How wrong Kurt was. Now was in fact the time to begin the crowning mad revelry in which Ugo was expecting a reward from the Corner owner in the form of further drinks on the house. If only for the sake of the establishment’s reputation, sir.
“Sir,” he addressed Kurt with the haughtiness of a celebrated virtuoso, “I do not remember when I last visited your highly esteemed establishment. Your name is Kurt, but there is no courtesy in your arrogant nature, sir. We have already performed, bona fide, a part of tonight’s show which promises much enjoyment to follow (Caliban, stop smacking your chops like a ravenous beast!) but where, Oh Mr. Kurt, is the due courtage for this worthy artistic body, not forgetting our household cur that is in this critical moment sniffing the ground vainly for bones and gnawing at a table leg in desperation? (Four Eyes gave a consensual growl under the table.—“Hush, Caliban!”) Very well, take no notice of the cur, or indeed of my humble self, but do take notice, sir, of these intrepid men who may all too soon lay down their lives on the altar of their country. Is that not so, gentlemen centurions of the 35th Legion?”
“So right!” the sergeants shouted in unison, genuinely aroused by Ugo’s pathos.
“Indeed I’m right. Fraülein Else, Ophelia had a brother, a nobleman who was killed defending her honor. Your brother would be capable of getting killed defending only the cork of his barrel. …”
Kurt had all the while watched him with the patience of a wise yet suffering individual, but now a baleful look flashed in his eye at the insult. Ugo proclaimed the situation to be “highly critical.”
“The coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword!” he declaimed with insolent pathos and, in a show of silly threat, pointed the saber at Kurt’s chest. Kurt did not flinch. On the contrary, he thrust his chest out valiantly, ready to die. The women screamed. But Ugo, with a peace-loving gesture and a cry of “Farewell to arms!” flung away the saber, which speared the floorboards with pleasure. He then leaped off the table and hugged Kurt so hard that Kurt could not help but hug him back.
“There, gentlemen warriors, that is how to settle differences! Pass this on up high to your generals!” and Ugo planted a smooch on each of Kurt’s perplexed cheeks while winking slyly at the sergeants. “You, Mr. Kurt, are as brave and ungrateful as Cinna, let me shake your hand, let us be friends!”
Kurt was taking it all in good spirits, with nobility. Like a man he took Ugo’s hand and shook it vigorously, as one hero to another.
“Right, gentlemen, peace is signed. Now all that’s left is to drink to it …” Ugo winked at the sergeants, who took it up with the wile of drunkards: “That’s right, this calls for a drink.” And Kurt indeed signaled Else to bring a bottle of wine, on the house.
After Mother retired there appeared a second bottle, a third, several bottles, and the glass-clinking brought Kurt’s drunken declaration that he would go out of the Cozy Corner and into the street on all fours if they would not believe that he was sincere and that he genuinely loved all of them, his friends. Twice he went down on the floor and started to crawl toward the door; they had to force him up and pledge their trust. Four Eyes alone (pulling his leg) “disbelieved” him and Kurt started crawling again to reassure him. Kurt kept hugging and kissing Ugo, while Ugo, in full abandon as he was, kissed back brother and sister—particularly the sister, who made no effort to conceal her pleasure. Aroused by the wine and the kisses, Else danced with Ugo to a tune played by Four Eyes on his grimy pocket comb. And the sergeant who aspired to Else’s love twice grabbed Ugo by the ears and shook him jealously.—Are you a man? —Yes I am, Ugo grinned his fillings bare.—All right then, carry on, selflessly shouted the sergeant, at great pains to conceal his feeling of being ignored.
“You imbecile!” objected the other sergeants. “You nearly spoiled the fun. Why, he’s not a man, he’s a man and a half. A he-man!” and they clapped in time to the music Ugo was dancing to. The sergeants were ready to give him their hearts’ blood.
“Gentlemen centurions!” exclaimed Ugo in his abandon.
Nobody paid any attention to Melkior. Not even servile Kurt, who had in his drunken bliss totally devoted himself to Ugo. Melkior, too, had had several glasses and his stomach was now clenching in pain: that roast heart wouldn’t come amiss, whinged the stomach.
