Cosmos (21 page)

His pince-nez glistening under his skull, Leon stretched his finger, stuck a little salt on it, shoved it into his mouth—kept it in his mouth.

Venomie raised her glass to her mouth.

The priest emitted a rather strange, gurgling, sound.
He moved.
A small window .
.
.
with a latch.

I drank.

His eyebrows twitched.

I lowered my eyelids.

“My dear Mr.
Leon, why are you so pensive?”

“My dear Mr.
Leon, what are you thinking?”

The Lulus.
Then Roly-Poly asked:

“Leon, what are you thinking?”

She asked this fearfully, standing in the door to the kitchen, her hands by her side, she did not want to hide her terror, she asked as if she were injecting fear into us with a syringe, while I thought, I thought most deeply, most intensely, but without the slightest thought.

Leon commented as an aside: “She’s asking what I’m thinking.”

Honey.

The tip of his tongue appeared in the groove of his thin lips, his tongue was pink, it remained between his lips, the tongue of an older man in pince-nez, the tongue, spit into the mouth, in the lightning-fast chaos and whirl Lena’s mouth together with Katasia’s mouth came to the surface, it was a moment, I saw them on the very surface, the way one sees pieces of paper in the seething cauldron of a waterfall .
.
.
it passed.

I caught a leg of the table with my hand so that the rapidity of it all wouldn’t carry me off.
A belated gesture.
Rhetorical actually.
Humbug.

The priest.

Roly-Poly nothing.
Leon.
Lulu said a little tearfully, My dear Mr.
Leon, what about this excursion?
What for?
At night, in the dark?
What kind of landscape are we supposed to see?

“You can’t see much in the dark,” Fuks interjected impatiently, rather impolitely.

“My wife,” Leon said (he’s going to say it, while the bird and the stick are there!), “my wife,” he added (Jesus, Mary!), “my wife” (I caught myself by the hand!) .
.
.

“Oh please, don’t be so nervosum!”
he exclaimed jovially.

“There is no reason for this nervipissum!
Every little thing is
en ordre, bitte
, here we are, sitting as God decreed, everyone on his little bum, we’re biting into God’s gifts, as well as gurgle gurgle gurgle, with schnapps and wine-ho, and within the hour we’ll march-ho, under my command, to the one and only delight where the miracle of the pan-o-ram-a opens up, as I said, because of the prancing moonlit miracle, hop tra-la-la among hills, little mountains, mountains, open spaces, valleys, hey-ho, oh, hey-ho .
.
.
as it appeared to me, my dears, twenty and seven years ago, less one month and four days when I accidentally at that exact hour of the night strayed into the one and only place and saw .
.
.

“To suck,” he added and turned pale.
Short of breath.

“Clouds are coming,” Lukie said harshly, unpleasantly—“we won’t be able to see anything, there are clouds, the night will be dark, we won’t see anything.”

“Clouds,” Leon mumbled, “clouds .
.
.
That’s good.
At that time too .
.
.
a bit cloudy.
I remember.
I noticed it as I was returning.
I
remember!”he exclaimed impatiently, as if he were in a hurry and was immediately lost in thought .
.
.

As for me, I also thought .
.
.
unceasingly and with all my might.
Roly-Poly (who had since gone to the kitchen) again stood in the door.

“Careful, your sleeve!”

I jumped sideways at these words of his, frightened—the sleeve, the sleeve!—but he was saying this to Fuks whose sleeve was brushing against a dish of mayonnaise.
Nothing much.
Peace.
Why isn’t Ludwik here, what’s become of him, why is she without Ludwik?

The sparrow.

The stick.

The cat.

“My wife doesn’t trust me.”

He looked in turn at three fingers of his right hand, beginning with the index finger.

“Ladies and gentlemen, my wife would like to know what I’m thinking.”

He moved his three fingers in the air, while I instantly intertwined the fingers of both my hands.

“Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps it pains me to some degree, hm, that my wife, after thirty-seven years of unblemished conjugal life, is anxiously asking for my thoughts.”

The priest said, “may I please have some cheese,” everyone looked at him, he repeated, “may I please have some cheese,” Lukie passed him the cheese, but instead of cutting himself a piece, the priest added, “perhaps we can move the table a bit, it’s cramped here.”

“We could move the table,” Leon said.
“What was I saying, about what?
Ah yes, I was saying that I did not deserve, after years of conjugal life that was impeccable

irreproachable

exemplary

dutiful

loyal .
.
.

Because it’s been so many years!
Years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds .
.
.
Do you know, gentlemen that, pen in hand, I’ve calculated how many seconds of conjugal life I have had, including leap years, and it came to one hundred and fourteen million, nine hundred and twelve thousand, nine hundred and eighty four, no more no less, until half past seven in the evening of this very day.
And now, at eight, a few thousand more have accrued.”

He rose and sang:

If you haven’t got what you love

Why then you love what you’ve got!

