Invitation to a Beheading (17 page)

Scratching at the red-haired chest under his shirt, Rodion arrived to fetch the stool. Seeing the object he sought, he promptly sat down on it and with a loud grunt, kneaded his lowered face with his enormous palm, and apparently got ready to have a nap.

“He still has not arrived?” asked Cincinnatus.

Rodion immediately got up and left with the stool.

Click. Black.

Perhaps because a certain integral period of time—a fortnight—had elapsed since the trial, perhaps because the nearing of the friendly sounds promised him a change of fortune, Cincinnatus spent this night in a mental review of the hours he had passed in the fortress. Involuntarily yielding to the temptation of logical development, involuntarily (be careful, Cincinnatus!) forging into a chain all the things that were quite harmless as long as they remained unlinked, he inspired the meaningless with meaning, and the lifeless with life. With the stone darkness for background he now permitted the spotlighted figures of all his usual visitors to appear—it was the very first time that his imagination was so condescending toward them. There was the tiresome little co-prisoner, with his shiny face, resembling the wax apple which Cincinnati’s waggish brother-in-law had brought the
other day; there was the fidgety, lean lawyer, disengaging his shirt cuffs from the sleeves of his frock coat; there was the somber librarian, and, in smooth black toupee, corpulent Rodrig Ivanovich, and Emmie, and Marthels entire family, and Rodion, and others, vague guards and soldiers—and by evoking them—not believing in them, perhaps, but still evoking them—Cincinnatus allowed them the right to exist, supported them, nourished them with himself. Added to all this was the possibility that, at any moment, the exciting knocks might resume, a possibility that had the effect of an intoxicating anticipation of music—so that Cincinnatus was in a strange, tremulous, dangerous state—and the distant clock struck with a kind of mounting exultation—and now, emerging from the darkness, the lighted figures joined hands and formed a ring—and, slightly swaying to one side, lurching, lagging, they began a circling movement, which at first was stiff and dragging, but then gradually became more even, free and rapid, and now they were whirling in earnest, and the monstrous shadow of their shoulders and heads passed and repassed ever more quickly across the stone vaults, and the inevitable joker who, when whirling in a reel, kicks his legs high, to amuse his more prim companions, cast on the walls the huge black zigzags of his hideous prance.

The morning passed quietly, but at about five in the afternoon there started a noise of shattering force: whoever it was he worked furiously and clattered shamelessly; actually however, he had not come much nearer since yesterday.

Suddenly an extraordinary thing happened: some inner obstruction collapsed, and now the noises sounded with such vivid intensity (having in an instant made the transition from background to foreground, right up to the footlights) that their proximity was obvious: they were right there, directly behind the wall, which was melting like ice, and would break through it any instant now.

And then the prisoner decided that it was time to act.
With terrible haste, trembling, but still trying to keep control over himself, he got out and put on the rubber shoes, the linen trousers and the jacket he had been wearing when arrested; he found a handkerchief, two handkerchiefs, three handkerchiefs (a fleeting vision of sheets tied together); just in case, he put in his pocket a chance piece of string with a wooden handle for carrying packages still attached (it wouldn’t go in completely—the end remained hanging out); he rushed to the bed, intending to fluff up the pillow and cover it with the blanket in such a way as to create the semblance of a sleeping man; he did not do this, but lunged instead to the table with the intention of taking along what he had written; but here also he changed direction at the halfway point, for the triumphant, mad, pounding noises were confusing his thoughts … He was standing straight as an arrow, his hands at his seams, when, in perfect fulfillment of his dreams, the yellow wall cracked about a yard above the floor in a lightninglike pattern, immediately bulged from the pressure within, and suddenly burst open with a great crash.

Out of the black hole, in a cloud of debris, pick in hand, all dusted with white, twisting and threshing like a fat fish among the dust, and rippling with laughter, climbed M’sieur Pierre, and right behind him, but in crab fashion, fat backside first, revealing a tear from which a tuft of white cotton protruded, coatless, and also covered with all kinds of rubble, also splitting with mirth, came Rodrig Ivanovich. Having tumbled out of the hole, they both sat down on the floor and now shook with unrestrained laughter, with all the transitions from guffaw to chuckle and back again, with
piteous squeals in the intervals between outbursts, all the while nudging each other, falling over each other…

“It’s us, it’s us, it’s us,” M’sieur Pierre finally managed with an effort, turning his chalk-white face to Cincinnatus, while his little yellow wig rose with a comic whistle and settled again.

