Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (7 page)

What’s this? The words were thought soundlessly and had a blind man’s meaning of: Where am I? All of a sudden everything seemed strange: the streets, the trams, the houses, the people … even the human faces themselves. He had been transported here in his sleep, he had woken up on the corner by the weighing machine. … He felt ashamed, naked as he was, he feared they might be watching him, those passersby and those women up there leaning out of windows and laughing in such a …

“You didn’t pay for the weighing!” The blind man’s rude voice brought him back to familiar relationships. He paid the fee. The small task reminded him of his other duties. In his pocket he still had a ticket for a film with von Stroheim and Viviane Romance, but instead of going to see it he had followed Dom Kuzma down the path of childhood memories. … And ended up by the weighing machine … weight control …
Ta-ta-taaa, ta-ta-taaa, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-taaa …
the bugler from the barracks was announcing the sad taps of army life. He started down the dark alley of the 35th Regiment, and the sad go-to-sleep tune robbed him of any desire to go up to his rooms across from the barracks.

He was treading on autumn leaves. The leaves rustled with a withered voice …
and I remembered my sweet dreams; happy days, where are you now?
the song inside him complemented the rustling of leaves underfoot. He was supposed to do a review of the film that night in time for the next day’s issue. Beautiful Viviane Romance played debauched vamps. He was overcome with sadness every time he saw a film of hers. And his heart fluttered inside him for Viviana, the woman he had so dubbed for the sake of purging his love, sad and hopeless …

The autumnal melancholy. The aimless streets, the web of tangled dreams. A warm south wind caressing his features with a harlot’s breath; he ran his hand over his face, revulsed.

On the corner glowed the letters of the Give’nTake, blinking on and off, winking to the passerby, “Come on in, have a drink, have a laugh.” Melkior, too, understood their wink. He had passed the place twice already, the blue Give’nTake winking to him from above: “Come on in, don’t sulk, Viviana’s here.”

Viviana, here? That was why he was not going in. How many times lately had he responded to the hint by defying the malicious destiny beckoning to him. “Come on in, come on in, she’s here.” He had resisted, letting time heal … or however it was that the saying went. But tonight it had extended its magical finger, tracing Viviana’s name in the dust …

Behind the steamy glass panels there was an orgy of laughter and, surely enough, Ugo’s voice.

“They are having a good time of it,” he said like a miser watching others squander their fortunes, and decided to move on. But suddenly he spun around and in he went. The bell above the door (fitted to chime after the fleeing drunkard) dutifully announced Melkior’s entrance.

Another drunken night, smoke and antics, he thought with a touch of malice. Where’s it all going to end? But Maestro was already wheezing in a cloud of smoke—“Ah, at last, here comes Eustachius the Sagacious!”—and Ugo was rushing up to meet him and showering kisses on both cheeks, one of them planted on the eyebrow “for the pure mind.” The entire bar had to hear that Eustachius had returned from his splendid isolation. Using sweeping oratorical gestures and most scrupulously chosen words—with a special bow to the cash-register girl,
“Madam!”
—all according to Giventakian ritual, Ugo delivered an
éloge
in honor of his friend.

Melkior made his shy way through the clamor and rhetoric and headed for the familiar table at the foot of the bar, where the full complement of the “boys” was sitting.

“Approach, Eustachius the Lampion, approach the Parampion Brethren,” howled Maestro, pulling Melkior down into the chair next to him. “I’m no longer the Mad Bug, I’m the Inspired Bug—a new title, acquired during your absence,” he confided. His nose tonight was like a ripe plum and his hands were shaking badly.

A man not too old but already dissipated, a brandy-soaked drunk, the City Desk editor. His fingers and teeth were black with nicotine, his mouth reeked with the odor of an animal’s lair. He got ahold of Melkior’s neck and blew the horrible breath into his face.

Melkior coughed, expelling Maestro’s “inspiration,” and nearly choked with revulsion. He longingly remembered his peaceful room with his books; the blank white sheets of paper passionately offering themselves—“Write upon us”—he, watching the play of the flames in the cast iron stove and saying, “Wait until I’ve come up with the right words for you, my chaste little virgins.”

