Melkior had seen her with him now and again in the evening hours, the time set aside for her. The Café, Gita’s, mainly a student hangout, fruit salad and coffee, very cheap. Or the cinema, Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald. Rose Marie. Touching. She liked a good cry at the film. A super film. His senior by at least four or five years, fashion dressmaker, skinny, long thin legs, square-hips-flat-behind, breasts gathered into two modest handfuls underneath a virginal blouse, mole on chin with three resilient hairs growing from it. Three palm trees on Happiness Island. She was not fond of Melkior. She did like having a romp, though, in his room with her fiancé.
But the fiancé was getting acute attacks of other loves. Fellow undergraduate, co-ed Cica, springtime, walks, sonnets. The old hope has died the death. He would park his fiancée for the night (a bit of student slang, that) as early as nine o’clock and go on to make a night of it with Cica. Hey, why didn’t the fiancée fall in love with someone else, too? Idea for breakup, it’s all your fault, to think I trusted you so blindly, you sly minx. Worse. He took her to the zoo. Animals mate in springtime, women love to watch, it excites them. In front of the monkey cage — he told Melkior so himself — at the exact moment of simian joy. A young man was standing on the other side of her, watching edgily. Her face changed colors, jealousy. Let’s move on, pet. Her voice was uneven, as if she had been running hard. He kept giving her little nudges toward the young man hoping the man would see her, that she would see him, that there would flare up between them a great, irresistible love, monkey-inspired, leaving him free with Cica, in vernal sonnets. A mad hope, a futile one. That hope, too, died the death. The young man, taken onanis-tically unawares, walked off. Sorry, ma’am. She gave him a parting look after all (or so it seemed to him) in that way, the monkey way. Something must have sparked. And he was jealous. And he quarreled with her. You’re just a she-ape in rut! You’re now ready to do it with anyone. And she cried. I love you. He then stroked her thinning hair and took her to the woods behind the zoo and they romped like monkeys.
“If it’s so pure, you could have written something better for her.” Melkior was pacing the room with a vengeful grin. Inside him flourished a sadness in the temperate climate of small despair. A mood of mild poisoning. Fatigue. Yawning. Humor.
“I’m sure you could have!” retorted Ugo in angry frustration. “There was no time, for one thing. I was waiting there to collect the whoring tax from Kalisto after lunch, but that man Dom … your catechism instructor … went on and on about his red corpuscles. There was no end to it. Mother shed a tear for each corpuscle, and Kalisto went pale with fear — white corpuscles all over the place. It was all I could do to lure him away and into my room for a somewhat more spirited tête-à-tête. I cited you as witness to his movements around the post office this morning. Well, what do you care — he can’t stand you anyway. But it worked, I can tell you that. I also mentioned buying a birthday present for the fiancée. I’m short of cash, he said, I’ve put money down in advance for coal. Not to mention where she (the fiancée, that is) seems to have birthdays more than once a year. Oh, my son, my son, when are you going to stand on your own two feet? Oh, Daddy, Daddy, I’ve been standing on my own two feet in front of you for at least half an hour. Oh, my son, you’re good for nothing. Oh, Daddy, you’re good for everything. Following the exchange of diplomatic notes we proceeded to implement a reparation treaty. And, lo and behold, Kalisto coughed up a shiny Protect Yugoslavia.” Ugo flipped a silver fifty-dinar piece and caught it in his palm. “Alley oop!”
“Enough for a high-style Give’nTake session tonight, I expect.”
“Not at all. It’s Give’n Make tonight, as a matter of fact,” said Ugo triumphantly. “A quiet place with well-behaved waiters. There’ll have to be poetry whispered into a shell-like ear. If only there could be a bit of Petrarch, dolci ire, dolci sdegni et dolci paci. October’s gentle breath, oh, quelle différence! Apart from permeates, it’s all at a Kalisto love level. Wouldn’t you happen, Eustachius the Generous, to have among your remaindered stock a line or two to spare? Spare Christian, Oh Cyrano the great, a spark of your wit so that with Roxanne he can be a big hit!”
“I haven’t got any, poor Christian, the mind’s gone dry, my dear. Not that it could help you, with your mouth from ear to ear.”
“And the fillings, don’t forget, stomp me right into the ground, kind Eustachius, why don’t you. Is that the way to speak to a man all atremble before a date with his beloved? With nothing in his pocket but your October!”
“All right then, toss it.” Melkior flung himself on the sofa back-first. The springs let out a painful sob.
“Toss it? And recite what instead? Damned Brumaire? Where’s that one with Little one, I am but a painted clown? Remember? You penned it for Mina. That time you nearly got crowned with a siphon bottle for your pains. Be honest — who was it who saved you? That’s the one I need. It would suit me for other reasons, too; I mean suit my mood and my state of mind in general.”
“God knows where it might beee …” Melkior yawned fit to bring on tears. He was painfully hungry.
“Well, what do you know, I’m a bore. You’re yawning. Don’t be a beast, Eustachius, lend us the poem.”
“I told you I don’t know where it is, didn’t I?” and all the while he was thinking, Where else could it be? In the yellow folder along with Mina’s only letter, the one saying she was going back to her fiancé, farewell. Fare thee well Mina. Eyes like yours I shall never again … Give him that to conquer Viviana with? Farewell my love. The sun goes slowly down, Preparing my vigil in the endless night, My bittersweet dreams and my thorned crown. May your tomorrow be bracing and bright, While I …
“Well, recite it for me then, Eustachius the Most Lovable — I’ll take it down. I still have time to learn it by heart.”
“I’ve forgotten it. What will it matter if some day I drown in drunken jeers my sorrowful plight? Little one, I am but a painted clown …”
“Oh God, don’t tell me you can’t remember a single stanza? Eustachius the Sharp-Eyed, just one little stanza, please …” Ugo knelt by the sofa and kissed Melkior on the temple.
“I’ll be going now. You close the flower, I remember that much.”
“Go on, go on.”
“When the sun sets I think it was. Or not. I don’t know. I really cannot remember another word. Your kiss was in vain.”
“Well, what about that bit?”
“What bit?”
“Your kiss was in vain.”
“That bit meant Go to hell!” Melkior got up. He was now afraid that Ugo might remember those artless lines for Mina. He could not bear to hear them from Ugo’s lips.
“I’ll be going now. You close the flower,” Ugo was reciting in a soulful whisper.
“Suits me. Be on your way.”
“But it’s useless, Eustachius the Mindless. What can I do with it? When the sun sets … What am I to do?”
“Have a pee and off to bed. And when the sun rises again there’ll be a war on! War! Understand me, Parampion the Cretinous? War!” he shouted in irritation. Hunger was developing in him a beastly instinct to roar. He felt his entire miserable harassed body present in his mindless voice.
“Fine, Eustachius the Terrible, fine. Forget the poem. I’m off to fight the dragon empty-handed like that biblical hero … I forget which.” Ugo was put off by the shouting. But when Melkior lit a cigarette he took one out himself and asked for a light. Melkior’s hand trembled as he lit it for him. In the match light he saw an ill-shaven face, thick lecherous lips, gaping equine nostrils, and that forehead, low, idiotic, half overgrown with an almost straight band of thick black eyebrows — an ape. That was the conclusion in which his rage was being dissolved, to flow away calmly, even with a smile.