Mefisto

by Banville, John

  I looked about for Felix, but if he was there I did not see him.

  They all came back to the house, the fat women and the old men, and sat in the parlour drinking stout and cups of tea and eating plates of cold meat that Aunt Philomena had prepared. There was an atmosphere of subdued levity. It was like a party from which the guest of honour had gone home early. Aunt Philomena had brought in a bunch of my mother’s roses from the garden and set them in a bowl on the table, they hung there in our midst, nude, labiate and damp, like the delicate inner parts of some fabulous, forgotten creature. Uncle Ambrose was perched on an upright chair in a corner, with his hands on his knees. He was like a big, amiable boy dressed up for the occasion in someone else’s three-piece suit. He kept peering about him with a crafty little smile, his lips moving silently. It was as if he had been let in at last on some great secret that everyone save he had always known.

  – Gone soft, Aunt Philomena whispered, her eyes wide. She could not suppress a tremor of excitement in her voice. Here was drama more lavish than even she would have dared to dream up.

  At last the mourners went away, and a huge, astounded silence settled on the house.

  Aunt Philomena came up from Queen Street every day to take care of my father and me. At first she was all briskness, going at things with her sleeves rolled up, but soon the strain began to show. Uncle Ambrose was not getting better. They had taken the stitches out of his head, they told her he was all right, but still he would only sit and smile, communing with himself in a kind of happy wonderment. There were days when she had to get him up and dress him. He had bouts of incontinence. She fed him with a spoon.

  – I don’t know what to do! she would say. I don’t know what to do.

  And she would sit down suddenly, whey-faced, and light a cigarette with a hand that shook.

  My father kept to the parlour now. Hours drifted past, white, slow, silent, like icebergs in a glassy sea. The bandage on his brow had been exchanged for a wad of lint stuck on with a criss-cross of pink sticking-plaster. His asthma was bad, the air whirred and clicked in his chest like the sound of a rusty clock preparing to chime. His hands gripped the armrests of his chair, his slippered feet were planted square on the floor. He was attentive, poised, as if he were waiting for someone to come along and explain things to him, how all this had happened, and why.

  I sat at the table by the window in my room, with my head on my hand, as in the old days, what seemed to me now the old days. I lived up there. I would find scraps of forgotten food under my bed, or kicked under the wardrobe, rotted to an enormous pulp and sprouting tufts of blue-grey fur. The room developed a rancid, fulvous odour. I opened the window wide. Air of summer flowed over the sill, vague, silky, like air from another world. I worked, lost in a dream of pure numbers. How calm they were, how quiet, those white nights of June. I would look up and find the day gone, the night gathering intently around me, breathless and still aglow. I was a sleepwalker, waking in strange light in a garden of eyeless statues, confused, heartsore, wanting again the interrupted dream. There all had been harmony, the wilderness tamed, sundered things made whole. There too, somehow, I had not been alone.

  Oh, I worked. Ashburn, Jack Kay, my mother, the black dog, the crash, all this, it was not like numbers, yet it too must have rules, order, some sort of pattern. Always I had thought of number falling on the chaos of things like frost falling on water, the seething particles tamed and sorted, the crystals locking, the frozen lattice spreading outwards in all directions. I could feel it in my mind, the crunch of things coming to a stop, the creaking stillness, the stunned, white air. But marshal the factors how I might, they would not equate now. Everything was sway and flow and sudden lurch. Surfaces that had seemed solid began to give way under me. I could hold nothing in my hands, all slipped through my fingers helplessly. Zero, minus quantities, irrational numbers, the infinite itself, suddenly these things revealed themselves for what they really had been, always. I grew dizzy. The light retreated. A blackbird whistled in the glimmering dusk. I held my face in my hands, that too flowed away, the features melting, even the eyeholes filling up, until all that was left was a smooth blank mask of flesh.

