Invitation to a Beheading (16 page)

As though accidentally, he knocked over several men, and, unable to restrain himself, with a groan, he mixed up the remainder. Cincinnatus sat leaning on one elbow; he was pensively picking at a knight which, in the neck region, seemed not loath to return to the mealy state whence it had sprung.

“Let’s start some other game, you don’t know how to play chess,” fussily cried M’sieur Pierre and opened up a varicolored board for “goose.” He cast the dice, and immediately climbed from 3 to 27—although then he had to come back down while Cincinnatus zoomed from 22 to 46. The game dragged on for a long time. M’sieur Pierre would grow purple, stamp his feet, fume, crawl under the table after the dice and emerge holding them in his palm and swearing that that was exactly the way they had been lying on the floor.

“Why do you smell like that?” asked Cincinnatus with a sigh. M’sieur Pierre’s plump face twisted into a forced smile.

“It runs in the family,” he explained with dignity. “Feet sweat a little. I’ve tried alums, but nothing works. I must say that, although I have been afflicted with this since childhood, and although any suffering is customarily regarded with respect, no one has ever yet been so tactless …”

“I can’t breathe,” said Cincinnatus.

The sounds were still closer, and now they hurried so that it would have been a sin to distract them by tapping out questions. And they continued later than the night before, and Cincinatus lay prone on the flagstones, spread-eagled as one who has been felled by a sunstroke, and indulging the mummery of the senses, clearly visualized through the tympanum the secret passage, lengthening with every scrape, and sensed—as if thus the dark, tight pain in his chest were relieved—how the stones were being loosened, and he had already begun guessing, as he looked at the wall, where it would crack and burst open with a crash.

Crackling and rustling noises were still audible when Rodion came in. Behind him, in ballet shoes on her bare
feet and a tartan dress, Emmie darted in and, as she had done once before, hid under the table, crouching there on her haunches, so that her flaxen hair, curling at the tips, covered her face and her knees, and even her ankles. Barely had Rodion gone when she sprang up and went straight to Cincinnatus, who was sitting on the cot, and, overturning him, began scrambling all over him. Her cold fingers and hot elbows dug into him, she bared her teeth, a fragment of green leaf had stuck to her front teeth.

“Sit still,” said Cincinnatus, “I’m exhausted—I didn’t weep a slink all night—sit still and tell me …”

Fidgeting, Emmie buried her forehead in his chest; her curls tumbling and hanging to one side, revealed the bare upper part of her back, which had a hollow that moved with her shoulder blades and was evenly covered with a blond down, which looked as though it had been combed in a symmetrical pattern.

Cincinnatus stroked her warm head, trying to raise it. She snatched his fingers and began pressing them to her quick lips.

“What a snuggling pet you are,” said Cincinnatus drowsily. “That will do, enough now. Tell me …”

But she was seized by an outburst of childish boisterousness. The muscular child rolled Cincinnatus about like a puppy. “Stop it!” cried Cincinnatus. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“Tomorrow,” she said suddenly, squeezing him and gazing at him between the eyes.

“Tomorrow I’ll die?” asked Cincinnatus.

“No, I’ll rescue you, ” Emmie said pensively (she was seated astride him).

“That’s very nice indeed,” said Cincinnatus. “Saviors from all sides! This ought to have happened sooner—I’m nearly insane. Please get off, you are heavy and hot.”

“We’ll run away and you’ll marry me.”

“Maybe when you are a little older; only I already have one wife.”

“A fat, old one,” said Emmie.

She hopped off the cot and ran around the room, as ballerinas run, at a fast striding pace, shaking her hair, and then she leaped, as though flying, and finally pirouetted in one spot, flinging out a multitude of arms.

“School will be starting again soon,” she said, settling the next moment on Cincinnatus’s lap; suddenly, forgetting everything else in the world, she became engrossed in a new occupation—she began picking at a black lengthwise scab on her shiny shin; the scab was already half off, and one could see the tender pink scar.

Through slitted eyes, Cincinnatus gazed at her inclined profile, rimmed with a bloom of sunlight, and he felt suffused with drowsiness.

