Caresco, Superman

by André Couvreur

  She felt hungry, and contented herself with a nugget of complete aliment. Sated, she found herself more valiant, and as the moon had sunk, she seized the veil that Carabella had forgotten and put it on, taking care to display the distinctive embroidery clearly, in such a way that she could, if the need arose, be mistaken for someone else. Then she made the door rotate and went into the corridor. In the silence, she could hear her own excited heartbeat. She preferred to go down the thirty floors on foot, wand that seemed interminable, so enormous was the emptiness around her, so much did her bravery decline as the porphyry rattled beneath her steps.

  At the bottom, the great luminous sandstone columns of the atrium extended enigmatically. When she went outside, two slow springs singing in the darkness guided her.

  “Miss Mary! Bless you for coming!” said Marcel’s melodious voice, as his elegant silhouette detached itself from the trunk of a cedar.

  She was glad that he had recognized her under her borrowed mantle. Without saying any more, he guided her to a light airplane that was waiting a hundred meters away, hidden in a clump of trees. The young man knew how to fly it, the controls being very simple. He helped her to take her place on the soft cushions of the only banquette. He cast off the mooring-rope, seized the tiller, pressed a few buttons, which animate the vehicle’s flanks, and the craft took off, like a fantastic bird stealing a treasure, its wing-beats precipitate at first, and then less hasty. For greater security, Marcel had put out the lights.

  Then Miss Mary realized, briefly, the dream that she had had a little while before. The craft, heading upwards, brought her back to the caress of the astral light, and in the immense fluidity, she was inundated by the warm serenity of the night, melting into the languorous radiation of the silvery heart. What magnificent peace! What sweet tranquility, before the events that might soon become as many upheavals!

  She breathed in a pure fiction. She herself was a gentle and vibrant ray of light, floating in the brightness.

  She would gladly have laid her hair upon the shoulder of the companion who was taking her away from this world of vice and indolence; she would have nestled against the broad, strong chest in which a noble heart was beating for her. Not daring to do it, however, she contented herself with collecting the warmth of his hand, and feeling pass through it the ingenuousness of their reciprocal disturbance.

  They divined one another thus for a full hour. At intervals, omnial radiations burst forth. Marcel, his eyes fixed on the immensity of the ground, unfurling confused panoramas, explained why he had chosen this mode of locomotion. The tube would have exposed them to meeting people, while the airplane isolated them completely. He approved the precaution she had taken in covering herself with Carabella’s mantle.

  In fact, two craft crossed their path and their searchlights, directed toward them, engendered the idea of a courtesan’s escapade. The people laughed and joked, the veil instigating libertine desires. When Miss Mary, fearing that they might be pursued, became frightened, Marcel reassured her with warm protestations. Was he not taking her to liberty, toward a more tranquil love? She only had to let herself be guided, and soon a virile sky would be resplendent.

  To each of these observations, the young woman, intoxicated by his voice, either replied with a few words: “I believe you; I love you; you’re strong and I’ll obey you...” or contented herself with squeezing her hero’s hand a little harder.

  Suddenly, the breeze brought them a saline perfume and the sound of waves. An incandescence appeared a few kilometers away, and the perspective of an immense red airplane decorated with golden vibrions was outlined, with the bulges of the elytra attached to its sides. On leaning over, they made out the animation of the deck, where cranes, silently distributing their effort, were embarking packages. A few brisk sailors sufficed for the maneuver. A little black dot glimpsed at that distance, like a moving picket, was moving back and forth, and rotating; they recognized the captain’s pedestal.

  “Is that the vessel that will take us away?”

  “Indeed. We’ve arrived. Keep quiet. We have to stay out of sight.”

  Marcel circled, made a turn, and organized the descent in the shelter of the portico indicating the entrance to the pneumatic tube. They had no sooner set foot on the ground than a shadow detached itself from the side wall and came toward them.

