Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

  That’s who I am—did she mean “unfortunately” or “hooray”? For there was neither sad tinge nor boastful triumph in her voice, it was a simple statement of fact: anything goes—I’ll see what you have to offer.

  Melkior was offering himself. Offering up his person with all his heart and soul, in order to be found, discovered. Here I am, Viviana, with all the devotion of a love which … No, they prefer charm boys, euphoric babblers using fetching lies to decorate a night. A wonderful night. The very stars were bursting with laughter. Wow, what a time we had!

  She has been sucked dry with kisses, gnawed bare by those black fillings. She has got the “wonderful night” circled around her eyes in a spreading sfumato of carnal blue. The stars of pleasure are even now bursting in her pupils. She is still being drenched with caresses. Viviana! Rattling inside him was a shattered sky, Ugo was stomping on the shards.

  They walked down a street thick with special offers and passersby. A warm and idle morning. Elbows, shoulders, legs. Heads turned in salute to shop windows. Noses and one ear each in profiles. Eyes, greedy, snatching in passing at the fetishes behind the thick panes of glass of the sanctuaries. Inside, priests and Pharisees discovering with delight the secrets of the genesis of pleasing shapes, deluxe qualities, the wonders of the most-moster-mostest of sophisticated civilization. Suddenly, among the splendor-lovers’ ecstatic profiles, Melkior spotted a heretic en-face scornfully erasing the bustling fairground enthusiasm and leaving in its wake grave concern. The Stranger strode in a “superior” manner towering above all the heads, even though he was no taller than they. Melkior spotted him a long way off. Instinctively he ducked his head down, dived into the dancing waves of heads, shoulders, bodies in motion, moving on through, and hung his head like a culprit. He wished to dissolve like an anonymous droplet in the thick stupid sea of senseless motion, to pass unnoticed, invisible. In the company of this pretty, unnecessary (ah, Viviana!) female I’m loitering among the props of a superficial, irresponsible life, suspected in his mind of being an accomplice, perhaps even a believer.

  But the Stranger was moving through the crowd headed directly for him. He was cutting his way through the thick rolling magma like someone wishing to meet a man amid all the frivolity and to offer him his hand. He’s spotted me. So … Melkior straightened up like a man, stood apart from the throng and made his way toward the Stranger, leaving Viviana agog in front of billows of silk in a shop window. He had his hand ready to proffer, along with a question about a good night’s sleep … but he noticed that the man was looking over his head, into the distance, with the eyes of a railway inspector, of a man responsible for regular traffic flow. In this way the Stranger passed by Melkior (for it would have been silly to say over him) like a mute and hermetic armored train with a vital mysterious destination at some unintelligible distance.

  Melkior looked after him, disappointed, cast aside, superfluous at this “historic moment.” Now, Danton would have halted, perhaps even offered a hand. But this Dzhugashvilovich … He felt embarrassment at his own outstretched hand, at his thoughtful question, “Did you have a good night’s sleep?” at his puritanical renouncement of Viviana.

  “Nice,” she took hold of his elbow, “and me looking all over for you. Trying to give me the slip?”

  “I was trying to avoid encountering a man …” He felt her fingers and his own embarrassment at the lie.

  “Or a woman?”

  “No, a man,” he mouthed, almost repentant, but he was pleased by her suspicion though he knew it was no more than a stab at a conventional flirtation. Which was true—she followed with no retort to his repeated claim. So that’s how it is—she doesn’t care, man or a woman. What on earth am I wasting my time here for? He was beginning to feel tired, for one thing. In need of sleep, hungry, tormented by dreams, thoughts, and wakefulness, he wished to sit down somewhere, alone, to rest from the nearness of her. Gloomily to ruminate on a happy love, withdrawn, in solitude, in the dark… I watch your pretty eyes … and offer life a chance to savor the sweet taste of pain. That legless wretch (the man last night) couldn’t afford it, so he discovered an even more miserable metaphysics of love. Pure music. With no guts or tails, as he put it in his terrible humility. Or was it that he wanted to spill his Penelope’s guts and snip off the tail of her stallion? And him saying he wanted to listen to the cantilena of traitorous love! No, it is undeniably the fate of unhappiness to bite its own fingertips, with pleasure.

