Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

  “You’re an exemplar yourself!” she flared. “An exemplar of a dolt. No, honestly, Mr. Melkior, why don’t you like Fred?”

  “Why don’t you like him anymore?” Melkior dared to ask, his face very visibly red.

  “That’s different. I know him, I know him very well. You hardly know him at all, so to speak, except on stage … Anyway, how can you speak of actors if you’re not in close contact with them?”

  “An astronomer is not in close contact with the stars, but that doesn’t prevent him from speaking of them,” said Melkior. “And Freddie is not such a star that I should not speak of him.”

  The retort pleased her hugely. She gave a contented laugh.

  “That’s good. Freddie’s not such a star that … Very good indeed. You’re a witty crew, you from Ugo’s crowd. And each of you is called something funny. What do they call you?”

  “Eustachius.”

  “Why?”

  “Who knows. There was a Roman soldier in the army of Emperor Trajan …”

  “… the Goat Ears? And what do they call Ugo?”

  “Parampion.”

  “Why?”

  “He chose it himself.”

  “Why?” she asked with childlike insistence, but her mind was already elsewhere.

  That elsewhere offended Melkior. But he no longer hated her. He thought, Sure, she’s superficial, fickle, and—if it came to that—definitely unfaithful. But he loved the artlessness which seemed to him incapable of being false. She was singing in an angelic choir amid a scent of roses. This is it—I’m in love. And he was in high spirits.

  He had found a nest among the branches. Chirping. Baby, he said to her in his mind.

  “As for you, Mac, don’t you think it’s time you stopped that chewing?” She gave a laugh tinged with disgust.

  Well, perhaps she, too, was relishing an inner celebration that was being interrupted by Mac’s smacking lips.

  “Sorry, Mic, I’ll be finished in a moment.” He began to tidy the table. “That was my lunch. I completed a major commission today. Two horoscopes of historic importance. They took me nearly two years to work out. Well, they are done. Both will end up on the bottom. I finished this morning.”

  “Oh, it’s those ships, Mac?”

  “The steel behemoths will be sunk next year. Here, have a look, Mr. Melkior”—he spread some sheets of paper out on the table with constellations, figures, and names on them. “On February the thirteenth last year, at one-fifteen p.m., the battleship Bismarck was launched in Hamburg, while on February the twenty-first of the same year, at three-forty-two p.m., the battleship George V was launched in Newcastle. Both are going to be smashed like a couple of tin buckets. The greatnesses.” He gave a mordant laugh, evidently with something else on his mind.

  “Why do you do such things? Who commissioned you? See what he fritters away his time on.”

  “It’s for the papers. For your own paper’s Sunday edition, Mr. Melkior. Both horoscopes to appear under the title Veritas. This will be a sensation. I’ve already spoken to Maestro. He was delighted.”

  “That I believe. He would sink all ships,” said Melkior.

  “And all humans,” she muttered and went red with a great hatred of some sort.

  “You know him?”

  “Everyone in town knows the fiend. He was telling you rude things about me last night—I saw him. Take care, he’s syphilitic.” She was speaking fast and breathlessly.

  “Come now, kitten, how can you claim something like that?” the palmist protested mildly. “He’s simply an unhappy man. You of all people should know.”

  “Mac, I wish you’d stop throwing me in with that beast!” she cried and stood up. Her breasts were heaving rapidly with some very tempestuous breathing. That was Melkior’s first exciting observation; another one, also exciting, was her hatred of Maestro. What was it that Tersitus had done to her? The hatred had a very cruel past. It was still untouched, untapped, full to the brim. What had grubby Tersitus done?

  She sat down again and turned her back to them both. She was angry. You’re all the same, you’re all against me. Her shoulders shook. She covered her face with her hands. Now we’re going to see those famous tears in her eyes. ATMAN gave him a phenomenon-announcing look. In for a bit of waiting for her to turn around, still in tears. Perhaps he had insulted her on purpose, with the pretty eyes in mind. He was a real creep, was Mr. Adam. Smiling, patiently. Waiting.

  “And I was having such a good time here,” she said sobbing. “You always have to go and spoil it.”

  “Now we’re going to make coffee and when we’ve had our coffee we’ll turn the cup upside down. All right?” He was speaking like someone in a kindergarten.

