City, Sister, Silver, page 18
I went downstairs. An then fell again. I woke up to some stalingo stabbing my rear with a boofalo spear. But no, it was the M.D. with a needed injection. David’s thumb tips were sewn back on now, he sniffed at them. Don’t worry, the M.D. told him, the guy was clean. Lady Laos an the bandaged Helena were soaking rags in dirty water … you wan’ pay someone e’se clean up you’ own bloo’! she raged. Fo’get! She decided for us. She was right, who knew what some hired phony might conjure up with the blood. Are you guys nuts! Screamed Micka, who’d just driven back from some trade negotiations. They’re not nuts, helmsman, they’re bleedin, the M.D. explained, momentarily interrupting the melody of the air whistling in between the sewing an the washing, full of bad post-battle feebleness. No elixir, Micka ordered, quickly finding his bearings. What, do I look like a murderer, the Doctor mumbled. The Laotians withdrew to the cellar with their dead … bodies in the building an an empty street, said Sharky. Where were you? whispered David, eyes glued to Helena, who squatted, back to us, scrubbing the bloody stairs … In the box, said Sharky, turning red. An then this string got knotted up … I got stuck in a shoe actually … I shrank … explained Sharky, embarrassed … Bring in the Water! the freshly stitched Bohler thundered, an Sharky, for once obediently an without any back talk, went for the booze. The thumbs, it’s obvious, I shouted, an told the story of our encounter in the subway. He said even thumb contracts don’t get broken … that was that time with the Laosters, when Fab Rocker a.s. tried to swallow em up. I told the story of our encounter, perhaps slightly exaggerating my role … Lady Laos nodded fervently … the lone witness, apart from the random and apathetic passengers … to my heroism. Once I had colorfully described how the Martian and his armed horde took flight, she went back to her rag, furiously scrubbing bloodstains that were already washed away … maybe my exaggeration set off her fury, those graceful staccato movements as she rinsed out the rag, dribbling water, I watched the lady carefully … an decided to cut off my story. You’re sposta be at Černá’s tonight, yeah? asked one of my blood brothers. There’s no way though, Hadraba’s an old pseudodroog from the Sewer, there’s just no way he’d hire stalingos! On us, Bohler cried. Times may be changin, added Micka, but that’s too hard-core. Not to mention commercially futile an totally perverted. He’s a Northerner, don’t forget! But … this isn’t his style, I admitted. An if it is, Micka said, I see Usti an Teplice an fuckin Chomutov* in flames, an they’re outta the little mother, those hicks, back to their Sudeten graves.
Northerners: Many slender threads and cables connected us with our cohorts born in the north of Bohemia, in nooks and crannies whose shapes on the map remind the more susceptible of nothing so much as a demon’s head. The North was full of evil spirits, in the air, on the ground, and especially underneath it. In the days of the Sewer, while we, the Prague city slickers, were constructing the complex clauses and short punchy sentences of petitions demanding the immediate release of now long since forgotten political prisoners … the northern longhairs were taking it hard in the teeth, because their interrogators knew the most effective thing was a beating … In the days of the Sewer, when reports of beatings of Prague burghers carried over the global airwaves … and photographs of city dwellers with scruffy hairdos filled the free world’s glossy weeklies … the beating and torture of northern longhairs was usually done to nothing but the more or less approving howls of the smog-choked wolves in the nearest deep forest, where the coppers pulled over their Zhigulik with the victim inside … When in view of my frequent involvement in the drama demimonde my interrogators were changed, in place of the dwarf sadist Duchač and a pair of backwater thrashers appearing under the almost chauvinistically Czech names Dvořák and Svoboda, suddenly into the gloomy room leapt a handsome man with an evidently artificially high forehead, brimming with a knowledge of French poetry … That idiot, that slimy bolshevik pig, that mutant so totally blatantly in the service of the Devil, took the liberty of placing his hand on my thigh: Just sign it, Mr. Potok, Charlz Bowdlair was also insane an dwelled on thoughts of death, “Carrion”! know that one, don’t cha? he said as if it were a joke … well you’re gonna be dwellin on those thoughts here, too … In the days when I graduated from interrogators concerned with hooligans to interrogators concerned with artists, the northern cops had long since realized that the two concepts often merge, and treated the artsy Northerners accordingly. In the days when we were being thrown out of schools and kulchur, the northern longhairs were killing off their hangovers in the nastiest toxic factories, where the only way to get thrown out was over the cemetery wall. It’s a cursed land those wretched hicks live in, Bohler assessed their situation one gloomy bolshevik day in the preliminary holding cell where by the grace of God we met. That’s what they get for their granddads’ gold digging,* he went on cruelly. They kicked out the Germans, battered em in concentration camps, an now they got what they asked for.
