Ranko Marinkovic - Cyclops

Melkior almost ran toward the phone booth. It’s nearly ten! God, what if she’s out? He could not allow being rejected today. The digits were wheeling too slowly on the dial. His impatience was in a hurry to hear her voice, to expunge “the fourth ape this morning” together with that laugh of hers …

“Ambulance Service?” his voice quavered with male excitement.

“Yes, what can I do for you?” It was a man’s voice.

Of course, he’d made a mistake, he’d actually dialed the Ambulance Service, 3 instead of 4. Make the last digit 4, 4, 4!

“Hullo, Ambulance Service?”

“Yes, yesss …” Enka was laughing her familiar laugh, the beckoning one. “How serious is it?”

“Very, Enkie, very serious.” What a relief! He pounced on her voice, he sensed she was naked beneath her housecoat. “Can I come over, Enkie?” He was barely able to say the words.

“When, Kior, when can you come?” She was offering herself to him. “Can you come right now?”

“Right now, Enkie, right now!”

“Come over, Kior. I’m still in bed. I’m waiting for you, you know …”

I know, oh yes I know! Naked, warm … And the tram arrived at just the right moment. The conductor tore off his ticket with a smile. “You’re off then, eh?” his thin moustache was saying.

He let his body hang slackly, holding on to two straps, careless, sailorlike. He had surrendered to the ride. MEN’S WEAR gave him MEN SWEAR. BOOKING OFFICE: BOO KING OFF ICE. The booking office hours were part of a poster for SWAN LAKE: ENKA’S LAW, anagrammatically. And what would yield ENKA’S BODY? O’DYE’S BANK? No, there was no such name as O’Dye. Let’s see. EBONY KADS? No, it’s c-a-d-s, not k-a-d-s, and she’s Enka, not Enca. Anyway, kads or cads , it simply did not make sense.

“And what did you say?”

“I told him he was an idiot. The one Tolstoy wrote!”

The two girls exploded into laughter, enjoying themselves. The idiot. They were in love with him, both of them. Pretty, scented, dressed for town.

“I’ll go and see it in the theater next week. With him. I told him so.”

“See what?”

“The Idiot. It’s on this season.”

“I don’t really like Russian plays. They’re all about tramps waxing philosophical …”

“Did you know there’s this play where they say ‘hooker’ on stage?”

“No, actually they say ‘whore,’ ” she replied in a whisper.

“You don’t say. …” They laughed. Saying “whore” on stage was funny. Melkior jumped out before the tram had come to a stop. I expect they like the word. They use it more often than we men. They feel it more intimately. In the second act Leone says, “a common, anonymous whore.” La grande putana. Boucher’s azure-and-pink bare-bottoms. Not forgetting Dante— “donne, ch’avete inteletto d’amore!” or something — the Aristotelian quintessence of the brothel. The grain of salt in the brain of the animal designated to give pleasure. A modest dose, just enough to avoid insipidity. They then use it to produce — pohoetry! Oho-etryoho-oho-et … oho-oho et …

He bounded up the stairs, two steps, three steps at a time, hurriedly, thieflike.

This was how Raskolnikov had climbed toward Alyona’s room, with his axe beneath his coat. No, not like this: Raskolnikov climbed slowly, cautiously, listening for telltale sounds. Incidentally, there were seventy-two steps to climb. Today was the first time he had forgotten to count them. Did this mean something? ATMAN would have been able to spin some little meaning out of it. …

The seventy-second step. Coco’s brass nameplate gleamed with hospitable welcome to the old acquaintance and … household friend, he added hesitatingly. M.D., Professor, surgeon … He felt respect before the gravity of the profession. It was she who first called him Coco , he hastily said in his own defense at the door. He pressed the bell, long-short-long, a long-arranged Morse K. For Kior, as she called him. But the door had been awaiting him impatiently — ajar.

“Kior,” Enka crooned, stretching herself. “Lock it on the inside.” He had already done so, automatically, out of habit.

She was lying in the spacious double bed, her hands under her head, her breasts uncovered as far as the teasing border, in refined style. She was smiling a come-to-me smile.

He threw himself on her as he was, fully dressed …

“Ugh, you’ve been drinking,” she made a grimace of disgust, “brandy!”

“Never mind now, never mind! Enka, Enka …” There was no time for explanations.

“But … take your clothes off … and come to me. Look what I’m like.”

She showed herself to him under the cover, naked. A small, plump, perfect body.

He made an irresistible onslaught. He pushed his way into the bedclothes next to her. He wanted to have her just as he was, fully dressed, out of some sort of spite, because of the morning’s laughter over the phone, because of “the fourth ape.” He wanted to pass off his insult as “mad desire,” as lust’s mindless whim. It flattered her.

“All right then … the shoes at least, the shoes … you madman, you! …” she tittered with glee.

Not even the shoes! Nothing! He had taken full control and was delighting in his superiority. Indeed delighting in it more than in her. There was something vengeful in his lovemaking, as if he were killing her. And she was grateful to him with every finger, every joint; with her nerves, breasts, eyes, mouth, teeth. She bit him on the chin.

“Oww, no!” he mumbled from the softness of the pillow where he had buried his face.

“Priapus! … Priapus! …” she cried out, demented. “It’s a miracle, a miracle! Priapus!”

Suddenly, how strange! he remembered Maestro. “All my sins.” “Thou poor ghost.” And there emerged something disgusting, something slimy. What was that urinating business all about?

And the tempest subsided. All was now reduced to a gentle rhythm of sailing across bobbing waves. Soft rolling in long amplitudes. A marital outing. “Kiooo?!” she called from somewhere inside, below deck, in a panic, as if she were sinking.

He didn’t hear her. What kind of death is he up to? Brand new? Medicinally pure? Can beer kill you?

“Kior, what’s happened?” She had come up on deck, tussle-haired, sweaty.

“Tell me, can beer kill you?”

“God, what a question!” She lifted her arms to her head in astonishment and her small breasts went flat. “Why do you want to know now?”

“What’s wrong with now?” he asked from his pinnacle of power. “Know anything about it? You’re a doctor’s wife after all.”

God, what a life! he complained pleasurably. Why, she’s actually nagging! I have my Viviana (“mine”!), so you needn’t think you can … And her breasts are two buns with a tiny raspberry in the middle. …

“Where were we, Kio?” she asked, nestling up to him.

“At beer being a potential killer.”

It was no longer Maestro on his mind. This was for her benefit: he wanted to show her she could not disturb his train of thought, that his head was in the right place.

“You’re crazy … and a bore!” She turned away from him and furiously lit a cigarette.

He got up. She gasped in horror, the smoke billowing out of her mouth as from a miniature hell. But when she saw him undressing, she put out her cigarette in a conciliatory fashion and clucked in delighted laughter … caw-caw-caw-caw-caw …

“You’re crazy,” she repeated with an unmistakable undertone of great admiration. “A man apart,” was what it meant. The element of surprise. The strategist.