The Final Circle of Paradise

"Yes and no," she argued and began to develop the idea, based on the misfortunes of her clients. All of which was very gay and amusing to her, while I, in ignominious confusion, gulped brandy with lemon and tittered in embarrassment, feeling like a virgin wall flower. Well, if all this went on in a night club, I could handle it. Well, well, well… some fine activities go on in those salons of the Good Mood. How do you like these elderly ladies…

"Enough," I said. "Vousi, you embarrass me, and anyway I understand it all very well now. I can see that it's really impossible to do without magic. It's a good thing that I am not a magician."

"I really stung you well," she said happily. "And what would you wish for yourself, now?"

I decided I'd reciprocate in kind.

"I don't need anything of that sort," I said. "Anyway, I am not good at things like that. I'd like a good solid slug."

She smiled gaily.

"I don't need three wishes," I explained, "I can do with one."

She was still smiling, but the smile became empty, then crooked, and then disappeared altogether.

"What?" she said in a small voice.

"Vousi!" I said, getting up. "Vousi!"

She didn't seem to know what to do. She jumped up and then sat down and then jumped up again. The coffee table fell over with all the bottles. There were tears in her eyes, and her face looked pitiable, like that of a child who has been brutally, insolently, cruelly, tauntingly deceived. Suddenly she bit her lip and with all her strength slapped my face.

While I was blinking, she, now in full tears, kicked away the overturned table and ran out of the room. I sat, with my mouth open. An engine roared into life and lights sprang up in the dark garden, followed by the sound of the motor traversing the yard and disappearing in the distance.

I felt my face. Some joke. Never in my life have I joked so effectively. What an old fool I was! How do you like that for a slug?

"May we?" asked Len. He stood in the door, and he was not alone. With him was a gloomy, freckle-faced boy with a cleanly shaved head.

"This is Reg," said Len. "Could he sleep here too?"

"Reg," I said, pensively smoothing my eyelids. "Of course – even two Regs would be okay. Listen, Len, why didn't you come ten minutes earlier!"

"But she was here," said Len. "We were looking in the window, waiting for her to leave."

"Really?" I said. "Very interesting. Reg, old chum, how about what your parents will say?"

Reg didn't reply. Len said, "He doesn't have parents."

"Well, all right," I said, feeling a bit tired. "You're not going to have a pillow fight?"

"No," said Len, not smiling, "we are going to sleep."

"Fair enough," I said. "I'll make your beds and you can give all this a quick clean-up."

I made their beds on the couch and the big chair and they took off their clothes at once and went to bed. I locked the door to the hall, turned out their lights, and went into my bedroom, where I sat awhile listening to them whispering, moving furniture, and settling down. Then they were quiet.

About eleven o'clock there was the sound of broken glass somewhere in the house. Aunt Vaina's voice could be heard singing some sort of marching song, followed by more breaking glass. Apparently the tireless Pete again was falling down face first. From the center of town came the cry of "Shivers, shivers." Someone was loudly sick on the street.

I locked the window and lowered the shades. I also locked the door to the study. Then I went to the bathroom and turned on the hot water. I did everything per instructions. The radio went on the soap shelf, I threw several Devon tablets in the water, together with some salt crystals, and was about to swallow the tablet when I remembered that it was propitious to "loosen up." I didn't want to disturb the boys, but it wasn't necessary – an open bottle of brandy stood in the medicine chest. I took a few swallows right out of the bottle, stripped down to the skin, climbed into the bath, and turned on the radio.

Chapter ELEVEN

I intentionally did not set the thermo-regulator, so that when the water cooled off, I returned to consciousness. The radio was still shrieking and the sparkle of white light on the walls hurt my eyes. I was thoroughly chilled and covered with goose bumps. Switching off the radio, I turned on the hot water and remained in the bath, basking in the flooding warmth and a very strange, very novel sensation of total, cosmically enormous emptiness. I expected a hangover, but there wasn't any. I simply felt good. And there were very many memories.

Also my thoughts flowed inordinately well, as though after a long rest in the mountains.