"I am not the weakling you take me for," Faust said harshly. "Cease such illusions. I can wait."
"Ah? Shall I restore the young lady her privacy as well?"
For a long tormented instant Faust said nothing. Then: "No. No, do not. I cannot stop."
With a soft sigh, Margarete shifted in bed, throwing an arm up on the pillow above her head, lifting and reshaping one exquisite breast. Watching her, so lovely, so close, so unattainable, Faust could not help but weep bitter tears. By degrees his yearning for her grew less and less tolerable. Until finally, inevitably, he was forced out into the streets.
There were, for a man with a devil at his command, ways of satisfying his physical needs, and in his misery Faust availed himself of them.
A wife would discover her husband's infidelities had not, as she'd been promised, ceased, and storm out into the street, looking for revenge. Soon enough she would find Faust awaiting her.
A woman whose appetites were stronger than her fiance could satisfy, yet who was too shy and indrawn to find for herself a second lover, would see a falling star in the twilight sky. Closing her eyes, she would make a wish and in that instant feel the welcome warmth of a man's hand upon her buttocks.
A nun who felt her youth fleeting and her faith never fast (perhaps her parents had caught her with a boy and sentenced her to this life as a result) would steal an hour by herself and, strolling in the woods outside of town, wistful and filled with yearnings, encounter a silent man with a sad smile who had spread a blanket in a small clearing and filled goblets for two. And when, after a glass of wine or two, it would have been perfect had he kissed her then and there—he did. And his hand touched her breast, and moved aside her clothing, and briefly—sweetly—she was no longer a chaste bride of the Savior, but a woman like any other, and privy to the pleasures that were her birthright.
Faust took them all with eyes closed, seeing only, thinking of only, desiring only Margarete.
Industriously, the cat applied its tongue to its matted hide. It made long and repeated strokes down each outstretched leg and gave careful attention to the fur between its toes. With obsessive thoroughness, it chewed at the claws, gnawing away the splintered bits. Then, satisfied, it rolled over to its feet again, placed all four paws together, and arched its back.
Hoek.
The cat accompanied this sound with a spasmodically wide opening of its mouth. Hoek, it said again. All of its body rippled through a painful retching motion. It was trying to cough up a hairball.
Despite its efforts, nothing came out.
For an instant Faust faltered. Where was—? Training! He was explaining how an assembly-line worker with only a few days' experience could, supervised, do the work of a journeyman. This would take some evasion, for they must not see that this meant the end of the guild system that had served these men so well. Here was the time to draw a word-picture of a soldier in the field with a broken gun—one that could be repaired without intercession of a distant gunsmith.
Still the cat continued trying to force up the hairball with great wracking coughs that accomplished nothing. Hoek. Hoek-Hoek. Hoeoeuunck. It was astonishing how the faceless men ignored the scrawny animal's performance. It made Faust's chest and shoulders ache just to look at it.
Hoek.
A gold coin shot out of the cat's mouth. It flew across the room, bounced on the floor, rolled briefly, and finally spiraled to a stop at Faust's feet.
He stared down at it, astonished, then up at the faceless men.
They glanced at one another. "Go on," one prompted him. Clearly, they had seen nothing.
The cat laughed. (They've bought your argument) it said. (You can wrap it up anytime you feel like it now.)
Then it jumped up on the makeshift table, turned its backside toward the inquisitors, who of course saw nothing, and raised its tail. A stream of gold coins shot out of its anus in a bright arc, clinking, endless. They heaped up on the tabletop and rolled off the edge, all for the benefit of one man only. Faust briefly squeezed shut his eyes in mingled exasperation and relief.
Mephistopheles was back.
Faust lay faceup on his bed, fully dressed, an arm over his eyes. Reinhardt had his money and would have his factory. Soon it would be churning out guns at a rate that would astound the world. Guns that every general would want. Profits that every manufacturer would envy. "You did not come when I summoned you."
"You directed me not to interfere in your private life. Remember?"
"In this case, I would have made an exception."