“It’s us,” said Rodrig Ivanovich in an unaccustomed falsetto and once again began to guffaw, flinging up his soft legs, clad in an
Auguste’s
grotesque spats.

“Ooph!” said M’sieur Pierre, who had suddenly quieted down; he got up off the floor and, striking one palm against the other, looked back at the hole: “Quite a little job we’ve done, Rodrig Ivanovich! Come, get up, my fine friend, that’s enough. What a job! Oh well, now we can make use of this splendid tunnel … Allow me to invite you, dear neighbor, to come and have a glass of tea with me.”

“If you so much as touch me …” murmured Cincinnatus and, as on one side, white, sweaty M’sieur Pierre stood ready to embrace him and shove him in, and, on the other, stood Rodrig Ivanovich, also with open arms, bare-shouldered, and with dickey loose and awry, both of them gathering momentum before piling on him, Cincinnatus took the only possible direction, namely the one being indicated to him. M’sieur Pierre was nudging him lightly from behind, helping him crawl into the opening. “Join us,” he said to Rodrig Ivanovich, but the latter declined, pleading disarray.

Flattened out and with eyes shut tight, Cincinnatus crawled on all fours, M’sieur Pierre crawled behind, and the pitch darkness, full of crumbling and crackling, squeezed Cincinnatus from all sides, pressed on his spine, prickled his palms and his knees; several times Cincinnatus found
himself in a cul-de-sac, and then M’sieur Pierre would tug at his calves, making him back out of the dead end, and every instant a corner, a protrusion, he knew not what, would brush painfully against his head, and all in all he was overcome by such terrible, unmitigated dejection that, had there not been a wheezing, butting companion behind, he would have lain down and died then and there. At last, however, after they had been moving for a long time through the narrow, coal-black darkness (in one place, off to the side, a red lantern imparted a dull luster to the blackness), after the closeness, the blindness, and the stuffiness, a pale luminosity expanded in the distance: there was a bend there, and finally came the exit; awkwardly and meekly Cincinnatus fell out onto the stone floor, into M’sieur Pierre’s sun-drenched cell.

“Welcome,” said his host, climbing out after him; he promptly produced a clothesbrush and began skillfully brushing off blinking Cincinnatus, considerately restraining and softening the strokes in any area that might be sensitive. As he did so he bent over and, as if enmeshing him in something, kept walking around Cincinnatus, who stood perfectly still, astounded by a certain extraordinarily simple thought; astounded, rather, not by the thought but by the fact that it had not come to him sooner.

“With your permission I’ll change,” spoke M’sieur Pierre and pulled off his dusty sweater; for an instant, with sham casualness, he flexed his arm, casting a sidelong glance at his turquoise-and-white biceps and exuding his characteristic stench. Around his left nipple there was an imaginative tattoo—two green leaves—so that the nipple itself seemed to be a rosebud (made of marchpane and candied angelica).
“Have a seat, please,” he said, putting on a robe with bright arabesques. “It’s all I have, but it’s mine. My quarters, as you see, are almost exactly like yours. Only I keep them clean and decorate them … I decorate them as best I can.” (He gasped slightly, as if from uncontrollable excitement.)

I decorate. The wall calendar with the water color of the fortress at sunset exhibited a crimson numeral. A crazy-quilt blanket covered the cot. Above it, attached by thumbtacks, hung salacious photographs and a formal picture of M’sieur Pierre; a goffered paper fan stuck its crimped pleats from behind the edge of the frame. On the table lay an alligator-skin album, the face of a gold traveling clock glistened, and half a dozen velvety pansies looked out in various directions over the burnished rim of a porcelain mug bearing a German landscape. In a corner of the cell stood a large case containing possibly some musical instrument.

