City, Sister, Silver, page 47
Well … Černá, if you want, after the obligatory morning grooming … we’ll go take a look.
Yeah, let’s. Go ahead, there’s this little stream over there, past the trees, go wash up. I’ll wait, I already went. An … be back soon.
Her dream reminded me a lot of another one, is it logical, is it magical, is it at all? I jabbered to myself … Josef Novak the skeleton, I’ll never get rid of my dreams … underground death camp … there was the brook, I knelt down, bathing my fingers … well, Černá said to wash up … my fingers carved a furrow in the water, just for a moment, then the two streams merged, the water coursing over stones and pebbles, along and above the sandy bottom, stubbornly flowing into the unknown, always the same and ever changing … repeating itself and changing, goin somewhere, like speech and like time.
I stood up, took out my knife, and for the last time snapped open the blade, hah, I said to myself, this’ll fool em! I just won’t defend myself, I won’t be part of it … churi des, churi hudes, not anymore.
I tossed the knife into the stream and the water closed over it. It’s so simple, I thought, after all, I had that dream … about the tribe, we were five and I’ve got five senses … is it nonsense?
We were five, an if my sister is death, I don’t exactly hafta love her, but I can learn to live with her till the end. Death can’t suffer after all, death is scar-free … I’m gonna trust her. We’ll make it somewhere.
I was in a very humanistic mood when I sat back down on the stump next to Sister, smiling and saying: honey this, honey that … unlike her I had a hunch she hadn’t been asleep last night … I sang my good knife a little farewell tune … Černá pulled a package out of her jacket … imbued with benevolence and Saint Francisness, I gazed caressingly on every crawling bug and spider … my knife won’t threaten them ever again! Churi des, churi hudes, not anymore! … Černá slapped a mosquito … I frowned a little … but I had to get up and adjust my belt, the pistol was digging into me.
Hey, look what I got! I mean we.
What? Food … good woman!
Yeah … where’d I … swipe it, I don’t even know, I don’t get it … I mean I stuck a piece of … mortadella! … in my pocket for the trip. An now there’s a whole dead naked chicken … incredible! Did it ever occur to you that maybe we’re under a spell an what happened didn’t happen?
Occurs to me all the time, little sister … but try … I pinched myself hard … only pain is real.
An pleasure, said Sister. You want?
Yeah. Like a wolf.
We munched the chicken, it was so defenseless! grinning at each other and tearing the flesh from the bones, nibbling them clean, ripping out the veins with our fingers, just like kings.
So maybe, said Sister. We can go take a look. If that gorge is there?
We don’t have to, it’s there. I know it. I saw it, this fella, what I mean is, let’s just say I was advised it was there.
But shouldn’t we report it? To the police, the UN, UNESCO, I donno.
What, that your new dream confirmed my old dream?
They’ll come, take a peek …
You know how that goes.
You’re right. Let’s go, on your feet!
We struck out, refreshed and fortified, pores prosperously opening in the wind and the grass … we didn’t talk about what we’d done to those people. All in good time.
Though we remained on the alert, Gretel here and there climbing a tree, ripping a hole in her jeans, and me occasionally dashing off, looping through the woods, somersaulting through the grass, and relishing the open air, the trip proceeded without any further incidents or encounters.
Just once … far off in the valley, we saw some wagons riding single file, wooden wagons roofed with canvas, pulled by horses and mules, circled by men on horseback … those’re covered wagons, Sister, maybe there isn’t a train around here … no, they must be evacuees, hey look, there’s little kids in em too … who’s movin, I wonder, an where? … always somebody goin somewhere, big whoop, Sister said wisely … we also saw mountains in the distance … sparkling in the sun, maybe it was the air, maybe there was a storm over there, some of the cliffs glowed phosphorescent green, or swam in the blue of the distant sky … on top the snow glittered, if we’d been closer it would’ve hurt our eyes … I stopped, suppressing a howl with all my might … some day we’ll go there … yeah, an how bout the sea, said Sister, or both?
Both, get this, one time I met this Greek girl from Cyprus, maybe she was Turkish, but she told me that on their island you can ski downhill right onto the beach! Now, though, it’s all wired off, she said.
Maybe later, Sister suggested.
