Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

by Ranko Marinković

  “Well, perhaps she did appreciate you?” said Melkior timidly.

  “Eustachius, if you’re not making fun of me and looking only to console yourself, then I suggest you turn around and spit three times, as though a black cat had just crossed your path. Appreciate me? Ho, ho, ho …” ho-ho’d Maestro out of his poisoned gorge. “She appreciated athletes proficient in various disciplines. As I found out when it was too late. Legs, shoulders, biceps. … Even good coxswains—good in the literal sense, I mean. As to how highly I was being appreciated … or, since we’re using business terms, depreciated … well, listen and I’ll tell you. I was alone with her in their flat, on a Saturday evening, her husband had left for somewhere out in the sticks to cover a Sunday match, that was why I’d chosen that particular day. ‘Chosen’ for what? Well, I couldn’t answer that one even today and yet I still say ‘chosen.’ I had been alone with her before, late into the night, sipping a drink or two, chatting away, entertaining her, and everything had been so, well, normal. … But that evening some demon got hold of me: I kept feeling I had to make a move, I have no idea which way. Do something? Say something?—I don’t know, but it had me hobbled, I couldn’t move, I kept shoving my hands into my pockets, in shame, in fear, spouting drivel, lamely, being boring. Looking all the time, unblinkingly, at her knees, well-rounded, full (you’ve seen those knees!) and watching out for the moments when she crossed her legs, to slip my gaze into that holy semi-darkness … She noticed this and got going with her rotten game. She’d worked it all out while I was sitting there across from her, you’ll see.” Maestro took a sip of brandy and cleared his throat; the butt in the corner of his mouth had gone out long before and was dangling from his lip like a slimy grub. “Interesting, eh, Eustachius … (Melkior had his attention stretched from ear to ear) and instructive for the coming generations of men. She might have been in a bit of a fix herself, as you will see later, well, she could always have sent me off, asked me to leave, said she was tired … but no, she decided to play a little game. And so she did. Her legs began crossing and recrossing a bit too often as if competing, offering themselves, showing off; and meanwhile her skirt was getting shorter and shorter—she never once tugged it down over her knees as women will do in that kind of leg game when they’re being decent … I mean sincere … about seducing a man, but I was a stranger to that kind of thinking at the time—and on her face there was a nervously twinkling smile ‘brimming with desire for me.’ Well, how else was I to see it? I pounced wildly on her knees and started kissing them like a man demented; I wanted to make up for everything at once, for all the yearning, the waiting … I was going on mindlessly, grunting as I rootled in her lap like a ravenous piglet, and she was laughing quaintly, even stroking my head and scratching me exactly the way you scratch a piglet, in among the hairs … there was a lot of hair on my head in those days. … Suddenly, as if she’d made up her mind, she whispered soulfully in my ear ‘Wait, we’d better get undressed,’ and she glanced at her watch as she rose … I remembered that bit only later. She went to the bathroom to get undressed. I waited for her, naked, in the sitting-room, trembling … you can well imagine! There, I’m telling you all, Eustachius the Privileged, all, down to the very last mortifying detail, because that’s where her whorish triumph was—in those very details! She took a long time coming back, I could hear the sound of water in the bathroom, and I was trembling … I thought: why must they wash and groom so much for it … but with another part of my mind I was exulting in her wish for purity … of the first touch, my dearest, my great love. … That was what I was tremblingly muttering, straining my hearing for every sound in the house, frightened like a thief. … Suddenly I thought I heard someone inserting a key into the door from the outside! And true to form she came back running, flushed, ‘it’s him,’ she whispered in despair. She took me by the hand and led me to the bedroom and pushed me inside a cupboard full of men’s clothes; came back again, threw my clothes in there, too, then locked me in and took the key out of the lock. And now, Eustachius, begins the cruel vaudeville …”

  Maestro paused. He spat the butt to the floor and lit a fresh cigarette, which he immediately moved with his tongue to a corner of his mouth to keep it from impeding his speech.

