“Was there something you wished to speak to me about?” Melkior asked impatiently. “Something specific?”
“Specific? No, not really. Nothing specific. The indéfinissable—is that the right word? — is what excites me much more passionately. God, the amount of muck I’ve filtered through to get at a grain, a single grain of truth! After all, it’s my job: to filter, to sift. A beautiful lady comes to me to have her future told. On what basis? On the basis of the silt she pours over me? She has me drenched with her lies, there’s muck trickling from her pretty mouth, a lot of charming drivel. So go ahead, fish for her ‘future’ in that swill! No way, Madam! I go on screening and straining the stuff if it’s an engaging case, I might take a whole afternoon running the muck through the filter. I don’t care if others are kept waiting, I decant and precipitate this one over and over again … until the lady is frightened. They’re all afraid. That’s how I get them. It’s not the future they fear, oh no! We are afraid of the future, you and I, people of intelligence. Your fear, of course, is far greater, you being the more intelligent. But they, the society ladies, are afraid of the grain of truth in the silt, the pearl in their little shells, heh, heh, that has come about through them leading a certain kind of life. And when I reach for the grain, they quake. They will even swoon if the grain of truth is big enough, heh, heh … Do you imagine this repels them? No, sir, it draws them. They are intoxicated by fear, they become aroused — literally, that is to say sexually, aroused. We flee, we who know why the cock crows. We don’t want to know. Our past is clean. Our present is … hah, that’s the question; what about our present? I almost rushed into saying something imprudent, and the fact is that our present, I’m afraid, is none too clear. Fear of the future, that’s what disturbs it. In consequence, we don’t want to peer into it. We’re clever, we know we’d better not, do we not? We’d rather live like this, in uncertainty …”
“Well, you mean you live in certainty?” Melkior gave a bored smile. “You know for certain?”
“Nobody knows for certain — not even God, because He can always change His mind. He may fancy ‘something else’ at any moment. Divine whim.”
“You, too, seem to be given to whims. It was a whim that brought you here.”
“A whim? And what if it was a sense of gratitude? But if I’m wasting your time …”
Mr. Adam had taken offense and was about to get up. But he stayed in his seat and even made himself more comfortable.
“Here I go jabbering away and I’ve got two horoscopes to cast. One of them for a prominent personality. A politician.”
“So what are you going to predict for the prominent personality?”
“I’m worried. Don’t mock me. I no longer even know what ATMAN means. I’ve forgotten everything you explained to me. I didn’t understand it at the time either. ATMAN, Karma, Veda, it’s all Greek to me. You wormed it out from … India, just to make me look silly. Or you didn’t even bother to worm it out, you just told me what first came to mind. Like when I now say MADA. Which does mean something — it’s my name spelled backward. Perhaps even ATMAN is something spelled backward, just for fun. I was very suspicious at first. Now I no longer care. Your mockery …”
“I do not mock you,” Melkior said unconvincingly.
“Oh yes you do. You laugh. Inside. ‘This fellow would tell the future,’ you say. ‘Well, why doesn’t he tell his own?’ As a matter of fact I do, only I don’t speak of it. What’s the use of speaking? That’s why I say I’m worried, because I know. ‘And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the Earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the Earth.’ Read and memorized. The Apocalypse. And yet I don’t mock your fear,” ATMAN added suddenly, with a strange smile that made Melkior rather uneasy.
What’s he latched onto me for? he thought. What is he after?
“What’s this fear you’re talking about?” he all but shouted at ATMAN. “I am not afraid!”
“Then why so defensive?” Mr. Adam gave a cordial laugh.
“When a man thinks, his fear is proportional to the power of his thought. Why should I underrate you? Coming ever closer, as you know, is the pale horse with its rider … In one of the books I borrowed from you I saw a picture by an artist. It’s called The Mouse. Women standing on chairs, pressing their legs together, gathering their skirts in mortal terror — there’s a mouse on the floor! But bombs they’re not afraid of. What about you — are you afraid of mice?”
ATMAN was now looking at him with provocative derision. But this was all still unclear; why had he come up here? What was the point of the entire conversation?
Melkior was simply at a loss for words — and for ideas as well. It had been stupid of him to try to defend himself. From what? From fear. Fear of fear! A new power in the mathematics of fear. Now he was going to have the damned palmist under his ear at night and be forced to think about him, too. He was furious with himself for letting the mysterious vagabond near him.
“Look here, Mr. Adam …” he initiated the ceremonial ejection procedure.
But ATMAN had a good ear for that kind of tone, and immediately interrupted the ceremony with a gesture that wiped the slate clean and announced a fresh start.
“All right, let’s put it all on the scales. Let’s weigh things seriously, Mr. Melkior. A weighing machine is a precise instrument, no tricks, no teasing. ‘True weight whatever the freight,’ says the peg-legged invalid. I share your respect for it.
“After all, we do check our condition on it, even literally, do we not? How much do we weigh? Because this can be decisive at times, of course. There are such things as the official criteria of fitness.”
“I must tell you, Mr. Adam …” Melkior made another attempt at ejection.
“Yes, Mr. Melkior. You have my undivided attention. I’m always ready to learn something new. Always!”
Melkior was losing patience. He was on the frightening verge of jumping up and yanking ATMAN’S goatee. And booting him in the backside!
“I have an article to write for tomorrow. I’m sorry but I have work to do tonight!”
“I, too, as I’ve said, have work to do tonight. But what kind of future shall I draw for them?” ATMAN rested his brow on his open palm, worried. “If I were a magician, I’d turn the politician into a bird and let him fly where his wings would take him. That’s his future after alclass="underline" to fly …” Then, quite close to Melkior’s face, so that Melkior felt the noxious breath from his mouth, something reminiscent of dirty socks, “To fly away, eh, Mr. Melkior? Far away from these people,” he nodded in the direction of the barracks across the road. “To safety. But they will not let you go. They bite into your flesh and will not let go. And we, heh, heh … we deprive them of the flesh. No meat, sorry! Skin and bones you can bite if you like. But what if they bite into the skin and bones, what if they do after all? Vicious dogs they are …”
“Let them bite what they like!” Melkior cried out in desperation. “What’s all this nonsense? Please leave me alone, sir! I want to work, to work!”
“Oh, to work, quite so … I forgot we have work to do … the both of us.”
The palmist stood up, tightening the belt of his housecoat as if really about to leave. Melkior felt a surge of hope, even adjusted a fold on ATMAN’S housecoat, in the servile manner of a lackey.
But ATMAN noticed Melkior’s freshly laundered linen laid out in neat stacks on the bed.
“Ah. Fine linen you have there. White shirts. I, too, prefer my shirts white. Buy them yourself?”