“Oh, Madame! Thank you so much for the flowers!” she suddenly addressed Pupo, offering him a hand in a badly torn black glove from which her fingers protruded in misery. “How are you, my dear? I haven’t seen you for ages. Why, you look years younger! Absolutely radiant. You were at my concert tonight, I’m sure. Wasn’t I marvelous?”
Everyone was looking at their table. Pupo was going alternately red and pale. Melkior clearly saw his jaw tremble … with rage … with fear … hell and damnation, all eyes were on him!
“Last Sunday I played at the Mozarteum, my dear. Oh, what a concert! Liszt’s Sonata in B minor. You like Liszt, don’t you? He’s simply marvelous. And how I played! The great Rubinstein was there, too. He said to me, ‘Brava, ma petite! You have the hands of God who made the world. God give me such hands!’ he cried out and melted into tears. The great Rubinstein. Brava!” she exclaimed in ardent exaltation and went on with her demure round of tables: “Thank you for the flowers, gentlemen. I’m most grateful to you, dear Countess, and to you, too, Baron, thank you for the flowers, you are most kind. Oh, what an honor, Monsieur le Comte. Thank you for the flowers. Thank you, thank you, one and all …” and with tears in her eyes she blew many kisses to the entire clientele, finally to gather her long silk gown and hurriedly step down from the dais with an enormous bunch of flowers in her arms.
“I think my concert’s over, too,” said Pupo in a near-whisper, glancing at his watch. “Some in the audience are quite musical. I’ll go, you stay. I’ll call on you tomorrow. How long will you be in?”
“Until nine, without fail.”
Pupo took his hand and gave it two hard squeezes without a word.
Businesslike. He had clinched a deal.
Expeditious, practical, cold. He was left there like a girl deceived. Call you tomorrow — the time-honored telegraphic goodbye after a tryst. That was how he customarily took leave of Enka — I’ll call you — and regretted it afterwards, in the street. Some other words were called for, after all, but he would always store them away “for later.” Then it would be another I’ll call you, he would again see the disappointment in her eyes but he was unable to tell her anything else, anything binding, committing, anything with a promise of a closer liaison. Let’s make it quite clear: this thing between us has gone as deep as it ever will. No tears, please. So it was with Enka. The polyvalent element, capable of forming many amorous bondings.
As for Pupo … Melkior felt he was retreating after a failed attempt at conquest. The conquest of Viviana. He was now accepting a comparison he had rejected as being out of place. As, hah, one unworthy … of Pupo. Where am I to spend the rest of this miserable evening? He began rummaging among the options. The Give’nTake he threw the farthest away. Home? … and find ATMAN lying in ambush on his landing to see the flower from this afternoon’s garden. Ring Enka? Perhaps Coco was on night duty … in the morgue, with the heart which had died that morning in hand … like a canary. That option he also … eliminated, cautiously. He knew he was going to wander off somewhere following his footsteps, pining for Viviana. A quiet place with well-behaved waiters. There’ll have to be poetry whispered … October’s gentle breath. He smiled, but sweetened the bitterness using Ugo’s tra-la-la-tra-la-la sonnet. With well-behaved waiters? The neon letters of the different Café signs lit up in turns. But he kept wrestling with the Give’nTake. Leave me alone, damn you! Like the shadow of a huge vulture the Give’nTake kept flying over the sweet flickering of Viviana’s name in a distant darkness. The thing to do would be to explore all the dark recesses of this night, strain the ocean to catch the plankton glowing in those two … Vivianic eyes. What was now the use of this entire superfluous night-cloaked space? The thing to do was walk all over the night, from end to end, peer into every dark corner, interrogate every owl, nighthawk, mouse, cat, whore, and thief, walk from bark to bark down to the farthest reaches of the night … Oh, where did they hide her? Gilda! Pietà, signori, prego Pietà. And tomorrow morning Duke Ugo would burst into song questa o quella per me pari sono … Tears welled in his eyes … and he let them flow. In the dense darkness of an old doorway Melkior succumbed to sobs. Oh God how unhappy I am!
“You and I both,” responded the darkness with a sigh. Embarrassment lashed Melkior. He turned toward the darkness enraged, irate:
“Who’s there?” he bellowed into the dark. “Speak up! Who are you?”
“Go ahead, sir, hit me.” Creeping toward him was something four-legged, crawling, down on the ground, on the uneven tiles, rattling huge hooves, armor, fearful machinery. A talking turtle.
“I’m down here, sir, at your feet,” grunted the being on the floor.
“What do you want?”
“You could help me without undue trouble to yourself.”
“Where are you? Stand up. Who are you?”
“Half a man, that’s my name … and my entire biography.”
“Are you drunk? Rolling on the ground like that?”
“I’m not rolling on the ground. I have no legs,” enunciated the man in a low, penitently shamed voice, like someone making a terrible avowal.
Melkior was horrified. He bent over pointlessly with the naïve intention of lifting the man, getting him to stand up straight, restoring his dignity. To stand him up on what? To elevate him to what dignity?
“What can I do for you then?” he asked politely.
“I didn’t tell you that to make you change your tone,” said the legless man with some arrogance. “You can go on despising me if you like. What I have in mind is nothing to do with that kind of mercy. I need your help in a specific matter, that’s all.”
“In what matter?”
“The stairs are too high for me to climb — my legs are cut off almost at the hip …”
“And you want me to …? But can’t you use your arms?”
“I could, but the steps are wooden, there would be the rattle of my hooves and the rest of my harness. She would recognize it. I walk about the house on all fours, she’s familiar with the sound. I say she — I mean my wife. I’m sure you’ll have guessed it by now, I might as well empty out the sack of my misfortune: she’s upstairs in a man’s flat. Her lover’s,” he added in pain.
“Are you sure?” Melkior felt like breaking into a kind of laughter.
“I’ve been lying in wait for her, here in the dark. She’s just walked in.”
“So what do you propose to do upstairs? Strangle her?”
“I couldn’t reach her neck,” the legless man joked grimly. “No, it’s nothing of the kind,” he went on in a serious tone. “I want you to help me upstairs without making a sound. His door is right at the top of the staircase. You needn’t feel any revulsion about touching me, in terms of cleanliness I mean. I’m clean, for all that I crawl along on the ground. She takes care of me, keeps me clean and neat. I’m an intellectual and a man of taste. I’m not poor either. I’m even wearing a new suit — half a suit, that is — complete with white shirt and a tie. You can’t see it in the dark, but you can take my word for it.”
“I believe you,” muttered Melkior. He was already feeling the urge to turn around and run for it. “Why are you going upstairs?”
“To listen in,” the legless man said greedily. “I want to hear her love, frank and true. I’ve never experienced that nor ever will … do you get my drift? I fear it’s not easy to explain to you people up there, you who are upstanding and whole. But I had a hope when I heard you. … Forgive me if it sounds offensive, but I said to myself, This one just might …”