He had found a nest among the branches. Chirping. Baby, he said to her in his mind.
“As for you, Mac, don’t you think it’s time you stopped that chewing?” She gave a laugh tinged with disgust.
Well, perhaps she, too, was relishing an inner celebration that was being interrupted by Mac’s smacking lips.
“Sorry, Mic, I’ll be finished in a moment.” He began to tidy the table. “That was my lunch. I completed a major commission today. Two horoscopes of historic importance. They took me nearly two years to work out. Well, they are done. Both will end up on the bottom. I finished this morning.”
“Oh, it’s those ships, Mac?”
“The steel behemoths will be sunk next year. Here, have a look, Mr. Melkior”—he spread some sheets of paper out on the table with constellations, figures, and names on them. “On February the thirteenth last year, at one-fifteen p.m., the battleship Bismarck was launched in Hamburg, while on February the twenty-first of the same year, at three-forty-two p.m., the battleship George V was launched in Newcastle. Both are going to be smashed like a couple of tin buckets. The greatnesses.” He gave a mordant laugh, evidently with something else on his mind.
“Why do you do such things? Who commissioned you? See what he fritters away his time on.”
“It’s for the papers. For your own paper’s Sunday edition, Mr. Melkior. Both horoscopes to appear under the title Veritas. This will be a sensation. I’ve already spoken to Maestro. He was delighted.”
“That I believe. He would sink all ships,” said Melkior.
“And all humans,” she muttered and went red with a great hatred of some sort.
“You know him?”
“Everyone in town knows the fiend. He was telling you rude things about me last night — I saw him. Take care, he’s syphilitic.” She was speaking fast and breathlessly.
“Come now, kitten, how can you claim something like that?” the palmist protested mildly. “He’s simply an unhappy man. You of all people should know.”
“Mac, I wish you’d stop throwing me in with that beast!” she cried and stood up. Her breasts were heaving rapidly with some very tempestuous breathing. That was Melkior’s first exciting observation; another one, also exciting, was her hatred of Maestro. What was it that Tersitus had done to her? The hatred had a very cruel past. It was still untouched, untapped, full to the brim. What had grubby Tersitus done?
She sat down again and turned her back to them both. She was angry. You’re all the same, you’re all against me. Her shoulders shook. She covered her face with her hands. Now we’re going to see those famous tears in her eyes. ATMAN gave him a phenomenon-announcing look. In for a bit of waiting for her to turn around, still in tears. Perhaps he had insulted her on purpose, with the pretty eyes in mind. He was a real creep, was Mr. Adam. Smiling, patiently. Waiting.
“And I was having such a good time here,” she said sobbing. “You always have to go and spoil it.”
“Now we’re going to make coffee and when we’ve had our coffee we’ll turn the cup upside down. All right?” He was speaking like someone in a kindergarten.
“I won’t. I don’t want anything from you anymore. And I’ll never come back here again, not ever,” she was saying through her hands. “And there I was going to stay the whole afternoon. I was having such a nice time.” And she fell to sobbing again.
“He’s now perhaps in a war chariot, the young warrior,” crooned Mr. Adam. “Perhaps he’s no longer on his horse, the fearsome knight …”
“You’re lying now, you’re lying! I’ll marry the shoeshine man on the square …” She started another round of weeping, her gaze on a black tin of shoe polish. Despairingly.
He went up to her and lightly stroked her hair with a trembling, avid hand. She gave a queasy shudder. He grinned forlornly in Melkior’s direction and shrugged. It’s going to be a long wait, this meant.
The water started grumbling on the hotplate. Mr. Adam opened a tin, the smell of coffee filled the room. This worked on her like a whispered summons: come and see a marvelous scene, darling. A box with a new, hitherto unseen toy inside has been opened. We shall now take a peek at the future’s kaleidoscope: bits of colored glass will paint our dreams. Colored geometry, the lunatic’s landscape, the innocent girl clad in white walking above the flaming tongues of horrible serpents (symbolizing human malice), a big light in the distance. And he. The cavalryman. Waiting. Ah, I’m coming, darling, leaving all else behind me. Cursed be this world. I was born for you. Far, far away.
The yearnings. They are all far away. Linear. Unidimensional metaphors. Long ago and far away … The sea, the mountains, the sky and He, the beloved. Distant, exotic lands, the call of the wild. East: the eighteenth century; the twentieth: far-away cities, jungles of light, wet asphalt, the Negro with the saxophone, cognac, the West. What do you expect from life? Give me some yearning, my love, my lover man. That I may yearn for you. A letter. Heads (of state). Tails. Black tie. He’s sent me two sets of undergarments (teddies), six (6) handkerchiefs, a silk shawl, and a negligee. It must mean something, the negligee. He’s inviting me. I can’t make up my mind, here — to leave — everything. Auntie told me, I don’t know, love, you’ll have to decide for yourself. Yearning, yearning for you …
She stopped crying. Wiped her eyes. Nose, too. Ruined everything. Snuffle snuffle. The nose had contributed copiously to the grieving, a handkerchief full of grief. And the eyes, the pretty eyes — red-rimmed, inflamed, rubbed raw — looked out with cold disdain, still gnawing the bone of sorrow, sucking the marrow. The boundless appetite of Miss, Mrs. Viviana. Soul feed. She licked her dry lips, cat style.
ATMAN knelt to serve her coffee. His face was grave, almost disappointed: she had not shone in tears. Nevertheless he managed to stretch his face into a now-now smile.
“I could kill you.” Her eyes smiled restrainedly. Beautifully. “You antediluvian creature!”
Antediluvian? Melkior snap-checked exemplar: Nothing in it. A gas mask, most likely. And even that with the wholehearted aid of the imagination.
She drank her coffee in large gulps. She was in a hurry to reach the dregs: that was where Destiny smiled sweetly at her. She turned the cup upside down and fell to waiting impatiently. Happiness is being born. Extending tentacles, moving in the dark, clearing roads, removing snags, downing obstacles. How powerful, how terrible Happiness is, there is no holding it back.
“I see a long road,” ATMAN read in the dregs. “A man standing alone at the far end. Waiting. Behind him, a splendid castle, a green park, a lake, white swans. Above the roof, wild geese flying away. Here, Mr. Melkior, can you see the geese?” ATMAN pointed his little finger at an orderly flock of dots. “These are geese. Meaning it’s autumn. It is in autumn that you will arrive by this road to the glittering castle, one, two, three, four, four years from now. But I see terrible obstacles on your way: destruction, fire, explosions. See the explosion, Mr. Melkior?” He was now pointing at a scattered spurt of dregs, the spot where the bomb had hit. “And many people around you, false lifesavers, reaching out, grabbing hold of you in turn, each one for himself, for a time. And now you’re on the road again, on your way to the waiting man’s castle …”
“And then?” She was listening to him with a patient’s eager concentration. In her eyes was fear of the unknown, with a humble, flattering plea for a happy ending. If at all possible.