Ranko Marinkovic - Cyclops

“Pity, weally,” said Hermaphrodite, “it’th going to be dead bowwing in here with him gone.”

“You thick bastard, you think it’s funny, a nutcase sassing the Colonel?” Menjou was getting riled.

“He wathn’t thathing him, he only kithed him, hoo-hoo-hoo … Nithe.”

“What, you think he kissed him because he loved him?” Tartuffe joined in.

“It would be ‘nithe’ for you to shut your trap, you moron!”

“Mowwon, eh? Then you’wwe a cwetin!” flared Herma. “The Old Man wath hathling him, wight, and he kithed him, foww that? Would you have had the gutth? I know I wouldn’t … tho I thay to him ‘bwavo! bwavo!”’

His anger provoked laughter. (Melkior laughed, too, inside.)

“The Old Man was ‘hathling’ him, eh? Bwavo!” Everybody laughed.

“I thaid ‘hathling,’ not ‘hathling,’ you thilly thap! You ’wwe the nutcathe, not him! It’th you they ought to put undeww obther-wathon …”

“Stop it, don’t get all riled up,” spoke up Little Guy in the low voice of a repentant. “I made all this happen.”

“Made what happen?”

“Him kissing the …”

“You mean it was another one of your suggestions?”

“Yes,” admitted Little Guy like an incorrigible sinner.

“Oh, go and … eat your mother’th cheethe pathtry!” said Hermaphrodite, his patience cracking at last, and there would probably have been a fight if Mitar had not at that moment entered the room followed by a huge, muscular young man in white who displayed awe-inspiring biceps under his rolled-up sleeves.

“Which one?” asked the young man.

“This one,” Mitar indicated Melkior. “Come on then, get your gear. You’re off to Neurology.”

“So they got you then, eh?” he was asked by one of the three on the third day after he was moved into a vast white room with barred windows. Even now the person who asked was not looking at Melkior. He was looking at the wall behind Melkior’s bed. Floating in his eyes was a dim look with which he dreamily stared at the bare walls, even at the empty space of the room, as if he had prepared himself for a patient and tedious existence for the rest of his days.

The other two had not yet spoken. The short chesty one went up to the window from time to time and snarled irately through the bars, and the endlessly long and lean type, in contrast to him, lived in exalted calm and dignity. His food was eaten by the short chesty one while he himself solemnly marched up and down the room, clearly performing an important function.

There were only four beds in the room (the fourth having been brought in for Melkior), one in each corner, bolted firmly to the floor, and nothing else, no other objects: bare white walls and emptiness. The acoustics of bare empty space, horrible, hopeless.

Melkior had spent two days on his bed as if he were on a raft, in absolute peace, alone with himself. The bed with ancient blankets, with no sheets, filthy, uncared for, with the condensed smells of the bodies which had been releasing their fumes there before him. But the stench had by now acquired his familiarity and warmth. He had adopted the despised and abandoned smells of the other people and drawn them with fraternal cordiality around his shoulders, like a beggar does a chanced-upon overcoat.

Skunk fashion, bedbug fashion, he had wrapped the stench around him and was now challenging all and sundry, derisively, like the Asclepian on the cannibal island: Come on, you delicate noses, approach if you can this impregnable circle of revulsion, this armor of safety, this halo of holy stink! He felt the stench on his person like a life belt before a storm, like the inebriation with a folly which made him light, transparent, invisible. If only I were no more! If only I were the smelly air hiding my existence so reliably!

“How did they get you?” the dreamer asked again, still looking at the wall above Melkior. “Were you making petals?”

“What petals?” asked Melkior politely.

“I don’t know. It was something … I don’t remember what.” He lapsed into thoughtful silence, then heaved a sigh and cried out bitterly: “On Ombrellion, the barren mountain, he spake! I’m a melancholic, they say, the Tartars. What about you — are you mad?”

“No. I’m a complete idiot,” replied Melkior gravely.

“What’s that mean? Do you fight people?”

“No, I’m peaceful. I stink.”