  “Will you be coming again soon to visit Mr. Adam, Viviana?” he enjoyed using his name for her.

  “What, to have him torment me again? No, I won’t,” she said defiantly. “I’ll never go see him again!”

  “Why ever not, Viviana? He likes you very much.”

  “Oh yes he does, in that way … what’s that word for liking to torture people?”

  “Sadistic.”

  “Yes, that’s it. You saw what he did to me yesterday. And he keeps insulting me. He’s a really nasty piece of work,” she added with a smile that attenuated the words. “And generally speaking, all you men are such good-for-nothings.”

  She laughed, showing her incredibly white teeth.

  “All?” asked Melkior rather worriedly, then stammered in fear: “Even Ugo?”

  “You mean the one whom Fred …? Oh, he’s the worst of the lot. … And such a liar! He thinks I’m some kind of … Apart from that, he’s quite a likable rascal—he’s so funny,” she gave a cryptic smile, “he had me laughing all the time!”

  “Last night?” Melkior groaned bitterly.

  “Last night?” she said, perplexed. “No, the night before. At the Give’nTake, when he kept teasing Freddie. Why, you were there, too. Weren’t you? Frankly, I don’t remember.”

  She doesn’t remember. “I am democratic,” say the finest ladies.

  But she doesn’t; Maestro may have lied about it.

  “Oh, I was, I was,” muttered Melkior and heaved a sad sigh. “You were looking at me with such an inexplicable loathing …”

  “With loathing?” she said with unconcerned wonder. “Why, yes, of course, you are the critic! It was on account of Fred. Anyway, perhaps I wasn’t quite wrong to have looked at you that way,” and she gave him a birdlike look, coquettishly inclining her head to one side.

  “You were wrong, Viviana, you were wrong indeed …” Melkior suddenly threw his soul open like a shirt, with unrestrained sentimentality. “I was looking at you … differently. You were awfully unfair to me.”

  “You were looking at me with … you know what kind of interest. That syphilitic pig next to you … I saw it. I know the kind of thing he says about me.” The dark splotches broke out over her face again and her eyes went moist with suppressed tears.

  “It was Freddie we were discussing,” he lied, “not you.”

  “Why should I believe you? Do I know who you are? The first time I ever spoke to you was yesterday, at that crazy Mac’s. In fact, we didn’t even speak to each other. I scarcely heard you speak at all. You’re a curious person. Mac says you’re a very clever but curious person.”

  “What does he mean, a curious person?” Well, at least she did think about me, he thought consolingly.

  “I don’t know. I suppose you’re not like everyone else. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  “No, it isn’t,” he blurted out nervously. “For one thing, I’m not witty like Ugo. I’m a bore. I’m boring you, too.”

  “You’re not boring me at all,” she said candidly. “That’s where you’re wrong … and where it shows you don’t know me. I am democratic (ah-ha!), I’ll talk to anyone … if they’re interesting. You are curious but interesting, and I’m glad I’ve met you.”

  “Are you really, Viviana?” He skipped the “democracy” bit and was pleased. “If only you knew how happy I am to have met you! I walk alongside you, thinking: if only she had an inkling of … and so on. I talk sheer drivel to myself—those are not thoughts really. Anyway, where could I get thoughts from when
I’m all confused, I expect you’ve noticed. I’m happy one minute, the next I’m totally unhappy again, swearing at you inside, being angry with you … I was about to leave and go away just now.”

  “Oh, you mean when you ducked me?” She was laughing.

  “No, that was really because of a man.”

  “Or a woman. Admit it—you didn’t want her to see you with me.”

