Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (9 page)

He was a past master at handling such situations.

Melkior felt the worst. Whence the guilty feeling? It seemed to him that all eyes were trained on him in a kind of expectation as if he could come up with a solution. What had he gone and tampered with Don Fernando’s ineffable divinity for? It had soared frighteningly high above his pedestrian powers, and he had long been cultivating the patient policy of the believer who envies the omnipotence of his God. But into the envy crept some insidious antipathy that he unconsciously sought to disperse with a strange readiness to sacrifice himself. And every time he caught himself preparing for the sacrifice, even as the inferior feeling of fulsome humility was hatching, there also emerged anger and disgust along the way, with himself along with everything else. Whence the slimy feeling of crawling mendacity which clung faithfully to the superior and hated person? Step forward, any who are immune to that particular brand of perfidy! Oh, human nature! sighed Melkior “from deep down inside,” cleverly impersonating his conscience, as if he had deftly used “human nature” to plug a stench-spewing bottle.

“I suggest,” Chicory Hasdrubalson spoke up mournfully, mid-silence, “that the entire Parampionic Fraternity humbly ask the great Don Fernando to adopt a sad mask suitable for a
pompe funèbres director
, following which we should equally humbly ask the immortal Maestro to carry the remains of the dear departed out of the house of sorrow so that we might fittingly mourn it as one.”

They interrupted him with a chorus of laughter (which included Maestro’s angry grunts). Ugo amply rewarded Chicory with kisses on behalf of the entire fraternity … and things got going nicely again after the standstill. But silence descended suddenly again like darkness and choked the barely revived merriment.

Something was happening on Don Fernando’s face and it instantly affected everyone, as if sunspots had appeared and brought about an abrupt climate change. Indeed, dark spots had appeared on both Don Fernando’s ruddy cheeks and a grim cloud of anger flew across his eyes. True, he whisked the cloud right away so that no lightning flashed in his eyes, but the spots spread on his cheeks, covering them to the ears.

There was a solar eclipse. A devout silence fell upon the party at the table and mystic anxiety swept through the entire Give’nTake. Doomsday was expected. But in the midst of expectation Maestro finished his glass while Ugo grinned derisively at the darkened sun —Don Fernando’s face—intrepidly displaying his black fillings.

Was it the fillings themselves or the heretic defiance of the two chief Parampions that upset the exalted balance of Don Fernando’s divine serenity? He snatched his glass greedily as if about to drain it, held it tightly gripped in his hand for a moment (he was trying against all odds to resist temptation), and then with an easy swing, but producing an extremely telling effect, dashed the wine across the table smack into Ugo’s teeth. He then stood up without looking at anyone and strode unhurriedly out of the Give’nTake.

Freddie was triumphant, of course. Such unexpected revenge at another’s hand! Hurrah! Bravo! He applauded, shouted, chortled with glee, loudly, too loudly. Even
she
tried to tame him, stroking his hand, pleading with him to restrain himself. She saw nothing funny in the excess, her sympathy was apparently with Ugo. (Oh how Melkior was grateful!) At length she let go of Freddie’s hand, stood up and approached Ugo with tender concern.

“Did he get you in the eyes?” she asked, pulling Ugo’s hands away from his eyes.

Melkior felt a sweet, unmanly ache of tenderness clutch his throat. How kind she is. How dear.

Ugo was rubbing his eyes to gain time (Don Fernando
had
caught him by surprise), whereas she thought he was …

“Did it get into your eyes?”

“No, love,” he said in a seductively tender voice, suddenly embracing her and kissing her on the mouth.

What a cad! Melkior thought jealously, while the other end of his thought rejoiced. Desecration of compassion, rape of the angel! he added derisively and watched her eyes filling with tears of surprise. She covered her face with her hands and blindly staggered back to Freddie. He took hold of her protectively and sat her down in a chair. He then made toward Ugo, rolling his hips as he had seen in the cinema: here comes the terrible avenger. But he adjusted his tie in passing and halted at a reasonable distance.

“Listen here, you ape! Come outside if you are the man you pretend to be.”

“No I won’t come out, fair knight!” Ugo bowed like Sganarel. “You would joust like an errant knight for your lady’s honor, but I’d rather not fight you just now. For some reason or other I’m not in the mood really—I had a bad dream last night … as I said, seven o’clock tomorrow at the upper Maksimir lake. This is still on. Tomorrow I shall spear you with a silver fork as stated, with all the honors due to your exceptional person. And now please leave alone the man whom Destiny has chosen to be splashed with the Dionysian drink by the hand of her great son. A moment ago I entered the biography of a great man! Future Ph.D.s will be quoting me in their doctoral theses, students will be flunking their exams because of me, learned thinkers will be referring to me in footnotes. Thanks to Don Fernando’s sublime gesture you now stand before a historical person, you miserable wretch!”

“I spit on your historical person, you ape!” and Freddie indeed spat into Ugo’s eyes.

“That will be totted up to the same account,” said Ugo, wiping his face without haste or perturbation. “Your bill is growing fast, Twenty-seventh Citizen in
Coriolanus.
My only regret is that you will not be able to remember how I collected all my debts, because you will no longer be there. The very thought brings tears to my eyes. Oh Destiny, be thou not cruel to this thimbleful of unsalted brains, there is so much he could not help. Now then,” he addressed his party, carelessly turning away from Freddie, “over with the nasty digressions and back to the agenda. All right, Maestro, what is it that two shot glasses of the hard stuff say?”

Freddie was left in the middle of the Give’nTake, surrounded by laughter, alone and abandoned. Ugo’s great triumph, which Ugo would not even acknowledge!

