Mephista

by Maurice Limat

  He stood up straight, magnificent, his arms still crossed over his whip.

  The runt had regained his confidence and seemed to challenge him.

  “I understand, Crucifer. But this time I’ll do it…”

  Then all the poor deformities almost chanted:

  “Beauty! We’ll be beautiful. All of us beautiful. Mirk… Mirk… Whatever you want. Crucifer, we have to help him, to obey him… Beauty. Beauty!”

  Mirk gestured with his thin hand asking for silence, but it was Crucifer who got it with a crack of his whip.

  “A man came here just now.”

  “Was he beautiful?” the amazon asked innocently.

  The question sounded absurd to Teddy Verano who, under different circumstances, would have burst out laughing.

  “A pretty handsome man,” the gnome said, his face twisting into a ghastly smile. “But what was he doing here? Enemies are threatening us…”

  The carnies growled like the wild animals echoing them.

  A whiplash. Silence. Mirk continued:

  “These people have no business here. I’m telling you, we have no time to lose.”

  “You’re the one wasting time, blabbermouth.”

  Crucifer was getting angry again. The scarlet clown gave him a dirty look.

  “Do you think that invisible forces obey just like that, Crucifer? You can train and tame lions and tigers, but not spirits.”

  “Go to Hell!”

  “Don’t say that!” Mirk howled, losing control.

  A shiver ran through the circle. A woman dared to raise her voice:

  “No, we can’t talk about that. We have to understand Mirk. He’s risking a lot for all of us…”

  “We’re taking risks, too,” the lazy-eyed acrobat said.

  “But it’s worth it,” the Zigano son piped up, nodding his bald head.

  “Listen,” Crucifer said, “this has lasted long enough. I give you three days. No more. After that…”

  “In three days, I’ll have succeeded.”

  Then they all let loose. They started laughing again, shouting, talking at the same time and the word “beauty” was the only clear word in the cacophony.

  Crucifer cracked his whip, but this time, he could not get them to stop, as if the scarlet clown’s promise gave them some kind of demented hope, beyond nature, that surpassed human limits…

  All of a sudden, in the middle of the circle of ugliness made more ugly by the infrared light, between the cages where the animals continued growling, someone showed up. Someone whose appearance made them all shiver.

  Mirk curled up, like a toad wanting to jump away, but denied by nature. Crucifer made an angry gesture and the others backed away. In his hiding place, Teddy Verano also shivered without knowing why, maybe for the suddenness of the intrusion.

  Still in her close-fitting bathrobe, and wearing her perpetual black mask, Miss Mahlia had made her appearance. In a changed voice she said:

  “You say that you’re going to succeed, Mirk? I heard…”

  The scarlet clown saw her look at him with eyes that flashed as much desire as diabolical fury.

  “I will succeed, Mahlia. For you.”

  Crucifer glanced sideways at the clown.

  But Mahlia moaned and her voice broke.

  “Well, hurry up. Hurry up, Mirk. I can’t stand it any longer! I can’t stand it!”

  CHAPTER IX

  “Be strong, Mahlia! I told you I’ll succeed… We’re all working on it… We’re all taking a great risk, but afterward… what a result!”

  The gnome had jumped toward Mahlia and was now on his knees before the splendid creature. He talked and talked, stumbling and stammering, almost comically, as Teddy Verano had already noticed.

  The others were seized by a kind of frenzy. The closed ranks and their hideous faces lined up in the infrared.

  “Yes, Mahlia… We’ll do whatever Mirk wants. We have to…” And they tirelessly resumed their mantra. “Beauty… Beauty…”

  Crucifer, who was obviously not happy with the scarlet clown’s attitude, grabbed his arm, forced him to his feet and pulled him away.

  “Enough of this nonsense. Action!”

  “You gave me three days, Crucifer.”

  “This is your last chance,” the lion-tamer threatened.

  The runt straightened up on his twisted legs and challenged the giant.

  “You say, my last chance, but it’s yours as well.”