  “Here you are, at last!” said Madame Môme. “I thought you’d abandoned the plan. Perhaps that would have been wiser. What are you going to do at the other end? Do you think, once arrived in Paris, you can deceive the surveillance of Zadochbach and the captain? You’re not counting on getting rid of them violently, I assume? The Superman wouldn’t have much difficulty find you and making you feel his vengeance. Children! Aren’t they sweet? You’re still intent on leaving, yes? Idiots, who can’t take happiness where they find it! For isn’t that what Caresco demands, in sum? If you knew how frequently inconvenient that which he removes from us can be!”

  While chattering, she unwrapped a parcel filled with clothes. Silencing Marcel, who was coughing to cover the sound of her bad reasons, she went on: “Here’s what you need to put on. They’re sailors’ costumes. I thought at first of dressing you as courtesans and passing you off as members of the group of my pupils who are on service during the voyage, but Marcel’s beard was an obstacle, and the captain has a keen eye. He checks each entrant, but pays less attention to his crew. So, you go across the deck quickly, while I distract the dwarf. I’m conducting a flirtation with that demi-siphon, who’s as curious as he’s impotent. He composes verses, which he trumpets to me through the aluminum of his mask! The other day, he tried to kiss me! It was exquisite!

  “Once inside, go and lie low in cabin number sixteen—that of a sailor that I’m retaining unduly in the arms of one of my priestesses, gorging him on a soporific. Stay there until you reach Paris. That will take three days. There, you’ll be able to love one another deeply. It’s necessary that when you reach the end of your voyage Miss Mary will no longer be entitled to orange-blossom. You hear, Marcel? You wouldn’t believe how important that is to your ulterior security. Is it so very difficult to take a maidenhead, or allow one to be taken? Oh, look—here’s some pastilles of complete aliment. You haven’t thought of that, no doubt? Young lovers! They never think of anything!”

  She continued to pour out further floods of spicy remarks while they each put on the short trousers and jerseys, leaving their arms and lower legs bare, and decorating their chests with ruffs of precious lace. Miss Mary, her hair tucked up into a beret, thus took on the appearance of a charming adolescent, and when she was in the light, her eyes, collecting sparks obliquely, filled with silver. Before setting foot on the gangplank, the High Priestess gave them some final instructions.

  “One never knows what might happen. It won’t be at all astonishing if you’re recaptured. In that case, don’t betray me. I’m being stupid in facilitating your flight…but I love Zéphi so much!” Taking Marcel aside, she added: “You hear, my boy—if you want to avoid big trouble, violate her! It’s very serious. Make sure you do.”

  They waited a little longer, watching for a moment when the captain and the crew were busy at the rear. Then, certain of not being seen, they ventured on to the deck. At the same time, Madame Môme’s ruse protected their perilous passage. She performed a series of pirouettes and uttered cries of joy that deflected attention. Before disappearing below decks, the young people saw her surround the pedestal with her arms and flatter the half-man with a few voluptuous slaps on the back of the neck.

  Although the cabin in which the two runaways had taken refuge was that of a simple sailor, it was large, sumptuous and endowed with all the comforts for which one could wish after a sojourn on the island of Eucrasia. A vast bed with rich curtains occupied one corner, with there was a large utilities panel within arm’s reach, checkered by a multitude of pigeon-holes, similar to those of which the young people had already made use. In another corner, the metallic plate of an inge
nious device transcribed the captain’s orders in luminous letters, at the same time as it pronounced them in a loud voice. Little ventilators with active wings distributed warm air, perfumed with delicate essences, renewed without even needing to be touched. A screen occupying the whole of one aluminum side-wall recounted delightful stories at will, and reproduced scenes of the invariably happy events that had taken place in the land favored by the Superman.

  On a table, there were a thousand other elements of distraction, uncomplicated games in which one could test one’s skill—knucklebones, dice—and images, pastilles and perfumes. A long pair of pink wings, equipped with the receiver of their motive force, hung from a peg, just brushing the abundant pile of the rich carpet. Finally, in a special item of furniture, various utensils proved that amour had what was necessary to obtain patience, and that the on-board seraglio served the crew as well as the passengers.

