During the dirge for the last Oli Figure the twins woke up, and the god Brilliantine had to take them one on each knee; oh, they were such blessed little darlings, with their dark eyes and that fine chestnut down on their heads; and when I looked at their faces I understood why the old woman loved mankind so unreservedly. They stopped crying when they were perched on a knee, and the god dangled them up and down and sang.
I saw to the coffee entirely, so that the host should not have to interrupt his card game. Over the coffee the gods began to argue about divinity with the country pastor; they demanded that he should light their cigarettes for them and pray to them and preach about them in church on Sundays. The god Brilliantine claimed to be the madonna in male form, the Virgin Mary with penis and twins; and Benjamin said that he had composed the atom poem ‘Oh tata bomma, tomba ata mamma, oh tomma at,’ which was at one and the same time the beginning of a new Genesis, a new Mosaic Law, a new Corinthian Epistle, and the atom bomb.
The pastor, a big thickset man from the west, said that the right thing to do would be to take off his jacket and give them a hiding; the Godhead had never manifested itself in fools, he said, and the devil and not he would light their cigarettes for them: “And might I inquire of the right honorable police officers how it is that self-confessed murderers are not thrown into jail?”
The unself-conscious policeman replied, “Committing a crime is the least of the difficulties, my dear Reverend; it can be much more difficult to prove that a person has committed it. The last time these young men were up before a judge they falsely confessed to twelve other crimes as well, so that the whole matter had to be gone into afresh and no one has got to the bottom of it yet.”
Eventually the pastor lit their cigarettes for them and was given more Black Death. The gods asked if any others wished for some Black Death? A tiny croak was heard from Cleopatra and she fluttered an eyelid; but then she died again.
“Reverend Jon, hand me Cleopatra’s teeth for the girl twin to play with,” said the god Brilliantine. “And can I ask for a drop more milk for the boy twin?”
Then the town clock struck twelve and the ships hooted in the harbor. The pastor stood up and went to the battered organ and played “The year has now passed into the bosom of time,” and we all joined in, and then we wished each other a happy and prosperous New Year.
15. Cold on New Year’s Eve
The boy was not at all put out when he realized that I had tricked him by taking him to an organist’s instead of to a Communist’s. He said, “I’m sure that Communists aren’t nearly as clever as organists; and the organist said I could come back and solve chess problems with him whenever I liked.”
The boy walked beside me in silence for a while and then said, “Listen, do you think these two madmen have really killed a man?”
“Far from it,” I said. “I think they were just teasing the pastor.”
“If they’re in contact with God they have every right to kill people,” he said. “But I don’t think they’re in contact with God. I think they’re extremely ordinary people, except that they’re mad. Don’t you think people who say they’re in contact with God are mad?”
“That may well be,” I replied. “But I also think that people who steal minks and revolvers are a little mad too.”
“You’re an ass,” he said.
It was New Year’s Eve, and there were sleet showers. I was triumphant and relieved—or was I perhaps not—at having left without saying a word to that stranger, the policeman from the north; I had not even looked in his direction all night, although I had wished him a Happy New Year for appearances’ sake along with the rest of them. I should think not, indeed.
“Let’s walk faster,” I said to the boy. “I’m cold in this raw weather.”
He caught me up at the gate. He must either have run or taken a taxi, for he had stayed behind in the kitchen at the organist’s when we left.
“What do you want, man?” I said.
“I never see you,” he said.
“To the best of my knowledge you have been looking at me all evening,” I said.
“I haven’t seen you for nearly two months,” he said.
“What does he want?” said the boy. “Shall I call the police?”
“No, dear,” I said. “Hurry inside to bed. I’ll be right behind you.”
When the boy had gone in, the northerner asked, “Why are you angry with me? Have I offended you in any way?”
“Yes and no,” I replied.
“Aren’t we friends?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “It doesn’t look like it. And now I’n not standing out here any longer, in the raw cold.”
“Come home with me,” he said. “Or I’ll come with you—upstairs.”
“What for?” I said.
“I need to talk to you.”
“I should think not, indeed,” I said. “First I go home with you one night, because I’m a coward who knows no one, anywhere. I must probably have thought we would become friends. Then a month passes, and another month passes; it doesn’t even occur to you to telephone. Finally at long last we meet by accident, and then you think you all of a sudden need to talk to me. What do you need to talk about?”
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
“Is it not Cleopatra you mean?” I said.
Then I walked the three or four paces from the gate to the house and opened the door. He followed me. “Wait,” he said, when I had crossed the threshold. But he made no attempt to take hold of the door against me, even though I was not holding it very tightly, nor did he stick his foot in the door when I closed it, but was left behind outside. And I walked up to my room a free woman, if such a woman exists.
The house was asleep—or was there no one at home, perhaps? I opened up the rooms and switched on the lights to see what had to be done for the morning, but there did not seem to have been any party. I was about to go upstairs, when I heard someone come out of a room on the first floor; and suddenly I saw a grand majestic lady come gliding down the stairs towards me. At first I could only distinguish the outlines, a voluminous wide-sleeved fur coat and underneath that a full-length evening-gown; next I saw protruding from under the hem of the gown red-painted nails through open-toed white shoes with platform soles a hand’s breadth in thickness. She hugged the fur to her breast with one long white hand agleam with jewels, and her hair was brushed out across her shoulders in a mixture of some magnificent coiffure and natural waves; she had pancake make-up on her face, near-black lips the color of dried blood, and a sleepwalker’s frozen expression. I literally felt I was once again watching the mobile cinema at Krok: this was exactly the woman used in all Hollywood pictures to beguile country folk and the people in a hundred thousand little places, this creature who also starred in all the cinema magazines which are bought in wretched destitute homes where there is no water closet… until suddenly I saw that this was not a woman, this was a child; it was none other than Fruit-blood, alone in the house, coming downstairs to go out in this monstrous outfit, and the time nearly morning.
“What a sight you are, Fruit-blood, what damned cinema shark are you copying, child?” I said. “Are you trying to frighten me?”
She did not look at me, but went on gliding down the stairs in the same trance, then past me through the hall on her way out through the vestibule without seeing or hearing. But as she took hold of the door handle I put my hand over hers: “Fruit-blood, are you walking in your sleep, child?”