Female titters at the “virgins” splashed upon the play of the flames and put them out. She was here! He also knew that she was with Freddie: the man’s cloying breakfast-spread voice was clearly audible. He was just in the process of generously presenting her and that other female at the table with the outer leaves of his cabbagelike wit. Melkior monitored the voices from
the other
table with both ears and transmuted them into the evil and bitter flowers of his envy.

Ugo spoke movingly, with tears in his eyes, about Melkior’s “return” and finally asked the owner of the Give’nTake to pronounce a word or two of welcome.

“And now it is your turn, Papa Thénardier, to welcome the return of your favorite customer.”

“Oh, nonsense, I’m not much at making speeches,” stalled the owner with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I have no favorites among you, it’s a pleasure to welcome any and all of you here …” which actually meant: I am over the moon …

Nevertheless he put up with the “Parampion Brethren,” even encouraged them, as a kind of advertisement for his establishment. He was aware of the tongue-in-cheek mockery of their dubbing him Thénardier, but business was business, damn it. The unruly gang, “artsy types and bohemians,” drew the theatrical and journalist crowd; the masterful pranks, the salvos of laughter, who wouldn’t down a drink just to watch them! Mouths cramped with leering, throats scratchy with laughter, let’s have another round, by God, this beats the circus any day of the week!

Ugo’s inspired scenes were more useful than the blue neon tubes flashing
Give’nTake
above the entrance; knowing this, Thénardier even took some pride in his “arty moniker.” They all had funny nicknames, well, it was apparently the thing to do with this crackpot set, and he permitted himself, for the sake of business, to act the role of “Papa Parampion, otherwise known as honorable Thénardier,” as Ugo had once proclaimed him to be. All the same, he kept a Thénardierian eye on things, seeing to it that glassware breakage was kept to a minimum and the bills duly settled—or at least entered on a tab —and a zero or two was even added to the bill when the brethren went too heartily into their frolicking.

“No, no, Papa Thénardier, I want you to tell it straight: who is your absolute favorite?” insisted Ugo, shoving the man’s long equine head toward Melkior’s. “As Christ said of the lost sheep: he rejoiceth more of that sheep than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Say it, Papa, like Christ in the Bible: I rejoice most in Melkior Tresić, the lost one.”

“Eustachius Lampion the Ineffable!” Maestro wheezed professorially, as if Ugo had got a historical name wrong.

“No, Maestro, sorry! For the moment he’s still Melkior Tresić the Apostate. There’s rehabilitation in the offing, before full privileges may be restored. … For half a year (rhetorical pathos) he has been purifying his mind of Give’nTake smoke, inhaling inspirations from the fragrant ozone of the soul’s storms, fattening his head with sagacious volumes. … Shutting himself away in his room and himself, not answering the door, hiding out like a culprit or someone with bad debts, veiling himself like a nun or a lovely doe-eyed virgin from the lustful looks of this low and crass world … Given up smoking, started going to the blind invalid to weigh his hermit’s body prior to boarding the next God-bound aeroplane. … In short: he entered a loftier sphere of being and opted for the miserable life of a solitary sage dwelling in silence and contemplating his mortal navel with tear-filled eyes. … He has quite possibly fallen in love … (her laughter and Melkior’s saintly pallor) but we shall leave that satisfaction to his destiny. … Nevertheless, brethren, he is back among us in his penitent’s sackcloth (Melkior remembered Dom Kuzma), ready to drink his full of Giventakian smoke and Parampionic wit! Once again he is our Eustachius the Lampion …”

“Imbecile and ass!”

This was interjected by Freddie, who followed it up with a provocative leer. He then leaned toward Viviana’s ear. Melkior watched her at that moment: first she had a surprised face as she listened to Freddie’s whispers, then she burst out laughing. The overripe hollow-eyed actress sitting with them was enjoying the slur.

And all because of the “five, six female fans,” thought Melkior.

In a review during the previous season he had described Freddie as acting like a hairdresser for five or six female fans, and lisping through his lines. If I’d let him have twelve hundred would that have made it right? Ah, five or six was far too few for this head of Hermes.

But Melkior had put the
five or six
there on purpose, using the measly number to slam him in passing. Which was ridiculous. Freddie was why women drank poison, slit their wrists, leaped from windows, dyed their hair, left their husbands—all for Freddie’s love. For his love?—oh, that would have been too much joy—for a promise over the phone: tonight, Madam, I play for you alone. And indeed he played
for her alone
, she believed he was playing
for her alone
and inside her she said “my darling.”

