Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

“Yes, Major?” she came in, the darling niece, rustling all over with whiteness. She remained motionless at the door, waiting piously for the Major’s signal to approach. So this is how it is between them, a formal relationship? Melkior felt relieved. He had his arms crossed on his chest in a manly way, like a naked brave in his Chief’s tepee.

  “We’ll keep the boy here,” said the Major taking the stethoscope out of his ears. “Would you take him upstairs to the ward, nurse, Room Seven? Good.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Melkior retreated backward, the trouser mouth around his thin waist blooming with pious gratitude. He had his backside misdirected, aiming at the wrong door, and She directed him with her finger, not that one, this one, get dressed again where you undressed then come back to see me, they were both smiling, he caught a lightning-quick exchange of looks, an arrangement for “later.”

  He dressed with the chagrin of a male ridiculed. But when he reentered her “marble halls” with his greatcoat over his arm he felt like a traveler in a tourist office facing a hostess whose most sacred duty, for all her hidden contempt, was to smile in the kindest way possible, showing her teeth a little. She was going to escort him to his stateroom, here’s the bathroom, these are the usual offices, please ring here if you need anything … and the transatlantic liner would set sail over the light waves (suitable for a postprandial on-deck snooze and providing an attractive seascape), making for a bright new world beyond the reach of the cannibal reek of Polyphemus the Cyclops, the one-eyed beast.

  “The Major’s a nice man, isn’t he?” she said proudly, as if he were in some way hers. Melkior threw his greatcoat over the other arm in a routine gesture of impatience, and gave an understanding smile. She reddened.

  “Yes, an understated and dignified man,” he said to confuse her further and possibly make her confide in him. “Rather aloof, I thought.”

  “He is first and foremost a doctor.” The blush was receding from her face, but her white hands trembled, the papers in them rustled. “In his book an unwell soldier is a patient to be brought back to health.”

  “… and sent back to Caesar when he’s fit again. Give unto Caesar …” chuckled Melkior dryly.

  “Caesar?” she looked at him in surprise; she had put the papers on her desk.

  “Oh, that’s a horse—a talented one, allegedly—back at the barracks.” Melkior was speaking with due respect. “Two sons of grieving mothers has he already dispatched to Hades, unto Aides … as your uncle would put it. Men now wait for him to smite the third and thereupon feel Death’s bludgeon himself …”

  She laughed, showing a great deal of her teeth.

  “Ah-ha, so that’s what sent you over here!” She offered him rubbery green Eucalyptus gumdrops from a small tin box: “Go on, take one—I won’t poison you. They disinfect the throat—very good for this autumn weather with so much flu around. Ah, isn’t that just like men? Heroes, but afraid of horses.”

  “While you women are not afraid of horses, not even of lions, but you’re afraid of mice and, ha-ha, you’re afraid of roaches. It’s common knowledge, of course, that roaches are far more dangerous than lions. … A fly is afraid of spiders, not crocodiles. That’s instinct—which, as they say, is never wrong. Then again, your fearsome enemy the mice know that cats are far more fearsome than lions … and that’s how those circles of fear work, hobbling anything that lives, anything that moves in one way or another. Did you ever touch a tiny insect crawling on a windowpane? It drops dead on the spot, doesn’t it, all dried up and hollow somehow. Dead my foot! It’s only faking death, the crafty little creature. It thinks: I’ll be unimportant looking like this and my enemies will pass me over. Wise—for all that it’s so minuscule! It hasn’t even got a brain.”

  She was now sucking her Eucalyptus pensively: “thoughts” like these must require a grave face. Melkior had long since swallowed his, it had only impeded his speech. She’s disinfecting her breath for kisses. Perhaps there’s the smell of rotting tonsils or the matutinal empty stomach, and the Major … But this is ingratitude! He remembered and felt ashamed inside. Haven’t they both been good to me? If I had my heart in the right place I would bless their love, he went on gibing with a bitter bite.

  “Maybe you’re a poet,” she said, giving him a timid glance.

  “No, I’m not. I’m not talented. I know too many poems by heart—anything I might attempt would resemble one of them. But that doesn’t mean I have no right to be afraid of horses. Indeed, Byron, one of the greatest poets, was a fine horseman, perhaps because he had a club foot. But he preferred walking—he was a most handsome figure of a man.”

