Steve Tem - Onion Songs

“Do you mean my theories? Or would you like some sort of introduction?”

The man said nothing for a time, then replied, “Tell me what you would tell me.”

Malcolm worried over this, then asked, “How shall I address you?”

“You may call me Professeur . I think I would like that. At least that will suffice for now.”

Given the professeur ’s lack of precise direction, Malcolm had no idea how to begin. Seeking to avoid an extended and laborious back-and-forth, he started with his somewhat disorganized and impulsive decision to move to Paris, his struggles in the city to feed and shelter himself, his relationship with Degaré, finally culminating with the reason he had knocked on the man’s door: his bed-facilitated speculations regarding the problem of the human personality and its inherent conflicts.

Along the way Malcolm became progressively more aware of the increase of light in the room. He supposed it his eyes’ natural ability to acclimate to the ambient gloom, but the fire did appear brighter, fuller, more intense. With the heightened illumination came an abundance of raw detail: the shelves collapsing under the weight of oversized jars and mysterious machinery, the frightening cracks in the ancient beams high overhead, the litter of decaying documents and scrolls in the corners, the small piles of half-eaten food, the constant fall of cinnamony dust, the scattering of indecipherable taxidermy, the stain mark that ran along the walls at an identical height, a sign of some past flood survived. And with that increase in visual detail came a corresponding heightening of olfactory sensation, a blend of acrid and acidic aromas that tickled the nose, then burned. The state of the room seemed dramatically at odds with the elegance of the man who lived here, even if it was for only some short stay. Was this perhaps some Germanic trial of the spirit? Malcolm’s eyes began to weep involuntarily, and soon the entirety of him appeared to be leaking.

Perhaps these various elements led to a distortion in his senses, because Malcolm became convinced the professeur had been amused by his narration, the man’s finely sculpted features gradually warping under the pressure of an ill-fitting grin. However it was not an impression he felt comfortable commenting upon. Ne réflexion .

Finally the professeur spoke, an unmistakable smile dancing across his lips. “We will require several vessels for your various aspects, suitable bodies to contain the release of spiritual energy. Not too many as it is possible to spread the sauce too thin, as it were.”

“Vessels?”

“They need not be informed volunteers. Tell them I will feed them, pay them, whatever. I will recruit a few, but if one might acquire at least one, as assurance?”

“I do not wish to hurt anyone.”

“How might you hurt them? Paris is full of aimless foreigners now. Czechs, Poles, Asians, uncountable young Brits such as yourself. You yourself say that one meaning is as good as any other. We live in a time in which the world is full of wandering spirits. How do you know you will not be providing them with a better meaning? You might do them a favor! Bring whoever you may find here tomorrow. A similar time.”

It would be no exaggeration to say Malcolm felt qualms, although they were not of the moral kind, since he did not believe in that sort of thing. He did believe, however, in survival of the fittest, and the imperative of doing what was required by the environment you were in, which all seemed to add up to a rough sort of justice, and this particular activity, this collecting of vessels, seemed somehow less than just. Of course he did not relate all of this to Degaré, but Degaré was , indeed, his confessor, and so he did manage to cover the bare outlines of the problem.

“ Merde .” Degaré spat into the restaurant’s dishwater. “I would give you myself if I could, for the price we discussed, but pardonnez moi , I find I am not yet prepared for such a major life change.” He thought for a moment, rubbing soapsuds through his greasy locks. “Have you thought of Zajic?”

“The kitchen slops man? The Czech?”

“The very one. He broke up with another girlfriend. He mopes all day, he cries. Get him out of here, I say, before I kill him.”

Malcolm found Zajic sitting out in the alley behind the kitchen, weeping. He crouched beside him and commiserated. It was not an entirely false commiseration—he had a few memories of his own, but he had lost his belief in romance long before he had lost his belief in religion. Neither was of any practical use to him.

He offered Zajic some food. The Czech smiled, his hard, slabbed, clay-like face splitting in unused directions. Malcolm offered him a job, and was suddenly swallowed by the slop man’s unwelcome embrace.

In the same gloomy chamber Malcolm lay on a low bed made up of straw and planks and the thinnest of blankets. Zajic lay on a similar arrangement beside him, nearly unconscious from heavy drink. Malcolm had drunk a small amount of wine but wanted to be relatively clear-headed for this procedure, this extraction.

But he was being constantly distracted by a commotion behind the door in a generally left direction, behind his line of sight. He hadn’t noticed a door there before, but he could hear it creaking, opening now and then, shutting with a soft bang, and the people behind it, murmuring drunkenly, possibly weeping.

“Pay no attention to them.” Meyer, the professeur , was suddenly above him, and unless Malcolm misapprehended, gazing down at them as if they were babies in their cribs. “They will come in later during the process. We start with one, we expand to two, as many vessels as are needed. The mathematics are inexact—I will know only after we have begun.”

“But they seem distressed.”

“Distressed? Oh, non , I assure you. They are simply anxious to be a part of this great expérimentent . We are surrounded by a surfeit of life force—surely you can feel it? Yours, our volunteers’, the spirits of all the soldiers who died in the war? So much to channel, to redirect, to sort! I must ask you to simply relax. I have something more for you to drink. It will go well with your wine.”

The taste was strong and bitter, but the bitterness went away immediately, replaced by an overpowering sweetness. The professor smiled broadly and danced around the room, his arms above his head, loose and waving, rubbery. But then he was back close again, a moldering book in his hands, whispering, but Malcolm could not hear him. The anxious people behind the door were too loud.

The professor caressed Malcolm’s side, and his fingertip came away bloody, and there was a knife in his hand, dripping. Malcolm watched as the professor used the knife to carve shreds out of the book, then stuffed those shreds into the wound in Zajic’s side. He had a moment’s anticipation of a different, simpler life to come, fewer complications and conflicts, an avoidance of misunderstandings. And then the professor strolled over to him, grinning widely, his hands full of those shreds, those fragments of ancient narratives, and then the professor’s hands went inside Malcolm, where they stayed, and became busy as insects.

He had been in Paris for decades, it seemed. He could not recall the year he had arrived from Prague, or the look of Prague in even the most general of detail. He could not recall why he had ever left, but he was sure it could not be desperation. It could not be desperation.

There would be no point. Worlds were coming to an end and there was no point. The cities were all failing at the same time. Had no one else noticed this? Could he be the only one?