Murgunstrumm and Others

by Cave, Hugh

  "Pleasant dreams."

  Then he turned out the light and paced unsteadily into the bedroom.

  The bedroom was small and square, boasting a wooden three-quarter bed, a squat table, a massive old-fashioned bureau, and a single yellow-curtained window. The plump man sat on the bed and removed his socks. He stared at the bureau, grinned cruelly and said:

  "Too big, eh? Old style, is it? Well, it's a good thing it was big; otherwise you'd be kind of cramped for room, sweetheart. For once you won't complain, eh?"

  The bed was unmade. He climbed into it and shaped the pillow with his fists, then lay on his back and gazed at the ceiling. The room was not quite dark. Its single window was high above the street outside and level with the roof of a building across the way. The wet window-pane exuded a green glow, reflecting the pale glare of a neon sign on the near-by roof. The glow was pleasant; the plump man enjoyed looking at it. It made fantastic, green-edged shapes on the walls of the room and transformed the huge bureau in the corner into a monstrous four-legged beast. He liked the beast. It was something to talk to.

  "So you got her at last, eh?" he said drunkenly. "Ate her right up and swallowed her." His laugh was a low gurgle. "Serves her right, that does, for getting silly notions. She'd have found fault with anything, she would! I'm glad you got her—glad your insides were big enough to hold her. Yes, sir, that's poetic justice."

  The bureau was half in shadow. Even the visible portions of it were shadowed, ill-defined, so that no separate details were distinct. It was more massive than usual tonight, because the green light was dimmed by the drizzling rain. Last night, when there had been no rain, the hulk had been a huge, staring hound. The night before that it had been a fantastic horse with many malformed heads. Well, there was nothing strange about that. Almost any object of furniture could assume changing shapes in semidarkness. The extent of the shapes depended entirely on the strength of the observer's imagination.

  The plump man chuckled to himself. He had a good enough imagination. It had come in handy, too, not so very long ago. And right now it was a blessing. It kept him from thinking too much about certain unpleasant things which had occurred recently.

  He studied the bureau lazily. It had assumed a different shape tonight, probably because of the rain. It had eyes, several of them—they were the protruding knobs on the drawers. It had thick, misshapen legs, too, and a bloated torso. What would Bellini, the goggle-eyed chap downstairs, say to that? Most likely he'd look with wide eyes, and shudder, and whisper warnings in his thin, womanish voice. Bellini was like a lot of other superstitious fools; he made too much out of nothing. Sentimental idiot! If he knew what that bureau contained, he'd run screaming back to his stuffy apartment at the back of the building, and hide himself there!

  "Well, he won't know," the plump man said indifferently. "That's our secret, eh, old boy? When we move out of here in a few days more, we'll take it with us. Then let 'em learn the truth, if they can!"

  Still drunk, he saluted the bulging shape in the corner. Then he dragged the bedclothes around him and hunched his knees into his stomach, and went to sleep.

  Pale sunlight was streaking the walls of the room when he woke. He lay motionless many minutes, aware that his mouth was dry and swollen and his head aching. Someday, he reflected wearily, somebody would discover a way to take the hangover out of hard liquor.

  He put both hands to his forehead and pressed hard, then rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. What time was it? About ten o'clock, probably; it was hard to tell, because the sunlight in the room was so feeble.

  Stiffly he climbed out of bed and groped for a pair of slippers, then scuffed noisily into the kitchenette and opened the ice-box door. While he was thumbing the cork out of a gin bottle, the door at the end of the hall rattled. Scowling, he paced back along the corridor and fumbled with the knob.

  "Who is it?"

  "Me. Welks," said the man outside.

  The plump man opened the door slowly and stood there with the gin bottle dangling in his fist. The other man—the same who had offered to assist him last night—said hesitantly:

  "Thought I'd see if everything was all right, Kolitt. You were in pretty bad shape last night."

  "I was drunk, eh?"

  "You weren't exactly sober."

  The plump one scowled, then stepped aside, grinning.

  "Come in. Have a drink," he said." 'Scuse the attire. I just got up."

  He closed the door and led his visitor down the hall, then motioned the man to a chair and went into the kitchen for two glasses. Returning, he said:

  "I guess your wife was shocked, eh?"

