"Soon's I learn to waltz, I'm on my way."
* * * * * * * * * *
This could be Lew's way of saying, "Don't hold your breath." Or it's his way of saying, "Sure, I'll take you up on that, though I'm not sure I'm fancy enough for Vienna." Or it could be any number of other meanings I'm not smart enough or imaginative enough to come up with!
As they were speeding along dodging grip cars, private carriages, police patrol wagons with their gongs banging, and so forth, Khäutsch casually offered, "If you're ever in Vienna, and for any reason need a favor, please do not hesitate."
* * * * * * * * * *
Are we almost done with this section? It's my least favorite section. It must be satirizing some genre of story telling of which I'm not a fan. Noir detective stories, maybe? Although I do like the sort of interdimensional, science fiction, Philip K. Dick weirdness of Lew's life. Maybe if I were a bigger fan of world history and World War I, I'd be really into it. I'd probably be all, "Yeah! Teach that arrogant bastard Ferdinand a lesson! Man, I wish I didn't already know he dies in 1917 because I want him to die so badly in this story! At least I know he'll eventually get his comeuppance! Good riddance!"
But this story might be really important! Because Lew has become close with an assassin who now owes him a favor! And since this novel is going to span a couple of decades, Lew has plenty of time to wind up in Vienna and finding he needs somebody killed!
Outside they found Trabant Khäutsch ready with a two-horse hack poised for instant departure, and the Archduke's own double-barreled Mannlicher resting nonchalantly but visibly on one shoulder.
* * * * * * * * * *
Obviously the Archduke is known for the violent troubles he starts among his own people. He's the kind of guy you have to pay people to protect him because if he even had any friends, they'd all just let him get his ass kicked rather than have his back. I've mentioned it before because it sometimes needs saying. Friendship and loyalty only go so far. They aren't a free pass to have somebody defend you when you act like a complete asshole. A good friend shrugs and thinks, "You reap what you sow," preferably in a Maine accent while sort of miming Herman Munster. A bad friend thinks, "Oh boy! I get to beat up on some people who are totally within their rights at being angry with the moron I'm backing up!" I guess, in this world, there are more bad friends than good ones.
At least the assassin Khäutsch seems to be on Lew's side in trying to keep violence to a minimum. Otherwise he wouldn't have pulled up just displaying the rifle, he would have tossed it to the Archduke and cheered him on as he went on a shooting spree. Which he'd totally be forgiven for in 1893. Hell, Stand Your Ground Laws being the horrendous thing they are, he'd get away with it today. Get a bunch of people angry at you and then you get to shoot them in the face if they approach you because you can declare that you feared for your life. And white on black murders like this are what cops call "Open and shut stand your ground cases" because they're mostly racist pieces of garbage.
One night when it seemed Franz Ferdinand had dropped off the map of greater Chicago, Khäutsch got on the telephone and began calling around town, eventually reaching White City Investigations.
* * * * * * * * * *
It's sometimes difficult to follow Pynchon's narrative, at least in a linear manner. So far, Against the Day is easier to follow than Gravity's Rainbow because it has, so far, confined itself to reality (or near enough to reality). Without warning, Gravity's Rainbow would skew into somebody's fantasy or dream or the narrative would sidestep through time or be taken over by an outside perspective of the book as seen through some other medium, like a musical or comic book or news reel. Then you'd have to re-read that section two or three times to figure it out. I imagine some people, being against re-reading the same book they're currently reading, just powered through until they felt they understood it again. Maybe that's a good recommendation to feel you've gotten a foothold on the narrative but I'm completely against it. Don't move on until you feel you've got a grasp on what just happened! Except that bit where Slothrop climbs into the toilet and winds up in some world where there's only one of everything and some cowboy with his sidekick. That was weird.
What I'm getting at is that this line feels like Max is remembering how he came to be dealing with White City Investigations even though it just pops up as if it's a recent story that goes along with Max's revelation of being too clever to keep an eye on the stupid Archduke. This just seems like the beginning of the origin story of how Max and Lew began working together. Although that theory will probably get blown apart by the next line where Lew covers the call to Max and we already know that Lew learned about the Archduke job when he was given the Austro-Hungarian dossier.
What this sentence reveals, I think, is Max's hesitancy to admit that he's failed at his only job. Only after he realizes that he's getting nowhere, he calls up his "opposite number" at White City Investigations in the hopes that his familiarity with Chicago will get the job done.
"Perhaps I am too clever to deal efficiently with Habsburg stupidity," mused Khäutsch.
* * * * * * * * * *
This is nearly identical to what I think whenever I lose a game of Magic the Gathering in a tournament. "My decks are just designed too cleverly to beat these stupid idiots!"
