Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) Read Free Page B

undignified, and he never drew an ear again. But Dom Kuzma’s hand eventually reached him nevertheless. After the physical pain subsided he felt ashamed before the catechist, he claimed his part of the guilt. Shame made him stop going to school, lest he meet Dom Kuzma again. Which he did not … until tonight. (But in such pathetic shape!)
    Dom Kuzma brought too much passion to his struggle to prevail. What he did was senseless, even mad; he seemed to want to wipe all those provocative “ears” around him with his bare hands (or, slaps). He went in for mindless collective face slapping in his classes, for purely preventive reasons. His vengeful fervor, brandishing a heavy hand, reached everywhere, like God’s punishment.
    Vengefully, he gave every pupil a zoological nickname. Or two, in tandem. He used the names of curious animals so that he could ridicule a person, to provoke laughter. … But there was no laughter, only the low cunning of children: how to weather the blows.
    Dom Kuzma spied a bumpkin sitting at his desk and, wiping his avian nose on his sleeve, the thatch of his hair overgrowing his neck and (remarkably large) ears:
    “What is hope? … you there, Andean Condor!”
    The ornithological individual felt the two bright swords of Dom Kuzma’s gaze on his avian countenance and promptly identified with that large predatory bird of the Andes.
    “Ho- … hope is … hope is when …”
    “Come here, I’ll whisper it … in your ear.”
    The Condor approached the lectern, hand on ear (as though unsure of his hearing), but Dom Kuzma smacked him on the other ear with his meaty hand. A boy with a funny nose, which gave him a permanent grin, instinctively flinched at the blow to the Condor’s ear. That is why Dom Kuzma chose him:
    “And what is love, you … Duckbilled Platypus?”
    “L-love … love is … when …”
    “… when you get one across that snotty duckbill,” Dom Kuzma finished for him, while the Platypus’s nose made a wet and hollow sound under the blow, letting out a trickle of blood as proof of its virginity.
    “Now then. I want you, Seal Penguinsky, to tell him what love is.” It was a shortish attentive boy who could not open his mouth for terror. His large eyes suspiciously followed the movement of Dom Kuzma’s hands: he was mustering all his scanty cunning to dodge the blow. … But it suddenly happened that the boy resolutely raised his head and fixed an impertinent stare on Dom Kuzma’s ear. The ear was clearly ashamed at the stare. It began to change color, going pale, reddening, more and more violently, angrily red, into scarlet, purple, the colors of a stormy sky. Thunder and lightning were imminent. The entire class dropped their eyes, hugged their desks, they knew what was coming next. In their minds they were each drawing a terrible, vengeful, murderous ear: everyone knew, now, what was behind the ear-drawing craze. … But the ear began to darken into a leaden blue-gray, to a gloomy indigo: the rage had died inside it, leaving only dead, beaten blood. Dom Kuzma let his hands drop to his sides, turned around, and went out of the classroom.
    Melkior nearly applauded. What an example of human greatness! He felt curiously unburdened of a grueling thought about Dom Kuzma: all the cruelty of the man’s fate was revealed to him in an instant, dimly and darkly. It was indeed the first time that the word had made itself known inside him; soundlessly he said
Fate
and felt moved almost to tears.
    “And God saith …,” Dom Kuzma was saying majestically; he was creating the world before their very eyes. “And there was light!” Again saith the Lord … but Adam and Eve ate the apple and God banished them from Paradise. Dom Kuzma was personally banishing them from the classroom, pointing his forefinger at the door. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread! And that was where human suffering began. Cain slew his brother Abel; Absalom rebelled against his father David; Jacob