Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

  He threw himself down on his bed and closed his eyes. To rein in his thoughts.

  The seminarian in his seminary is now dreaming of his beloved St. Margaret. Naked. But holy. And all is as God ordains. All is like Holy Communion, the sacrifice of body and blood. What is the name of the beautiful Viviana from the Give’nTake? He had not remembered to ask Maestro, and ATMAN would not tell him. From now until further notice her name is Viviana … “For we are doomed, you and I,” sings Melkior in his mind to keep awake. Sleep fortifies the body, nourishing, rounding, lining with fat the prime cut, the steaks, the hams. A fine cut of man-meat. Pechárek’sh going to gobble ush up, bud, and make no mishtake. And our shoul, the pshittashine dove, will hover over tropical sheazh and warble like the Leopardian lonely shparrow.—Gr, says the giant with the ring in his nose, gr. … And at that point a gigantic snoring starts up in the still of the night.

  From somewhere up above, from the staircase, in between the sentry’s boots on gravel—crunch! —there comes the snoring of a colossus, legendary, dragonlike, a sheep a day, a girl a night. Gargantua has stretched out between two stories and is shaking the entire building. Whooshing the huge bellows pressed in his armpit, blowing and playing his monstrous bagpipes harr-harr, oooh-hah, plhh-phoo, oooh prlhh, pweehh-pliouff … Sweeping, rich, luxurious snoring. Careless, cannibalistic. Optimistic.

  Mrs. Ema does not snore like that. Mrs. Ema, a widow, Melkior’s landlady, snores in a complex, climacterial way, afflicted by dreams of fat snakes and robbers thrusting knives into her navel. She tells Melkior about it all the next day over coffee. She neighs, squeals, meows, brays with dream-felt pains. She is a martyr. Whereas this relisher is a man, brother, snoring for all the five continents of the world, hugely, outstandingly, provocatively.

  Here we are, with some damp autumn air we’ve stored in our nests for the night, and look what’s happening—this chap is going to suck it all, gobble it all up, guzzle it all. The voracious sleeper. He’zh going to shuffocate ush all, bud, make no mishtake.

  The hours pass and the harrr-harrr rolls unstoppably down the stairs, shoots back up from the cellar with the sound and the fury, reaching the attic and tumbling back down again, and splashing and sploshing and hewling and shloofing, craffing, roaring, whistling, dropping—pluff—and rising again, flying, a missile zooming past, whooosh, and piercing, burrowing, drilling, boring—rrrrrr—smashing, cutting, sawing iron bars, sawing the staircase lengthwise, the staircase across, he will bring down the house, the one-eyed terrible cyclops Polyphemus.

  What an odyssey! Melkior enjoys the event like a child relishing a catastrophe. Everything is upside down. There is no sleeping. Everybody is getting up. The house is on fire.

  There is a stirring in the next flat, that of the Court of Appeals judge. Slippers on the floor, fumblings in the dark. Voices. Excitement. Muffled calls of “Daddy, Daddy” from his daughters. The judge grumbles angrily. He can hear it himself: a supernatural snore. He sends the maid to reconnoiter the snore and report back.

  The door of the judge’s flat opens slowly, cautiously, to prevent the snore from sneaking in. The maid’s hands tremble, the door gives irresolute creaks. She has thrust the oil lamp through the door into the staircase, better let the oil lamp have a look first. … But the door suddenly slams shut and smash!—the lamp has of course crashed to the floor, and the maid shouts fire. Confusion, slamming of doors, great commotion. It seems that the maid is indeed on fire. Mistress shouts “Water!” the judge shouts “Not water! An overcoat. An old one!” They put the fire out. The maid is not on fire at all, it is the anteroom rug. Mistress wails, “Oh my God, the carpet! It’s only fit for the rubbish heap now!”

  “Who cares about the carpet!” the judge exclaims in anger. Turning to the maid:

  “You. How did this happen?”

  “There was a draft,” stammers the maid. “Something blew and put it out …”

  “Put what out? The lamp, you mean?” the judge questions her expertly. “But how could the fire start if the lamp was out?”

