The Great and Calamitous Tale of Johan Thoms. Ian Thornton

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      “Don’t look so shocked, Mario, you big dummy,” she said, smiling. “Even Queen Victoria used to do it, you know that!”

      “That is German propaganda, Lorelei!”

      “It is NOT. And she was German, remember! Even Conan Doyle has Sherlock Holmes doing something like it to chase down Moriarty. They say he is addicted. Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The sucking of youth and never seeing daylight. It’s the height of fashion in London, and don’t look so prudish! If you want to be shocked, I will tell you what Prince Albert once had done to his bratwurst!”

      When Lorelei had finished telling him, Mario Srna’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. He announced that he needed another vodka. The other two dinner guests meandered back from behind a thick curtain in lazy unison. “Na Zdarovye.”

      “Vodka is always best tasted at a healthy distance from Moscow!” announced Srna philosophically. “Vodka tasted in Moscow means an imminent visit to the ballet, lurking around some ridiculously icy corner. And endless dishes of potatoes. And Chekhov. Don’t even get me started on Chekhov. Anton, the Darling of the Criminally Depressed and the Champion of Suicidally Dull Birds.”

      “Here’s to Anton! na zdarovye, everyone!”

      More of the iced firewater thawed any remaining inhibitions. The waiters turned a blind eye to the mild anti-Russianisms around the table (for they themselves were there in Sarajevo for a good reason, and it was not the love of their motherland).

      The maître d’ and his tuxedoed crew had started to resemble a cape of vampires. As more vodka was ordered, they gathered at the exits of the large, ancient banqueting hall, now serving only the diplomats’ table. Each had the obligatory widow’s peak and a stare that concentrated somewhere through the eyes and fifty feet beyond the skull of the person he was addressing. Any one of them could have been two hundred and fifty years old while appearing to be fifty. They served everything with a worrying lack of garlic and generous helpings of gloopy Romanian Cabernets. The maître d’ had them all under his control, though his well-practiced misogynist focus was on Lorelei. And to hell with tradition. If, back in the land of his forefathers, the Mad Monk Rasputin could have made passionate, unholy, and hairy love to his queen, and in turn, his queen, Catherine, reputedly died under the weight of an eager, yet somewhat intrigued, copulating stallion, then certainly this beauty might grace his tables and imbibe his vodka. The clear liquid reappeared from an inexhaustible source behind the bloodred curtains.

      Srna’s imaginings were elsewhere. Why had Prince Albert done THAT to himself? he thought.

      * * *

      The fuel from the fine vodka had led the foursome out of the clutches of the polite vampires and into a den of vice. The Cellar sat three meandering city blocks away, and down a side street.

      There they took their place around a circular table and ordered overpriced champagne. The conversation swayed pendulously between world politics and a cheaper form of prostitution—the one on offer not twenty feet away. The Cellar also hosted a shockingly untalented, overmaquillaged French cabaret chanteuse, called Dorithe, who croaked a ghastly libretto. According to Herb, her tone resembled that of a goose farting in the fog.

      * * *

      Meanwhile, more absinthe was firing up the boys as they headed back toward the palace. The streets were quiet.

      They pondered the wisdom of their trek to the Old Sultan’s.

      “I know! Follow me.” Johan pulled his friend to the left, away from the empty boulevard.

      * * *

      A fine and fragrant lady of the night muscled in between the twins and whispered in Herb’s ear. He looked interested.

      A burst of laughter echoed as Srna gave them all his best impression of the perpetually furious, energetically uncomfortable, and supremely crazy Indian diplomat from Vienna, Mr. Rajee. It was his party piece. It was a good one.

      * * *

      The door opened. The boys entered the Cellar.

      There, at the first table they were set to walk past, were three smartly dressed, drunk men and a girl whom Johan recognized, her pupils as black as the Earl of Hell’s riding boots.

       Oh God! Concentrate! Johan, concentrate!

      Johan moved directly toward the table from where the laughter came.

      Aphrodite had surely seen him.

       Five

       We Are the Music Makers. We Are the Dreamers of Dreams.

       Oh! Pleasant exercise of hope and joy!

       For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood

       Upon our side, we who were strong in love!

      Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

       But to be young was very heaven!

      —William Wordsworth

       Early hours June 10, 1913. Sarajevo.

      Lorelei Ribeiro indeed recognized Johan Thoms straightaway.

      She motioned him forward, gesturing to Herb to make way for the two strays.

      Introductions were made in English. This time it was Bill’s turn to play the drunken fool as Herb announced;

      “I’m ’merican.”

      “You are a merkin?”⁴ Bill spluttered. “He’s a fucking merkin!”

      He had tried to whisper this in Johan’s ear, but everyone had overheard. None of the men knew it referred to a certain kind of hairpiece. Lorelei, however, smirked. Johan and Bill took their places at the table, glancing around at the assortment of female detritus scattered around the Cellar.

      “It’s like the bloody Crimea in here,” Bill said.

      The boys nodded their heads in appreciation to the host, Srna, who remained as well groomed as a cat, and as well preserved as black-currant jam.

      Johan was no longer the gibbering wreck of the night before. He held the ensuing conversation with his elders in the palm of his hand, moving it skillfully to include each present. He inquired politely as to James’s home state of Idaho, engaged Mario on the family tree of the Srna clan in Sarajevo, and delved for details of New Orleans from Herb.

      “The French Quarter is one place I would truly love to visit one day.”

      “It’s one mad place, son,” Herb agreed, with heavy eyelids.

      “I have an invitation from the owner of the Napoleon House to stay whenever I want. His son is in the same СКАЧАТЬ