The fact that the Northerners were more stifled than us wasn’t the only difference. There were also insurmountable cultural chasms. While we favored leather boots, the orthodox Northerner never took off his sneakers. He didn’t share our fondness for jackets and sportcoats, being too much in love with his shabby olive-drab field jacket. And even on the steamiest summer day, he never took off that abominable sweater, often frayed at the elbows. Prague was predominantly Catholic, among the Northerners there were many Protestants. Given our hatred for the Communists, the only thing that still bound us to the territory of Bohemia was the lion we so happily and incomprehensibly bear in our emblem; the Northerners were obstinate Lambs. The memory of German bones haunted them in their genes. Where one of us had a glass of wine, the Northerner drank a bottle; where the smug Praguer slowly sipped his beer and discussed global issues cagily, to avoid getting right to the heart of the matter, the Northerner guzzled rum and hollered. So it was impossible to ever agree on anything. In those lamentable little smoggy northern towns, each patrolman soon knew the defiant Northerner and kicked his ass whenever he could. Northerners came to Prague to relax and gain experience, but whenever the cops here picked them up they generally would thrash them just for being where they were from. It was a fiendish circle. Broke the weak, steeled the strong, like life itself, only much faster.
Hadraba. And now I have to go and clash with him, my head buzzed.
Even though none of us could stomach the idea that Hadraba was capable of hiring stalingos, I didn’t much feel like going. Černá’s was Hadraba’s main tent, and whatever he wanted, the Martian wouldn’t have invited me there without his knowledge. The hitlers were a new, foreign element, and allying with them for the sake of commerce … the contract the Laotians had put their thumbprints on … would’ve put Hadraba out of the loop. He’d be turning time, which once clenched him so cruelly, against himself. There’s no way, we concluded, and we were right.
Only I didn’t know that yet. I tried to think of some of the tricks Daniel used in the lion’s den, but except for that one, nothing came to me. I just relied on Bog and myself and went.
Maybe Černá* will be there at least, I thought. But then it struck me I could easily be subjected to general ridicule and scorn and outnumbered by my assailants, so instead I hoped she had the day off.
Thinking of Černá I went on foot, in order to loosen up my slightly achy and danced-out muscles. Bohler was right, our street, the last one within city limits, was conspicuously quiet. Just our three buildings, plus the usual sheds and garbage dumps, and some stuff that used to be gardens, in antediluvian times. Jutting up from the dirt were the foundations of the government palace that would never exist. Rust-stained scaffolding. A pipe here and there. A pool clouded with chemicals, unrippled by worms. Ordinarily there were city dogs and cats chasing around, a grinning squirrel or rat or two, but now there was nothing. I noticed the grass in back of our buildings had been all trampled down, and that made me wonder. What with the battle and the fire, we had expected most of our dear tenants to finally take off. But how fast they did was surprising.
As I made my way into the city, an illegal light flickered here and there in the demolition sites and buildings, entries locked and boarded up. There’s probly a hole here too, I worried, better tell the others so we can do somethin about it. Wouldn’t want it to spread out to us.