Mephistopheles was still embodied as a cat. Now, however, he walked on two legs, wore boots and a plumed hat, and carried a sword by his side. It would have been charming had not the cat been so obviously a flayed hide clumsily stitched together and empty within. It scratched its head with the hilt of its poniard. "Why, Faust, how was I to tell?"
"From now on, you will let me decide what I should and should not know."
"Of course, of course." The cat swept off its hat and bowed low, stomach dimpling inward. He could see through its eyeholes into its vacant interior. "That was the Council of Gold by the way, and the men you saw were Pirckheimer, Behaim, Stromer, Muffel, and Holzshuher. You can destroy any of them at your convenience now. All it would take is a word in the right ecclesiastical ear."
"I wish to destroy nobody." Faust's body ached all over from the blows and harsh handling it had endured this night. Without opening his eyes, he began to undo his buttons.
"I was being hypothetical."
"Don't." With difficulty, Faust drew up a foot and pulled off the boot. He dropped it heavily to the floor. With that, all ambition died. He lay back, half-unbuttoned, uncaring.
" 'Diddle, diddle, dumpling,' " Mephistopheles sang, " 'my son John, Went to bed with his trousers on; One shoe off and one shoe on, Diddle, diddle—' "
"Shut up."
Mephistopheles did so.
For a time Faust was silent. Then he said, "You can be most tedious, you know."
"It's the testosterone." All in a single fluid motion the cat drew its sword and whipped it around and down to its crotch. It held its tiny equipment in one paw, against the sharp edge of the blade. The arm folded unconvincingly in a place where no joint should be. "Shall I castrate myself? It'd be for my own good. I'd be happier and far more tractable afterwards. It's an operation, in fact, which I really do believe most males could benefit from. Yourself, for one—I urge you to give it serious consideration. You'd think ever so much more clearly after the surgery."
Faust wasn't listening. When he closed his eyes, the bed seemed to be going up and down in a repetitive walking rhythm. The cobbled streets of Nuremberg rose and fell beneath him, with Reinhardt hurrying after, offering weak justifications for involving him in the Council of Gold's inquisition. "We need the money, you see..he had squeaked. "Nobody else could have ... Your testimony was crucial."
Faust's lips curled at the memory. To be treated so— cuffed, humiliated, beaten, with neither foreknowledge nor consent—intolerable! From any other man, from the father of any other woman, such treatment would have ... He, Faust, was transforming the world, remaking it in his own image, and in the process making this second-rate merchant rich. Yet to Reinhardt he remained a dependent, an underling, valuable to be sure, but expected to subordinate his needs, wishes, and well-being to those of the house of Reinhardt.
It was an ugly, ugly bargain he had made.
"Show me Margarete," he said wearily.
"As you wish," Mephistopheles said. "I can also, if you like, provide you with the smell of her. She bathed yesterday, so the scent of her cunt is particularly dainty."
Faust groaned. "Yes, do so."
Then, as always, it was as if he sat at the side of Marga-rete's bed, looking down upon her sleeping form. It was excruciating to see her so. It was his only pleasure. He inhaled deeply.
"What a dreadful thing it is to love," he mused. "Could any man be more miserable than I? Look at her! Sh
e is pretty, yes, but I have seen galaxies in collision and pillars of dust giving birth to stars. Why should I yearn so for her glance? Why should I spend my every waking breath waiting for the sound of her cough, the sight of her shadow in the doorway? What sane man would choose this—to be enslaved to a woman who doesn't even know how I agonize over her!"
"Would you wish her to know, then?"
"No. How horrible that would be! Indifference is bad enough, but pity would be intolerable. The only solace I have is that my sweet, sweet Margarete does not know how I feel about her."
From nowhere Mephistopheles produced a mustache comb. Eyebrows arched knowingly, he began to stroke and smooth his whiskers into place. He chuckled, but said nothing.
* * *
GRETCHEN
"Of course I know Doctor Faust is in love with me," Margarete said. "I'm not blind." She bit through a thread, began rummaging within her sewing basket. "Or maybe I am. Where is that green?"