  It was the first time that Marcel and Miss Mary had found themselves truly isolated, and they felt an infinite disturbance in consequence. A young couple departing on a honeymoon voyage could not have been favored by a solitude more complete than theirs. They made that reflection privately, and their gazes, meeting at the same instant, divined the solemnity that they were according to the moments that were about to follow.

  Marcel, in particular, saw the moment advancing, with increasing hesitation, to accomplish the act of violence recommended by the High Priestess. In vain, he racked his brains trying to understand the necessity of hastening such a solution. The virgin, trembling with emotion, seemed to be thinking about something else, and he scarcely had any desire to brutalize her. To begin with, they waited, not knowing what to do with themselves, for there was nowhere to sit down except for the bed.

  “How long it’s taking,” murmured Miss Mary. “Aren’t we ever going to set off?”

  They listened to the movements overhead, the appeals of the siren, the voice of the captain barking orders. Attentively, with their ears glued to the wall, they tried to catch the slightest noises. They recognized that Madame Môme had retired after bidding farewell to her pupils. Rhythmic footsteps, the chords of zithers, indicated to them that the courtesans were dancing. They overheard the late arrival of the Chief Representative, muttering incomprehensible phrases. Then there was a final clamor of a hundred throats intoning a farewell hymn to the blessed land and to the Superman—and the muffled throb of the propellers was heard, revealing the action of the great mechanical heart, and the beating of gigantic wings, whose movement eventually regularized. The porthole through which they darted a glance betrayed a dark blue immensity, from which the infinite gazes of the stars looked down.

  They were on their way.

  Oh, the lovely scene of amour and purity that unfurled thereafter in the cabin of the sailor who was asleep in the arms of courtesans! Words could not describe the emotion, nor the delightful gravity. Marcel and Miss Mary, weary of standing, had ended up sitting on the edge of the bed, and it was a spectacle of unexpected fantasy that of the two beautiful bodies of the bold mariner and the proud heroine presented, scarcely clad in light comic opera costumes, chastely enlaced, stammering in intoxicated voices, the profoundest oaths of tenderness. He, especially, found divine echoes in his heart to lull him, and it was a music so poignant in which she was trembling that tears originating from the most distant roots of her being came to the brim of her pretty velvet eyes.

  At those simple harmonies of the soul, however, the violation extolled by the High Priestess stopped. For when, perceiving the superb line of the legs held in the tights, and respiring the young woman’s odorous cleavage, Marcel, more adventurous and more nervous, remembered Madame Môme’s recommendations and attempted an embrace that led them to the threshold of the saving act, he read such virginal supplication in his companion’s eyes, and sensed now, by contrast with the scornful expressions with which she had previously rejected his tenderness, such a frisson of distress and bewildered protest, that he was softened by it. He did not dare go further, and retreated to mild stammerings of love, audacities limited to compressions of the hand and the tenderness of heads upon shoulders. And those simple familiarities were sufficiently fatiguing for them eventually, exhausted by so much emotion and action, to lie down on the bed and go to sleep chastely in one another’s rms.

  That night, Marcel dreamed about the good Dr. Hymen gazing before the celestial light at the transparency of a little pink membrane, freshly excised.

  Confused noises woke them up. The omnial lighting was extinguished, and an abundantly sunlit daylight was streaming through the porthole. Extraordinarily surprised, they smiled at first—but the noises they could hear quickly converted their joy into poignant presentiments. Hasty footfalls, obedient to the thunderous voice of the captain, were running over the deck. Above their heads, the muffled explosions of slammed doors propagated along the hull of the vessel.

  The resonator transmitted the half-man’s words to them: “Imagine that! They’re hidden here and I didn’t see them. I’m doomed! The Superman won’t operate on me again! Come on, lads, search—overturn everything! Dig, dig! Turn over every flap of curtain, stove in every plank of wood, pierce every aluminum plate! Destroy the vessel, if you must, but I want them brought to me in ten minutes, tied up like birds for the spit!”

  “We’ve been betrayed!” Marcel murmured, putting his arms around his dazed companion, whom he strove to render sufficiently docile not have to give any further thought to Madame Môme’s prescription.

