The View from Stalin's Head, page 10
“What’s wrong?” she asks, looking slightly dazed.
“You should go.”
“I like your tits, really,” she says, but I hold up my hand. Enough. “Oh, all right.” I walk her to the door and we stand next to each other, not sure what to do with our hands. “You’re a really nice guy,” she says softly with a mocking smile. She gives a little wave and squeezes past me. “See you.”
I peel off my pants and throw them across the room. They knock over Charlene’s wineglass. As I fall into bed, I watch the carpet soak up the blood-colored stain.
—
THE NEXT THURSDAY morning, Election Day, I put on a shirt and tie instead of my usual black turtleneck. One of the Christian Democrat candidates for the Senate hands out flyers at my subway station. The platform is littered with them.
I push past the teenagers on the bus from Palmovka and get a seat. At the bus shelter, I rip one of the stupid Milos Zeman posters across his big fat mouth.
“No tea, Katka,” I say while inscribing my plan neatly with a black pen into Vera’s ruled notebook. “Also, I’m afraid we’re going to have to stop our tutoring sessions.”
“Why?” she asks, with her thin white hands glued to the plastic kettle. She blows an unruly curl out of her face. “Because of homosexual conversation?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You know why. It’s not right. It’s not ethical.”
Katka shuts off the kettle. “I cannot understand your meaning.”
I finish the last letter of my lesson plan, dot a period, and close the book. Vera will be thrilled with me. She’ll be fucking in love with me.
“Where can I find such a sympathetic conversationalist as yourself?” she asks.
“I’m an English teacher, not a paid escort. You should join my class or find a private tutor off DaniCo property. Those are the rules. Now excuse me, please.” She’s waiting for me to say it’s all a joke, but I turn away and march out the door.
The smell of burnt coffee in the air doesn’t bother me for a change. It tickles my nostrils. Hansa is driving a tractor across the yard. I wave my arms and step in front of the tractor, as big and noisy as a tank. Hansa slams on the brakes and shuts off the motor.
“Get down from there, Hansa. It’s time for class.”
“Sorry,” he says, waving for me to move. “Big, big transport is coming today.”
“Hansa,” I repeat. “It’s time for English. Climb down at once and come to class.”
“Okay,” Hansa says with a shrug and hops to earth. He follows me to the cafeteria where Ivo and Eva are waiting. Ivo is eating fried cheese and French fries.
“Please, Simon,” Eva says, “I have sales conference and I cannot attend class.”
“No,” I say.
“Sorry?” Eva cups her ear as if she didn’t hear. She’s short and squat, with cropped black hair. In America, she’d be mistaken for a lesbian.
“You have class every Thursday from nine to ten-thirty and I expect you to be here. You’ll have to find another time for your sales conference. Where is Olena?”
“I think she have much work,” Ivo says with his mouth full. The aroma of bread crumbs in oil makes my nose twitch. He lifts his fork. “You want?”
“No thank you.” I pick up a phone on the wall and dial Katka. “Katka, this is Simon from the cafeteria. Can you give me Olena Sverakova?”
Fifteen minutes later all four students sit around the table as I drill them on the past perfect. They sit up straight in their seats, eyes glued to their yellow Headway textbooks, which teach proper stilted British English that no one would ever use, not even in England.
In the middle of our lesson, a short, stout man with red eyes appears next to the open accordion door and shakes it in its track. Katka stands a few feet behind him.
“Excuse me, Simon,” she says, looking over his shoulder. “Mr. Novotny, head of transport, wants to know why Hansa has left his vehicle to run in the yard.”
The man sees Hansa and the two of them begin yelling at once.
“Quiet!” I yell. “Tichy!” Then I tell Katka, “Explain to this gentleman that English class is from nine to ten-thirty on Thursdays, and I expect my students to be here.”
Novotny ignores her translation and says something to Hansa, who jumps up and runs out of the room. Eva, Olena, and Ivo cap their pens and close their books.
“What’s happening?” I ask. “I can’t understand him. He’s speaking too fast.”
“Maybe I don’t want to say,” Katka replies. “It’s not ethical.”
