#GenghizInLove: Episode 53

From my vantage point at the edge of the boardroom, I surveyed the faces at the table and conducted a mental roll call. Attila Ugh, the rodent-faced director of the Budapest College with slick black hair plastered to his pointy scalp and a perpetual expression of sly malice on his sallow face. Crazy Nero Insanetti whom Hell had chased out of Prague and who had destroyed my office with his incontinence and hatred. The Cardinal, a dignified mummy in his stiff purple robes. Axel von Schadenfreude, baring a yellow fang above that querulously drooping lower lip. And then a few surprises. My old pal Godfrey, languidly leaning on an arm, idly stroking his chin as he looked on with heavy lidded amusement. A small officious gentleman in a pin-striped three piece suit, fussing with papers in his handsome leather briefcase: I had met Navel's father just once before, at a lunch before Navel's commitment into a mental institution, but I recognized Mr. Pickie of the Zurich Club all the same. A short young man with gold-rimmed glasses on his handsome face: could that possibly be Luciano Shinola, my Sicilian friend who now worked for Tamato robots? Luciano was gesturing with boyish enthusiasm as he talked with a big blond man whom I didn't know but whom Lulu seemed to recognize, judging by her stifled gasp.

"Nectarino Nectarini," she whispered when I nudged her and raised my eyebrows. "My former fiance."

"What the hell is Godfrey doing here?"

"Standing in for Terence?"

"Makes sense. And Luciano?"

"Too weird. This is like an Oxford reunion."

"You there!" Axel shouted harshly. "Stop whispering while I am talking." Was he speaking to us? Axel's arrogant face was flushed brick-red. "What impudence!"

"You have done your job," Ugh said harshly. "Now leave!"

"I don't think so," I replied calmly, pulling out the gun I had confiscated from Nero in Prague. My friends pulled out their plastic toy guns and fanned out towards the exits. "We just got here and we need to ask you a few questions. Besides, it's so good to see all these familiar faces."

The familiar faces didn't seem to reciprocate the sentiment. Axel's face became a magenta mask of violence and hatred. The Cardinal sucked his yellow teeth in a rictus of fury. "Oh my God!" Nero groaned, raising his hands to heaven. "It's the Antichrist himself!"

"Nice to see you too, Nero," I said amiably. "Get away from that security alarm, Axel, or else…" The gun exploded in my hand with a deafening report. Axel screamed in pain and clutched his shattered shoulder. I smirked modestly: I had only missed his hand by three feet. Not bad for a first try.

"Okay. Now tell me where Anastasia is."

"In the chapel," Axel moaned. "Mein Gott, this really hurts!"

"Professor Ugh, would you please take me to the chapel?" I asked pleasantly. Ugh looked into the maw of my gun and nodded reluctantly. "Lulu darling, would you mind asking our friends here a few questions while I find Anastasia?"

"Not at all, angel." Lulu blew me a kiss. "Say hi to her for me."

I followed Ugh down the corridor, walking close enough behind him to smell the coconut-scented brilliantine on his hair and to prod him in the ribs with the pistol I was holding in my jacket pocket.

"You will never get away with this," Ugh snarled as we rounded a corner.

"Why is that?"

"Because I am about to pull that cord on the windowsill which raises an alarm… Oh damn!" Ugh said furiously as I moved the cord out of his reach. "Why did I tell you that?"

"Because you value truth deeply?"

"I do not!" Ugh wiped away the slaver from his mouth. "All I want is power!"

"Power to do what?"

"To rule the world!" Ugh shouted. "Everyone in the world must learn Hungarian!"

"Even if they don't want to?"

"Do people learn English today because they want to or because Amerika rules the world?" Ugh asked. I shrugged. Fair question. "Now it is my turn. I want to rule the world. It is what I have struggled for all these years, what I have lied and cheated and plotted for all my life." We stopped in front of a heavy wooden door. The chapel was guarded by five hefty nuns in black habits and white hoods, toting shiny machine-pistols. They nodded respectfully at Ugh and opened the door. The chapel was a small jewel box, all red velvet and intricate gilded woodwork. "Oh my God!" Ugh fell to his knees before the altar and broke down sobbing. "I have wasted my life! I cannot face the truth!"

