Ranko Marinkovic - Cyclops

“Oh, you mean when you ducked me?” She was laughing.

“No, that was really because of a man.”

“Or a woman. Admit it — you didn’t want her to see you with me.”

“There’s nothing to admit, Viviana. It was a man …” He really hadn’t wanted the Stranger to see him with her … and he was now ashamed of that. He was amazed that he should have been ready to abandon her because of … What’s the matter with me? He knew he could not stop now. And he was giving in to it. I’m snared, I’m snared, he complained to himself, but was unable to pull himself together and so began blurting out a series of “ownings up.” I’ll own up, Viviana … no, I know you’re going to laugh, but I’ll own up all the same … I must own up, Viviana, come what may …

This was all very flattering to her. Such a declaration. Including all his suffering, even this morning’s business with the tram. (She took the tram to be a suicide attempt abandoned at the last moment. He presented it like that himself, in a confused and muddled fashion, so she was bound to take it as she did.) It was too late to “mend” anything. She carried her smile high, triumphantly, as if following a victory. Flags fluttered over her head, brass bands blasted away, and everyone was shouting, there she is! There she is! The one alongside Melkior Tresić, that’s her, Viviana! Long live Viviana! In a gracious moment she actually slipped her arm through his, she was democratic, what of it, she didn’t care who knew, let the whole world see, Mr. Adam the palmist himself, Fred, too, and Maestro and Ugo, the entire Give’nTake brigade … that she was not ashamed. And he walked at her side like a “secondary personage” in a parade, the royal consort, a self-styled king, cuckoo-king, thin-king, sin-king, sunk in gloom and indignity. She withdrew her arm from the misalliance after ten steps or so, because … well, enough was enough. Blackness engulfed his soul again and he covered his eyes for a moment with the sad arm she had abandoned. He walked thus for a few moments like someone blinded by a blaze. All had been lost in an instant. He longed to be alone among the ruins.

“Did something get in your eye?” she asked with concern.

“No. Something just occurred to me,” he replied hastily retracting his hand.

“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” she said sarcastically, “some people lay a hand over their eyes when they’re thinking. Does it help you to think more clearly?”

“Yes it does … I’m sorry, Viviana, I must be off,” he said in a sudden rush.

“Just like that? All of a sudden?”

“That’s right, all of a sudden, there’s something I forgot to do. Goodbye.”

“You are a curious one. … All right then, au revoir.”

She held out her hand with a touch of regret. But he didn’t notice, he didn’t even notice the hand, he was already turning to go.

“Won’t you even give me your hand?”

“Oh, right, sorry …” He felt her small soft hand in his and wavered for a moment. But then a strange fury swept through him and he said Goodbye in a near shout and made for the first corner in a genuine hurry.

For the corner, for the corner, run for cover! She had her gaze trained on his trembling back. He walked at a weirdly uneven pace, ridiculous, shameful, like a petty thief with a stolen book under his arm. He was treading across a miry and accursed world, alone and desperate. His body felt to him like a frightened piglet, a seal, a turtle, cumbersome and sluggish, something which could only roll, stumble, and crawl. Something which never got where it was going, as if in a dream. The treacherous body jeering at its own misery. Would I were no more! Would I were the infectious air … I would suffocate the … preventively … But he was around the corner by then and the madness subsided instantly. Moreover, there surfaced Don Fernando’s preventively as a good sign of mordant humor. Yet he was still striding fast, like someone hurrying to reach an impatient destination. …

“Hey, what’s the rush, fair knight? Has it already started?”

The grinning fillings and the thick, lust-swollen lips. Melkior barely stopped himself from spitting into it all. How many times had he felt the symbolic impulse in his mouth as the resolution of his strange relationship with Ugo! Missed the opportunity again! An encounter of this particular kind was the last thing he needed. Ugo was blocking his way, his arms open for a vehement embrace.

“I want you to know I’m happy, dear friend!” he cried out loud, trying all the while to hug his friend and shower kisses on him, but Melkior had his arms out and kept retreating. “So exquisitely happy that it’s almost beyond your esteemed-accursed (read: wild) imagination. October brought a harvest surpassing all expectations. I have picked the fruits — I’m still sticky all over with the sweet dreams.”

“Only with the dreams?” smiled Melkior in a provocative way. He wanted to know, to know, be it even …

“Oh, with reality as well — and how!” exclaimed Ugo delightedly. “The dreams came later on, as a brief recapitulation. I belong to the genus of ruminants in that respect.”

“Meaning what, specifically?” Oh, he knew only too well what it meant, but he wanted to hear it — hear it! Unless this creep is …

“Meaning? You want me to … go into the details?” baring his fillings in a grin, drool pooling between his lip and his lower teeth. “Now, that would be a bit of … No, really, you must admit, we can’t violate a lady’s privacy, now can we?” and he burst into terrible, provocative, teasing laughter.

The night’s dark rings around her eyes had now acquired a very authentic explanation. Oh well, there was nothing for it, might as well get to the bottom …

“Which is to say you …?”

“Yes, I did.” Ugo was looking “innocently” into his eyes, but his snout was filled full of laughter.

“You’re lying, Parampion,” Melkior spat out the words with a pained smile, “I was with her until a minute ago.”

“Buying the precious fabrics for her aunt? I was supposed to go with her, only I overslept. Heh-heh, does it fit?”

That’s right. It fits, damn it! Of course, it fit in with her plans, too.

“And where did you …” Melkior made an easy-to-imagine gesture.

“First in a quiet little café , to quote a pop song from our puberty, if you still remember it. It’s actually a great place for ‘undercover’ people (I mean couples with a skeleton in the cupboard) with well-coached, discreet personnel. Then at her place.”

“Her place?”

“Yes. Is that beyond the imagination? But I made with the poetry while still at the café. Restless is the autumn air … while the hands, of course, went about their business … poetically. First the hair, for the sake of the rhyme, and then over the rest of the poetry. But the hardest of all, you know, was the passage across those zones … you’d explained it to me, scientifically, the erogenous zones. They are indeed — you were right on that point — highly sensitive points in women. Not to mention that it wasn’t quite the thing to do, getting sexually aroused in public. We’re not in a cage at the zoo, perbacco , the monkeys, remember? I told you about that time when I was nudging la fiancée toward the potential liberator … Oh, mon Dieu , I’m a right bastard, aren’t I? But once we got to her flat everything went smoothly, no resistance at all, over all the zones, heh-heh … But your eyes are flashing, Eustachius the Envious! Well, it wasn’t so hard to predict, eh?”

He may indeed have noticed a glint in Melkior’s eyes — he started fussing over him to give comfort in a flash of generosity.