Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (77 page)

But the sound of laughter came … from somewhere close, so near as to surprise him: where did the echo come from?

“Your attention, heh, heh, heh …”

All of a sudden there materialized before him a leering drunken face with dark fillings. Ugo was leading a mob of drunks picked up in dives along the way … a noisy and motley crew, from ragamuffins like Four Eyes to the elegant dandy Freddie. What’s this combination, now? wondered Melkior. As a matter of fact, Freddie was rather standing “aside” (not his crowd), but Four Eyes kept addressing him as “Your Highness” and attempting to fling an arm around Freddie’s shoulders.

“Your attention, lowlifes,” spoke Ugo to the mob, “here’s our Conscience—bow down!”

Four Eyes bowed humbly, who knows, it might turn out to be a wise move. An unshaven and dirty individual laughed in his face.

“Cut the cackling, Shitface!” Four Eyes warned him. “He’s got more in his little finger than …” He was remembering the drinks on Melkior at Kurt’s Cozy Corner … ahh, those had been the days!

“Shut up, Basilisk!” Ugo snapped at him, “you always ruin everything!”

“Yes, Master …” Four Eyes looked around the mob, honored: he had acquired a moniker.

“Welcome at long last to our midst, oh, Sun!” Ugo waved his arms fawningly, “we’re lost without you! Just say the word and … Where shall we go?”

“To …” Melkior opened his mouth, but rage rent all his words. In his dry, bitter mouth he felt the vexing taste of a kind of spite; a brackish vengeful hatred which had long been gathering momentum inside him burst its inarticulate, savage, animal-like, speech-deprived way into his mouth, and he spat it out unconsciously, dryly, almost symbolically, right in Ugo’s face which was grinning fetchingly before him in confident expectation.

This is what Freddie had been waiting for: he rushed in first (to settle accounts with the pen-wielding artist at last!), the others followed. … Get the weirdo!

Ugo elicited Melkior’s admiration once again. He never even winked after being spat on—he only gave him a moist, blurred look. He then calmly turned to face the mob and stepped in front of Melkior spreading his arms in protection:

“Over my dead body!” he said resolutely. “Shitface,” who had been spoiling for a fight, cursed. “Quiet! And everyone to his proper place! There’s a higher form of justice, this is not your calling. Fredegarius, resheath your pinewood prop sword! Open the ranks, make way for Eustachius the Magnificent!”

The mob parted obediently, and he made a gracious gesture, waving Melkior through.

It’s a hoax … thought Melkior, distrustful. (Freddie was smirking insidiously from the side.) But there was nothing to be done, he had to go … His back broke out in goose bumps, expecting blows … He passed halfway through the gauntlet; nothing happened (this is how people used to be flogged); he reached the end; this is where it starts … But there was nothing, not a thing, not even a single nasty poke …

O Parampion! He felt like turning back and giving Ugo a hug. But he was still not convinced. And once he’d been convinced he still thought: it could just as well make the madman regret what he’d just done …

“And now, you crew of good-for-nothings, forward to new adventures!” he heard Ugo command behind him. But there was a despondent and sad undertone to the voice, like a desperate call after something that had been lost … or so it seemed to Melkior.

He now wished only to move on around the next corner, as if there were a different world there.

Everything was the same around the next corner. The street, the infrequent passersby with half-frozen noses. (It was the sixth of April —some spring!) They were watching the random Sunday passersby with indifference. Idle, useless watching. … Was that war—people looking on, indifferent, dull? Had they stared at Sunday mornings before?—He could not recall. Ugo is talking gibberish—the war is invisible.

An aeroplane droned very high overhead. There it is, said Melkior. Solitary onlookers were gathering into knots as if an accident had taken place, raising their noses. “Reconnaissance,” explained an expert (everybody was listening trustingly), “he’s flying solo at a great altitude—he must be on a reconnaissance flight. Photographing. The bombers follow later … And our anti-aircraft fellows are not lifting a finger …”

The man barely said the words before guns started booming. The aeroplane was a tiny toy high among the clouds. Small white cloudlets blossomed beneath it. … “He’s too high—they’re wasting their ammo,” said the expert.

Should they save it for Christmas then? thought Melkior irascibly. Let them boom on!

