“What system?”
“Secret code. They’re doing it again, damn them …”
“The Tartars?”
“Shhh! Don’t interrupt!” whispered the Melancholic sharply, his gaze absorbed by the windows opposite: “One-five, five-two, five-four, ah-ha, five-five, two-five, ah-ha, ah-ha, ah-ha, of course, one-three, of course, that’s what I thought, they’re signaling about the Alligator.”
“What? Signaling what?” asked Melkior eagerly.
“Arranging for the day … of release. That’s why they are keeping it in here!”
“Why, isn’t it ours?” asked Melkior apprehensively, while taking note of his own stupidity in action again, stripping away the selfsame hope it had offered him just hours before. He was not going to give up easily …
“Nah, we have no use for such a monster. It would eat us up along with everything else. We don’t know how to control it …”
But he didn’t seem to feel so strongly about the issue. He was too busy deciphering the signals in the lit windows to pay any attention to Melkior. He was muttering ciphers, delighting in his edifying discoveries.
Melkior saluted this bright morning: joy was twittering in his chest. She’s here, she’s here to see me! That was his first thought, the wave of happiness that had reared up inside him and was standing there, tense, looming, ready to engulf him whole. Darling, darling, he responded to the echoes of the long white corridors, to the footsteps of the burly dull male nurse walking behind him. C’mon, get up, you have a visitor — with these words the man had got him out of bed and into this bright motion. The trip seemed endless, and Melkior rejoiced at the small eternity of expectation. At this right-left, as the male nurse directed him, with her presence resonating around each corner and each window pouring on him another reason for joy.
On top of it, there was in the windowpanes some autumn sun, softly ruddy, there were little birds screeching on dried-up boughs, a rooster was greeting the morning from afar … all to her glory, all to her glory …
“Through here,” the male nurse showed him a door, “your visitor’s inside. I’ll be back later to pick you up,” he said walking on down the corridor.
Standing and waiting in the middle of the room was Numbskull.
Melkior’s wave broke at once, as if all life had left it, and all of the promised happiness spilled away. A wretch’s sigh was conceived in his breast and fluttered timidly, wishing to be born and to fly out of his mouth like a small luckless angel, but Melkior immediately strangled it and blew its soul through his nose, angrily.
“Are you angry I came?” Numbskull asked him with shyness, humbly.
“No. Only surprised,” Melkior tried to explain himself, and a kind of lonely poignancy grabbed him by the throat. He let the sigh be born — stillborn. “How did you find me?”
“I have a brother over there in Pulmonary, he’s a lab tech …”
“Mitar?” said Melkior in surprise. “He sent you for his money?”
“Money, heck! I came to see you … he told me they’d transferred you over here …”
“I got myself transferred,” Melkior specified proudly.
“You kissed the Colonel? An interesting idea,” admitted Numbskull, “but how are you going to get out of here?”
“Well, even if I don’t … it’s an interesting enough place. I don’t care if I die here, I’ve been abandoned by everyone,” Melkior put tattered tragedy on and felt like a good cry. All on my own shall I … his throat constricted, he was unable to finish the sentence even in his mind.
“Interesting my foot. I don’t see anything interesting …” Numbskull looked around the room in mournful wonder. “You’ll go to ruin in here, my old friend, that’s what’s interesting.”
“Who sent you?” Melkior suddenly asked with aggressive suspicion. “Own up, who sent you?” He appeared to be pressing for a name. He shook Numbskull’s greatcoat sleeve impatiently.
“Shake on — you’ll shake out a heck of a lot,” said Numbskull indifferently. “The Mikado of Japan sent me to say hello and to bring you these oranges from his own orchard,” he took out an orange from each greatcoat pocket. He was already speaking to Melkior seriously, as one does to a madman.
Melkior was tempted to take up the manner. A thought was smiling fetchingly at him: it was she who sent them, in strictest secrecy … and he suddenly said like a certified lunatic: “I thank the dear Mikado! Give him my regards and tell him I kiss his hand.”
Numbskull was watching with suspicion: is the fellow playing a game, or teasing me, or what? … or is he really off his …
“Look here, pal,” he lost his temper after all, “let’s cut this out, all right? Will you stop playing silly games with me — I’m not Nettle, you know.”
“Very well, seriously now: did she give these to you in person?” and he indicated the oranges.
Numbskull was silent for a moment, watching Melkior with no hope at all, now. “What do you mean, she? The grocery girl across from the hospital?”
“Not … the nurse? …” Numbskull had shattered his last illusion. He hated him for it. This is the end, thought Melkior. He offered Numbskull his hand with the oranges in it: “Here, take them back, I don’t need them,” and took a deep breath to quell a sob.
Numbskull put his hand on Melkior’s shoulder and, being short, looked in his eyes from below: “What the heck’s the matter with you, man? They’ve driven you right off your rocker. You’ve got to get out of here double quick! You’ll go nuts. As for the oranges, I bought them — I didn’t get you any cigarettes … Throw them away if you don’t want them, but talk to me, will you?”
“I don’t need anything,” said Melkior tragically. “A cubic centimeter of water (dirty water! he specified vehemently) to live in like a microbe, that’s all.”
“A microbe, he says … You’re an intellectual, a clever man,” Numbskull fussed over him. “Gosh, if only I had a grain of your salt in my head …”
“What would you do with it?” asked Melkior brusquely.
“Do? … I don’t know … all kinds of things. Write books, think, explain things to dolts; salt the stupid world, in short. I’d be erudite … did I get that right?” he looked at Melkior in fear: was the man laughing at his ignorance?
Melkior was not laughing. He was angry at having to be embarrassed. He was pursing his lips as if about to spit on something.
How do I get rid of this “believer”—he thought cruelly — without disappointing him … unless he’s doing a masterly job of pulling my leg? What is it he sees in me? Or was he sent to see what’s wrong with me? By those from the barges … Then again, he may have come as a “follower.” God, I’d now have to assume a role for his benefit, playact in public, be an ideal, a leader. … Rubbish! But what if he’s mocking me? Trying to mount me on Rocinante … and canter on his donkey behind me, laughing and showing me up to the Medical Corps? Why, I’ve asked him after Dulcinea already! A dangerous idea flashed in his mind: were the oranges sent by her or by …