  “I won’t. I don’t want anything from you anymore. And I’ll never come back here again, not ever,” she was saying through her hands. “And there I was going to stay the whole afternoon. I was having such a nice time.” And she fell to sobbing again.

  “He’s now perhaps in a war chariot, the young warrior,” crooned Mr. Adam. “Perhaps he’s no longer on his horse, the fearsome knight …”

  “You’re lying now, you’re lying! I’ll marry the shoeshine man on the square …” She started another round of weeping, her gaze on a black tin of shoe polish. Despairingly.

  He went up to her and lightly stroked her hair with a trembling, avid hand. She gave a queasy shudder. He grinned forlornly in Melkior’s direction and shrugged. It’s going to be a long wait, this meant.

  The water started grumbling on the hotplate. Mr. Adam opened a tin, the smell of coffee filled the room. This worked on her like a whispered summons: come and see a marvelous scene, darling. A box with a new, hitherto unseen toy inside has been opened. We shall now take a peek at the future’s kaleidoscope: bits of colored glass will paint our dreams. Colored geometry, the lunatic’s landscape, the innocent girl clad in white walking above the flaming tongues of horrible serpents (symbolizing human malice), a big light in the distance. And he. The cavalryman. Waiting. Ah, I’m coming, darling, leaving all else behind me. Cursed be this world. I was born for you. Far, far away.

  The yearnings. They are all far away. Linear. Unidimensional metaphors. Long ago and far away … The sea, the mountains, the sky and He, the beloved. Distant, exotic lands, the call of the wild. East: the eighteenth century; the twentieth: far-away cities, jungles of light, wet asphalt, the Negro with the saxophone, cognac, the West. What do you expect from life? Give me some yearning, my love, my lover man. That I may yearn for you. A letter. Heads (of state). Tails. Black tie. He’s sent me two sets of undergarments (teddies), six (6) handkerchiefs, a silk shawl, and a negligee. It must mean something, the negligee. He’s inviting me. I can’t make up my mind, here—to leave—everything. Auntie told me, I don’t know, love, you’ll have to decide for yourself. Yearning, yearning for you …

  She stopped crying. Wiped her eyes. Nose, too. Ruined everything. Snuffle snuffle. The nose had contributed copiously to the grieving, a handkerchief full of grief. And the eyes, the pretty eyes—red-rimmed, inflamed, rubbed raw—looked out with cold disdain, still gnawing the bone of sorrow, sucking the marrow. The boundless appetite of Miss, Mrs. Viviana. Soul feed. She licked her dry lips, cat style.

  ATMAN knelt to serve her coffee. His face was grave, almost disappointed: she had not shone in tears. Nevertheless he managed to stretch his face into a now-now smile.

  “I could kill you.” Her eyes smiled restrainedly. Beautifully. “You antediluvian creature!”

  Antediluvian? Melkior snap-checked exemplar: Nothing in it. A gas mask, most likely. And even that with the wholehearted aid of the imagination.

  She drank her coffee in large gulps. She was in a hurry to reach the dregs: that was where Destiny smiled sweetly at her. She turned the cup upside down and fell to waiting impatiently. Happiness is being born. Extending tentacles, moving in the dark, clearing roads, removing snags, downing obstacles. How powerful, how terrible Happiness is, there is no holding
it back.

  “I see a long road,” ATMAN read in the dregs. “A man standing alone at the far end. Waiting. Behind him, a splendid castle, a green park, a lake, white swans. Above the roof, wild geese flying away. Here, Mr. Melkior, can you see the geese?” ATMAN pointed his little finger at an orderly flock of dots. “These are geese. Meaning it’s autumn. It is in autumn that you will arrive by this road to the glittering castle, one, two, three, four, four years from now. But I see terrible obstacles on your way: destruction, fire, explosions. See the explosion, Mr. Melkior?” He was now pointing at a scattered spurt of dregs, the spot where the bomb had hit. “And many people around you, false lifesavers, reaching out, grabbing hold of you in turn, each one for himself, for a time. And now you’re on the road again, on your way to the waiting man’s castle …”

  “And then?” She was listening to him with a patient’s eager concentration. In her eyes was fear of the unknown, with a humble, flattering plea for a happy ending. If at all possible.

