“I do. She’s like a gourmet — she must taste every dish. Come on, Mr. Melkior, don’t scowl, I’m sorry but you’re not just any old dish. I wonder why I keep speaking in terms of food. You would indeed be dessert for such a woman — in the intel-lec-tual sense, I mean. You saw it yourself — she’s primitive, a real spiritual orphan, so much so that she even takes pity on me sometimes — and you know my level such as it is. We are exemplars, she and I, that’s why we belong together. But I’ll go on waiting … until she comes to realize it, too.”
“What if she never does?”
“Never … that’s impossible,” said ATMAN with conviction. “Perhaps later, perhaps quite soon, but one day she will have to. I rather think that will be very soon … because there won’t be any other options left.”
Melkior shuddered at ATMAN’S chilling prophecy. The old fear made itself known again: a raven croaking above its small consoling wakefulness. In an instant he dreamed again the deathly dream of his cannibal motif: facing the teeth of Polyphemus the Cyclops, the one-eyed beast. And he wondered, bitterly, where that eternal companion of a thought had been hiding these last few days.
Fear began to shake Melkior (“because there won’t be any other options left”); his mournful gaze did a round of all the walls and objects in the establishment: here, all this will persist and the little old man will be here with that slurring speech of his (he’s beyond “the dwaft,” of course), I shay, bud, it’sh …
“Looking around, Mr. Melkior? You’ve spent many the evening here chatting with Kurt. Fond memories.”
“I used to drop by, in passing, to have a bite to eat …”
“Well, even if it were not in passing, what could have been wrong with that? It’s not as if I were reproaching you or anything. You might, for that matter, have become Kurt’s drinking buddy and gone on binges here — well, that would be nobody’s business, am I right?”
“I was not Kurt’s ‘drinking buddy’!” replied Melkior sharply.
“Well, what I’m saying is that, even if you did, what business is it of anybody else’s? You presumably had your own personal reasons, and Kurt had his — (a bit less personal, muttered ATMAN with a smile) — well, each of you had your reasons, so what? It was to mutual advantage, that’s your own business.”
“There you go again with your innuendoes!” Melkior was angry; he sensed ATMAN trying to embroil him in “something.” “What benefit could I have gained by eating the occasional sausage here?”
“Well … that of having eaten the sausage,” laughed ATMAN. “Did you think I meant something else? Kurt’s mother was a good cook, Styrian. Else was an agreeable hostess, Kurt a helpful lad … yes, it was a cozy corner in every way. The garrison sergeants found a really warm spot in here, a home away from home, almost in the bosom of the family. Isn’t this borne out by their very absence now? The warm spot has been undone. The war, the war, Mr. Melkior, cheese home-made, cow’s milk.”
ATMAN spewed out the word “war” with malicious glee. Melkior watched him with disgust and fear as the man leered brightly in his face.
“So where’s Kurt?” he asked purposely, to mask his fear. “What’s he up to these days?”
“I really couldn’t tell you where he might be … But if you need him for … anything, I’d be glad to …” ATMAN was ready to be of service.
“No, what could I possibly need him for?” Why am I getting caught up in this, snapped Melkior to himself. “Merely asking …”
“Merely asking …” smiled ATMAN. “Perhaps he’s still here and up to things … and perhaps his Fiihrer has summoned him … They’re not like us with our medical boards and weighing machines and starvation cunning — they’re burning with the desire to die for that swastika’d spider of theirs …”
“And you knew Kurt was … up to things?” Melkior asked suddenly and was alarmed at his own audacity, why the hell am I getting caught up in this?
“Are you telling me you didn’t?” grinned ATMAN threateningly. “You really should have done something about it, Mr. Melkior, I thought about that all the time. You are a serious and almost responsible man, you house people clandestinely … (Has ATMAN reported it? Where’s the Stranger now? flashed through Melkior’s mind.) If only you’d told your Don Fernando … to put him on that list of his,” joked ATMAN, his small eyes having a malicious good time. “I obviously couldn’t have, they wouldn’t have believed a palmist, it’s a dodgy occupation … They could’ve thought I myself was one of … right? Don Fernando put me on his list, did he not? … But you, a man of confidence, an honest John, as they say … but you didn’t — you were all wrapped up in your civilian purity, to the point of hermitage, and purportedly ‘all for mankind, for social justice.’ My dear Mr. Melkior! If you’d only left it at that — but no, you got …”
“Mr. Adam, your provocations …” shuddered Melkior, and instantly he found himself tongue-tied.
“Provocations nothing! In for a penny, in for a pound, Mr. Melkior,” ATMAN gathered momentum like someone deciding to act, “you yourself got … well, yes, you did, to some extent … got yourself in deep with Kurt …”
It was as if ATMAN had meant to keep the last words to himself but oh dear, they had escaped him, what was done could not be undone. He smilingly watched pallor spreading over Melkior’s face, followed by a flush, by pallor again … he was amused by the color changes. And Melkior knew what was happening on his face … Oh you scoundrel, you blackguard, you rogue! But what was the use? He couldn’t silence ATMAN’S craft by such pitiful cursing into his own ear. But neither did he propose to reward him by a “show” of anger, so he gave a laugh meant to speak more eloquently than words.
“All the same, I would …” began ATMAN and stopped as if he had changed his mind.
“You would what?” laughed Melkior while feeling a kind of cold horror welling within him. “You got in deep with Kurt”; he felt the wetness of the words on his skin. But now it was ATMAN’S turn to speak.
“First of all, I wouldn’t laugh,” he said with genuine severity, “and secondly … listen to the important way I’m saying secondly, practically as if I’d invented the sewing machine …”
“All right, you did not invent the sewing machine. What would you do secondly?”
“Nothing,” laughed ATMAN. “Or, if anything, perhaps just say we’d be well advised to … how shall I put it? pay a wee bit closer attention (wee, that’s pure baby talk, wee-wee). Uncertain is our destiny in what the politicians call this part of the world.”
“So what do you think we ought to do for our destiny? Pay attention to what?”
“A wee-wee bit of attention,” ATMAN was amusing himself, “A wee-wee bit of attention to the fact that we all have our own destiny, wee-wee. You may have got away with it for the time being, but Destiny has other wonderful surprises up her sleeve.”
“And you are insured against these surprises?”
“No, I’m not. How could I be? Where’s the insurance? Do you know?” ATMAN held his face close to Melkior’s. Melkior could smell his unpleasant breath.
Melkior sat back and said derisively: “You’re asking me? You who have such a cozy relationship with Destiny?”
“Have a cozy relationship? Heh, I’d be delighted, if she were pretty.”
“Well, being an expert, you presumably picked the prettiest one for yourself.”
“Now you’re poking fun at my occupation, too, Mr. Melkior,” said ATMAN with a kind of sadness. “But you did do something for your destiny … by fasting, like a saint … and with the assistance of this … Kurt fellow,” he was monitoring the impact of his words, squinting derisively at Melkior.