City, Sister, Silver, page 59
It was only when I asked her how she came to the order that she wouldn’t give me an answer … but one day, as I pried insistently while hunting flies, and by then we were pretty much buddies, she said: Just like you.
Huh?
I’ll tell you, why not. They found me. I recovered here. I stayed.
What’d you do before?
What’s it to you?
You’re right.
The first few days I felt sick, my head hurt, the string began to make itself heard again in the distance … I was scared of it, scared to sleep even, because of the dreams, Maria brought me some tea, though, that made me sleep like a rock … sometimes I told her I couldn’t stand it there … and after a very long time and much begging and pleading Maria brought me a cigarette, I smoked it in the bathroom, fighting off a couple faints, she laughed. Steered me back into bed. I guess that cigarette messed me up, I touched her. She sprang back.
Cut it out! Do that one more time and you’ll never see me again. I’m Maria Anna Fatima Coseta now … an I belong to the order of the Silent Sisters. Don’t forget it! Don’t ever forget.
Sorry. Forgive me, Sister.
Ever since the three nuns’ visit, Maria had been casting mysterious glances at me, puffing up my puffed-up pillow, walking around the room, telling stories … what’s goin on? I asked. What’s it mean, that visit a theirs?
Oh, she said, that was a big honor for you, a great honor, the mother superior spoke about you at the staff meeting, I mean, you know, they don’t talk, but … Why not? I’d asked that one several times now, she always gave an evasive answer. So as not to defile … their tongue! I guessed … the paths to the Lord, they say … and anyway they don’t need to, I mean, you know, since they can … tell me, Sister Maria, what secret’re they protectin, some of em have their tongues cut out, I read something somewhere … she put her hands in front of her mouth, I donno, she gasped, maybe some … but listen, they really did talk about you, and that’s a big honor … what’d they say? She got flustered again … listen, you know how much this treatment would cost you anywhere else, and you have a room to yourself … and you … yes, and I’m free to come here and talk with you whenever I want, it’s unbelievable, you know you’re the first person I’ve spoken with normally for any length of time since I came … why, Maria, whadda they want from me?
You know … Mr. Potok, she flashed a smile, it may sound fantastic to you, but nothing surprises me anymore, that woman who appeared to you was Sister Samaritas, some say Samargas, and this order reveres her and is searching for her, truly searching! That’s their mission.
How … I don’t get it.
I found out, Maria said softly, she’s alive, that is, just an incarnation of her, of course, but she’s out there somewhere!
Well, why not, I wriggled on the bed.
And she, Maria swallowed, she was from the tribe of the Samaritans and knew Jesus, she knew him well! They met by the well that time, and this order believes that Jesus … the Samaritans were shoved aside like dogs, you know, it’s in the Bible …
Way things were then, I said, why not … I mean, Mary too, but sayin that kina stuff scares me, Sister, I can’t … so this is the order of the Baby Jesus, the Child?
Exactly, said Maria, it’s connected … that’s the connection! and they might want you to go somewhere, carry out an assignment for them.
Gladly, Maria, gladly.
It might be another country, they might send you somewhere, you have the sign, they said so yesterday at the staff meeting, and listen, you’re getting bored here, huh.
Not at all, I sleep a lot, catchin up from all those crazy nights, an I dream an get beautiful books an talk with you.
The sisters say you’ve tried a lot of things, that you’ve done harm even.
Uh-huh, lots … Maria! So they know … and out it came.
Maria … I really love this one woman, but she, she became a whore, see, I couldn’t stand it … and my first night here she spoke to me, she’s out there somewhere … I abandoned her, betrayed her, and now, if I could have her, I’d chop off my hand, or do whatever, I really long for her an I donno where she is. A harlot, sold herself, get it?
Lie down … she pushed me back into the covers and grabbed my hand … you can’t talk that way about her, you don’t have the right … maybe she had to … what do you know about women, what do you know about her, lemme tell you somethin. You wanna know if their tongues’re cut out … tongues, pfeh, what about me! An what was I sposta do? An what can I say? I’m standin outside, back then, I’d left, and I say to myself: Where do I go? Where am I supposed to go now? And then I fell, bad, you’re not the only one. To the bottom. That’s all there are here. Just people who come back. To life. You have to hang on, you have to. You have to hang on to life.
Now I was the one shaken … she’d told me a lot, a strand of hair had slipped out from under her veil, she was twisting it.
And the next day I was feeling much better, pacing around the bed and calling my room a cell, purely in jest … the next day she brought in a little man in spectacles carrying another chair … this is Father Antonio, also known as Lobo, Father Lobo, Sister Maria said, flashing that smile of hers … and he’s going to teach you Spanish … I hope you won’t refuse … of course not, great idea, I love the sound of that language … galeón, I barked at the little man … caravela, I said, he sat down … caballero, I gave it a try … misericordia, he volleyed back, and I shut up, having exhausted my vocabulary. He began cleaning his glasses. I saw that movement afterwards many times, every day. It astonished me how similar Spanish grammar was to the Bohemian tongue’s, and I liked the upside-down question marks, chopping back at the sentences, spearing them like hooks.