Her cousin Sophia bent her head over the basket to help look. "I just thought you might not have noticed." They were sitting on the gallery overlooking the courtyard garden, to take advantage of the breeze. From here they could see, down at an angle through a workshop window, the object of their conversation, a dark Hephaestus laboring at his forge. "Here
it is!"
"No, the forest green. Keep your eye on him. He's forever looking up here at me, as if I'm so dim-witted I won't notice.
If I'm cruel enough to smile or wave, he'll scowl and—there!"
They both laughed as Faust brusquely turned his back on them. "Men!" Margarete said. "They're not subtle creatures, are they?"
"I can't find it. Why don't you use some of mine?"
"It's not a match. And I've already started the trees—see?"
"Mmmm."
"I'll work on the sky for a while. That's tedious enough to punish me for absent-mindedness."
"It must be very tense. Having him around all the time."
"It's like having a wizard in the house! One never knows what he'll do. The last time father's business took him to Munich, I was certain he'd do something—come out with one of those ridiculous speeches men make or put a hand where it doesn't belong." She'd been looking forward to it, in a way. She would have poured cold water on his infatuation with a few haughty words, or else slapped him roundly for his impertinence, depending on his offense. She might even have slid a knee between his legs and slammed it quickly upward, if that were merited. Things would have been settled then. "But nothing happened. To look at him, you wouldn't think he'd be so timid."
"He's handsome enough," Sophia agreed, "in a fierce sort of way."
They embroidered in silence for a bit.
Margarete thought first of how laundry day was coming up and what dreary labor that would be. Then of her suspicion that Agnes was stealing from the larder and whether they'd have to find a new girl—one without a boyfriend to teach her thievery and other such bad habits. And full circle back to Faust. Once, just to see what would happen, she had playfully squeezed his thick and coarsely haired arm, and felt the muscles jump under her touch.
She had thought then that he would turn and seize her,
that those strong arms would go around her and his mouth take hers by force. She had even half-decided in that panicked instant that she would let him have that kiss—no more—before wrenching herself away and giving him the stern scolding he deserved. .
But the coward had done nothing. He had only turned away, glaring down through his beard at his shoes. She had left then, not caring to hear him growl some light inanity entirely at odds with what he was feeling and certainly ought to have been saying.
She was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with him physically.
"Do you understand this new doctrine of electromagnetism?" Sophia asked suddenly.
"Well," Margarete said, "I do and I don't. When you follow the explanations, it's perfectly simple. A changing magnetic field creates an electrical field by causing electrons to flow through a wire; and similarly, electrons flowing through a wire create a magnetic field about it."
"That's simple?"
"Well, it's like if you dip a stick in flowing water, the water will make the stick move. But if you have still water and churn it with a stick, the motion makes the water flow. It's the same thing, only the circumstances dictate which gives the energy and which receives. Our gloomy magus down below says that electromagnetic energy exists in the form of waves with both an electric component and a magnetic component; there's no such thing as a wave with only the one. It's like cloth—if you tug at the warp, you're yanking at the woof as well. So it's very easy to convert energy from the one to the other. And of course I enjoy the figures."
Like many a merchant's daughter, Margarete had been taught by her mother enough calculation to run the business in her parents' absence. Unlike many, the skill delighted her for its own sake. She had wheedled her father into revealing to her the secrets of multiplication and long division, and been terribly disappointed when he assured her that she had exhausted the subject and there were no further arithmetics waiting to be discovered.
So the way Faust's equations tumbled and danced was a revelation to Margarete. They had a kind of soaring mental beauty that was comparable only to the feeling one got in church after praying so hard and well that one forgot one's self completely and the exultant soul rose up and expanded to fill the building.
"But if you ask the larger question of exactly what these electromagnetic waves are and look like, and how they can be waves one instant and particles the next—that's beyond me. Oh! Have you heard? One of the lesser Behaims has been sending electrical pulses across a wire from his rooms to a friend's by the Ladies' Gate, and causing an electromagnet to click there."
"What earthly use is that?"
"He's devised a clicking and clacking kind of code and used it to send messages. The council sent out inspectors to verify that it's not trickery."