I can tell you wanna go, an that’s fabulous.
Of course, said Sister, kicking a stone … Odysseus preferred to be off fighting with Agamemnon an Menelaus … maybe you too?
Oh, not me, my dear, I’m exempt from the service, you know that, an besides, war …
And surely, Brother, you also know the first part of the Odyssey … where he made like he was crazy, threw his son in front of the machine … then he ended up likin the army, that was his son, but the two of us … you the brother, me the sister … I just laughed, because she didn’t know about my wolf dream … I hadn’t told her yet, all in good time, I thought back then.
In the dream we had babies.
18
BYTHE OLD WALL. IN THE HALL. GUYWITH A BRICK. BY TRAIN. AND ONWARD, ELSEWHERE.
Eventually the road broke off and we were standing in mud and dust, broken glass and plastic bags at our feet, with a little town spread out before us.
There was a sign, UŠANICA 3 KM. We didn’t much notice the buildings or look for anything at all. Just the train station.
Maybe some little boutique, dear, after recent events, have a drink, splash off the dust, ramrod the blunderbuss … cracking jokes, we stole along the walls, wondering whether they’d found our victims and whether finding them had upset anyone enough to call in the commandos.
The station was different than I remembered from my last, fleeting visit. Ticket window closed, not a soul. Then some hobo surfaced behind the bars. Shove a thousand crowns at him and he says, Here in Mezilavorie* … huh? Usanica’s a good 70 miles due east, he explained. But the sign? Ehh, signs’re a dime a dozen! Trains don’t run much, but if we’re goin to Prága … there’s one comes through right at midnight, but he doesn’t recommend … it’s very, he said some word that might’ve meant expensive … doesn’t bother us … well, just so long as we don’t get confused and end up paying too much.
We sauntered around this way and that, tryin to be inconspicuous, which was tough … had some drinks, mixing for speed … I guess our stay in nature improved our health, cause the alcohol didn’t work, but then Sister said maybe the opposite, maybe it works so much we can’t tell, we only think … sure, only think, only! You, dear, know instinctively what takes me years of work an prayer to arrive at, I admire you tremendously, and so to love is added respect, the big sister of relationships … see, the booze does work, there you go, rattlin on again … we leaned against the corner of a beautiful old wall covered with putrid fungus, it was a synagogue.
Battered, with glazed windows.
You don’t know this, little sister, but my great-great-greats came from Odessa, led by old Aladdin, or Apollo, or maybe Ahasver Potok, on that point the records in the family Bible differ. I never told anyone, it’s nobody else’s business, I keep my back covered! They were the only ones who settled in a village, cause Potok means something in the Bohemians’ tongue too an my ancestors wanted to drop out of sight a little, first thing they did was set up a tavern … the others crawled off into the ghettos, but mine opted for the disguise an the mask, taking their double-meaninged name as a sign from Him … when they crossed the border into Bohemia, they contentedly smacked their lips at the taste of the garlic balls, an delightedly tugged at their peyos, cause there wasn’t a Cossack in sight, nothing but good jovial folks … only my forefather was suspicious an careful, an that’s why I’m alive an here with you … he had flying dreams too, in Odessa he raised pigeons, an a certain bocher that used to shop there wrote a story about it, he was a journalist, hah, he was stupid an wrote about himself, so in the end the stalingos hunted him down an killed him … nobody knows that about me but you, I keep a lookout!
An here by this old wall I’ll let you in on somethin too, my friend … I first saw the sky at my grandma’s somewhere in Transylvania, I don’t even know what country it is now, things there change fast, an I don’t wanna know, an when my mom died the wolves tore her to pieces, she was out pickin blueberries … so she could buy me a primer to learn that foreign language … Sister broke down, crying uncontrollably … then that thug, my father, turned up, an the whole village went gaga when he drove up in his Zhigulik, an he stayed with us all summer, an the first time he did it to me I said so, but no one believed me … a champ like him, handin out chewin gum an pocket mirrors an lighters, an even if he did, it’s all in the family, their business … an all those boys that turned their heads at me … girls’re women there at fourteen, you know? … but I wasn’t even that … not one of em killed him, like anybody there woulda done to their own brother for a thing like that, no, the scum, on Sundays they went to church an at night they cast spells an everything was hunky-dory … an then he arranged for the papers an bought me dresses an cremes an candies … an the virgins an everyone congratulated me cause I was gettin outta there, to the West, to Czechoslovakia, an my grandma? She knew … an listen, I think she let me go so I’d sink all the way to the bottom … you know how I told you that time … about my feelings, the awfulest one?
