Part 3 (1/2)

I got up.

'Thank you, I'm quite full. If you'll excuse me, I must take my leave. I have a business appointment,”

Carefully closing the door behind me, I heard the widow say, ”Don't you find an extraordinary resemblance between him and Staff Major Polom?”

In the bedroom, I unpacked the suitcase and transferred the clothing to the wall closet, and again rang Rimeyer. Again no one answered. So I sat down at the desk and set to exploring the drawers. One contained a portable typewriter, another a set of writing paper and an empty bottle of grease for arrhythmic motors. The rest was empty, if you didn't count bundles of crumpled receipts, a broken fountain pen, and a carelessly folded sheet of paper, decorated with doodled faces. I unfolded the sheet. Apparently it was the draft of a telegram.

”Green died while with the Fishers receive body Sunday with condolences Hugger Martha boys.” I read the writing twice, turned the sheet over and studied the faces, and read for the third time. Obviously Hugger and Martha were not informed that normal people notifying of death first of all tell how and why a person died and not whom he was with when he died. I would have written, ”Green drowned while fis.h.i.+ng.” Probably in a drunken stupor. By the way, what address did I have now?

I returned to the hall. A small boy in short pants squatted in the doorway to the landlord's half. Clamping a long silvery tube under an armpit, he was panting and wheezing and hurriedly unwinding a tangle of string. I went up to him and said, ”Hi.”

My reflexes are not what they used to be, but still I managed to duck a long black stream which whizzed by my ear and splashed against the wall. I regarded the boy with astonishment while he stared at me, lying on his side and holding the tube in front of him. His face was damp and his mouth twisted and open. I turned to look at the wall. The stuff was oozing down.

I looked at the boy again. He was getting up slowly, without lowering the tube.

”Well, well, brother, you are nervous!” said I.

”Stand where you are,” said the boy in a hoa.r.s.e voice.” I did not say your name.”

”To say the least,” said I. ”You did not even mention yours, and you fire at me like I was a dummy.”

”Stand where you are,” repeated the boy, ”and don't move.”

He backed and suddenly blurted in rapid fire, ”Hence from my hair, hence from my bones, hence from my flesh.”

”I cannot,” I said. I was still trying to understand whether he was playing or was really afraid of me.

”Why not?” said the boy. ”I am saying everything right.”

”I can't go without moving,” I said. ”I am standing where I am.”

His mouth fell open again.

”Hugger: I say to you -- Hugger -- begone!” he said uncertainly.

”Why Hugger?” I said. ”My name is Ivan; you confuse me with somebody else.”

The boy closed his eyes and advanced upon me, holding the tube in front of him.

”I surrender,” I warned. ”Be careful not to fire.”

When the tube dented my midriff he stopped and, dropping it, suddenly went limp, letting his hands fall. I bent over and looked him in the face. Now he was brick-red. I picked up the tube. It was something like a toy rifle, with a convenient checkered grip and a flat rectangular flask which was inserted from below, like a clip.

”What kind of gadget is this?” I asked.

”A splotcher,” he said gloomily. ”Give it back.”

I gave him back the toy.

”A splotcher,” I said, ”with which you splotch. And what if you had hit me?” I looked at the wall. ”Fine thing. Now you won't get it off inside of a year. You'll have to get the wall changed.”

The boy looked up at me suspiciously. ”But it's Splotchy,”

he said.

”Really -- and I thought it was lemonade.”

His face finally acquired a normal hue and demonstrated an obvious resemblance to the manly features of Major General Tuur.

”No, no, it's Splotchy.”

”So?”

”It will dry up.”

”And then it's really hopeless?”

”Of course not. There will simply be nothing left.”

”Hmm,” said I, with reservation. ”However, you know best.

Let us hope so. But I am still glad that there will be nothing left on the wall instead of on my face. What's your name?”

”Siegfried.”

”And after you give it some thought?”

He gave me a long look.

”Lucifer.”

”What?”

”Lucifer.”

”Lucifer,” said I. ”Belial, Ahriman, Beelzebub, and Azrael. How about something a little shorter? It's very inconvenient to call for help to someone with a name like Lucifer.”

”But the doors are closed,” he said and backed one step.

His face paled again.

”So what?”

He did not respond but continued to back until he reached the wall and began to sidle along it without taking his eyes off me. It finally dawned on me that he took me for a murderer or a thief and. that he wanted to escape. But for some reason he did not call for help and went by his mother's door, continuing toward the house exit.

”Siegfried,” said I, ”Siegfried, Lucifer, you are a terrible coward. Who do you think I am?” I didn't move but only Turned to keep facing him. ”I am your new boarder; your mother has just fed me croutons and cream and you go and fire at me and almost splotched me, and now you are afraid of me. It is I who should be afraid of you.”

All this was very much reminiscent of a scene in the boarding school in Anyudinsk, when they brought me a boy just like this one, the son of a sect member. h.e.l.l's bells, do I really look so much the gangster?

”You remind me of Chuchundra the Muskrat,” I said, ”who spent his life crying because he could not come out into the middle of the room. Your nose is blue from fear, your ears are freezing, and your pants are wet so that you are trailing a small stream....”