  “There’s nothing to admit, Viviana. It was a man …” He really hadn’t wanted the Stranger to see him with her … and he was now ashamed of that. He was amazed that he should have been ready to abandon her because of … What’s the matter with me? He knew he could not stop now. And he was giving in to it. I’m snared, I’m snared, he complained to himself, but was unable to pull himself together and so began blurting out a series of “ownings up.” I’ll own up, Viviana … no, I know you’re going to laugh, but I’ll own up all the same … I must own up, Viviana, come what may …

  This was all very flattering to her. Such a declaration. Including all his suffering, even this morning’s business with the tram. (She took the tram to be a suicide attempt abandoned at the last moment. He presented it like that himself, in a confused and muddled fashion, so she was bound to take it as she did.) It was too late to “mend” anything. She carried her smile high, triumphantly, as if following a victory. Flags fluttered over her head, brass bands blasted away, and everyone was shouting, there she is! There she is! The one alongside Melkior Tresić, that’s her, Viviana! Long live Viviana! In a gracious moment she actually slipped her arm through his, she was democratic, what of it, she didn’t care who knew, let the whole world see, Mr. Adam the palmist himself, Fred, too, and Maestro and Ugo, the entire Give’nTake brigade … that she was not ashamed. And he walked at her side like a “secondary personage” in a parade, the royal consort, a self-styled king, cuckoo-king, thin-king, sin-king, sunk in gloom and indignity. She withdrew her arm from the misalliance after ten steps or so, because … well, enough was enough. Blackness engulfed his soul again and he covered his eyes for a moment with the sad arm she had abandoned. He walked thus for a few moments like someone blinded by a blaze. All had been lost in an instant. He longed to be alone among the ruins.

  “Did something get in your eye?” she asked with concern.

  “No. Something just occurred to me,” he replied hastily retracting his hand.

  “Yes, I’ve noticed that,” she said sarcastically, “some people lay a hand over their eyes when they’re thinking. Does it help you to think more clearly?”

  “Yes it does … I’m sorry, Viviana, I must be off,” he said in a sudden rush.

  “Just like that? All of a sudden?”

  “That’s right, all of a sudden, there’s something I forgot to do. Goodbye.”

  “You are a curious one. … All right then, au revoir.”

  She held out her hand with a touch of regret. But he didn’t notice, he didn’t even notice the hand, he was already turning to go.

  “Won’t you even give me your hand?”

  “Oh, right, sorry …” He felt her small soft hand in his and wavered for a moment. But then a strange fury swept through him and he said Goodbye in a near shout and made for the first corner in a genuine hurry.

  For the corner, for the corner, run for cover! She had her gaze trained on his trembling back. He walked at a weirdly uneven pace, ridiculous, shameful, like a petty thief with a stolen book under his arm. He was treading across a miry and accursed world, alone and desperate. His body felt to him like a frightened piglet, a seal, a turtle, cumbersome and sluggish, something which could only roll, stumble, and crawl. Something which never got where it was going, as if in a dream. The treacherous body jeering at its own misery. Would I were no more! Would I were the infectious air … I would suffocate the … preventively … But he was around the corner by then and the madness subsided instantly. Moreover, there surfaced Don Fernando’s preventively as a good sign of mordant humor. Yet he was still striding fast, like someone hurrying to reach an impatient destination. …

  “Hey, what’s the rush, fair knight? Has it already started?”

  The grinning fillings and the thick, lust-swollen lips. Melkior barely stopped himself from spitting into it all. How many times had he felt the symbolic impulse in his mouth as the resolution of his strange relationship with Ugo! Missed the opportunity again! An encounter of this particular kind was the last thing he needed. Ugo was blocking his way, his arms open for a vehement embrace.

  “I want you to know I’m happy, dear friend!” he cried out loud, trying all the while to hug his friend and shower kisses on him, but Melkior had his arms out and kept retreating. “So exquisitely happy that it’s almost beyond your esteemed-accursed (read: wild) imagination. October brought a harvest surpassing all expectations. I have picked the fruits—I’m still sticky all over with the sweet dreams.”

  “Only with the dreams?” smiled Melkior in a provocative way. He wanted to know, to know, be it even …

  “Oh, with reality as well—and how!” exclaimed Ugo delightedly. “The dreams came later on, as a brief recapitulation. I belong to the genus of ruminants in that respect.”

  “Meaning what, specifically?” Oh, he knew only too well what it meant, but he wanted to hear it—hear it! Unless this creep is …

  “Meaning? You want me to … go into the details?” baring his fillings in a grin, drool pooling between his lip and his lower teeth. “Now, that would be a bit of … No, really, you must admit, we can’t violate a lady’s privacy, now can we?” and he burst into terrible, provocative, teasing laughter.

