“The way I heard it, it was she who … asked the Major …” lied Melkior, wishing to be able to believe it.
“Acika?” laughed Mitar. “Oh sure, she was falling all over herself to help you. Never ate a bite, never drank a drop, never slept a wink … She went away ages ago! I think she left the same day you were transferred over there.”
All may be well, say some characters in Shakespeare when they have lost all hope, thinks Melkior. Of course she left!!! They’d been treating me so inhumanely … What could the poor girl do?
“What did the poor girl do?” he listens to the echo of his romantic imagination. “Where’s she now?”
“On the rolling main. Sailing. Honeymooning.” Mitar was grinning maliciously.
“What? She got married?”
“To a seaman, ship’s officer, whatever the word is. Merchant marines. Longtime romance, she’d been waiting for him faithfully. Nobody knew anything about it, except perhaps the Major …” said Mitar with an insidious smile.
“How come you know it all?” Melkior felt betrayed, what’s all this now, out of the blue?
“She writes to the Major, sends postcards, Naples, Alexandria, and that island down there—not Sumatra, it’s … you know … the Greek one, statues with no arms … Well, whatever it is, I don’t give a … Anyway, that’s where she is.”
To the first mate, the castaway from the Menelaus … He doesn’t chew narcotic leaves anymore. Another happy ending. Oh why didn’t I let the cannibals cook the happy flesh in their cauldron?
In an instant he shrugged off the “hypocritical head cold,” Atchoo! (he mocked her in passing), as if he had never met her, and Viviana lit up again with a distant life-saving glow. The lighthouse beacon after a shipwreck. He was fond of “shipwrecking” thoughts at the moment. … Down there, around Calypso’s Ogygia, there must remain some of the vicious Aeolian winds which Poseidon had set in motion against Odysseus for blinding his one-eyed son, Polyphemus. …
He surprised himself with his malicious, vengeful hope and felt ashamed of his Love which had now turned its monstrous face to him. There’s love for you: be mine or …
“Right, here’s your century!” he threw the hundred-dinar note to Mitar with a kind of scorn.
“Taking it out on me, eh?” Mitar refused the money, leaving it on Melkior’s night table: “Here, I want you to keep it. Have good food and drink, celebrate your return and good health to you! Put some meat on those bones.”
“When do you think they might discharge me from here?”
“Tomorrow morning. Then you go back to the barracks, hand in your gear, and you’re as free as a bird.”
Melkior nearly chirped. He felt tremendous joy at the idea of going home. He abruptly felt freedom in his legs, in his arms, and an irrepressible instinct of motion propelled him from his bed. “Let’s go” he said to Mitar and, hastily donning his greatcoat, all but ran out of the room.
“Wait up, what’s the hurry?” Mitar couldn’t catch up, he was lugging that great belly out in front of him, see?
“Let’s knock back a couple downstairs in the canteen. I’ve got my ticket in my pocket. We’re saying our farewells, Mitar.”
“We are, but not like this, not on the run,” gasped Mitar. “Also, I’m on duty, listen, I’m telling you …”
But there was no stopping Melkior. “Shot to shot—two shots,” he shouted to the canteen-keeper from the door. She gave Mitar a questioning glance, and he signaled her with his eyes to get pouring. Pouring The Good Stuff, of course.
“You know what I regret? No, I really really regret it … No, you don’t believe me, but I do regret it …”
“What the hell’s there to regret? Here y’are, down the hatch!”
That was after the fifth round of “shot to shot—two shots.” They were clinking their glasses, stuck to the bar like two wobbling jellyfish. Their hands were bypassing each other in the air, everything hovered around them in a state of levitation.
“No, listen, Mithridates … Be Mithridates, being just Mitar is too minor for you. You can call me Eustachius, I don’t mind … Mithridatey, my old matey, see how it rhymes … matey, there’s something I wanted … no, wait, what was it I wanted now?”
“Never mind. Wait, oh God, I’m on duty! If the Major calls …”
“That’s it, right, that’s what I regret: I didn’t kiss the Major, I kissed the other one … ha, ha … And it was the Major I’d meant to kiss!”