  She looked at him with curiosity, but the buzzer turned her look off: the Major was wanting her.

  “Here, report to the ward with these,” she hurriedly handed over some papers. “We’ll continue this conversation—we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other from now on.” And she disappeared behind the white door.

  It was couch time, time for the divan … I mean time to talk, in Turkish, he corrected his words; but the thought lingered, filled with bitter, jealous suspicion. “We’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other from now on.” … Well, this was the first encounter and then (he remembered) goodbye, Viviana!

  He went out in high spirits to look for the ward. Well, where was it? He asked a soldier in white, Medical Corps, where to report with his papers.

  “Says right there above your nose,” said the soldier in white. He looked like one of those Russian men who was fighting in the snow, on skis. They did in the end lick the Finns. They were first rate, that’s for sure, shooting while the ground slid beneath their feet.

  He read once again the writing “right there above his nose” on the black sign by the entrance: TUBERCULOSIS WARD. Yellow lettering on black background—an undertaker’s. Hats off!

  I’ve been suckered! he whispered, crestfallen, turning to go back to the doctor’s office. He’d prefer Caesar and Nettle both to Koch’s bacilli. The hygiene teacher had drawn them on the blackboard: rod-shaped, millions upon millions of tiny vermin. She and that “very nice man” had sprung him a handy trap: Caesar and Nettle here, the Koch bacilli there—all right, take your pick. Chortling in there, I bet. “We’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other from now on.”

  She was not out in the waiting room. No sounds came from in there. He had a closer listen, putting his ear to the white door. Nothing. They were being cautious. And the couch, loyal, humble, with its teeth clenched, was silent as the grave. They must’ve locked the door, too. He pressed the knob. The door opened dutifully: at your service, sir. Inertia drove his head into the room.

  “Yes?” The Major was sitting at his desk, signing papers; she was ministering to him, blotter in hand, pressing signatures.

  “Is something wrong?” she stopped short above a signature.

  “It says TUBERCULOSIS WARD on the sign,” timidly uttered the head inside the door.

  “So what?” said the Major. “Did you find that alarming?”

  “I’d rather go back to the barracks …” said the head stupidly. “I’m sorry,” and it made to withdraw, “I’m disturbing you.”

  “Wait.” The Major stood up, pulled him by the shoulder, drew the whole of Melkior inside. “You’re too weak, you must stay here. Don’t be afraid of what it says on the panel—the positive cases are accommodated separately, those who really have T.B. Room Seven’s clean, comfortable, five beds only, intellectuals, malingerers,” the Major gave a smile, “a bit on the skinny side, on hi-cal rations, a jolly crew, you won’t be bored.” The Major encouraged him and thumped him on the shoulder, and Melkior felt himself blush … over his it’s-a-trap suspicion … and over her, the poet’s niece. Ugo would now kneel and kiss the ground he walked on, blessed be your every footstep, you kindhearted man! His eyes filled with tears of gratitude, he was afraid he might burst into sobs. The Major intelligently guessed his condition, gave him a “manly” slap on the cheek: “Come on, back to the ward now … pay no
attention to the sign. Oh well, we’re not all born to be soldiers,” he muttered to himself sitting back at his desk again.

  “Much obliged, Doctor,” bowed Melkior as he retreated.

  “All right, my lad, all right, goodbye,” the Major went on signing the papers. “Scary thing indeed, that T.B. WARD sign … Not the first time,” was what Melkior heard the Major add as he carefully closed the door behind him.

  In hospital dress with thin blue and white stripes, his greatcoat draped beggar style over his shoulders, Melkior entered Room Seven. Hesitant. He stopped at the door, his gaze wandering anxiously from bed to bed, at faces peeking out from the covers and watching him with curiosity and, it would seem, terminal exhaustion. Melkior stood lost before the cold gazes, like someone pleading for mercy.

  “Take off the mask, Tartuffe!” shouted one of the faces all of a sudden, sitting up in bed. “Come on in, no need to panic.”

  “Hello, boys,” said Melkior in an undertone, but without moving from where he stood. “Is this my bed?” he indicated with his head a made-up bed next to the door.

