City, Sister, Silver, page 38
I got bored, everyone just starin … quiet table, huh?
I told her the myth about the rib too. How Bog wrenched it outta that first guy. Said I didn’t believe he took just that rib and gave it to her. I was glad she knew the ancient legend of Hermaphroditus. When she talked about it, it was like she was telling me about up there and down below.
We were never anywhere else, either.
The days went by. We didn’t count them.
Those days … my dear raising a ruckus on the stairs … drinking Three Musketeers beer, sitting in nothing but red bikini briefs with spiderweb lace around the edges on one of those afternoons … yanking my hair … rolling up her amazing eyelashes with her secret wand, me holding her head … and wires quivering in the air overhead, steam rising out of the sewers, walls sagging with century-old plaster, swaths of savage city skin … walking past a playground ringing out with clipped commands, it’s muggy, walking along the bridge, slow and tired, a storm’s about to hit … we feel the first drops and she flags down a cab, riding uphill, the air opens with a flash, sharp light, light from above. Illuminated street.
It’s obvious the guy goes on top, since he gives the seed. The woman’s closer to the soil, that’s why she gives birth, but the guy flies. So he’s more scared of what’s up above. The woman holds on an she’s underneath, it’s obvious, I believe it.
But I mean the ground’s also got … dangerous things in it.
So what. The ground you can hold onto.
Well, Černá, if you say so, you oughta know … who’s that Moriak on your door, your father? … I don’t mean to pry.
That’s me. Not my father! Not that guy! I was fuckin sick an tired of draggin around that “ová.” That’s just a trick forefather Čech invented so he wouldn’t hafta remember his wives’ names. Now every woman’s an “ová.”
You’re an “á.” Ever have kids?
No.
I stayed with her. And one time as I was sittin in the window listenin to some story of Černá’s, somethin from the past … I saw an incredible light show, breathtaking colors, a little bitty spider weavin his net at high speed, it wasn’t a trap though, couldn’t’ve caught a thing in it, I figured it was a game, or some secret message for somebody about the joy of motion … it was a silky and mysterious web, lifting with the wind, billowing with the gusts, like it was there just for the wind, or the wind just for it, they merged.
Evenings we’d go out occasionally, though for now we stayed away from the usual establishments.
In this one coffeehouse, the only spot free was the chess table. While Černá went off to make a phone call, I didn’t ask who to, I set up the board, just for the heck of it … reminiscing about bread knights and bishops … as long as we’re using bread for this, an old man there told me, then everything’s fine, totally springtime.
Springtime, he said.
You wanna play?
Let’s give it a try.
We moved the pieces in various sequences, but with all the talking and drinking we never did finish that first match … the chessboard was like our center of gravity, it’s good to have something there on the table … mostly just old ladies went there, we often knocked back a goodly number of shots ourselves … that made the waiters as happy as us … Černá busted up when the black-and-white … penguin helpin her into her mangy jacket said: Come again, madam … I didn’t laugh. And outside she grabbed me and said: This is new to me, let’s be together. Černá … don’t say that, or I … you’ll never leave me. We stepped across a puddle, and for a second it seemed like a pit, a shaft that led to somewhere, and as I squinted, playin around with the flashes of light inside the water, Černá said: You better believe I won’t leave you, not ever, it wouldn’t work anyway. But … you donno anything! You like me too much. I took a look at her, the look on her face was … nasty, as if she didn’t like the idea, as if what awaited us … which I believed was good things together … as if she didn’t want it. All you guys piss me off! You too! she said. I turned around and walked off, and when I looked back over my shoulder she was standin there by the puddle, alone … motionless, I could see her eyes, just the gleam, I could feel her, she was inside me … her figure’s seared into my body and whatever’s outside that outline I sliced off long ago … it lasts to this day, after all that happened … then we walked side by side in silence and the city was friendly. I donno why.