“I am exceedingly happy to see you here in my place,” M’sieur Pierre was saying as he promenaded back and forth, passing each time through an oblique ray of sunlight in which plaster dust still danced. “I feel that in the past week we have become such good friends, have come together so well, so warmly, as seldom happens. I see you are interested to know what is inside. Just let me [he caught his breath], let me finish and then I shall show you …”

“Our friendship,” continued M’sieur Pierre, pacing and gasping slightly, “has flowered in the hothouse-like atmosphere of a prison, where it was nourished by the same alarms and the same hopes. I think I know you better now than anyone else does in the whole world, and certainly more intimately than your wife knew you. Therefore I find it particularly painful when you give in to a feeling of
spite or are inconsiderate of people … Just now, for instance, when we came to you so joyously, you again insulted Rodrig Ivanovich with your assumed indifference to the surprise in which he had taken part so kindly, so energetically—and do not forget he is no longer young, and has many troubles of his own. No, I would rather not talk about this now … I only want to establish that not the slightest shade of feeling on your part escapes me, and therefore I personally feel that the well-known accusation is not quite fair … To me you are transparent as—excuse the sophisticated simile—a blushing bride is transparent to the gaze of an experienced bridegroom. I don’t know, there’s something wrong with my breathing—excuse me, it will pass in a moment. But, if I have made such a close study of you and—why keep it a secret?—have grown fond, very fond of you, then you also must needs have grown to know me, grown accustomed to me—more than that, grown attached to me, as I to you. To achieve such a friendship—that was my first task, and it seems I have performed it successfully. Successfully. Now we are going to have tea. I can’t understand why they don’t bring it.”

Clutching at his chest, he sat down at the table across from Cincinnatus but instantly sprang up again; from under his pillow he produced a morocco purse, from the purse a chamois sheath, and from the sheath a key; he went to the large case that was standing in the corner.

“I see that you are amazed by my neatness,” he said as he carefully inclined the propped up case, which proved to be heavy and cumbersome. “But you see, neatness adorns the life of a lone bachelor, who thus proves to himself …”

He opened the case. There, upon black velvet, lay a broad, shiny ax.

“…  proves to himself that he does have a little nest … A little nest,” M’sieur Pierre went on, locking the case again, leaning it against the wall, and himself leaning, “a little nest that he has deserved, built, filled with his warmth.… In general, there is an important philosophical theme here, but from certain indications it seems to me that you, as I, are not in the mood for themes just now. Do you know what? Here is my advice: we’ll have our cup of tea later; right now, though, go back to your place and lie down for a while—yes, go. We are both young—you must not remain here any longer. Tomorrow they will explain to you, but now please go. I too am excited, I too am not in complete control of myself, you must understand this …”

Cincinnatus was quietly fiddling with the locked door.

“No, no—you use our tunnel. We didn’t put in all this work for nothing. Crawl in, crawl in. I drape the hole, or else it would not look well. Go …”

“By myself,” said Cincinnatus.

He climbed into the black opening, and hurting his knees anew, began to crawl on all fours, deeper and deeper into the narrow darkness. M’sieur Pierre yelled something after him about tea and then apparently drew the curtain, for Cincinnatus immediately felt cut off from the bright cell where he had just been.

Breathing the rough air with difficulty, running into sharp projections—and expecting, without especial fear, that the tunnel would collapse—Cincinnatus groped blindly through the winding passage, found himself in stone cul-de-sacs and, like some patient retreating animal, moved backwards; then,
feeling out the tunnel’s continuation, crawled on. He was impatient to lie down on something soft, even if it were only his cot, to pull the covers up over his head, and not think about anything. This return journey dragged out so that, skinning his shoulders, he began to hurry as much as the constant apprehension of a dead end would permit him. The closeness made him groggy, and he was just deciding to stop, to lie prone, to imagine that he was in bed and with this to go to sleep, when abruptly the surface along which he was crawling began to slope, and he glimpsed the gleam of a reddish chink ahead and caught a whiff of dampness and mold just as though he had passed from the bowels of the fortress wall into a natural cave, and from the low ceiling, muffled up bats, hanging like wrinkled fruit, awaited their cue, each holding on by a claw, head down; the chink opened in a blaze of light, and there was a breath of fresh evening air, and Cincinnatus crawled from a crack in the rock to freedom.