipped out the gallery's back door. No telling if reporters or gawkers were camped out front.
Our destination: Brigittenau.
Vienna's poorest neighborhood—the very place where the original Hitler had bummed around homeless shelters, peddling picture postcards to scrape by. Like a hometown to me... or at least to this body.
Once the tram left the city center, the scenery shifted sharply. Grand stone buildings vanished, replaced by ramshackle shacks and drab gray tenements crammed together.
The streets were filthy. Puddles of muck in every carriage rut, the stink of rotting cabbage and coal smoke stabbing at our noses.
"Ugh, the smell."
Franz pinched his nose.
"You used to live in places like this. Forgot already?"
"Not forgotten... but at school, everyone just smells like soap."
He scratched the bridge of his nose sheepishly. Environment shapes a person, alright. Franz was starting to see this stench as something "other." A blessing, but bittersweet too.
We stopped in front of the men's shelter on Meldemannstrasse.
A long line snaked out. Men waiting for free soup from the kitchen. Vacant eyes, bushy beards, hunched backs. They looked like ghosts.
I pulled my hat low. Not because I was worried someone might recognize me. I just couldn't meet their eyes. Just a few months ago, I'd have been standing somewhere in that line myself.
"Teacher, those guys... they look angry."
Franz whispered.
"Not angry. Exhausted. They don't even have the strength left to get mad."
I didn't pull out my sketchbook. Drawing here would be an insult to them. I couldn't turn their misery into a sideshow spectacle like some safari tourist. Instead, I committed it to memory.
Those hollow gazes, bony knuckles, the texture of threadbare coats.
I snapped mental shutters, etching it all in my brain. To resurrect later on canvas.
We pushed deeper into the alleys. There loomed a massive construction site.
Another grand stone behemoth, built to flaunt the empire's glory. But the site itself was a vision of hell.
Hundreds of workers swarmed like ants. Men hauling loads up steep scaffolding, carting bricks, mixing cement.
No safety gear in sight. Figures dangling from ropes at dizzying heights, precarious as could be.
"There it is."
I muttered.
The image I'd been chasing was right in front of me.
The Tower of Babel.
Human hubris piercing the heavens, doomed to collapse. But Vienna's Babel wouldn't fall. Not when countless souls at the bottom ground their bones and flesh to hold it up.
I climbed to the roof of a derelict building across from the site. Franz huffed after me.
"Whatcha doing up here?"
"Framing the shot. To capture the city's true face, you've gotta look down from above."
Leaning on the rooftop railing, I peered below.
Vertigo hit hard.
Dust and noise from the site wafted up. Hammer strikes, shouts, the roar of steam engines. Unlike the clamor of Vienna Rhapsody. That was emotional noise—this was the din of survival.
I pulled charcoal from my pocket. This time, I had to draw. Capture this overwhelming vertical terror.
I held the paper tall, portrait-style.
Simple composition. A massive tower narrowing upward, its peak lost in clouds. A golden light pouring from the celestial realm above. But darkness below.
I focused on the base.
Every brick a human face. Twisted in agony, entangled to form colossal pillars. More workers trampled over them, climbing higher, with nobles riding past in carriages above.
The crushing weight.
Charcoal scraped roughly across the paper. Snap—it broke, but no matter. I smeared it with soot-stained fingers.
"Teacher, look! Someone fell!"
Franz screamed.
A commotion erupted on one side of the site. Someone had plummeted from the scaffolding. But work didn't stop. The foreman cracked his whip and bellowed; coworkers dragged the fallen man aside like trash and resumed hauling bricks.
Expendable.
Cogs ground down to keep this mighty empire churning.
Nausea roiled in my gut. Like the fancy cakes from last night's salon rotting in my stomach.
"See that, Franz? That's reality."
"That's awful... a guy's hurt."
"That's why we paint it. The foreman doesn't see it. Neither does the emperor who ordered it, or the artists gracefully chattering in salons. They choose not to look."
I gripped the broken charcoal tight.
Shadow of the Tower of Babel.
