Melkior was now unable to laugh anymore: “What assistance of Kurt’s? With what did Kurt assist me?”
“The pounding of your patriotic heart, ha-ha … What is it you dip the cigarettes in — do you remember, Mr. Melkior? it wasn’t so very long ago.”
“You spoke about that to Kurt?”
“It was I who told him that, not his Vater, heh-heh …”
“But I didn’t. I didn’t even ask Kurt about it — he came up with it. … Why did you go through him?”
“I wanted to lend you a hand. You wouldn’t have taken it from me, you don’t trust me.”
“And I trust Kurt, is that it?”
“Well … I rather imagine you do. You do indeed — more, at any rate, than you trust me. He’s on the side with the upper hand. Perhaps Kurt could help you still, I mean in ‘crucial’ things — after all, he’s got a kind and noble heart.”
“Well, speak to him, then,” Melkior told him angrily. “Perhaps you could help him.”
“How might I be of help to him, Mr. Melkior?” ATMAN feigned shocked surprise. “On the contrary, he might welcome some of your military ex-per-tise … oops, how did ‘tease’ pop up like that?”
“Now look here! …” but Melkior managed to restrain himself, why the hell should I shout? Who does this rascal take me for … or is he just winding me up? “May I impart some of that expertise to you instead?”
“Why, whatever could I possibly use it for, Mr. Melkior?” ATMAN went on wondering, “I’m not a warring party.”
“No, but there is a secret, everyone is frightened of it,” whispered Melkior in the strictest of confidence. “I learned about it while I was out there … Alligators, a new weapon, they keep one in each town. …”
“Oh, that’s just an animal, an aquatic animal, a crocodile,” laughed ATMAN, but with a watchful eye on Melkior.
“An animal, true enough. But what about Hannibal’s elephants? And a crocodile is more awesome than even an elephant; it hides in the tall grass and then suddenly: snap! The fear and terror of any infantry. They were brought in from the Ganges and the Nile.”
“And you’ve seen those crocodiles?” ATMAN was going along with the joke.
“No, but I’ve heard them. They howl worse than any beast. They’re kept well hidden — top secret.”
“You don’t say …” said ATMAN rather vaguely, while keeping a close eye on Melkior: is he pulling my leg or is there really something in … “And you think that in case of war …”
“They’d make mincemeat of all those armored columns or whatever the things are called! They sweep tanks away with their tails like this,” he flicked a matchbox with his little finger, sending it flying far away from the table.
He felt pleasure at the victorious gesture. With my little finger! And the words sounded warrior-like to him. He embraced the madness which made another assault before a bewildered ATMAN. “Yes, Mr. Adam, I could tell you about plenty of other very strange things I saw out there,” so let the scoundrel snitch to whoever he reports back to — Kurt or his lame Scarpia.
“Very interesting indeed,” ATMAN was saying, baffled: he now was truly at a loss. “It looks like you’ve delved quite deeply into these military matters.”
“I didn’t plumb the depth, but when it comes to signals in lights (this is how Gogol’s Zhevakin II speaks, thought Melkior in passing) it’s not just switching the lights on and off — you’ve also got to be careful which windows are lit, by number and floor, this last is particularly important. It’s a special code, you see, and you can read all the signals to be sent about the alligator if you can crack the code.”
“And you cracked this code?” asked ATMAN in a bored way, even with an unconcealed and impertinent yawn. But he liked repeating the phrase cracked the code.
“I studied it … with the aid of an expert.” Melkior could not hide his smile: he had remembered the Melancholic. “I can’t help laughing when I remember how we decoded it all wrong once. We got something really funny, swears and vulgar words. I expect the counterespionage boys were having a laugh, joshing with the enemy spies. Then again, perhaps they’d merely encoded the signals under a new system and we decoded them using the previous one. Most amusing it was.”
ATMAN was yawning a great deal by now. His eyes were wandering in boredom, his gaze going hazy. He’ll drop off any moment now, thought Melkior with pleasure. I’ve fixed ATMAN the Great with his own weapon!
“But I’m being a bore, Mr. Adam. Apologies.”
“Not at all, it’s most engaging,” but nevertheless he glanced at his watch and gestured, “Bill, please.”
“All the same I have bored you this evening, you’ve got to admit it,” Melkior was not going to give up, I’ll finish him off, if only for tonight.
“Oh, no, Mr. Melkior, whatever makes you say that? It’s just that I’m rather tired, I’ve had a very long day to-hoo-hooo … day,” finished ATMAN, with a long and seemingly strenuous yawn.
“Doing horoscopes?” Melkior was not letting go.
“No — two maniacal females. Brought by that woman of mine, the one ‘off the rope’ as you like to put it. So, Mr. Melkior,” ATMAN suddenly asked in a very serious tone, “do you really believe in these … alligators?”
“What’s there to believe?” said Melkior “sanely,” as madmen are apt to speak. “I don’t believe in death rays, but alligators are aquatic animals, you said so yourself.”
“How strange.” ATMAN looked at him in a “certain way.” “I thought you were joking,” he added in a low murmur and with a kind of morose disappointment.
Outside, Melkior offered him his hand, “Good night.”
“You’re not going home?” asked ATMAN with what was nearly pleasure.
“I feel like a walk. I’ve been cooped up for so many days now …”
“Only four, Mr. Melkior. Don’t tell me you’re off to the Give’n-Take — your crowd hardly ever goes there anymore. Thénardier’s trying to get rid of them in stages — he won’t let them drink on a tab, someone told him the police are keeping an eye on them. Have a nice time. After all, heh-heh, I spoke to her in the rosiest of terms … Help Destiny, Mr. Melkior, and she will reward you a hundredfold,” laughed ATMAN out loud. “Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you, ha-ha-ha … Good night, you lucky man!”
Lucky man? He was left alone, lost in the cold dirty fog. There was nowhere to go, the fog had coated all the streets with a smelly cold barren wasteland. He decided to give ATMAN a good head start and then go back to his warm nest himself.
Or should I knock after all? It was not yet nine o’clock. Destiny was really imploring him to do his part. He responded with an adventurer’s grin. The phone booth on the corner offered itself to him like a harlot, like an old reliable whore mistress: hey, boy, here’s Ambulance Service, make the last digit 4 instead of 3, make the last digit 4, 4, 4 … What the hell, Melkior waved a hand, Destiny calls in person! ATMAN said so. Let’s go and knock at the door! Let this be the ruination of you and of me … he sang defiantly inside.
That selfsame defiance drove him up the seventy-two steps, and Coco’s honorable nameplate gave a gleam of shame, oh Lord! But Melkior did not look at the honorable face of the spouse and master of the house — he sent his masculine signal (Alligator’s here! and he laughed cruelly): long-short-long.
Presently there was a sound of movement inside (female? male? which?) and then someone said “oh-oh-ohhh …” as if a hen had been disturbed. And Melkior said “co-co-cohhh” behind the door out of some silly need to tell the nameplate, See, there is a hen inside.