  "Not at all." The other man accepted the full glass and turned it idly in his fingers. He seemed unsure of himself. "She knows what you're going through. We all do. Can't blame a chap for hitting the bottle under such circumstances." He hesitated, stared at the plump man's bleary eyes. "But aren't you overdoing it, Kolitt? What'll your wife say when she does come back?"

  "She won't come back."

  "Why so sure?"

  "I'm no fool." He upended the glass in his mouth and swallowed noisily. "When a man's wife walks out on him, Welks, there's a reason. She doesn't just go for a hike."

  "You mean there's another man?"

  "If there is, good luck to him."

  "You're taking it hard, old boy."

  "I'm no fool," Anthony Kolitt repeated. "When a man comes home and finds his wife's clothes and her bags gone, and the house empty, and a goodbye note on the bureau . . . You asked me yesterday why I didn't notify the police and have them find her. That's why."

  The man named Welks put down his glass and stood erect.

  "Sorry, old man," he said. "I didn't know."

  He paced into the hail, stopped, turned again.

  "Anything I can do—" he mumbled.

  He closed the hall door after him.

  Anthony Kolitt poured himself another drink. A little while later he put on a lavender dressing-gown and paced to the door. Stooping, he picked up the morning paper, then returned to the living-room, sat in the overstuffed chair, placed the gin bottle, a glass, and a pack of cigarettes within reach on the smoke-stand, and leisurely began to read the sporting pages.

  He was quite drunk again when Mr. Cesare Bellini, from downstairs, called upon him two hours later; so drunk, in fact, that he shook Bellini's hand warmly and said with a large grin:

  "Well, well! Come right in!"

  Mr. Bellini was not usually welcome. He was a tall, painfully slender young man with ascetic features and untrimmed raven hair. He was a student—though what particular kind of student he was, Anthony Kolitt had never troubled to find out. Mr. Bellini was one of those "queer, artistic" chaps. It was believed that he gave readings, or something of the sort, to people who came professionally to see him.

  "I have come to see if there is anything, no matter how insignificant, I can do for you," he said jerkily.

  He sat stiffly in a straight-backed chair, leaning forward toward Anthony Kolitt with his lean hands flat upon his knees. His trousers needed pressing, Mr. Kolitt observed. He also needed instructions on how to knot a necktie. The one acceptable thing about him was the pale blue silk handkerchief protruding from his breast pocket; it gave him an almost feminine air of daintiness.

  "What do you mean?" Mr. Kolitt shrugged. "You think you can find her for me?"

  "If I could," Bellini murmured, "I would."

  "Well, why can't you? You're a spiritualist or something, aren't you?"

  "A spiritualist? No, no. I am not that, Mr. Kolitt."

  "Well, what about the people who come to see you? They come to get readings, and that sort of business, don't they?"

  "No. You are mistaken. They come for advice. They come with troubles in their hearts. Me, I look in their minds and tell them what they should do."

  "Oh. You're a psychologist, eh?" Mr. Kolitt grinned.

  "Psychopathist, rather, Mr. Kolitt."

  "Well," Mr. Kol
itt said drunkenly, "go ahead. Do your stuff. I'm drunk; I ought to be easy."

  "It is a strange thing, drink," Bellini murmured, moving his head sideways over its protruding Adam's apple. "Some men, they drink to celebrate. They are happy; they wish to be happier. Others drink like you, to forget a sadness. You are lonely, no?"

  "Oh, I got a pal," Mr. Kolitt declared warmly.

  "A pal? Here?"

  "Right in the next room, young feller. Come along." He stood up, swaying in an attempt to balance himself. "I'll show you."

  Bellini did not understand. He frowned, and the frown darkened his already dark eyes and bunched his brows together over his hooked nose. He suspected, apparently, that Mr. Kolitt's pal was an ephemeral being born of gin fumes. Silently he followed Mr. Kolitt into the bedroom.

  "There," said Mr. Kolitt, pointing.

  "But I see nothing."

  "Not now you don't. Of course not. It's only there at night."

  "At night?" Bellini frowned. "I am afraid I do not—"

  "Then let me explain, and you will understand."

