Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) by Ranko Marinkovic Read Free Book Online

by any chance, working in the capacity of eldest son for May I See Your ID Card Ltd? If so, please treat it paternally; such an ear is worth more than seven plump cows. Also, by all means protect it from contact with heavy fists wearing bulky rings.”
    Fatty had not been able to pull the right strand out from that tangle of words: he was thrown off by “ID card” and “heavy hands.” He plunged sensibly in among the overcoats and umbrellas, muttering unlikely threats.
    The drunkard meanwhile leapt onto the platform of the weighing machine, waved his hat and shouted: “Drive on,
izvoshchik!”
He had one arm around Melkior’s neck, waving with the other and clucking his tongue: driving horses … and, closing his eyes, enraptured, he began reciting Yesenin:
    … a troika is dashing across the field
but I’m not on it—someone else is instead …
My joy and my happiness, where have you fled? …
    and tears welled in his eyes. He kept repeating “My joy and my happiness, where have you fled?” as tears streamed down his cheeks.
    The onlookers watched as he wildly drove the troika on the weighing machine, tears flowing from his eyes, and someone whispered respectfully, “He’s crying.” And he, perhaps having heard the whisper of sympathy with his grief, suddenly jumped off the machine and bared his dark fillings in a grin.
    “Eustachius Equivalentovich, I haven’t got a kopeck to my name, you pay the
izvoshchik,”
he said to Melkior. “Citizen Ferdyshchenko, I think it’s time to shut up shop,” and on the overcoat button of a curious passerby who had just stopped to see what was going on he surreptitiously hung a CLOSED sign he had kept tucked under his overcoat, having apparently lifted it from a shop door. The curious citizen had no idea anything was hanging down his belly and was laughing with the others. Meanwhile Melkior was still standing on the scale sweating in dismay. He’ll slink away as soon as Ferdyshchenko spots the sign, and then Ferdyshchenko will take it out on me …
    “Tell me, Ugo,” he said pleasantly, “where might I find you later on?”
    “Ugo, quoth he! Have you forgot my Giventakian moniker?”
    “Parampion, I mean. Where will you be later this evening?” Melkior corrected himself patiently.
    “Now you’re talking! At Hotel Pimodan, dear Eustachius, of course, at Hotel Pimodan … or, in our parlance, at the Give’nTake. Everybody will be there. They are looking for you. … Maestro the Mad Bug has been asking after you for months. Over and over he asks: where’s our sagacious Eustachius? Don Fernando will be there, too, for a change. Do come.”
    “I’ll be right behind you. There’s just a thing or two I …”
    But Ugo was no longer listening. He had already turned around to face the audience and was bowing to someone in Spanish ceremonial style:
    “My humble respects to the noble hidalgo!” It was the choleric tobacconist who was busily closing his little corner kiosk for the night and had looked back to see what the monkey business was all about. “Your generosity, señor, will surely harvest a cigarette on the tobacco island o’er which you rule?”
    The tobacconist took this as an insult. He resolutely dropped his keys into his pocket, muttering angrily, “Damned spongers.” And spat as he left.
    “But, sir, what if the tuberculosis you just spat out comes back to your daughter on the eve of her marriage as her paternal dowry? You cannot be too careful. Therefore, no spitting on the floor, gentlemen! Right, Comrade?” he said to a man with a bicycle putting up posters.
    “Right,” said the cyclist, proud at being addressed.
    “And what are these, swastika posters? Not by any chance working for the German consulate, are you, von Velocitas? Dropping hooks among us, eh?”
    “No,” the cyclist laughed artlessly, “I work for Franck-O.”
    “For Franco? Well, well! I
said
you were up to some Fascist business. Working for the Caudillo himself! So how’s