Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

by Ranko Marinković

  This is why he dislikes those who think about this, and generally those who think at all. He views them with suspicious caution and alert hostility as if they are terrorists plotting an attempt at taking the precious life of his faith in the Future …

  The Future? What about you—do you believe in the future?

  He could not tell, at first, whether it was his guest asking him or he was still listening to his own insatiable train of thought.

  No, the guest was sound asleep. His regular breathing was dividing the night into equal slices of darkness, neatly, justly, like mouthfuls to the hungry.

  What can I say, gentlemen of the jury, in reply to your question, as strange as it is vague? (This was the opening sentence of Melkior’s grand defense speech.) As a short-lived individual facing the totality of duration, what idea can I form of that which you call the future? Is the Future merely a tomorrow-or-the-day-after I can purchase for cheap (at a discount) downstairs, from my neighbor, ATMAN the palmist? Or is it something distant, very distant, so distant that not only does it dwarf my lifespan (thus allowing me as an individual to say that it has nothing to do with me) but also renders itself elusive to my very thought, no matter how hard I’m trying to imagine future events from my present? True, my thought itself reaches out for that blank, unfilled time before me … and gives free rein to my ranging imagination. My imagination fills future time … but with what? That is the question, gentlemen. This is a test of man’s consciousness—moreover, his conscience: this is what reveals who belongs to whom. Your imagination reveals who you are; it also determines whose you are.

  Imagination has divided men whether they like it or not … But, gentlemen of the jury, do man’s imaginings decide his destiny? If future is the next, as yet unwound reel of life, gentlemen, then I ask: what can my imagination ever do to alter a single frame of the film? It has already been developed and printed. It is already out there, it has as yet only to happen—that is to say, to be run for our experience, for my eyes and ears.

  To the pertinent question: But who did the filming? (Shouts from the gallery: that’s right, hear! hear! who did the filming?) I reply: No one! (Excited buzz to the right, among the theologians … and to the left, among the causalists.) (To the theologians:) Yes, you find this difficult to grasp. Nothing without a Demiurge. You consider the chair squeaking beneath you: was it not made by someone? It, too, did not at first exist and only came into being in some “future” or another following a cabinetmaker’s concept. Oh if only the Future were a chair, gentlemen, mankind would be able to lounge in it without a care! If it could be built following a concept—be it an idiot’s—it would at least contain the sense (or nonsense) of an idea, whether it were idiotic, absurd, monstrous, unacceptable. The idiot’s whim could be that there would be only female newborns for the next forty years: mankind would thus be deprived of two generations of males. Can you imagine the consequences from the sexual, and particularly from the military, vantage point? God be praised—you theologians would say—the future is in the hands of Providence which maintains the order of things and events (I note your policelike style as regards “keeping the peace”), and that is why the male-to-female birth ratio is kept in balance, therefore. … Well, go on, finish your priceless thought … therefore mankind is content, even happy in every way, and especially from the military vantage point, right? Hear! Hear! So let’s toast mankind for its secure future whenever we happen to get drunk, which we do with great success, particularly on New Year’s Eve.

  (Speaking to the causalists): You, gentlemen, naturally laugh at such drunken contentment. Being drunk is poetic at first, then later on it comes to resemble idiocy. You still respect the ancient ex nihilo nihil fit principle too well to be able to leave the world’s destiny to a very doubtful Providence (of which there is no factual proof), still less to an idiot’s whim. It having been established through long-term human experience that everything evolves according to the law of causality—from cause to effect—the principle is clear as day and strong as a mountain … Until someone “shall doubt in his heart” the mountain will stand and not be cast into the sea. But if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, the mountain will fall down. David brought Goliath down by doubting in his strength. I am reminded of David Hume, a good man. But regardless of his grave doubts regarding Causality (which, like ATMAN the con man, passes itself off as a Principle while in fact being no more than ordinary habit), I do not propose to offend the deity in question; I would ask only: what if one day we were to push a stone and it didn’t fall but instead rolled back to its place? I mean, what if the effects betray the causes? If snakes hatch from hens’ eggs? If parrot speech gives rise to a new linguistics, rhetoric, logic, even literature? If crocodile laughter evolves into a new kind of humor? And all that out of habit which through sustained practice could become a Principle?