Despite young Khäutsch's police skills, somehow the Archduke kept giving him the slip.
* * * * * * * * * *
Earlier, Khäutsch was described as being a skilled assassin. Pynchon didn't really go into much detail about his other skills. So now that Pynchon just casually mentions Max's police skills, in a way that implies they are quite exemptional, I have to assume Pynchon is saying cops are assassins. I know he's not but you can't stop me from inferring what I want to infer! Anyway, if Max is good at policing and protection (and killing!), the Archduke must be even better at giving people the slip. It's a skill that saves his life in twenty years when he gives a bunch of assassins the slip. Except later that same day, he's driven back toward one of his assassins who takes advantage of the traffic mix-up and murders him and his wife. I suppose the ability to give one the slip only works when you actively realize there's somebody nearby who needs to be slipped away from.
"So? in Austria it is widely remarked upon."
* * * * * * * * * *
The residents of other countries love to categorize the people of other countries by the kinks they're assumed to have. So of course everybody in Austria, whenever they hear somebody mention America, always glance at everybody else around them and smirk and wink and make the international sign of a hot dog going into a doughnut.
"Well we . . . we try not to talk about that."
* * * * * * * * * *
If Max's statement, "pastry-depravity," was as innocent as I'm assuming it was even though it sounds like American detectives love to stick their dicks into doughnuts then Lew's response (this sentence) politely explains to me that I made a terrible assumption and Max actually was referencing how American detectives love to stick their dicks into doughnuts. If the topic were just about certain people's affection for devouring doughnuts, I'd imagine Lew would readily discuss it. I know I would. If somebody were all, "What do you think about doughnuts? Love them? Hate them?", I would reply, "I rarely eat doughnuts because I find that if I eat one doughnut, I always want a second doughnut. And if I eat two doughnuts, it makes me wish I hadn't eaten any." Then I'd wink flirtatiously at the Boston Cream.
"And this might be of particular interest to you, Mr. Basnight, considering the widely known Kuchenteigs-Verderbtheit or pastry-depravity of the American detective. . . ."
* * * * * * * * * *
See? They're telling each other stories! Or maybe Max is just introducing Lew to an Austrian doughnut. He's also making a cops love doughnuts joke which is probably the main point of this sentence. The second main point of the sentence is that Lew and Max have regular conversations over coffee and doughnuts at the start of each day. They're becoming quite chummy.
"Kuchenteigs-Verderbtheit"
Pynchon defines it for the reader, this time. He could have used the word for pastry but instead chooses the word for cake batter, I guess? I'm relying on Google translate because the only German part of the phrase I recognize is Kuch and the Non-Certified Spouse, who's practically fluent in German, is currently sleeping. She'd usually give me some insight into the less literal meanings and uses of the German phrases Pynchon loves to stick in his books.
They got into the habit of early-morning coffee at the Austrian Pavilion, accompanied by a variety of baked goods.
* * * * * * * * * *
"They" being Lew, the disgraced interdimensional hopping private dick, and Max, the young Slavic assassin given an American assignment to get him as far away from Austria as possible. They seem to have hit it off, just one banished Joe to another. Caffeine and baked goods seem to symbolize comfort, camaraderie, and story telling in a Pynchon novel. At least in two Pynchon novels, this one and Mason & Dixon. It's also possible there was a scene with coffee and baked goods in Gravity's Rainbow but it evaded my perception being that it wasn't something that was on my radar while reading it.
Lew found him sympathetic . . . the oblique planes of his face revealing an origin somewhere in the Slavic vastnesses of Europe as yet but lightly traveled by the recreational visitor. . . .
* * * * * * * * * *
"Lew found him sympathetic."
An ambiguous statement. Was Lew sympathetic toward Max or did he note that Max expressed sympathy toward others? My guess is that Lew felt drawn to Max, probably due to Max being, in a way, banished from his life in Europe, just as Lew had been banished from his past. Both were jettisoned from the previous arc of their life to crash land here in Chicago and had found themselves working security detail on the Archduke Ferdinand.
"Slavic vastnesses of Europe as yet but lightly traveled by the recreational visitor"
Max was born in either a rural or dangerous place, perhaps a bit of both. Anyway, somewhere off the beaten path, some place tourists either wouldn't know about or wouldn't dare wander for safety concerns. As for the "Slavic vastnesses of Europe," I suppose that just means he was born in one of the various Slavic populations spread across Europe. You'd expect the Austro-Hungarian Empire, being that's where he's now employed, but who knows, right?
Perhaps this mystery of Max's origin, at least to Lew's estimation, also causes Lew sympathy toward Max, being that Lew also comes from a mysterious past, albeit less geographic and more amnesiac.
