Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (52 page)

They’re all still asleep, the curs! It’s too early. They’ve got it made. What about Ugo (his liver is swollen), hasn’t he received his call-up papers yet? Mr. Kalisto must have some good connections in the right places, because in these war-threatened times Pechárek will not pass over people so easily, dwaftees, hell no! we’re all equal and naked before the King.

She would come in any moment now, and here he was, all gangly in his trousers, all pitiful and naked …

“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.