An then Grandma sent me you, an gave me that pistol an the two of you for me to decide … an now I’m free an you’ll never order me around … unless I want you to. An I told it in school again, years later, cause sometimes … I couldn’t stand it, down in the cellar so the neighbors … but I’m not gonna tell it all right now … at school they called me Vampire because of where I’m from, they didn’t believe me either, the scumbag was a big shot, so they just made like nothin was goin on … and then Sister fell silent as an icy gust snatched at us from around the corner, and Sister, sobbing, began to tremble like an aspen leaf … I told her … like an aspen leaf, yeah, she said, an a stake, she clutched at her heart, good one, she caught hold of me, and then, continuing the chain of association, I guess, whispered: You’re probly gonna get older for what you do to my sweet little body. I didn’t have anything to say to that.
Heh … we walked on and the weather changed, it began to drizzle a little, we ducked into the first open door … it was an odd hall.
Dark. We tread cautiously, then I let out a scream. Curling off the wall was a rag, no, a piece of paper with a woman’s face on it, I donno why I crossed myself, the face was a sweet one … Černá wrinkled her brow critically, hey, it’s some broad, an actress no doubt, some big star … I went closer, yep, almost too sweet, and … blonde … next to her was another one, the walls in there were dripping … blech, that’s … Sister, that’s an electric chair, an that’d be the murderer … I think we started shaking, what kind of horror show is this, here in this bizarre land of enchantment … And then Sister whispered: An now I’ll tell you the last thing, it’s good an also real real bad … hold onto me, there … I think that guy wasn’t even my father, he just weaseled his way in … I’m really scared my grandma sold me to him an everyone there knew it, there’s a lot of poverty there. I’ve been thinkin about her ever since, but if I wanna know the truth, I might have to go an ask the old crow. Will you come with me?
Černá, I’ll go wherever you want, but … if it’s true we’d have to … we’d have to do it to her. I’d have to.
Maybe not, said Černá, maybe we’d find out she had to. For some reason. I’ve been thinkin! Those mountains back there, you’d like to see em, wouldn’t you? Things’re different there. They’ve got legends an fables, you’re into all that …
Do they have a legend there about a horseman from the barrow, a Prince?
How do you know? Did I tell you that?
I donno. Maybe you mighta mentioned … hey! Anyway, you can’t sell somebody. That’s forbidden as long as I’m with you. Forbidden! No selling. You shouldn’t keep in touch with certain people, you make phone calls, I donno who to, I’m gonna protect you … we’ll change.
Tsss, Černá hissed. No givin orders, you know that!
We had to yank off a sheet to see the next painting. A guy’s face, looked nice enough. Some Joseph somethin or other, charged with murder, I sounded out the words.
Mug shot, they got him, it’s obvious. We just looked at each other and grabbed each other’s hand.
Next … a hacked-up car … I remembered Viška, that was about how his face looked by the time I got Černá off of him, I kept that one to myself.
Some of the rags were canvas, but waterlogged and damaged by plaster didn’t look it anymore. None of the pictures was very uplifting.
Hey, the old butcher Kim II Sung, slaughtered his own people, I showed off my education in front of the politician in the field uniform.
Mug’s tight as a bitch, no doubt he’s watchin someone’s nuts get roasted, Černá appraised him. Whoever took his picture musta been a psycho too.
It’s a painting, I corrected her.
Whatever, she said.
Next act, and that got both of us: cash. The lunatic painted cash, somethin musta been eatin him.
No, actually he took it easy, Černá proposed.
The colors, if there had been sunlight … but here in the gloom, all sopping wet, the cash curled like worms, one minute ludicrous, the next almost triumphant … now we gotcha, you peepin Tom, you’re ours. When I explained to my woman how I saw it, she said: I think that chick, that blonde, is dead now, that’s why you got startled but you’re not afraid … the reason the cash is curlin, though, is cause it’s still alive. It lives, changes things. People.
