Lunch was as usual delicious but I couldn't help feeling unwelcome. Marya Madlenova was sitting right opposite and kept staring coldly at me with rapier thrusts of her hazel eyes. I couldn't remember just why she was so furious and it distracted me from my search for a fresh victim. I knew all the pretty students too well to steal their souls, I had listened to their poignant stories and admired photographs of their children. Delilah was the only attractive woman in the room whom I didn't know at all but she already seemed caught between two importunate suitors, Benito and Hachek Katastrofski. It was a relief when Benito hastily gathered us around after we had lingered sufficiently over café au lait and white chocolate mousse.
"I don't know why Lord Hades summoned this emergency meeting," Benito said. "It's all very hush-hush. I think it's about the future of the University of Truth and Justice."
"There is no future," Immanuel pointed out comfortingly as we trooped towards the elevator. "The very notion is misleading."
"Yeah, well, nobody told Lord Hades," Benito answered. "But if we're late for this meeting, I certainly won't have a future."
Immanuel shrugged amiably. "In the future we'll all just be dirt in the ground."
"Are you speaking from experience?"
A crazy grin spread over Immanuel's face. "Well, you know, Benito, in my last incarnation..."
The elevator doors opened noiselessly. There was a moment of silence as we began our descent to Hell.
"All right," Benito groaned. "The suspense is killing me. What were you in your last incarnation?"
"Nothing," Immanuel crowed, triumphantly thumping Benito on his sleekly groomed head. "That's the point. We only live once. Then we're dead. Dead, dead, dead. Get it?"
"That's so hopeless," Benito moaned. "What about our immortal souls?"
"We don't have souls," Immanuel replied smugly. "We're just meat. Dead meat."
"But you're a philosopher," Benito howled. "You're supposed to figure out what makes human beings special."
"Ah, Benito," Marya Madlenova murmured disdainfully. "Do not be so stupid in public. Only fools get so excited about being human beings. Personally, I would rather be a peach."
"We are special because we can kill," Hachek Katastrofski asserted in a high-pitched hesitating nasal whine. "The only moral law is the law of the jungle."
"Eat meat or be meat?" I asked.
Katastrofski nodded. "Humans are superior because they can kill other animals. And those humans are superior who can kill other humans."
"Why can't we just be nice to each other?" Benito pleaded. "Each of us is unique and irreplaceable. We all contribute to Earth's diversity in our own special way. Love thy neighbor..."
"The only way to love your neighbor is to fuck her," Katastrofski replied harshly, staring down meaningfully into the deep cleavage between Delilah's large breasts. Delilah looked up at him, blushed, and turned away. Her breasts bobbed all the more invitingly as she stepped out of the elevator and walked down the long carpeted corridor towards the conference room.
Benito glared angrily at Katastrofski. "I was talking about animals," he hissed. "Would you fuck a dolphin? Or a baby seal?"
"Would a dolphin or a baby seal prefer to be fucked or to be slaughtered and eaten?" Marya Madlenova asked meditatively. "It is hard to know what animals really want."
"I'm told that great advances have been made recently in understanding the language of dolphins," Divka chimed in helpfully.
"Well, my dear, speaking purely as a professional philologist I think it may take some time before dolphins and human beings are on good enough terms for us to ask them such questions politely. As for baby seals..." Madlenova threw up her hands elegantly, raking my cheek with a sharp impeccably lacquered fingernail. "Ah, pardon," she said winsomely. "I hope I didn't hurt you. Too much."
"Nobody ever bothered to ask baby seals if it hurts too much to have their skulls clubbed open," Benito said bitterly.
"There is no need to ask. They cringe and moan and make all those pitiful little sounds," Marya Madlenova replied as we walked into the conference room. "You remind me of a baby seal, Benito," she added sweetly. "You show your feelings so openly. I can so vividly imagine you gambolling in the snow. Of course you would like to have a playmate with whom to gambol. But perhaps she has already been clubbed by the big bad hunter?" Madlenova patted Benito's cheek, walked across the room, and sat down, smiling to herself.
Benito stared at her, his mouth hanging wide open. "What a bitch," he whispered hoarsely.
"I think she likes you.".
"What the hell are you talking about? That bitch just called me a baby seal!"
"Well, you do look pretty sleek. Your hair, I mean," I added hastily, seeing the indignation rise in his hot brown eyes. "I think she meant it as a compliment. Or as a warning."
"I just don't get what Lila sees in that fucking hook-nosed slick Polish son of a bitch..."