“Ah, Emmie, remember, remember what you have promised. Tomorrow! Tell me, how will you do it?”

“Give me your ear,” said Emmie.

Putting one arm around his neck, she made a hot, moist and utterly unintelligible noise in his ear. “I can’t hear anything,” said Cincinnatus.

Impatiently she brushed the hair back from her face and again nestled up to him.

“Bu … bu … bu,” she bumbled and buzzed—and then jumped away, and flew up—and now was resting on the
slightly swaying trapeze, her extended toes joined in a sharp wedge.

“Still, I’m counting on this very much,” said Cincinnatus through mounting sleepiness; slowly he pressed his wet, singing ear to the pillow.

As he was falling asleep he could feel her climbing over him, and then it seemed dimly to him that she or someone else was endlessly folding some shiny fabric, taking it by the corners and folding, and stroking it with the palm, and folding it again—and for a moment he came to from Emmie’s squeal as Rodion dragged her out of the cell.

Then he thought he heard the precious sounds behind the wall start cautiously again … how risky! After all, it was broad daylight … but they could not restrain themselves, and ever so quietly pushed closer and closer to him, while he, fearing lest the guards hear, began walking about, stamping his feet, coughing, humming, and when, with a violently beating heart, he sat down at the table, the sounds had already ceased.

Then, toward evening, as was now customary, M’sieur Pierre arrived, in a brocade skullcap; casually, being quite at home, he lay down on Cincinnatus’s cot and, lighting a long meerschaum pipe with a carved houri, propped himself up on an elbow in a cloud of luxurious smoke. Cincinnatus sat at the table, munching the last of his supper, fishing the prunes out of their brown juice.

“I put some foot powder on them today,” M’sieur Pierre said briskly, “So no complaints or comments, please. Let us continue our conversation of yesterday. We were talking of pleasures.

“The pleasure of love,” said M’sieur Pierre, “is achieved by means of the most beautiful and healthful of all known physical exercises. I said ‘achieved’ but perhaps ‘extracted’ would be even more apt, inasmuch as we are dealing precisely with a systematic and persistent extraction of pleasure buried in the very bowels of the belabored creature. During leisure hours the laborer of love immediately strikes the observer with the falconlike expression of his eyes, his cheerful disposition, and his fresh complexion. Observe also my gliding gait. Thus we have before us a certain phenomenon, which we may call by the general term ‘love’ or ‘erotic pleasure.’ ”

At this point, walking on tiptoe and indicating by gestures that they should not pay him any notice, the director came in and sat down on a stool that he himself had brought.

M’sieur Pierre turned on him a gaze beaming with benevolence.

“Go on, go on,” whispered Rodrig Ivanovich, “I’ve come to listen—
pardon
, just one moment—I’ll just put it so I can lean against the wall.
Voilà
. I’m worn out, though. And you?”

“That’s because you are not used to it,” said M’sieur Pierre. “Allow me, then, to continue. We were discussing, Rodrig Ivanovich, the pleasures of life, and had just examined Eros in a general way.”

“I see,” said the director.

“I made the following points—excuse me, dear colleague, for repeating myself, but I would like to make it interesting for Rodrig Ivanovich also. I made the point, Rodrig Ivanovich, that a man condemned to die finds it hardest of all to forget woman, woman’s delicious body.”

“And the poetry of moonlit nights,” added Rodrig Ivanovich, casting a stern glance at Cincinnatus.

“No, please don’t interfere with my development of the subject; if you have something to add, you may do so afterwards. All right—let me continue. In addition to the pleasures of love there is a whole number of others, and to them we shall now pass on. More than once, probably, you have felt your chest expand on a wonderful spring day, when the buds swell and feathered songsters enliven the groves, clad in their first sticky leafage. The first modest flowers peep coquettishly out of the grass, as if they would entice the passionate lover of nature, as they whisper timidly: ‘Oh, don’t, don’t pick us, our life is short.’ The chest expands and breathes deep on such a day, when the birdies sing, and the first modest leaves appear on the first trees. Everything rejoices, everything is jubilant.”