"Don't worry," I said reassuringly. "The truth will wear off in a while. Now just tell the nuns to bring out Anastasia. Tell them Axel and the Cardinal asked you to deliver her to me."

"I can't do that!" Ugh looked around, panic-stricken. "That would be a lie!"

"The truth shall set you free," I quoted lightly, nudging Ugh's neck with the gun. "Or it might kill you. It's entirely up to you, my dear fellow."

Ugh scrambled up and gabbled something in Hungarian to the nuns. They nodded and disappeared behind the velvet drapes. "I told them you wanted to see Princess Anastasia," he mumbled.

"See, that wasn't so hard, was it?" The nuns emerged from behind the drapery, respectfully pushing forward a pale slim woman with curly red hair. "Anastasia, my darling," I cried in anguish, my eyes filling with tears. "What have they done to you?"

Anastasia looked at me blankly. The fire in her eyes was gone. I stared sadly into pale green disks with pin-prick pupils. Her breath rose and fell, but her skin had an ashen tint.

I turned away and waved my gun at the startled nuns. "Drop those pistols!" I demanded coldly. "Ugh, gag those nuns and then tie them up. No, actually, make them take off their clothes first. Yes, goddamnit. It's your life, buddy. Tie them tighter. That's better. Now you stand with them. No, you don't have to take your clothes off. You want to? Oh, okay. Right." I glanced at Ugh intertwined lasciviously among the horrified nuns and smiled.

I led Anastasia to the altar and held her close to me. I kissed her gently, running the tip of my tongue over her still lips, the pure curve of her slim throat, the sensitive edge of her inner ear. I breathed softly on the short hairs on her long neck and ran my fingers like living feathers down the curves of her breasts and thighs. She stood there, motionless in my arms, oblivious to my caresses. I raked my nails down her lower back: still no response. I closed my eyes, and sighed. Anastasia's inertness was a heaviness in the gut and my own lack of response to that beloved body was a dull affliction in my heart.

The chapel door burst open and my friends came running in. "We've got to get out of here!" Lulu said breathlessly. She caught sight of Anastasia and gritted her teeth in pity. "Poor baby," she said briefly, touching Anastasia' face. "Let's take her out of here with us."

"No," I said sadly. "She wouldn't want that. She told me before that Axel will never let go of this body. That's why she left it. And that's why she won't go back in."

"You can explain later," Stash said quickly. He had a black eye and his knuckles were raw and bleeding. "We must find Xox and get out of here. The men in purple jumpsuits will be here any minute."

"Xox?"

"The Cardinal told us Xox was imprisoned in the chapel."

I ripped Ugh's gag off. "Unnggh!" he moaned. "Just a second. Unnngghhh! Oh, yes, that's it!" His ugly face creased in orgasmic ecstasy while the nun in front of him cringed in mute shame at her defilement.

"Ugh. Where is Xox?"

"What? Oh, Xox? Behind the altar," Ugh said obligingly. "The key to his cell is in the back pocket of my trousers. Be careful. There are nuns on guard."

"Right." My eye fell on the nuns' habits lying on the floor. Minutes later, five nuns shuffled cautiously behind the altar. Xox was sitting cross-legged on the bare concrete floor of a cramped cage in the centre of a cavernous space concealed by velvet drapery. The nuns on guard greeted us happily but their enthusiasm diminished rapidly once we had taken their guns and clothes away from them. Hell hath no fury like a defrocked nun.

"Ah, thank you," Xox said placidly, when we unlocked the shackles on his ankles. "I was beginning to get rather hungry." I dug out a sandwich from my jacket pocket and offered it to him. "Salami? My favorite kind." Lulu looked at me askance. I shrugged as Xox took a big bite of the sandwich. It would be interesting to hear Mr. Xox tell the truth. We used his chains to tie up the nuns.

"There is a fire escape here!" Stash called out.

"Get moving." I dashed back to the chapel. Anastasia was still standing there silently. I pulled off my white wimple and touched her still face. I could hear the heavy footsteps pounding down the corridor. I kissed my darling's body goodbye forever, once, lingeringly, and then ran for dear life.