"You talking about me?" A deep voice rumbled behind us. A tall middle-aged man with a pot belly stood in the doorway glowering at Benito. His black hair was plastered to a curiously pointy skull and his fleshy nose did have a hook to it. A greying Hitler moustache rose and fell rhythmically with the irritable twitching of the man's thick pale pink lips.
Benito blushed scarlet. "Oh, I'm sorry, Professor Flysenko. I wasn't talking about you at all."
"You were not?" Flysenko frowned. "But I am Polish and a son of a bitch and I think I'm pretty slick. I was glad to hear that Delilah likes me. It is fun to rub up against her in queues, elevators, and other public places. But whom were you talking about if not me? What other slick Polish son of a bitch is here?" Flysenko scanned the room quickly with his restless little brown eyes. "Ah. You must have been talking about young Hachek Katastrofski then. This makes things complicated. My compatriot, my competitor. Blood solidarity or sperm rivalry? In my books I have always said that sex is our primary instinct. I must uphold my writings. I shall challenge him to a duel. Will you be my second?"
Benito nodded eagerly but I regretfully cut him off. "Benito cannot possibly be your second, sir, since he is an interested party to this conflict. The laws of duelling will not permit it."
Flysenko sneered at me. "What could you, obviously an Asian, possibly know about duelling?"
I pulled out my well worn black duelling glove from the special pocket in my trousers where I have kept it ever since that unfortunate incident at a ball in Heidelberg when some oaf in a loud check jacket asked my partner to dance with him five times in succession and I realized, much to my dismay, that I had no glove with which to challenge him and the ballroom was filled with his friends who laughed at me and refused to lend me their gloves, and as a result I resignedly watched the dunce carouse the night away with the girl while I stood leaning against a wall, my eyes full of misery and hatred. I have known better ever since: I never leave home without it. "Pistols at dawn?" I asked casually, twirling my glove with one hand while I watched Flysenko's little eyes widen with fear and loathing.
"Oh, I don't know," Flysenko replied, in as nonchalant a tone as he could manage, but we could all hear the tremor beneath the rumble. "It seems so unnecessary. We are all reasonable men. I'm sure we can work something out."
"An apology perhaps?" I said tauntingly.
Flysenko stiffened but subsided after another warning twirl of my glove. "Well," he conceded. "Perhaps Asians do know something about duelling."
"Thank you, Professor Flysenko," I said warmly and shook his clammy hand. After having saved the honor of a whole continent I felt that I could afford to be gracious. Besides, if Hell wanted me to come back to the University of Truth and Justice, I would probably have to work with this repulsive coward. "If you would like, I would be glad to be your second in your duel with Katastrofski. May the best man win."
But Flysenko shuddered at the word `duel', mumbled something noncommittal, shuffled across the room like a man broken before his time, and struck up a conversation with his young Polish colleague. They glanced covertly at me as they spoke, which is always disturbing, but I was more disturbed by Marya Madlenova's steely smile. She beckoned me over towards her and I had no choice but to obey.
"So, my young Mongolian," she murmured. "You know how to stand up for yourself. I like that in a man. Men should be... erect." I collapsed into a chair. Madlenova's knee brushed mine under the table. Long cool fingers stroked my thigh. The fingers slid deftly into my lap. But then Madlenova frowned and took her hand away. "Perhaps I was wrong?" I said nothing. A pale freckled face surrounded by a halo of curly red hair flickered dimly before my eyes, the candle-lit ikon of an archaic deity. A great melancholy welled hotly up into my eyes. To sleep with Madlenova would be to admit that the goal of recovering Anastasia was a lost cause: was I then to abjure my lost goddess and convert to this disturbing new divinity? Was I even physically capable of infidelity? Yet even this unwonted passivity of my body seemed like some sort of betrayal. "Here comes Professor Hell," Marya Madlenova said distantly. "Come to my room after this meeting. I may give you another chance to prove yourself."
We all stood up as Otto shuffled into the room, followed by Professors Masaryk and Novak arguing heatedly together as ever, with pudgy Nero Insanetti and Professor Hohenstaufen tagging along in their wake. Hell glared at us and waved his stick irritably around. "Stop this nonsense," Hell commanded. "Sit."
