Invitation to a Beheading (5 page)

“In a few days?” asked Cincinnatus. “Then there
will
be a few more days?”

“Listen to him,” chuckled the director. “He has to know everything. How do you like that, Roman Vissarionovich?”

“Oh, my friend, you are so right,” sighed the lawyer.

“Yes, sir,” continued the former, giving his keys a rattle. “You ought to be more cooperative, mister. All the time he’s haughty, angry, snide. Last night I brought him some of them plums, you know, and what do you think? His excellency did not choose to eat them, his excellency was too proud. Yes sir! I started to tell you about that there new prisoner. You will have your fill of chit-chat with him. No need to mope as you do. Isn’t that right, Roman Vissarionovich?”

“That’s right, Rodion, that right,” concurred the lawyer with an involuntary smile.

Rodion stroked his beard and went on: “I’ve got to feeling
very sorry for the poor gentleman—I come in, I look, he’s up on the table-and-chair, trying to reach the bars with his little hands and feet, like a sick monkey. And with the sky real blue, and the swallows a-flying, and cloudlets a-high—such bliss, such blessings! I take the gentleman down from the table like a baby, and meself I bawl—yes, just as I’m standing here—I bawl and bawl … I really went all to pieces, I was so sorry for him.”

“Well, shall we take him upstairs, what do you think?” the lawyer suggested hesitantly.

“Why, sure thing, that we can,” drawled Rodion with sedate benevolence. “We can always do that.”

“Drape yourself in your dressing gown,” uttered Roman Vissarionovich.

Cincinnatus said, “I obey you, specters, werewolves, parodies. I obey you. However, I demand—yes, demand” (and the other Cincinnatus began to stamp his feet hysterically, losing his slippers) “to be told how long I have left to live … and whether I shall be allowed to see my wife.”

“You probably will,” replied Roman Vissarionovich, after exchanging glances with Rodion. “Just don’t you talk so much. All right, let’s go.”

“If you please,” said Rodion, giving the unlocked door a shove with his shoulder.

All three went out: first Rodion, bowlegged, in old faded breeches, baggy in the seat; behind him the lawyer, in a frock coat, with a smudge on his celluloid collar and an edging of pinkish muslin at the back of his head where the black wig ended; and finally, behind him, Cincinnatus, losing his slippers, wrapping himself more tightly in his dressing gown.

At the bend in the corridor the other, nameless, guard gave them a salute. The pale stony light alternated with regions of darkness. They walked, and walked. One bend followed another. Several times they passed the very same design of dampness on the wall, looking like some dreadful ribby horse. Here and there it was necessary to turn on light; a dusty bulb, up above or at the side, would burst into bitter yellow light. Sometimes, also, it would be burned out, and then they would shuffle on through dense darkness. At one spot, where an unexpected and inexplicable sunbeam fell from above and glowed mistily as it broke on the eroded flagstones, Emmie, the director’s daughter, in a bright checkered frock and checkered socks—a mere child, but with the marble calves of a little ballerina—was bouncing a ball, rhythmically against the wall. She turned, brushing a blond lock from her cheek with the fourth and fifth fingers of her hand, and followed the brief little procession with her eyes. Rodion gave a playful jingle with his keys as he passed; the lawyer lightly stroked her glowing hair; but she was staring at Cincinnatus, who gave her a frightened smile. Upon reaching the next bend of the passage, all three glanced back. Emmie was gazing after them, while she lightly plopped the glossy red and blue ball in her hands.

Again they walked in darkness for a long time, until they came to a dead end where a ruby bulb shone above a coiled fire hose. Rodion unlocked a low iron door; beyond it a stone staircase wound steeply upward. Here the order changed somewhat: Rodion marked time as he let first the lawyer and then Cincinnatus pass; upon which he softly fell in at the end of the procession.