  Allow me, gentlemen, to voice here my thanks to a wise man who discovered in the Principle poetic subtleties that Aristotle himself never dreamed of. I am referring to Sganarel, a servant who was deprived of his wages through the peculiar death of his master, Don Juan, the most brazen of your followers. (Kindly pay causal attention to this: cause, death; effect, loss of wages).

  Sganarel’s syllogistics are a Dadaist poetry of causality as expressed in the logical inconsequentiality typical of that kind of poetry. Depoetized by causal rigidity and reduced to a pure syllogism it would appear as follows: in this world man is like a bird on a branch; the branch clings to the trunk; he who clings to the trunk is following good advice; an ape clings to the trunk; therefore an ape follows good advice …

  “I’m an ape! Eustachius the Vivianic, I’m an ape!” Ugo was yelling under the window, loud enough for the whole street to hear.

  Let the street hear it: he is following good advice. Even so, Melkior raised an ear from the pillow for Ugo’s anguished nocturnal cry:

  “All right, Eustachius, I admit it, I’m … what am I?” This, now, was only a spent reflection, which was nevertheless audible in the still of the night. On its heels came another flicker of hope sent toward the dark, mute window up on high:

  “Eustachius the Cosmic, what am I?”

  “An ape,” said Melkior and a voice out in the street simultaneously. But Melkior could not follow the street quarrel between Ugo and the inimical voice—Sganarel had come back on with the powerful rhetoric of syllogistic chains. What is the future built on? Promises. What is being promised? Happiness. What is happiness? No one knows, but everyone would like some. To want is to have not; to have not leads to penury; penury is poverty; poverty is not wealth; wealth is power; the powerful rule; he who rules ignores the law; he who ignores the law commits repression; repression gives rise to fear; fear leads to hate; to hate is not to love; love should be cautious; caution is the mother of wisdom; wisdom is not stupidity; stupidity is often boastful; a boastful man is a braggart; braggarts are often liars; liars lie through their teeth; teeth are part of the body; the body will perish; to perish is to give up the ghost; the ghost is Hamlet’s father; the father is the head of the family; the family is a unit of society; society is a collection of individuals; an individual amounts to nothing; nothing does not exist; to exist is to think; I think, therefore I am; I am and I am not; I am not what I was yesterday; yesterday was a fine day; day comes after night; at night you go to sleep; sleep is what I seek in vain; in vain do I try to stop; stop me, please; please stop me; stop me, please; please stop me; stop me, please … Will nobody stop me? Gentlemen of the jury …

  “Nobody,” came a voice from the empty space around Melkior.

  “Yes, yes, quite … But your revenge is pitiful, gentlemen!” he shouted on surfacing from the whirlpool of logic.” Is it fair to leave a man in that vicious circle of conclusions and let him spin around forever? Let me walk down the straight line of duration and I’ll set off with a song on my lips. Neither am I interested in speed (I can crawl if need be) nor am I afraid of the eternity before me. I shall moo in reply t
o the Sphinx’s questions for I do not know the answers, and she will let me pass. On the other side is Oedipus Rex, patricide, the husband of his mother, the brother of his children. His tragedy awaited him in the future and no amount of time could have averted it. Time merely brought it about and ran the tragedy through itself so it would happen. To become looking and listening, the fulfillment of prophecy and apprehension. To stop existing as fear and imagination, to become the reality of a horror. Time is a fearful dimension of existence, gentlemen, wherein our futures are insidiously hidden. I hate time, murderer of all life!