And the next morning Smoothy smiled when I grabbed the envelope, he probly had a hunch I wanted out. We took off for some factory again, we’d been callin around for two days on this one. Got inside no problem. Smoothy was somewhat … shaken up, which was unusual, maybe we knew each other so well by now he didn’t consider it necessary to keep the mask on for me … after three months now of livin this life … it went without a hitch, we found the block, the hallway, for once there was no one standin in our way … Smoothy stops and pulls out a smoke … this time, Mr. Potok, he says, this time I am hoping to see my son, so I beg you for extraordinary, yes, extraordinary readiness in the event of an emergency … I swallowed what I had on the tip of my tongue, namely that I’m not some kina gorilla, etc., and asked: Son? I could see he was hesitant … somehow he didn’t want to open the door right away … by speaking again, literally by moving his tongue in his mouth, he regained his confidence: As we pushed off in our, so-to-speak, family boat from the shores of our homeland, which had become inhospitable, indeed perilous and harsh, we heard the crackling of machine guns … Smoothy dramatically lowered his voice, while I rolled my eyes and clutched my heart … by now I knew he enjoyed it, it was our idiom … we paddled furiously, but one of my sons, the eldest, was hit and fell in the water … we learned later on that he was imprisoned, reeducated, and afterward … like most of the gentlemen we have found and transported to the place of destination … he changed his identity, and his face, Mr. Potok, his face … and I fear I shall not recognize him … Smoothy whispered the end of his speech, and I could tell he was in a bad way … but … clearly full of what he called the mission … he walked up to the door and opened it.
This one didn’t look good at all, a bit like a frog or a monkey, eyes bulging out of his gigantic head. He peered at us open-mouthed, obviously not expecting a visit, staring, back leaned up against the fridge, wrapped around, to be safe, with a chain and two locks. But it was definitely him, he stood up and shrieked … Smoothy teetered ever so slightly, Dapper Dan in a suit, and across from him this … hulk. Smoothy spread his hands, started chattering away, loud and fast, I could tell this was the moment, so I slid over to the window, stared out, waiting off to the side.
I was still ashamed. For dorm managers, officials, phone operators, bosses … when they found out we were looking for a slope, they generally behaved impossibly … their inner life manifested itself, absolutely pointlessly, in acts of often unintentional cruelty … callousness … weighing down the sky over all our heads … definitely better to wallow in the muck than to deal with a horrid person.
Maybe there were exceptions, never met em, there wasn’t time … after one frustrating inquiry I folded again and got drunk, despite all of Smoothy’s reassuring maneuvers I got liquored up in some backwoods dive … the yellows there had a special table and designated glasses, to prevent any accidental mixing, which anyway they never had anything about on TV, so it didn’t exist … I shouted out somethin about farmers that came from the area of certain camps where labor had been the great liberator … Smoothy played a Japanese tourist and took pictures of them, or they would’ve kicked my ass, and they would’ve been right, I took it too far …
All the old tricks and suits and cons, otherwise known as fast work, didn’t give me any pleasure, I was too ashamed for my tribe’s people, even around Smoothy, who’d lived here, as he informed me, more than ten years, he’d seen it all before, he just laughed. I didn’t even know why it bothered me so much, except that every now and then I’d get seized by this vague feeling that me and Černá were threatened too … brutally and from all sides.
I had no idea what kinda capo Hunter was either, I just took their side by instinct, but when it came to their mission I think … they’d’ve done whatever was necessary, wouldn’t’ve shied away from any filth, they were warriors and it was a pretty cruel war. Petitions didn’t interest them.
Mr. Potok, Smoothy lectured me again one day, it is true we now know that nothing is what it seems, but what is truly meant to be and what purpose it serves, that is the real riddle … this applies of course to the entire universe, including even the most trivial objects, and to be specific, take for example Semtex, you see, you Czechs sent it to our enemies at just the right moment … that was what finished off the Americans back then, but you know, our men … well, you know a lot already, but did you know that our boys from the base in Thailand, who sometimes spend weeks at a time on the trail in order to punish as many Communists as possible, carry little bits of Semtex along for their stomachs? It’s the truth, especially, now don’t be angry, but especially our men from Eastern Europe have rather damaged stomachs and a bit of Semtex, a truly tiny little bit, can give an exhausted warrior a proper cleaning out, believe me.
Even though it was obvious I already had at least one foot in the trap … see, one day over at Smoothy’s place, after we’d found the fifth relative, I spotted a couple familiar-looking suitcases in the foyer, sparkling steel, like you see on TV, couldn’t lift even one of em … in the blink of an eye Smoothy was standing in front of me, smiling, a little sadly I thought, I donno. But I shouldn’t’ve touched em. I shouldn’t’ve even seen em. And once I had, I should’ve acted like it was soap. Maybe it was a test.