“Hey, Kurt, we’ll settle up tomorrow,” he whispered into the man’s red-hot ear.
“But Herr Professor!” Kurt turned his greasy diluted face to him, “it’s my treat, you will allow me, won’t you? I’ll walk on all fours all the way out to the street corner … and I won’t have any of …” Kurt was ranting, demented, trying to get down on his knees, but he fell over and stayed there lying on the floor, muttering helplessly, “on-on-on all fours, giddyup …”
Melkior availed himself of this to sneak undetected out of Cozy Corner.
Autumn rain was drizzling down and the air was clean and fragrant. That’s right, Melkior approved of the long-awaited rain and the restorative air. Like a rooster slipping out of a chicken coop he spread his wings easily and felt like crowing.
He sidled quickly into his room, without turning the light on so as not to wake up his guest. The door was not locked. Oh-oh? wondered Melkior.
“Turn it on if you like,” said a voice from the dark, “I’m not asleep.”
Melkior did so and stammered a hesitant good evening; who knows, perhaps this is frowned on as well. The Stranger muttered something in reply. He had chosen the sofa to sleep on, leaving the bed to his host. On the floor by the sofa lay a huge pile of domestic and foreign newspapers, thrown down in disarray. A thorough briefing … before sleep, thought Melkior.
“The bed was meant for you,” he said, locking the door with careful precaution full of a certain awe. (At which the guest gave a superior smile.) “You won’t sleep well on that.”
“I never sleep well … anywhere,” said the guest with a cautious hesitation, as if revealing a secret. He gave a cordial smile and added: “like a rabbit … I see you have many fine books. While I have to read this trash,” and he pointed at the papers. “I manage to crack a book now and then on a train. But that’s not reading really … it’s cinematographic, flickering, broken,” and he heaved a sigh of resignation. “If you want to work or anything … the light doesn’t bother me.”
Melkior was touched by the consideration. He felt like making a gesture, showing his goodwill, his respect. …
“I’m sorry, here we are sharing a room and I haven’t even told you who I am,” and he made to approach his guest with his hand out, to introduce himself.
“No,” his guest stopped him very energetically, “don’t tell me your name! No names, please … The people I know,” he went on with a calm smile, “I generally know by assumed names. I don’t know what my own is anymore,” laughed the guest cheerfully. “That business this morning … when we met on the street …” he shrugged helplessly: “there’s nothing for it—that’s our life. I’m sorry.”
Melkior was moved by this: there, it’s not as if he were … ! He remembered ATMAN in a flash and the worm inside got on with its business: I’m duty bound, he thought romantically.
“I was looking for you all over today, on the off chance.”
“Did something happen?” the guest asked rather incuriously. “I’m not easy to find … especially by those who look for me,” he joked. “Why?”
“This man downstairs, the palmist …”
“The palmist?” laughed the guest. “That’s right, there was some magician who greeted me on the staircase this morning, on the landing below.”
“That’s him, that’s ATMAN,” said Melkior apprehensively. “ATMAN is his ‘stage’ name. I suggested it to him …” he couldn’t help boasting, derisively.
“ATMAN?” laughed the guest. “Yes, he greeted me in a very distinguished way, asked me if I was staying ‘upstairs,’ and pointed upward, without mentioning you. ‘He’s a most honest man. An absolutely great soul, the pride of the house, you c
an trust him completely,’ that’s what he blurted out in your honor, quick as a flash.”
“There, you see?” shivered Melkior in horror.
“See what? Oh, that,” he understood Melkior’s fear. “No, no; nothing to worry about, I know them,” said the guest confidently.
“You don’t know ATMAN,” Melkior insisted on being suspicious, “he’s a mysterious rascal.”
“Well, he would be—being mysterious is his stock in trade,” the guest was enjoying himself. “What’s ATMAN mean, by the way?”
“A great spirit in ancient Brahmin philosophy. But it’s also what Schopenhauer called his dog.”
“Ah-ha, a point for you. So this ‘great spirit’ tells the future, does he?”
“You can well imagine his clients. But he’s got loftier ambitions: he works out horoscopes. Historical forecasts, too … Has them published in a newspaper. He is predicting the sinking of the Bismarck.”
“Hah, that is an easy one. The English will sink it.”