The overripe hollow-eyed actress shook Freddie’s hand, congratulated him for spitting. She kissed him under the nose (long had she yearned to!), leaving behind the victorious imprint of her lips.

Viviana never looked at him. He had sat back at the table, offered her his hand to stroke (as usual), but she fell to rummaging in her handbag, without noticing the hand. That hand was no longer in her good graces, Freddie’s Vivianic empire was dwindling.

Oh how favorable things were for the Parampion, the damned jabberer!

Melkior was not missing a trick. I’m monitoring your movements, you fickle cat! He was almost prepared to root for Freddie. And inside he was lamenting, “I’m done for, oh God I’m done for!” and his heart was clenching hopelessly, his eyes wandering in search of a sanctuary. To hide his misery that was weeping in his gaze, sobbing in his naked eyes. How free everybody was, how confident in their gestures, in their stride! While I dare not so much as walk toward that door with the man’s shoe drawn on it … although it has been a whole hour since I first felt … er, yes. The shoe! As if there were a cobbler inside! A misleading sign! The Cobblers’ Union ought to protest. Permit us that association of ideas, the sanitary technicians plead. What refinement in Thénardier, the vile condor! With a mere shoe he lifts his establishment to considerable renown, to the level of international urinary language. The Micturition Code. Now,
there’s
a European for you!

Melkior was ill at ease with their daring throughout. To have dashed wine in Ugo’s face! And with what a regal gesture! To have kissed
her
like that! He proceeded to examine his bitter yearning in detail; the fantasies struck him as terribly forward and he blushed.

“So, Maestro,” the invincible Ugo spoke up with a chairmanlike efficiency, “I think this is just the moment for
Snap.
Europe has left through a door that could hardly be called a triumphal arch, and spitting in people’s faces, since civilization forbids spitting on the floor, makes perfect sense. And it’s forceful in a virile way. Virile in particular. It’s not easy getting cast for a spitting role, that sort of thing is reserved for the big players. Roscius himself, in Rome, used to spit in key scenes. But let us leave those sputalitious matters to the spitters, what comes out of their mouths is spittle, not words. Goodbye, snot-dribblers, and hoard your precious ammunition like those besieged in a fortress, your mouths will go dry with excitement. My apologies, Maestro, for keeping you waiting until I finished delivering the war message to those on the other bank, over there where culture leaves off. I was speaking like Caesar to Vercingetorix. So, if you please, what is it that two shot glasses of the hard stuff say? Then again … perhaps they whisper, do they whisper?”

“No they do not,” Maestro growled angrily, “they damned well bellow! But I will be moderate in playing my
marche funèbre,—moderato
, as they put it in the scores. Parampion, the question!” he said sternly, like a champion demanding his gong.

“What is it that two shot glasses of the hard stuff say?” Ugo asked ceremonially.

“Two shot glasses of the hard stuff say
Snap,”
Maestro pronounced solemnly.

He then spat out his cigarette butt, cleared his throat thoroughly and sluiced it with a sip of brandy (which was equally part of the ritual), and, closing his eyes, began to recite, craning his neck awkwardly:
Anatomy, Or My Person on Sale:

“That’s the introduction, gentlemen,” Ugo chimed in, “and a refrain of sorts …” But everyone shushed him and Maestro went on:

“Bring shot glasses twain, shot to shot,” whispered Ugo to Thénardier.

“Right,” said Maestro when the drinks arrived, “the two shots go on to say as follows:

“Nothing,” Ugo broke in. “We’re going to skip the various delicacies. Because he”—this to the audience—“will now be dissecting each organ in turn, and you can well imagine what’s in store for you there.”

“There are various salients,” said Maestro in prose, “or hemispheres, also crevasses and canyons, ridges, openings and orifices all for functions large and small …”

“We’ll skip all that, those orifices and what-not, and get straight to the point,” Ugo told him.

“The anatomy consists of nine systems. I’ll just do the bones and a few extremities then.”

“What did I tell you!” Ugo exclaimed delightedly. “Snip-snap!” and he rolled his eyes contritely in holy awe of Maestro’s poetry.

The entire Give’nTake rang with boisterous applause and laughter. Maestro did not let himself get carried away with the intoxication of success: he modestly took from his pocket a shard of a mirror and winked his eye at that same eye in the mirror (the eye was in fact all he could see in the small piece of glass): we know … what we know.

Melkior swept the premises in search of an alliance with a lonely soul suffering as much as he was. He was disgusted with Maestro’s anatomy. But all the souls were noisily rejoicing at the muck that Maestro had tonight purposely dredged out for some cynical reason of his own.
Her
soul was not rejoicing! Freddie and the hollow-eyed actress were participating with gusto, but
she
, Viviana, had shyly dropped her gaze and, see, she was mashing a piece of tinfoil with her foot with irritation. Melkior watched for so much as a single look of hers to donate his distaste to a joint treasury of spiritual beauty … he had pursed his mouth in a grimace of disgust so as to greet her straight right with kindred openness for a tacit, honorable accord … But she sensed his curious readiness, raised her eyes from the bit of tinfoil and appeared to spit with her look at his stupid offer. He immediately sacked the grimace of disgust (the distracted secretary who had copy-typed his physiognomy wrong, causing a fatal misunderstanding!) and slapped on a Giventakian smile, a hedonistic, mischievous grin, for Ugo had already pounced upon him:

“Look, good-looking people, the white soul suffers!” he cried pointing at Melkior who had all but sank under the table. He sat huddled as if shielding himself under fire, and kept muttering miserably, “No, no, I’m not, no … I’m having a fine time, I am laughing” … and he tried to laugh but felt his face disobeying and his ears burning, burning … Everybody watching, everybody laughing … She, too. Oh God, she too!—He saw no more.