Novotny glares at me and says something that I think means stupid faggot. Actually, I know it means stupid faggot. Then Katka follows him downstairs.
Three pairs of eyes stare at the stupid American faggot in his wrinkled dress shirt and ugly tie. They’re all waiting for him to open his mouth.
“Well,” I say to the students. “We have to go on without Hansa.”
Ivo sighs. Eva and Olena stare at their laps.
“Turn to page eighty-six.”
No one moves.
“Or how about a game,” I say. “Does anyone have a game they’d like to play?”
Nothing.
“Hangman?” I suggest.
“Yes,” Ivo says, arms folded like a Roman emperor. “Hangman.”
“Okay,” I say and loosen the knot of my tie. “Hangman.”
I start to sketch a gallows on the flip chart, but the black marker has finally run dry. I keep pressing as hard as I can and finally I slice a gash through the paper. None of them are paying attention, anyway, because there’s some ruckus going on outside.
Olena removes her sunglasses. “Look at Hansa!”
We run to the window. At the other end of the yard, four men in blue uniforms are shouting and chasing a runaway tractor rolling downhill, although from our vantage point, it looks like it’s already too far gone. Still, Hansa’s out in front, running for his life. And I’m just standing there, gripping the snowy ledge as I wait for the inevitable crash.
YOU SAY YOU
WANT A REVOLUTION
DEBRA LOOKED READY FOR a fight. She stood on the corner of Revolution Avenue and Dlouha trida wearing a red bandana around her neck, a pair of old jeans, and a red T-shirt with a Nike symbol and the caption CHILD LABOR: JUST DO IT. Her skin was dry and cracked from the cold because she didn’t have time for creams and lotions and potions. Debra knew she was ruining her skin—she was ruining it anyway.
She spotted the Pressmans standing across the tram tracks and studying their guidebook. They looked very lost.
“Sorry we’re late!” Linda laughed as they crossed Revolution Avenue. (Unlike Lenin Avenue, “Revolution” had proved ambiguous enough to survive the post-1989 street renaming frenzy.) Linda had a starved, waifish figure. She looked like a reed in her blue T-shirt, which she’d tucked into purple jogging pants. Her face came to a point at her chin, like a modern vase, and was framed by a wreath of golden curls that fell loosely around her ears. “Jake’s usually good with maps, but the streets are funny here.”
“I had just determined where we were,” Jake said, shutting his Fodor’s. He’d recently made full partner in Debra’s father’s law firm at the tender age of thirty-five.
Debra had little patience for people with no sense of direction. Whenever she traveled to a strange city, she spent at least an hour studying the maps.
Jake gripped Debra’s fingers firmly like the handle of a briefcase and planted a kiss somewhere in the air near her cheek. He had darting, gemlike eyes and a narrow nose, and his thin black hair was brushed into seven strands that spanned the top of his chalky scalp. “Good to see you, Debbie,” he said, passing her an envelope. “Your father wishes he could be here to give you this himself.”
“Is that what he says?” She blushed as she stuffed the sealed envelope, fat with cash, into the waistband of her underwear. “And the name’s Debra now, not Debbie.”
Linda peered at the bandana around Debra’s neck. “What an original idea for a scarf! I haven’t worn a bandana since I was a kid.”
“Everyone wears these scarves in Prague,” Debra said. “It isn’t original here.”
The restaurant Jake chose, Bohemian Rhapsody, had once been an authentic Czech pub, not this faux-imperial monstrosity with a gold-striped awning, lace tablecloths, and waitresses in traditional black-and-white servant uniforms, like ladies in waiting. Who needed servants to bring your food to you on a tray? In a truly egalitarian society, all restaurants would be self-service buffets.
The three of them were the only customers. Debra hoped no one had seen her go inside. “Sit down,” she whispered, nudging them to a table. “You don’t wait to be seated like in America.” The menus, printed in English, French, German, and Italian, were laminated in plastic that was already peeling off. Wiener schnitzel, renamed “King Rudolf II Plate,” cost one hundred crowns when it should have cost thirty.
“I’m not sure this is an authentic place,” Linda said, crinkling her nose.