“But he says their George V will go down, too.”
“Of course it will—the Germans will take it down. You don’t have to be ATMAN to see that. Much more valuable things are going to be destroyed in this stupid war along with it,” said the guest with a nervous yawn.
“I hope you won’t get me wrong,” said Melkior cautiously, “do you believe Hitler will be …”
“Done in? What does believing have to do with it? I’m working, together with all the other anti-Hitlerites, to bring him down. That is my belief. If I didn’t work, I wouldn’t believe.”
“Or is it the other way around?”
“Well, perhaps …” said the guest with vexation. Melkior feared he might have offended him, but he did not intend to conceal his doubt.
“It’s only …” he began hesitatingly, “that it doesn’t look like everybody’s at work to bring him down. The firmest believers aren’t.” They’ve reached a pact, he thought of Don Fernando.
“Oh yes they are,” said the guest unkindly, “and they’ll be working harder still. They’ll do the hardest work of all. They will have to!” he finished with a fury that went beyond Melkior’s evident falter, reaching much further to strike at something big and hard.
This seemed to conclude the conversation. Melkior undressed and got into bed.
“Shall I turn off the light?”
“As you wish,” the guest answered harshly, evidently far away in other thoughts.
Melkior switched off the light and said goodnight. He got no reply. Fatigue had him in its close embrace in the bed but was not letting sleep near him. Instead it loosed a pack of weird thoughts to rip apart his exhaustion. Surefooted travelers who know their way. Beyond seven grim mountains and seven cruel crocodile-infested rivers there lies something, something founded on wisdom and justice. And they set off to reach there. Across a trackless, muddy wasteland, bone-weary, they trudge on, never for a moment doubting the point of their march. For ten years, night after night (they hide by day) they have carried iron levers and pipes slogging through mud, inquiring as they go: “Where’s the supervisor?”
“What supervisor?”
“The levers and pipes supervisor! We’re tired, will the supervisor please speak up?”
“You are gullible. There is no supervisor.”
Standing in ankle-deep mud they plead, but they do not put down the levers and pipes. It would be more sensible to drop their load in the mud and get some rest while inquiring about the supervisor who is not there.
This saddens me. Then again, I can’t very well tell them to lay down their load, can I? After all, who am I? Am I myself the missing supervisor? Does anyone know anything for a fact? There is a moment when it occurs to me to tell them I am the supervisor just to see what will happen. But, but then, there’d be no telling what responsibility I’d have to shoulder. Carrying the levers and pipes through mud for ten years, night after night … Who’s to tell where this leads to, what purpose it serves, and who is behind it all? Oh no, let them slog on searching for their supervisor—I’ve turned up only by chance, I’m passing through, and I have no idea whether or not there even is a supervisor. Perhaps there is one after all.
“Then why do you say there isn’t?”
“Oh, people say all kinds of things. Would you be better off going back?”
This I say just for the sake of saying something, with a cautious man’s uncertainty. I am afraid to interrupt the conversation; who knows what the consequences might be?
“Go back?” they reply in rage. “We’ve been carrying this stuff for ten years and now you want us to carry it back? Well, that makes it clear—you are the supervisor!”
“I? Not a chance!” I begin to tremble. “I’ll help you if you like, I’ll join you.” Oh God, now I’ve gone and made a mess of it! I know I have even as I say the words.
“All right, if you say so. Prove you are what you claim to be.”
But this is not said in an unkind way, perhaps not in so many words as it later seems. They speak gently, in the manner of weary people who have few words to choose from but suit what they say to their mood, so that while the words themselves may be cutting, the tone is soothing.
“Come on, come on, don’t let’s waste any more time. What’s the idea of going all pensive on us? You’re studying us, right?”
This is what is terrible: how am I to behave? Is my every thought plainly written on my face? You’ve got to think as you walk—somehow it shortens the distance and conquers fatigue. And I (oddly enough!) try to do my thinking in my pocket! Don’t be surprised—it can be done. As soon as a thought comes to life in the mind, another thought takes it down to your pocket, see, and you can turn it over and over in there … for who would think of such a thing? It’s like having a handful of coins in your pocket and counting them with your fingertips: sorting them by size or value, adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, combining big with small according to what fits or doesn’t fit where, carrying out mathematical operations, building whole phrases with additions, with subordinate clauses even, with metaphors and ornaments, all of it making sense or not … in a word, thinking in your pocket. “What have you got inside you that keeps making that jingling sound?”
