“In that case, I’ll show you all there is to see,” she said. “Till tonight. I must run now, but we’ll go out this evening.”
“Vousi!” reproached Aunt Vaina.
Vousi pushed the rest of the cake into her mouth, bussed her mother on the cheek, and ran toward the door. She had smooth sunburned legs, long and slender, and a close-cropped back of the head.
“Ach, Ivan,” said Aunt Vaina, who was also looking at the retreating girl, “in our times it is so difficult to deal with young girls. They develop so early and leave us so soon. Ever since she started working in that salon…”
“She is a dressmaker?” I inquired.
“Oh no! She works in the Happy Mood Salon, in the old ladies’ department. And do you know, they value her highly. But last year she was late once and now she has to be very careful.
As you can see she could not even have a decent conversation with you, but it’s possible that a client is even now waiting for her. You might not believe this, but she already has a permanent clientele. Anyway, why are we standing here? The croutons will get cold.”
We entered the landlord’s side. I tried with all my might to conduct myself correctly, although I was a bit foggy as to what exactly was correct. Aunt Vaina sat me down at a table, excused herself, and left. I looked around. The room was an exact copy of mine, except that the walls were rose instead of blue, and beyond the window, in place of the sea was a small yard with a low fence dividing it from the street. Aunt Vaina came back with a tray bearing boiled cream and a plate of croutons.
“You know,” she said, “I think I will have some breakfast too. My doctor does not recommend breakfast, especially with boiled cream. But we became so accustomed… it was the general’s favorite breakfast. Do you know, I try to have only men boarders. That nice Ahmad understands me very well. He understands how much I need to sit just like this, now and then, just as we are sitting, and have a cup of boiled cream.”
“Your cream is wonderfully good,” said I, not insincerely.
“Ach, Ivan.” Aunt Vaina put down her cup and fluttered her hands. “But you said that almost exactly like the major general… Strange, you even look like him. Except that his face was a bit narrower and he always had breakfast in his uniform.”
“Yes,” I said with regret, “I don’t have a uniform.”
“But there was one once,” said she coyly, shaking a finger at me. “Of course! I can see it. It’s so senseless! People nowadays have to be ashamed of their military past. Isn’t that silly? But they are always betrayed by their bearing, that very special manly carriage. You cannot hide it, Ivan!”
I made a very elaborate non-committal gesture, said, “Mm — yes,” and took another crouton.
“It’s all so out of place, isn’t that right?” continued Aunt Vaina with great animation. “How can you confuse such two opposite concepts — war and the army? We all detest war. War is awful. My mother described it to me, she was only a girl, but she remembers everything. Suddenly, without warning, there they are — the soldiers, crude, alien, speaking a foreign tongue, belching; and the officers, without any manners, laughing loudly, annoying the chambermaids, and smelling — forgive me; and that senseless commander’s meeting hour… that is war and it deserves every condemnation! But the army! That’s an altogether different affair! Surely you remember, Ivan, the troops lined up by battalion, the perfection of the line, the manliness of the faces under the helmets, shiny arms, sparkling decorations, and then the commanding officer riding in a special staff car and addressing the battalions, which respond willingly and briefly like one man.”
“No doubt,” said I, “this has impressed many people.”
“Yes! Very much indeed. We have always said that it is necessary to disarm, but did we really need to destroy the army? It is the last refuge of manhood in our time of widespread moral collapse. It’s weird and ridiculous — a government without an army…”
“It is funny,” I agreed. “You may not believe it, but I have been smiling ever since they signed the Pact.”
“Yes, I can understand that,” said Aunt Vaina. “There was nothing else for us to do, but to smile sarcastically. The Major General Tuur” — she extricated a handkerchief — “passed away with just such a sarcastic smile on his face.” She applied the handkerchief to her eyes. “He said to us: ‘My friends, I still hope to live to the day when everything will fall apart.’ A broken man, who has lost the meaning of life… he could not stand the emptiness in his heart.” Suddenly she perked up.
“Here, let me show you, Ivan.”
She bustled into the next room and returned with a heavy old-fashioned photo album.
I looked at my watch at once, but Aunt Vaina did not take any notice, and sitting herself down at my side, opened the album at the very first page.
“Here is the major general.”
The major general looked quite the eagle. He had a narrow bony face and translucent eyes. His long body was spangled with medals. The biggest, a multi-pointed starburst framed in a laurel wreath, sparkled in the region of the appendix. In his left hand the general tightly pressed a pair of gloves, and his right hand rested on the hilt of a ceremonial poniard. A high collar with gold embroidery propped up his lower jaw.
“And here is the major general on maneuvers.”
Here again the general looked the eagle. He was issuing instructions to his officers, who were bent over a map spread on the frontal armor of a gigantic tank. By the shape of the treads and the streamlined appearance of the turret, I recognized it as one of the Mammoth heavy storm vehicles, which were designed for pushing through nuclear strike zones and now are successfully employed by deep-sea exploration teams.
“And here is the general on his fiftieth birthday.”