“To make a fool out of him? Well, you’re a nasty …”
“No, Mithridates, I’m not,” whispered Melkior hanging his head in contrition, the entire world suddenly starting to spin in his field of vision.
Funny how everything spins. How things have dislodged from their peaceful existence. Everything is moving and traveling on a conveyer belt … Melkior had the idea that it would never come to rest again and was childishly overjoyed at his huge new toy. He kept reaching after it and it struck him as hilarious to be unable to get hold of anything. I’ll just climb onto one of those chairs and take off. And he believed—even though it was comical, as if he were wakeful and watching his dream—that he was going to land at the Give’nTake before the Parampions on his flying chair.
“O Eustachius the Cosmic, I salute you on behalf of the Parampions!” exclaims Ugo in delight. “Did you have a good flight? No snags? There have been many chairs in the air today. Conferences, sir, conferences, held ‘on the fly’ as they call them. Whatever will they think of next?”
Also present are Viviana (without Freddie) and all the Parampions, and Maestro, being singularly pleased, is well and truly …
I’m drunk as a lord, thinks Melkior, laughing at the thought every time he encounters it. He no longer sees Mitar at his side. “Mitar has … mitared away,” he says to some other whitecoats, who grab ahold of his arms and teach him to walk. “No, no, give me Mitar back … remitrify,” he struggles with them, refusing to begin to walk.
“He took off from right here, I saw him! Flag him down, lob a shell at his seat, ha, ha … Let him open an umbrella, ha, ha. He’ll come down then, Mitar the visitor from outer space! Have them roast him Caesar’s heart!”
His legs would not follow the motion performed on them by a pair of very angry whitecoats: they, too, were laughing in their own way.
“Let go of me, pastry cooks!” shouted Melkior suddenly and stood mightily upright. “I’m off to kiss the Major,” he said, seeming quite himself again; which was why they promptly grabbed hold of him again. “All right, all right, you can carry me if you insist,” he said in a slyly conciliatory way, winking “craftily” at the canteen-keeper herself. “Go on ahead, one of you, and announce me. I can’t very well barge in on the Major just like that, on your arms …”
“Okay, we’ll be off to see him then,” said one of the whitecoats, and he winked to a soldier who had happened to stand nearby: “You there, go on, announce him.”
“Who to?” the soldier asked stupidly.
“To your aunt’s aunt … You heard me—the Major!” one of the whitecoats lost his patience.
“Which major?” the soldier was still having trouble catching on.
“Ours, of course, not Major Attlee for heaven’s sake.”
The soldier went out of the canteen; he did not have the faintest idea what he was supposed to do. Which was precisely what was wanted from him: just for him to leave.
Melkior now let himself be led along. His legs trailed on the ground, knocking against each other. But he was in a way enjoying the incapacity to which he had relinquished his body. He was flying through strange spaces where everything was awhirl. He found the “earthly” disorder so wonderful that he kept smiling happily, as if ascending to heaven borne by two strong white angels.
Not even ATMAN knew yet! He had been living for four days above the palm reader’s head, quietly, in slippers, leading a lazy, pampered life of sleeping, lounging in bed, stretching. Watching the flames in the pot-bellied stove … Devil
s’ tongues, the Melancholic used to say, an intriguing little hell.
And the rain falls day and night … (the poet grabbed at the chance for a metaphor) … as though asking if I’m all right.
Am I all right?
A parrotlike, random question. He was luxuriating in his laziness like a loyal cat, and that was a question that was apt to provoke Fate. Remind it of solutions, reopen the file of the forgotten case. That is the way of the curious imagination of humans: troubling the peaceful waters again, poking at the coffee dregs in the bottom of the cup. Offering Fate small detailed recipes for its own demise. Making suggestions: this approach, I believe, has not yet been tried. Revealing to it, in metaphors, undreamed-of coincidences, inventive novel downfalls. Seductive, coquettish. Artistic.
He had arrived by an early train four days earlier, dead tired and bone weary. He had tiptoed upstairs, holding his breath past ATMAN’S door. The entire house was still sunk in sweet winter sleep. From Mrs. Ema’s room he heard the culmination of some terrible dream—she was again having knives plunged into her belly.
