“Well, what is it, you …” came the voice from underneath the blanket, only to be overcome by a volley of sneezes so it couldn’t curse at Melkior, which it most probably had been about to do judging by the tone of the question.
Atchoo. Melkior waited for the sneezing to stop. He then sensibly thought: how can I say this to a man under a blanket? I haven’t even seen his face … He’s clearly got the flu—seeing as he’s eating garlic and drinking brandy; now he’s sweating under there …
“You still here?”
“Yes.” It suddenly seemed to Melkior that he was talking to a man dead and buried.
“Well, speak up …” this time he managed to get his oath in. “Can’t you see I’m damned near death’s door here … Make it snappy!”
“I believe you need hot tea and aspirin.” Melkior approached the bed meekly: “Have you got the flu?”
“What’s the matter, did you come here to make a monkey out of me?” The officer threw the blanket aside in a threatening gesture.
Melkior remained in place. He watched the man with pity. A young second lieutenant in a wrinkled old (field) uniform with cracked epaulettes. The eyes feverish, turbid, the face burning with heat, the hair wet, plastered down over the ears and forehead … poor lieutenant! They had left him, sick as he was, under that blanket, with a bottle of slivovitz and a bulb of garlic … and off they went, fled …
“Well, what the hell is it?” He didn’t have the strength to get up, he only propped himself on an elbow.
Careful! You still have time to say: I’m looking for So-and-So, he’s a staff captain, a relative of mine …
“I came to report for service,” enunciated Melkior nevertheless. Who knows why he was now reminded of Numbskull … the man brought me oranges …
“Draft-dodger?” asked the lieutenant with accustomed boredom. He closed his eyes in pain, his head was splitting.
“Volunteer,” said Melkior with resolute clarity.
“What did you say?” the lieutenant seemed not to have heard him right.
“I’m reporting as a volunteer,” repeated Melkior clearly.
“Why?” the lieutenant let slip unthinkingly.
“To fight …” Pupo slapped his back: see, you’re an honest man.
“How come you’re not … Wait,” he remembered something, “I’ll take you to see the captain, this is not my business.”
He did not wait long outside one of the doors in the corridor. The lieutenant came out and said go in, and off he went, probably to get back under the blanket again, to sweat …
Melkior suddenly found himself facing a lean officer, grave and morose under a drooping black moustache. Four stars: captain first class, interpreted Melkior. He was sitting at a bare army desk and staring with boredom through the window.
“Don’t you know how to close the door after you?” the captain muttered sternly without even a look at the newcomer.
When Melkior had closed the door: “Over here, come closer.” He now turned to cast a glance at Melkior, superficially, with a strange smile.
“So you want tooo …”
“Yes.”
“What?” the captain snorted angrily; his moustache shook.
“To enlist as a volunteer.” Melkior could no longer recognize his own voice (everything here was stern, brief, regular …), the words came out of their own volition, as if under hypnosis.
The captain was now examining him with a cold, mocking gaze. Melkior felt like a comical worn-out object offered at the Kikinis pawnshop: he’s bartering to lower my price with that gaze …
“How come you weren’t drafted? You’re young enough and you look fit,” he was gauging Melkior’s legs and shoulders, chest, arms, head …
“I was discharged … unfit for service,” said Melkior with a tinge of shame. It’s a disgrace here. … Why did I get into this? He wanted to turn and go.
“Unfit for service. … So you haven’t done your stint. No rank. Intellectual?”
Melkior nodded mechanically, looking over the captain’s head, at a map of the kingdom, for the town of Varaždin. So that’s where they already are? Near enough …
The captain took out a sheet of paper and dipped his pen into the inkwell:
“Last name, father’s name, first name? Year and place of birth? Military district and unit where you served?”
Melkior duly told him everything. He then addressed Pupo: there, see?
“Now there’s another thing I want you to tell me,” the captain raised a kind look at Melkior and said in a seemingly fatherly voice: “Why are you enlisting?”