Here too, the general looked the eagle. He stood by a well-set table with a wineglass in his hand, listening to a toast in his honor. The lower left corner was occupied by a halo of light from a shiny pate; and to his side, gazing up at him with admiration, sat a very young and very pretty Aunt Vaina. I tried surreptitiously to gauge the thickness of the album by feel.
“Ah, here is the general on vacation.”
Even on vacation, the general remained an eagle. With his feet planted well apart, he stood an the beach sporting tiger-stripe trunks, as he scanned the misty horizon through a pair of binoculars. At his feet a child of three or four was digging in the sand. The general was wiry and muscular.
Croutons and cream did not spoil his figure. I started to wind my watch noisily.
“And here…” began Aunt Vaina, turning the page, but at this point, a short portly man entered the room without knocking. His face and in particular his dress seemed strangely familiar.
“Good morning,” he enunciated, bending his smooth smiling face slightly sideways.
It was my erstwhile customs man, still in the same white uniform with the silver buttons and the silver braid on the shoulders.
“Ah! Pete!” said Aunt Vaina. “Here you are already. Please, let me introduce you. Ivan, this is Pete, a friend of the family.”
The customs man turned toward me without recognition, briefly inclined his head, and clicked his heels. Aunt Vaina laid the album in my lap and got up.
“Have a seat, Pete,” she said. “I will bring some cream.”
Pete clicked his heels once more and sat down by me.
“This should interest you,” I said, transferring the album to his lap. “Here is Major General Tuur. In mufti.” A strange expression appeared on the face of the customs man. “And here is the major general on maneuvers. You see? And here -”
“Thank you,” said the customs man raggedly. “Don’t exert yourself, because -”
Aunt Vaina returned with cream and croutons. From as far back as the doorway, she said, “How nice to see a man in uniform! Isn’t that right, Ivan?”
The cream for Pete was in a special cup with the monogram “T” surrounded by four stars.
“It rained la
st night, so it must have been cloudy. I know, because I woke up, and now there is not a cloud in the sky. Another cup, Ivan?”
I got up.
“Thank you, I’m quite full. If you’ll excuse me, I must take my leave. I have a business appointment.”
Carefully closing the door behind me, I heard the widow say, “Don’t you find an extraordinary resemblance between him and Staff Major Polom?”
In the bedroom, I unpacked the suitcase and transferred the clothing to the wall closet, and again rang Rimeyer. Again no one answered. So I sat down at the desk and set to exploring the drawers. One contained a portable typewriter, another a set of writing paper and an empty bottle of grease for arrhythmic motors. The rest was empty, if you didn’t count bundles of crumpled receipts, a broken fountain pen, and a carelessly folded sheet of paper, decorated with doodled faces. I unfolded the sheet. Apparently it was the draft of a telegram.
“Green died while with the Fishers receive body Sunday with condolences Hugger Martha boys.” I read the writing twice, turned the sheet over and studied the faces, and read for the third time. Obviously Hugger and Martha were not informed that normal people notifying of death first of all tell how and why a person died and not whom he was with when he died. I would have written, “Green drowned while fishing.” Probably in a drunken stupor. By the way, what address did I have now?
I returned to the hall. A small boy in short pants squatted in the doorway to the landlord’s half. Clamping a long silvery tube under an armpit, he was panting and wheezing and hurriedly unwinding a tangle of string. I went up to him and said, “Hi.”
My reflexes are not what they used to be, but still I managed to duck a long black stream which whizzed by my ear and splashed against the wall. I regarded the boy with astonishment while he stared at me, lying on his side and holding the tube in front of him. His face was damp and his mouth twisted and open. I turned to look at the wall. The stuff was oozing down.
I looked at the boy again. He was getting up slowly, without lowering the tube.
“Well, well, brother, you are nervous!” said I.
“Stand where you are,” said the boy in a hoarse voice.” I did not say your name.”
“To say the least,” said I. “You did not even mention yours, and you fire at me like I was a dummy.”
“Stand where you are,” repeated the boy, “and don’t move.”
He backed and suddenly blurted in rapid fire, “Hence from my hair, hence from my bones, hence from my flesh.”
“I cannot,” I said. I was still trying to understand whether he was playing or was really afraid of me.
“Why not?” said the boy. “I am saying everything right.”
“I can’t go without moving,” I said. “I am standing where I am.”
His mouth fell open again.
“Hugger: I say to you — Hugger — begone!” he said uncertainly.
“Why Hugger?” I said. “My name is Ivan; you confuse me with somebody else.”
The boy closed his eyes and advanced upon me, holding the tube in front of him.
“I surrender,” I warned. “Be careful not to fire.”
When the tube dented my midriff he stopped and, dropping it, suddenly went limp, letting his hands fall. I bent over and looked him in the face. Now he was brick-red. I picked up the tube. It was something like a toy rifle, with a convenient checkered grip and a flat rectangular flask which was inserted from below, like a clip.
“What kind of gadget is this?” I asked.
“A splotcher,” he said gloomily. “Give it back.”
I gave him back the toy.
“A splotcher,” I said, “with which you splotch. And what if you had hit me?” I looked at the wall. “Fine thing. Now you won’t get it off inside of a year. You’ll have to get the wall changed.”
The boy looked up at me suspiciously. “But it’s Splotchy,” he said.