Sophia shook her head. "More marvels. It's a wonder any work is getting done at all."
"Look—he's doing it again." Below, Faust hurriedly bent back to his work again. Margarete stopped sewing and parked her needle in a pinch of cloth. "Honestly, I ought to rip open my blouse and shake out my breasts at him. He'd probably die of mortification right there on the spot."
"Margarete!" Sophia's hand flew to her mouth. "I can't believe what I'm hearing!"
"Oh, don't pay it any mind. That's just Gretchen speaking."
"Gretchen? Who's Gretchen?"
"I'm doing it again, aren't I? You've become so dear to me, I keep forgetting how little time you've spent with us." For a chill instant the ghosts of Sophia's parents breathed upon their necks. Margarete set aside the embroidery and, spreading her legs to make a lap, spilled the contents of the sewing basket into it. "I will find that thread," she muttered. Then, "Gretchen was my baby-name—'little Greta'—but when I was young, mother and father were always most careful to address me as Margarete when I'd done something praiseworthy. So that I'd equate good behavior with maturity, I suppose. But you know little children. I conceived a notion that they thought they had two daughters, and somehow hadn't realized there was only me.
"One year during Christmas season—I think I was five— I was chosen to be in the front rank of the lantern procession. Do they have that in Dusseldorf? It's quite a lovely thing. All the children are assembled at the Butcher's Bridge with fanciful lanterns atop tall poles. Mine was a snowflake with six arms. Then they march up to the castle, where they're given hot cider and small treats.
"Well. Everything went perfectly until we got to the castle's parade grounds and old Father Wolgemut—he's dead now—came out dressed as Saint Nicholas. He had a bishop's robes and miter and crozier, and a white woolen beard that went down to his knees. Nobody had warned me! He came straight toward me, laughing in what was supposed to be a jolly manner, and I was terrifiedl So I hit him."
"No!"
"Yes!
With my lantern! It knocked off his miter. Then the snowflake fell apart, and the candle set fire to his beard."
"It didn't!"
"It did! Whoosh! It went up with a roar. But Father Wol-gemut, who really was a dear, sweet man, didn't want to pull off the beard in front of the children and have them see he wasn't actually Saint Nicholas. So he began running about frantically, bellowing for somebody to throw water on his beard. Only they'd shoveled away all the snow for the procession and, the castle being the highest point in the city, there wasn't much water around.
"It was like a fool's-tale. Everybody was screaming and waving their arms and bumping into each other, and of course the children all panicked and were running about with their poles and lanterns, too. It's a miracle we didn't burn down the city. It just kept getting worse, until at last two soldiers simply picked up Father Wolgemut and doused him headfirst in a horse-trough."
Sophia was laughing so hard now that tears were running down both cheeks. She threw her embroidery up over her face and howled.
"My parents, of course, were terrified I'd be trampled in the panic, or else run away and hide someplace where I'd never be found. So they went charging into the mob, calling out, 'Margarete! Margarete!' Father lost his wolf-fur cap and Aunt Penniger—she was there, too—was knocked off her feet and got an enormous stain on her dress that she still hasn't stopped talking about today. Oh, it was chaos.
"Finally they found me standing exactly where I'd been when Saint Nicholas attacked me. I hadn't moved an inch. I looked up at them with my little chin trembling bravely and said, 'Gretchen did it!' "
"Oh, stop! I can't breathe."
"From then on, I would only answer to Margarete and never Gretchen. Because she was the bad girl. But I used to make up little stories to myself about her. Every morning I'd brush my hair, a hundred strokes on either side, like I was supposed to. Gretchen simply threw her brush out the window and let her hair go all tangles. I emptied the chamber pots and washed the floors. Gretchen emptied the pots on the floor. While I was in church, praying for her soul, she'd be stealing my jewelry. She dressed up in men's clothing and went places a girl couldn't. She broke things and got into fights. She was fearless. When she got older, she let boys put their hands up her skirts, though I don't suspect she had any clear idea what they were doing at first. It's been a while since I thought about Gretchen. She must be quite the little slut by now."
Jack Faust - Michael Swanwick Page 10