It was love for her that got me caught in the ropes, desire makes me manic. Despite everything I’d gotten myself into, despite the agonizing restlessness that kept me on edge, I was happy. I knew that some things you have to pay for … but my time with Černá was the most beautiful time of all … I think few mortals have experienced anything like it, she gave me strength … few men, when it comes time for Starry Bog to run the film, can find a couple frames where they’re with their sister … I mean every guy, man or boy, even the poor fucks everyone’s written off, is searching for his sister, that’s all there is, it’s a possibility … for life with the gods here and now, and every move she makes is a war against Evil, and a privilege too, I knew that … and our stay here is limited, and just to find your sister means a lot … and the more time my trips with Smoothy took, and the closer I got to the end of my job, the better prepared I was.
All night long we waited for the arrival of the morning shift. For the sunrise over the brickyard in the valley. Some were just waking up, others, mud-splattered, were just arriving. Ridiculously baggy coveralls, a quilted jacket here and there, earmuffs. How they would recognize each other in that dim morning light, I had no idea. But then Smoothy hoisted himself. Nudged me with his elbow. He’d seen the one he was after, the sixth. We walked to the dormitory, me in the lead, equipped with my ridiculous forged papers in case there was a guard. In case it was a guard from the opposing team, I think Smoothy was equipped with something else. But I didn’t ask. One time he told me their country’s secret service was called Fighting Fish Under Water. And what about yours? I asked. I take orders from General Vang, he snapped.
And then one day with Černá, my loved one, it happened … the metamorphosis. We were together so much now, knew so much about each other, I was already long familiar with the drawing she had on the skin of her thigh, I knew it by heart, but that didn’t prevent … each touch, each kiss, from being ever closer, ever stronger, just like in those trashy romance novels … one morning she screamed, I woke with a start, still inside her, tried to move, but it didn’t work, I shifted a little to the side to give her breasts room to breathe, but … we were joined. We couldn’t separate. Does it hurt? I asked, still dazed with sleep. No, but I can’t get up or anything!
We rolled over and tried to crawl … me on my back, clutching her shoulders and thighs, feeling her shoulderblades move, it was totally exhausting, we stopped for a breather … we were like a naked … spider, a new creature, some weird model, skin and hair and nails, eyes … Sister, I told her, I love you … Well, it’s about time it came out, and I love you too … the old words relieved us, that’s hard stuff to say … and even though I couldn’t move, I could feel her moving inside, very gentle and tender … persistent … waves, circling, and it happened … But I can’t have a child with my sister, flashed through my mind as we fell into a tighter tangle, now also joined with our arms and legs and tongues … I wanted to feel her with my tongue because I’d found that when I loved her that way, it was even more beautiful and complex than speech … but the path I traveled inside her, moist and tender, what I learned to achieve with my tongue and its caresses, in her and from her … making her sigh with bliss … was a path beyond voice, which is more than a word and can’t be expressed in words … only now … we couldn’t separate.
Hey, my dearest, said Černá, if I could get up now … maybe, coffee? Sure, but, I said … you … you’ve got me clamped … Huh, really? No way, you’re the one that got big … get out!
But she had to admit, it was at least a two-sided matter … I glanced toward the door over her naked shoulder, terrified at the thought of them coming, anyone from out there, and seeing us, surely they’d want to separate us, and that would be dangerous … we were totally defenseless in this new thing of love’s, panic seized me, Černá disappeared underneath me, I pawed my way to the door to at least make sure it was locked … she threw a tantrum … banged her head on the sideboard, bit me, her hair flowed down over my face, I couldn’t see … then she stopped holding on and it hurt, so I laid on my back again and she got on top and rested … I never asked you before, but tell me, where’d you get those scars … No! I’ll tell you that when I feel like it! Are they … old? She burst out laughing … This, you mean? Yeah, that’s old, way old … she kept laughing … Hadraba said you were nasty … don’t seem like it to me. Then I glimpsed movement, her hand fumbling in my pants pocket, she pulled it out … I heard a click … Černá, no! Don’t! Leaning over, she pricked me from behind with the knife, gently, but I was startled … she lifted her head and looked at me, knife in hand, wiggled her ass, I was still inside her … Forgive me … I read somewhere that shock makes it relax … Sorry, she kissed me to make me stop laughing … handed me the knife, guess she realized it was her after all … I jabbed her gorgeous ass a little, twice, but nothin … Wait, she said, we gotta wait till I’m not expecting it … So we chatted … tried to make coffee, it was pretty funny, I tried cold water, it didn’t work, neither did hot … Černá … you’re just a little too run-down, scraped-up, a she-wolf like you, what’s another shock or two … Let’s stay like this, she whispered, because … the circling motion inside her was starting up again and I fell into her and again we were more together and it could’ve gone on and on … we might even’ve been able to overcome … death, and stay that way … like figures in an old engraving, characters embroidered on a rug … but then the doorbell sounded, jangling, we froze.