Freddie, the ideal young lover. The physique, the head, the shoulders, the arms, the legs, everything, everything about him was simply marvelous! The way he walked, sat down, crossed his legs, tapped his cigarette on his silver cigarette case, the way he lit it … he definitely oozes charm, they said, already melting in his imaginary embrace.

Freddie’s acting style is certainly worthy of a better-class hairdresser. … Also, he has a coy lisp … he couldn’t even deliver the “imbecile and ass” line properly. … But Melkior was hunting for her gaze, seeking a wise
objective
state, wishing to rise above his suffering, to be pure, to be pure …

She laughed at Ugo’s quips and her moist eyes immediately pasted his derisive words all over Melkior. Damn the Parampion, can’t he give it a rest?

His rhetorical raptures cut short by Freddie’s taunt, Ugo sliced through his formal speech as if with a sword. He turned to face the actor’s table and clicked his heels military style, his expression solemn and stern:

“I’m sure I needn’t slap you or toss a glove in your face. Accept my formal challenge: at seven o’clock tomorrow morning I shall be expecting you at the upper Maksimir Lake with witnesses at my side. Bring the sword from
Henry IV
, you episodic nobody. I shall bring a fork upon which I will impale you at five past seven, on the dot.”

The bar echoed to an explosion of guffaws.

The bartender at the bar burst into a titter and dropped a bottle of a costly beverage; he was in for two months’ work without pay.

Melkior sought her: … she was laughing, her shoulders were shaking. Freddie seemed to give her a warning kick under the table, she went serious all of a sudden: why, it’s “us” they’re … oh my, well, it was funny all the same. She was embarrassed, caught out.

After delivering his challenge to duel, Ugo spun on his heel and marched back to his table. They poured him a rewarding glass, which he drained and then burst out laughing himself. Somebody exclaimed in admiration, Now there’s an actor and no mistake!

Perhaps it was the exclamation that revealed the extent of the insult to Freddie. He stood up, his face pale, and adjusted his tie. He was prepared to take Ugo on.

She intervened. Suddenly afraid of something, she tugged at his sleeve, “No, Freddie, can’t you see he’s drunk.” He had in fact been counting on someone tugging his sleeve (he had a new suit on, white shirt, and tie); he bent down and kissed her hand. He gave his chair an unnecessary little jerk and sat down again. He even smiled like a better sort of gentleman who was not having anything to do with lowlifes.

“There, there, everything’s all right again,” she purred, stroking his hand.

“All the same, Fred, you should have knocked him a proper one across the snout,” said the hollow-eyed actress in her dark voice. “Clobber the brutes, that’s the only way.” She was very dissatisfied at the outcome of the incident.

“Come off it!” countered
she.
“Do you want him to brawl with the gutter?”—and the “gutter” was loosed straight at Melkior.

His ears felt hot, he knew they were crimson as well. He deemed himself innocent in the face of her insult. He got flustered and failed to answer the host of ritual questions put to him by Ugo. Justifying himself in his mind, explaining to
her
… no, this is nothing but the truth: Freddie is a shallow, talentless fop, his delivery’s off, he lisps and mumbles … spreads his words like butter … in a word: a fool.

It was as if she were reading his mind: she bore down on him with all her beauty. He felt a mighty fear in his body. … While everyone was calm around him, everyone protected by indifferent laughter. … And there: his hand resting on the table was not lying still, it was trembling, frightened …

“Are you scared of him?” asked Maestro in a whisper, one eye squinting in the smoke from the sodden butt in the corner of his mouth, giving him a derisive air.

“Scared of whom?”

“That Freddie character.”

“What makes you think I’m scared?”

“You keep glancing his way. Move the hand off the table, it’s trembling very convincingly. That might encourage him,” said Maestro paternally. “And be careful. In nineteen twenty an actor whupped our drama critic. Thrashed him in broad daylight, in front of the Theater Café with a dog whip. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Why did he whip him? Did he get a bad review?” Melkior felt his voice quaver.

“Rumor had it that … well, it may have had something to do with a review, the man wrote that the actor spoke with a squeak or something, I don’t know, it has been ages since I last went to the theater. He might well have spoken with a squeak for all I know. But it wasn’t over the squeak, it was over a blonde.”