  Mr. Kolitt sat importantly on the unmade bed and hooked the heels of his slippers on the wooden bed-frame. Folding his arms around his upthrust knees, he grinned into his guest's face and hiccupped noisily. Then, without haste, he slyly proceeded to inform the thin young man of the nightly visitor which, created by a combination of green light, shadow, and applied imagination, emanated from the massive bureau in the corner. And, having finished this prolonged dissertation, he released his knees and sprawled back upon the bed, expecting to be amused no end by Bellini's outburst of horror.

  The outburst was not forthcoming. Bellini peered at him thoughtfully a moment, as if wondering how much of the speech could justly be attributed to a belly full of liquor. He then turned and studied the window, the bureau, and the respective arrangement of each to the other. Finally he said, frowning:

  "That is a most dangerous game, my friend."

  Mr. Kolitt was disappointed. Obviously so. He sat up, blinking. He said petulantly:

  "Eh? Dangerous?"

  "You are—how do you say it?—flirting with fire," Bellini declared.

  "You mean I'll be scaring myself?"

  "Perhaps. But it is not so simple. This thing which you are making out of nothing—this monster which is one night a large dog, and another night a many-headed horse, and another night a horrific portent unlike any named beast—it is, perhaps, only a thing of lights and shadows, as you have told me. But you are playing foolishly with profound metaphysics, my friend. With ontology. With the essence of all being. You are a blind man, walking treacherous ways of darkness."

  "Eh?" Mr. Kolitt said again. "I'm what?"

  "You are a fool," Bellini said simply. "You do not comprehend. The imagination, it is a powerful force. It is a productive faculty, seeking everywhere for truth. If there is no truth, it creates truth. This thing you are creating for your amusement, it is unreal, perhaps. But if you are too persistent, you will make it real."

  "Sure," Mr. Kolitt agreed pleasantly. "Then I could get it drunk, like me, eh? We'd be pals."

  "Very well. It is good to joke, my friend. It is good to be unafraid. That is because you do not understand. Yesterday a woman came to me and said: 'I had a dream, and in my dream my son came to me and bent over me and spoke to me. How is that? He is dead. Can the dead return?' And I said to her: 'Yes, the dead do sometimes return. But the man who came to you was a real man. You created him by thinking of him. He spoke the words you, yourself, put into his mouth. If you had willed him to kiss you, he would have kissed you.' That is what I told her, and it is true. The same is true with you. When you create this strange portent in your mind, it is a reality. It is what you make it. It does what you will it."

  "Suppose I willed it to get me a drink," Mr. Kolitt murmured gently.

  "Very well. You are making a fool of me. I will go. But you are the fool, my friend. You are toying with the very essence of life. I hope you are not so drunk one night that you mistake life for death."

  Apparently it was not difficult to anger Bellini's Latin temperament. His dark eyes burned. He turned deliberately and stared at the huge bureau.

  "If I were you," he said bluntly, "I would move that where lights and shadows and your fertile imagination"—he spoke the word with significant emphasis—"would no longer transform it into something other than what it is. Good day, my friend."

  Mr. Kolitt swayed forward, protesting.

  "Now wait a minute. I didn't mean to poke fun at you. I—"

  "Good day," Bellini repeated coldly. "I do not enjoy being made the idiot. To a man so drunk as you, all wisdom is a waste of time. I will come again, perhaps, when you are more sober."

  The hall door clicked shut behind him.

  Mr. Kolitt sat on the bed, blinked foolishly at the bureau a moment, and said gravely:

  "Now see what you've done. You've scared the nice man away."

  Mr. Kolitt was neither drunk nor quite sober when he let himself into his apartment that night. He had spent most of the evening at the theater around the corner, and the offering there had been unpleasantly sinister. The silver screen, reflected Mr. Kolitt, was a peril sadly in need of censorship. It should be against the law to show certain pictures to certain people. Tonight's presentation had made him shudder.

  He did not recall the name of the picture, but the majority of its scenes had been of a strikingly weird nature. One in particular was so vivid in his mind, even now, that it made him uneasy.

  "Ugh!" he grunted. "I can see it yet, that damned thing!"