  “And the most miserable thing, honorable Eustachius, is that I’m sitting there in the wardrobe among the rags, choking from the smell of mothballs—and terrified I’ll give myself away … fearing for her sake! Word of honor, I didn’t give a thought to myself (fine, I’ll get through this … or choke to death, it doesn’t matter really)—it’s because of her that I’ve become all darkness and silence. Here they come, into the bedroom … I never move an eyebrow, I don’t breathe! But what’s this? It’s not his voice, the colleague’s, the husband’s! Then again, perhaps it’s only the acoustics of the wardrobe … anyway, there wasn’t much time for checking: they were at it before long. That’s how it was, Eustachius … me listening inside to the entire … entire charade … until the last gasp. I don’t remember what kind of sound I made, but it must have been some vengeful cry, because he jumped out of bed right away and began looking for me in the room. I then thumped an elbow against the wood, ‘here I am.’”

  “What?” Melkior was flabbergasted, “weren’t you afraid?” He remembered his own “retreat” from Enka’s. … “He could have killed you there and then.”

  “He could have indeed … but the desire for revenge was stronger, Eustachius. After all, a naked man in the wardrobe (and I’ll have you know I was a man in those days), locked in from the outside, and the key out of the lock!—what better evidence of a woman’s harlotry do you want? He started shouting (like the Moor demanding the handkerchief) ‘The key! The key! The key, you God-damned whore!’ and she kept giggling wildly in the bed for all she was worth—it was all a lark, you see. Try to picture the scene, Eustachius! At last, when he was utterly beside himself and lurched to strangle her, break open the cupboard door, she gave him the key. He pulled me out by the ear like a schoolboy. … But what happened? It wasn’t him, the husband—it was someone else, a huge fellow, an athletic superman! The revenge had misfired! Never mind me being pulled out by the ear, never mind me being naked (asthenic, intellectual build, with a bit of paunch in the bargain), never mind her laughing (and why shouldn’t she: just imagine it—two naked fools!) … the revenge, the revenge had fallen flat! God, why did I ever bellow inside that cupboard? In the end, after he’d taken a better look at me, he joined in the laughter himself. He crawled into bed next to her and the pair of them, covered, proceeded to jeer at my naked self. … In that case, I thought, miserable and bare-assed as I was, retrieving my clothes from the cupboard, in that case, the whore’s ball will come to an end one day. And I did put an end to it.”

  “You got your revenge!” exclaimed Melkior aligning himself wholeheartedly with Maestro.

  “You bet I did, Eustachius, of course I did! Very soon, too!”

  “How did you do it?”

  “Through a second vaudeville, one with a dramatic ending and this time directed by me!”

  “How did you …”

  “The end justified the means. Don’t hold it against me, Eustachius—I used an anonymous letter. Instead of me, it was the avenging husband who hid in the cupboard. Fully clothed, of course. And armed with a toy pistol, just to be able to throw them out into the street naked.”

  Melkior was listening with a feeling of personal satisfaction: he was entirely in the “avenger’s” shoes; he didn’t even mind the “anonymous letter.”

  “Surely you invented that bit?” He wished to be sure of his satisfaction.

  “Do you think, Eustachius, that I could deprive myself of such an occasion to gloat? I was standing right there as Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden … and I cackled like an infernal demon, I assure you, I howled to make it sound as malevolent as possible.”

  “Did he see you?” Melkior was hankering for the details.

  “The spouse? No,
he slammed the gate shut as soon as they were out … it was only then that I appeared, hee, heeee …”

  “Did the fellow recognize you?”

  “Hah, that was the only fly in the ointment. It was not the same fellow, it was someone else again, a subtler type, a master of the racquet … Word has it that he’s now coaching an African ruler in the game.”

  “And how did she behave?”

  “Innocence incarnate. Covering her instruments with her hands … Oh, it was one of the greatest scandals of the day! You can imagine how I wrote it up for Yesterday in Town: ‘Adam and Eve Hit the Street’! The Old Man commended me. …” Melkior was not enthused by Maestro’s gloating. So this is the story of Viviana … (It was as if this were a source of “fresh relief” and “final liberation”) … unless Maestro’d invented it all? Well, hadn’t I buried her already? Oh yes, I have buried my dead love …

  “So he actually kicked her out … naked … into the street?” he asked all the same. Perhaps the old boy did invent it. …

  “Precisely. It was as if he’d taken my advice. As a matter of fact, there was a wee suggestion to that effect in the anonymous letter, if my memory serves me well—it has been a good number of years since.”