Sending him to America seemed appropriate.
* * * * * * * * * *
I don't know if I should feel insulted by this paragraph concluding sentence or I should break out in a patriotic cheer! "This guy is too nuts to keep around but he's also too nuts to get rid of. Where could we send him where he wouldn't stand out?" Um, go America, I guess? It's like if Waldo from Where's Waldo? was just a drooling maniac in a torn up straight jacket with a smoking gun in one hand and a bloody cleaver in the other. You'd need a picture with similar looking people to hide him well. And, apparently, that scene is Chicago, U.S.A.
Despite his youth he was said to give an impression of access to resources beyond his own, of being comfortable in the shadows and absolutely unprincipled, with an abiding contempt for any distinction between life and death.
* * * * * * * * * *
Max Khäutsch is the Darth Maul of Against the Day. That means he's both a tremendous bad-ass and, I'm predicting, he's defeated in a humiliatingly brief battle.
I'm just talking about The Phantom Menace Darth Maul and not all of Darth Maul's subsequent appearances and build up of his character simply because some marketer was all, "Wait. The most loved character in this movie died immediately? What are we going to do about that." And somebody shrugged and was all, "Not much we can do! Kenobi cut him in half!" And then a mahogany table full of suits sat around brainstorming, mostly going, "Um. Uh. Duh?" Then one of them was all, "Wasn't Darth Vader, like, 85% robot?" And somebody snapped their fingers and was all, "Yes! Darth Maul can be half robot! Now, which half should we make robot?" After that they worked out the details and stuck him in some cartoons.
Just in case my comparison with Darth Maul doesn't mean anything to you, let me say that Max seems like a savant when it comes to criminal activity and assassination. Everybody says, "He's so young! But his contacts with the underground and his knowledge of the 1893 dark web are astounding! Unparalleled! This boy can do anything he wants, especially since he's unconcerned with how many people are standing between his target and the wildly erratic sword he's swinging!"
Standard Hapsburg procedure would have been to put him out of the way at some agreed-upon point of diminishing usefulness, but nobody was willing to try.
* * * * * * * * * *
If I'm following, Max Käutsch was seen as too dangerous to keep around, based on his deadly assassin abilities, which would normally mean he'd be sentenced to boring bureaucratic jobs far from urban centers of any importance. Perhaps that's the kind of thing you do with a government employee who was used to murder rivals or dissidents, an employee you just can't have in the public eye, or being seen associated now with the heads of government or members of royalty. It would be like if the photographers who chased Diana's car down, causing the crash, had been working for the royal family. They'd immediately want to distance themselves from them, for propriety's sake. Also for the sake of they obviously hired them to hound Princess Diana to death but they didn't want it to seem that way, so best send them to the Isle of Wight to take family portraits of the locals instead.
More probably, I'm misunderstanding this sentence. Pynchon is sometimes difficult, especially for somebody who has trouble with the concepts in Clifford books. Why is that dog so big? How does the family afford feeding it? Do they need a pick-up truck for his doody when they go for walks? How hard is it to ignore Clifford's lipstick when he's giving himself a good lick?
If I've got the gist of this right then that means I understand the usual procedure for dealing with somebody like Max in your ranks. But since Max is such a scary bad-ass, nobody has had the nerve to push him out of close proximity to the Hapsburg family. And that's why he's become the captain of the unit in charge with keeping Archduke Ferdinand safe during their overseas travel. Sure, this job gets him "out of the way" of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But he's still in close proximity to Ferdinand, and he still retains major responsibilities.
Young Max Khäutsch, newly commissioned a captain in the Trabants, was here on his first overseas assignment, as field chief of "K&K Special Security," having already proven himself useful at home as an assassin, an especially deadly one, it seemed.
* * * * * * * * * *
Now I'm really confused by what Lew meant by his "opposite"! Maybe he just meant the guy leading the protection detail on the Austrian side, just as he was leading the protection detail on the American side. That take seems to be justified by the evidence here, where Max Khäutsch is the captain of the Trabants. The evidence against Lew looking for somebody like-minded is that Max is a proven assassin who has apparently killed multiple targets. What has Lew done? Divorced his wife and gone through Interdimensional AA? I suppose Lew has done something else super terrible but it's not like Pynchon is ever going to reveal what that was!
Max being "an especially deadly" assassin probably means he's as excited about hunting Hungarian Stockyard workers as the Archduke and Nate Previtt. Come to think of it, I can't think of a single person in 1893 America who would have been against it aside from the Hungarian Stockyard workers and who was going to listen to them?! Maybe suffragettes? But then they had their own problems!