“Really — and I thought it was lemonade.”
His face finally acquired a normal hue and demonstrated an obvious resemblance to the manly features of Major General Tuur.
“No, no, it’s Splotchy.”
“So?”
“It will dry up.”
“And then it’s really hopeless?”
“Of course not. There will simply be nothing left.”
“Hmm,” said I, with reservation. “However, you know best. Let us hope so. But I am still glad that there will be nothing left on the wall instead of on my face. What’s your name?”
“Siegfried.”
“And after you give it some thought?”
He gave me a long look.
“Lucifer.”
“What?”
“Lucifer.”
“Lucifer,” said I. “Belial, Ahriman, Beelzebub, and Azrael. How about something a little shorter? It’s very inconvenient to call for help to someone with a name like Lucifer.”
“But the doors are closed,” he said and backed one step.
His face paled again.
“So what?”
He did not respond but continued to back until he reached the wall and began to sidle along it without taking his eyes off me. It finally dawned on me that he took me for a murderer or a thief and that he wanted to escape. But for some reason he did not call for help and went by his mother’s door, continuing toward the house exit.
“Siegfried,” said I, “Siegfried, Lucifer, you are a terrible coward. Who do you think I am?” I didn’t move but only turned to keep facing him. “I am your new boarder; your mother has just fed me croutons and cream and you go and fire at me and almost splotched me, and now you are afraid of me. It is I who should be afraid of you.”
All this was very much reminiscent of a scene in the boarding school in Anyudinsk, when they brought me a boy just like this one, the son of a sect member. Hell’s bells, do I really look so much the gangster?
“You remind me of Chuchundra the Muskrat,” I said, “who spent his life crying because he could not come out into the middle of the room. Your nose is blue from fear, your ears are freezing, and your pants are wet so that you are trailing a small stream…”
In such cases it makes absolutely no difference what is said. It is important to speak calmly and not to make sudden movements. The expression on his face did not change, but when I spoke about the stream, he moved his eyes momentarily to take a look. But only for a second. Then he jumped toward the door, fluttering for a second at the latch, and flew outside, dirty bottoms of his sandals flying. I went out after him.
He stood in the lilac bush, so that all I could see was his pale face. Like a fleeing cat looking momentarily over its shoulder.
“Okay, okay,” said I. “Would you please explain to me what I must do? I have to send home my new address. The address of this house where I am now living.” He regarded me in silence.
“I don’t feel right going to your mother — in the first place, she has guests, and in the second-”
“Seventy-eight, Second Waterway,” he said.
Slowly I sat down on the steps. There was a distance of some ten meters between us.
“That’s quite a voice you have,” I said confidentially. “Just like my friend the barman’s at Mirza-Charles.”
“When did you arrive?” said he.
“Well, let’s see.” I looked at my watch, “About an hour and a half ago.”
“Before you there was another one,” he said, looking sideways. “He was a rat-fink. He gave me striped swimming trunks, and when I went in the water, they melted away.”
“Ouch!” I said. “That is really a monster of some sort and not a human — he should have been drowned in Splotchy.”
“Didn’t have time — I was going to, but he went away.”
“Was it that same Hugger with Martha and the boys?”
“No — where did you get that idea? Hugger came later.”
“Also a rat-fink?”
He didn’t answer. I leaned back against the wall and contemplated the
street. A car jerkily backed out of the opposite driveway, back and forthed, and roared off.
Immediately it was followed by another just such a car. There was the pungent smell of gasoline. Then cars followed one after another, until my eyes blurred. Several helis appeared in the sky. They were the so-called silent helis, but they flew relatively low, and while they flew, it was difficult to talk.
In any case, the boy was apparently not going to talk. But he wasn’t going to leave, either. He was doing something with his splotcher in the bushes and was glancing at me now and then. I was hoping he wasn’t going to splotch me again. The helis kept going and going, and the cars kept swishing and swishing, as though all the fifteen thousand cars were speeding by on Second Waterway, and all the five hundred helis were hung over Number 78. The whole thing lasted about ten minutes, and the boy seemed to cease paying attention to me while I sat and wondered what questions I should ask of Rimeyer. Then everything returned to its previous state, the smell of exhaust was gone, the sky was cleared.
“Where are they all going — all at once?” I asked.
“Don’t you know?”
“How would I know?”
“I don’t know either, but somehow you knew about Hugger.”
“About Hugger,” I said. “I know about Hugger quite accidentally. And about you I know nothing at all… how you live and what you do. For instance, what are you doing now?”
“The safeguard is broken.”
“Well then, give it to me, I’ll fix it. Why are you afraid of me? Do I look like a rat-fink?”
“They all drove off to work,” he said.
“You sure go to work late. It’s practically dinnertime already. Do you know the Hotel Olympic?”
“Of course I know.”
“Would you walk me there?”
He hesitated.
“No.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“School is about to end — I must be going home.”
“Aha! So that’s the way of it,” said I. “You are playing hookey, or ditching it, as we used to say. What grade are you in?”
“Third.”
“I used to be in third grade, too,” I said.
He came a bit out of the bushes.
The Final Circle of Paradise Page 3