  “I dropped it … There was a draft when I opened the door, all suddenlike, and it came on …”

  “Came alight? The lamp came alight?” The judge is losing his patience.

  “It was burning …” The maid is already in tears.

  “Was the lamp burning or was it not when you dropped it, that’s what I want to know!” The judge insists, he wants pure facts, the truth and nothing but the truth!

  “I don’t know,” weeps the girl. “There was a draft …”

  “A draft? Yes, you’ve got a draft in your head! Come on, go back to sleep. No, wait. Hold the door and mind it doesn’t close … in case of a draft …”

  “Draft, my foot,” the judge thinks in a masculine way. He goes out onto the staircase to reconnoiter for himself. But mistress opposes him, his daughters beseech him, “Daddy, Daddy.” They will not let him go into the darkness. “What blasted darkness? I’ll turn the staircase light on!”

  The snoring bursts in through the open door, forceful, mustachioed.

  Threatening.

  “Can’t you hear it, you mad, mad man?” Mistress will not let her husband rush into adventure.

  “Daddy, Daddy,” weep his daughters. They are losing their father.

  “Doctor, sir!” agrees the maid.

  “What the hell’s got into all of you? What’re you blubbering for? Will you let go of me, damn it! Here, you’ve torn my pajamas, you fools!”

  He has broken free of the womenfolk and steps out, bravely. “You hold the door. Watch out.”

  He has turned the staircase light on and is listening. He is now at a loss for what to do.

  “Mr. Tresić! Mr. Tresić!” the mistress bangs on his door. Calling for help.

  He does not like his name being shouted. “They know my name, even. Keeping tabs, discussing me …” That was what he thinks before he comes to the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Tresić, please.” Mistress is trembling at his door. “Did you hear?”

  (She gathers her housecoat on her breast under Melkior’s random look.) “Do you hear what’s going on here?”

  “No, Madam. What?”

  “Can’t you hear it, for God’s sake?”

  The snoring is still “going on.” It is serene now, almost sage. Exalted.

  “Oh, that? Someone’s sleeping.” Melkior was enjoying himself.

  On the staircase he comes upon a tableau. The judge in the middle, gray-haired, tall, lean, peering up toward the attic, both palms behind the ears, like a priest of a sect at prayer. On either side of him, his daughters in long nightgowns (angel-like), ministering. The maid gripping the door firmly, with both hands, according to instructions, the wife ringing at all the doors, summoning the faithful …

  When Melkior appears, the daughters squeal and leave the scene of the ritual. “Fled. The foolish virgins.” He sees the first florescence of breasts—“buds”—and the two other curves, smooth, sprightly, in flight. And the silhouetted legs, long, swift,—“wild animals”—joined by a shy acute angle. Heretical, blasphemous thoughts smile at Melkior. He forgets the sanctity of fear and gives the angels a parting glance—a lustful one.

  “We ought to wake him up,” the judge says to him.

  “Why bother? Let him sleep.”

  “Sleep? The man’s a cannibal!”

  “Polyphemus the Cyclops, the beast, will eat us all, one-eyed …”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, what magnificent snoring! Homeric!”

  The judge turns away from him with an I’m-not-in-the-mood-for-joking grimace.

  His wife has woken up two floors, the second and the third. Everyone comes out onto the stairs, like characters in a French film. Everyone is talking at once, pointlessly, without direction. The judge calms them down before explaining the matter. The sleeper is a giant of a man, he could batter them all to death, the situation calls for circumspect and concerted action. They p
ropose getting brooms and umbrellas. Calling the fire brigade (by all means!), alerting the troops in the barracks across the way. Mrs. Ema, still under the sway of a dream, feels it is “quite simple”: shear the man’s hair while he is asleep and he will be left helpless. Just as Delilah sheared Samson’s …

  At last there appears on the staircase ATMAN himself. The black dressing gown, white scarf and golden spider, the black goatee, and the grin put an end to all the chatter. Reverence reigns on the stairs. Even the judge is relegated to the ranks. ATMAN ascends like the Savior. He takes his right elbow in his left palm, formally, and, stroking his goatee, waits patiently until there is complete silence. Then he says, “I’m going to hypnotize him!”

