“I don’t see why, sir,” I said brightly. “I have a friend who’s a jeweler, and people come to him with this kind of problem all the time. He has a little saw that cuts a ring, then the ends can be pried apart...”
I thought I saw Kassachian go white under his tan as he gave a low moan.
“I’d be glad to pay for mending the ring after it’s removed,” I said weakly.
“My boy,” replied Kassachian, “if your name were Getty or Onassis, you might — I say might — be able to pay me for any damage to that ring. Otherwise, it’s out of the question.”
“I don’t quite understand, sir.”
“That ring on your finger was presented to the pharaoh Zoser by his high priest about the year 2500 B.C. It is a depiction of Scarabus sacer, the sacred scarab of Egypt. It is the only one of its kind anywhere in the world. What is more to the point as far as you’re concerned, it is priceless. No amount of money could purchase it. Right at present, I’m not too concerned about your welfare. You are nothing but a bit of useless humanity which has somehow become inextricably attached to my ring.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied. I had a vision of myself stuffed and mounted on a pedestal, my right hand extended to show off the ring to its best advantage.
“There is, of course, one more thing we might try,” said Kassachian, an odd look in his eye.
“Anything, sir. Anything.”
“I was thinking of amputation. Of the finger, you know.”
“Father! That’s horrible.” Dara waddled to my side and grasped my arm tightly. “He wouldn’t really hurt you,” she said, gazing at me through eyes that, heavy with mascara, resembled twin pools of hot tar.
Tenderly I patted the hand of my newfound ally. “I’ll go home and think all night about how I can get the ring off,” I said. “I’m sure in the morning I can—”
“What!” shouted Kassachian in a towering rage. “Leave my house while you’re wearing that ring? Out of the question.”
“But I can’t stay here forever.”
“Why not?” said Kassachian, a little smile playing across his face. “Oh, I don’t mean forever, confound it. Just until we can find some way to remove the ring.”
“But I have to...”
“You have to what?” replied Kassachian scornfully. “Look, you’re a writer. Do your writing here.”
“But I couldn’t impose on you that way.”
“Very well, do whatever you want,” said Kassachian. “But my ring does not leave this house.”
With the ring and me now a package deal, that was how I came to take up permanent residence at the professor’s house.
For the first few days we spent each morning discussing and experimenting with methods of removing the ring. Nothing worked. The ring seemed to be bonded to me as if I had been born with it.
At the end of a week, further attempts to remove the ring were abandoned as impossible. Instead, I was put on a strict diet and assigned a series of finger exercises in the frail hope that the offending digit could be slimmed down to a point where the ring could be slipped off.
To pass the time I began working on the article concerning the professor. Each day I would study Kassachian’s notes and type rough drafts until time for the evening meal. Afterward the professor would retire to his study while Dara and I went into the livingroom where she listened in wide-eyed wonder to the lies I told concerning my writing experiences. Later she would put slow music on the phonograph and try to snuggle up close to me on the couch, an experience I found much the same as entertaining an amorous squid.
By the middle of July I had been a guest of the Kassachians for nearly six weeks, and then one evening I made a complete fool of myself. All I can say in my defense is that the only female to whom I had been exposed in all that time was Dara.
As usual, we were on the couch. An album called Songs for Lovers was playing and Dara, instead of dimming the lights as was her usual habit, turned them all the way off.
Gentlemen, I can only tell you that Dara Kassachian seemed much more desirable in the dark than when it was possible to see her. I felt her lips on mine. To my everlasting regret, I responded. I kissed her in return. After that, one thing led to another — until suddenly the lights went on.
Professor Kassachian was standing over us. In a stern voice he ordered Dara off to bed and asked to see me in his study. Once there, he took a bottle of brandy from the drawer of his desk and poured two glasses. “Of course you’ll want to do the honorable thing,” he began.
A week later, in a small, private ceremony, Dara Kassachian became my wife. Previously, of course, her father had made it quite clear that I would be expected to continue to live with them in the house.
The following month was a continuous round of parties at which the great and near-great of the scientific, intellectual and social worlds all came to congratulate Dara on her fine husband. I was examined from all angles and made to feel like a family pet on exhibition.
Still, all my wants — except for my freedom — were satisfied. I received the finest foods, the best and most luxurious clothing. Even my writing, which had formerly been universally rejected, now found its way into the most prestigious journals. I might have learned to be content with my lot, except for one thing.
Dara loved me. She loved me in a way that made Tristan and Isolde seem little more than a couple of passing acquaintances. I would look up from my typing and there she would be in the doorway, her beady eyes staring at me in adoration.
I couldn’t sit in an easy chair without having that slug-like body trying to climb into my lap. At parties she would hang onto me, a huge white leech. In the privacy of our room... Don’t ask.
I could begin to feel my reason slipping. Every time I looked upon that accursed ring I saw not the scarab but Dara’s bloated, love-sick face. I was being overwhelmed.
The sickness came the following November. I don’t know how I contracted it. Pity the germ that tried to get at me; it would have to find some way around Dara first.
After a week during which a bad chest cold had contributed to exhaustion and aching muscles, I looked across the table at dinner one evening and — horror of horrors — I saw not one Dara but two. Suddenly I had a blinding headache and the room started spinning. Vaguely I remember Dara and her father taking me up to bed and someone strange — a doctor, I suppose — bending over me. Then for a time I remember very little — just vague visions of Dara’s porcine body mounted on a huge ring and gigantic scarabs snuggling up to me. I must have had a few semilucid moments though, because I can remember feeling that I was dying, and that made me glad. Dying was the only way I could be rid of Dara forever.
I finally swam back to consciousness to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. It took me quite some time to realize that the music was coming from downstairs and that I was not imagining it. I heard an announcer’s voice counting: “Five, four, three, two...” And then shouts of “Happy New Year!”
I had been delirious or unconscious for nearly two months.
I was warm, and so I kicked off the blankets. Somebody had provided me with a hospital gown, one of those short garments which do their best to destroy modesty. I stared at the skinny shanks that had once been my legs.
As I reached out weakly to pull the blankets back into place I felt something slide on my finger. The ring. The ring had slid around until the scarab itself was toward my palm.
It took me several moments to realize the significance of this. The ring — that damned ring that was the cause of all my troubles — could now be removed.
Slowly, almost reverently, I grasped it and pulled. It slid away from my emaciated finger. I looked at it — this thing that had ruined my fife and bound me forever to the toad-like Dara.