Ranko Marinkovic - Cyclops

Ugo gave him a delighted kiss. “God, what talent! The way you come right out with it, off the cuff!”

U-go and chew bricks, simpleton. Then it came to him in a flash: it’s for Viviana! He’s got a date with her tonight after all! And October’s gentle breath permeates your golden hair. She’ll ask him to write it down in her album, permeates your golden hair. What’s per-mee-ate, pet? I bet it’s something risqué. Just like you! “You could have thought of something finer for her,” he said, with a mouth on which the smile had dried.

“What, isn’t it all right now?” Ugo was anxious. “Well, you are cruel! Telling me to put gentle breath! You conned me, Eustachius, didn’t you? Of course you did, it’s so pedestrian: death/breath. Vacuous. Just like you.”

“Don’t worry, she’ll love it. Ah-ha, she’ll say, I’ve made poetry! If she’s heard of Laura, you’re Petrarch.”

“Wait a minute, Eustachius the Suspicious!” gaped Ugo in mock surprise, showing his large fillings, “who do you think I’m writing this for? You who keep boasting, ‘I know him — I’m a judge of character.’ Oh no, you don’t know me at all. Today’s my fiancée’s birthday and I can’t afford a gift — I’m broke. I’m giving her a poem instead — a sonnet, if you wish to humiliate me to the fullest!”

“The old hope has died the death is your fiancée, and the gentle breath is in Viviana’s hair,” said Melkior, and he got up restlessly.

“Oh what a libidologist you are, Eustachius the Unerring!”

“Is this an admission then?”

“Yes.” Ugo dropped his eyes like a young sinning girl. “But … but it’s all innocent, pure, like being at First Communion. On an ideal plane. That’s the whole point. Poor fiancée.”

Melkior had seen her with him now and again in the evening hours, the time set aside for her. The Café, Gita’s, mainly a student hangout, fruit salad and coffee, very cheap. Or the cinema, Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald. Rose Marie. Touching. She liked a good cry at the film. A super film. His senior by at least four or five years, fashion dressmaker, skinny, long thin legs, square-hips-flat-behind, breasts gathered into two modest handfuls underneath a virginal blouse, mole on chin with three resilient hairs growing from it. Three palm trees on Happiness Island. She was not fond of Melkior. She did like having a romp, though, in his room with her fiancé.

But the fiancé was getting acute attacks of other loves. Fellow undergraduate, co-ed Cica, springtime, walks, sonnets. The old hope has died the death. He would park his fiancée for the night (a bit of student slang, that) as early as nine o’clock and go on to make a night of it with Cica. Hey, why didn’t the fiancée fall in love with someone else, too? Idea for breakup, it’s all your fault, to think I trusted you so blindly, you sly minx. Worse. He took her to the zoo. Animals mate in springtime, women love to watch, it excites them. In front of the monkey cage — he told Melkior so himself — at the exact moment of simian joy. A young man was standing on the other side of her, watching edgily. Her face changed colors, jealousy. Let’s move on, pet. Her voice was uneven, as if she had been running hard. He kept giving her little nudges toward the young man hoping the man would see her, that she would see him, that there would flare up between them a great, irresistible love, monkey-inspired, leaving him free with Cica, in vernal sonnets. A mad hope, a futile one. That hope, too, died the death. The young man, taken onanis-tically unawares, walked off. Sorry, ma’am. She gave him a parting look after all (or so it seemed to him) in that way, the monkey way. Something must have sparked. And he was jealous. And he quarreled with her. You’re just a she-ape in rut! You’re now ready to do it with anyone. And she cried. I love you. He then stroked her thinning hair and took her to the woods behind the zoo and they romped like monkeys.

“If it’s so pure , you could have written something better for her.” Melkior was pacing the room with a vengeful grin. Inside him flourished a sadness in the temperate climate of small despair. A mood of mild poisoning. Fatigue. Yawning. Humor.

“I’m sure you could have!” retorted Ugo in angry frustration. “There was no time, for one thing. I was waiting there to collect the whoring tax from Kalisto after lunch, but that man Dom … your catechism instructor … went on and on about his red corpuscles. There was no end to it. Mother shed a tear for each corpuscle, and Kalisto went pale with fear — white corpuscles all over the place. It was all I could do to lure him away and into my room for a somewhat more spirited tête-à-tête. I cited you as witness to his movements around the post office this morning. Well, what do you care — he can’t stand you anyway. But it worked, I can tell you that. I also mentioned buying a birthday present for the fiancée. I’m short of cash, he said, I’ve put money down in advance for coal. Not to mention where she (the fiancée, that is) seems to have birthdays more than once a year. Oh, my son, my son, when are you going to stand on your own two feet? Oh, Daddy, Daddy, I’ve been standing on my own two feet in front of you for at least half an hour. Oh, my son, you’re good for nothing. Oh, Daddy, you’re good for everything. Following the exchange of diplomatic notes we proceeded to implement a reparation treaty. And, lo and behold, Kalisto coughed up a shiny Protect Yugoslavia.” Ugo flipped a silver fifty-dinar piece and caught it in his palm. “Alley oop!”

“Enough for a high-style Give’nTake session tonight, I expect.”

“Not at all. It’s Give’n Make tonight, as a matter of fact,” said Ugo triumphantly. “A quiet place with well-behaved waiters. There’ll have to be poetry whispered into a shell-like ear. If only there could be a bit of Petrarch, dolci ire, dolci sdegni et dolci paci. October’s gentle breath, oh, quelle différence! Apart from permeates , it’s all at a Kalisto love level. Wouldn’t you happen, Eustachius the Generous, to have among your remaindered stock a line or two to spare? Spare Christian, Oh Cyrano the great, a spark of your wit so that with Roxanne he can be a big hit!”

“I haven’t got any, poor Christian, the mind’s gone dry, my dear. Not that it could help you, with your mouth from ear to ear.”

“And the fillings, don’t forget, stomp me right into the ground, kind Eustachius, why don’t you. Is that the way to speak to a man all atremble before a date with his beloved? With nothing in his pocket but your October!”

“All right then, toss it.” Melkior flung himself on the sofa back-first. The springs let out a painful sob.

“Toss it? And recite what instead? Damned Brumaire? Where’s that one with Little one, I am but a painted clown? Remember? You penned it for Mina. That time you nearly got crowned with a siphon bottle for your pains. Be honest — who was it who saved you? That’s the one I need. It would suit me for other reasons, too; I mean suit my mood and my state of mind in general.”

“God knows where it might beee …” Melkior yawned fit to bring on tears. He was painfully hungry.

“Well, what do you know, I’m a bore. You’re yawning. Don’t be a beast, Eustachius, lend us the poem.”

“I told you I don’t know where it is, didn’t I?” and all the while he was thinking, Where else could it be? In the yellow folder along with Mina’s only letter, the one saying she was going back to her fiancé, farewell. Fare thee well Mina. Eyes like yours I shall never again … Give him that to conquer Viviana with? Farewell my love. The sun goes slowly down, Preparing my vigil in the endless night, My bittersweet dreams and my thorned crown. May your tomorrow be bracing and bright, While I …