City, Sister, Silver, page 43
Idiot, she said, that was my father.
Him? Aha. What month is it? I asked.
What’d you say?
I donno. Just wonderin if it’ll be cold tonight.
We both knew we couldn’t go anywhere.
Do we stay here? I wanted to talk to her.
Doesn’t matter to me.
No, c’mon, before it gets dark.
I don’t want it, she screamed.
But you got it.
Know what I was thinkin the whole way?
No.
That I was growin into the car, that I was the car, like upholstery or somethin.
Aha.
There’s no way to put it.
But now … it’s gonna be all right. I thought you were death. Not just mine, just … death … hey, look at that stump, it’s like a person.
She screamed.
No … aright, it’s not. C’mon.
We spent the night in the forest, in the leaves. I fell asleep, regardless of the fact that my sister lay, eyes open, trembling next to me. But then I was the one who couldn’t sleep. Because She-Dog came for me.
I saw her when I got up … it was the forest that had woken me, it wanted me to keep going, somewhere, I knew it. What I didn’t know is it would be so close. First she was hanging up in the trees, then she came down. The moon at her back. Standing before me. Little She-Dog. Her head by my shoulders. But I didn’t dare touch it. She was smiling. In a white dress with her hair down. She was beautiful.
You see, she said, you found her.
An you, She-Dog … have you forgiven me?
I have. It hurt, you know. But I was too tied to you. I think it was true love. So even after … I wanted to see you.
I wanted to see you too, I still love you.
I know.
Why did it happen? She-Dog … I donno!
Me either.
An She-Dog … did it hurt a lot …
No. I was mostly just startled. You’re fast … an I, somehow I forgot about it … it happens … things’re different out our way. That was to make you laugh. You know that one, right?
Yeah … that was a dream. She-Dog?
Hm?
Is this a dream too?
Guess away, guesser. You talk too much. Get ready, you’ve gotta go now.
But I can’t … not with her here! … not yet. You know what she did!
Don’t worry, you can still go back. For her sake.
Can I ask somethin … before we go?
Make it fast.
Do you like her?
Well … She-Dog scowled, I knew that face so well! That serious look of hers … her lips.
Well … you guys’re … a little different now. Something’s changed. But go now! An don’t worry … I’ll protect her when you’re not around. Trust me an don’t worry about her. As for me, my loved one, you’ll never see me again.
I flew. Her last words echoed inside me … hurting, and I felt like a scoundrel and a lost dog, but then all of a sudden … a wave came crashing over it … a wave of joy, an I think it was her who sent it, cause as long as I’m flyin an goin … somewhere, wherever I have to go … an She-Dog’s keepin watch or whatever … over poor miserable Černá, then Sister is safe … I could sense that … then I was walking, in snow, but I felt light, walking hard and my breath was sharp, I was going in a straight line, the path of the warrior, I knew it, mountains, maybe she was trying to give me a dream … I walked a long time, growing stronger with the motion, then I was lifted up again so I could see what I had to see … my footprints in a circle … so that’s my straight line, I nearly groaned, and then there was grass around me again … I stood on a hill, houses below me. Smoke rising out of them. It was summer, it was warm, and my tattered jacket was just right. I touched Madonna and walked on. I had a hunch where she’d sent me … I didn’t know why. But I really, really wanted to see him.
He stood out in the garden, at his side an old woman … and oh my god, slipped out of me old-fashionedly … the woman was steering him toward a chair … he shuffled along.
See him? She-Dog hissed in my ear.
Yes. But what … what do I do?
You’ll see, said She-Dog. Go on.
Something gave me a nudge from behind … a wing, a breath …
She-Dog, is … is he better? That lady’s steerin him around.
That’s what they do with idiots. Go on! An do it.
I took a step, and then didn’t hear from She-Dog again.
Dogs came charging out, sheepdogs, I stopped in my tracks. A man walked out the door of the … estate. He peered at me suspiciously, but chased off the dogs.
C’mon in! Here fir that icebox?
No sir … Mr. Losín. I … I’m here to see David.
His eyes popped … he dashed inside, I walked into the yard.
David! Buddy, it’s me! … he sat in the chair looking straight ahead, the old woman screamed … the man charged out the door with a rifle.