  Alas, the captain’s voice, much nearer, paralyzed him. The inexhaustible Zadochbach, attracted by the racket, was demanding explanations, and the conversation of the two chiefs, although conducted in low voices, reached them distinctly.

  “Can you imagine that, Representative? I went back to my cabin to look for my back-scratcher when three rings of the bell made me quiver on my pedestal. Those repeated appeals generally signify grave events. I put my microphone to my auricular cage, and what do I hear? The voice of the Superman! I’d have preferred a clap of thunder, my inexhaustible friend! And this is what the Master told me: two of the passengers we brought here a month ago had disappeared. Where to? No one knew. Caresco had assembled his council, consulted his engineers, his scientists, his thought-reader, set all his tracking devices in motion, but nothing and no one could discover the neophytes’ hiding place.

  “A general order went out through the island; the people joined the hunt; the least redoubts of amour were searched, the smallest arbors, ditches and rocky spurs. Nothing, still nothing! The Superman fulminated; he threatened to abandon his subjects! All was about to be lost when, by the most blessed of hazards, the courtesan Carabella, sweating after so much running, took a piece of cloth from her cleavage in order to wipe her brow. See what luck the Superman has, my dear Representative! The piece of white silk contained letters written in red. Caresco, who was there, leaps upon it.

  “‘Who gave you this rag, courtesan?’ he asks.

  “‘I took it from the Redlander,’ she replies.

  “‘When?’

  “‘Yesterday evening.’

  “O power of destiny! Do you know what that writing contained? Quite simply a rendezvous—a rendezvous at the landing-platform arranged by Girard with Hardisson for the time of my departure! So, according to all the evidence, the fugitives have hidden here. And I didn’t see anything! Oh, kill me, Inexhaustible! Crush me! I’m doomed! Caresco won’t operate on me anymore!”

  A long wail of grief terminated that explanation. Then the pedestal rolled on; the encouragements to the pack were repeated.

  Marcel stood up, furious.

  “We’ll see!” he said, searching for something that he might use as a weapon.

  He circled the room in vain. There was nothing to aid his anger but a pair of pink wings, the games of dice and knucklebones, the bottles of pastilles and perfumes, and all the paraphernalia of amour. He brushed those derisory objects aside. Then, roaring, he tried to dislodge the port
hole. His strength multiplied a hundredfold, he was about to succeed when the door of the cabin opened and the pedestal, surmounted by the half-man, appeared.

  “Here they are!” the phenomenon howled. “I’ve caught them! The little ones were making love in my sailor’s bed! Don’t disturb yourselves, my lambs! The pleasures of the island didn’t satisfy you, then, and you were trying to run away! Let’s go! We’ll try to do better henceforth. The Superman will take charge of that with more solicitude. He’s waiting for you, the Superman! And I truly wonder what pleasant surprises he has in store for you!”

  He turned to Marcel. “For you, a place in a jar, no doubt.” Then, accentuating the stereotyped smile on his cheeks, visible behind the mask, for Miss Mary’s benefit, he went on: “And for you...”

  He did not finish—but his backscratcher cut through the air with an incisive downward gesture, signifying the operation he had in mind.

  Then Marcel could control himself no longer. He leapt upon the machine-man in order to crush him, to batter to an atrocious pulp his metallic frame, his leather sheath and what remained of his flesh. His plan was simple. Once the commandant was exterminated, he counted on easily terrorizing the apathetic crew of a few men and twenty boys. If necessary, he would kill them all; he would throw Zadochbach and the sailors overboard, into space, then remain alone, master of the airplane; he would steer at the hazard of the winds, and end up landing somewhere. He would prefer a mortal plunge into the vast ocean, in the company of Miss Mary, to a return to the island.

  But just as he launched himself forward, his fingers splayed, to grab and wring the neck of the half-man, a terrible force suddenly knocked down the arms he had raised so magnificently and threw him back, paralyzed, on the floor. At the same time, his adversary’s voice clucked: “Imbecile! Naïve child! He thinks one can touch the Captain like that! He doesn’t know all our secret forces. Caresco alone has the right to cut into me, child. Let’s go! Tie them up!”