  “She’d have been very young?”

  “Very, very, veracious Eustachius. If you want to find an excuse for her in it. …”

  “I want nothing!” said Melkior, irritated. “Why would I care?”

  “Ah, on the subject of ‘care,’ I’ve been meaning to ask you—how well do you know her?”

  Melkior gave him a sullen and distrustful look:

  “We spoke once at Adam’s, the chiromantist’s …”

  “Well, did they, heh-heh … take you into the partnership?” squinted Maestro maliciously. But this may have been from the cigarette smoke in his eyes, thought Melkior, anxious: the question had been all too clear.

  “I’m not with you … What partnership?”

  “Don’t listen to me, Eustachius, I’m a nasty fellow,” said Maestro and gave another inexplicable squint. “But verily, verily I say unto thee: beware of the magician Adam. This is my testamentary advice to you: A perfidious bastard is capable of doing what no one else can. Remember, mortal, that dust thou art … he’ll get his neck wrung yet. …”

  “Get his neck wrung,” that’s preventive action! Melkior detected Don Fernando’s fingers in this. So he’s exerting his influence all right … but only as fingers, Melkior dismissed.

  “And as for the bait,” went on Maestro in a kind of hurry, “I’ve told you: spit thrice. I used to shave three times a day, and you, Eustachius, should spit three times in a row!” he lifted an ATMAN-like index finger, “those are the words of your ruined parent on his deathbed.”

  Maestro looked at the folded-up cot with regret.

  “It would be meet for me to lie down full length upon it and give you my blessing … but I can’t be bothered to open it out … not merely for the sake of ceremony …”

  “I’ll do it …” hastened Melkior only to bite his tongue, “I mean, it would do you good to lie down, it’s late, you’re tired, also you’ve had a lot to drink. …”

  “What, and let you escape? Uh-oh, I won’t have it, Eustachius! Your testimony will be my protection against slander.”

  “Who would slander you … and why?”

  “The Corso humanists … for ‘defeatism.’ I told them, over my shoulder, that I didn’t give a fig for their Future. I don’t give the toenail from my little toe for their hydroelectric power plants. Anyway, I haven’t even got toenails on my little toes—what I have is hooves that have become corns … from walking. There, I don’t give a single pedestrian corn of mine for all the electrical powers of the Great Future. What use are they to us pedestrians? I respect human walking.”

  “You said so to Don Fernando?”

  “To him … and to the rest of them. I respect perpendicularity, human dignity! A huddled fool in a tin bucket hurtling up and down the street—is he still a man? Staring in front of him, his eyes bulging from their sockets like those of a mad believer; he mustn’t turn around or he’ll be turned not into the biblical pillar of salt but into a pile of iron and shit … and he in such a hurry to reach the FUTURE, heh-heh, my dear Eustachius!”

  “So mankind ought to relinquish technological progress?”

  “Mankind …” Maestro gave a mournful smile. “Perhaps ‘mankind’ would give it up after all, if anyone were to ask. But who ever asks ‘mankind’ anything, Eustachius? ‘Mankind’ has only hands, the energy of its ten fingers. … Mankind does not know what ‘horsepower’ is … unless it’s the power of a four-legged horse. Now do you, Eustachius, know what ‘horsepower’ is? Well, you don’t! You will look it up in the Petit Larousse Illustré when you get home. In this powerful horselike day and age, Eustachius, it’s a shame not to know what horsepower is. HP. Now do you know, you delegate of mankind, what energy is?”

  “The capacity …” Melkior was laughing, the night had taken an amusing turn, he thought, “the capacity to perform an action … something like that …”

  “Wrong, Eustachius! Sit down!” cried Maestro tutorially. “The ability of a body—yes, body, you silly lad—to perform an action! You must emphasize the body, with a focus on the substance. The soul doesn’t come into it at all—that comes under theology. Here, my body is getting up and walking,” Maestro took several resolute steps, “and that’s ENERGY: a body being capable of performing an action. Right, but what about that invisible thingy which courses through a wire, has no body and is not the soul of a dead tightrope walker … eh? You think this is … no more than a folk riddle?”

