Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (30 page)

“Don Fernando’s just been in, looking for you,” Chicory stopped him. “Said he’d be back.”

“Looking for me? Why?”

“Cause unknown,” responded Maestro, helpfully. “But he was being very important. Got a personal message from Leo Trotsky.” Noticing ill will on Melkior’s face, he hastened to change the subject. “Now Chicory and I have just been debating a point: how far does
it’s written
reach? I mean the sort of thing soothsayers read in your palms, the sort of thing you find in horoscopes under Leo, Virgo, Capricorn, Sagittarius, and whatnot. Because it might be nothing but a mere suggestion, which we then unthinkingly take for a guideline—that is to say, arrange our destiny to fit. I myself, as you know full well, don’t give a tinker’s damn for all those
futures
, personal and historical alike. But if someone tells me, ‘I see complications on your life line.’ I become a hypochondriac, I shy away from the least chill of a draft, drink herbal teas, wear amulets around my neck. I even pray. But the
complications
will not stop pecking on my brain, and they keep on pecking until they’ve got it riddled like a sieve. I then become a perfect madman. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, all I do is sit and stare, repeating in desperation: why me, why me? And so I do whatever Fate wills. Actually coaxing death inside me.

“I once heard,” Maestro spoke to Melkior, “from that con artist—now that’s an understatement—from the practitioner operating in your building, Mr. Adam, how he read a great calamity in a lady’s palm. After she’d gone he suddenly remembered seeing something like the presence of death in her eyes. He was overcome by apprehension, possibly by fear of the responsibility as well, so off he ran after her and arrived just in time to take her down off the noose. The crook had suggested and ‘got it right,’ see? She had hanged herself on a clothesline in her back yard. He gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and brought her back to life. You can well imagine how sweet those kisses must have been. Anyway, he breathed life into her, like God.”

“You believe him?”

“Certainly. Indeed, she later went to bed with him and generally put herself under his powerful (Maestro made a gesture) protection. And she’s still in his bed. Crawling after him, as it were, impossible to get rid of. Mr. Adam dabbled at being Fate for a bit and, presto! He has her hanging around his neck.”

Melkior had a grin on his face. He was fitting together some of his fragmented observations about
ATMAN
and getting a much clearer picture of things. And he felt sorry … no, he did not feel sorry for
ATMAN.

“You’re smiling, Eustachius the Noble, but it’s you Mr. Adam fears the most. Concerning
the main thing.
Never mind Freddie, never mind Ugo, or all the cohorts and various fraternities of her bedfellows … you, you”—Maestro jabbed a finger at him—“you are the worst danger. You have the ability to love … don’t give me that baleful look, I’m talking about the most exalted of sentiments … and, what matters most, you are capable of marrying for such feelings. And that’s exactly who she’s after—a Parsifal. She’ll nab you in the end, Eustachius, you Lamb of God. Which is why Adam is trying to strike you out.”

Melkior was smiling, his heart bathing in bliss. Could it be …? Viviana? This was clearly a plot of theirs. A Giventakian ploy. For all his will to disbelieve, he kept looking for her trap to rush in with all his heart.

“Oh well, that’s it then, Adam’s going to strike me down,” he was already showing off, Fortune’s child walking on carpets of strewn flowers.

“I said strike you
out
, didn’t I, Chicory? Anyway, you’d do well to help him in the matter if you’ve got an ounce of brains. Meanwhile may I strongly recommend that you lay the duck on her back, Eustachius the Blessed. Give her a good ride. Join the family, ha, ha …”

“You’re lying.” The words sprayed out of his mouth somehow or other, like excess spittle during an incautious yawn. Idiot style.

“Oh, we’re a well-ramified family. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind having a more mature relative. Am I right, Cousin Chicory Hasdrubalson?”

“I beg pardon, my lord, my title does not stem from that particular line. My pedigree’s a much humbler one, with quite a few bastard elements,” replied Chicory with a straight face.

“But what about Princess van den … what’s her name? That was a trophy for Casanova himself to be proud of!”

“Oh, please don’t torment me, Maestro! Mercy! It was but a morganatic mistake for her.”

“But did you not, Chicory, once vouchsafe to me in the strictest of confidences that you had exchanged certain sexual instruments after all with our … what is it you call her, Eustachius the Chrysostom? with our Bibiana?”

“You overestimate me, I’m sure,” replied Chicory meekly, closing his eyes with modesty. Then both burst out laughing.