  The weather turned strange, mists all day and not a breath of wind, the sun a small pale disc stuck in the middle of a milky sky. At evening the mist became drizzle, covering everything with a seamless coating of grey froth. All night the foghorns boomed and groaned out at sea. Something was happening underground. Tar melted in the streets, fine cracks appeared in the pavements. Gardeners turned up smoking clods of earth seething with grubs and fat slugs and ganglia of thick, pink worms. Vegetation ran riot. Huge mushrooms appeared everywhere, on lawns, under hedges, in the troughs between potato drills, pushing their way blindly up through the tepid clay like silvery, soft skulls. A rank smell clung in the air. Miasmas hid the salt marsh at Coolmine. When the tides were high the pit-mouth spouted geysers of blackened steam. Rumours went around of sudden fires, mysterious subsidences. A child playing in his grandmother’s garden fell into a flaming hole that opened in the ground beneath him, and was found, singed and shrieking, clinging to the exposed roots of a tree, his legs dangling over the burning maw.

  I traipsed the town, day after day. I saw D’Arcy’s car, and then one day D’Arcy himself, sitting grimly by the window in Black’s, in the place where Mr Kasperl used to keep his morning vigil. I began to go out the Coolmine road again. I saw the spot where Uncle Ambrose had crashed the car, halfway to Ashburn. A stone was knocked out of the wall, a telegraph pole was grazed. It was so little damage, I was surprised. The lorries were using the dump again. The gates had fallen down, the old women with their sacks were at work once more among the slag-heaps.

  I went to Ashburn, of course. I skulked about the grounds, avoiding the house, as I used to do. Then one day I met Sophie, as I knew I would. She was walking under the trees. She had a straw basket on her arm, covered with a cloth. She was thinner, her face was paler, the eyes sunken. But she smiled at me as brightly as ever, as if she had seen me only yesterday. We walked up to the house. I carried her basket. It was filled with nettles.

  Felix was sitting at the kitchen table, with his back to the doorway, singing.

  It is no secret

  What God can do,

  What he’s done to others

  He can do to you …

  He turned as we entered, and seeing me he grinned his foxy grin, and threw up his hands and cried:

  – Why, look who’s here! Bring me the fatted calf, at once.

  He took out his tobacco tin and lit up a butt, examining me with friendly attention. He was wearing his greasy pinstriped suit and a deerstalker hat. A red silk scarf was knotted at his throat. On the table a carriage clock stood with its back open and innards on show. He pointed at it and said:

  – Think I’d get anything for it?

  Sophie was putting the nettles into a saucepan with water and a bundle of bones. He laughed ruefully.

  – You see what we’re reduced to.

  He picked up the clock and shook it ruefully, producing a faint shimmer of sound, like a distant tinkling of tiny bells.

  We ate the nettle soup. A lozenge of sunlight trembled on the table by my wrist. Sophie, smiling, watched me over her spoon. Mr Kasperl came in heavily and sat down. He looked at me once and then away. Felix talked and talked.

  – Burning away merrily down there, apparently. The whole town is sitting on it. There’ll be hell to pay. Oh, hell to pay!

  He grinned at me.

  – What do you say, bird-boy? Time to fly?

  Sophie cleared the table, and Felix suggested a game of cards. Three of us played, while Mr Kasperl sat by, his fat arms folded and his chin sunk on his breast. A car came up the drive. Felix put a finger to his lips. We heard loud knocking at the front door, and D’Arcy’s voice calling out. After a while he went away. Felix played a trump. He said:

  – The common flea, or pulex irritans, which is the name we scientists c
all him, can survive alive a long time without food. He likes a spicy drop of good red blood, of man or maiden, it’s all one to him. He doesn’t bite, you know, for fun. In fact, he doesn’t bite, but, rather, pricks, sucks up a ruby drop, and off he kicks. His cousin, xenopsylla cheopis, or rat flea, is a different type, for this lad does not at all like human gore, indeed, it makes him puke, which is a bore for such a lively fellow. But when his host, the black rat, rattus rattus, gives up the ghost, he has no choice but to go after us. The poor chap’s little proventriculus gets all bunged up with swarming bacilli, whose name is pasteurella pestis, need I say any more? Now, dying for a feed, he subjugates his loathing to his need, and finds a human target double quick. In goes the sharp proboscis, and the trick is done, a drop of blood is aspirated into the proventriculus. Now sated, our Jumping Jack relaxes, but, oh dear, some of that blood comes up again, I fear now rife with bacilli, and goes straight down the puncture hole. The victim, with a frown, scratches the spot, while pasteurella pestis heads pell-mell for the region of the testes. A week elapses, then the buboes swell, there’s fever, stupor, and, of course, a smell as if the poor wretch were already dead. Next wifey gets it, baby too, then Fred the postman, yes, and Fred, the postman’s son, then in a twinkling half the town is gone. It flies like black smoke, felling frail and fit, soon continents are in the grip of it. And all the doing of his majesty, our lord of misrule, Harry Hotspur Flea! So now, remember, when you feel a bite, it really is an honour, not a slight. The king is dead, long live the prince, and – and there’s the knave! My trick, I think. And hand.

