“Drink your tea, Anthony.”
“Thank you.”
“Then I think you should change your trousers.”
Breer blushed; he couldn’t help himself.
“Your body responded quite naturally, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Semen and shit make the world go round.”
The European laughed, softly, into his teacup, and Breer, not feeling the joke to be at his expense, joined in.
“I never forgot you,” Mamoulian said. “I told you I’d come back for you and I meant what I said.”
Breer nursed his cup in hands that still trembled, and met Mamoulian’s gaze. The look was as unfathomable as he’d remembered, but he felt warm toward the man. As the European said, he hadn’t forgotten, he hadn’t gone away never to return. Maybe he had his own reasons for being here now maybe he’d come to squeeze payment out of a long-standing debtor, but that was better, wasn’t it, than being forgotten entirely?
“Why come back now?” he asked, putting down his cup.
“I have business,” Mamoulian replied.
“And you need my help?”
“That’s right.”
Breer nodded. The tears had stopped entirely. The tea had done him good: he felt strong enough to ask an insolent question or two.
“What about me?” came the reply.
The European frowned at the inquiry. The lamp beside the bed flickered, as though the bulb was at crisis point, and about to go out.
“What about you?” he asked.
Breer was aware that he was on tricky ground, but he was determined not to be weak. If Mamoulian wanted help, then he should be prepared to deliver something in exchange.
“What’s in it for me?” he asked.
“You can be with me again,” the European said.
Breer grunted. The offer was less than tempting.
“Is that not enough?” Mamoulian wanted to know. The lamplight was more fitful by the moment, and Breer had suddenly lost his taste for impertinence.
“Answer me, Anthony,” the European insisted. “If you’ve got an objection, voice it.”
The flickering was worsening, and Breer knew he’d made an error, pressing Mamoulian for a covenant. Why hadn’t he remembered that the European loathed bargains and bargainers alike? Instinctively he fingered the noose groove around his neck. It was deep, and permanent.
“I’m sorry . . .” he said, rather lamely.
Just before the lamp bulb gave out completely, he saw Mamoulian shake his head. A tiny shake, like a tick. Then the room was drowned in darkness.
“Are you with me, Anthony?” the Last European murmured.
The voice, normally so even, was twisted out of true.
“Yes . . .” Breer replied. His lazy eyes weren’t becoming accustomed to the dark with their usual speed. He squinted, trying to sort out the European’s form in the surrounding gloom. He needn’t have troubled himself. Scant seconds later something across the room from him seemed to ignite, and suddenly, awesomely, the European was providing his own illumination.
Now, with this lurid lantern show to set his sanity reeling, tea and apologies were forgotten: The dark, life itself, were forgotten; and there was only time, in a room turned inside out with terrors and petals, to stare and stare and maybe, if one had a sense of the ridiculous, to say a little prayer.
20
Alone in Breer’s sordid one-room flat the Last European sat himself down and played solitaire with his favorite pack of cards. The Razor-Eater had dressed himself up and gone out to taste the night. If he concentrated, Mamoulian could find the parasite with his mind, and taste vicariously whatever experiences the other man was enjoying. But he had no appetite for such games. Besides, he knew all to well what the Razor-Eater would be doing, and it frankly revolted him. All pursuits of the flesh, whether conventional or perverse, appalled him, and as he grew older the disgust deepened. On some days he could barely stand to look at the human animal without the roving gloss of its eye or the pinkness of its tongue awaking nausea in him. But Breer would be useful in the struggle to come; and his bizarre desires gave him an insight, albeit crude, into Mamoulian’s tragedy, an insight that made him a more compliant attendant than the usual companions the European had tolerated in his long, long life.