Chad loosened the knot of his tie, which was for him tantamount to nakedness. He grinned flawlessly at Mamoulian.
“You’re going to kill him, right?” he said.
“What do you think?” the European replied.
“What is he? The Antichrist?”
Whitehead gurgled with pleasure at the absurdity of this idea. “You’ve been telling . . .” he chided the European.
“Is that what he is?” Chad urged, “Tell me. I can take the truth.”
“I’m worse than that, boy,” Whitehead said.
“Worse?”
“Want a strawberry?” Whitehead picked up the bowl and proffered the fruit. Chad cast a sideways glance at Mamoulian.
“He hasn’t poisoned them,” the European reassured him.
“They’re fresh. Take them. Go next door and leave us in peace.”
Tom had returned with a small bedside table. He set it down in the middle of the room.
“If you go into the bathroom,” Whitehead said, “you’ll find a plentiful supply of spirits. Mostly vodka. A little cognac too, I think.”
“We don’t drink,” Tom said.
“Make an exception,” Whitehead replied.
“Why not?” said Chad, his mouth bulging with strawberries; there was juice on his chin. “Why the fuck not? It’s the end of the world, right?”
“Right,” said Whitehead, nodding. “Now you go away and eat and drink and play with each other.”
Tom stared at Whitehead, who returned a mock-contrite look. “I’m sorry, aren’t you allowed to masturbate either?”
Tom made a noise of disgust and left the room.
“Your colleague’s unhappy,” Whitehead said to Chad. “Go on, take the rest of the fruit. Tempt him.”
Chad wasn’t certain if he was being mocked or not, but he took the bowl and followed Tom to the door. “You’re going to die,” he said to Whitehead as a parting shot. Then he closed the door on the two men.
Mamoulian had laid a pack of cards on the table. This wasn’t the pornographic pack: he’d had that destroyed at Caliban Street, along with his few books. The cards on the table were older than the other pack by many centuries. Their faces were hand-colored, the illustrations for the court cards crudely rendered.
“Must I?” Whitehead asked, picking up on Chad’s closing remark.
“Must you what?”
“Die.”
“Please, Pilgrim-”
“Joseph. Call me Joseph, the way you used to.”
“-spare us both.”
“I want to live.”
“Of course you do.”
“What happened between us-it didn’t harm you, did it?”
Mamoulian offered the cards for Whitehead to shuffle and cut: when the offer was ignored he did the job himself, manipulating the cards with his one good hand.
“Well. Did it?”
“No,” the European replied. “No; not really.”
“Well then. Why harm me?”
“You misunderstand my motives, Pilgrim. I haven’t come here for revenge.”
“Why then?”
Mamoulian started to deal the cards for chemin de fer.
“To finish our bargain, of course. Is that so difficult to grasp?”
“I made no bargain.”
“You cheated me, Joseph, of a lot of living. You threw me away when I was no longer of any use to you, and let me rot. I forgive you all that. It’s in the past. But death, Joseph”-he finished the shuffling-“that’s in the future. The near future. And I will not be alone when I go into it.”
“I’ve made my apologies. If you want acts of contrition, name them.”
“Nothing.”
“You want my balls? My eyes? Take them!”
“Play the game, Pilgrim.”
Whitehead stood up. “I don’t want to play!”
“But you asked.”
Whitehead stared down at the cards laid out on the inlaid table.
“That’s how you got me here,” he said quietly. “That fucking game.”
“Sit down, Pilgrim.”
“Made me suffer the torments of the damned.”
“Have I?” Mamoulian said, concern lacing his voice. “Have you really suffered? If you have, I’m truly sorry. The point of temptation is surely that some of the goods be worth the price.”
“Are you the Devil?”
“You know I’m not,” Mamoulian said, pained by this new melodrama. “Every man is his own Mephistopheles, don’t you think? If I hadn’t come along you’d have made a bargain with some other power. And you would have had your fortune, and your women, and your strawberries. All those torments I’ve made you suffer.”