“It’s not New York,” replied her husband. “That’s authentic enough for us.” His gold bracelet clanked on the table as he slid his menu to Debra. “What’s the difference between ‘meat in spicy sauce’ and then on the next page, ‘meat in piquant sauce’?”
“It’s written the same in the Czech version of the menu,” said Debra, who’d learned to speak fluent Czech. “They must have mistranslated.”
“Maybe they use paprika,” Linda said. “I hate too much paprika.”
“She doesn’t like anything that has any flavor,” Jake explained.
“I like healthy flavors. If it were up to him, we’d eat French fries every night.” Linda laughed, a long, fluttery laugh that sounded too loud in the empty room. “Any romantic news? Are you still seeing that guy who doesn’t use deodorant to save the eels?”
Debra merely shook her head, though the night before she’d stayed up late thinking up witty retorts, like “I don’t go into my private affairs at the table” or “These days I prefer casual sex.” She got the impression the Pressmans considered her an old maid because at the ripe old age of twenty-eight she still hadn’t found a husband. “Just what I need, a husband,” Debra thought. Sometimes to scare herself she pictured herself with a life like the one these two clowns led, imprisoned in a colonial on Long Island. She’d even picked out an imaginary husband named Dr. Herbert M. Schwartz, and two brats, a boy and a girl. The girl was a math genius and the boy wanted to be a ballet dancer.
When it was time to order, Debra asked for a lamb joint in perfect Czech. The waitress replied in English: “And for your parents?” They all laughed uncomfortably.
It made perfect sense to Debra that the Pressmans, now anxiously studying their menus to find a compromise between what they wanted to eat and how they wanted to look, appeared so much older than she did. Capitalism had ravaged their bodies. This potbellied lawyer and his shrunken homemaker were the direct result of the millions spent each year (in a world where children were starving) to persuade you to stuff your face and at the same time slim down to impossible measurements if you wanted to be happy and loved.
After confirming that “meat in piquant sauce” and “meat in spicy sauce” were the same thing, Jake ordered the potato pancakes. Linda tried to ask for spaghetti, but Jake pressed her hand and said, “Honey, try something Czech. Get the vegetarian goulash.”
“Goulash is Hungarian, not Czech,” Debra said, hoping that Linda would stand up to him and get the spaghetti, but no one seemed to hear her.
A Viennese waltz suddenly blared from the bar as the waitress came back with a plastic dish of celery, carrots, and wizened pickles. “You have to pay for each vegetable you eat,” Debra warned. “Fifteen crowns each. They don’t write it on the menu.”
“That’s like what, fifty cents?” said Jake, and Debra remembered when she too used to convert prices into dollars. “Take as many as you want. I’m paying.” He waved a pickle at her like a baton. “So, Deb. You’ve been here, what, a couple months?”
“A year,” Debra said, though it was just shy of nine months. “With all my work, it’s gone by like a shot. Democracy isn’t all sweetness and light, you know. First off, who defines democracy? And who benefits? The factory worker barely earning a living wage or the multinational corporation exploiting her?”
“I don’t see these people complaining,” Jake said. “Reagan told them to tear down the Berlin Wall and that’s what they did.”
Trying to explain the hazards of privatization to bozos like Jake was like trying to drive a car stuck in neutral. It was like a lot of things in her life.
“Hey, you two,” Linda interjected with a knowing smile. “Before you get carried away with politics, I want to ask Debra which museums are worth our time?”
Debra recommended the Decorative Arts Museum because she didn’t believe in masterpieces and maestros. They pressed her to join them, but Debra said she didn’t have time for museums. “Tomorrow my group and I have an important meeting with a grassroots organization of Czechs who share our ideals.” She handed them a purple flyer.
“At least you haven’t lost your sense of color,” said Jake as Linda held the paper up to the light. “You’re studying something, right? Or what is it you’re doing here?”