Step aside, Maw! It’s one a thim gangstirs! Ah’ll kill yew!
She wrenched the rifle out of his hands. No! Came on his own, yew donno why. C’mon in, son. Let David be.
I … stood next to him and when I touched him he was like ice, didn’t notice me at all … his folks were arguing, the old man wanted to shoot me, I remembered how David had told us his dream … exaggerating the dialect to make us vain city hooligans laugh …
I stayed on … and in time I began to lap up their tongue, it was old, but they’d been living out here cut off for so long it had mutated … it was impure, and then I discovered that over the hills and up in the mountains, in all kindsa hovels and tarpaper shacks, the people spoke … Czech … I discovered the tongue was different all over, warped differently, like time here had gone through a grater … I noticed, for one thing, they called the old tree fungus they washed the dishes with detergents, and the plates they called frisbees. That was the underground influence.
After I’d settled in a bit and David’s bros were no longer a threat, one day Abram and Kubik, with much important conspiratorial winking, took me out to the Cave, which belonged to the Holecek estate, and the young Holeceks, with more significant winking and putting of fingers to lips, led me inside … to the underground, as they called it … there were some youngsters there from the settlements, even girls, who darted, squealing, off to the sides, and there was a television.
For a couple hours we watched a movie about the construction of some dam, then was some snow show with ads or somethin, music videos … the youngsters gawked. What else … when evenings they’d bring their gramma down and she’d start in with that singsong voice: … come a ridin in on thir wagguns, lookin fir promises, an nothin … all’s there is out here’s thi Benat firest, thi Benat marshis … an up above thi Benat stirs, an thi olduns set to diggin, diggin an clearin an burnin, an lo an behold: Halob’s balk … an thi lovely, most loveliest, Losins’ field … an Kropacek’s ditch … and their gramma’d go on like that night after night, the young ones knew it all by heart … they didn’t have anything written down … just that old Bible … from the good monks of Kralice* … where old Losin wrote down the names of his sons and daughters as they were born or passed away, as his grampa and his grampa’s father had done before him … it wasn’t till afterwards I realized why they poured my green-onion soup in a plastic bowl with an ad for Coca-Cola on it while they put theirs in earthenware … it was a big rarity, all the boys envied me, the littlest ones couldn’t control themselves … as I finished eating, slowly and ceremoniously like the rest, they’d climb all over me, wriggling around to get the best view … first you’d see the writing on the sides and then the bottle of Coke, I didn’t want to torture them, so I’d start gulping like a dog till the old man would hiss at me and Abram knit his brow … this all came later on, of course, along with many more things.
But first I stood there out in the yard, amid the chicken droppings, somewhere big dogs barking … all sorts of weird sheds and lean-tos, the house, well, from up close it was pretty squalid … and then I saw his thumbs, bandaged thickly and soaking wet … still bleeding … someone whacked me from behind, the boys … next thing I knew, there were four of them on top of me, and that was fine, since they were mostly just scrapping with each other, but the old woman intervened again, shooing them off … my head churned like a horse pit, Černá … out there in the woods, she’d better have strong protection … and sitting down on a wooden bench I felt a prick … She-Dog’s so powerful, what if she harms her, but again I felt the puff of wings and my heart swayed up, relieved … the old woman set down a bowl of soup in front of me … the men and boys, David’s bros, sat along the walls, the old man at the head … praying … and me, dunce, spoon in hand … one of them, the lanky one, glared up at me from his prayer with great hatred … I put down my spoon and quick clasped my hands, totally just like once upon a time … long as the old woman is gonna protect me, I’ll hold out, I thought … and next to me sat David.
He didn’t pray, gulping down the hot stuff … it wasn’t him anymore. Face puffy and white … a gourd, I thought, sweating guiltily, yeah, guess it was us … and we didn’t tell Helena where he was either, we didn’t know, we didn’t watch over our brother … but nobody asked any questions … they just let me be there. The old woman parried their first hateful lunge … and then I guess innate kindheartedness triumphed, I thought at the time … and also curiosity.