  But to return to your question: what can I say in reply to it, gentlemen of the jury? I am no warrior with belief in victory. I am no statesman to believe in force. I am no poet to believe in glory. I am no believer to believe in angelic trumpets at the Last Judgment. I am no penitent to expect mercy. I am no desperate man to wish for death. I am a man, conceived in the blindness of passion, in the dark of the womb, launched into time for a painful duration. By way of provisions I was given joy and pain (more pain than joy) and two eyes to watch torment and two ears to listen to the sobbing of the most anguished among creatures, the one that invented tears and laughter alike. I was also given a mouth to chew my bitter crust. And a tongue to be saying woe! I was given arms to build and destroy, to embrace and to kill. And legs to flee when pursued, and to pursue in turn. I have a heart that allows me to suffer worse than any other creature. I have reason so that I can lie to myself and know I am lying to myself so that I can go on living. In order to look forward to the next day which may bring joy. And when no joy appears I will hope again and fill my thoughts with lies to bring on sleep. And I shall dream that I am alive forever. But then Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops, will wake and plug the cave of my dream with an enormous rock and there will be no way out.

  Something dreadful and huge will snatch me and I’ll wake up in the hands of cannibals …

  How much longer the night lasted is not known, but somebody was trying to smash the rock apart at the entrance, striking it hard. Melkior listened to the rescuing blows. He wanted to call out, “I’m alive in here,” but couldn’t; he meant to strike from inside, but was unable to move. The blows grew faint, as though the person was giving up. He panicked, oh no, they’ll leave, and he bellowed with all his might, “I’m here, I’m alive!”—“Open up then,” came a voice from the other side.

  The rescuer seemed to have laughed, too, muttering something. Melkior sat up in bed. A gray autumn day, rain-soaked and gloomy, glanced at him morosely through the window.

  “Come on, open up!” said the voice, giving the door an open-handed angry slap.

  “Coming …” The police, he thought and instantly remembered … But the sofa was empty. Tidied up, moreover, the bedclothes neatly folded on the headrest, with a “thank you” look and salutation.

  Standing at the door was the city coat of arms on an official hat, wringing wet with rainwater.

  “What a sound sleeper! I could’ve raised the dead,” said the coat of arms. “Summons for you.”

  “From the police?” smiled Melkior, the word giving him a nasty kick to the gut.

  “Nothing to do with the police,” and an index finger pointed to the coat of arms. “It’s from the army. Town Council, Department of National Service. Sign here, please. Goood. Than-kyou!”

  Well, well. So it’s turned out to be …“civilian” business after all. Except for the hat … But the coat of arms is civic, historic, tramlike. All nice and peaceable—nothing to do with the police. Heh.

  The summons lay on the table, facing the rainy day. (Yes, that was how it had been in his mind’s eye: it would arrive on a rainy day. Service days are rainy, pursuant to olive drab regulations.) The small white square piece of paper exerted its might, exhibiting the power on its brow in bold large type and addressing odds and ends, the particulars, which were, after all, immaterial. … Destiny has come under my roof …

  Melkior stood in the middle of the room like an idiot—barefoot, in striped pajamas (clothing for a lunatic asylum)—and shivered. A frozen grin of surprise clung to his face. This is how they come for you at dawn and take you away for execution. He said whoa now and again, whoa, trying to slow down his frightened mule. But the mule only pricked up its cautious ears … Whoa! If only I could stay like this … forever!

  A discarded cigarette is burning down in the street. A butt flicked out of a high window. A sizeable butt, nearly half the cigarette; as there is only a gentle breeze it might survive for quite a time, fifteen or twenty minutes, under favorable circumstances. Perhaps even longer, as long as an insect would survive crossing the street. A cockroach. No, a cigarette butt is a fallen firefly … A woman of sin expelled from a bed where love has come and gone. It flew in a burning arc like a meteor, out the window—into the street. It is now sending up smoke from the ember. Burning, alive …

  “I could step off the pavement, go out into the middle of the road and kill it, stomp on it.”

  A murderous thought requiring decision and deliberate action: that of stomping underfoot. Of murder. “For it is stupid for a butt to be alive in the middle of the road while upstairs there is only exhaustion and boredom in bed. The end.”