“Well … the country has been attacked!” He now really meant to feign ardent patriotism (Pechárek, Kink and Countwy), but instead he was thinking of Pupo: rifles and ammunition, boots …
“And you care an awful lot for this country, is that it?” The captain’s smile was twinkling with insidious distrust. “Anyway, I’d like you to tell me, in confidence … look, it’s not that I object or anything—no, you’re doing a fine thing … you were told to enlist, were you? Come on, tell me, there’s nothing to be afraid of, everything’s fine, see, I’ve taken down your statement, but who sent you here?” Melkior’s blood stopped running for an instant: this is an interrogation! But Pupo did not send me …
“Why would anyone send me? I came on my own.” Some common decency protested inside him.
“To fight, eh?” The captain went on looking at him for some time, with the same twinkling smile.
He’s studying me, he’s thinking: does this simple fellow really want to lay down his life in vain? The scoundrel doesn’t believe in patriotism, he’s got civilian clothes stashed in the locker, he’ll skedaddle when they get here, shave the moustache …
“Goood,” concluded the captain. “If that’s what it is, young man, fiiine.” He stood up and took the sheet of paper from the desk: “Wait here a minute. Here, have a smoke,” he gave him a wink, “good man,” and left the room.
Sure, they offer you cigarettes to gain your confidence. … Just like in the cinema: pushing a silver case under his nose, “Cigarette?” lighting his first (such manners!) and then his own afterward, with the same flame, fraternally. Both smoking, blowing smoke away, their clouds of smoke merging in the air (so, a pipe of peace, you might say) ahh, never mind which smoke is whose, believe me, my dear fellow … I’ve nothing against you personally (switching to a more intimate tone) but there you are, you’ve got to handle this boring piece of business, it’s orders from above, if you ask me I’d much rather down a couple of shots with you (the damned fools have banned alcoholic beverages on the premises) and go for a game of cards (that’s forbidden, too, everything that’s any fun is forbidden) or just have a good old chat, ha-ha, about you know what. … I’ve seen you with that dame, you sly so-and-so. … Now, the surgeon fellow, isn’t he her hubbie, heh-heh? Coco? That’s what she calls him? Hang on a second, finish the cigarette, back in a jiffy …
A telephone was jangling somewhere in the building. Call Enka. Coco has been “called up.” War, wounded men, torn flesh, surgeons in their element. … What am I sitting here waiting for? He’s now speaking to the police, goood, send a man over, goood, an intellectual, having a smoke, yes of course, I’ll keep him here until you arrive, goood …
Melkior stole on tiptoe to the door: silence in the corridor, silence in the army building … and there’s a war raging out there along all the frontiers! A voice in the adjoining room was elocuting confidentially over the phone: it was he, the captain, supplying Melkior’s description … nose: regular, moustache: clean-shaven, beard: clean-shaven, distinguishing marks: none. … He pressed the knob and gave the door a slight push … it squealed, a stool pigeon, everything’s set up this way here, purposely not oiled …
The empty corridor stretched away in both directions … To the right, of course! The captain was still chatting into the telephone on the left … Behind the lieutenant’s door came the sick man’s groans, burning up with fever
, brandy and garlic, folk remedies. Smells. He tiptoed along. Heels pound straight from the coccyx, from the spine, from the head, with the entire weight of the body; on tiptoe the body loses weight, moves on light springs—ballet … The way thieves, spies, lovers walk, the way people who are skulking and escaping walk, with fear crawling over their skin.
Once in the doorway he treaded on his whole feet. Within reach of salvation: street, corner, broad urban expanse—tiny needle in haystack, adieu, mon capitane, regards from the volunteer deserter, now there’s a paradox.
“All OK, mate? Sorted it out with the brass?” asked the sergeant at the gate, already with a grin of familiarity.
“Yes indeed, sssergeant! Sssee you! Sssee you, too, sssentry!” he hissed mischievously.
The sergeant replied “See ya,” the soldier clicked his heels mechanically. He was in for a dressing-down by the sergeant: What did you click your heels for, nitwit? Saluting a civilian!—A volunteer deserter, Sergeant … if you’ve heard of that arm in the royal forces.
Melkior was in a great hurry to get around the next corner.
But why should I call her?—He halted in front of a telephone booth—that four, four, Ambulance Service business … I’ve forgotten the number anyway. I’ll go straight there. Coco has, as we said, been “called up.” That officer must be looking for me now, goood … Yelling at the sergeant: Why did you let him leave, you cretin! And the Black Maria standing in front of the Garrison Command gate, wide open … its bowels stinking of Lysol … waiting for the volunteer deserter—apparently, in vain.