Funny, the rumbling … (he walked away with derisive thoughts) … as if we were celebrating something down here …

“It’s not very wise to stand around in the street,” he heard the expert behind him, “shrapnel comes down all over.” Melkior drew closer to the façades … as if it were raining, he laughed at his prudence.

“Keep away from the wall!”

A soldier—a sentry—was standing in front of him, on his rifle a bayonet, on his head a helmet. Over the gate was dejected gray lettering on a dirtied gray background:
GARRISON
COMMAND
.

“Keep away, you hear!” The soldier was already unslinging his rifle.

“I’m going in,” Melkior told him uncaringly and tried to enter.

“Wait!” bawled the sentry rudely, then yelled into the gate: “Sarge!”

Out came a young, emaciated man, his face sickly but his eyes keen and feverish.

“This one here,” the sentry tilted his head at Melkior.

“What do you want?” asked the sergeant, irritated.

“To see the Orderly Officer,” replied Melkior importantly. This must be the place, he thought.

“You’re looking at him.”

“Your superior,” said Melkior.

“Can’t see you. He’s busy. There’s a war on, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“I’m on official business.”

“What kind?”

“Important.” Saying this, Melkior smiled and, so it seemed, gave a slight wink.

“C’mon in.” Outside one of the doors the sergeant said: “Wait.”

A long empty corridor with a floor scarred by army boots, a row of gray doors opposite which tall windows looked out on a barren, mournful yard. Why is everything so hopeless in here? Melkior was about to leave, but then the door opened and the sergeant said: “Come in.”

The room smelled of garlic and brandy. It appeared to be empty. On the desk, under a picture of the young King, were a half-full bottle, an inkwell in a wooden holder, and the remnants of some processed food among several sheets of paper scattered helter-skelter. It was moments later that Melkior noticed an army bed as well, and on it a man under a gray blanket.

“Well, what is it, you …” came the voice from underneath the blanket, only to be overcome by a volley of sneezes so it couldn’t curse at Melkior, which it most probably had been about to do judging by the tone of the question.

Atchoo. Melkior waited for the sneezing to stop. He then sensibly thought: how can I say this to a man under a blanket? I haven’t even seen his face … He’s clearly got the flu—seeing as he’s eating garlic and drinking brandy; now he’s sweating under there …

“You still here?”

“Yes.” It suddenly seemed to Melkior that he was talking to a man dead and buried.

“Well, speak up …” this time he managed to get his oath in. “Can’t you see I’m damned near death’s door here … Make it snappy!”

“I believe you need hot tea and aspirin.” Melkior approached the bed meekly: “Have you got the flu?”

“What’s the matter, did you come here to make a monkey out of me?” The officer threw the blanket aside in a threatening gesture.

Melkior remained in place. He watched the man with pity. A young second lieutenant in a wrinkled old (field) uniform with cracked epaulettes. The eyes feverish, turbid, the face burning with heat, the hair wet, plastered down over the ears and forehead … poor lieutenant! They had left him, sick as he was, under that blanket, with a bottle of slivovitz and a bulb of garlic … and off they went, fled …

“Well, what the hell is it?” He didn’t have the strength to get up, he only propped himself on an elbow.

Careful! You still have time to say: I’m looking for So-and-So, he’s a staff captain, a relative of mine …

“I came to report for service,” enunciated Melkior nevertheless. Who knows why he was now reminded of Numbskull … the man brought me oranges …

“Draft-dodger?” asked the lieutenant with accustomed boredom. He closed his eyes in pain, his head was splitting.

“Volunteer,” said Melkior with resolute clarity.

“What did you say?” the lieutenant seemed not to have heard him right.

“I’m reporting as a volunteer,” repeated Melkior clearly.

“Why?” the lieutenant let slip unthinkingly.

“To fight …” Pupo slapped his back: see, you’re an honest man.

“How come you’re not … Wait,” he remembered something, “I’ll take you to see the captain, this is not my business.”

He did not wait long outside one of the doors in the corridor. The lieutenant came out and said go in, and off he went, probably to get back under the blanket again, to sweat …

Melkior suddenly found himself facing a lean officer, grave and morose under a drooping black moustache. Four stars: captain first class, interpreted Melkior. He was sitting at a bare army desk and staring with boredom through the window.

“Don’t you know how to close the door after you?” the captain muttered sternly without even a look at the newcomer.

When Melkior had closed the door: “Over here, come closer.” He now turned to cast a glance at Melkior, superficially, with a strange smile.