“They wanted to cut me in half over there. I was in the Artillery infirmary, where the hack-hack guns are, understand? Hack-hack, with a hyphen, you know, to hack one in two … one-two, left-right, one-two, three, four … I can count up to a billion. That’s the count of the hairs you have on one half of your head, multiplied by two. Down with the King and Queen!” this last he added in a whisper, watching the beanpole fearfully who was doing his march past.

“Which queen?” asked Melkior.

“The King’s wife.”

“He hasn’t got one.”

“Down with his sister then.”

“He doesn’t have a sister either.”

“Well, there has to be some female at court — so down with her then. You know,” he slunk up to Melkior and whispered confidentially, pointing at the beanpole, “you can’t say things like that in his presence — he’s the Lord Chamberlain,” he added with sly irony.

“At which court?”

“This one … the Royal Saccharinic Court,” the Melancholic gave a cunning smile. “He’s privy to court secrets. But he confers only with the top-rankers. Watch.” The Lord Chamberlain was having a pleasant chat with the King, riding in the royal carriage (the King was sitting on his pillow), but the only intelligible words in the entire conversation were “Your Majesty,” uttered with enormous respect; the rest was a highly confidential whisper. The Lord Chamberlain, with a sweet smile on his face, was waving to the people, pointing meanwhile, for the King’s benefit, at various prominent persons in the cheering crowd. The carriage came to a sudden halt in one place, the Lord Chamberlain’s index pointing resolutely at the Melancholic.

“It wasn’t me, Your Saccharinic Sweet Majesty!” said the latter in fright, “It was he (pointing at the Short Chesty) who ate your bread and cabbage.” But the Lord Chamberlain’s index finger never left him. Moreover, the Lord Chamberlain hooted hoo! at which the Short Chesty yelled bloodthirstily:

“I am Rover, the eldest of five, let me at him, I’ll skin him alive!” and snarled at Melkior showing small close-set teeth.

“Don’t do that, Rover — I’ll give you a two-rupee piece,” the Melancholic held out a small white button with two holes, “and I’ll let you have a four-rupee one tomorrow.”

“Get it sewn on your own tomorrow! Gimme now!”

“I haven’t got one now, Rover, I’m expecting one from my brother tomorrow. What you can have now is a bit of my fingernail.”

“Gimme.”

Rover quickly sawed off the Melancholic’s thumbnail with his small sharp teeth and displayed it to the Lord Chamberlain. The latter nodded with satisfaction, dismissed Rover, and drove the horses on.

“You have to act like that with them,” explained the Melancholic to Melkior, apparently in some embarrassment.

“Listen,” said Melkior hopefully, “you can square with me: you aren’t actually …”

“Mad?” the Melancholic smiled sadly. “Well, no, not in the way they are. Different category. They think … the Lord Chamberlain thinks (Rover doesn’t know a thing) two and two make five; I know they make four (see?) but it’s too much of a bother to think.”

“What’s there to think about?”

“Oh, quite a bit — you must get them to come together. Here, take two from one side and two from the other,” he held up two fingers on each hand. “Now then, which two will join the other two? Why should one pair do the approaching while the other stands idle? They’re equal, right? Ma-the-matically equal, so why should either pair approach the other? Well, they may be equal in terms of mathematics but not in terms of character. One set is perhaps too proud, or believes themselves to be a better sort, a higher class, and they prefer to keep themselves to themselves, and you have to waste your time arguing with them! And all for a four. But what can you do when they don’t want four? See what trouble it is? You might say: they can meet each other halfway, come to an agreement … All very well, if they want to, but they seldom do. … You’d have to waste so much time waiting.” He looked into Melkior’s eyes with curiosity. “You’re probably wondering at this, thinking I’m talking about people. No, I’m really talking about pure numbers, I majored in math at the university.” Melkior was silent, looking at the floor to avoid embarrassing the other with his gaze. “Try playing roulette or buying a lottery ticket and you’ll see numbers for what they are — all whimsy and deceit.”