The tram was chiming with holiday courtesy, greeting acquaintances on the street—hey there! It did not care that the day was cold and bleak. Coming calmly to a halt, its windows smiling: won’t you come in? It took Melkior aboard, too, ting-a-ling, let’s go. The traveling burghers were morose, angry, call this Palm Sunday?—You’ve got to wear a winter coat, snowing like it’s New Year’s Eve! No, honestly—everything’s gone haywire!
A burgher was venting his anger at the weather, heh-heh. … Off to his Sunday lunch, potage, plaice, poultry, pork, pies, puff pastry, pancakes, pass the port, pop the cork, let’s have a bit of a singsong … aah, they’ve spoiled it all, the idiots! Who can eat under these circumstances? The brutes went and hung a war overhead—go on, knock the plate with your fork if you can! And all that on Palm Sunday, if you please! Chose the right day for it, that’s for sure!
Back, in childhood, there blew a close, hot, moist, so-called passion day southerly wind; the sky without a trace of blue, with ragged rapid clouds, the sea lead-gray, mournful … It gave you a foretaste of the Savior’s passion and death. Dom Kuzma had explained at school beforehand that it had been like that, too, during that long-ago week (which we now call the Holy Week) from Palm Sunday, when Jesus had entered Jerusalem, to Holy Saturday, or rather Holy Sunday, Resurrection Day, when He was resurrected. (Melkior was never clear on whether Jesus had been resurrected on Saturday, at the second peal of the bells, or on Sunday, when Easter is celebrated … but nobody dared ask Dom Kuzma). The boys in the white sailor suits, the girls in the white dresses, with braided palm fronds and olive twigs in their hands, under the tall church vaults, in the fragrant smoke of incense, in the sounds of the organ … a grand occasion. Now and again the bishop himself, under his miter, crosier in hand, would serve Mass, the Pontifical, and they would undress him and put on his robes, put his shoes off and on, and Dom Kuzma appeared to be a valet to a lord. Melkior was amazed: how could Dom Kuzma be such a … a nobody, just someone who put the Bishop’s slippers on for him?
But then on Good Friday, when they showed Jesus’ Passion in Church, Dom Kuzma was Jesus! They all shouted in his face: crucify him, crucify him! Annas and Caiaphas the high priests, scribes, customs men, Pharisees and servants in Caiaphas’s palace. … Dost thou answer the high priest so? an officer said to him and slapped him on the cheek. And Dom Kuzma, in a long white robe with a palm branch over a mighty shoulder, his ears jutting out alarmingly, took it all in stride and replied, mild, meek, humble: If I have spoken evil, bear witness to the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me? Pilate, the Roman procurator, was the only one who did not shout. He was indeed prepared to release him. What he saw was just a harmless fellow spouting drivel … Art thou the King of the Jews? he asked the poor dreamer with seigneurial irony … he was at a loss for what to do with the crank. And Dom Kuzma again said meekly, humbly: My kingdom is not of this world … Pilate went out to face the Judaean mob: shall I crucify your King? The occupying potentate was mocking the enslaved people divided by political passions. We have no king but Caesar! bellowed the mob mindlessly. Away with this man, and release unto us Barabas! Pilate did as they demanded and washed his hands diplomatically: that was how it was with the dirty business of politics …
Melkior had been incensed by the injustice.
… And Dom Kuzma could have crushed the entire churchful of them with his bare hands … only nobody dared mention anything about his ears!
“It’s all some big business deal or other and spit in my face if it isn’t.” The burgher (he had a gold watch-chain across his belly) was very angry at “this war”: this is only the beginning, there’s no telling what we’re in for next …
“I daresay there are loftier things: after all, people die for their ideals!” The other was disgusted at the vulgar approach: “That’s materialism, that is!” he exclaimed accusingly. “It’s all the rage with the hotheads these days …” he was looking suspiciously at Melkior (or so it seemed to Melkior), this chap’s eavesdropping on our conversation a bit too closely …
“No war has been anything but a business deal since year one, and you can call me a jackass if you like! It was always a case of someone making a bundle … and someone else biting the dust.”
“Oh!” cried the idealist cut to the quick, “and what about the honorable victims, what about the fallen heroes?”
“It’s all about biting the dust, call me an ape if you like. It’s all savagery … wheeling and dealing.”