It was not easy to climb the steep staircase, whose progress was accompanied by a gradual thinning of the gloom in which it grew, and they climbed for such a long time that, out of boredom, Cincinnatus began counting the steps, reached a three-digit number, but then stumbled and lost count. It grew lighter by degrees. Exhausted, Cincinnatus was climbing like a child, beginning with the same foot each time. One more twist, and suddenly there was a solid rush of wind, a dazzling expansion of summer sky, and the air was pierced by the cry of swallows.

Our travelers found themselves on a broad terrace at the top of a tower, whence there was a breathtaking view, since not only was the tower huge, but the whole fortress towered hugely on the crest of a huge cliff, of which it seemed to be a monstrous outgrowth. Far below one could see the almost vertical vineyards, and the creamy road that wound down to the dry river bed; a tiny person in red was crossing the convex bridge; the speck running in front of him was most likely a dog.

Further away the sun-flooded town described an ample hemicycle: some of the varicolored houses proceeded in even rows, accompanied by round trees, while others, awry, crept down slopes, stepping on their own shadows; one could distinguish the traffic moving on First Boulevard, and an amethystine shimmer at the end, where the famous fountain played; and still further, toward the hazy folds of the hills that formed the horizon, there was the dark stipple of oak groves, with, here and there, a pond gleaming like a hand mirror, while other bright ovals of water gathered, glowing through the tender mist, over there to the west, where the serpentine Strop had its source. Cincinnatus,
his palm pressed to his cheek, in motionless, ineffably vague and perhaps even blissful despair, gazed at the glimmer and haze of the Tamara Gardens and at the dove-blue melting hills beyond them—oh, it was a long time before he could take his eyes away…

A few paces from him, the lawyer leaned his elbows on the broad stone parapet, whose top was overgrown with some kind of enterprising vegetable. His back was soiled with chalk. He peered pensively into space, his left patent-leather shoe placed upon his right, and so distending his cheeks with his fingers that his lower eyelids turned out. Rodion had found a broom somewhere and kept silent as he swept the terrace flagstones.

“How bewitching all this is,” said Cincinnatus, addressing the gardens, the hills (and for some reason it was especially pleasant to repeat the word “bewitching” in the wind, somewhat as children cover and then expose their ears, amused at this renewal of the audible world). “Bewitching! I have never seen those hills look exactly like that, so mysterious. Somewhere among their folds, in their mysterious valleys, couldn’t I … No, I had better not think about it.”

He made a complete tour of the terrace. Flatlands stretched off to the north, with cloud shadows scudding across them; meadows alternated with grainfields. Beyond a bend of the Strop one could see the weed-blurred outlines of the ancient airport and the structure where they kept the venerable, decrepit airplane, with motley patches on its rusty wings, which was still sometimes used on holidays, principally for the amusement of cripples. Matter was weary. Time gently dozed. There was in town a certain man,
a pharmacist, whose great-grandfather, it was said, had left a memoir describing how merchants used to go to China by air.

Cincinnatus completed his trip around the terrace and returned to its south parapet. His eyes were making highly illegal excursions. Now he thought he distinguished that very bush in flower, that bird, that path disappearing under a canopy of ivy—

“That will do now,” said the director good-naturedly, tossing the broom in a corner and putting on again his frock coat. “Come along home.”

“Yes, it’s time,” responded the lawyer, looking at his watch.

And the same little procession started back. In front was director Rodrig Ivanovich, behind him lawyer Roman Vissarionovich, and behind him prisoner Cincinnatus, who after so much fresh air was beset by spasms of yawning. The back of the director’s frock coat was soiled with chalk.

She came in, taking advantage of Rodion’s morning visit, slipping beneath his hands, which were carrying the tray.

“Tut, tut, tut,” said he, exorcising a storm of chocolate. With his soft foot he closed the door behind him, and muttered into his mustache, “What a naughty child …”

Meanwhile Emmie had hidden from him, squatting behind the table.

“Reading a book, eh?” observed Rodion, beaming with kindness. “That’s a worthwhile pastime.”

Without raising his eyes from the page Cincinnatus emitted an iambic assent, but his eyes no longer grasped the text.

Rodion finished his uncomplicated duties, chased with a rag the dust dancing in a ray of sunlight, fed the spider, and left.