  That is a catharsis. There are even handclaps. With a “shh” and a finger to his lips ATMAN cuts the ovations short and bows to the audience on all three sides with an almost painful grin. “Please don’t.” Whereupon begins the ascension, for he is ascending to the attic like God to Heaven. And he disappears in the darkness. He leaves behind upturned heads like in a Renaissance painting.

  Melkior, too, turns his head atticward. Like a hen catching a drop of water. He swallows with impatience. He listens. Something appears to have got between the cogs of the snoring: it had now become irregular, like an engine winding down. And it stops with a powerful exhalation. And something like an oath is thrown in. Melkior hears angry whispers: the incautious, sleepy raising of a voice being hushed by another, threatening one. Everyone takes it for the sound of Hypnosis, for the voice of a mysterious force lulling the snorer’s senses. Now they all await the descent.

  The way he’d said, “I’m going to hypnotize him!” No, really, what is going on up there? Four feet on the staircase, Melkior remembers, four feet when ATMAN was climbing to my door! An advertising stunt of the palmist’s, Melkior decides. It is only curiosity that keeps him out there.

  The lights in the stairwell suddenly go out. Fear of darkness grips everyone. Body pressing against body, protection. Something curving, female, half-dressed, cuddles against Melkior. In response he gives it a protective embrace. The curved thing surrenders limply, caressingly. His hands greedily explore the relief of the hemispheres, entering gorges, running down gorges; the mouth enters the jungle of hair, discovering the tiny shell of an ear, “Darling, darling, let’s retire” says the mouth of its own accord, inaudibly.

  Tens of panicky fingers grope for the switch on the wall. They interweave like languages unintelligible to each other. “It must be hereabouts. Move away, everyone,” commands the judge, his voice on the wrong wavelength, quavering. “Matches!” There are none to be found. The switch is not to be found either. “Now where in the dickens …?”

  “Darling,” whispers Melkior’s lips in the jungle, and the curvy warm says to the palms of his hands, “yours, yours.” Everything is there in his arms, given as gift, as if in a dream. “Darling,” whisper the lips to the tiny ear, “my room is right here.” Suddenly the sleek slim fish comes to life, gives a frightened start, slides out of his arms and dives into the dark. Damn it, I could have … The curse of that masculine “now.” That canine “right here and right now” lust. I could have arranged it with her. Now I don’t even know who she was. They go for contrivance, for secrecy. Ugo has made a date with her. Or was ATMAN lying? What’s going on up there now? Can’t hear a thing.

  Finally someone stumbles upon the switch. The light snaps on. Which one was it? He searches not by exclusion but the other way around: by choice, following his wishes. “Buttons,” Mr. Adam had said. Well, which button? The judge has two girls: the “foolish virgins.” Then there is the young wife from the second floor. He selects the young wife from the second floor. She is standing a little way off, next to her husband. Skier, the athletic type, broad-shouldered. Melkior feels inferior. He looks at her. Nothing. Another look, a long one, accomplice-like, with an invisible wink. Nothing. Sheer innocence. Her response is an absolutely conjugal, good-neighborly smile. No, not her. The “foolish virgins” then? But they are not even turning around. They are looking up, in the direction of the attic. Everyone is looking in the direction of the attic. “Coming down now,” somebody whispers piously.

  “Coming down now.” The sentence reverberates inside Melkior in strange acoustics, refracted through a sound prism, with multiple echoes. ATMAN is bringing up the rear like a controlling power. Something is radiating from his eyes.

  Everyone sees it. In front of him walks the hypnotized medium, his arms dutifully outstretched, like those of a blind man. His eyes are open but unseeing. He is controlled by the power residing in ATMAN.

  Why, it’s Four Eyes, the lush! The palmist has arranged it all. Four feet on the staircase: that’s what had been coming up. A con job.

  General disappointment on the stairs. They had expected a man-eating giant tamed by hypnosis. What they get is a rumpled runt, unshaven, dirty. It is amusing all the same. A hypnotized man. Arms outstretched, red, cold-bitten, trembling uncertain, tired, freshly awoken, shaken awake.

