Ranko Marinkovic - Cyclops

“Off to register, is that it?” asked ATMAN, gently tugging at his sleeve.

“Register what?” Melkior cringed at the touch.

“Why, your friend … your guest. See, Mic, he didn’t even remember. You have a guest, you should register his arrival with the police. There’s the Registry Office,” he pointed to a sign above Melkior’s head, “that’s why I asked. They’ve become very strict about such things lately, on account of the spy scare.” ATMAN even gave a caring smile and showed immediate readiness to be of service.

“Oh, the registration … Thank you, the landlady took care of it, she went this morning. …” Melkior was still standing in front of them, motionless, as if movement hurt.

“But we’re holding up the gentleman,” she mediated, “perhaps he has …”

“No, no, I haven’t,” Melkior said hastily and looked up at her, the accursed beauty. She wants to get rid of me. “I merely came out for my walk, as convalescents like to say,” and he tried to smile at her but barely managed to bring it off.

“Patients on the mend,” ATMAN translated for her acidly.

“And you, Mac, you take me for such a fool!” she said in serious anger.

“Come on, Mic, I only meant this was not the best kind of air for a walk such as that,” and he peeked confidentially up at the building above. “The atmosphere’s rather … errr …” (he could not seem to find the right word), “wouldn’t you say?”

“ The atmosphere … what a load of rubbish. Why don’t you come right out and say let’s all of us take a nice walk somewhere.” She was warming to the idea in the usual feminine way. “The Botanical Gardens, for instance. We’ll read the Latin names for the plants. There are ever such lovely names there.”

“Yes, that’s where many have come up with names for their daughters,” laughed ATMAN. “The Botanical Gardens are for pregnant women and jilted students to stroll in. Come to think of it, Mr. Melkior can come up with pretty names, too. Viviana , would that be a plant?”

“No, I don’t believe it is,” snapped Melkior churlishly. He feared ATMAN was springing another of his traps and thought he’d like to get away.

“Going to leave us again, are you?” asked Viviana coquettishly. “Like you left me this morning in the middle of the street …”

“Did Ugo find you? I met him afterward, he was very sorry he’d overslept your date.” Melkior said this deliberately, but in a completely innocent way, like a small child innocuously prattling cheery information. He was getting his own back at her.

“Date? Hah! The things people make up!”

He saw he had elicited a profound hatred: she was giving him the same look she had given him that night at the Give’nTake when she was with Freddie. The same splotches had broken out on her face, too. Sunspots! A storm is brewing … He therefore set his legs in motion, said goodbye and disappeared around the nearest corner without bothering about the direction.

The Quisisana was crowded and the air inside thick and noxious. The smells of fried onions, black coffee, and human fumes. Melkior felt sick from the medley dropping to his stomach via the nose. That’s from hunger. He blocked the spasm and hastily inserted some small change in the automat, which congenially offered him a sandwich. He downed it in two bites. The piece of pickle instantly calmed the sickly roiling of his insides. He inserted another coin or two: the miniature lift dropped to the floor below and the open door (here you are, sir!) revealed a sardine’s tail between yellow figure eights of mayonnaise, both covered by a disk of salami and a thin triangle of riddled cheese. This “still life” received different treatment: he ground it methodically with his teeth, letting the hungry mouth caress its fill of yearned-for love. And the mouth seemed to whisper its ahhs and ohhs in a vulgarly sentimental way, exactly as in a genuine orgasm. The stomach, for its part, gratefully acknowledged the divine poetry from up above and went about its business humming contentedly. Flooded subsequently by a beer shower it gurgled delightedly, overjoyed. And burped “thanks.”

Up above, Lord Melkior was already perched godlike on thick clouds of smoke and, in an Olympian mood, allowing voices into his pampered presence.

“Peculiar, very peculiar indeed,” said a tall man gloomily bent over an unfolded sheet of newspaper on which he was eating something. His short interlocutor was standing on tiptoe with an important air, displaying full comprehension of what he was being told. “Even when contemplating the crucial decision to take their own life, people can be quite peculiar,” went on Gloom & Doom, and Shorty raised and lowered himself twice in agreement. “Some have been known to invest remarkable effort in their suicide. The most bizarre suicide of our times was certainly that of a very rich Texan farmer. One day, while flying over his house in an old farming-cum-produce-transport aeroplane, he leaped out, impaling himself upon the pointed stakes that supported the fencing around his farmhouse. The impact drove the stakes straight through him, for he landed flat, back first. Apparently he had settled on the spot in advance.

“But the most romantic of all was the suicide of a certain Frenchwoman. She checked into a hotel, asking for the room in which she had first slept with her lover, who had subsequently left her. For five days she brought armfuls of fragrant flowers to the room, sleeping meanwhile elsewhere. On the sixth night she locked herself in, never to come out again. She was found two days later in her bed, covered with flowers — dead, of course. Suffocated by the flowers. How about that?”

“Yes,” said Shorty, self-important. “Some even drive nails into their skulls!” “Right, right, right!” responded Gloom & Doom with curious elation. “They even choose which sort of nail in advance! Not just any nail — it’s got to be a particular sort of nail … The selection sometimes takes years.”

“Right,” said Shorty with gusto. He liked the level of the conversation — he obviously enjoyed a discussion of psychology.

“Take for instance the Chinese immigrant somewhere in Australia …”

“Where do you get it all from?” Shorty was clearly envious.

“I follow it in the papers. I take an interest in these things,” replied Gloom & Doom with a modest smile. “The Chinaman spent a year building an extremely elegant, polished gallows replete with ornament and artistic detail. Everyone wondered at the idea of building the curious structure, but his sole reply to all questions was the well-known gentle Chinese smile. Once he had decided the gallows was finished he hanged himself on it.”

“Did you ever hear,” Shorty barged in, “about the man who opened graves and tied green ribbons around the cadavers’ big toes? He was wanted by Scotland Yard,” he finished triumphantly.

“I know, I read about it,” Gloom & Doom took it up delightedly. “Tell me more.”

“Oh, well, seeing that you know already …”

“Never mind, I like hearing about it again! Thing is, though, he tied yellow ribbons to some, but the reason for this has remained a mystery. He has evaded arrest to this day.”

“Yes,” Shorty drew himself up importantly (a man in the know), “it was thought at first there might be something anti-Semitic afoot, but that notion was given up eventually. … Very few got the yellow ribbon, only three or four. A mystery.” Shorty sank into deep thought.

“Because he can’t have done it for no reason — I mean he must have had a purpose,” prodded Gloom & Doom to keep the conversation from petering out. “It’s no picnic, opening graves, it is hard work, physically speaking.”