The October Circle

by Robert Littell

  “Coffee, please,” he tells Gogo, and he tries to put the thirty stodinki onto the glass counter without making a sound.

  “Black?” Gogo asks loudly.

  “Cream,” the man replies.

  “I didn’t get you?”

  “I said cream.”

  “No cream,” Gogo announces.

  “Black then,” the man says. He hesitates. “Why do you ask if I want cream if you have none?”

  Gogo slides the coffee cup across the counter, spilling most of it in the saucer as he does. “The instructions under which I operate require me to offer my customers a choice of black or cream. They make no reference to the possibility that I lack one or the other. So I offer.”

  A few of the athletes at the far end of the Milk Bar guffaw at this.

  “You think you are funny,” the man with the violin case whines, turning on them.

  “What’s bothering you, comrade?” Mister Dancho taunts. “Our constitution gives us the right to laugh when we please. Even in the presence of informants for the militia. So go write up a report. Time: twelve twenty-three. Place: Milk Bar on Rakovski Boulevard. What’s your number here, Gogo? The magician Dancho was heard to laugh at an unspecified joke.”

  “You’ll regret — “ the man with the violin case blurts.

  “Ah, fuck off,” one of the soccer players groans. They all burst out laughing.

  The man with the violin case turns beet red and starts stuttering. Outside someone leans on a car horn. Everyone in the Milk Bar turns toward the sound. Traffic has stopped and pedestrians are converging on the small raised island where the traffic policeman stands.

  “It’s the Tomato,” one of the soccer players yells. “Come on.”

  Within seconds, the athletes have spilled through the door and joined the crowd. From the street someone calls back:

  “Hey, Angel, it’s your taxi fellow— “

  “Kovel,” roars Bazdéev. “Come quick. This being good.”

  In the middle of the intersection, a bald, fat taxi driver has squared off against the Tomato. They stand toe to toe, shouting into each other’s faces.

  “Where can I park then?” Kovel demands.

  “You can park on your hat,” the Tomato yells back. “I answer that question a hundred times a day.”

  “If you only answer it a hundred times you’re not earning your salary.” Kovel surveys the crowd for support. There are catcalls and whistles and an occasional “Give ‘im hell” from the back of the crowd.

  The Tomato seems to realize he is in a fight he can’t win. He lowers his voice and backs away, obviously willing to forget the whole thing. “You don’t pay my salary,” he says sullenly.

  Kovel appeals directly to the audience. “I don’t pay his salary?” He pauses before delivering the coup de grace. “I pay it, and” — he points to an old lady in the front rank — “grandma here pays it, and” — pointing to a black-robed priest whose beard is bobbing in agreement — “grandpa here pays it, and” — picking people at random — “he does and he does and he does.” There is some angry muttering from the crowd.

  “Hand over your license — I’m punching it for illegal parking,” the Tomato orders in his most official police voice.

  Kovel pulls out instead a paper and pencil. “Go ahead and punch it; me, 1 11 ask your general how is it I can park on my hat. How are you called?”

  “I am not required to give you my name,” the Tomato says sullenly. “If you want to identify me, use my number.”

  There is applause from the crowd as Kovel peers at the Tomato’s shield and starts to write down his number. “Bravo, Kovel,” someone with a voice remarkably like Dancho’s yells.

  Melanie comes running up behind the Racer. “What’s happening?” she asks, straining on tiptoes to catch a glimpse of the action.

  “Nothing unusual,” Tacho tells her, “just two of our citizens demonstrating that mutual belligerence is the human condition.”

  The Racer’s voice — grainier, less distinct, like an enlarged photograph — peals through the megaphone. “All right, ten minutes.”

  There are whoops of delight from the four riders. Their tight formation splinters and a few moments later all four are sprawling on a grassy patch off the track. Tacho walks over and hands around a water bottle.

  “Don’t swallow — just rinse and spit,” he reminds them.

  “Rinse and spit,” the rider named Tony says good-naturedly. “I hear it in my dreams.”

  “How’d we look?” the big rider named Sacho demands. His breathing is only slightly affected by the hundred or so laps he has done.

