A Void (33 page)

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catch sight of him spinning around, an unusual kind of funfair

attraction, you might think, but satisfying a local partiality to

physical monstrosity, particularly as Ispahan had its famous

"whirling" Fakir.

Optat's killing was just as tortuous.

Optat, a soft sort of individual, with a chronically pallid if not

downright pasty skin and such a sickly body that it invariably

had a contusion or a concussion or a dislocation, was fond only

of alcohol, drinking jars and jars of it all night long. So what

Maximin did was pay a postman to bring Optat a gigantic jug

of 100% proof alcohol and inform him that it was from Hainault,

as Optat had bought at Mons, by mail, a schnapps that aficion-

ados said was out of this world. Naturally thinking that this was

it, Optat would swallow a good third of his jug at a gulp, finding

it so tasty that within half-an-hour not a drop was still

undrunk.

But it had a fatal sting in its tail, so to say. In this jug Maximin

had put an inflammatory product, which, innocuous if soaking

in alcohol, would light up if brought into contact with air, so

producing Optat's carbonisation. Optat, who, by his total satu-

ration in alcohol, was a natural for such instant combustion,

burnt as quickly as touchwood, diffusing a curious but savoury

aroma of roast agouti all around him.

Maximin was passing by just at that instant — not, I should

say, haphazardly - and, grasping a lasso, caught Optat, a living

matchstick, a burning coal, a flaming twin of Joan of Arc, and

sought to drag him off to a public fountain not far away.

And what Maximin did at that point was compound his

iniquity by dunking his writhing rival as nonchalantly as you

might dunk a toasty hot croissant in a cup of cappuccino - an

iniquity, I might add, that was soon to profit his country (it's an

ill wind that blows nobody good), as it was found within a month

that an oddly acidic liquid, bubbling up from that fountain, had

a strong antidotal quality, particularly against catarrh, but of

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application also to asthma, arthritis, bronchitis, gout, psoriasis,

muscular dystrophy, malaria, lockjaw, syphilis, constipation and

chilblains.

Following him was Parfait, with whom, though, Maximin saw

a major difficulty looming up. For this Parfait was as tall as

Goliath, as strong as a Turk and as malignant as a troll; was

brutal, cunning, rascally and corrupt; and, to cap it all, was simply

mad about fighting. If you hit him, Parfait hit you back, again

and again and again: it was as basic as that.

Now Parfait had, in a souk, a shop which sold all kinds of candy

— nougat, sugary almonds, lollipops, gumdrops, marshmallow,

marzipan and mints - and in particular a yoghurt in syrup that

Ankarans found so cooling on hot spring nights that it was

quickly known, by a natural association, as a "Parfait".

Thus no day would dawn in Ankara without a Timariot

or a Vizir or an Icoglan going to visit Parfait in his souk,

asking, no doubt for a gala that night, for a marasquino

"Parfait" or a blackcurrant "Parfait", two of his most scrumptious tidbits.

Thus, too, Maximin would call on Parfait in his turn, handing

him thirty sous and asking for a gigantic banana "Parfait".

"Parfait"
said Parfait, a born francophiliac.

But as soon as Parfait brought his concoction to him, Maximin

took a spoonful, put on a wholly convincing show of throwing

up, and told him, without mincing his words, that it was simply

disgusting.

"What!" said Parfait, livid at such an affront, "You call my

Parfait . . .
imparfait\!! ?"

Slap! Slap! Slap! Thus did Parfait attack Maximin and insist

on satisfying his honour.

"As you wish," said Maximin coolly. "I'm willing to confront

you in our family orchard tomorrow morning at dawn, but only

if what you and I fight with is of my choosing - and what I say

is not swords, not pistols, but soda siphons!"

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For an instant Parfait was so put out by such a paradoxical

form of ammunition as to look almost punch-drunk.

And, catching him off-guard, smartly profiting from this dis-

array, Maximin took up a thick, knobby club and struck his rival

hard on his skull. Stumbling and groaning, Parfait was instantly

cut down.

