Ranko Marinkovic - Cyclops

“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 all: 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?”

“Of course I buy them myself. Who else would buy them for me?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean who does the monetary buying. That would obviously be a bit, er … What I meant was have you got an adviser, an advisor ess , heh, heh … in matters of taste. Because they are in very good taste indeed. The finest poplin. Also two-button cuffs. Not one; two. Most fashionable.”

Melkior, as it happened, had not wanted ATMAN’S departure to take the form of ejection. He therefore mustered all of his utterly battered patience to build him a golden bridge for an honorable retreat. But no! ATMAN was not even thinking of retreating. He crossed his arms on his chest and began pacing about, indulging in meditation, “We criticize their superficiality, but look how their little hands make themselves felt on our things. On shirts, for example. That’s their world, those two buttons — indeed their general outlook, their worldview.” He put a strong emphasis on the word “worldview,” as if everything depended on it. “While we chuckle in our wise, masculine way; we are taken up with important concerns. They laugh at our important concerns and go on doing our linen, always after us to change our clothes and take our baths and cut our nails. Being boring. We give martyred sighs, because it is a kind of terror. We long for any form of liberation. You don’t know about these things, Mr. Melkior, you haven’t been married; I have. Well, there comes at long last that blessed liberation. Quite unexpectedly, like drawing a prize at the lottery. So one evening you’re preparing for an adventure. Showered and shaved (voluntarily, not under duress), donning a fresh shirt, humming a little tune, pandering to your freelance-lover style — and all that in front of a mirror, to double the joy, as it were; in a word, you’re a marvelous specimen, you admire yourself no end … and then: hello, what’s this? There’s a shirt button missing! All you find in its place are those broken little whiskers of thread. There was nobody to take care of it, you see … There’s the feeling of loneliness for you! Do you think she would have left a different mark? What if she had been there above the buttons?” ATMAN asked suddenly of Melkior, pushing his derisive smile quite close to his face.