  “You don’t love me anymore, I know. You would dearly love to flick me now out the window like a cigarette butt, for someone to crush on the street. You’re done smoking me …”

  “I’ll be smoking again …”

  “Yes. Smoking another cigarette. I’m finished. I’m a butt.”

  “You’re a briar …”

  “That’s right, call me a liar!”

  “I said briar. A briar pipe.”

  “Why a pipe? Does that have to do with your desire?”

  “A pipe is something you don’t throw away. The longer you use it the finer it gets.”

  “Like a violin. The longer you play it …”

  “Yes, exactly like a violin.”

  “And you will play?”

  “Like a virtuoso!”

  “Don’t play like a virtuoso. Just plain play.”

  “Plain is how you play the bass. The violin should be played virtuoso. You are a violin. Look at yourself in the mirror over there, full figure, naked—aren’t you a violin?”

  “Yes I am. Shall we play?”

  “No, we’ll sleep. I’m a recruit. Hair shorn to the skin. Army cap lying low on my ears. Belt above the half-belt, you horrid little man!”

  You’ve got to get up, you’ve got to get up … screamed the bugle.

  “You woke it with your shall we play! You’re … Where are you?”

  “Not looking for Greta Garbo, are you, pretty boy?” leered the drill sergeant from his bunk. “They’re tarts, all those night birds—flitting away at the crack of dawn. Take it from Nettle, old garrison rat.”

  The barracks room laughed a dry, flattering laugh in the groggy grayness of the cold, senseless dawn.

  … you’ve got to get up this morning, you … toots the bugle outside to the gray sky. Screeching into Melkior’s silly, sleepy ear: Rise and shine! Gotta groom the horses for King and Country! This is no hotel, you spoiled brat. Get your ass out of bed and off to the stables with you!

  A penetrating jet of stable stench shot up his nostrils. But the equine ammonia cleared the torpid mind and stirred fresh, unsoldierly thoughts.

  Is the King really so keen on horses? Each horse is my senior by a year or two. This ought to be very old age for equine gerontology. Hence the care. (Above each stall there is a board with the occupant’s name and year of birth.) So nice and caring. I’m glad to see the horses are well looked after.

  “Tennn-shun!” yelled the sergeant, who for some reason called himself Nettle. All the skin-shorn heads under army caps quaked on the spot: through them, down the wire of discipline, had passed a jolt of Nettle. They stood in line along the stable passage stretching all the way down the row of stalls, and waited for Nettle’s command to jump to, each to his horse. The pampered animals are
angry and hungry in the morning, biting and kicking, neighing wildly, will not let anyone come close. The recruits were trembling.

  Melkior was reading the names on the boards: Prince, Caesar, Lisa (a mare), Boy, Ziko … He was standing in front of Caesar. Rather, Caesar was standing in front of him, idly flicking his tail left and right. Waiting.

  Oh mighty Caesar (spake the wretched Melkior, trembling before the powerful rump), my heart is not the heart of Brutus. I kiss thy mighty hoof, not in flattery but with a plea to spare me, so that I might live on after we have parted ways. Receive my tribute as thou would receive the loyalty of Mark Antony who loved and feared thee and fearing thee respected thee even as I respect thy almighty haunches and thy gnashing teeth which in thy just rage …

  Caesar gave an impatient neigh—he was bored with the speech. Cut to the chase! But that was a psychological trick of the high and mighty, as Melkior knew, and he clearly saw his plea for mercy had failed; Melkior must not approach the tyrant. He awaited Nettle’s command with trepidation: he knew he was not going to budge.

  “Now then, crew,” Nettle strutted before the men (the entire barracks rested on his shoulders!) and issued instructions, “I don’t want none of the you-never-told-us stuff. I want the horses looking like prima donnas! Get it? Hey, new guy over there, whatcha laughin’ at, pretty boy?” This referred to Melkior, who had not been laughing at all. “Y’know what a prima donna is, dontcher?”