A Bargain with the Devil
Paris Portingale
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © Paris Portingale 2011
MoshPit Publishing
Hazelbrook
an imprint of Mosher’s Business Support Pty Ltd
Shop 1, 197 Great Western Highway, Hazelbrook NSW 2779
Website: http://www.moshpitpublishing.com.au
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Cover photo: Cover image uses tarot card from © The Mythic Tarot by Juliet Sharman-Burke and Liz Green. Pub 2001
A Bargain with the Devil
The devil, it turned out, was a short, older looking man with an antique style hearing aid which appeared to have a fault as it continually required tapping. One could be forgiven for thinking he was a tobacconist, or a person who did watch repairs in the back room of some down-market jewellers, until, of course, you saw the two, small horns growing out of his head. Brian Tremlow had summoned him. His name was Mr Vostok and he spoke with an odd accent, possibly from one of the Balkan states.
Some weeks earlier, Brian had come across a small advertisement on the back page of the Brunswick Gazette—Circulation 23,000. It had read:
Your future revealed. Results guaranteed. Madame di Cava, King’s Lane, Brunswick, behind the fish shop.
Brian’s life had not been going well for some time and, during darker moments, when he examined it in any depth, he was forced to admit it had probably never gone well. He was in debt to a number of enterprises and agencies, owed two months back rent, and had recently had his car, an early model Vauxhall, without functioning windscreen wipers and a back seat which had once caught fire, repossessed.
Brian had begun wondering if his life was, in fact, worthwhile persevering with. And with that thought in mind, when he’d seen the advertisement, he decided to consult Madame di Cava on the subject, to possibly discover if there was anything at all in his future worth waiting around for.
The following day saw Brian sitting opposite Madame di Cava, across a small table, a hand in hers, palm up. She’d been tracing lines, following them with a finger, explaining what each line stood for and how, taken together, they could reveal things to come. At the end of the reading she released his hand and sat back and, shaking her head, said, ‘I am sorry, Senhor Tremlow, but zere is little zere in future virth to looking forward. Future seems most bleak as your past. Is all very unfortunate. In point of facts, is worse I have seen. For such sadness and despair zere is no charge here today Senhor Tremlow, conscience could not permit.’
Much dispirited, Brian asked, ‘Is there nothing there at all? Nothing?’
‘Nussing,’ said Madame di Cava sadly. ‘I have never to seen such barren future.’
‘Is there nothing I can do?’
Madame di Cava sighed and said, ‘Viz great sadness …’ but here she trailed off, her eyes focused on something far away. She seemed to be listening to something, a voice perhaps, that only she could hear. After a moment she blinked and her shoulders gave a little shudder, as though to shrug off some recent unpleasant association, and she said, ‘But perhaps …’
‘Perhaps what?’ Brian asked. The word ‘perhaps’ held a morsel, a grain of hope. A tiny glimmer of possibility.
‘Perhaps ...’ she said again.
‘Yes?’ said Brian. He leant forward, hands holding the edge of the table. ‘Yes?’
‘How bad is zis, your wish for zis so unfortunate outcome to be not so?’
‘Bad,’ Brian said. ‘Very bad. I would do almost anything. No, forget that. I would do anything.’
‘Vell, zere is a thing …’
‘Yes?’ Brian’s chair was tilted onto its front legs.
Madame di Cava got up and walked to a sideboard and, opening a drawer, took out a small pad and pencil, and came back to the table. She sat, opened the pad, and began to write. When two pages were filled she tore them out and held them in the air.
‘What’s that?’ Brian asked.
‘Is incantation,’ she said. ‘Much powerful. You read zis words out, twelve o’clock of zer midnight, you vill get opportunity to change sad destiny.’
‘What is it?’
Madame di Cava shook her head a little impatiently. ‘I have tell to you, is incantation. You read out at twelve o’clock precise.’
Looking at the pages, Brian asked, ‘How does it work?’
‘It vork to summon Mr Vostok. He vill help to your problem.’
‘And who’s Mr Vostok?’
‘Mr Vostok, El Diablo. Also Dark Lord. Many names, but is in true, Mr Vostok. Is from down there.’ Here Madame di Cava pointed to the ground. ‘Is not nice man, but can help. You vont zis bad … he can do.’