  Sophie put on a marionette show. She had cleared a work-table in the photographic studio and rigged up a stage made from cardboard boxes. The insides of it were lined with pictures. There was the imperial baby, and the donkey with the straw hat, and the gentleman in leotard and the naked lady astride the chair, her plump legs splayed. Felix bent to examine her, and gave a low whistle and nudged me.

  – Aye aye, he said, this will be good.

  The marionettes jerked and clattered, bowed and swayed. The strings seemed not to guide but hinder them, as if they had a flickering life of their own, as if they were trying to escape. It was my story they were telling. Everything was there, the meeting above the meadow, my first meal with them, D’Arcy’s visit, Jack Kay, the kiss, everything.

  – Top hole! Felix cried, clapping like a seal. Oh, top hole!

  Sophie stepped from behind the table and bowed. Mr Kasperl stood in the doorway, his arms dangling. Sophie went to him.

  I walked with Felix in the grounds. A weak sun shone out of a white sky. The trees glistened, oiled with mist. I could smell the sea, its grey stink. Felix was munching a crust of bread. He wore his deerstalker, and a dirty, dun mackintosh, and a bedraggled tie with stripes.

  – My going-away outfit, he said. Like it?

  He flung the crust away. An enormous seagull swooped down out of the mist on thrashing wings and caught it in midair. Felix ambled along in silence for a while, sucking his teeth.

  – Yes, he said, have to get out. That mine …

  He brooded a moment, then suddenly giggled.

  – The small investor, I’ve discovered, lacks a sense of humour. A poor loser, all round.

  He halted, and turned to me. We were standing on the drive. The tops of the trees were hidden in the mist.

  – Listen, he said, you like to know the truth, don’t you? In the beginning was the fact, and all that? Well, come on, then, I’ll show you something.

  We went into the house, up to the attic, to Mr Kasperl’s room. Felix quietly pushed the door open an inch. I put my eye to the crack. The room was full of calm white light. A fly buzzed against a window-pane. Mr Kasperl lay on his back on the bed, eyes closed, his mouth open, like a big, beached sea-creature. His legs were unexpectedly skinny, with knotted, purple veins. His big belly glimmered palely, rising and falling, lightly flossed with reddish fur. His sex lolled in its thick nest, livid, babyish and limp. Sophie stood at the foot of the bed, putting on her slip. She lifted her arms above her head, for a second before the silk sheath fell I saw her shadowed armpits and silvery breasts, the little patch of black hair between her legs. She turned then and caught sight of me. She smiled, and came towards us, with a stocking in her hand. I stepped back, and Felix deftly closed the door.

  Downstairs he fished in the sagging pocket of his mackintosh and brought out the carriage clock and peered at it.

  – Dear me, he said, is that the time?

  A battered cardboard suitcase stood in the hall. He picked it up.

  – Well, I’m off. After summer merrily, you know. Care to walk me to the train?

  ON THE COOLMINE ROAD he whistled, swinging the suitcase jauntily. Smoke rose from the pit-head into a sky as pale as pipeclay. A lorry was going in at the gate with a load of broken bricks. A band of tinkers trudged along the edge of the bank of rubble, forlorn dark figures against the white sky. The gleaners were busy. Bundles of mist hung above the marsh. Felix stopped to survey the scene. He raised one arm in a sardonic salute and said:

  – Farewell, happy fields!