And all at once we came loose, tumbling onto the bed, I sat up. And a voice said: Excuse me please … Černá exhaled deeply … is Miss Moriak … ová there? Yeah … Křepelka here, I’m from the Brno branch of the Philatelists Union, please, could you keep something for Mr. Dráp again, and may I come in, Miss? No! And do you know, did Mr. Dráp happen to leave an envelope with you? No! An I don’t have time.
The weirdo left. I was disappointed, never saw a philatelist before. We caressed each other a little with every part of our bodies, but since we didn’t get much sleep the night before and I had the day off … we fell back asleep in a close embrace, but it wasn’t as close anymore. I’m bummed, I whispered, hugging her tighter … I know … it was a morning miracle, a metamorphosis … we had no other needs … and if life can be like this, even just for a while … then I’ll take it, I thought as I fell asleep, and under my eyelids again I saw faces, colors of chaos and spinning circles and metal towers stabbing into the air … but it was different, all of a sudden I knew why … not that I understood, but it was … joyful, I was part of the chaos, it made sense … even chaos had its own color, I saw it but forgot it again right away, like a smile.
When I woke up and moved to get closer to Černá, the magic was gone, she stood at the window … there’s somethin goin on at Dráp’s place, she said, somebody went in there … go take a look, please … her scared … that amazed me, livin here so long on her own. Up in the attic.
First thing I noticed was one of the floor tiles … overhead nothin but roofbeams, appallingly dusty … my steps stirred up dust, rising in columns, sunlight poured down through the dormers … the tile glared, a sunbeam glancing off, leaving its light, and the door flew open … a boy stood there, chompin on a piece of gum … Mr. Dráp? I said politely … By Jove, the brat said, get over here, dudes, look what the cat dragged in … the other scamps straggled out, they were a little older … the toughest punker, forelock in his face, says to me: Step off, citizen, lest ya come to harm … scamps combine the old tongue with the new, like me, only they donno beans … Heh, it’s the big cheese, screeched one of em, carrottop, medieval breeches, chain around his neck, wrists punched to make it look like he’d slashed himself … another crept out from behind him … there were five of em, that’s too many, and the last one had a dog … growling and drooling, it was a fight dog, a bigget, the illegal kind they use for gladiator fights, pimps bored with pseudogames love em … slowly I edged out … saw papers scattered all over the flat, upended chairs, and in back … some kind of crate … guess they’re lookin for somethin … one of em, a tall blond with moves like a queer … walked up to me, bobbin flirtatiously, I reached into my pocket as if … the other boys just watched, guess he was the boss … Hey, pussy, the fop says … whose’re you? You wouldn’t by any chance be comin from … Brno, would ja? It dawned on me. I’m no phitelalist, uh, philatelist, I live here … Where is that pecker then, motherfucker! the blond said. Shit … he raised his hands and a demented leer spread across his face … one of the stooges leaped to his side … easy, Miran, we’ll snag im, we promised ya … He went out, I said. Snap to it, pipsqueaks, the black-haired one next to Miran yelped … carrottop and another one in a grungy red cap took off down the stairs … still three left … the boss, probly a speed freak … three’s still plenty, specially after my sugar-sweet experience this morning … and that dog! … my legs started shakin, I couldn’t help it, I had somethin now, Černá, and … the third brat says: First I’ll sic Jolly Joker here on im, chew his balls off, that’ll be a blast … member that time with the Derelicts? I mean check this ugly fuck out, dude’s from Brno, space case. Who’re you, said the boss. I live here in the attic. But … said the blond, and something happened to his eyes, but … there’s just one place up here! Yep, I nodded, that seemed to impress him. So you’re … that means you must be … Moriak. Morti! Yeah, I live here with my sis. Uh … the blond gulped, the second brat took a step back, and as I … noncommittally and basically sweetly … glanced over at the remaining boy, saw him lean against a beam, study the rafters, he patted the dog on the ass, it sat. But it was eyein me.