Brian shook his head. ‘And this is the only thing you can see helping me? This Mr Vostok?’
‘Only sing.’
Brian considered this for a moment, then said, ‘Mr Vostok. Okay,’ and reached forward to take the pages.
At this, Madame di Cava held them higher, saying, ‘Twenty five pounds, including of VAT.’
‘Certainly,’ said Brian, and he paid her. Folding the pages in half, Madame di Cava handed them across, reminding him, ‘Only reading at midnight, okay?’
‘Only at midnight,’ Brian repeated, and opened the papers to see what she’d written, whereupon Madam di Cava slapped at his hand, clearly angry, saying, ‘What was I say about midnight? You English never listen. You sink I tell to you zese details for to hear my own voice sound? Bah. I wish you good luck, Senhor Tremlow, you vill need it.’
Back home in his cold-water flat, Brian Tremlow fiddled impatiently with Madame di Cava’s incantation, taking the folded pages from his pocket, looking at them, then putting them back again. When he wasn’t taking the pages out of his pocket and putting them back, he was watching the clock as, with agonising slowness, it ticked its way towards midnight.
At five o’clock he took the pages out of his pocket and placed them on the mantelpiece. A little later he took them off the mantelpiece and put them on the table, then, not happy with that he put them back on the mantelpiece again. Around 6.00 he put them on top of the TV which, with regard to height, was a compromise between the table and the mantelpiece, and he spent a half hour practising picking them up.
Around 7.00 he put them back on the mantelpiece and tried picking them up from there. After that he did the same with the table. With regard to ease of picking up, there wasn’t much difference between the mantelpiece, the table and the TV, so once again he chose the middle road and put them on the TV, and sat looking at them from the armchair across the room, occasionally looking at the clock, then looking back at the papers again.
At 8.30 he went into his kitchenette and made himself some dinner. He took the pages with him, standing them between the flour and sugar containers on the shelf above the sink. He made himself a cup of tea and a piece of toast, neither of which he finished, and after cleaning up, he took the pages and put them back on the TV. He didn’t sit down immediately, but paced back and forth between the door and the TV, but he found when he was right over near the door he would feel anxious being so far away from the pages so he moved the armchair a little closer to the TV and sat and watched them from there.
At eleven o’clock he brought the phone over to the TV and rang the talking clock to check the time. It showed his clock was right, and, when he took the phone back to the phone stand, he took the pages with him. Then he took them back to the TV and put them on top and sat down again and continued watching them.
At 11.30 he rang the time again, and this time, instead of taking the phone back to the phone stand he left it on top of the TV, against the possibility that, during the final half hour, something went wrong with his clock.
The last five minutes were bad. Each ticking second seemed like an hour, and each full minute seemed longer than an entire day. The last sixty seconds were even worse. Each second seemed like a day, and each entire minute was like a whole week.
He was standing in front of the TV, his hand out ready, when the clock finally ticked its way to midnight. As the second hand hit the 12 he snatched up the pages and opened them.
The writing was in some foreign language he didn’t recognise. This threw him for a moment and he wondered if perhaps he’d been taken in by Madame di Cava in some cynical scam, but after looking over the two pages he decided to read them out, working slowly and pronouncing each word phonetically.
It was a painful exercise, full of stumblings and tongue-twisting pronunciations, but he managed to make his way through to the end.
When he finished he looked around the room. His heart was fluttering from the stress and concentration of it all. Nothing seemed changed though. He checked the kitchenette and the bedroom, but they were empty. He thought of checking the talking clock, or reading the thing out again, but before he could do either, there was a knock on the door. It was Mr Vostok.
Mr Vostok seemed a little flustered and in a hurry. ‘Greetings to you, Mr Tremlow, I am Mr Vostok,’ he said. ‘I am coming inside now,’ and pushing past Brian, he walked into the flat. Brian closed the door and followed him.
‘We get straight to the business,’ Mr Vostok said. ‘Time is essence, also money. What it is you are wanting?’
Looking down on the considerably shorter man, Brian said, ‘Ah, Mr Vostok, how nice to meet you.’