  The women got involved. The amazon, the acrobat, the contortionists, the fortune-teller, all suddenly cried out hoarsely:

  “Our last chance! Our last chance, our last chance…”

  They started laughing again and shrieking. The men chimed in. The wild animals started growling again and the tamer yelled for silence, banging his whip furiously.

  Mahlia straightened up.

  “I hope you told the truth. It’s necessary, Mirk. We aren’t sad because you’re going to give us…”

  “Beauty… Beauty… Beauty...”

  Teddy Verano thought he heard someone in the chorus say three simple words:

  “At any price!”

  What price would it take, in fact, to transform all these creatures and make them normal? It was not plastic surgery, of course, because their ugliness seemed to have different origins.

  “We have to laugh! We have to hope!” Mahlia cried out, getting carried away now with the others.

  “Yes, yes! Let’s laugh and sing!”

  The ringmaster with the pig face shouted:

  “Dance, Mahlia, dance our joy!”

  They all echoed him in a frenzy:

  “Dance, Mahlia, dance!”

  Zigano, the head of the acrobatic family, hooted:

  “It’s all the same to you, Crucifer, if she dances for us?”

  Crucifer had a kind of insulting laugh.

  “I keep her face. No one has the right to see it.”

  “Mahlia, no face!” a sexless voice yelled, which Teddy identified as the young Zigano.

  But the carnies started singing a kind of loud, monotonous chant and clapping their hands. Mahlia started moving in the infrared that served as a bank of lights.

  The magician stepped forward and, in the red glow, his face looked like a nightmarish King Kong.

  “You’re beautiful, Mahlia, beautiful like we will all be. You’re beautiful.”

  “Ha, Lack-o-Luck is losing his mind,” the Ringmaster jeered. “Fever Blister is going to get jealous.”

  The small woman who looked like a mummy grimaced under her make-up as the amazon replied:

  “Jealous of a beautiful male like that, I can understand.”

  “No jealousy!” a few voices cried out. “Crucifer’s not jealous.”

  “No!” the tamer growled. “Not jealous. Except for her face. The rest… Hold on! The proof…”

  Mahlia danced and her supple body in the silken robe created a suddenly sensual ambience that clashed with the demented, disturbing circle and made the ghastly spectacle even more dizzying.

  The lion-tamer joined action to his words. He cracked his whip toward Mahlia with such skill that the cord wrapped around the young woman without lashing her, like a snake coiling around her slim waist and shoulders that one imagined were as graceful as possible.

  One could only imagine.

  With unbelievable skill, Crucifer pulled the whip and tore off her bathrobe.

  A clamor arose among the carnies, but they did not stop their rhythm, beating out Mahlia’s dance with their hands, a kind of cadenced movement that was like her performance among the wild animals.

  Under the cage, in an awful position, bothered by the hay that choked and pricked him, Teddy Verano felt his heart jump in his chest. Mahlia naked, caressed by the soft light of the infrareds, was unquestionably a statue of flesh carved by an incomparable artist. But although this beauty, flecked with dark spots that accentuated the coppery tint of her skin, flustered, the detective also felt something else. This magnif
icent body, this shameless woman—he knew them both from before.

  He remembered now. He had believed it only a resemblance upon first seeing the masked dancer in the ring. He had felt some dim memory awaken in him when he was crouched by the trailer, freezing in the snow, and listening to her conversation with Crucifer. But Mahlia’s voice had been muffled, distorted.

  Now, in all her flesh, he could swear he could identify her.

  In the shadows, his mute lips pronounced a name.

  But he stayed there, motionless, numb, luckily protected from the cold by a layer of hay, sometimes hearing the heavy paws of the big cats pacing on the planks right over his head.

  Naked, provocative, sensual, troubling Mahlia kept dancing. Crucifer stood stiffly, whip in hand. Without a doubt, he would lash to death anyone who tried to lay a hand on her.

  And Teddy Verano saw the leering men and the grinning women.