  We passed by the broken wall, the scarred telegraph pole. He pretended not to notice, and said nothing.

  The streets of the town were damp, and smelled of sea-slime. There were not many people about, but all the same Felix went forward circumspectly, keeping on the inside, near the wall. At Black’s he paused.

  – Time for a last look in, you think? he said. Oh yes, come on, let’s risk it, if you will so will I. I’m an old sentimentalist, I know.

  We sat at Mr Kasperl’s table by the window. Felix turned his back to the street, hiding his face with his hand. I told him how I had seen D’Arcy here. He shrugged.

  – Oh, him, he said, don’t worry about him. He’s only a messenger boy.

  The waitress came, a raw-faced country girl. Felix rubbed his hands. He was peckish, he wanted a fry.

  – Rashers, he said. Sausages. Nice bit of liver.

  The girl grinned at him in fright, biting her lip.

  – I’m not supposed to serve you, she said.

  Felix stared indignantly.

  – Eh?

  – Miss Swan says …

  – Miss Swan? Miss Swan? You tell Miss Swan I’ll see her myself presently.

  She hurried away, still nervously grinning. Felix winked at me. I looked out at the street, past our faint reflections on the window. He touched my arm.

  – I say, old chap, don’t fret, he said. Not worth it, believe me. Forget what’s gone, that’s my motto. Cancel, cancel and begin again.

  I was not jealous, not really wounded, even. I felt excluded. Through that crack in the door I had glimpsed a world, subtle, intricate, unsuspected, where I could never enter. Felix lighted up a butt and smoked in silence for a while, glancing at me with a contrite air.

  – It was for your good, he said. Besides, you could have had her too. The hints I dropped! Still, you’re better off out of it, with that one. I should know, it was me that found her for him. That was the kind of job I had, is it any wonder I’m getting out?

  He met my eye, and tittered.

  – Yes, I know, he said shamefacedly, I found you for him too, didn’t I.

  I thought of the marionettes, twitching on their strings, striving to be human, their glazed grins, the way they held out their arms, stiffly, imploringly. Such eagerness, such longing. I understood them, I, poor Pinocchio, counting and capering, trying to be real.

  Felix rapped the table angrily with his knuckles and stood up.

  – Well! he said loudly, if they won’t serve me, I won’t stay!

  He threw his cigarette butt on the carpet and ground it under his heel, and took up his suitcase with a haughty flourish. In the doorway we met Aunt Philomena, with the grinning waitress behind her. Felix stepped back a pace, lifting his hat.

  – Ah, he said, with a weak laugh, Miss Swan, so there you are.

  She stood frozen-faced, her hands gripped
before her, looking at the floor beside his feet. Me she ignored. There were crumbs of face powder clinging to the bristles at the corners of her mouth. She dismissed the waitress with a twitch of her shoulder. Her knuckles whitened. She said:

  – There’s a matter I want to discuss with you.

  Felix gave her his blandest smile.

  – But of course, he said. Only, not now. In a hurry. Train to catch.

  There was silence. She would not budge out of the doorway. Still with her eyes fixed on the floor she turned her peremptory shoulder an inch in my direction. I squeezed past her. The waitress, loitering in the lobby, gave me a conspiratorial wink. Behind me Felix was saying:

  – What? Savings? What? Oh but my dear, I’m sorry, that was in the nature of an investment, I thought you understood. You’re not the only one, after all …

  I waited in the street, and presently he came out, shaking his head.

  – Phew! he said. See what I mean? No sense of humour. They can’t wait to get in on a thing, then the first minute it goes wrong they bring out the knives, bawling for their pound of flesh.

  He laughed, and clapped me on the shoulder.

  – But not you, eh? he said. No, not you.

  We walked up Owl Street, under the flying spire. The hens were squawking in the poulterer’s yard. Before us the town drifted in the mist.

  – Come with me, Felix said, why not? We could be a pair, you and me. He says you have a great future, really brilliant. He’d know, he had a brilliant future too, one time. Ha!