About a certain return

Part 14

In his youth he failed in his carrier as a chemical engineer. What a useless mixture of substances and what a doubtful made up the table of elements! He abandoned this to the devil and to the mad scientists; he found useless the knowledge of the disgusting organic compounds. And started to write... novels. Augustin had also important supporters. One of them was a professor at the University's Philology section. A specialist in postcartian lyric. Poetry, after Cartian? He knew.

"I know you're here for a purpose, but what purpose?" To hell!

– Marcel...

– Oh, Marcel... Marcel? Tell that rascal he owes me a pint of brandy.

– I got it for you, maestro, and I've uncovered the bottle.

"Put the bottle on the table, because he's not shy", Marcel told me.

– Put it here, said Augustin pulling up the cork! Do you want some?

He didn't expect me to want. He poured a quarter of the content in a tin mug, he took a big drought, and then, calm and peaceful, petted his tomcat set down on his armchair and candidly asked me:

– So, what on your mother do you do for your living?

Augustin was the head of a small publishing house and indulged himself in an office along with his cat that was lazily stretching in a basket set on the table. In this relationship, the tomcat, called Mitrey, was a god. What a sly mongrel, that cat!

– He didn't... didn't tell you? Marcel didn't show you? I wrote some stories... maestro.

– Oh, yes! I liked them. I know now. You are talented. I know you. Yes, yes. I will talk about it... Hold on...! I can make a phone call.

– Tristan? How are you man? No, I couldn't. I went fishing... Mitrey? He's stretching, the lazy one. Why don't you come over? Come on, you, daddy's boy. Come! (Mitrey was cuddling, tickled by the hand of his slave, Augustin ) Yes. I read that! What an astonishing man! Yes he used to be an architect, minister of buildings, of the economy, and of defence, eventually. A man that managed more that honourably in moments of crisis. He was a Supreme... I know, I know. You missed him. He passed away long ago. Architectural monuments?

Augustin, the metrophone, the pussycat walking along the office with the tail in the air, a few beams of light getting in through a smeared window, the specks of dust lifting... what a strange feeling! It seemed I had the vision of what was about to happen. It seems I was anticipating. Actually I wasn't there, in fact I was supposed to...

– I want to send you somebody. No. You will see... it's most likely. I can smell it. Oh, go to hell! I won't forget about you. Brotherhood is forever. I kiss you, you perverted.

Augustin finished and was walking in front of me in thinker's attitude. I kept quiet, to leave him in his long moment of reflection.

– So?

– So, I came...

– Oh, yes. Go, tomorrow morning, at the editorial office of the magazine "The Cult...

– ...of the Dead Beauty?"

– The... what? "The Culture of the People". What did you say?

– The Cult of the Dead Beauty.

– What's that?

I met his eyes. Was he mocking me or was it what I suspected: CDB was a subversive leaflet that got to Marcel, who knows how?

My senses sharpened. Each time I change my level of thinking, I settle something new on top of my sleeping senses. I call it mental sense. I'm afraid to get to this level, as others use only this level, while I get there very rarely and I haven't got the time to pull myself together, when a communication ends before others observe that I got to the same performance.