  What was hiding behind this mask that she apparently never took off? They did not know.

  At least, she could, without shame, exhibit her impeccable body, both finely and solidly built, that stirred up dreams of Eros.

  They sang for a long time. Then the chant came to an end. Crucifer threw the bathrobe over Mahlia’s shoulders and they left. One after the other, the rest of them left, too. The crazy party was over. Mirk the scarlet clown was the last to leave.

  Teddy Verano waited for a minute before slipping out of his hiding place, more than happy to be able to stretch a little.

  Bloody hell, my legs and arms are falling asleep!

  Now, he had to get out of there as quickly as possible. He shook the hay off himself and, with this, attracted the animals. One of them came right up to the bars, which they had not done while Crucifer was there. And the beast, a magnificent lion, roared and shot out a menacing paw.

  Teddy Verano swore again. Bloody hell! And he figured it was high time to beat it. He hurried to the door of the huge trailer holding the animals. He was starting to get familiar with the place with the help of the infrared lights casting their purplish glow. Except that he was in for an unpleasant surprise: the door was locked.

  Teddy Verano broke out in a cold sweat.

  This is completely stupid. I get stuck under the cages and watch the lunatics’ Sabbath… I escape from them, or they forget me in their nonsense, and now, here I am, trapped like a rat!

  He raged. To no avail. It was locked tight. The lion roared again and the tigers, who had been calm so far, started to get worked up.

  This time, I’m screwed. They’re going to hear the animals and come back. A guy like Crucifer must sleep with one eye open.

  Then, he heard the click of the lock. He jumped back, causing another roar, luckily more quiet, from the lion upset with his presence. He dashed to the back of the trailer, but found no exit. There was only one solution: to get back into his original hiding place.

  He had never felt so ridiculous.

  But someone was coming in. Maybe it was whoever took care of the cages, probably one of the performers. In principle, wild animals had to be watched very carefully.

  The stranger passed by, but Teddy Verano was not so well positioned to see this time. He felt his heart stop when he realized that the person who had entered was bending over to look under the cages.

  He heard a voice whisper:

  “Come out. Don’t be scared. I know you’re there.”

  This time, he was suffocating and decided to do what it took to get out of this completely absurd situation. He started crawling out of the hay. An action that once again made the big cats roar.

  But a hand appeared, came closer and grabbed his own. A wrinkled hand, like that of a very, very old person. A woman judging by the size. Almost a doll’s hand, but a 100-year old doll.

  At the end of his rope, Teddy Verano crawled out and shook himself off, scorning the animals’ bad mood this time.

  “Well, yes, here I am!”

  “I knew it. I saw you come in and figured you were under a cage. But they’re all so stupid! They aren’t thinking about you anymore. They think you got away.”

  He saw the small woman, knee-high to a grasshopper, ravaged and shriveled up, but fighting against it with theater make-up, wearing a veritable mask of putty and pencil marks under a coating of ocher powder. None of this, however, could hide the horribly dried out skin, the reptilian neck and the aged hands. Only her eyes looked young, even mischievous, and he saw the smile from when he had entered the circus.

  It was the cashier-cum-fortune-teller, the assistant of the ape-faced magician whom they called by the odd name Lack-o-Luck, she who in the Crucifer Circus was known as Fever Blister.

  She smiled at him, a sad smile, more depressing in trying to be alluring.

  “You’re going to leave and run away… very far away,” she said.

  “Yes, yes.” Teddy Verano answered passively, dazed as he was by this unprecedented night and his absurd situation.

  She led him out. He was back in the wind. A little less snow but the ground was covered.

  “Why?” he murmured. “Why are you doing this?”

  He saw her shrug her tiny shoulders.

  “Because earlier when you entered the circus you looked at me… like men look at a woman… not at a freak.”

  “But… you are a woman.”

  She took his hand again and he felt her little nails bruising his skin.

  “I was pretty once. Yes. And then… premature aging. A rare disease, I’m told. I’m an old carny… at 32.”

