Cut Throat Dog by Joshua Sobol, Dalya Bilu Page B
Authors: Joshua Sobol, Dalya Bilu
Tags: Mystery
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weight into the ring. Come on, let’s go down.
That’s not the point, Yadanuga. The revulsion level doesn’t bother me.
What is it then, Shakespeare? Talk, because you’re beginning to worry me.
Something’s happening to me, Yadanuga, and I don’t know how to tell you. I don’t even know where to begin.
Yadanuga doesn’t say a word. He takes a flat bottle of Knob Creek out of the pocket of his leather jacket, takes a sip of the whiskey, and hands the bottle to Shakespeare.
What’s this, says Shakespeare in surprise, you’ve changed to Kentucky straight bourbon?
Lately, says Yadanuga, I prefer whiskey without memories.
Shakespeare takes a sip of Yadanuga’s whiskey without memories, and in his head the expanses of Mid-west cornfields open up, with the country roads, and the isolated farms scattered between them, and on one of them, in the shade of the giant elm trees, in the place where he had parted from her for the last time, Bridget sits on an old wicker chair breast-feeding the small, pink Hugh. Before he drives out to the road, he waves to her from the car window and calls: Wait for me here, under the elm, and a the same moment the sentence rings in his head in French, in the voice of the Alsatian, the voice in which he would say softly to every corpse they parted from:
Attendez moi sous l’orme
, and he knew that he would never see her again, or the little son, who would grow up without a father. That’s the biggest favor you can do him, Shakespeare eased what remained of his conscience, and stepped on the gas, and drove away.
11
Yadanuga looks at him, draws on his whiskey bottle, and says to himself that he knows him like he knows himself. In other words, hardly at all. He is shrouded in absolute darkness, and out of the darkness pictures emerge like cars from the road tunnels in the North of Italy. One minute they’re racing along the road twisting between mountains stunning in their savage beauty, and the next they’re swallowed up again in the maw of the next tunnel. Sometimes he tries to attach names to these pictures. The names are very strange, and more than shedding light on the content of the pictures, they actually increase their obscurity.
One of these pictures now pops out of the dense darkness in Yadanuga’s head, labeled ‘Binbad the Bailor’, and he laughs.
Shakespeare looks surprised, and Yadanuga apologizes, explaining that all of a sudden, because of the way ‘Tino Rossi’ had turned into Tino the Syrian’, the words ‘Tinbad the Tailor’ had suddenly popped into his head. Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you and your crazy codes! To this day the French police are still puzzling over ‘Zinbad the Zailor’. How did you come up with it?
Shakespeare doesn’t answer. Shakespeare isn’t here any more. Shakespeare is already there. In the dark night, on the road climbing to the isolated villa near Nice, which said backwards is ‘Sin’, which gave birth to ‘Sinbad the Sailor’, and Stephen Dedalus, or perhaps Mr Bloom, gave birth to ‘Binbad’. And the pictures flicker and chase each other in the darkness. Four men in overalls get out of the French Electrical Corporation minivan and enter a dark isolated villa on a hilltop. Between the pines the lights of Nice, capital of the Azure Coast, twinkle in the distance, and Yadanuga sings softly ‘Tomorrow my friends we shallsing as we go into battle’. The Alsatian silences him: If you have to sing, sing ‘Frere Jacques’. The armed goon stationed at the entrance to the villa shines a strong flashlight on their faces and overalls. What’s the trouble, the Alsatian inquires, and the goon explains that the electricity suddenly shorted, but all the fuses are okay. Where’s the fuse box here, asks the Alsatian, and the goon says, come with me. He turns into the entrance. Jonas raises his hand as if to scratch his head, and a terrible blow aimed at the back of the goon’s neck leaves the latter sprawled lifeless on the stairs.
That’s not the point, Yadanuga. The revulsion level doesn’t bother me.
What is it then, Shakespeare? Talk, because you’re beginning to worry me.
Something’s happening to me, Yadanuga, and I don’t know how to tell you. I don’t even know where to begin.
Yadanuga doesn’t say a word. He takes a flat bottle of Knob Creek out of the pocket of his leather jacket, takes a sip of the whiskey, and hands the bottle to Shakespeare.
What’s this, says Shakespeare in surprise, you’ve changed to Kentucky straight bourbon?
Lately, says Yadanuga, I prefer whiskey without memories.
Shakespeare takes a sip of Yadanuga’s whiskey without memories, and in his head the expanses of Mid-west cornfields open up, with the country roads, and the isolated farms scattered between them, and on one of them, in the shade of the giant elm trees, in the place where he had parted from her for the last time, Bridget sits on an old wicker chair breast-feeding the small, pink Hugh. Before he drives out to the road, he waves to her from the car window and calls: Wait for me here, under the elm, and a the same moment the sentence rings in his head in French, in the voice of the Alsatian, the voice in which he would say softly to every corpse they parted from:
Attendez moi sous l’orme
, and he knew that he would never see her again, or the little son, who would grow up without a father. That’s the biggest favor you can do him, Shakespeare eased what remained of his conscience, and stepped on the gas, and drove away.
11
Yadanuga looks at him, draws on his whiskey bottle, and says to himself that he knows him like he knows himself. In other words, hardly at all. He is shrouded in absolute darkness, and out of the darkness pictures emerge like cars from the road tunnels in the North of Italy. One minute they’re racing along the road twisting between mountains stunning in their savage beauty, and the next they’re swallowed up again in the maw of the next tunnel. Sometimes he tries to attach names to these pictures. The names are very strange, and more than shedding light on the content of the pictures, they actually increase their obscurity.
One of these pictures now pops out of the dense darkness in Yadanuga’s head, labeled ‘Binbad the Bailor’, and he laughs.
Shakespeare looks surprised, and Yadanuga apologizes, explaining that all of a sudden, because of the way ‘Tino Rossi’ had turned into Tino the Syrian’, the words ‘Tinbad the Tailor’ had suddenly popped into his head. Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you and your crazy codes! To this day the French police are still puzzling over ‘Zinbad the Zailor’. How did you come up with it?
Shakespeare doesn’t answer. Shakespeare isn’t here any more. Shakespeare is already there. In the dark night, on the road climbing to the isolated villa near Nice, which said backwards is ‘Sin’, which gave birth to ‘Sinbad the Sailor’, and Stephen Dedalus, or perhaps Mr Bloom, gave birth to ‘Binbad’. And the pictures flicker and chase each other in the darkness. Four men in overalls get out of the French Electrical Corporation minivan and enter a dark isolated villa on a hilltop. Between the pines the lights of Nice, capital of the Azure Coast, twinkle in the distance, and Yadanuga sings softly ‘Tomorrow my friends we shallsing as we go into battle’. The Alsatian silences him: If you have to sing, sing ‘Frere Jacques’. The armed goon stationed at the entrance to the villa shines a strong flashlight on their faces and overalls. What’s the trouble, the Alsatian inquires, and the goon explains that the electricity suddenly shorted, but all the fuses are okay. Where’s the fuse box here, asks the Alsatian, and the goon says, come with me. He turns into the entrance. Jonas raises his hand as if to scratch his head, and a terrible blow aimed at the back of the goon’s neck leaves the latter sprawled lifeless on the stairs.