  The night’s dark rings around her eyes had now acquired a very authentic explanation. Oh well, there was nothing for it, might as well get to the bottom …

  “Which is to say you … ?”

  “Yes, I did.” Ugo was looking “innocently” into his eyes, but his snout was filled full of laughter.

  “You’re lying, Parampion,” Melkior spat out the words with a pained smile, “I was with her until a minute ago.”

  “Buying the precious fabrics for her aunt? I was supposed to go with her, only I overslept. Heh-heh, does it fit?”

  That’s right. It fits, damn it! Of course, it fit in with her plans, too.

  “And where did you …” Melkior made an easy-to-imagine gesture.

  “First in a quiet little café, to quote a pop song from our puberty, if you still remember it. It’s actually a great place for ‘undercover’ people (I mean couples with a skeleton in the cupboard) with well-coached, discreet personnel. Then at her place.”

  “Her place?”

  “Yes. Is that beyond the imagination? But I made with the poetry while still at the café. Restless is the autumn air … while the hands, of course, went about their business … poetically. First the hair, for the sake of the rhyme, and then over the rest of the poetry. But the hardest of all, you know, was the passage across those zones … you’d explained it to me, scientifically, the erogenous zones. They are indeed—you were right on that point—highly sensitive points in women. Not to mention that it wasn’t quite the thing to do, getting sexually aroused in public. We’re not in a cage at the zoo, perbacco, the monkeys, remember? I told you about that time when I was nudging la fiancée toward the potential liberator … Oh, mon Dieu, I’m a right bastard, aren’t I? But once we got to her flat everything went smoothly, no resistance at all, over all the zones, heh-heh … But your eyes are flashing, Eustachius the Envious! Well, it wasn’t so hard to predict, eh?”

  He may indeed have noticed a glint in Melkior’s eyes—he started fussing over him to give comfort in a flash of generosity.

  “She likes you, too, you know. Thing is, you think too much in the late Plato’s terms. Which is not her cup of tea. Frankly, she doesn’t understand that sort of pragmatics. The problem of the transition to the horizontal was invented by male insecurity. We have built poetry upon it. They like being brought down. Their worn-out ‘no’ is a form of the verb ‘keep g
oing.’ You don’t have to be Caesar to cross that dried-up Rubicon—if indeed anything had ever run there except crocodile tears. There, I’ve expounded things at your intellectual level. You’ve got to admit. I’ve even used oratorical metaphors. Applause.”

  “Nevertheless you weren’t at her place last night,” said Melkior with mulish obstinacy. “That I won’t believe.”

  He really did not believe it. He could not bring himself to believe it. She’s no Enka …

  “You don’t? Well, have a gander at this, Eustachius,” he took out a small latchkey from his pocket, “I can usher you immediately into that heaven, ecco la chiave del paradiso. ‘L’Amor che muove il sole e l’altre stelle,’” he declaimed, his face gazing skyward, with a gesture of high pathos. “Do you believe me now, my poor Eustachius? I really can’t see why you persist in being so hard on yourself in so determined a way, sipping from the palm of your hand, as it were, all the while surrounded by goblets and chalices brimful with pleasures. Oh you Dio-genius, you ascetic-onanist, you slimy omnia mea mecum porto oyster, you quaint plaster saint above the portal of History’s brothel, you martyr to martyromania, you self-elected weeper over the fate of Mankind … which, incidentally, includes my worthless self! Spit on me and everything else (for you do seem about to spit), make a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn around your vertical axis and give those mischievous hormones free rein. Life is no dream. Life is the unity of all the piggish ways known as Man. I don’t believe you still agree with the tramp Satin that man has a proud ring to it. Don’t tell me your soul admires the self-denial of the carrier pigeon or the loyalty of the dog. You are proud your-self—what do you care for loyalty and self-denial? Liberate your pigs, let them root through the pleasures, let them grunt with delight. There you have it. Call me an idiot if you like.”

  “No. You’re a Superpig … in the Nietzschean sense,” smiled Melkior in bitter disgust. He started to turn around and walk away, but Ugo rushed out in front of him and made a mocking bow.