  He almost cried. She looked twice her age, and how many 60-year olds of the fair sex in our world try to look their best…

  “You’re doing this for me. How can I…?”

  “Don’t bother! Get going!”

  “You don’t even know what I’m looking for here.”

  “Surely not the same thing as us. You’re too handsome. They only accept monsters here… or near-monsters.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Maybe you’re with the police. I don’t care. Anyway, I think it’s all going to end badly. So…”

  This statement struck Teddy Verano. Yes, the eccentricities of the Crucifer Circus were covering up something insane, something terrible, he felt it. Poor Fever Blister was not fooling herself.

  He looked at her kindly, gallantly, with a hint of sensuality in his smile that belonged to men of a certain class, who knew how to keep lewdness out of it. Fever Blister, the living mummy, had been deeply moved by this smile and thus was willing to betray her friends. Monsters, she thought them…

  “Go now! Get out of here!”

  “I want to thank you. You might be risking…”

  She laughed sadly.

  “The others? They’re exhausted from all their crazy chanting. They’re already dreaming about Mirk’s promises. Beauty... Ha!”

  “You don’t believe him?”

  “Mirk is just a sham wizard. Like Arsène, the magician, at best.”

  “Arsène? Your partner, right?”

  “Yes. If they call him Lack-o-Luck, it’s because he earned it… with his mug.”

  “What if he sees you’re gone?”

  “Him? He doesn’t give a damn about me. He’s Bertha’s lover, the amazon… the one with the trunk of an elephant, like at the Bouglione’s Circus.”

  It was 2 a.m. Teddy Verano knew that he would never be so lucky again. Fever Blister was helping him, but afterward…

  His head was full of everything he had seen and heard. He told himself that there was some link with the sinister mysteries in Péronne and the cemetery next to Senlis. A link that he had to find, to connect, but it was there.

  Therefore, he leaned over and, in the cold night, placed his lips on the withered lips of poor Fever Blister.

  She stood there for a minute, without moving, watching him vanish in the snow. His head was already on fire when he jumped into the DS and set off toward Paris.

  CHAPTER X

  “Gerard! Are you the
re? Where’s the TV guide?”

  Teddy Verano shouted through the half-open door of the bathroom. He had woken up at 7 a.m.—even though he had arrived home at 4 a.m.—and gone to bed after a quick shower, without telling everything to Yvonne and Gerard despite the fact that they had wanted to be brought up to date after being woken up.

  Thus, the whole Teddy Verano agency, including Gerard, which he called his “family” as a joke, had been mobilized since dawn. Gerard, in pajamas, was brandishing the newspaper. He ran to the bathroom, peeked out and said to his stepfather:

  “Here you go, Teddy. We’ve got to give you that rag to read in the shower now? That’s something new.”

  “Don’t be stupid. And give me my bathrobe… Yeah, that one.”

  Yvonne hastily prepared some coffee while in her bathrobe. She saw her husband come in, wrapped in his robe, his hair wet and mussed up, flanked by his stepson who was amused by the situation.

  “Our great ghost detective is in a big hurry this morning. Watch out, ma, sparks are going to fly!”

  “Hold on there, young fool. Look, yesterday evening, Thursday, at 8:45 p.m.… What was on TV?”

  The three of them sat before their steaming hot cups and Yvonne gave the men a plate of toast.

  “Oh, Teddy, you should have dried your hair. You’re going to catch a cold.”

  “If you only knew, dear, what a night I had! I should have caught ten colds, a good case of jaundice, and who knows what else.”

  “Swell!” Gerard said. “The illustrious Teddy Verano is going to tell us all about it, I can feel it.”

  “You’ll know what I did last night when you’ve given me the information I asked for.”

  “OK, OK. Channel one: Sports, the horses.”

  “Give me that if you can’t read a paper.”

  “Allow me, Teddy. That was only Channel one.”

  “And Channel two, you, little monkey, what was on Two?”