  “Like four women taking a Sunday stroll,” the Racer teases.

  “Ah, come on — “

  “You’ve got to be kidding — “

  “How did we look, coach, really?” Sacho asks again.

  “Not bad,” Tacho concedes. He squats alongside them. “You’re fast enough to win, but so are the Greeks. The race will go to the smartest. You’ve got to think your way to the finish line. If the sun is behind you, watch their shadows and drift to cut them off. If the road is wet, brake lightly a hundred fifty meters before you corner to burn the water off your rims. Jump when your opponents least expect it: at the most grueling part of a climb, for instance. Or go flat out when you’re behind them and sprint past them on their blind side. And for god’s sake don’t look back. Every time you look back, it costs you.”

  The Racer squints into the sunlight; the girl is still there.

  “What do you say, five fast laps and you can call it an afternoon,” the Racer tells them. Suddenly he knows he will sprint with them today, and he adds:

  “Let’s see if you can keep up with an old man.”

  “You gonna pace us, coach?” Evan asks.

  “I’m not going to pace you; I’m going to beat the pants off you,” he informs them.

  They start out five abreast on the flat. The Racer slips his left foot into the toe clip, reaches down to tug the strap tight, then dips his right toe into the other clip.

  “All right,” Tacho calls. He lifts himself off the saddle and stands on the right pedal.

  “Go.”

  He jumps on the pedal and the bike leaps forward. By the first bank they are strung out in a line, with big Sacho first, Tony second and the Racer clinging to Tony’s rear wheel. The other two have lost a bike length on the impromptu start.

  The first two laps are relatively easy and the Racer holds his position without straining. By the third lap, though, he starts to feel the tightness in his leg muscles. He pushes the tightness into a corner of his brain reserved for pain and concentrates on holding his own. On the fourth lap Sacho glances back, sees the Racer is still with them and forces the pace. Tony fluffs the gear change trying to keep up with him and the Racer slips past him into second position, hugging Sacho’s rear wheel.

  As they lean into the last turn the numbness begins to spread across Tacho’s knees; he knows from experience they will swell during the night. On the turn Sacho rides high and whoops and swoops down for the final flat. The Racer fights his front wheel and comes out of the turn high up on the bank. Sacho steals a look behind — over his left shoulder — thinks the Racer is no longer behind him and whoops again. The glance costs him and Tacho pulls even with him now, Sacho on the low edge of the track next to the grass, the Racer high above him on the bank. On the final sprint, Tacho turns his front wheel slightly left — he will be riding for the finish line going downhill. By the time Sacho realizes what has happened, the Racer is half a wheel length ahead and accelerating.

  High on the bleachers, the girl exhales slowly. She has the impression it is her first breath in minutes. When she stands up, she discovers that her body has a stiffness that comes from holding yourself ready for an accident.

  4

  THE HUNGARIAN NYMPHETS tug shyly at Mister Dancho’s tuxedo jacket and giggle in Magyar — “Please, do us some tricks” — but he is determined to finish the stor
y.

  “So the man on the bicycle rides up and leans his bike against the Central Committee building, you picture it?” Dancho shakes off the Hungarians and hisses “Sssssssssscat” as if he is chasing alley cats, and everyone smiles. In a corner of the room a cork pops and champagne sloshes onto the floor. A woman leaps back, laughing hysterically. Waving his hand to dispel the cigarette smoke, Mister Dancho goes on:

  “So the militiaman comes up to him and tells him” — Dancho tries to imitate the Tomato here — “ ‘You can’t park your bike there. A high Soviet delegation is due to arrive any second.’ So what does the man on the bicycle say?”

  Dancho twists around and calls across the room:

  “Dear child, could you turn that down?” Then back to his audience. “He says: ‘That’s all right, I’ II chain it up!”

  The dozen or so guests around Mister Dancho roar and Dancho, who wanted to be a standup comic long before he wanted to be a magician, laughs happily with them. Only the Fat Lady, sitting with the Dwarf’s circus friends, looks blank.

  “He’ll chain the bike,” the Lion Tamer explains, “so the Russians won’t steal it!”

