Ranko Marinkovic - Cyclops

“You there … whatever your name is,” spoke up Menjou in the end.

“Melkior.” Of course. Here it comes. He had been expecting it.

“You there, Meteor …”

“Melkior!”

“Listen, Meteor,” said Menjou with the greatest contempt, “have you been up to any funny business with her?”

“You won’t thcore with her, my boy …” Herma was saying in an almost friendly tone.

“There have been better Toreadors before you, Mon-sewer Matador, and they’ve all drawn a blank.”

“I was polite with the young lady …”

“Listen to this — he was polite!” exclaimed Menjou, stirring them up.

“She never, never went away like that before, without a goodbye,” said Little Guy to him in a low, confidential voice. “You must’ve offended her in some way.”

“Tho, thee!” jubilated Hermaphrodite maliciously. “You offended the wady!”

“I didn’t say anything bad to her …”

I’m being defensive, thought Melkior, and that’s not good, damn it. The Parampion would have attacked. He would have pulled off a putsch and taken control.

But how do you go about it? (He had long been trying to think of a putsch whereby the red-haired Asclepian would take control of the cannibals.) Perhaps if he opened the window overlooking the courtyard and spoke from there, made a demagogical speech … Oh no, friends and countrymen, I come not to the window to denounce, for Menjou is an honorable man; so are they all, all honorable men … (muttering in the courtyard — a sign of protest) but only to vindicate my vain heart. You know how weak the human heart is for you are good, kindhearted men; and mine is wounded withal. I would show you my wounded heart, but this dare I not, for I should do Menjou wrong, I should do them all wrong, and they, as you know full well, are honorable men. (Hem, hem — uncertain muttering in the courtyard.) I choose, then, to keep my silence and bear my pain for the sake of peace and for the esteem in which I hold so honorable a man as Menjou. But he says I offended her and was up to, ahem, funny business with her … and his words are prompted by love, by care of her honor, for he is an honorable man and doth love her honorably. He knows, therefore, what love is and could certainly tell you what offense there be in one man’s love that there be not in another’s. I know not — alas! — how my sighs can be an impediment to his love. Can sighs infect the air wherein basks a man’s bliss? I am not the orator Menjou is; I have not the power of speech to couch in sweet-sounding words that which you yourselves do know. But he is wise and eloquent, and thus bound to tell you wherein my offense lay. (Let us ask him! Let him tell us!) He will no doubt answer you for he is indeed an honorable man.

But what will he be able to tell you? That I did with but one finger touch her dress; that and nothing more. What private griefs they have, alas! I know not, that made them call me impertinent. They know it. But what impertinence be there in that light touch of a finger — a finger which fear had made to tremble withal? (A voice: Oh woeful day!) Sweet friends and countrymen, a brazen fellow hath not a blushing cheek, as you know full well. Not a trembler he, but a grabber. And I tremble e’en now at the thought of the touch of that sacred dress. Perhaps she expected me to grab her hand and kiss it. What woman does not? As she was counting the beat of my maddened pulse, perhaps she felt the same stirrings in her own blood? And what is it I did? Nothing, or nearly nothing: I touched her dress with a finger. Did this in me seem brazen? (A voice: Never! Another voice: If thou consider rightly of the matter, he has had great wrong. Third voice: Truly spoken! He is a just man, and they are villains! First voice: We see it now — Menjou is a traitor! Second voice: Let not the traitor live! We’ll burn the bed of Menjou!)

Stay, gentle friends! You go to do you know not what. Wherein have I thus deserv’d your loves? What am I to you? (Voices: You are our leader! The Admiral!) Other voices: Hear! hear! You are our admiral! Let us board ships and sail away! A voice (poetically): Let us sail away. Gulls and clouds will ask us: who are you? what do you seek? … and our sails will reply: Melkior sails! Melkior seeks a barren reef … (the poetic voice drowns in tears. All the others begin crying, too).

Blessed be those tears, my people! Away, then! But … wait an instant … for I wish to be quite clean before you. (Voices: It’s all right, you’re clean! Let’s go!) Not quite I’m not, friends and countrymen. (Yes you are, pure as an angel!) No, no, I have passions and lusts flaming inside me. (All the better — that means you’re a man! ha-ha laughter full of admiration.) Yes, but what kind of man? One with low, Priapic passions. Priapus, Priapus, exclaimed … I can’t tell you who, she’s a married woman. As for our chaste, white nurse … Acika (indeed a name to sneeze at, he thought in passing), I tried to embrace and kiss her, too, by force, friends and countrymen, because she’s a smashing little muffin, is she not? (Wow, Admiral, you do take the cake! — this in admiration and approval down in the courtyard.)

“You’re not to trust him, good-looking folk, you’re not to trust him!” shouts a voice from above ( deus ex machina , thinks Melkior). “You’re not to trust him, he’s up to his ears in love — I know him! (Goodbye Viviana, mutters the voice in passing.) Lets on he’s a cynic — and him an honorable man indeed. Eustachius, be our leader! Our admiral!” and the huge black fillings darkened the sky. Ugo’s appealing voice. But what is he doing here? “Exalted Parampion, it’s you!” exclaimed Melkior joyously and heard his voice strangely distant from himself as though it had been an echo exclaiming.

Melkior felt his nose being pulled. He woke up instantly and opened his eyes wide in surprise. Sitting on his bed was a bulky young man in white, his mouth stretched into a make-believe smile, looking at him in a sticky-sweet way, “Good morning” fairly flowing from his ocular liquid.

“Name’s Mitar. Vampire, they call me. Shh, don’t wake ’em up, I got the moniker here in this very room,” whispered the man in white. “It’s all right — I’m just a lab tech, I came for a drop of your blood.”

Melkior thought he was dreaming. “Friends and countrymen,” he said mechanically and propped himself on his elbows to clear his head. They come to suck your blood in your sleep, the vampires … Old wives’ tales. All the same horror slithered up his back.

The others were still asleep, slurping up the last dregs of sleep before morning wake-up. They blew in and out cooperatively at their common task, Hermaphrodite’s lusty snore taking the lead. Melkior heaved a sigh of envy.

“What do you need my blood for?” he said, looking hopelessly at the gray wall in front.

“All right, so you refuse,” Mitar concluded indifferently. “I’ll report that to the Major.”

“I only said, ‘What do you need my blood for?’” Melkior now fully awake. “I haven’t got two thimblefuls in me.”

“I can make do with one,” smiled Mitar sweetly. “But it doesn’t follow that I’m just a lightweight … I do have some say in things. Know what blood work is?”

“No.”

“Well then.”

“Where will you take it from?” Melkior offered him an arm.

“Take it easy. We don’t have to do it right away. Just relax and lie back down.” He cautiously laid Melkior down on his back and covered him up to the chin. He even pushed Melkior’s arms under the covers. “You’re a patient, you must take care of yourself. If you want to get well again, you’ve got to comply. What do you think we’re here for?”