We sat. I tried to pay attention as the meeting began with all the usual preliminaries but my mind was somewhere else. I felt the same freezing sensation on my forehead and scrotum and I wondered miserably what Lady Rudolphine's mysterious ointment Lethe was doing to my bodily functions. Would I ever have an erection again or was I doomed to a lifetime of mockery and derision at my impotence? I looked around at the powerful and beautiful men and women sitting proudly at this burnished mahogany conference table, their hair or balding pates glittering in the strong overhead electric lights, and once more I felt myself the shy stranger at a foreign feast, thirteenth at the table, anonymous, unwanted.
"I don't know why Lord Hades summoned this emergency meeting," Benito said. "It's all very hush-hush. I think it's about the future of the University of Truth and Justice."
"There is no future," Immanuel pointed out comfortingly as we trooped towards the elevator. "The very notion is misleading."
"Yeah, well, nobody told Lord Hades," Benito answered. "But if we're late for this meeting, I certainly won't have a future."
Immanuel shrugged amiably. "In the future we'll all just be dirt in the ground."
"Are you speaking from experience?"
A crazy grin spread over Immanuel's face. "Well, you know, Benito, in my last incarnation..."
The elevator doors opened noiselessly. There was a moment of silence as we began our descent to Hell.
"All right," Benito groaned. "The suspense is killing me. What were you in your last incarnation?"
"Nothing," Immanuel crowed, triumphantly thumping Benito on his sleekly groomed head. "That's the point. We only live once. Then we're dead. Dead, dead, dead. Get it?"
"That's so hopeless," Benito moaned. "What about our immortal souls?"
"We don't have souls," Immanuel replied smugly. "We're just meat. Dead meat."
"But you're a philosopher," Benito howled. "You're supposed to figure out what makes human beings special."
"Ah, Benito," Marya Madlenova murmured disdainfully. "Do not be so stupid in public. Only fools get so excited about being human beings. Personally, I would rather be a peach."
"We are special because we can kill," Hachek Katastrofski asserted in a high-pitched hesitating nasal whine. "The only moral law is the law of the jungle."
"Eat meat or be meat?" I asked.
Katastrofski nodded. "Humans are superior because they can kill other animals. And those humans are superior who can kill other humans."
"Why can't we just be nice to each other?" Benito pleaded. "Each of us is unique and irreplaceable. We all contribute to Earth's diversity in our own special way. Love thy neighbor..."
"The only way to love your neighbor is to fuck her," Katastrofski replied harshly, staring down meaningfully into the deep cleavage between Delilah's large breasts. Delilah looked up at him, blushed, and turned away. Her breasts bobbed all the more invitingly as she stepped out of the elevator and walked down the long carpeted corridor towards the conference room.
Benito glared angrily at Katastrofski. "I was talking about animals," he hissed. "Would you fuck a dolphin? Or a baby seal?"
"Would a dolphin or a baby seal prefer to be fucked or to be slaughtered and eaten?" Marya Madlenova asked meditatively. "It is hard to know what animals really want."
"I'm told that great advances have been made recently in understanding the language of dolphins," Divka chimed in helpfully.
"Well, my dear, speaking purely as a professional philologist I think it may take some time before dolphins and human beings are on good enough terms for us to ask them such questions politely. As for baby seals..." Madlenova threw up her hands elegantly, raking my cheek with a sharp impeccably lacquered fingernail. "Ah, pardon," she said winsomely. "I hope I didn't hurt you. Too much."
"Nobody ever bothered to ask baby seals if it hurts too much to have their skulls clubbed open," Benito said bitterly.
"There is no need to ask. They cringe and moan and make all those pitiful little sounds," Marya Madlenova replied as we walked into the conference room. "You remind me of a baby seal, Benito," she added sweetly. "You show your feelings so openly. I can so vividly imagine you gambolling in the snow. Of course you would like to have a playmate with whom to gambol. But perhaps she has already been clubbed by the big bad hunter?" Madlenova patted Benito's cheek, walked across the room, and sat down, smiling to herself.
Benito stared at her, his mouth hanging wide open. "What a bitch," he whispered hoarsely.
"I think she likes you.".
"What the hell are you talking about? That bitch just called me a baby seal!"
"Well, you do look pretty sleek. Your hair, I mean," I added hastily, seeing the indignation rise in his hot brown eyes. "I think she meant it as a compliment. Or as a warning."
"I just don't get what Lila sees in that fucking hook-nosed slick Polish son of a bitch..."
"You talking about me?" A deep voice rumbled behind us. A tall middle-aged man with a pot belly stood in the doorway glowering at Benito. His black hair was plastered to a curiously pointy skull and his fleshy nose did have a hook to it. A greying Hitler moustache rose and fell rhythmically with the irritable twitching of the man's thick pale pink lips.