  “Of course,” shrieks the Fat Lady, “steal it,” and she slaps the Juggler so hard he falls over the chair he is lounging against, spilling champagne on Poleon’s ex-wife.

  “Now see what you’ve done!” she cries shrilly. “Oh my god. Salt, somebody. Where’s salt? Somebody know where some salt is? Oh my god!”

  Rolling the long stem of a glass half full of champagne between his fingers, Poleon stares though half-closed eyes at his ex-wife without moving a muscle. “I should have Lot’s luck,” he mumbles.

  One of the Dwarf’s Hungarians slips a new Beatles record onto the phonograph and scratches the needle across the grooves until she reaches a band she likes. “Living is easy with eyes closed … with eyes closed … with eyes closed … with eyes closed … with eyes closed … with eyes closed … with eyes closed.”

  “Can’t somebody fix that?” Tacho complains irritably. His knees are swollen and his calf still aches from a muscle cramp that brought tears to his eyes during dinner at Krimm.

  The Rabbit goes over and edges the needle onto the next groove. The Hungarian, swaying dreamily in the embrace of one of her girl friends, sings along with the record. “Stror-perry fee-ulds fur-ever.”

  Someone hands Poleon’s ex-wife a saltcellar and she covers the champagne stain with a layer of salt.

  “That’s only good for wine, dearie,” the Fat Lady tells her.

  “Come on, Dancho, make the stain disappear,” the Fire Eater challenges.

  Mister Dancho takes Poleon’s ex-wife by the wrists and helps her step onto the chair so that everybody can see her. She once was a great beauty and is aging well, so she enjoys the limelight. Dancho takes the fabric of her long skirt in his fingers and studies the stain intently. Finally he shakes his head. “Too difficult,” he says. He turns away, leaving her stranded on the chair.

  “Losing your touch, huh, Dancho?” scoffs Poleon.

  “My watch!” shrieks Poleon’s ex-wife from atop her perch. “I’ve lost my watch.”

  “You probably gave it to Poleon to carry,” Dancho plays innocent. He dips into Poleon’s breast pocket and extracts — a photograph of Alexander Dubcek. The crowd roars. Dancho produces a pocket scissors and makes an elaborate show of cutting the photograph in half. Then he carefully folds the two halves, passes his palm over the paper and, holding on to a corner, shakes the poster free. It is back in one piece again. For good measure, Dancho extracts the missing watch from the folds of Octobrina s shawl.

  “Ah, Dancho — “

  “You son of a gun — “

  Laughing, Dancho starts up the stairs. Octobrina calls after him:

  “What are you two cooking up this time?”

  “Patience, dear lady,” Dancho replies over his shoulder.

  Dancho is the life of any party he attends, and with him gone, even temporarily, the mix seems to curdle. Most of the circus people edge toward the bar to refill their champagne glasses. Four or five of the younger couples move into what was originally the dining room, which is littered with 45 r.p.m. discs and comic books, and start dancing to a Frank Sinatra record. Octobrina settles on a banquette in the bay window with the Rabbit, Poleon’s ex-wife and the Fat Lady. The Rabbit says something and Poleon’s ex-wife shakes her head no and says:

  “I see people on the street talking to themselves all the time. What I try to figure out is whether they’re rehashing conversations behind them or rehearsing conversations ahead of them.”

  “They’re trying to figure out who they are, dearie,” the Fat Lady declares. “Everybody’s always trying to figure out who they are.”

  “They’re trying to organize their relationships,” says the Rabbit.

  Octobrina sighs. “My mother and I had a perfectly wonderful mother-daughter relationship, only I was the mother!” She means it as a joke, but a certain amount of resentment seeps through in her tone.

  The Fat Lady laughs until the rolls of fat around her waist quiver. The Rabbit laughs too and says that in her experience reverse parent-child relationships are common among artistic and academic types.

  “I can’t stomach academic types,” observes Poleon’s ex-wife. “They’re always going around muttering about how someone is not very sharp. They’re always judging”

  Atanas Popov wanders over and Octobrina pats the cushion next to her, offering him a seat. Popov is dressed in a prewar cutaway; he deftly tucks the tails behind him as he settles onto the banquette. Octobrina smiles warmly and asks him if his afternoon has been productive.