  Maestro made a rhetorical pause, watching his “lad” with derisive expectancy.

  “Even the religion of the Future, dearest Eustachius,” he went on didactically, since his “lad” had failed to come up with an answer, “has its own incorporeal, invisible deity, present in all things, in Heaven and on Earth. Danger of death! Thou shalt not needlessly touch thy God!—That is the first and supreme commandment. Old God-the-Creator can no longer frighten anybody; he used to frighten people naïvely with fire, which firemen can nowadays put out in no time flat. But The Invisible One coursing madmanlike along wires (Maestro gestured at the window with his thumb over his shoulder), well, just try pointing your hose at Him!—He’ll fry you like a fish. There you are, Eustachius, that’s the distinctive feature of the new theology.” Maestro gave a sigh of relief. He had done a meaningful job: winkled out that “new piece of human folly,” that “mystical entity of inestimable importance for mankind” from science’s mystery. … Using persiflage and extravagant metaphors all the while … because he, as everyone knew, did not care a rap for anything in this world. Or the next … if you wanted to know that, too.

  He was satisfied. Melkior saw his chin tremble slightly with a happy smile, but he would not let his face glow with visible pleasure. He had to sustain his role of sufferer.

  “Demanding sacrifice,” Maestro went on, taking evident satisfaction in the malicious pathos of his own voice and filled with an urge for contrariety. “Put your fingers on Future’s anvil so we can smash them! So we can tear off your arms, fracture your legs, use your skull for a flowerpot! Be a martyr! We shall give your name to the gigantic hydro-temple of our God, ELECTRON! My dear Eustachius! But I’m an atheist! I don’t fall for ditties sung to marching tunes.”

  Maestro was laughing bitterly, staring sardonically into Melkior’s eyes as if challenging him. His hair stood up like the plumage of a rooster enraged.

  His eyes were quite glazed, demented from drink; his nose featured a cracked crust of dried blood, his face swollen, red, with purple blotches and a dense web of swollen capillaries. Faces like this loom in imagination’s horrible projections before sleep, thought Melkior.

  “Please lie down, Maestro,” (if only he would, he’d fall asleep). “I’ll be sitting here and talking to you. Let me open your bed …”

  “No, E
ustachius,” Maestro raised a resolute hand, “I won’t have it. If I lie down I’ll fall asleep like a foolish virgin. I must be awake, Eustachius, I’m not giving up this night. I want to share it with you like Socrates with … the one who tried to persuade him to flee. But you’re more like the other one … what was his name? … the tearful disciple. Socrates was killed by hemlock and I’ll be killed by the invisible God ELECTRON! What an honor, ha-ha … God strike me! God nothing!” Abruptly he was angry, it seemed. “Nnoo, this is no honor! Some God, coming from resin, amber (the ancient Greeks called it elektron); we would therefore render it as Gum God, my kind Eustachius. By gum, I’ll come to a sticky end, I will.”

  Melkior was alarmed:

  “What are you saying, you lunatic?”

  “What’s wrong, Eustachius? Heh-heh, afraid of me shaking your faith? We can’t even tie a shoelace any more without believing in something. Don’t be afraid, most kind one, there will always be one sort of bait or another in front of your nose, just close enough to tease your sense of smell, but your teeth will never reach it. Well, go ahead and believe in that Eternal Sausage (Melkior remembered Kurt and shuddered), follow it … but bear in mind: you will never sink your teeth into it.”

  “Perhaps I’m not after anything,” Melkior tried to justify himself, at the same time irked: “If you think I’m a fool …”

  “You’re no fool, wise Eustachius, but you don’t know how to live in in-dif-fer-ence.”

  “And you do?” said Melkior, irritated.

  “Don’t be angry, Eustachius, even heads wiser than ours didn’t know. They’ve left behind temples, children, pyramids, symphonies, books … mummies. You, too, would leave a mummy behind, even if it is only this big, so long as the embryo of your glory reaches the Future in a jar of alcohol. Ambitious types like you imagine …”