Then I decided to take the tram. On the outskirts I was alone, no one else got on till later. Candles flickered in the cemetery by the chapel of the Virgin Mary. As the tram rode along its shiny route through the gray urban canyons, from time to time an ad would flicker for Happy Family or Pepsi Cola. Few glowed steadily. Both flickerings were about hope: one here, one there. People began to get on. I didn’t like their looks, and if they even noticed me they probably didn’t like mine either. I thought about Černá instead … recalling this song she did at the club, never mind the words, she’s obscene enough herself … but always at the right time in the right place … at the club called Černá’s … “I’m aware of what you’re begging for, lemme wrap my legs around you” … the old-time “aware” struck a dissonant chord with “lemme,” and that created tension … the childlike “begging” gave it spice and brought the serenaded guy to his knees … the way Černá sang it, all the others hated him, after all she was offering … lemme wrap my legs around you … what’s more, she had black hair and cloaked her relatively petite though no doubt dance-firm body primarily in white, black, and red, the colors of light in the most important knowable worlds. Up on her miniature stage, behind the sorry piano, she observed the stir in the club with a sharp, no-nonsense look, and a few times it struck me … in my battles with the Fiery … or with my colleagues, but also with Cepková and Elsa the Lion … in the olden days of instructing David … it would beautify any chair to have Černá planted on it. She also had a voice, I remembered how Bohler, after rescuing that record from the flames, had added voice to the list of recognized virtues … in fact one night, after some especially difficult negotiations, Černá’s voice got me so confused I dipped my hand under the table next to me, it sounded close, I guess it was the way she twisted the words, maybe she wanted to be close … and when I raised my head I caught her eye … I tried again … and again, clear across that big, ugly room, she looked at me, slightly offended … if she’d actually been sitting nearby, she might’ve said: Keep your paws to yourself! … a third time … yet again she shifted her head toward me, incredible, it works, I told Elsa the Lion … yeah, but you don’t work anymore, said my pseudodroogina, and she was right, I didn’t work on her … not for a while. And then I froze in the tram, recalling that voice out at the Rock and the last words She-Dog had given me … promising I’d meet a sister … and I couldn’t remember whether or not Černá’s eyes were green … suddenly I didn’t want to go … too many things were happening at once and I wasn’t prepared … but you can’t very well drag your private affairs into a byznys outing, that’s one of the ABC’s.
I remained seated as the tram came to a stop, the doors opened, and the city spread its welcoming arms right at the site of a new, extremely suspect frankfurter shack by an old statue of a forgotten patriot. I got off at Hangman Street, formerly Marshal Time-Vulture Avenue. Bad old Prague no. 5 chilled my aching feet. Feeling light and warlike, I sprinted the length of an empty lane called Swingshift, formerly In the Tentacles (later it bore the name of some favorite horse of Budenny’s*), and swept through the Galactic at a trot. There were a few familiar faces, but I just gave a wave or two, ran out to the courtyard, and continued on over the wall. Crouching down on the other side, I stayed there for a while, hearing nothing but my own soft, wary breathing. Not a soul around. Then, hooligan slow, legs firmly planted and my hands above my thighs, the edge of my left pinky cocked against demonic whispers, I went down a few ordinary streets to Liberation Avenue. That name hadn’t changed, it fits every time the old rats jump ship.
Since I was going to negotiate, and into the lion’s den at that, my blade stayed at home. I moved better in the spot around my hip where more often than not my friend weighed me down, but it wasn’t totally me, like I’d suddenly gotten younger. Wouldn’t do me any good anyway. In case of anything. Hope Černá’s not there today, better not be, I sang to myself, wandering along that filthy street that smelled of childhood lindens.