What protected me at first maybe … it was totally stupid … but when those two busted into Černá’s flat an Vohřecký tore open my shirt, right after I gave em the nod I’d slipped on some T-shirts, the ones Černá used to appraise with a screwing up of her left eye … in other words I was now draped in a remarkable jumble of cotton, reigned over by some reincarnation of I guess it was Travolta, underneath I had a matching set, SUPER DISCO, for one … all my hamburger-shack loot I’d yanked off the coat rack, plus a jacket of Černá’s she probly got from somebody else, I didn’t ask … and the boys followed me around the yard, I was afraid they were gonna do somethin to me … but they were just checkin me out … at first they wouldn’t let me near David, I tried … assuming She-Dog’d sent me to help him … and perhaps, though it might’ve been blasphemy on my part, to somehow atone for what I’d done … to her.
Where yew from, mistir? One stepped in my way … from Prague … they yelled, grabbed me, and dragged me in to their gramma … she got up and started talkin … I caught some … they thought Prague was going to send out its people to bring them back, all the best people live in Prague, they earnestly declared … big-hearted … rich and happy … an where’m I? I asked Abram, he was obviously the boys’ boss … Banatka, this here’s Banatka all arown, an Vladan Dragač, lord a thi barrow … Barrow? I wasn’t any wiser for asking … then the old man’s sharp voice rang through the yard and the boys’ siesta was over … I watched David walk away … most of the boys were pretty strapping, probly worked their tails off, and even if they didn’t know all the flimflams and treacheries I did, I wouldn’t’ve wanted to offend even the ones goin on fifteen … one of em was a hunchback though, started trailin behind me, yakkin away … I went out back to look in on the boys, it was pretty wild … they were tillin the field, but the way they were tillin, two on the plow, the third one urgin em on an steerin … they had a horse, but only one … what I gathered, he was for Abram, him or Kubik’d go for supplies … the little cripple kept scuttlin after me, tuggin at my jacket … I began to understand … he wanted to see my shirts, went totally nuts for this one heinous thing with the Eiffel Tower an Café Bitch, where I got it from I donno … I gave it to him … he didn’t trust me … put it on right away, it hung down to his knees, he dragged me off … somewhere, granary I guess, scurryin up the steps like a squirrel, flingin his little body around … then he shows me: Pssst! Drags me over behind the sacks, whips out a crate an scrabbles around, then hands me a book like it’s some kina sacrament, an old thing with photos of ancient Egypt, pyramids, camels, I had some acquaintance … then he whips out … a postcard of the Clock, the one in the Pearl, puts em both on the ground, Eiffel shirt in between, slaps the floor, an says: Speak! Not only that, but he said it totally normally … so I settled in on the sacks … Losín, pointing to him, Potok, pointing to myself.
Potok, yeah, he said, what else?
Where are we … you boy you!
Banatka! he started jabberin on, an I didn’t get much, but it sounded kina like Romany or Romanesque, an old word here an there …
Me Benjamín, knockin his chest. Then he whips out a book again, a notepad … ships stuck all over it and … la mare, he says, la mare … taps the paper, lookin at me …
Not me! I said fast, donno that one … or the sea.
No?
That night … the old woman took me in to see David, in the settin room as they called it, had it all to himself, slept on top of the stove, I realized I was sposta climb up there too, that didn’t thrill me … I don’t handle close quarters too well … but objections were no help, she had practice with her whipper-snappers, so she put out the candle and I lay there in the dark, next to David, my blood brother … who fell asleep right away, I guess, breathin regular, on his back, had to squeeze in right up next to him … what’s that old bag want from me, what kina punishment is this, didn’t fall asleep till daybreak, then got woken by some squeaking noise … I figured it was David, over by the window … started to say somethin … took a look, he was standin on an overturned footstool, the squeaking was comin from underneath, he was squashin some mouse or whatever, poor thing.
That morning the old woman showed me how to change David’s bandages, brought us into the kitchen, to a tub of warm water, outside it was just getting light out, but everyone was up already, all ten or twelve brothers, there weren’t any girls … everyone quiet as we rewrapped him, they gathered like that every morning to look … at David’s wounds, the flesh was clean, I was worried it was infected, but no … it was totally clean and the blood seeped out … from some bottomless inside, and David held on.