Why did he insist on treating her as if she were still a gawky fourteen-year-old who spoke too fast and had no breasts or hips? “I’m studying the lives of Czech factory workers before and after Communism for my doctoral thesis.” She pictured her thesis, a pile of paper that had been sitting untouched next to her narrow bed for months. Debra preferred the thrills of distributing flyers and placards, channeling muddy discontent into rivers and tributaries of regional meetings and marches. Not that the marches or regional meetings had happened yet. They were the future of her movement, which she’d temporarily christened the “New Socialists.” It was one of those things that would have sounded better in Spanish.
“I can tell you right now what their lives are like,” Jake said. “Crap. Pure crap.”
“I’m on a fellowship,” she said, but they stared blankly at her. Debra didn’t mention that her fellowship had run out a couple of months before, and she was surviving on odd jobs, cheap prices, and American savings. She felt good living that way, dangling.
“This country is divided,” she explained like she was talking to a pair of children, “into those who see market forces as a means to prosperity and greater democracy, and those who view these forces as inherently undemocratic, providing increased freedom for corporations, not people. That’s why this meeting tomorrow is so historic.”
“Aren’t corporations made up of people?” Jake asked.
“Yeah, rich people,” Debra shot back.
“And middle management and secretaries and janitors . . .”
“The point is, yes, there are jobs, but what about the quality of those jobs? Would you like to be stuck in a dingy factory or office all day? What kind of life is that?”
“Hey, it sucks,” he said, pulling on one of his strands of hair. “That’s why I drink. Some nights I fall into bed after midnight. But you can’t play around forever. Everyone has to work, even slimeball lawyers. Even you someday.”
Their meals arrived. The potato pancakes were served on an oil-stained paper doily, while the goulash came in an orange crock. Debra’s lamb joint, dumplings, and cabbage were drowned in a creamy brown gravy. She sampled a bit of the goulash and pancakes, which were delicious. The lamb was tough and the dumplings were overdone and chewy.
“Corporations only serve shareholders,” said Debra, sawing bravely into her joint.
“I could never bring myself to order lamb,” Linda interjected.
“Because of its nutritional value?” Debra asked. Linda worked part-time as a nutritionist and occasionally led tours of grocery stores. Her motto was, “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: muffins are cake!”
“Oh, no. It’s just that I think it’s inhuman the way they treat those animals.”
“It’s the food of the people,” Debra said. “I mean, this is a typical Czech dish.”
Jake asked her, “Don’t you ever get scared here, all alone?”
“Never,” Debra lied, swallowing a particularly tough morsel of lamb. On her first day in Prague, a teenage boy had lifted her wallet in the metro. “It’s in your underwear! Give it back!” she’d screamed, her backpack with all her possessions swinging off her shoulders as she chased him up two sets of escalators. “Police! Police!” Debra kept yelling, but no one did anything. Finally she caught up with the kid and shoved him against a wall. “Is this what you want?” he asked, flinging the wallet at her breasts before he ran. She’d had trouble forgiving him, even when she reminded herself that the little urchin was only a victim fighting to survive in a corrupt system that debased his humanity.
The Viennese waltz faded into a Muzak version of “Yesterday” by the Beatles.
Linda said, “Young people are brave.”
“I’m almost thirty,” Debra corrected her. “Only a few years younger than you.” She felt tired, even though the digital clock above the bar said it was only 19:30.
“You’re a child,” Jake said, and the way he said it, she felt like one again. “Still in that idealistic phase. I was like you. I was going to drop out of law school and become a jazz pianist. Every Friday night, I’d play in a band at a little smoke-free dive bar up on 106th.” He was looking out the window at a blonde in a tight-fitting white blouse.
Debra looked too. “I know her,” she said. “We volunteer for this charity that integrates Gypsies, I mean the Romani, into Czech society. The discrimination they face is shameful. In one town, they built a cement wall around their neighborhood, like a ghetto.”
Jake asked if she knew any Gypsies.
“No, but I’ve read about them. Their kids get put into special ed classes because they don’t speak Czech. How would you feel if you were told that you were retarded because you couldn’t pass a test written in Czech? I couldn’t pass a test like that.”
They nodded politely, but she could tell they were bored. Everything that seemed obvious to her struck them as odd. And now she seemed odd to herself too, too old to be a student still, with a funny hankie tied around her neck.