What Maximin did now was coat his moribund body with his

own banana "Parfait", soaking it in syrup and adding, a blackly

humorous finishing touch, a jarful of gumdrops, sprinkling it

lavishly around his limbs.

At which point Maximin brought forth a dog that was champ-

ing at its bit, a gigantic, snarling Alsatian which for six months

had had, for its daily chow, nothing but Parfait's "Parfaits". Not

surprisingly, it sprang on Parfait's body, lapping it up and finally

gulping it down.

Walking away, Maximin said with a sly grin, "Poor Parfait has

just unwittingly thought up an original kind of candy: a Banana

Split!"

Chuckling at his own wit, Maximin had to turn to his fourth

victim, a claimant known as Quasimodo: a squat and dumpy guy,

a bit simian in his gait, a drooling, burbling moron with, in fact,

a strong hint of Victor Hugo's hunchback about him. Though

approaching thirty, his IQ was that of a infant.

His constant occupation (or, if you wish, vocation) was talking

to birds, holding forth, notably, to flocks of swallows, jays and

sparrowhawks that would swoop around a small boat-pond in

Ankara's public park foraging for crumbs - holding forth, I say,

rambling on for hours about nothing in particular, waving his

hands to and fro in a clumsy imitation of Saint Francis of Assisi.

Finding this all highly comical, an occasional individual out stroll-

ing would fling him a ducat or a florin, with which Quasimodo

would go off and buy food.

His killing was thus a cinch for Maximin, who on this occasion

was totally in control - sinking a narrow crossbar into Quasi-

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modo's pond, wiring it up to an accumulator, so producing on

contact a strong flow of induction, and paying an urchin who

was passing by, as Quasimodo was holding forth, to hurl a phony

gold coin into it, a coin containing a tiny compass.

To cut a long story short, Quasimodo took a running jump

into his pond, falling an instant victim to hydrocution.

It was Romuald who would follow Quasimodo. But just as

Quasimodo was a snip, so Romuald was a tough nut to crack.

For, cunning, wary and inquisitorial, this Romuald saw plots and

plans constandy hatching around him and was suspicious of all

his family.

Almost afraid of his own shadow, Romuald would finally with-

draw into his villa for good, locking doors and windows, pacing

back and forth with a gun in his hand, squinting with paranoid

alarm at anybody chancing to pass by, starting up in fright if a

postman, say, should look in at his window and, cautious to a

fault, actually purchasing a hot air balloon, which would allow

him, at long last, to pass a night without worrying about

unknown assassins.

Maximin would first idly toy with a handful of solutions (caus-

ing Romuald's balloon to drift away out of sight by cutting

a cord that was anchoring it to his villa roof; obstructing its

auto-stabilisation pin or its gyroscopal joint; substituting for

argon a gas such as krypton, thus provoking a gigantic blast

inward or outward), but all in vain.

Finally, a lightbulb lit up in his brain. Hiring a small twin-prop

aircraft, Maximin took off, flying around Romuald's balloon and

abrupdy swooping down upon it, brushing against it by only a

yard or two, so producing a prodigious trough of air, suffocating

its occupant and causing his balloon to spin skywards out of

control.

Maximin's sixth and final victim was Sabin. But Sabin was a

man who wouldn't allow anybody to approach him, Sabin who,

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having now just his aunt's husband in front of him as his family's

patriarch, was afraid that his soon having all its capital at his

disposal would risk provoking an attack on him from a rancor-

ously grudging sibling or cousin.

So this Sabin simply wouldn't admit into his stronghold, with-

out a pass (and occasionally two), a coalman, say, hauling in his

monthly supply of coal or a pastrycook's boy bringing him his

morning croissants.