  “Then there will be an onslaught of malice and envy. I see a mean dragon with three heads, a flaming tongue in each. Envy, malice, and slander—the three-headed dragon blocking your way to happiness. You will get past the first head thanks to your beauty, you will get past the second head thanks to your kindness, but the third, the third head you will not get past.”

  “Oh my God,” she cried, “not ever?” and covered her eyes with trembling hands, horrified.

  Good. That was where her umbilical cord was fused to his, around the twinge of her Happiness. How he kept her chained to the frisson of Destiny! But we who know why the cock crows … Melkior laughed inside, but ATMAN’S phrase still lay flatteringly in his ear. We who know …

  “The third you will not get past,” repeated the palmist in sibylline tones. “I see snowy whiteness all around. This is the passion of true love … to combat slander, and you are nowhere to be seen. I see you no more.”

  “But you did say, Mac, you did say I was going to reach the castle in the autumn, four years from now? Try starting over again—you forgot that bit, Mac.”

  “I forgot nothing,” ATMAN replied sternly. He put the cup away, closed his eyes and tilting his face ceilingward. “I see you no more … do not interrupt, I’m not finished yet … I see you no more with my human eyes. Wait, I’m looking inside in another mode. Milk, boiling milk, is what I see. Black milk from hellish feed, an egg hatched by a viper, the accursed generation. Rising, all rising … Oh-ho, oh-ho. Ohhho, here comes a dark army, warriors with teeth from ear to ear, tooth by tooth. Blood and knife, blood and knife …”

  “What about him, what about him?” she cried out dementedly.

  “Knife and blood,” said ATMAN in a trance, his face contorting with prophetic pain.

  “Is he still standing there in front of the castle? Is he standing there alone?” she shivered miserably, deeply in love.

  “Standing, standing … Falling! Tooth to neck, knife to throat.” She screamed. “I see a honeycomb, a honeycomb, an endless honeycomb. Heads protruding from the honeycomb, eyes mournful, ears dry. Heads, heads, a thick cluster of grapes. A bloody vintage. Thump and thump, and thump and thump … sledgehammer, blow after blow. Reapers advancing. Murderers. Oh Mel-kiooor, Mel-kiooorrr …”

  “What?” blurted Melkior.

  “Don’t ask,” she whispered, “you’ll wake him. He’s not finished yet.”

  “Very well,” said Melkior, offended. “I can leave if you like.”

  “No.” She gave his hand a fierce squeeze. He felt the squeeze with all his body, it was like the touch of a thunderbolt. “He sees you, too. Listen.” She left her hand on his. He felt nothing but that hand.

  “What happens next, Mac, what happens next?” She wished the dream to go on. Perhaps there was a nice ending. Perhaps even a happy, a happy one!

  “He lifts him bodily, does Melkior,” ATMAN whispered ceiling-ward, his face clearing up, diluted. “Lifting, lifting. He’s heavy, limp, half-dead. There’s hope yet, says Melkior. I’ll do it for her sake. That and anything else, I’ll do anything for her sake, says Melkior. I love her, I love Viviana, says Melkior.”

  “You love her?” she asked, in near-consternation. “Who is she, Mac? Whom does he love?”

  “Vi-vi-a-na,” said ATMAN, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat with suppressed laughter. Adam’s apple. Melkior noticed this and blushed. I’ll smash him, he thought, right on the Adam’s apple bobbing on Adam’s throat. I’ll smash him …

  “But who’s Viviana, Mac?” She had noticed nothing. “Why’s he lifting him up for her sake? Who is she?”

  “Your mother’s daughter but not your sister,” he replied Pythian style, and his Adam’s apple bobbed again.

  “My mother’s daughter but not my … Why, that’s nobody, Mac! It’s nobody, isn’t it?” she spoke to Melkior. “Meaning you’re not in love at all.”

  “That’s what it means,” Melkior readily took the proffered chance.

  “So what’s the idea of the teasing, MacAdam?” she cried in disappointment. “You are all confused. You’re spouting nonsense. You can’t see anything further, right? You can’t see anything further.”