“Jingling? Am I a gilded plaster-of-Paris piggy bank?” Thinking (in my head): well, what do you know—it’s audible. Saying to them: “I’ve got some small change in my pocket and I’m fiddling with it to pass the time. Why, is that so bad?”
“Don’t go all innocent on us. You know what is and what isn’t good far better than we do. All we know is that we must carry and deliver, but that doesn’t mean we’re bored.”
“Have you still a long way to go?”
“We don’t know. There you are playing innocent again. You know we don’t know; it is cruel of you to ask. You can see we’re on our last legs.”
This is true: they have no way of knowing, but I am not asking out of cruelty.
Indeed it seems to me that my conscience demands that I share with them the painfulness of that infinity which even in the imagination cannot be seen as having an end or offering any respite. Well, it turns out I am wrong. What is the point of such a question out of courtesy when there is no answer—and if there is it might well turn out to be pointless. Would the levers and pipes be any less heavy if you knew where and how far they were to be lugged? Of course not. And yet … the effort factor is correlated to the distance to be covered while lugging the load. True, neither is the load lighter nor is the distance shorter if you know its length. But there, at least the traveler has something to keep his mind on during the tedium of marching. He can, for instance, divide (if only in his pocket) the vast quantity before him, split it into smaller parts, into halves, the halves into their halves, the resultant halves into halves, and halves into halves again … and so forth, until he reaches (note the word) such insignificant quantities that it seems to him he no longer has in front of him a magnitude which frightens him. Everything becomes as easy a
s zero, as a fraction of the insubstantial. Both the distance and the load.
Smiling cheerfully before him is the cunning wisdom of the Greek hair splitter … Come to think of it, a hair, too, can be split to insubstantiality, as any bald man will tell you …
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. Did I say something?”
“Look here, I lost my hair working, sweating. Don’t mock a man for looking like this through no fault of his own.”
As if any bald man looked “like this” through any fault of his own? That is what I could have told him, it would have been instructive; but I do not dare—I only think it, in my pocket, too. … The man is furious, which is why he reads my thoughts …
“Of course there are some who appear as they do through every fault of their own. I refer to libertines, lechers, and all the other drunken scum for which there isn’t enough rope out there to hang them with or lead to shoot them. Parasites.”
He couldn’t be meaning I’m a lecher, given that I … But is there any need for me to prove all this when I am so clearly not one of them. Not even with Enka. On the contrary, as a matter of … there’s Viviana … but what’s the point of getting into that? He probably only means to insult me with the groundless allusion …
“Because some of them act the saint supposedly expiring with chastity while blazing inside with sexual agitation. Then these low-lifes tell me I’m this and I’m that, that all I know to do with my wife is make babies. Well, what am I to do with my wife? Have her put on black stockings, tie a black ribbon around her white neck, and then whisper vulgar nothings in her ear? Yes, I would be somebody to those no-goods if I did that, they would see me as one of them. As if I cared to be. One of them in what, I ask you—in abominations?”
The man is sincere enough in his anger. Moreover he makes no effort to conceal the threat in his tone as an advance on his future high salary. Yes, he does expect the Future to reward him for his present privations, for his righteous agitation, even for his faithful thoughts with moral fasting and Lenten fare. He wishes to enter the Paradise of the Future pure as a saint and torment-stricken as a martyr—not so that he can claim any additional privileges or get a better mark at the future moral assessment of his person, but simply to be able to look back and see the past in himself as a scarecrow, a horror, as something never under any circumstances to be wished for again. In this way he is insuring himself against the diabolical longing to retreat, against any silly curiosity drawing him back, singing the sentimental siren call of the past. He knows the Future to be grand and marvelous, but where is it? At which spot is the entrance to that wonderful place strewn with flowers and justice? Not only does he not know—he is angry at the very existence of such a threshold and at the nagging desire to find out how much more he needs to walk to reach the doorway to the Future.
Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) Page 36