  The thing which bothered him had been a monster; a manufactured monster, to be sure—created by experts out of immense sheets of rubberized cloth and animated by internal gears and levers—but horrible, nevertheless. He had visions of it advancing toward him, as it had advanced upon the unfortunate villain in the picture. Such things, he decided, should be outlawed.

  The hour, now, was eleven o'clock. After leaving the theater, he had visited the Business Men's Club and vainly attempted to drive away his morbidity by batting a small white ping-pong ball across a table in the game-room. Tiring of that, he had won seven dollars playing poker, and had spent the seven dollars on a quart of excellent rye whisky. He needed the whisky. It would steady his nerves. For the past several days his nerves had needed constant attention and lubrication.

  He took the bottle from his pocket and placed it gently on the radio, beside his wife's photograph. Methodically he removed his tie, shirt, trousers, and shoes, and went to the bedroom for his dressing-gown. Then he turned on the radio and sat in the overstuffed chair, with a book in his lap.

  He opened the book. It was a mystery story. He liked mystery stories. This one would take his mind off his own troubles and make him forget himself. He reached for the bottle and looked about for a glass. Finding none, he shrugged his hunched-up shoulders and upended the bottle in his mouth, drinking noisily. Then, grinning, he began to read.

  Reading, he became aware presently that the dance music emanating from the radio had become something less pleasant. Voices rasped at him. He listened a moment, scowling, then leaned forward abruptly to turn the dial; but instead of turning it, he listened again. It was one of those things you just had to listen to.

  There was a sound of wind howling, and rain beating eerily against shut windows. There were voices whispering. The voices ceased. Into the strange silence came the ominous tread of slow footsteps: clump . . . clump . . . clump. . . .

  Mr. Kolitt grunted and turned the radio off. He leaned back in his chair, trembling. For a while he stared with wide eyes at the photograph of his wife; then, with an obvious effort, he focused his attention on the book in his lap. Before he had read half a page more, he snapped the book shut and dropped it on the floor.

  "Damnation!" he said. "Everywhere I turn there's murder and horror! There ought to be a law against such things! It's uncivilized!"

  He stood up and drank deeply from the bot
tle. Snarling, he strode into the bedroom and switched on the light. His gaze wandered to the bureau in the corner. He said viciously:

  "Blast him and his big talk! It's his fault! He's the one who started this business!"

  He was thinking of Bellini. Bellini's smoldering eyes and deliberate words plagued him.

  The single window was again wet with rain, and its drooling glass winked with many green eyes, derisively. The glass was pretty, Mr. Kolitt thought. It was like a large, moving tray in a jeweler's store. Each green-edged drop of water was a tiny precious emerald.

  "And I suppose if I sat down and imagined 'em to be emeralds," he grunted, "they'd be emeralds. Yes they would not!"

  He smiled crookedly then, as if relieved at thus finding a flaw in Bellini's reasoning. Quietly he removed the rest of his clothes and went to the bureau. Opening the top drawer, he took out clean pajamas; then he looked down at the lower drawers and tapped the bottom one with his naked foot.

  "Comfortable?" he said quietly.

  He unfolded the pajamas. They were green, with white stripes. Methodically he got into them and stood idly before the bureau, his elbows angling outward as he buttoned the green jacket-front. The room was warm. Frowning, he walked to the radiator and turned the small handle on the side of it. Then he stood at the window, looking out. Across the way, the green neon sign was like giant handwriting in the drizzle.

  "Tonight's the last night I'll be looking at you," he said. "We're moving out of here tomorrow—me and the hope chest here." He turned his head drunkenly to peer at the bureau. "Yep. It's safe enough for us to clear out now. The neighbors won't be suspicious. They'll think I'm just a poor lonely devil trying to forget."

  He was aware suddenly that the odor of his own breath, tainted with liquor fumes, was not the only odor in the room. There was another smell, less pleasant and more significant—a sour emanation suggesting decay, as of spoiled meat. Eyes narrowed and lips puckered slightly, he strode quickly to the bureau and stooped to bring his nostrils close to the lower drawers. When he straightened again he stood staring, his hands pressing hard against his hips.