  The ape’s acting well, thought Melkior. This can’t be their first show.

  On reaching the last step ATMAN halts. But he does not loosen the hold his almighty gaze has on the unconscious subject. Four Eyes’s glazed eyes look for someone among those present. Melkior goes numb with fear: he has been found out! The two outstretched dirty hands are coming closer. The brute is indeed a good actor. Before he can collect his wits, the subject falls into his arms sobbing, “Mon ami, Mon ami.” At last, at long last, he has found the long-lost one!

  “So that’s what the ‘Let him sleep’ was for?” said the judge. He now sees everything clearly. “You knew.”

  “I did not!” Melkior barely manages to scream from the grimy embrace. Four Eyes has his smelly shoulder against Melkior’s mouth, sobbing “Mon ami, mon ami” into his ear.

  “Ah-ha, ‘Mon ami’! And yet he says he didn’t know!” the judge laughs sourly. “This is a hoax, all right, gentlemen. Let’s go back to sleep. Good night. As for you, Mr. Tresić, kindly save this kind of buffoonery for your drinking binges and let us get some sleep. Some of us are early risers.”

  And the judge leaves. He pulls behind him his wife and his virgins, who are reluctant to go: they are held back by curiosity. How is it going to end? “Tell me, my friend: who is the sleep-murderer?” Four Eyes asks of Melkior soberly, worriedly even, having dropped his embrace. A blast of brandy shoots out of his mouth.

  Melkior steps aside in disgust. He is shaking with rage.

  “Mr. Adam, if you don’t lead your ape away instantly, I will thrash him!”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” ATMAN speaks up with dignity, “do you see an ape here? Pull yourself together, Mr. Melkior, if you please. We have all been roused in the middle of the night. We are all finding things a bit out of the ordinary.”

  The audience is on ATMAN’S side. But Melkior is not aware of his own failure.

  “This is the second time this drunkard has insulted me today. I don’t even know him.”

  “Perhaps, Mr. Melkior, in a previous life?” ATMAN is being kind like a psychiatrist with a madman patient. “Never mind, eventually you will remember …” Then to the audience, “Under hypnosis, ladies and gentlemen, the soul acquires what is known as metempsychic memory. Here you have a typical example. You have just seen a hypnotized subject find the man he was searching for. In a previous life, as I said, they may well have grazed on the same meadow or, apologies to the ladies present, chased the same bitch. And now, having been reincarnated …”

  “Will you stop the drivel, you ass? You read about that in the paperback you borrowed from me the other day!”

  Even Melkior himself now sees he is losing. If only the judge had stayed behind: he might have been able to grasp a point or two. But these people just stare with fascination at ATMAN, the man in the know.

  “There you are, gentlemen, ‘in the paperback.’ Paperbacks are just about at our level. Whereas they read about things in thick vo
lumes. The secrets of the occult, Mr. Melkior, are to be found not in paperbacks but in here,” and the palmist tapped his forehead. “If you wish, I can lead you, too, as a medium, up and down these steps, for all your libraries. In the paperback, indeed!”

  ATMAN is offended. But he is immediately rewarded by the sympathies of all those present, which after all is what he was after. The effect is complete: everyone despises Melkior and takes no pains to hide it.

  But nobody notices the disappearance of the subject. Four Eyes, possibly at some secret sign from the palmist, has lost himself—simply melted away like a specter. And later on, when his disappearance is noticed, nobody believes any longer that he was there at all. They even believe that the snoring was produced by ATMAN and that the entire incident at the staircase was merely a nocturnal magic trick to surprise them, and they are grateful to him for it. They disperse with smiles, marveling at the artifice.

  ATMAN, too, has made for his room downstairs, but Melkior stops him. “Just a moment, Mr. Adam.”

  Turning toward Melkior, ATMAN smiles innocently.

  “What was the idea of all this business with Four Eyes tonight?”

  “Four Eyes? What Four Eyes?”

  “Four Eyes the drunkard. You brought him here and arranged this monkey business with him. We’re alone, you can speak freely.”