About a certain return

Part 14

– Maestro, does anybody have the interest to straw my peacefulness or is it only a misunderstanding?

I wanted to withdraw my question straight away. What a stupid mumbling... what did I want to say... that is...?

Augustin clutched his beard with the fingers...

– I don't know, he done. Go to Tristan! I'll write down the address for you... You'll tell him that it's me that sent you. Give him also the texts to read them... I'll talk to him...!

I greeted Cristache, on my way out of the office; I was very optimistic but also worried with uncertainty, a bitter drug. It seems Marcel told me that Cristache also worked for the magazine.

– What's about "The Cult of the Dead Beauty" magazine, I asked him once we saw each other? Does it exist or no?

– No.

– Marcel told me you work for the editorial office of this magazine.

– Marcel is an idiot. For some time now, all he talks is rubbish. He told me you are some kind of medium, and that you have something to do with the mad geniuses of the world.

– Really?

Oh, but the conversation was drifting to in a dreamlike way. I left Cristache, who seemed to be busy, he was caring a large parcel from one room to the other, they were rearranging the editorial office and they had to host a political group, though receiving some money, so... I got back in the street and looked to the huge building nearby, I never got in there, its doors were always closed.... I would have gone to the centre... and abandon myself in a long walk, to lose myself in big shops, between high walls, and people... but I got back to work; I got free only for a couple of hours to meet Augustin. Since the newspaper didn't need my stories, I was feeling the lack of publicity, even shadowed as it was. Was it a weakness? A comforting illusion...? So close to celebrity...! To have everybody speaking your name... Being the nation's pride! Well! A dream...

I was sitting there, glued on screen connected to the library's video network, day dreaming.

"It's true", I thought, "The magazine really exists, as I had seen it. So why did Cristache, deny so roughly its existence?" I even thought that it was him who sent it to me, through Marcel. What a devil, this friend of mine! What is he up to?"

I tried to get hold of Marcel, but couldn't find him that day. He asked me to keep in touch to let him know how things went with Augustin. But, as I said, I couldn't find him. Nobody knew where he was. He's running all sorts of businesses, buying, selling items, houses, people. He's a genius in persuasion. He managed to convince me so many times that I wasn't right, that it became obvious to me it's no use in starting any argument with him. Well, only that I'm a real maniac when it comes to arguing. Every piece of rubbish must I straw to see where it comes from. It's no good.

So I made the next step that is going to Tristan, without warning him. Tristan was a personality in the literary circles. I didn't know his face when I saw him. I found him stiff: "What do you want? Why didn't you leave these waste sheets to the secretary? Give me the papers! What's written here? Punctuation marks... yes, yes, grammar problems... Who sent you? Augustin? Who, to hell, is he? Come on, leave it here! Goodbye!

– When should I call you?

– I don't know. In a week or two. Talk to Melissa.

Thick-skinned! I interrupted him while flirting on the metrophone with a lady, and promising her an extraordinary literary future, according to her remarkable talent... Skirt hunter! If I had the reins in my hand... what would I do to these talents...? Rule number one: a comfortable position... I can't understand why, to hell, do men publish? Literature is for women... The future belongs to womanhood... Long ago, I imagined a hermaphrodite world. I believe reproduction can be possible, in certain conditions... The genetics... Men are not quite indispensable... Natural born warriors, lacking the common sense... Well...! But who will be there to spoil the women? Tristan. I meet him again after a month. Something happened to him in between. When he saw me, he seemed enthusiastic: Hey, how you are old chap! Why didn't you call?