He sat down.
Lost himself in thought.

“If you want to move the table .
.
.
What was I saying?
About what?
Ah, yes.
So many seconds under my wife and daughter’s watchful gaze, and yet, alas, who would have thought

who would have thought

who would have thought

who would have thought

my wife seems not to trust my thoughts!”

He again became lost in thought, broke off.
His musings were ill-timed, there was a feeling of violent chaos in general, disorder, or something like that, perhaps not just in this speech of his, perhaps it was in everything, in the totality of everything .
.
.
again .
.
.
again .
.
.
while he, on the other hand, was celebrating.
The sparrow.
The stick.
The cat.
This is not the point.
So this is the point.
This is not the point.
So this is the point.
He was celebrating as if it were a litany, a religious service, “look with what attention I devote myself to inattention .
.
.

“My wife does not trust my thoughts, here, here, do I deserve this?
Probably not, let us admit, yet it’s true (move the table away, it’s cramping me too, the seat’s hard but that can’t be helped), yet it’s true, one must admit, in such cases one really doesn’t know, because who can really know what thoughts are in someone else’s head .
.
.
Take this example.
For example I, an exemplary husband and father, take into my hand, let’s say, this small piece of an eggshell .
.
.”

He took a piece of shell between his fingers.

“And I hold it in my fingers like this .
.
.
and I turn it like this .
.
.
slowly .
.
.
in front of your eyes .
.
.
It’s something innocent

harmless

not in anyone’s way.

In a word, a trifling
passe-temps
.
Well yes, but the question arises: how am I turning it?
.
.
.
Because in the long run, mark you, I could be turning it innocently, virtuously .
.
.
but, if I please, I could also .
.
.
what?
.
.
.
If I wanted to, I could turn it slightly more .
.
.hm .
.
.What?
A little.
I’m saying this, of course, as an example, to show that the most respectable husband possibly could, under the eye of his better half, turn this piece of shell in a manner that is .
.
.
”

He blushed.
Unbelievable: he turned red!
Unheard of!
He knew it, he even half-shut his eyes, but he didn’t hide it, indeed, he was solemnly exposing his embarrassment in full view.
Like the monstrance.

He waited until the blush faded.
All the while turning the piece of shell.
Finally he opened his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.
He said:

“So, whatever.”

Everyone relaxed .
.
.
though actually, the congestion in our corner, with the lamps, was still quite jumpy .
.
.
yet at the same time heavy, it seemed .
.
.
They watched him, they surely thought he was a bit crazy .
.
.
And yet no one said anything.

Outside, somewhere behind the house something clattered, as if something were falling .
.
.
what?
It was an extra sound, supernumerary, it absorbed me, I thought about it for a long time, deeply—but I didn’t know what to think, how to think.

“Berg.”

He said it calmly and politely, carefully.

I said no less politely and clearly.

“Berg.”

He looked at me briefly, lowered his eyelids.
We both sat quietly, listening to the word “berg”.
.
.
as if it were a subterranean reptile, one of those that never make their way into the light .
.
.
and now it was here, in front of everyone.
They watched it, I suppose .
.
.
I suddenly imagined that everything was moving forward, like a deluge, an avalanche, a march under banners, that a definitive blow had fallen, a push that gave direction!
Slap-bang!
March!
Onward!
Let’s move on!
If he were the only one who said “berg,” well, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.
But I too said “berg.”And my berg uniting with his berg (confidential, private) removed his berg from the realm of confidentiality.
This was no longer the private little world of an eccentric.
This was truly something .
.
.
this was something that really existed!
Right in front of us, here.
And it suddenly shot up with full strength, pushed into, made one surrender to it .
.
.

For a moment I saw the sparrow, the stick, the cat, together with the mouth .
.
.
like trash in the seething cauldron of a waterfall—then vanishing.
I expected everything to move forward in the
mode of the berg.
I was an officer of the Commander-in-Chief.
A boy serving at mass.
A humble and well-disciplined acolyte and performer.
Onward!
Let’s move on!
March!

But then Lulu exclaimed: “Bravo, Mr.
Leon!”

She had left me out.
Yet I was sure that she exclaimed it simply out of fear, unable to endure cooperating with him.
Suddenly everything fell apart, then flagged, there was tittering, everyone began talking, and Leon laughed uproariously hohohooho, where is the mommy flaskie, take a leakie, bib the cognac, pootoomu bataclee!
How unpleasant and discouraging it is that, after such a lofty moment, when the course of events prepares to leap, disintegration and laxity ensue, the humming of the swarm returns, of the swarm, give me some vodka too, you’re not drinking, Madame, a drop of cognac, the priest, Venomie, Tolek, Lukie, Lulu, Fuks, and Lena with her beautifully sculptured mouth, fresh, a bunch of sightseers.
Everything slumped.
Nothing.
Everything became like the dirty wall again.
Chaos.