“Then there will be an onslaught of malice and envy. I see a mean dragon with three heads, a flaming tongue in each. Envy, malice, and slander — the three-headed dragon blocking your way to happiness. You will get past the first head thanks to your beauty, you will get past the second head thanks to your kindness, but the third, the third head you will not get past.”
“Oh my God,” she cried, “not ever?” and covered her eyes with trembling hands, horrified.
Good. That was where her umbilical cord was fused to his, around the twinge of her Happiness. How he kept her chained to the frisson of Destiny! But we who know why the cock crows … Melkior laughed inside, but ATMAN’S phrase still lay flatteringly in his ear. We who know …
“The third you will not get past,” repeated the palmist in sibylline tones. “I see snowy whiteness all around. This is the passion of true love … to combat slander, and you are nowhere to be seen. I see you no more.”
“But you did say, Mac, you did say I was going to reach the castle in the autumn, four years from now? Try starting over again — you forgot that bit, Mac.”
“I forgot nothing,” ATMAN replied sternly. He put the cup away, closed his eyes and tilting his face ceilingward. “I see you no more … do not interrupt, I’m not finished yet … I see you no more with my human eyes. Wait, I’m looking inside in another mode. Milk, boiling milk, is what I see. Black milk from hellish feed, an egg hatched by a viper, the accursed generation. Rising, all rising … Oh-ho, oh-ho. Ohhho, here comes a dark army, warriors with teeth from ear to ear, tooth by tooth. Blood and knife, blood and knife …”
“What about him, what about him?” she cried out dementedly.
“Knife and blood,” said ATMAN in a trance, his face contorting with prophetic pain.
“Is he still standing there in front of the castle? Is he standing there alone?” she shivered miserably, deeply in love.
“Standing, standing … Falling! Tooth to neck, knife to throat.” She screamed. “I see a honeycomb, a honeycomb, an endless honeycomb. Heads protruding from the honeycomb, eyes mournful, ears dry. Heads, heads, a thick cluster of grapes. A bloody vintage. Thump and thump, and thump and thump … sledgehammer, blow after blow. Reapers advancing. Murderers. Oh Mel-kiooor, Mel-kiooorrr …”
“What?” blurted Melkior.
“Don’t ask,” she whispered, “you’ll wake him. He’s not finished yet.”
“Very well,” said Melkior, offended. “I can leave if you like.”
“No.” She gave his hand a fierce squeeze. He felt the squeeze with all his body, it was like the touch of a thunderbolt. “He sees you, too. Listen.” She left her hand on his. He felt nothing but that hand.
“What happens next, Mac, what happens next?” She wished the dream to go on. Perhaps there was a nice ending. Perhaps even a happy, a happy one!
“He lifts him bodily, does Melkior,” ATMAN whispered ceiling-ward, his face clearing up, diluted. “Lifting, lifting. He’s heavy, limp, half-dead. There’s hope yet, says Melkior. I’ll do it for her sake. That and anything else, I’ll do anything for her sake, says Melkior. I love her, I love Viviana, says Melkior.”
“You love her?” she asked, in near-consternation. “Who is she, Mac? Whom does he love?”
“Vi-vi-a-na,” said ATMAN, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat with suppressed laughter. Adam’s apple. Melkior noticed this and blushed. I’ll smash him, he thought, right on the Adam’s apple bobbing on Adam’s throat. I’ll smash him …
“But who’s Viviana, Mac?” She had noticed nothing. “Why’s he lifting him up for her sake? Who is she?”
“Your mother’s daughter but not your sister,” he replied Pythian style, and his Adam’s apple bobbed again.
“My mother’s daughter but not my … Why, that’s nobody, Mac! It’s nobody, isn’t it?” she spoke to Melkior. “Meaning you’re not in love at all.”
“That’s what it means,” Melkior readily took the proffered chance.
“So what’s the idea of the teasing, MacAdam?” she cried in disappointment. “You are all confused. You’re spouting nonsense. You can’t see anything further, right? You can’t see anything further.”
“Oh but I can. Melkior is carrying him on his back to the glass castle. I’m doing it for her sake, says Melkior, and gives him his heart’s blood. Melkior donates his own blood for her happiness. He comes around, opens his large eyes. (Beautiful eyes, she corrects him.) If I’m dead, he says, then it’s all over and done with (as they say); if I’m alive then let me wait, let me wait for her to arrive. They cut your throat a bit, says Melkior, opened your veins and went on. You’ve lost your blood. But I’ve given you some of mine, there’s plenty more where it came from, says Melkior, enjoy it in good health. I’ll give it back to you, he says, when my own is restored, I’ll give it back twice over. Please don’t bother, says Melkior, and refuses with disgust. I gave it to you as a present because … but he won’t say why; and the truth is that he did it for her happiness. But I’m going to get you a tutor, says Melkior, because you’re artless like a stork — you’re waiting on one leg. You need to be taught a thing or two. Oh no, I want to wait for her alone, he says. Anyway, I do know how to stand on two legs. Not at all, says Melkior, you’ll need to have a tutor before I fetch her. You’re standing on one leg, one and a half at best, and what she needs is an eagle, indeed two eagles for round-the-clock shifts, and a couple of parrots as well, for agreeable chats. — I’ll give her everything, everything from inside myself, eagles and parrots included, only please go and bring her to me.”
“Is that me, Mac, is that me?” she bleated ingratiatingly, full of hope.
“I said Viviana.”
“Who is that? It’s nobody!”
“Your mother’s daughter …”
“We’ve figured that one out already. It’s nobody. You can’t say that! Who is she?” she whispered to Melkior. He shrugged: search me.
“There, you made it all up.”
“I did not,” said ATMAN in an earthly voice and squinted at Melkior. “He did.”
“Who?”
“Melkior … made it up, Melkior …”
“Mr. Adam …” but he could think of nothing to say next, like someone caught out lying. He felt the need to wash his hands, which were sweaty. “Mr. Adam,” he repeated senselessly and stopped dead, not being wound up. The mainspring had snapped, he felt it all of a sudden when she looked at him with her large eyes: You?
He crossed his legs in order to place a sharp kick with the tip of his shoe just below Mr. Adam’s knee. Accidentally, with many apologies, sincere as all get-out.
“Ahh!” groaned Mr. Adam and turned on his small close-set eyes, training them on Melkior with the big threat of an all-encircling octopus, the dreadful lord of the deep. But he sent his tentacles twisting upward, into an after-sleep stretch, into sensible awakening. “What? Was I asleep?”
“No, your father’s son was!” she said angrily. All was lost for her.
“But not my brother?” he took it up delightedly. “So it was I who slept, after all.”
The penny dropped.
“Why, it’s me! It’s me!” she clapped her hands and embraced ATMAN the Great.
“What about you?” ATMAN wondered very convincingly. Melkior recrossed his legs and gave him another shoe-to-shin warning. Mildly this time, with a you-cheeky-beggar smile.
“Viviana! I am Viviana!” she cried out her destiny-making discovery.
“Who told you so? Did you tell her?”
Melkior blew through his nose and turned his head away.
“You said so yourself, you crazy Mac! Don’t you remember? Viviana? I like it. Did you think of it, Mac?”
“No, it was Mr. Melkior.”