Yeah, an how bout this one? Some cans of somethin, fancy labels, hadn’t seen that before, my mom never gave me snacks like that. Weird, I said. Actually, that’s how people look, nowadays.
Yeah, but not here. Luckily!
It won’t be long though, people’re already dressed mostly in stickers … they wanna be the same, shiny like tin … we cheerfully shouted back and forth, and when Sister gave a quick toss of her elbow I nodded back, I’d heard it too, behind the pillar … someone was there … we gabbed on about stupid stuff, casually drifting … around the corner, I let out my belt a little.
Mordy tvoyay keerpicha hochetsia! somebody screamed, we sailed around the corner and a tiny little fellow with glasses peeled himself off from behind a pillar …
Hey vagabonds, wanna buy a brick, he shouted in a forced bass.
I took a look at him and left my belt alone. Sister said so he could hear … What’s he want, is that man nuts? I mean we’re only lookin around, we didn’t take anything! And to me she whispered … c’mon, the guy’s like a matchstick, he doesn’t know who we are … forget him!
We stepped out from around the corner, slowly and goodnaturedly walking toward him. He stood by the pillar, testing the brick’s weight like some manufacturer makin the rounds of the ovens … but you could tell he didn’t mean it seriously.
Hello there, I said.
You’re from Prague? You came all the way out here to see it an they went an closed the place! He threw down the brick.
What’s with the brick, said Sister.
Oh, we get all sortsa … sneakin in here an trashin it. Oughta put in a minethrower. They don’t even want it! An he was a local native, I put in a lotta work on this thing an they don’t even know who he was.
I didn’t know either, but I was embarrassed to ask in front of Sister. I think she had the same dilemma. The fellow squatted down on his haunches, looking pretty crushed.
There there, Sister said, patting him on the shoulder, I mean c’mon, they’re only pictures.
Jesus an Mary! the guy cried, folding his head into his hands. Animals … he muttered … beasts … it’s insane … it’s typical … civilization! I’m goin back! Let it all collapse, see if I care! I’ve got my own stuff … Andy! Ach, Andy, fuck it all.
Slowly me and Sister retreated. Outside, after that gruesome display, I let out a deep breath. Poor kid, said my sis, guess he was off the mark on what the locals’ taste was like. Think he painted all that? Obviously, he looks it. But he said somethin about a local. It was probly that Joseph guy, said Černá, the only locals he does portraits of re some killer an a blonde slut, an he wonders why they don’t like it, talk about naive. What they want on the walls around here is cash, murderers, soup cans, corpses, car crashes, execution chambers … Černá counted off on her fingers … they’re dumb, they don’t know that’s all they got … practically. Who else’d want this stuff, no big town.
You’re a smart one, Černá, that’s the way it is!
It was dark outside … in front of the battered synagogue, now a margarine warehouse, which I noticed but thought better of sharing with Sister … we told each other our secrets, and hers was a terrible one … I only told her part of mine, didn’t dredge up the main thing.
And so for once we were quiet, but then Sister poked me, the clocktower showed nearly midnight, we fled to the station, hopping on the train just as it was pulling out, a fella stood by the door, pale as a candle, I asked: Prague, yeah? Praha, Prága! Nach Prag, sonuvabitch … he just nodded and gave me a faraway look, probly sloshed … we found a free compartment and snuggled up, smiling … and since all’s permitted in love and war, as the Old Bulletins of the Elders of Zion say, and in a passionate embrace the two merge, and it’s never a bore, and especially not when it’s always the same an always new an goin somewhere … we provocatively drew the curtains, audaciously bolted the door, and began feeding on each other in the figurative sense. Then we succumbed to dreams. The door flew open and in walked … that pale guy that’d been by the door, in a uniform though, a conductor’s. Hope I hadn’t offended him. He stood there smiling, drew back his pale, narrow lips … two to Prága, I said, I was surprised to see him lift the cash up to the light and inspect it with amusement, like it was the first time in his life he’d seen the new, independent Czech moola. Then he handed me two tickets, I stuck them in my pocket.