A host of amusing rumours about him would buzz around

Ankara. It was said that his army of thirty spahis, all as handy

with yataghans as with swords or pistols, was paid a king's ransom

to accompany him about town and would instandy, unpityingly,

kill any man, woman or child coming within a yard of him. It

was said that Sabin had a flunky who was first to savour his food,

as any thought of poison put him in a funk. It was said, finally,

that among his staff was a young man of an amazing physical

similarity to Sabin who would withdraw to his couch at night

whilst Sabin would pass
his
nights in his attic — an attic, it was

also said, built by a craftsman (who was slain as soon as his job

was at its conclusion) to withstand any intrusion, thanks to a

combination lock on its thick iron door. In this attic, or so gossip

had it, was a six-month supply of food and drink.

Such a strong rival, a rival unwilling to omit anything in his

craving for total immunity from risk, was a stimulant for

Maximin, who hadn't found much to stump him in his undis-

criminatingly patchy job lot of killings up to that point. Born

victims, his antagonists, just a bunch of stillborn duds! But taking

on Sabin would finally justify his ambition, constituting its culmi-

nating point and putting his coruscating wits truly on trial.

It took him almost a month, though, to work out how to carry

it off. Not that his brain was at all short of inspiration, but his

rival's fortification struck him, at first sight, as wholly foolproof,

with not a rusty link in its chain.

Until that day on which Maximin was idly making small talk

to a local spiv who, in his own words, would "habitually supply

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Sabin with an ass's foal, or should I say," this said with a salacious

wink, "a foal's ass, for, you know, sir, and don't say I told you,

it's only by balling a burro, and burrowing into its balls, that

poor Sabin has . . . got it up."

"Aha," said Maximin, smiling slyly, "opportunity knocks at

last. My sib has a major kink in his armour! I just know I can

turn this information to good account."

And, following it up, Maximin found out from an administra-

tor in Ankara's Municipal Zoo that, such was Sabin's voracity, a

foal wouldn't usually satisfy him. At most it brought him an

initial thrill; but, for his main dish, so to say, only a gigantic or,

if not, a totally unfamiliar animal would turn him on.

Which was why Sabin had a habit of bribing this administrator

to allow him to "borrow", for an occasional night of passion, an

animal of truly substantial width and girth, a big ruminant, say,

such as an ox or an orang-utan, a bison or a hippopotamus, or

an unusual animal, a kangaroo or a cassowary, a capon or a boa

constrictor, a platypus or a tapir, an opossum or an alligator, an

albatross or a caiman, a dolphin or an aardvark.

But such a Cook's (or cock's) tour of Ankara's animalia still

didn't satisfy Sabin, who, in sodomising so many curious animals,

was trying to match a particularly vivid carnal frisson, that which

his young loins had known, long ago, copulating with a lamantin

(Manatus inunguis
or
Ma.na.tus latirostris)
from Chad.

Now, just at that instant, a carnival from Halifax would turn

up in Ankara, proposing to its townsfolk, among many similarly

oudandish attractions (a pair of twins with linking hips, a hybrid

hotchpotch of dwarfs, giants and albinos, a cow with a dachs-

hund's body and a rabbit with two tails), a
soi-disant
"Loch

Lomond Dragon" known as Rudolf. (In truth, it wasn't a dragon

at all nor an aquatic python, but a dugong, an animal as mild as

a lamb, that could, without risk of contradiction, pass for a laman-

tin, for it had, as do lamantins, a skin of shiny fur, an imposingly

stocky trunk and a cordial disposition.)

It's obvious, is it not, what was about to occur. Sabin would

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start aching for Rudolf but, unwilling (and possibly also afraid)

to go and look at him, would try to pay his way to borrowing, for

a substantial sum, his darling dugong. Rudolf's groom, though,

would initially turn down his proposal, and it was only by doub-

ling, tripling and finally quintupling it that a cynical bargain was

struck. Sabin could hardly contain his joy.

Vigilant as always, Maximin found out about this and was

soon hatching a plan of his own, combining various sorts of

TNT, building what you might call a tiny suppositorial bomb,

managing, with typical aplomb, to worm his way into Rudolf's