I came to a portal, but the Church of the Martyred Sisters was closed. I didn’t wear a watch, but it was still light. I wanted to pass through saints and angels into a place of Bog. I turned into Station Street toward St. Bruno’s. The bar wasn’t far and I still had plenty of time, so I hung around and observed life a while. You get that hunnerd back to Padevět first thing tomorrow night! a woman in curlers nagged a sulky fellow dumping out the garbage. He made a face up at the second floor and issued a heartfelt threat. The lady vanished. I sympathized, not everyone had to know he owed the guy such disgracefully petty loot. Townspeople walked home from work, stopping off at dives, ladies lugging shopping bags, here and there I even spotted a baby carriage with someone new inside, from time to time a dog passed by. An old lady, basically a crone, clutched her heart, set down her bag, I looked for the nearest phone booth, there weren’t any there, before I could peek around the corner she’d snatched up her bag and chipperly set off again, moving the meat and the bag another piece of life forward. I just let myself drift, happy to pay attention to something besides myself for a while. Hey dylyna,* hey you … three older Gypsies suddenly were standing around me, the meanest-looking one gripped me by the collar, everyone else in hearing range expertly sidestepped. Nah, that’s not him, Fána, uh-uh. Said one, disappointed. Seriously? said Fána, my new enemy. Nah, this one’s got hair, dylyna. It’s not me, really, I rasped. Looked like a slap or two would’ve done Fána some good, guess he didn’t get enough boxing in at the Warehouse today. In the end a sense of justice prevailed in the rot of his scarred soul, Fána let me go, and they trudged off again to see to their affairs, revenge, vanishing from my time. I noticed they had two or three Romany scamps romping ahead of them as feelers. Smart thinkin, I muttered to myself, only it’s not in line with the little entente, it isn’t kosher …
The Church of St. Bruno was closed too, what’s goin on? But there was no one trustworthy around for me to ask.
A college student, I guess, walked by, comely shoulder stooped as she squeezed a tome to her side, I deflected her cool unquestioning gaze and looked: not the Book, but The History of Art beat her hip in time to her stride, she walked like a calm sea, moving up and down, kina like little pedals if you were ridin real, real slow … I stood in front of Černá’s, now in twilight, as the day went out again and the lion’s golden head, the ball of sun, sank unstoppably behind Petřín Hill.
A kid lay flat on his back on the ground, I bent down to the victim … his green mohawk soaked in a puddle, the cheap dye turning it green, like a promo for some movie about the Wild East, maybe Hadraba stuck him out here to attract thrill-seeking tourists. I was careful not to get my hands near his pockets, we know that one, the old police ploy, hah, wallet up the sleeve and on the sleeves go the cuffs, just tryin to help my neighbor, heh, the cop is tickled pink as a prawn, the villain quakes on the ground, and from the heavens sounds the good news of the glorious promotion without any work or prayer. The kid lay there. I quite gently caught hold of his left eyelid and tugged it up to expose the pupil, an oyster without a pearl, like some book about the underworld, youth gone bitter. But unless I was having hallucinations, he was breathing.
It was time to go inside and get my bearings before I came face to face with Hadraba. Halfheartedly I told myself we might be underestimating the danger, and our basic assumption … even if that dumbass was ridin totally without a contract, not even a northern one … why would he make rabid dogs outta us, with all our friends an connections, the guy’s not nuts, he’s a man of business … hitlers musta got revved up an acted on their own … sure, Hadraba’s like the bolsheviks, just wanted to perestroikicize us a little but couldn’t keep the dummies in line, forgot that in their version of freedom, namely dictatorship for everything else that moves, they slip out of control, the way our newly free citizens did when they kicked to pieces the bolshevik’s carefully laid plan, that time in November … when we all filled the squares and loved one another … doubt vibrated lightly through every bone and vein of fear in my wrists … then I remembered the Laosters’ massacred bodies and Helena’s cuts and David’s blood … and last but not least my own, and I made up my mind that if Hadraba really had planned it that way, I’d kill him. Didn’t matter how, I’d find somethin there to dispatch him with. And gripping the door handle, I ever so slightly, and at first a little guilefully, the way you should, summoned up anger … the Laotians and their ruptured stomachs helped, they were my brothers too, this is going to earn me a star in Starry Bog’s thick black book … and anger arrived: head intoxicatingly clear, water rising in the heart, shoulders heavy with frenzied strength, and you feel like having a little dance … running someone over … so I cut it off, trying on the questioning and slightly sharp-edged smile of the brief time between friendship and what comes after, then settled for the mildly tough and somewhat disgustedly bored look with which one enters such establishments, opened the door and was in.
