“He’s nowhere to be seen today,” he said, glumly contemplating the barrow of the man who bought used bottles and kept shouting at the top of his voice that he did. For Glassville, he thought in passing. “Was he out drinking last night?”
She gave him a cursory interrogative look, but all her attention was directly sucked in by the shop window.
“Because he usually makes a night of it,” insisted Melkior, as if he meant to extort an admission from her. “He would still be asleep now.” He looked at his watch: “Why, of course, it’s not ten yet. He’s asleep.”
“Who’s asleep?” she asked distractedly, absorbed in some fresh textile phenomenon in a display. “What do you think of the yardage over there for a two-piece suit? A nice classical one, close-fitting, eh? Let’s go in to have a closer look — it doesn’t look bad in the window. Who did you say was asleep? I’ll be disappointed again when I see it up close, I know myself. It all looks lovely in the window, but as soon as I take the stuff in my hands it feels like matting, like a horse blanket. Sackcloth, really. I’m awfully unhappy when I have to buy something. I keep thinking there’s got to be something better somewhere else. That’s the story of my life. I always end up disappointed.”
Sure enough, she bought nothing this time either. She had everything taken down from the shelves, turned the lot upside down, and went out again. Disappointed.
“What did I tell you?” she said all hot and bothered, splotches coming out all over her face. Who is she angry at? She’s gone a bit ugly even, he smirked to himself with a kind of glee. Look, she’s even got tears in her eyes!
“No, no, I tell you,” she said, barely managing to hold back the tears. “Nothing ever works for me. Nothing, nothing, ever! Don’t laugh at me, it’s true.”
“I’m not laughing,” but inside he was, impudent and vengeful. He was deriding the mannequin-like sorrow that robbed him of the importance of his existence with her, making him a lonely companion: he was trotting along by her side all but unnoticed. He suffered grumpily. Homeomeries, the great-grandmothers to atoms, the seed of the world according to Anaxagoras, I know about them, too. He was reminding himself of his own importance, to prevent himself from sinking. He was clutching at straws. At homeomeries. Embraced by Aristotle, too. How well-shaped and pretty her mouth is, the lower lip slightly swelling — for a kiss! But no, it’s not only a kiss. Oh love, for delights! The subjective derivative of proliferation. The bait. The biblical apple. The warbling. Come to me, darling, we’ll have a lovely time. Enka naked. Kior! Oh, Kior …
He kept trying to ward off the black fillings in Ugo’s wide-open, lustful mouth, which guzzled lechery with kisses. The fleshly feminine existence. If I am then I am what am I. The pride of the body. The breasts making their announcement in advance, trumpeting to the world to tell it who is coming. The fascinating damned holy leg tapping the patient Earth’s head with pointed sandal, the elevation of the rump. Here she comes, here comes the proudly exalted empress of the world. Noses jerking after her, eyes staring, tongues dropping. The great drooling of mankind. While NATURE, the old seductress, the Madam of The Great Brothel, murmurs contentedly, Aren’t my girls lovely?
“I buy bottles! Bottles! Old newspapers, bottles!” the voice of one crying in the wilderness, issuing a final warning. Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas. Repent while ye still have time. The Great Pestilence is upon us. It’s ravaging these lands. Say your prayers and sell your bottles. Old newspapers, too. Bottles.
“I just don’t see what they want those newspapers for,” she spoke up derisively. “Forever whining about things. Now, the bottles I can understand … but the old newspapers? What can they possibly need trash for?”
“To cook and recook, and make into new newsprint.”
“New newspapers from old? No wonder you can’t find anything worth reading in the papers. Just a load of rubbish, nothing but war and bombs. They’ve nothing better to do.”
“While they could be weaving marquisette …” Where had he come up with “marquisette”? He wondered himself.
“Why marquisette?” But the penny dropped: “You’re making fun of me, aren’t you? Well, I did tell you I was looking for cloth … for Aunt Flora. But there’s no point in boring you. I’ll go on alone.”
Melkior was afraid she might abandon him mid-street. “No, Viviana, please don’t, I’m not bored at all. I only said, wouldn’t it be more useful to weave pretty fabrics for pretty women? To make the world a more beautiful place. Then you’d find what you’re looking for.”
“Ah, if only I knew what I’m looking for!” she admitted with a sincere smile. “I have to find it first to discover what it was I was looking for. I’m over the moon when I finally find it. And I don’t mean just the cloth — that’s who I am.”
That’s who I am—did she mean “unfortunately” or “hooray”? For there was neither sad tinge nor boastful triumph in her voice, it was a simple statement of fact: anything goes — I’ll see what you have to offer.
Melkior was offering himself. Offering up his person with all his heart and soul, in order to be found, discovered. Here I am, Viviana, with all the devotion of a love which … No, they prefer charm boys, euphoric babblers using fetching lies to decorate a night. A wonderful night. The very stars were bursting with laughter. Wow, what a time we had!
She has been sucked dry with kisses, gnawed bare by those black fillings. She has got the “wonderful night” circled around her eyes in a spreading sfumato of carnal blue. The stars of pleasure are even now bursting in her pupils. She is still being drenched with caresses. Viviana! Rattling inside him was a shattered sky, Ugo was stomping on the shards.
They walked down a street thick with special offers and passersby. A warm and idle morning. Elbows, shoulders, legs. Heads turned in salute to shop windows. Noses and one ear each in profiles. Eyes, greedy, snatching in passing at the fetishes behind the thick panes of glass of the sanctuaries. Inside, priests and Pharisees discovering with delight the secrets of the genesis of pleasing shapes, deluxe qualities, the wonders of the most-moster-mostest of sophisticated civilization. Suddenly, among the splendor-lovers’ ecstatic profiles, Melkior spotted a heretic en-face scornfully erasing the bustling fairground enthusiasm and leaving in its wake grave concern. The Stranger strode in a “superior” manner towering above all the heads, even though he was no taller than they. Melkior spotted him a long way off. Instinctively he ducked his head down, dived into the dancing waves of heads, shoulders, bodies in motion, moving on through, and hung his head like a culprit. He wished to dissolve like an anonymous droplet in the thick stupid sea of senseless motion, to pass unnoticed, invisible. In the company of this pretty, unnecessary (ah, Viviana!) female I’m loitering among the props of a superficial, irresponsible life, suspected in his mind of being an accomplice, perhaps even a believer.