Ranko Marinkovic - Cyclops

Freddie was triumphant, of course. Such unexpected revenge at another’s hand! Hurrah! Bravo! He applauded, shouted, chortled with glee, loudly, too loudly. Even she tried to tame him, stroking his hand, pleading with him to restrain himself. She saw nothing funny in the excess, her sympathy was apparently with Ugo. (Oh how Melkior was grateful!) At length she let go of Freddie’s hand, stood up and approached Ugo with tender concern.

“Did he get you in the eyes?” she asked, pulling Ugo’s hands away from his eyes.

Melkior felt a sweet, unmanly ache of tenderness clutch his throat. How kind she is. How dear.

Ugo was rubbing his eyes to gain time (Don Fernando had caught him by surprise), whereas she thought he was …

“Did it get into your eyes?”

“No, love,” he said in a seductively tender voice, suddenly embracing her and kissing her on the mouth.

What a cad! Melkior thought jealously, while the other end of his thought rejoiced. Desecration of compassion, rape of the angel! he added derisively and watched her eyes filling with tears of surprise. She covered her face with her hands and blindly staggered back to Freddie. He took hold of her protectively and sat her down in a chair. He then made toward Ugo, rolling his hips as he had seen in the cinema: here comes the terrible avenger. But he adjusted his tie in passing and halted at a reasonable distance.

“Listen here, you ape! Come outside if you are the man you pretend to be.”

“No I won’t come out, fair knight!” Ugo bowed like Sganarel. “You would joust like an errant knight for your lady’s honor, but I’d rather not fight you just now. For some reason or other I’m not in the mood really — I had a bad dream last night … as I said, seven o’clock tomorrow at the upper Maksimir lake. This is still on. Tomorrow I shall spear you with a silver fork as stated, with all the honors due to your exceptional person. And now please leave alone the man whom Destiny has chosen to be splashed with the Dionysian drink by the hand of her great son. A moment ago I entered the biography of a great man! Future Ph.D.s will be quoting me in their doctoral theses, students will be flunking their exams because of me, learned thinkers will be referring to me in footnotes. Thanks to Don Fernando’s sublime gesture you now stand before a historical person, you miserable wretch!”

“I spit on your historical person, you ape!” and Freddie indeed spat into Ugo’s eyes.

“That will be totted up to the same account,” said Ugo, wiping his face without haste or perturbation. “Your bill is growing fast, Twenty-seventh Citizen in Coriolanus. My only regret is that you will not be able to remember how I collected all my debts, because you will no longer be there. The very thought brings tears to my eyes. Oh Destiny, be thou not cruel to this thimbleful of unsalted brains, there is so much he could not help. Now then,” he addressed his party, carelessly turning away from Freddie, “over with the nasty digressions and back to the agenda. All right, Maestro, what is it that two shot glasses of the hard stuff say?”

Freddie was left in the middle of the Give’nTake, surrounded by laughter, alone and abandoned. Ugo’s great triumph, which Ugo would not even acknowledge!

The overripe hollow-eyed actress shook Freddie’s hand, congratulated him for spitting. She kissed him under the nose (long had she yearned to!), leaving behind the victorious imprint of her lips.

Viviana never looked at him. He had sat back at the table, offered her his hand to stroke (as usual), but she fell to rummaging in her handbag, without noticing the hand. That hand was no longer in her good graces, Freddie’s Vivianic empire was dwindling.

Oh how favorable things were for the Parampion, the damned jabberer!

Melkior was not missing a trick. I’m monitoring your movements, you fickle cat! He was almost prepared to root for Freddie. And inside he was lamenting, “I’m done for, oh God I’m done for!” and his heart was clenching hopelessly, his eyes wandering in search of a sanctuary. To hide his misery that was weeping in his gaze, sobbing in his naked eyes. How free everybody was, how confident in their gestures, in their stride! While I dare not so much as walk toward that door with the man’s shoe drawn on it … although it has been a whole hour since I first felt … er, yes. The shoe! As if there were a cobbler inside! A misleading sign! The Cobblers’ Union ought to protest. Permit us that association of ideas, the sanitary technicians plead. What refinement in Thénardier, the vile condor! With a mere shoe he lifts his establishment to considerable renown, to the level of international urinary language. The Micturition Code. Now, there’s a European for you!

Melkior was ill at ease with their daring throughout. To have dashed wine in Ugo’s face! And with what a regal gesture! To have kissed her like that! He proceeded to examine his bitter yearning in detail; the fantasies struck him as terribly forward and he blushed.

“So, Maestro,” the invincible Ugo spoke up with a chairmanlike efficiency, “I think this is just the moment for Snap. Europe has left through a door that could hardly be called a triumphal arch, and spitting in people’s faces, since civilization forbids spitting on the floor, makes perfect sense. And it’s forceful in a virile way. Virile in particular. It’s not easy getting cast for a spitting role, that sort of thing is reserved for the big players. Roscius himself, in Rome, used to spit in key scenes. But let us leave those sputalitious matters to the spitters, what comes out of their mouths is spittle, not words. Goodbye, snot-dribblers, and hoard your precious ammunition like those besieged in a fortress, your mouths will go dry with excitement. My apologies, Maestro, for keeping you waiting until I finished delivering the war message to those on the other bank, over there where culture leaves off. I was speaking like Caesar to Vercingetorix. So, if you please, what is it that two shot glasses of the hard stuff say? Then again … perhaps they whisper, do they whisper?”

“No they do not,” Maestro growled angrily, “they damned well bellow! But I will be moderate in playing my marche funèbre, — moderato , as they put it in the scores. Parampion, the question!” he said sternly, like a champion demanding his gong.

“What is it that two shot glasses of the hard stuff say?” Ugo asked ceremonially.

“Two shot glasses of the hard stuff say Snap,” Maestro pronounced solemnly.

He then spat out his cigarette butt, cleared his throat thoroughly and sluiced it with a sip of brandy (which was equally part of the ritual), and, closing his eyes, began to recite, craning his neck awkwardly: Anatomy, Or My Person on Sale:

“Put your money down

Snip me — I’m a snap.”

“That’s the introduction, gentlemen,” Ugo chimed in, “and a refrain of sorts …” But everyone shushed him and Maestro went on:

“For sale, cheap and mortgage-free:

every little piece of me.

First, my skin — no warts, no rash—

easy for the scalpel’s slash.

Item, one nose, large, purple like a plum

(which comes of too much brandy, wine, and rum),

a first-class sniffer of plots and shady deals …

Put your money down

Snip me — I’m a snap.

Item, an organ, ill-bred and misled,

planted by Nature in my head,

a little horror, devil, razor, snake—

my filthy tongue, which truly takes the cake

for foul, dirty, slanderous talk …

Put your money down

Snip me — I’m a snap.

(Here, innkeeper, pour and bring

shot to shot — shot glasses twain