John Banville - Mefisto

It is no secret

What God can do,

What he’s done to others

He can do to you …

He turned as we entered, and seeing me he grinned his foxy grin, and threw up his hands and cried:

— Why, look who’s here! Bring me the fatted calf, at once.

He took out his tobacco tin and lit up a butt, examining me with friendly attention. He was wearing his greasy pinstriped suit and a deerstalker hat. A red silk scarf was knotted at his throat. On the table a carriage clock stood with its back open and innards on show. He pointed at it and said:

— Think I’d get anything for it?

Sophie was putting the nettles into a saucepan with water and a bundle of bones. He laughed ruefully.

— You see what we’re reduced to.

He picked up the clock and shook it ruefully, producing a faint shimmer of sound, like a distant tinkling of tiny bells.

We ate the nettle soup. A lozenge of sunlight trembled on the table by my wrist. Sophie, smiling, watched me over her spoon. Mr Kasperl came in heavily and sat down. He looked at me once and then away. Felix talked and talked.

— Burning away merrily down there, apparently. The whole town is sitting on it. There’ll be hell to pay. Oh, hell to pay!

He grinned at me.

— What do you say, bird-boy? Time to fly?

Sophie cleared the table, and Felix suggested a game of cards. Three of us played, while Mr Kasperl sat by, his fat arms folded and his chin sunk on his breast. A car came up the drive. Felix put a finger to his lips. We heard loud knocking at the front door, and D’Arcy’s voice calling out. After a while he went away. Felix played a trump. He said:

— The common flea, or pulex irritans , which is the name we scientists call him, can survive alive a long time without food. He likes a spicy drop of good red blood, of man or maiden, it’s all one to him. He doesn’t bite, you know, for fun. In fact, he doesn’t bite, but, rather, pricks, sucks up a ruby drop, and off he kicks. His cousin, xenopsylla cheopis , or rat flea, is a different type, for this lad does not at all like human gore, indeed, it makes him puke, which is a bore for such a lively fellow. But when his host, the black rat, rattus rattus , gives up the ghost, he has no choice but to go after us. The poor chap’s little proventriculus gets all bunged up with swarming bacilli, whose name is pasteurella pestis , need I say any more? Now, dying for a feed, he subjugates his loathing to his need, and finds a human target double quick. In goes the sharp proboscis, and the trick is done, a drop of blood is aspirated into the proventriculus. Now sated, our Jumping Jack relaxes, but, oh dear, some of that blood comes up again, I fear now rife with bacilli, and goes straight down the puncture hole. The victim, with a frown, scratches the spot, while pasteurella pestis heads pell-mell for the region of the testes. A week elapses, then the buboes swell, there’s fever, stupor, and, of course, a smell as if the poor wretch were already dead. Next wifey gets it, baby too, then Fred the postman, yes, and Fred, the postman’s son, then in a twinkling half the town is gone. It flies like black smoke, felling frail and fit, soon continents are in the grip of it. And all the doing of his majesty, our lord of misrule, Harry Hotspur Flea! So now, remember, when you feel a bite, it really is an honour, not a slight. The king is dead, long live the prince, and — and there’s the knave! My trick, I think. And hand.

Sophie put on a marionette show. She had cleared a work-table in the photographic studio and rigged up a stage made from cardboard boxes. The insides of it were lined with pictures. There was the imperial baby, and the donkey with the straw hat, and the gentleman in leotard and the naked lady astride the chair, her plump legs splayed. Felix bent to examine her, and gave a low whistle and nudged me.

— Aye aye, he said, this will be good.

The marionettes jerked and clattered, bowed and swayed. The strings seemed not to guide but hinder them, as if they had a flickering life of their own, as if they were trying to escape. It was my story they were telling. Everything was there, the meeting above the meadow, my first meal with them, D’Arcy’s visit, Jack Kay, the kiss, everything.

— Top hole! Felix cried, clapping like a seal. Oh, top hole!

Sophie stepped from behind the table and bowed. Mr Kasperl stood in the doorway, his arms dangling. Sophie went to him.

I walked with Felix in the grounds. A weak sun shone out of a white sky. The trees glistened, oiled with mist. I could smell the sea, its grey stink. Felix was munching a crust of bread. He wore his deerstalker, and a dirty, dun mackintosh, and a bedraggled tie with stripes.

— My going-away outfit, he said. Like it?

He flung the crust away. An enormous seagull swooped down out of the mist on thrashing wings and caught it in midair. Felix ambled along in silence for a while, sucking his teeth.

— Yes, he said, have to get out. That mine …

He brooded a moment, then suddenly giggled.

— The small investor, I’ve discovered, lacks a sense of humour. A poor loser, all round.

He halted, and turned to me. We were standing on the drive. The tops of the trees were hidden in the mist.

— Listen, he said, you like to know the truth, don’t you? In the beginning was the fact, and all that? Well, come on, then, I’ll show you something.

We went into the house, up to the attic, to Mr Kasperl’s room. Felix quietly pushed the door open an inch. I put my eye to the crack. The room was full of calm white light. A fly buzzed against a window-pane. Mr Kasperl lay on his back on the bed, eyes closed, his mouth open, like a big, beached sea-creature. His legs were unexpectedly skinny, with knotted, purple veins. His big belly glimmered palely, rising and falling, lightly flossed with reddish fur. His sex lolled in its thick nest, livid, babyish and limp. Sophie stood at the foot of the bed, putting on her slip. She lifted her arms above her head, for a second before the silk sheath fell I saw her shadowed armpits and silvery breasts, the little patch of black hair between her legs. She turned then and caught sight of me. She smiled, and came towards us, with a stocking in her hand. I stepped back, and Felix deftly closed the door.

Downstairs he fished in the sagging pocket of his mackintosh and brought out the carriage clock and peered at it.

— Dear me, he said, is that the time?

A battered cardboard suitcase stood in the hall. He picked it up.

— Well, I’m off. After summer merrily, you know. Care to walk me to the train?

ON THE COOLMINE ROAD he whistled, swinging the suitcase jauntily. Smoke rose from the pit-head into a sky as pale as pipeclay. A lorry was going in at the gate with a load of broken bricks. A band of tinkers trudged along the edge of the bank of rubble, forlorn dark figures against the white sky. The gleaners were busy. Bundles of mist hung above the marsh. Felix stopped to survey the scene. He raised one arm in a sardonic salute and said:

— Farewell, happy fields!

We passed by the broken wall, the scarred telegraph pole. He pretended not to notice, and said nothing.

The streets of the town were damp, and smelled of sea-slime. There were not many people about, but all the same Felix went forward circumspectly, keeping on the inside, near the wall. At Black’s he paused.

— Time for a last look in, you think? he said. Oh yes, come on, let’s risk it, if you will so will I. I’m an old sentimentalist, I know.

We sat at Mr Kasperl’s table by the window. Felix turned his back to the street, hiding his face with his hand. I told him how I had seen D’Arcy here. He shrugged.