This painting wouldn't just expose labor abuses. It would dissect the city's structural rot, laying bare its festering skeleton.
The tower's shadow stretched long and dark. Wherever it fell, mold took root. Alcoholism, prostitution, violence—the mold of despair.
I sketched those lurking in the shadows.
Rat swarms, sick children, old men clutching bottles.
They didn't look up at the tower. No point—they could never climb it. They just gnawed at each other in the dark to survive.
"Hey! What're you doing up there!"
The foreman spotted us from below and yelled.
"Get down now or I'll chuck rocks!"
"Run for it."
I snatched my sketchbook.
"Partying with the crown prince yesterday, chased by a site boss today. Your life's one wild ride, Teacher."
Franz giggled, taking off ahead. We slid down the derelict stairs like it was a playground.
Lungs burning, but my legs felt light.
Yeah, this was it. The dust, the thrill. My real fuel. Way more intoxicating than salon wine.
We darted through alleys to safety.
"I'm starving."
Franz rubbed his belly.
"Street cart over there. Grab some sausages."
Cheap street sausages. Tough skins, chewy insides, but they filled the void just fine.
Chewing one, I studied my fresh sketch.
Not enough.
Needed something punchier. Couldn't end with mere "misery." It had to grab viewers by the throat and shake.
The gaze.
A gaze from the tower's peak, looking down.
I added eyes to the top, the cloud-shrouded part.
But not ordinary eyes.
A mirror.
A giant mirror reflecting below. The suffering masses at the base gaze up. What would they see?
Their own distorted faces? Or the faces of those trampling them?
No. The mirror was empty.
Reflecting nothing. That was the true horror. No god. No salvation. Nothing watching over you. Only your pain was real.
Apathy.
The cruelest violence wasn't hatred—it was indifference.
I'd nailed the painting's direction.
This was a religious work. For a godless world.
"Let's go, Franz. Back to the studio. This canvas might punch through the ceiling."
Back at the gallery, Morgenstern was entertaining another guest.
"Ah, Teacher! Perfect timing. This gentleman insisted on seeing you..."
A man in a bowler hat turned and doffed it to me.
"Pleased to meet you. Paul Cassirer, art dealer from Berlin."
Berlin?
"Word's reached the imperial capital already?"
"More than word. They say Klimt himself raved about you. The Berlin Secessionists are keen on your work too. Any chance of an exhibition with us...?"
Germany.
Hitler's original stage.
My heart skipped. Was fate calling me there?
Not yet. I had unfinished business in Vienna.
"Appreciate the offer, but I've got a major piece in the works. I'll consider it once that's done."
"A major piece... may I ask what?"
"Tower of Babel."
"Tower of Babel? Like Bruegel's?"
"No. My Babel doesn't collapse. It just rots from within."
Cassirer's eyes lit up.
"Intriguing. Contact me first when it's finished."
He handed over his card and left.
I headed up to the attic studio.
Stretched the biggest canvas. 150? No, 200 at least. The kind you climb a ladder for.
Overwhelm the viewer with scale. Standing before it, they'd feel a colossal tower crashing down on them.
"Franz, get more paint. Black, gray... and gold."
"Gold? You hate gold, Teacher."
"Need it this time. Just a touch—the cruelest touch."
The peak, that unseen heaven. Filth dripping from it, painted gold.
Nobles' food scraps, excrement, their excess pleasures. A golden waterfall cascading down. The wretches below open their mouths, mistaking it for holy water.
Blasphemy like this? Berger might really drop from high blood pressure this time.
The thought thrilled me.
I picked up the brush.
In my past life, I'd always peeked at the world's reactions. Elated or crushed by likes, chasing trends till my seams split.
Now, I was the trend. My lines became the path, my colors the fashion.
This arrogance. This reckless confidence.
Was Hitler's madness seeping into me, or was I taming the madness? Didn't matter. No stopping now.
The canvas was calling.
I climbed the ladder. Touched brush to the top.
Start from here.
Not heaven, but hell's ceiling.
Night deepened. Beneath Vienna's glittering lights, mold sprouted in the shadows. From the tip of my brush.