“So you want tooo …”

“Yes.”

“What?” the captain snorted angrily; his moustache shook.

“To enlist as a volunteer.” Melkior could no longer recognize his own voice (everything here was
stern, brief, regular
…), the words came out of their own volition, as if under hypnosis.

The captain was now examining him with a cold, mocking gaze. Melkior felt like a comical worn-out object offered at the Kikinis pawnshop: he’s bartering to lower my price with that gaze …

“How come you weren’t drafted? You’re young enough and you look fit,” he was gauging Melkior’s legs and shoulders, chest, arms, head …

“I was discharged … unfit for service,” said Melkior with a tinge of shame. It’s a disgrace here. … Why did I get into this? He wanted to turn and go.

“Unfit for service. … So you haven’t done your stint. No rank. Intellectual?”

Melkior nodded mechanically, looking over the captain’s head, at a map of the kingdom, for the town of Varaždin. So that’s where they already are? Near enough …

The captain took out a sheet of paper and dipped his pen into the inkwell:

“Last name, father’s name, first name? Year and place of birth? Military district and unit where you served?”

Melkior duly told him everything. He then addressed Pupo: there, see?

“Now there’s another thing I want you to tell me,” the captain raised a kind look at Melkior and said in a seemingly fatherly voice: “Why are you enlisting?”

“Well … the country has been attacked!” He now really meant to feign ardent patriotism (Pechárek, Kink and Countwy), but instead he was thinking of Pupo: rifles and ammunition, boots …

“And you care an awful lot for this country, is that it?” The captain’s smile was twinkling with insidious distrust. “Anyway, I’d like you to tell me, in confidence … look, it’s not that I object or anything—no, you’re doing a fine thing … you were told to enlist, were you? Come on, tell me, there’s nothing to be afraid of, everything’s fine, see, I’ve taken down your statement, but who sent you here?” Melkior’s blood stopped running for an instant: this is an interrogation! But Pupo did not send me …

“Why would anyone send me? I came on my own.” Some common decency protested inside him.

“To fight, eh?” The captain went on looking at him for some time, with the same twinkling smile.

He’s studying me, he’s thinking: does this simple fellow really want to lay down his life in vain? The scoundrel doesn’t believe in patriotism, he’s got civilian clothes stashed in the locker, he’ll skedaddle when they get here, shave the moustache …

“Goood,” concluded the captain. “If that’s what it is, young man, fiiine.” He stood up and took the sheet of paper from the desk: “Wait here a minute. Here, have a smoke,” he gave him a wink, “good man,” and left the room.

Sure, they offer you cigarettes to gain your confidence. … Just like in the cinema: pushing a silver case under his nose, “Cigarette?” lighting his first (such manners!) and then his own afterward, with the same flame, fraternally. Both smoking, blowing smoke away, their clouds of smoke merging in the air (so, a pipe of peace, you might say) ahh, never mind which smoke is whose, believe me, my dear fellow … I’ve nothing against you personally (switching to a more intimate tone) but there you are, you’ve got to handle this boring piece of business, it’s orders from above, if you ask me I’d much rather down a couple of shots with you (the damned fools have banned alcoholic beverages on the premises) and go for a game of cards (that’s forbidden, too, everything that’s any fun is forbidden) or just have a good old chat, ha-ha, about you know what. … I’ve seen you with that dame, you sly so-and-so. … Now, the surgeon fellow, isn’t he her hubbie, heh-heh? Coco? That’s what she calls him? Hang on a second, finish the cigarette, back in a jiffy …

A telephone was jangling somewhere in the building. Call Enka. Coco has been “called up.” War, wounded men, torn flesh, surgeons in their element. … What am I sitting here waiting for? He’s now speaking to the police,
goood
, send a man over,
goood
, an intellectual, having a smoke, yes of course, I’ll keep him here until you arrive,
goood
…

Melkior stole on tiptoe to the door: silence in the corridor, silence in the army building … and there’s a war raging out there along all the frontiers! A voice in the adjoining room was elocuting confidentially over the phone: it was he, the captain, supplying Melkior’s description … nose: regular, moustache: clean-shaven, beard: clean-shaven, distinguishing marks: none. … He pressed the knob and gave the door a slight push … it squealed, a stool pigeon, everything’s set up this way here, purposely not oiled …