Then Benjamín took me by the sleeve and we went. With David. The little hunchback boy took care of the sheep. Didn’t have my T-shirt on anymore, but he gave me … what might easily’ve been a shirt at one point. Back in Napoleon’s days. I put it on. It made him happy.
We sat on the hillside among the sheep, Benjamín grillin me, me grillin him, and it wasn’t gettin anywhere.
Banatka, damn it! I took a stick and scratched in the dirt … Here’s the world. Where’re we?
Here, he banged the ground. Took a clump of dirt and set it down on my very imprecise map. Jabbed his finger into it and said: Lord Vladan Dragač.
Lord Barrow? I inquired.
Benjamín nodded happily. That was all I could get out of him.
I tried to spend time with David, but … he’d just squat wherever we put him, runnin his hands through the grass … I told him stories, but only Benjamín got anything out of that … every now an then he’d fire one of my worse words back at me … so I toned it down a little … here I am with the sheep, on one side an idiot, forgive me, David, on the other a cripple, forgive me, Benjamín, an me in the middle, like King Salaman, me I won’t forgive.
She-Dog, what do I do. How do I get outta this, there’s gotta be some scam, some trick. Helena! I shouted at David. Nothin. But … Benjamín perked up.
Bitch, he says.
Huh, Benjamín, c’mon … David’s wife, Helenka!
Yup, nodded Benjamín.
Was she here?
No answer.
She ran off when she saw him, is that it?
Nope.
What is this crap, you donno, you’re just makin it up, show-off …
Eyed me askance. But he took the bait. Shilly-shallied … yeah, I had to swear up an down the holy of holies I’d never tell a soul, which of course now I’ve broken my oath.
Abram said: Bitch. No be here with Davidko.
But she was pregnant!
Ah know. That’s haw cum they chaysed hir off.
That was as much as I learned.
David. He still looked the same, all of us’d definitely changed since then. Yep, turned old and hoarse.
Not him. But there was a strange quality to his face, even in spite of the overall, unfortunately, dimwittedness … an enthusiasm, perhaps. There were moments, but only moments, he looked like he knew it all, like he had it all under control … and there was something working inside him. With a design. But then again maybe I just imagined it.
The boys treated him with respect when he walked around the yard … with that awful mechanical stride, either clearing outta the way or gently steering him around. They never called him anything but Davidko or Davidik. Even though … they were constantly ribbin each other, givin each other lickings … the old man harried em, the old woman too, she made em toe the line … but … in all the days I was there I never saw a single one snivelin off in the corner cause his bro’d trampled his matchbox car or some similar mortality … no, most of the time they were … exhilarated, they were untamed … sometimes they fought like horses … but, I noticed, no kicking in the balls, no ganging up or eye-gouging … more like practice for who versus who … soon I came to realize they were savin their brutality for somebody else … an when from time to time a genuine disturbance broke out, Abram an Kubík were there to tame em down … there was also one called Daník, evidently the family pride, he didn’t even haul the plow … Daník was a wisenheimer … a bit of a loner, like Benjamín, only Benjamín was the family jester, the cheerer-upper, the crackpot … Daník had a place of his own too, out in the barn … one day, stuffed full of herb soup again, they hauled me out there … the old man an Abram an Daník an me, I took a look … he had these pits in there, an in one of em was this thing covered in rawhide, a stick, but smoothed an shaped, an Daník takes the string, draws it back, an goes fshhh … tok! I gaped … they mumbled somethin, all I could get was they were talkin about Benjamín, Abram walked off … they all went back, Benjamín proudly luggin the book about Egypt under his arm … barely draggin, but it was clear he wasn’t gonna let Abram get his paws on it, set the book down on the threshing floor, slowly, painstakingly … relishing it … turnin the pages an jabberin away, the old man went stompin off … Benjamín gets right up an points, a painting in some ancient crypt, mummies, yeah yeah … taps his finger, there on the wall, hunters an bowmen … my eyes pop, yeah … bow … it’s a bow! I barked out the proper word. They just stared. In Prague that’s called a bow, an you invented one, Daník! A bow … there’s bows in Prahah? Yeah, lots, it’s normal there. Daník’s lip sank, probly thought he was the first … c’mon, your gramma told you they’ve got everything in the world there, right, an her gramma told her … so he calmed down.