  “Yes, that’s yours,” replied a dark-haired young man with a thin moustache à la actor Adolphe Menjou. “So you’d be another of the Major’s bad cases, would you?” There were subdued chuckles from under the covers … But the eyes outside the covers offered the newcomer their profound sorrow, they had nothing to do with the ripples of laughter. What training! thought Melkior with envy. Let’s see you do your stuff here, Numbskull! And he suddenly remembered the-assembly-point-outside-the-canteen sergeant. He threw his bundle on the bed and rushed out into the corridor. They called out after him from the room, shouting: where you going—we were only joking! Perhaps he is a bad case?

  The sergeant was waiting at the assembly point outside the canteen, with four men: they didn’t make the cut, thought Melkior, as one of the select of medical fortune.

  “How much longer were you expecting me to wait for you, eh?” bawled the sergeant. “What is it then?”

  “I’m to stay.” The four looked enviously at the hospital wear under his greatcoat. Melkior showed the sergeant his credentials.

  “Oh no—you’ll have me in tears!” the sergeant leered at him in rage. “How am I to manage without you?” Then, after closer scrutiny of the papers: “Right! Get out of my sight, I don’t want to see you ever again!”

  Amen, thought Melkior, but out loud he said: “Yes, sir, Sergeant, sir. Understood, Sergeant.”

  “You’ll never understand in a million years!” Melkior heard the sergeants’ valedictory blessing behind him.

  Now then. Here it is, white all around and a tinge of illness … more or less. She’s no Goldilocks, she’s got black curly hair peeking from under the starched white cap, and we call her sister, devoutly, to repress carnality in the quiet, white temples of health. Only the priests take an occasional sip of the wine. “We’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other from now on,” but when? He was already yearning for the promised meeting. Melkior had got warm in his bed (the man rescued from drowning was coming back to life), the skinny little creature was drinking imagination in deep draughts, beginning to stir in a lively way under the covers in the luxury of greedy solitude. He had let the body devour a whole “hi-cal rations” lunch, a bracing and nutritious meal, and was now afraid of the creature’s glee. It was going to get used to the comforts of pampered hospital life, give itself over to stupid, blind fattening, make itself into a succulent tidbit for Polyphemus the cannibal.

  The castaways are asleep. A regulation siesta after a good lunch. All for the sake of fattening, you’ve got to be nursed back to health! Light snoring with the postprandial mute on (full volume being presumably reserved for night). They have had no news of the agent. Days are passing in conjecture. The chief engineer believes the hosts put him into a hospital of theirs: he was a sick man after all, they couldn’t very well … Everyone understands what it was that “they couldn’t very well” do and thought: aw, why couldn’t they, cannibals, what can you expect? But there would have been some sort of sign (a tuft of Orestes’ hair, Odysseus’s scar, recognition according to Aristotle) of the agent having been … He had a golden chain around his neck with a cross and a four-leaf clover on it (double insurance)—surely the cross and the clover had not left him in the lurch at the crucial moment? This hope is voiced with lackluster sarcasm by the first mate as in his corner he apathetically chews some “narcotic” leaves the doctor has found for him. The seaman is not there in the cabana. He has built himself a Tarzanian tree house in the branches of a giant baobab and is now living up there, squabbling with the monkeys. He is able, at long last, to snore to his heart’s content! The animals understand the kindred sound of Nature and pay him joyous respect, the parrots laughing in chorus, the songbirds lilting dithyrambs to Slumber.

  Slumber has settled on his brow with its soft, heavy bottom: rock-a-bye, baby, burbling about all manner of promises. Lulling him with sweet picturesque stories: the white nurse, the poet’s niece … then I say to her, then she says to me, and then I say, and then she says: for God’s sake, not here, someone will see us! And on we walk, behind the dense-crowned dark tamarisk leaning over the sandy beach. I lead her by the hand, she’s not resisting. Only her dainty little hand trembles like a bare birdling in my manly hand: where are you taking me? To show you how clear the sea is over here, you can see every pebble on the bottom.—How can you see them in the dark?—Phosphorescence. The glimmering plankton, a flock of tiny stars, you’ll see, it’s a wonderful sight … I stammer putting my arm around her waist, her supple waist, while up there the ample breasts breathe heavily, now rejecting me, now inviting me. My lips seek hers … and find an ear. All right, so an ear. I’ll take the ear. But what are lips doing on an ear? The ear is firm, complex, and hollow. To kiss the hollow? But then a polyp, a moist cave-dweller, creeps out of the mouth and fills the entire shell with damp caresses. And I say ugh! (because the ear tastes a little bitter), but now she clings to me and says ah and oh and what are you doing darling? But the imagination will not set anything else in motion. Our heads set a tamarisk branch above us swaying, out sweeps a buzzing swarm of mosquitoes and makes an auditory halo around our heads—zzzzz— using the last letter of the alphabet.