  “Oh but I can. Melkior is carrying him on his back to the glass castle. I’m doing it for her sake, says Melkior, and gives him his heart’s blood. Melkior donates his own blood for her happiness. He comes around, opens his large eyes. (Beautiful eyes, she corrects him.) If I’m dead, he says, then it’s all over and done with (as they say); if I’m alive then let me wait, let me wait for her to arrive. They cut your throat a bit, says Melkior, opened your veins and went on. You’ve lost your blood. But I’ve given you some of mine, there’s plenty more where it came from, says Melkior, enjoy it in good health. I’ll give it back to you, he says, when my own is restored, I’ll give it back twice over. Please don’t bother, says Melkior, and refuses with disgust. I gave it to you as a present because … but he won’t say why; and the truth is that he did it for her happiness. But I’m going to get you a tutor, says Melkior, because you’re artless like a stork—you’re waiting on one leg. You need to be taught a thing or two. Oh no, I want to wait for her alone, he says. Anyway, I do know how to stand on two legs. Not at all, says Melkior, you’ll need to have a tutor before I fetch her. You’re standing on one leg, one and a half at best, and what she needs is an eagle, indeed two eagles for round-the-clock shifts, and a couple of parrots as well, for agreeable chats.—I’ll give her everything, everything from inside myself, eagles and parrots included, only please go and bring her to me.”

  “Is that me, Mac, is that me?” she bleated ingratiatingly, full of hope.

  “I said Viviana.”

  “Who is that? It’s nobody!”

  “Your mother’s daughter …”

  “We’ve figured that one out already. It’s nobody. You can’t say that! Who is she?” she whispered to Melkior. He shrugged: search me.

  “There, you made it all up.”

  “I did not,” said ATMAN in an earthly voice and squinted at Melkior. “He did.”

  “Who?”

  “Melkior … made it up, Melkior …”

  “Mr. Adam …” but he could think of nothing to say next, like someone caught out lying. He felt the need to wash his hands, which were sweaty. “Mr. Adam,” he repeated senselessly and stopped dead, not being wound up. The mainspring had snapped, he felt it all of a sudden when she looked at him with her large eyes: You?

  He crossed his legs in order to place a sharp kick with the tip of his shoe just below Mr. Adam’s knee. Accidentally, with many apologies, sincere as all get-out.

  “Ahh!” groaned Mr. Adam and turned on his small close-set eyes, training them on Melkior with the big threat of an all-encircling octopus, the dreadful lord of the deep. But he sent his tentacles twisting upward, into an after-sleep stretch, into sensible awakening. “What? Was I asleep?”

  “No, your father’s son was!” she said angrily. All was lost for her.

  “
But not my brother?” he took it up delightedly. “So it was I who slept, after all.”

  The penny dropped.

  “Why, it’s me! It’s me!” she clapped her hands and embraced ATMAN the Great.

  “What about you?” ATMAN wondered very convincingly. Melkior recrossed his legs and gave him another shoe-to-shin warning. Mildly this time, with a you-cheeky-beggar smile.

  “Viviana! I am Viviana!” she cried out her destiny-making discovery.

  “Who told you so? Did you tell her?”

  Melkior blew through his nose and turned his head away.

  “You said so yourself, you crazy Mac! Don’t you remember? Viviana? I like it. Did you think of it, Mac?”

  “No, it was Mr. Melkior.”

  She looked at him like a hen, inclining her head toward each shoulder in turn, with each eye—each of two delights—in turn. He went pale. A lump formed instantly beneath his diaphragm, he felt his tea in his gullet, sweet-tasting.

  “A pretty name. Thank you so much,” she said to Melkior, touching her face to his shoulder in fetching gratitude. ATMAN gave him a deserving look. “And you, Mac, you are truly a pig! You and your eagles! I’m not as stupid as you think. What does that make me, a … The parrots, too! No, honestly, you are a pig, MacAdam!”

  She was angry, a justifiable and dainty anger, at Mr. Adam’s peculiar insinuation. She was but an unhappy woman in search of love (pure and true) for her youth and, well, beauty, such as it was … and look at him going on about round-the-clock shifts … it was clear what he meant by the eagles. No, honestly, what was Mr. Melkior to think of her? And Mr. Melkior was already thinking, Yes, it’s all clear now, she’s a … Two big-beaked eagles, around the clock, around the clock … And parrots to boot, ridiculous, yacking birds.

  By now this had turned into a passion for discovery, for augmenting the sorrow. Which was why Melkior had stayed, waiting.

  But she got up, sweeping her bric-a-brac into her handbag. The session had yielded some prospects after all: there was still the castle, also him in the distance. As for the adversity, well, you had to expect some, haven’t you? She was used to them all right.