“Don’t be cruel, sir,” she whispered seductively next to his ear. “We’ve go to wait before you can leave, you fool.”
“So there is a way out!”
“Didn’t I say so … back there?” she was smiling in a kind of sly triumph. “Why do you think I’m doing all this?”
“Why, you’re an …” Melkior was about to give her a kiss in his delight, but she held him off with both hands. “Tell me, how do I get out of here? Am I to jump out the window?” He could see no other way.
“That would be the best thing all around … seeing what you’re like,” she said with a kind of serene malice. “Wait a bit more … and don’t worry, big brave boy, you’ll get out just fine.”
Her showing off her own bravery struck him as ludicrous. It was like reproaching a trapped mouse for its cowardice. …
Over there, several rooms away, Coco was vainly calling out to Enka in a discreet, familial voice. In front of locked doors the frightened, worried man was crying for a breath, a single sign of her being alive … and had she said: I’m in here, darling, I’m alive and in bed with another man, he would have heaved a sigh of relief: never mind, sweets, so long as you’re alive.
But there was no sound from her, and he tackled the first locked door. There were muffled breaking and crashing sounds (he was careful after all to make as little noise as possible), followed by his forlorn voice in the distant room, Enka, where are you, answer me, Cookie … and then another cry, a despairing scream of a hopeless man … if you’re still alive …
Something repulsive flashed across her face, something like victorious jubilation. She was parading it triumphantly for Melkior: see how much I mean to him? What would you do for my sake?
“Would you be prepared to stay here … for my sake?” she asked him in her cuddly, insidious way, and laughed provocatively.
Melkior gave her an astonished look: “That’s what you seem to have arranged in the first place! There really is no other way out!”
“Oh yes, there is,” she laughed with pitying scorn.
He had no time to note the humiliating manner of her cinematic rescue (exit in the nick of time) — in the adjoining room Coco was going through a mad fit of utter despair: Cookie, please stop playing with me! Oh God, what is this? If only she’s still alive! The hapless man was weeping as he forced open the last door.
Enka then soundlessly opened a concealed door in a bookcase; a black hole leading into darkness opened up in front of Melkior.
“Quick now!” she whispered hurriedly. “The anteroom’s down the corridor, to the right,” and she had already pushed him into the darkness. “The door’s there, as you know … Here’s the key to the front door … Give me a ring, Ambulance Service, as always …”
The door closed behind him and the darkness pressed his eyes with its black fingers. The wall responded with cold unpleasantness to the touch of his fingertips. Melkior was nevertheless heartened by the cold presence: he was able to orient himself by it. Curse you and your home! He cursed with hatred, feeling the inimical walls. I just hope I don’t stumble over a box, a pot, a bell, these bourgeois types leave all sorts of things along their corridors … hurdles and traps for thieves, intruders, luvvah boys … he finished with mocking satisfaction. Oh where’s the door — this gate, that let thy folly in, said mad King Lear. It seemed to him that he would never get out of the insanity which was pressing the darkness against him between the two icy walls.
She had defended herself Troy-like … Troy as he might, Coco had been hampered by having to force open three doors … or was it four … to reach Helen, the pretty harlot. Odysseus groped over the walls inside the horse seeking a way out of the abdominal darkness, like a piece of feces on its scatological journey down Enka’s spry intestine. O damn you, damn you! cursed Melkior in the dark, where’s the door that let my folly in? Menelaus must have entered Troy by now and is begging forgiveness for besieging it, pleading mercy on his bended knee. … There were no more sounds of breakage — all that was to be heard in the silence was, perhaps, sobs … hers, brought on by the joy of it being him, Menelaus-Coco, and not a murderer, robber, despoiling lecher, sex maniac. That was why she had put herself behind so many locked doors, trembling, trembling … oh God! … perhaps even fainting at the last moment. …
Finally there was a ray of light; ah, here we are, here was the anteroom and the gate that let … with the door light broken … And the staircase! Escape from the dungeon, ramparts, ropes, guards, the jailer’s daughter, the hopeless love … the whole romantic bit. He broke out in goose bumps as he glanced down the dark abyss of the stairwelclass="underline" no, sir, not a joke, going down that on a rope … For Viviana? — eh? eh? … but he made no reply.
He hurtled down the three flights of stairs with all the acceleration physics would allow, even on the turns, bumping into walls …
Freedom!
The street was slushy with uncertain snow that was attempting to hold his footprints. No go, it was nothing but water in a loose state of failing firmness; ha-ha, he triumphed treading on the signs of old December’s impotence. Nevertheless he looked back: no, no footprints. … A lit window on the third floor was what he had left behind. A nighttime dispute in the study, long, insatiable, sucking the poor couple’s blood and sleep.
He suddenly felt terribly unhappy. Sent out like a dog into the street, into the night and winter, while behind the lit window they warmed each other with kisses of unexpected happiness. Robbed, tricked, bamboozled, alone in the night … on top of which I happen to be convalescent! (this was a reproach to him, the doctor) and he nearly broke into sobs in the middle of the empty, slushy street. He felt wet, sticky coldness on the soles of his feet. Oh no, not that, too! Leaky shoes! They had dried up in civilian rest while the master was being borne by government-issue boots; the poor black orphans were squealing tearfully as they squelched their way through the dirty slush.
“Wanna come and get warm, boy?” the question came from a doorway out of a fiery rouged face peeking momentarily out from the warm nest of a large yellow fox-fur coat.
“You’re freezing, too …” replied Melkior in passing. I’ve had enough of women, of woman. Less than an hour ago I was lying as naked as Adam …
“Let’s you and me have a rub-a-dub-dub, eh?” the yellow fox fur voiced hope. “Wait a sec, I’ve got something to show you. …” Melkior turned and saw, from the open coat, a long beautiful leg in a provocative advertising posture.
“Take a good look — the other one’s just like it, wanna see?” This is such stuff as dreams are made on, he thought hurriedly.
“Don’t part them for my sake,” he tossed to her, moving by, “let the sisters live in harmony … and say hello to their Mama.”
“And you, dimwit, stop flogging the lizard!” she grumbled crankily after him.
“It’s mine to do with as I please. …”
“Boil it for your girlfriend’s birthday dinner!”
“Give me your address — I’ll send you the soup. …”
Melkior let her have the last word, but the distance rendered what she said unintelligible. Who would ever go to bed with someone so … yellow? Mr. Kalisto, the papal namesake. He remembered the man’s pink gums and spat in disgust. The father of such a son!
Hey, this must be magic! — he heard the son’s voice from a distance. Melkior halted. The night was uncertainly transmitting the words of Ugo’s pathos-drenched recitation … to the queen of all women … This was in honor of the “fox fur” in the doorway behind — she had bandied her legs about for him, too. … To chrysanthemums’ sister. … Already she was sending him away and Ugo was, like a tenacious little dog, barking out further verses in her honor by the doorway. He ended his recitation with his arm high in the air. … I raise this glass to your health … (Melkior saw him under the lamppost as a black silhouette), then bowed deeply Madam! And went on his way with another poem. He approached with a drunkard’s big uncertain steps, his galoshes squelching noisily as far as the pavement was wide. “And now I’m off to Khabarovsk,” he announced boastfully out ahead, making wide and important sweeps with his hands in some sort of hurry.