Melkior was getting off at the next stop. Pity. Will the idealist-warrior spit in his face?
“How many wise men have perished at the hands of savage soldiery? Ever since ancient Greece and Rome. Carthage …”
“Syracuse!” shouted Melkior jumping off the tram. “Archimedes murdered! Lepanto, Cervantes’ arm crippled!”
The tram was already pulling out, the materialist smiled at him behind glass in gratitude for his help.
Arm … the right or the left? Actually cut off … with a sword? Longin Podbipieta. Those were Turks at Lepanto, Damascus sabers … Where’s this Lepanto place anyway? Perhaps he wrote all of Don Quixote with his left hand … and in a dungeon at that, on bread and water. A cripple. Don Miguel Saavedra. “Do you think, gentlemen, that it’s an easy job to inflate a dog?” says the madman in the preface to Part Two. “Do you think, sir, that it’s an easy job to write a book?” adds Don Miguel, the cripple of Lepanto.
He was in front of Enka’s house.
“I have often walked down this street before …” he hummed in a low voice (there was a song that went like that) and halted at the door. What on earth’s the matter with me? He knew there was no reason at all to go upstairs. None at all?—No! he replied resolutely and turned his back to the door.
Yes, but where to? The street is short, empty, morose. Closed in on either side by the questions right? left? He spared each side a contempt-inspired look. Weak motives as motives go: one corner with a sundries shop (a loping deer—Zlatorog soap), the other a stunted bare sapling tied protectively to a pole—authority. Enter motive-following action. Buridan’s ass finally met its death in plenty (the pampered creature), indeed it had two haystacks to choose between (luxury!), but it died for a principle like some heroic character out of Corneille, hail to him! Hail to Buridan’s ass between the two haystacks … whereas I wasn’t given so much as two straws to decide between, not a hollow straw to clutch at …
Num
bly he watched the descent of the sparse snowflakes: disappearing before even touching down. The brief life of a snowflake. Flutter and die. And yet, how the duration may seem long to the flake! A life of insubstantial weightlessness, a floating, a white dream on the way from sky to Earth … And the Earth spells the end of that masterpiece, the fallen star made of lacy crystals.
He was looking at the tiny perfection on his sleeve. The minute six-pointed wonder! (All snow stars are six-pointed … it’s presumably prescribed by a celestial canon of beauty.) The white star shining on a dark sky of unworthy cloth. Displaying a peaceful, wise, meek dignity of its orderly whiteness in this world of black, disorderly, back-to-savagery things. The Cyclops Polyphemus, the beast, now treads the Earth. You can feel his contagious breath … The tiny white star winkled out, melted into a dewdrop.
Right or left? stirred Melkior. Here are your motives: the Zlatorog soap-ad yellow deer and the stunted young tree next to its warden, the dry, self-righteous pole. He opted for the pole. It was after all some kind of authority, was that prideful male vertical. It was advancing to meet the events … while the deer (yellow to boot!) was rearing in panicky flight, a clear picture of fear, run for your life!
Melkior approached the runty sapling: all of its buds were still firmly closed, the little one was still afraid to face the world. He patted the pole: hello, Stoic! Seneca, in burning Rome!
On that side of the street the houses were sparser. Two-story family houses in the middle of small decorative garden plots protected by dogs and iron (bars).
From the houses came music, jaunty, bright, holiday-like, middle class; after a heavy lunch, a siesta by the gramophone: operetta, pop hit, march tran-tam, ran tan-tam … Baron Trenk. Once more to offer you my hand before we paaart. When you’re all alone and far from home … A flashing thought of Viviana, bitter solitude, envy of home and hearth … “A home of one’s own.” A homeland have I … What’s “my homeland”? The street, the Give’nTake, Enka’s bedroom, the “separate-entrance room” at Mrs. Ema’s? They’re already looking for the deserting volunteer there … The “New World Order” will by now have been established at the Give’nTake, there’s likely to be a new Kio at Enka’s … Let us go, then, you and I to the broad expanses of our Homeland! To the meadows, to the fields with the shepherd’s pipe … thy flatlands dear … To the pampas, gaucho, to the prairies! To the deserts to gnaw at the roots of prophets and catch grasshoppers in preparation for the great temptation …
Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) Page 61