Emmie was still squatting, but a little less restrained, swaying a little as if on springs, her downy arms crossed, her pink mouth slightly open and her long, pale, almost white lashes nictating as she looked across the table-top at the door. An already familiar gesture: rapidly, with a haphazard selection of fingers, she brushed the flaxen hair from her temple, casting a sidelong glance at Cincinnatus, who had laid aside his book and was waiting to see what would come next.

“He is gone,” said Cincinnatus.

She left her squatting position, but was still stooping and looking at the door. She was embarrassed and did not know what to undertake. Suddenly she showed her teeth and, with a flash of ballerina calves, flew to the door—which of course proved to be locked. Her moire sash quickened the air in the cell.

Cincinnatus asked her the usual two questions. Mincingly she gave her name and answered that she was twelve.

“And are you sorry for me?” asked Cincinnatus.

To this she made no answer. She raised up to her face the clay pitcher, which was standing in a corner. It was empty, hollow-sounding. She hoo-hooted into its depths a few times, and an instant later darted away; now she was leaning against the wall, supporting herself only with her shoulder blades and elbows, sliding forward on her tensed feet in their flat shoes, and straightening up again. She smiled to herself, and then, as she continued slithering, glanced at Cincinnatus with a slight scowl, as one looks at
the low sun. All indications were that this was a wild, restless child.

“Aren’t you just a little bit sorry for me?” said Cincinnatus. “It isn’t possible. I cannot imagine it. Come on over here, you foolish little doe, and tell me on what day I shall die.”

Emmie, however, made no reply, but slid down to the floor. There she quietly seated herself, pressing her chin against her bent knees, over which she stretched the hem of her skirt.

“Tell me, Emmie, please … Surely you know all about it—I can tell that you know … Your father has talked at the table, your mother has talked in the kitchen … Everybody is talking. Yesterday there was a neat little window cut out of the newspaper—that means people are discussing it, and I am the only one …”

As if caught in a whirlwind she jumped up from the floor, and, flying again to the door, began pounding on it, not with her palms, but, rather, with the heels of her hands. Her loose, silky-blond hair ended in hanging curls.

“If only you were grown up,” mused Cincinnatus, “if your soul had a slight touch of my patina, you would, as in poetic antiquity, feed a potion to the turnkey, on a night that is murky. Emmie!” he exclaimed, “I implore you—and I shall not desist—tell me, when shall I die?”

Gnawing on a finger, she went over to the table, where the books towered in a pile. She flung one open, leafed through the pages, making them snap and almost ripping them out, banged it shut, picked up another. A rippling something kept running across her face: first she would
wrinkle her freckled nose, then her tongue would distend her cheek from within.

The door clanged. Rodion, probably having looked through the peephole, came in, rather angry.

“Shoo, young lady! I’m the one who will catch it for this.”

She broke into shrill laughter, dodged his crablike hand and rushed to the open door. There, on the threshold, she abruptly stopped with a dancer’s magic precision and—perhaps blowing a kiss, or perhaps concluding a pact of silence—looked over her shoulder at Cincinnatus; whereupon, with the same rhythmic suddenness, she was off, running with long, high, springy steps, already preparing for flight.

Rodion, grumbling, jingling, trudged off after her.

“Wait a minute!” cried Cincinnatus. “I have finished all the books. Bring me again the catalogue.”

“Books …” Rodion scoffed huffily and locked the door behind him with pronounced resonance.

What anguish! Cincinnatus, what anguish! What stone anguish, Cincinnatus—the merciless bong of the clock, and the obese spider, and the yellow walls, and the roughness of the black wool blanket. The skim on the chocolate. Pluck it with two fingers at the very center and snatch it whole from the surface, no longer a flat covering, but a wrinkled brown little skirt. The liquid is tepid underneath, sweetish and stagnant. Three slices of toast with tortoise shell burns. A round pat of butter embossed with the monogram of the director. What anguish, Cincinnatus, how many crumbs in the bed!