The bed was standing there snowy white and fragrant, ready to receive him. But Melkior felt himself unworthy of its chaste purity. He wrapped himself in an old coverlet and dropped down onto the sofa, which greeted him pleasantly with its tired springs.
He lay there thoughtless and sleepless in a lethargy of vacuous idiotic elation like a dog come home to settle in again at the threshold. He yearned for a hand to stroke him. He stroked his own muzzle and gave the hand a loyal licking. And smiled at his own fidelity.
His thoughts kept reaching for Enka, but they were all half-awake in a stupor, in the image of a tongue of flame trying to reach the hem of a fluttering red patch of fabric which somehow “protected” itself, craftily retreating. He attempted to hold the fluttering with his hands, to catch hold of that feminine-Enkish something, that feminenkish something, wriggling, undulating, and giggling, elusive within his reach and glittering with a blazing gleam which made him feel a terrible thirst burn over his whole body. His arms, empty, fell down outside the coverlet into endless cold spaces and his teeth chattered with fear and chill. He pulled his arms back under the covers, sheltering his head there, too, from the storm which was already distantly roaring in his ears like a raging sea.
Then Viviana showed up, all in shivers of a small twinkling happiness, faceless and featureless, as a dispersed, hazy, blurred memory. But he quickly put Enka (as a flash of lightning) in her place and shivered all over from the tempestuous nearness of her. Again he tried to insert himself into the vortex, to embrace the whirlpool and give himself over to the passionate flood wave, but he felt an icy wind blowing cold once more across his skin, shaking his jaws as if it meant to crumble his teeth.
It’s too early yet, I’ll give her a ring later, decided Melkior, his teeth chattering. But later on … well, ideal, incorporeal spirals try to insinuate themselves into other spirals … They cannot fit—they are too big for the smaller spirals … and little Quantities keep struggling against large Boxes trying to enclose them in their empty Voids … and Threads and Ropes resist the ruthlessly long PROLONGATION, quaking before the Great Scissors which in ATMAN’S hands snap their crocodile jaws, going snip-snip. …
The threads snap in the brief, hazy awakenings … But he knows that the insufferable heat has taken hold of him over “those unsolved questions” and again delves into the spirals, boxes, and threads, again arranging, disposing, unraveling, tugging, using the threads to tie together the Two Infinities. …
In a ragged clear patch through the dim cloud of a yellow light he recognized Mrs. Ema. She was saying stern things to him and feeding him bitter tasting button-shaped tablets (for how many rupees?), and pouring warm, sweet liquid into his throat … His stomach kept swelling, but he couldn’t bring himself to throw up, out of respect for Mrs. Ema. The yellow light then went out again and she spoke no more. And Melkior was standing in hot water up to his ears, he only extracted his arms so he could swim, striking out toward a cool island where palm trees waved their green fans …
“You’re absolutely out of your mind, boy!” Mrs. Ema chided him. She was sitting maternally at his bedside, wiping his face. “Why didn’t you come to see me?”
“You were asleep … and I didn’t know I was ill.”
“Didn’t know indeed—and he was burning like a piece of coal! Would you believe he lay down drenched with sweat in a chilly room, without undressing, without even taking off his shoes! Why didn’t you undress and get into bed?”
“It was so white and clean,” smiled Melkior. “I’d got out of the habit.”
He was lying in bed, in his pajamas. The fragrance of cleanliness was everywhere. So she must have undressed me! he realized in a flash.
“Well, I never! He lost the habit of using clean things!” Mrs. Ema was putting on a tone. “You don’t happen to have brought any vermin with you, have you?”
“Oh no, certainly not,” Melkior assured her, for all that he was not so certain himself.
She put her palm on his forehead out of gratitude.
“See how I brought your temperature down?” she boasted. “You were still delirious only this afternoon. The doctor gave me those pills last winter, I thought they were past their expiration date—well, obviously they weren’t. Are you hungry? Didn’t they feed you in the army? You look like your bones will be breaking through at any moment.”