Melkior stood up, offended. No doubt the pair of them had arranged it all beforehand. Wordlessly he made for the door, only to bump into Don Fernando, who was just coming in.

“I’ve been looking for you all over the known world,” said Don Fernando with a kindness that understood all and forgave all, in advance.

“The world is large, if you’ve been looking for me in your world.” Don Fernando gave a patient smile. “To what do I owe the honor?” Melkior attempted a laugh.

“Seriously, now …” Don Fernando took his smile off, as if putting it away for later, and pulled Melkior outside rather hastily. “Pupo wants a word with you. He’s waiting for you at the Corso. That’s all. Goodbye.” And Don Fernando disappeared around the corner.

Pupo? He hadn’t seen the man for years. A chance encounter in the street, in a rush. He was always hurrying somewhere, somebody was waiting for him, he had to get somewhere on time. He would jerk his hand free of the sleeve, glance at his watch, hurriedly. Curly hair, a foppish pencil-thin mustache, his voice a melodious baritone, his dress purposely casual. He bestowed cordial smiles, he liked meeting with his friends but never had time for them. He seemed to be apologizing at every encounter, awfully sorry, old friend … He had a long-overdue exam to sit and was almost ridiculous. Pupo at the University, a seaman on dry land. Then he sank somewhere into the unknown.

And surfaced again tonight. Where from? Why? No questions allowed.

The mysterious life of Pupo. Pupo wants a word with you. Pupo’s waiting. Melkior was moving in Pupo’s magnetic field wrapped up in the force of his relaylike connection with an enigma, with a closed, illegible mystery which showed to the eye only very simple, primitive hieroglyphs. The Christian fish. Melkior knew only that, the fish, and he knew he was on his way to see Pupo about something fishy, but he was flattered by the trust, however minuscule. He felt a moral excitement, as if he were off to admit guilt for a deed for which an innocent man had been charged. The diaphragm nervous, the pulse quickened, the breathing deep, serious … as if it was Viviana who was asking for him. But he immediately rejected the comparison as … inadequate. As a feeling of an intimate, personal danger while the Earth trembled. No, it was beyond comparison, Pupo’s trust.

There was no Pupo in the Café. Melkior had made three or four sweeps of the entire seating area, but—no mustache, no hair … Only to be expected, of course, typical of them to keep us waiting … Then a newspaper dipped and he recognized the smile that was looking at him … But sans the foppish mustache. The hair very light, long, rather thin above the forehead. Plus glasses—oh yes? clearly a plain-glass mask. Melkior approached in excitement, prepared for a tempestuous encounter, a mashing embrace. But Pupo sensibly reduced it all to a cordial handshake.

“Hello, poet. How are you? It has been a long time.” Pupo’s baritone sounded somewhat muted, less fresh.

“Long indeed, yes …” Melkior noticed he no longer knew how to talk to Pupo. He did not know which questions were permitted, whether even asking after somebody’s health was not “forbidden.” He wanted to speak
usefully.
But he also wanted to show his joy at seeing Pupo again and to reestablish immediately the old easy familiarity, so he permitted himself a joke: “Long enough for you to get glasses and lose the mustache, not to mention exposing a stretch of forehead …”

Pupo kept his grin on, but he was plainly not enjoying the conversation. I’ve put my foot in it and no mistake. It’s camouflage. The … people around might’ve overheard me. He cast a glance around the surrounding tables—the band was playing—and sensed he was making another stupid mistake. Oh Lord, they
are
a hard lot to handle! Yes, aren’t they, replied the Lord, leaping at the chance.

“Aren’t you going to have a seat?” Well, well, Pupo was not in such a hurry after all.

“Of course I will, I just thought you might be pressed for time and didn’t want to …” he was saying with a smile, but Pupo did glance at his watch, out of habit.

“There’ll always be fifteen minutes to spare for an old …” but his mind was elsewhere, and the generosity was a throwaway; Melkior was insulted by it. Fifteen minutes! Why, that’s how long you spare for whores. Pupo has always been like that. Melkior now regretted his minutes. Why should his be the more valuable? I could have used them to do some thinking at least … or simply to do nothing, to wander about town, look at things. And here I am instead, wasting my time with this … Jacobin. The Revolution will be fifteen minutes late. Ah-tchoo!

“Have you got a cold?”

“No. Why?”

“You’re sneezing. Still going on binges? What about Ugo—is he still as crazy as he used to be? Or have you fallen out?”

