“I’ve been looking for you all over the known world,” said Don Fernando with a kindness that understood all and forgave all, in advance.
“The world is large, if you’ve been looking for me in your world.” Don Fernando gave a patient smile. “To what do I owe the honor?” Melkior attempted a laugh.
“Seriously, now …” Don Fernando took his smile off, as if putting it away for later, and pulled Melkior outside rather hastily. “Pupo wants a word with you. He’s waiting for you at the Corso. That’s all. Goodbye.” And Don Fernando disappeared around the corner.
Pupo? He hadn’t seen the man for years. A chance encounter in the street, in a rush. He was always hurrying somewhere, somebody was waiting for him, he had to get somewhere on time. He would jerk his hand free of the sleeve, glance at his watch, hurriedly. Curly hair, a foppish pencil-thin mustache, his voice a melodious baritone, his dress purposely casual. He bestowed cordial smiles, he liked meeting with his friends but never had time for them. He seemed to be apologizing at every encounter, awfully sorry, old friend … He had a long-overdue exam to sit and was almost ridiculous. Pupo at the University, a seaman on dry land. Then he sank somewhere into the unknown.
And surfaced again tonight. Where from? Why? No questions allowed.
The mysterious life of Pupo. Pupo wants a word with you. Pupo’s waiting. Melkior was moving in Pupo’s magnetic field wrapped up in the force of his relaylike connection with an enigma, with a closed, illegible mystery which showed to the eye only very simple, primitive hieroglyphs. The Christian fish. Melkior knew only that, the fish, and he knew he was on his way to see Pupo about something fishy, but he was flattered by the trust, however minuscule. He felt a moral excitement, as if he were off to admit guilt for a deed for which an innocent man had been charged. The diaphragm nervous, the pulse quickened, the breathing deep, serious … as if it was Viviana who was asking for him. But he immediately rejected the comparison as … inadequate. As a feeling of an intimate, personal danger while the Earth trembled. No, it was beyond comparison, Pupo’s trust.
There was no Pupo in the Café. Melkior had made three or four sweeps of the entire seating area, but — no mustache, no hair … Only to be expected, of course, typical of them to keep us waiting … Then a newspaper dipped and he recognized the smile that was looking at him … But sans the foppish mustache. The hair very light, long, rather thin above the forehead. Plus glasses — oh yes? clearly a plain-glass mask. Melkior approached in excitement, prepared for a tempestuous encounter, a mashing embrace. But Pupo sensibly reduced it all to a cordial handshake.
“Hello, poet. How are you? It has been a long time.” Pupo’s baritone sounded somewhat muted, less fresh.
“Long indeed, yes …” Melkior noticed he no longer knew how to talk to Pupo. He did not know which questions were permitted, whether even asking after somebody’s health was not “forbidden.” He wanted to speak usefully. But he also wanted to show his joy at seeing Pupo again and to reestablish immediately the old easy familiarity, so he permitted himself a joke: “Long enough for you to get glasses and lose the mustache, not to mention exposing a stretch of forehead …”
Pupo kept his grin on, but he was plainly not enjoying the conversation. I’ve put my foot in it and no mistake. It’s camouflage. The … people around might’ve overheard me. He cast a glance around the surrounding tables — the band was playing — and sensed he was making another stupid mistake. Oh Lord, they are a hard lot to handle! Yes, aren’t they, replied the Lord, leaping at the chance.
“Aren’t you going to have a seat?” Well, well, Pupo was not in such a hurry after all.
“Of course I will, I just thought you might be pressed for time and didn’t want to …” he was saying with a smile, but Pupo did glance at his watch, out of habit.
“There’ll always be fifteen minutes to spare for an old …” but his mind was elsewhere, and the generosity was a throwaway; Melkior was insulted by it. Fifteen minutes! Why, that’s how long you spare for whores. Pupo has always been like that. Melkior now regretted his minutes. Why should his be the more valuable? I could have used them to do some thinking at least … or simply to do nothing, to wander about town, look at things. And here I am instead, wasting my time with this … Jacobin. The Revolution will be fifteen minutes late. Ah-tchoo!
“Have you got a cold?”
“No. Why?”
“You’re sneezing. Still going on binges? What about Ugo — is he still as crazy as he used to be? Or have you fallen out?”
“No. Why? We still see quite a bit of each other.”
“In that street-corner dive over there?”
“Yes. The Give’nTake. We drop in from the office every so often. I’m working for a newspaper — part time.”
“On a column-inch basis? What do you cover — literature?”
“Theater and film.” He’s sounding me out.
“Yes, you always liked those. Is Ugo working for the paper, too?”
“No, he isn’t.”
“What does he do then?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Well, I suppose it’s not bad as jobs go. Are you angry with me or something?”
“No. Why? You’re asking and I’m replying, that’s all.”
“Yes, indeed …” Pupo laughed again and glanced at his watch.
“So how do you live, writing your column inches?”
“I get by.”
“Do you still live like we used to — student digs sort of thing, sharing a room? Remember that time we …”
“No, I live alone,” Melkior coldly interrupted Pupo’s remembrance. He doesn’t give a damn anyway — this is just softening me up for something else. He waited for it.
“Got a nice room?”
“Nice. Separate entrance.”
“What have you got — a bed?”
“And a sofa.” Melkior laughed. “Why didn’t you say straight away? Do you need a place to sleep?”
Pupo gave an absent laugh.
“Not I.” His face turned into an undecided suspicious mask that studied Melkior long with a worried and sad look. “Listen,” said Pupo hesitantly, “you’re … um … a good man, I know. That is why I thought … Well, to come to the point: one of our people needs to sleep at your place, see, for … well, a couple of nights. I’m responsible for him, see. That’s what matters. Anything else to do with this business you’ll understand yourself. … See? Not a word to Ugo or any of your crowd … all right?”
“Right you are.” Melkior was feeling grandly emotional, ready to die at the stake. Kill me, you villains! He wondered at his own heroism.
“Whereabouts do you live?”
“Ah. That could be a bit of a snag. Across the road from 35th’s barracks.”
“On the contrary, it’s a good thing. The landlady?”
“Middle-aged widow. But you wouldn’t give her more than thirty-six or — seven to look at her.”
Pupo laughed: “That’s irrelevant to my purpose. Is she the nosy type? Likely to gossip?”
“Oh no, hardly. More the sadly contemplative type. Longing for love pure and tender — eternal, too, it goes without saying — but having nasty dreams all the while. Hence unhappy. Cares for nothing anymore.”
“Not even men?”
“Only in her dreams, apparently. However, there is this man friend who comes by twice a week. But it’s more of a spiritual liaison sort of thing. Truth to tell, you do hear a carnal sound or two at times … but that’s all to the good, isn’t it?”
“Ye-es, it is indeed,” said Pupo distractedly, glancing at his watch. “Thank you for the flowers, Doctor. Thank you for the flowers, gentlemen.”
A horribly emaciated elderly woman was weaving her way among the tables, curtsying and thanking everyone, one and all, most graciously, hand on heart, for the flowers. A thin moth-eaten fox boa had slid and hung on one shoulder only, exposing a thin, white wrinkled neck bending to the left and right: thank you for the flowers.