“A masterful description of April,” said the director, giving his jowls a shake.

“I think that everyone has experienced this,” continued M’sieur Pierre, “and now, when any day now we shall all be ascending the scaffold, the unforgettable memory of such a spring day makes one cry out: ‘O come back, come back; let me live you over once again.’ ”

“ ‘Live you over once again,’ ” repeated M’sieur Pierre, rather frankly consulting a scroll-like crib, all covered with fine writing.

“Next,” said M’sieur Pierre, “we pass on to pleasures of a spiritual order. Remember the times when, in a fabulous picture gallery, or museum, you would suddenly stop and be unable to take your eyes off some piquant torso—made, alas,
of bronze or marble. This we can call the pleasure of art; it occupies an important place in life.”

“I’ll say it does,” said Rodrig Ivanovich in a nasal voice, and looked at Cincinnatus.

“Gastronomic pleasures,” continued M’sieur Pierre. “See the best varieties of fruit hanging from tree branches; see the butcher and his helpers dragging a pig, squealing as if it were being slaughtered; see, on a pretty plate, a substantial chunk of white lard; see the table wine and cherry brandy; see the fish—I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am a great fancier of bream.”

“I approve,” Rodrig Ivanovich said resonantly.

“This splendid feast must be forsaken. Many other things must be forsaken as well: festive music, favorite knick-knacks, such as a camera or a pipe; friendly talks; the bliss of relieving oneself, which some hold to be on a par with the pleasure of love; sleep after dinner; smoking … What else? Favorite knick-knacks … Yes, we already had that” (again the crib notes appeared) “pleasure … I’ve said that too. Well, various other trifles …”

“May I add something,” the director asked ingratiatingly, but M’sieur Pierre shook his head:

“No, that’s quite enough. I think I have unfolded before the mental eye of my dear colleague such vistas of sensual realms …”

“I only wanted to say something on the subject of edibles,” the director remarked in a low voice. “I think certain details could be mentioned here. For instance,
en fait de potage
 … All right, all right, I shan’t say a word,” he concluded in alarm as he met the gaze of M’sieur Pierre.

“Well,” M’sieur Pierre addressed Cincinnatus, “what will you say to all this?”

“What am I supposed to say?” said Cincinnatus. “Dreary, obtrusive nonsense.”

“He’s incorrigible,” exclaimed Rodrig Ivanovich.

“It’s just a pose on his part,” said M’sieur Pierre with an ominous porcelain smile. “Believe me, he has feeling enough for the full beauty of the phenomena I have described.”

“…  But fails to understand certain things,” Rodrig Ivanovich interjected smoothly. “He does not understand that if he were now honestly to admit the error of his ways, honestly admit that he is fond of the same things as you and I—for example, turtle soup for the first course—they say it’s sensationally good—that is, I only want to observe that if he were honestly to admit and repent—yes, repent—that is my point—then he could have some remote—I do not want to say hope, but nevertheless …”

“I left out the part about gymnastics,” muttered M’sieur Pierre checking his little scroll. “What a pity!”

“No, no, you spoke very well, very well,” sighed Rodrig Ivanovich. “Couldn’t be better. You roused in me certain desires that had lain dormant for decades. Will you stay a while? Or are you coming with me?”

“With you. He’s a regular sourpuss today. Doesn’t even look at you. You offer him kingdoms, and he sulks. And I ask so little—one word, a nod. Well, nothing to be done. Let’s away, Rodrigo.”

Soon after their departure the light went out and Cincinnatus transferred himself to his cot in darkness (how nasty to find somebody else’s ashes, but no other place to lie down) and, liberating his melancholy in a crackling of
cartileges and vertebrae, he stretched, and drew in a breath, and held it a quarter of a minute and more. Maybe it was just stonemasons. Making repairs. An aural deception: perhaps it is all going on far, far away (he exhaled). He lay on his back, wriggling his toes, which protruded from beneath the blanket and turning his face now toward impossible salvation, now toward inevitable execution. The light flashed on again.