“And what do you think you’ll see?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’? Everything’s changed now. My Kalisto put in a large supply of salts and ten packets of toilet paper first thing in the morning. There’ll be a shortage of them, says he. In addition to Eros, he’s a great worshipper of his anus. You should see how piously he breaks wind — word of honor, you’d swear it was Saint Francis talking to the pigeons. It’s easy for you to laugh, but I have to live in that atmosphere.”
Melkior was not laughing — he appreciated Mr. Kalisto’s worries. There, at least he’s concerned about the future, if only in that way, whereas his son …
“And another thing,” the son was saying, “it’s fun to watch the bourgeoisie lose their composure. With their shops out there, their houses, and the bombs dropping from above. Making a rush at the banks, trying to withdraw their deposits, only to find the banks are closed — it’s Sunday. They’ll be buying chocolate and toothpaste tomorrow. There’s a war on, sir. My mother tearfully says there’ll be a shortage of flour and soap (you’re familiar with her cleanliness complexes), and my Kalisto, ahh, he is hoarding toilet paper! So much for the war as reflected in my family. In the street, everyone walks sniffing at the air, as if the war were exuding a smell — and a pleasant one, too. And everyone’s looking up at the sky … That’s where the main celebration is expected to come from. People say they landed last night outside the city, they’re all over everywhere in plain clothes.”
“And they’ve poisoned the water,” smiled Melkior nervously, his jaw trembling.
“Laugh on, do. … But the language of Johann Wolfgang Goethe is to be heard abundantly all over town, and the women — the perfumed ones — are pricking up their ears in cafés at guten Tag. I’ve already stunned one with a line of poetry, plus two tears for good measure, well, you know me … O Grille, sing, die Nacht ist lang … and after that, in another line, there’s this word unbedacht—know what it means? Well, never mind, we’ll be chirping about that lyricism tonight, the night is long. …”
“Oh,” Melkior’s throat constricted, “what about our (sure, ‘our’) er … the one you used … October’s gentle breath …?”
“The one I used gentle breath? What do you mean?”
He knows, the brute, he knows all right — he’s just being … “The one I called Viviana … don’t tell me she’s looking forward to guten Morgen, too?”
“She’s off to meet them halfway, I think,” said Ugo casually. “But it hurts, mournful Eustachius — she went away without a goodbye kiss, without leaving me two hairs or at least a nail-paring to remember her by forever …”
“Went away … with Freddie?”
“Does it matter? She’s gone, the dove’s fluttered away.”
“Unless it’s with ATMAN?” wondered Melkior aloud.
“Batman who?”
“The palmist … the one living downstairs …”
“Hah, ATMAN. Was it you who first gave him that name? Or the late Maestro? Tell me, you were actually with him the night he … scorned technological progress? Anyway, the idea was … you must admit … What symbolism — to piss on electric current! Worthy of a … of that Greek who threw himself down the crater of Etna.”
Maestro couldn’t remember the name of the Socrates’ pupil, either. … “The one who tried to persuade him to flee.”
Melkior’s head was still hanging over the edge of the bed. He was no longer looking at his slippers, he had his eyes closed. He saw Maestro’s dead arms dangling from the railing; stretched out, long, straight, as if — extended toward the Earth — they wished to show their scorn for the sky above. Arms … with no head; the head had been swallowed by the jacket — it had slid down and devoured Maestro’s head. That was the image in the blurred grayness of Melkior’s memory.
“Death most likely instantaneous” was the sentence on Maestro’s “City Page” with which Melkior tried to console himself. A minute or two — how long was that to a dying man? Perhaps a vast and emotion-laden duration … which the City Desk reporter had slashed to zero—“instantaneous”—presumably to make it all seem easy and simple, no thought, no hope. A consolation for his own future? And yet Maestro had remembered reading about a man who survived electrocution! Seven minutes afterward, a huge chance! “So it appears all is not lost after the jolt, you can survive … provided someone turns their hand to it, right, Eustachius?” Yes, massage the heart … my dead soul!
Melkior shuddered. Why didn’t I see it at the time? He moved his head to the pillow; he looked at Ugo with wondering and irritation and again closed his eyes.
“Had a bad dream, sir?”
“He’d worked it out ages ago, drinking beer, practicing,” Melkior was saying without opening his eyes. “‘A pure death.’ Against bodily mutilation as performed by scoundrels and rogues … He’d sold his cadaver, too …”
“Yes, ‘Snip,’ we do remember, ‘Anatomy, or My Person on Sale’ … Ahh, our poor bug! He knew all the animals in Dostoyevsky. So, Eustachius … did he really … aim and hit at his first go?”
Melkior scowled in disgust and made no reply.
“Don’t frown, I have serious reasons for asking.” Ugo’s face was really serious, even thoughtful.
“You and your ‘serious reasons’—bah!” Melkior dismissed him scornfully.
“All the same, dear Eustachius …” smirked Ugo mysteriously, “perhaps I do possess certain facts, eh? Why did he choose that very night for his great outpouring of scorn, eh? Now, now, don’t get upset, it has nothing to do with you. He only took you along as a witness to the … gesture, for the sake of his legend … But try to remember: what state was he in when you found him outside the Corso? Yes, all right, ‘illumined,’” Ugo replied immediately to his own question, “but that was hardly unusual — he’d been, as you know, inebriating himself with that joy before … but what other state was he in? Bloody, or rather bloodied … and do you know who’d done that to him?”
“Why, Freddie the actor, of course.”
“Oh no — just goes to show how much you’re in the dark. That is, it wasn’t Freddie alone, and that crowning, bloody blow was not Freddy’s doing, he hasn’t got such a remarkable hand. It was a heavy, bony hand, shovel-like, that did that. You must know,” Ugo lowered his voice theatrically, “Maestro was at the Corso that evening on assignment, to borrow a phrase from the parlance of revolutionaries.”
Melkior gave an angry snort:
“You’re out of your mind!”
“No, you are! Did you hear what he was bellowing in there?”
“No I didn’t — I came too late.”
“Well, I did! I didn’t want to miss the spectacle.”
“So you knew all along?”
“Naturally. I’d spent the whole afternoon at the Give’nTake assisting in rehearsals for the feat. That’s where it all began. He accused Thénardier, too: you’re an informer, you’ve sold your soul to the fifth column; he gave him a squirt of soda from a siphon right in the eye, massacred rows of enemy glasses on the bar … And so, presumably enraged by the tinkle of broken glass, he went off to carry out the assignment.”
“What assignment, God strike you?”
“His assignment … presumably patriotic … He was to draw public attention to the suspicious characters at the Corso … but it turned out all wrong. While on the spot, old wounds reopened — love wounds, as you know — and instead of sowing panic among the fifth columnists, stirring the public to action, in a word, instead of striking terror into the hearts of the spies he got his proboscis bashed in by a heavy and bony hand.”