Melkior reddened, she saw me naked … But he reached down under the eiderdown and found she had put his pajamas on over his underwear. He gave her a grateful look. As if understanding, she looked away at the window:
“Doesn’t seem to be letting up …”
The rain was making a fine tattoo on the windowsill … as if asking …
“Falling day and night …” he said out loud, then answered the rain, inside: “I’m quite all right …” He thought he could do with a little Turgenev. Later, when Mrs. Ema left …
He saw her face in the light of the small lamp on the night table. Her skin seemed somehow tired; it was in a weak, resigned, sagging condition. O Lord, look at all the wrinkles she’s got! Many indeed, said the Lord, indifferent (He had more pressing concerns).
She sensed his seeing her “unprepared” face with the wariness of a woman on the brink of old age: she sprang to her feet, patting her hair.
“I’m going to get you some hot soup,” she was showing her goodness of heart instead of her face, “God knows how long it’s been since you last had something to eat …”
Indeed, Melkior couldn’t remember … yesterday at noon, porridge at the barracks, no appetite … He had traveled all night, chilled, feverish. …
“Madam, if anyone asks for me, please don’t tell them I’m back. I would like to get some rest.”
“To be sure. The fellow downstairs keeps inquiring …” she pointed her toe downward. “He asked me for your address, said he wanted to write to you.”
ATMAN wanted to write me! Melkior shivered. ATMAN wouldn’t have written just to say it was raining. Something must have happened … if he wanted to write.
But after the soup, later on, that night, Melkior relaxed. And read his Turgenev, A Nest of Gentlefolk. White all over and a tinge of … He was enjoying himself like a Russian landowner.
He had lived four days above ATMAN’S head without ATMAN knowing. Melkior triumphed. He slept, lounged in bed, stretched … and watched the amusing little hell in the potbelly stove. And the rain …
… was not drumming a fine tattoo on the tin windowsill tonight. He already felt well and impatient to be out and walking along the wet streets. Also, it was amusing to sidestep ATMAN, to sneak by under his nose as if the man was a blind monster, to escape like Odysseus from Polyphemus. Why had ATMAN wanted to write?
His heart was pounding as he drew level with ATMAN’S door. He had a strange feeling at his back: any moment now the bony long-fingered hand might drop onto my shoulder—thump!
But there was no thu
mp, he got safely out into the street. The air was fresh and sweet, rinsed but still damp, undried. Melkior nevertheless inhaled it greedily, mainly for the symbolic meaning of breathing freely, or, as they also say, breathing in the air of freedom.
He found himself outside the Cozy Corner. Curious silence behind the yellow curtains. Has Else married the sergeant after all, he wondered. Which he wished for Kurt’s sake with all his heart: congratulations, Kurt, and may the little centurions multiply in bliss …
“Look in, do look in at the misery, sir,” he suddenly heard behind him a voice saturated with impatient pleasure, and the bony long-fingered hand was already resting on his shoulder.
When he turned around, the inseparable polyp eyes were looking at him from the dark and smiling, smiling … ha-ha, sir.
“Mr. Adam,” ejaculated Melkior in fright, as if he had seen a ghost. “My God, man, how …”
“Quite by accident, on my way home,” ATMAN hastened to explain.
“… you frightened me!” finished Melkior. “Frightened me, devil take your …”
“Good heavens, why?” ATMAN was embarrassed. “Could it be because you thought I didn’t know you were back? Well, I didn’t want to disturb you—you were ill. The evening’s damp, I don’t think it’s wise of you to … Look, why don’t we go in? So you can see what it’s like now. Here you are then,” and he had already opened the door in front of Melkior and pushed him in.
Inside, a short, pale, nondescript man in black was standing among the unoccupied tables in a waiter’s position (napkin over forearm), looking submissively down as though being rebuked by a demanding guest. When they came in he gave a surprised start but didn’t seem glad to see them: with a hopeless civility, he offered them a seat, needlessly tweaking the tablecloth.
“Yes, gentlemen,” he said unhurriedly, “what can I serve you?”
“What would you say to some hot wine?” ATMAN leaned toward Melkior across the table. “An autumnal drink, keeps the cold away. Or would you prefer something to eat first?”