‘I am having little time for the idle chit chat, Mr Tremlow. I have busy schedule. Please to be telling your need.’
‘Dear me, these people are so impatient,’ Brian thought. Then, to Mr Vostok, he said, ‘Certainly, Mr Vostok. Let me explain.’ Pointing to a chair, he said, ‘Would you like to sit down?’
Mr Vostok tapped his hearing aid. ‘Stupid thing,’ he said. ‘Say to me again.’
‘Would you like to sit down, Mr Vostok?’
‘No time for to sit. Please be explaining what you are wanting. You are knowing the fees?’
‘Twenty five pounds, including VAT. I’ve already paid Madame di Cava.’
‘No, no, no,’ said Mr Vostok, waving his hand. ‘That is agent’s fee. Separate thing. She did not explain?’
‘No,’ Brian said.
‘My fee is soul,’ Mr Vostok said.
‘Soul?’ Brian asked, confused.
‘Yes, soul.’
‘My soul?’
‘Yes, yes, your soul,’ Mr Vostok said irritably. Looking around the room, he said, ‘What you think, I am here for? Soul of table, perhaps? Chair? Of course your soul.’
Brian had never thought of himself as having a soul. He’d never really believed in the idea of souls. He felt that, if that was all Mr Vostok wanted for his services, he was welcome to it. He doubted he’d ever miss something he’d never known he’d possessed.
He said, ‘Of course, Mr Vostok. My soul it is then.’
‘Good,’ said Mr Vostok. ‘Now, you are please continuing,’ and Brian told him what he’d been thinking.
He said, ‘Well, the thing is, my entire life to this point has been a vast and barren wasteland. I am bankrupt and in debt. I have nothing. Even my car, such as it was, has been repossessed.’
‘Yes, and so?’
‘Mr Vostok, I want my life to turn around. I want to be a success, not the abject nothing I find myself today. I want to be a different man.’
‘What man is this you wish to be?’
‘I’m thinking of something like, I don’t know, Aristotle Onassis perhaps.’
‘Who is this Onassis?’
‘He was a shipping magnate. Very successful.’
Mr Vostok tapped his hearing aid. ‘Shipping what? What is this magnate?’
‘It means you got a lot of money from something. Aristotle Onassis got it from having a lot of ships. I’m just using him as an example.’
‘Example, right,’ said Mr Vostok, and he took a small book from a pocket. ‘Is catalogue,’ he said and began thumbing through it. ‘No … no … no …’ he said, then finally, ‘No, nothing here from shipping. Something else perhaps?’
Brian said, ‘I don’t know. What else have you got there?’
Mr Vostok flicked through some pages. ‘No … no … no …’ Then he stopped. ‘Here is something. White goods. We have opening in white goods. Refrigerators for to be precise.’ He looked up at Brian inquiringly.
‘Fridges …’ Brian thought. While his circumstances had never in his life allowed him to buy a refrigerator, he knew them to be an expensive and desirable item. In his mind’s eye he saw vast warehouses with row upon row of new, gleaming white fridges. The idea of having an empire based on fridges became more and more appealing.
After a moment’s consideration, he said, ‘Okay, I’ll take it.’
Mr Vostok tapped his hearing aid again. He said, ‘If ever needing hearing aid, don’t get Soviet rubbish. Crap. You are saying again?’
‘I said I’ll take it. I want to be a fridge magnate.’
With a look of annoyance, Mr Vostok vigorously tapped at his hearing aid. ‘You want to be what?’ he said irritably.
Raising his voice slightly, Brian said, ‘I want to be a fridge magnate, Mr Vostok. A fridge magnate.’
Mr Vostok looked up. Frowning and tapping his hearing aid again, he said, ‘I am hearing this right? You are sure of this, Mr Tremlow?’
‘Absolutely,’ Brian said.
‘Last chance. You are sure you want to be this thing?’
‘Yes,’ Brian told him.
‘Very odd,’ Mr Vostok said, ‘Still, as you wish …’ and he snapped his fingers and Brian found himself transformed into something altogether different from the whitegoods tycoon he was expecting. Something quite disappointingly different indeed.
For more about Paris and his works visit
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