  Slumber is droning a sleepy song … choosing, however, the wrong image, one with angry insects in it. Melkior felt wakefulness on his goose-bump skin. His eyes reject the dream. Another sleepless one is the doctor. He is trying to think of something to do. He is thinking of playing a prank on them by persuading the old seaman to disappear for a few days, to keep hidden, then he will tell the others: there, I did as you said but off he went and sailed away without us. Didn’t I tell you so? But he gives up the tasteless joke, his colleague the Major talks him out of it. The doctor has changed since meeting the Major through Melkior. He has become “a different man.” Melkior is using all his demagogic skill to put the red-haired Asclepian to shame before the humane and sagacious army phthysiologist. But the conversion is not proceeding smoothly—Red has arguments of his own. In your place the Major would be trying to snatch these unfortunate people from the jaws of the cannibals, while you’re relishing their mortal pain. He would at least try to ease their horrible death … It’s not true that you can do nothing—you didn’t even bother to think whether you could. All right, they’re haughty and stupid, as you say, but is that alone reason enough to condemn them to such a horrible and repulsive death?

  Granted, any death is horrible and repulsive (particularly one that is imminent), but this kind, you must admit, holds a horror all its own. To be cooked and eaten—good God! —We’re all “cooked” in a way, smiles the doctor, and eaten, too, for that matter. All kinds of crooks cook us in the cauldrons of hellish plots, poison us with their contempt, drive us to madness and loathing, and when they’ve goaded us they push into our hands all manner of contraptions so that we can kill each other. Why? To feast on our flesh? Rubbish. They are disgusted by our carcasses. We are
meat to hyenas, worms, carrion eaters, fish, beings unworthy of such delicacies. While over here, these “unfortunate people” will be eaten by people, by our hosts who take the bitter joke of Mother Nature a little too seriously. What particular horror is there in it? They’ll kill us without hatred, at an evening of cultural manifestations and a popular celebration, and they’ll be eating us with gusto as rare game coming from a curious world they cannot even imagine. It’s an honor of sorts, after all, to be eaten by people rather than worms.—And if you, too, were destined to experience the honor (please note the verb experience), would you speak with equal cynicism?—Not in so many words, but I would be forced to think so.—And you would attempt nothing to be spared the “honor”?—What could I do? Mortify my body like these people and yourself? Mortify the flesh? Deprive them of a morsel? Well, my skin would be left in any case! They’d make a drum of it! Or should I set about converting them in the name of our God: Don’t eat me—I’m your brother? (Why, they take particular pleasure in eating missionaries.) Should I pull off a miracle? Stage a putsch overnight, abrogate all laws (go on, living animal, feed on air and stones!), forbid cats to eat mice? Invoke disorder, confusion, and chaos? Of all the known gods, not a single one has managed to abrogate Nature. None of them tried—it never even occurred to them. Each of them is wise in his own way, knowing that Nature is somewhat more powerful than he, that he is unable to change even the destiny of a drop of water. That’s why the gods hold on to Nature rather than going on about helping poor man. One man actually tried it and they chained him to a rock and let birds peck out his liver. They preferred to confirm the laws. If a volcano is to destroy a town, they’re for the destruction; if people are to slaughter each other, they’re for the slaughter. They even claim all that to be Their Will. They’re always on the side of what men (out of ignorance) call Destiny. They approved of a son killing his father and marrying his own mother, of his mother giving birth to his sons and brothers, daughters and sisters. One of them even left his own son high and dry and let men crucify him so that The Law might be fulfilled. It must follow then that gods also approve of men eating men in compliance with the laws of hunger. Take this up with them, then, and leave me alone.