Benito blushed scarlet. "Oh, I'm sorry, Professor Flysenko. I wasn't talking about you at all."
"You were not?" Flysenko frowned. "But I am Polish and a son of a bitch and I think I'm pretty slick. I was glad to hear that Delilah likes me. It is fun to rub up against her in queues, elevators, and other public places. But whom were you talking about if not me? What other slick Polish son of a bitch is here?" Flysenko scanned the room quickly with his restless little brown eyes. "Ah. You must have been talking about young Hachek Katastrofski then. This makes things complicated. My compatriot, my competitor. Blood solidarity or sperm rivalry? In my books I have always said that sex is our primary instinct. I must uphold my writings. I shall challenge him to a duel. Will you be my second?"
Benito nodded eagerly but I regretfully cut him off. "Benito cannot possibly be your second, sir, since he is an interested party to this conflict. The laws of duelling will not permit it."
Flysenko sneered at me. "What could you, obviously an Asian, possibly know about duelling?"
I pulled out my well worn black duelling glove from the special pocket in my trousers where I have kept it ever since that unfortunate incident at a ball in Heidelberg when some oaf in a loud check jacket asked my partner to dance with him five times in succession and I realized, much to my dismay, that I had no glove with which to challenge him and the ballroom was filled with his friends who laughed at me and refused to lend me their gloves, and as a result I resignedly watched the dunce carouse the night away with the girl while I stood leaning against a wall, my eyes full of misery and hatred. I have known better ever since: I never leave home without it. "Pistols at dawn?" I asked casually, twirling my glove with one hand while I watched Flysenko's little eyes widen with fear and loathing.
"Oh, I don't know," Flysenko replied, in as nonchalant a tone as he could manage, but we could all hear the tremor beneath the rumble. "It seems so unnecessary. We are all reasonable men. I'm sure we can work something out."
"An apology perhaps?" I said tauntingly.
Flysenko stiffened but subsided after another warning twirl of my glove. "Well," he conceded. "Perhaps Asians do know something about duelling."
"Thank you, Professor Flysenko," I said warmly and shook his clammy hand. After having saved the honor of a whole continent I felt that I could afford to be gracious. Besides, if Hell wanted me to come back to the University of Truth and Justice, I would probably have to work with this repulsive coward. "If you would like, I would be glad to be your second in your duel with Katastrofski. May the best man win."
But Flysenko shuddered at the word `duel', mumbled something noncommittal, shuffled across the room like a man broken before his time, and struck up a conversation with his young Polish colleague. They glanced covertly at me as they spoke, which is always disturbing, but I was more disturbed by Marya Madlenova's steely smile. She beckoned me over towards her and I had no choice but to obey.
"So, my young Mongolian," she murmured. "You know how to stand up for yourself. I like that in a man. Men should be... erect." I collapsed into a chair. Madlenova's knee brushed mine under the table. Long cool fingers stroked my thigh. The fingers slid deftly into my lap. But then Madlenova frowned and took her hand away. "Perhaps I was wrong?" I said nothing. A pale freckled face surrounded by a halo of curly red hair flickered dimly before my eyes, the candle-lit ikon of an archaic deity. A great melancholy welled hotly up into my eyes. To sleep with Madlenova would be to admit that the goal of recovering Anastasia was a lost cause: was I then to abjure my lost goddess and convert to this disturbing new divinity? Was I even physically capable of infidelity? Yet even this unwonted passivity of my body seemed like some sort of betrayal. "Here comes Professor Hell," Marya Madlenova said distantly. "Come to my room after this meeting. I may give you another chance to prove yourself."
We all stood up as Otto shuffled into the room, followed by Professors Masaryk and Novak arguing heatedly together as ever, with pudgy Nero Insanetti and Professor Hohenstaufen tagging along in their wake. Hell glared at us and waved his stick irritably around. "Stop this nonsense," Hell commanded. "Sit."
We sat. I tried to pay attention as the meeting began with all the usual preliminaries but my mind was somewhere else. I felt the same freezing sensation on my forehead and scrotum and I wondered miserably what Lady Rudolphine's mysterious ointment Lethe was doing to my bodily functions. Would I ever have an erection again or was I doomed to a lifetime of mockery and derision at my impotence? I looked around at the powerful and beautiful men and women sitting proudly at this burnished mahogany conference table, their hair or balding pates glittering in the strong overhead electric lights, and once more I felt myself the shy stranger at a foreign feast, thirteenth at the table, anonymous, unwanted.
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