  “Not bad for August,” Popov concedes modestly, producing his pocket ledger. He slips his pince-nez onto his misshapen nose and starts reading. “Let me see. Sssssssss. One brass birdcage without a bottom. One clay swan without a left wing. Half a love letter, written in the month of June, nineteen forty-four, torn vertically; from the half I have it seems clear that the lover is proposing something, though what it is I cannot say.”

  “Maybe the lover was halfhearted,” the Fat Lady quips. “Maybe the letter was sent that way.”

  Both Octobrina and the Rabbit silence her with angry looks.

  “One cameo brooch without a clasp. One Book of Innocents, in Latin, containing the biographies of Innocent Roman Numeral One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Eight, Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen.” Popov’s eyes, but not his head, come up. “The last Innocent, Roman Numeral Thirteen, died in seventeen twenty-four. I doubt very much whether anyone would have the nerve to use that name again. Sssssssss. Ah, here’s a small gem. One porcelain praying mantis. One leather-covered travel clock, broken, with smaller faces on the back to tell the time in different cities. The small faces are labeled St. Petersburg,’ Smyrna’ and Constantinople.’ One Prague street sign, Krai Vinchrady Praha 12,’ with a typewritten note glued to the back which says, according to a comrade of mine who reads Czech, that the street sign was removed the day the Hitlerites invaded Prague, March fifteenth, nineteen thirty-nine, to prevent them from finding people they wanted to arrest.” Popov looks up. “Perhaps our Czech friends will have occasion to remove the street signs again.”

  “It won’t surprise me,” Octobrina declares vehemently.

  “Bite your tongue,” the Rabbit snaps.

  “Let me see, where was I? Sssssssss. Yes, yes. One miniature plastic rainbow with a small painted pot of gold at the end; did you know that the ancient Hebrews took the rainbow as a pledge from god there would be no more great floods? Genesis nine, thirteen. I wrote a poem about the need for floods once, but I don’t remember it. Sssssssss. One lock, with a key that doesn’t fit, attached to it with a wire. One meter of soiled English white lace— “

  “The Racer can’t stand white lace,” Octobrina recalls. “That’s why I always wear black shawls.”

  “Do you know why?” Popov asks.

  “As a matter of fact, I don’t think I do.”
>
  “During the war, Lev led an attack against a German short-wave radio station. The station was protected by a tank parked in a field of snow. The tank was camouflaged with white lace stolen from a lace factory in the nearby town.”

  “Were you there?” the Rabbit asks.

  “No, I wasn’t, but Mister Dancho was. I heard the story from Mister Dancho. They crept close to the tank and fired a rocket into it at pointblank range. For a moment it looked as if the lace was exploding; it billowed up like a parachute before it disappeared in flames. Needless to say, the soldiers in the tank never emerged.”

  “I never heard that story before,” Octobrina confesses. “Thank you for telling it to me, Atanas. Is there anything else?”

  “Anything else?”

  “On your list?”

  “My list? Oh, yes, yes, my list. My last but not least is: one quill pen with the quill point replaced by a ball-point refill cartridge. That’s my last but not least. Sssssssss.”

  “It’s a lovely list,” Octobrina assures him. “Perfectly lovely.”

  There is a burst of laughter from the dining room. A crowd is forming around Valentine Barbovich, the opera singer, who is just back from Rome.

  “Who is your favorite composer?” a woman in a long gown asks him.

  “Mozart.”

  She makes a face. “But everyone loves Mozart.”

  “I love him for the right reasons,” Valyo replies evenly.

  He leans back on the couch, his chin jutting at an imperial angle, his arms and legs flung possessively wide. Seeing him in this position, Octobrina once told him to his face that he reminded her of a country that covered more than its share of a continent. Valyo took it well. He chuckled and smoothed down his hair, which was combed forward in the style of a Roman senator, and stroked his “twin phallus” (Octobrina’s phrase) — the solid silver tuning fork that Toscanini had given him after his New York debut.