“No. Why? We still see quite a bit of each other.”

“In that street-corner dive over there?”

“Yes. The Give’nTake. We drop in from the office every so often. I’m working for a newspaper—part time.”

“On a column-inch basis? What do you cover—literature?”

“Theater and film.” He’s sounding me out.

“Yes, you always liked those. Is Ugo working for the paper, too?”

“No, he isn’t.”

“What does he do then?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Well, I suppose it’s not bad as jobs go. Are you angry with me or something?”

“No. Why? You’re asking and I’m replying, that’s all.”

“Yes, indeed …” Pupo laughed again and glanced at his watch.

“So how do you live, writing your column inches?”

“I get by.”

“Do you still live like we used to—student digs sort of thing, sharing a room? Remember that time we …”

“No, I live alone,” Melkior coldly interrupted Pupo’s remembrance. He doesn’t give a damn anyway—this is just softening me up for something else. He waited for it.

“Got a nice room?”

“Nice. Separate entrance.”

“What have you got—a bed?”

“And a sofa.” Melkior laughed. “Why didn’t you say straight away? Do you need a place to sleep?”

Pupo gave an absent laugh.

“Not I.” His face turned into an undecided suspicious mask that studied Melkior long with a worried and sad look. “Listen,” said Pupo hesitantly, “you’re … um … a good man, I know. That is why I thought … Well, to come to the point: one of our people needs to sleep at your place, see, for … well, a couple of nights. I’m responsible for him, see. That’s what matters. Anything else to do with this business you’ll understand yourself. … See? Not a word to Ugo or any of your crowd … all right?”

“Right you are.” Melkior was feeling grandly emotional, ready to die at the stake. Kill me, you villains! He wondered at his own heroism.

“Whereabouts do you live?”

“Ah. That could be a bit of a snag. Across the road from 35th’s barracks.”

“On the contrary, it’s a good thing. The landlady?”

“Middle-aged widow. But you wouldn’t give her more than thirty-six or -seven to look at her.”

Pupo laughed: “That’s irrelevant to my purpose. Is she the nosy type? Likely to gossip?”

“Oh no, hardly. More the sadly contemplative type. Longing for love pure and tender—eternal, too, it goes without saying—but having nasty dreams all the while. Hence unhappy. Cares for nothing anymore.”

“Not even men?”

“Only in her dreams, apparently. However, there is this man friend who comes by twice a week. But it’s more of a spiritual liaison sort of thing. Truth to tell, you do hear a carnal sound or two at times … but that’s all to the good, isn’t it?”

“Ye-es, it is indeed,” said Pupo distractedly, glancing at his watch. “Thank you for the flowers, Doctor. Thank you for the flowers, gentlemen.”

A horribly emaciated elderly woman was weaving her way among the tables, curtsying and thanking everyone, one and all, most graciously, hand on heart, for the flowers. A thin moth-eaten fox boa had slid and hung on one shoulder only, exposing a thin, white wrinkled neck bending to the left and right: thank you for the flowers.

“Oh, Madame! Thank you so much for the flowers!” she suddenly addressed Pupo, offering him a hand in a badly torn black glove from which her fingers protruded in misery. “How are you, my dear? I haven’t seen you for ages. Why, you look years younger! Absolutely radiant. You were at my concert tonight, I’m sure. Wasn’t I marvelous?”

Everyone was looking at their table. Pupo was going alternately red and pale. Melkior clearly saw his jaw tremble … with rage … with fear … hell and damnation, all eyes were on him!

“Last Sunday I played at the Mozarteum, my dear. Oh, what a concert! Liszt’s Sonata in B minor. You like Liszt, don’t you? He’s simply marvelous. And how I played! The great Rubinstein was there, too. He said to me, ‘Brava,
ma petite!
You have the hands of God who made the world. God give me such hands!’ he cried out and melted into tears. The great Rubinstein. Brava!” she exclaimed in ardent exaltation and went on with her demure round of tables: “Thank you for the flowers, gentlemen. I’m most grateful to you, dear Countess, and to you, too, Baron, thank you for the flowers, you are most kind. Oh, what an honor, Monsieur le Comte. Thank you for the flowers. Thank you, thank you, one and all …” and with tears in her eyes she blew many kisses to the entire clientele, finally to gather her long silk gown and hurriedly step down from the dais with an enormous bunch of flowers in her arms.