'Oh, here!' she said. 'What can be the matter with you?'

The milkman, jockeying on the horse's neck, kept hold of the ears, laid his cheek in the hollow under the horse's jaw, and used his own head to batter the animal down. He was more expert at doing it now; he didn't try to lift the horse, he let the horse raise himself - just enough, to where the milkman was perfectly above the head, gripped on the ear handles. There he had the leverage; he could fling down so suddenly on the horse that its head would bounce a little before it lay on the cobbles - frothed over the bit, shook, bucked to raise itself again.

'Well, frotting Graff,' said Siggy; 'If you won't tell me what's happening' - and he cloaked himself in the satiny pouf and hopped to the window ledge.

The horse was more frenzied now; the milkman was calm and terrible. The milk-cart had ridden over the horse's rump, and the hitchmast bent like a great bow being strung on the horse's spine. And whenever the horse stopped churning, the hitchmast would spring back and over-straighten the unbelievable vertebrae.

But none of this bothered the milkman, he held so fiercely to the neck and ears, his cheek tucked in the jaw hollow.

'Oh my God,' said Siggy.

'Berserk!' I said. 'His brains must have muddled in the fall.'

'Aaah!' said Siggy.

And Auntie Tratt moved gingerly about the scene, conscious of her pink hem in the rain.

And Siggy, the pouf cloaked over his shoulders and pinched to his throat - moving past me, one bare foot arched as a cat's back in wet grass - whooped over the magazine stand, was out the door and off down the hall. An utterly graceless pirouette round the stairwell, and his ballooning pouf snagged on the banister, just bending him backward as he took the steps; he let go of the pouf at his throat and went on. And he didn't come back for it. It gave me a satiny wave from the banister, fluffed by the draught from the main door opening wide and fast.

I ran back to my window.

And this is split-second seeing: someone new in the courtyard, a large man with pink knees and hairless legs below his lederhosen - an untucked ascot at the throat of his pajama tops, and very thick-soled sandals. He stood half-way between the main door and where Auntie Tratt was circling the fallen horse; stood with his hands on his hips, his hands stubbing suddenly at the end of his arms - for he was a more or less wristless man, and a neckless, ankleless man besides.

He was saying, 'Frau Tratt, what a terrible racket - it was very late when I got to bed' - and then he turned round to the castle and spread his arms as if someone were throwing him a bouquet from the door.

Siggy ran into him as dead-weight as a sandbag, and the man never closed his arms before he fell, or before Siggy's bare feet padded over his pajama chest.

Auntie Tratt was turning, a gesture beginning in her hands, the palms rolling up. Tiredly she said, 'A fool, this driver - a crazy drunk.' She just looked up and saw the puffy pink man pillowed on his ascot, his fingers twitching and his head moving very little. 'It's going to rain all day,' she said, and she caught a bit of Siggy flashing past her; she turned, her hands coming together.

Siggy's dazzling bottom was so sleek in the rain.

And the large, jointless man wet his ascot in a puddle, dabbed his mouth with it, lay just as he was on his back. 'No!' he shouted. 'No, nothing! He had nothing on all over, all over.'

And Siggy mounted the milkman; he worked his hands under the chin to a hold on the throat. Then he tucked his head down close to the milkman and bit into the back of his milky neck.

Down the prickly hall, I was hopping into my pants. Auntie Tratt came bobbing like a pigeon through the lobby; I saw her head jog by below me, just flit in and out of the slot in the stairwell.

Gallen had the pouf; she leaned against the banister, a touch of the satin to her cheek, and watched out the main door into the courtyard, where there were sounds of terrible suffering and pain - where the flaying horse jostled the milk-cart about, and where the tumbled man sat up with his ascot hanging out of his mouth, gaping at the open castle door as if he expected a horde of naked men to come trampling him into the grooves of the cobblestones; and where Siggy rode the milkman through the garden, in and out of the forsythia.

'Graff,' said Gallen, 'my aunt's calling the police.'

I took the pouf from her and nudged one of her small, upright breasts with my elbow. 'Lovely little bosom,' I said. 'I'm afraid we'll be leaving you today.'

'I couldn't sleep last night, Graff,' she said.

But I had the pouf and I ran by her, into the courtyard.

The poor lopsided man made circles with his arms, tipped up his broad bottom and sat again. 'He's all around,' the man said. 'Get nets and ropes.' He gagged on his ascot. 'Get dogs!' He choked, his arms still circling.

So in and out of the forsythia - the bell-shaped petals drooped with rain - in and out a strange figure was darting, bent over in the back bushes of the thicket, upright and charging by the motorcycle, here and there appearing, four-armed and two-headed; a terror-high, doglike wail marked the spot where I could expect it next to come in view.

The little needlepoints of rain fell icy on my back; I held the pouf like a bullfighter's cape, keeping it out from under my feet.

'Siggy!' I said.

In shiny raingear a hollow-eyed man with transparent ears came lurching between two fat forsythia bushes, spilling the rain from the burst cups of petals, showering the boomerang pieces of flower with his thudding galoshes - with a naked man on his back, fastened by teeth to the milky neck.

'Blaaah-rooo!' the fool driver was screaming.

Tags: John Irving Fiction
Source: readsnovelonline.net