Out? Maria, out is the last thing I want, I don’t want to see anyone … I’m dying to go to her place, but I don’t dare yet, no, I have to wait … can’t imagine myself on the street yet, but I gotta start runnin or somethin … I missed movement. We had an agreement, a pact, that I wouldn’t wander around the convent.
Maria said there weren’t any men there at all, Father Antonio walked over each day from Břevnov,* and I rejoiced when he told me what Lobo meant, el Lobo … the only man there was the gardener, he was deaf and mute … Maria got an idea and made a few inquiries … yes, you can help him out, but …
They let me walk around the garden, I had to tie a little bell around my knee … some of the sisters are strict and don’t want to see any men, this way they’ll know when you’re coming … so I got my own clothes back, winter was closing in, I’d been there a long time, I was feeling strong, a couple times it occurred to me, jump up an swing over the wall an I’m gone, who knows what they got planned for me … in the garden was a ladder for the apple trees, I watched them a lot … but I think I stayed for Maria’s sake, slacking off with the gardener and carting around manure, jingling at the sisters, occasionally they’d go for walks dressed in their flowing vestments, like something from another world … sometimes it was misty.
The gardener was a smoker, the first few I could barely stomach, but I was coming back … coming back to life.
I might, said Maria, I might have to go away.
What? No!
Yes, we have missions, in the Andes and elsewhere … and now I can tell you, you may go one day too.
With you?
No, that’s out of the question, she laughed, I told you, the order may ask something of you.
They’ve found other people with signs …
Yes, said Maria.
And the order sent them somewhere?
Yes.
And hey, sweet Maria, did they come back?
Yes, on my honor, they did come back. But they belong to the order.
Didn’t find anyone, huh?
That’s right, said Maria. No one.
Tell me what it’s all about, Sister.
Come on, you know.
I got a hunch, but I donno nothin. And let me tell you, sweet Maria, thank you for everything. Now, since there might not be an opportunity.
You’re going to run away? Leave?
Not just yet.
Now you’re lying.
You can understand, Maria, my girl’s all I care about. Černá’s her name. I can’t just wake up one day, learn Spanish, an set out into the jungle, or the mountains, or I donno where, to go look for some Saint.
You of all people can, Maria laughed. I could tell you that I’ll be punished, severely punished, if you leave. But it wouldn’t be true. If you do run away though, I warn you. You owe a debt to the order. And one day, sooner or later, you’ll have to pay it back.
What, you mean they’ll come after me?
They’ll know where you are.
For another week or so, I would learn Spanish in the morning — Yo no tengo dinero, for instance — and then, between lunch and supper, I’d learn sign language from the gardener. Mostly all the old fogy taught me was phrases like: get the rake, bring the watering pot, weed this, water that, more manure, want a smoke? We jingled.
And one night … I couldn’t sleep, all riled up thinking of Černá … craving her with all my might … the door to my room flapped open like a black wing, noiselessly, a chill gusted in from the hall, and in walked Maria, leaned her back against the doorframe, some simple coat on over her habit, gasping for breath … this is it, she said, I have to go … I got up, then quick snatched the covers back … she just shook her head, that movement that says, yeah yeah … so, she said … watch yourself out there, Sister, an I owe you a lot, really … forget it, and you watch yourself too, then at last I walked over to her, caught hold of her shoulders, but she gently pushed me away … placed a finger on my lips, said: God be with you … and was gone.
I didn’t go after her, I never went after her, we had a sort of pact. I couldn’t sleep a wink afterwards. And during my morning lesson I was rather unfocused.
I expected a scar when they took off my bandages, but I’d only lost a little hair … on the side that wasn’t wounded, it had even grown out a little. I’ll get my do fixed somewhere else, I told myself. Since Maria had left, the only people I’d seen were Father Antonio and the gardener. I’m betraying you, dear sisters, but for her sake … I’m more bound to her, don’t be angry … and to the spot where I’d seen the image of the Saint, I said rudely: I don’t know who you are, but thank you for showing me your beautiful face … and don’t you get mad either, you know what I saw in your face … I think you definitely get what I’m sayin, and wish me luck on my journey … after all, what do I know, you’re the Great One … just that time is still running and the order knows about me. Samaritas, protect your Maria Anna Fatima Coseta, I mean it! … and me too, if possible … Christ, protect us all if you’ve got the power, everybody needs it … or if you choose, your business … I nearly crossed myself, but with the order still unrecognized … I worked it out somehow.
In the morning I left my pajamas there.
It woulda been pretty shitty to steal em.
And then … despite the fact that he was making the sign for the watering pot, I snatched the ladder and propped it against the wall, the old geez leaned on his rake and watched … afraid he’d try to stop me, I crept up the ladder … keeping on the alert, he made another sign … all right, I said to myself, I’ll risk it, on purpose, see what it does … I jumped down and went over … he handed me one and lit it, I kept watching in case he made a sudden move, wouldn’t’ve advised it, but no, he just nodded his head and blinked his eyes, rapped his forehead and pointed to me and then pointed … I quick undid the bell, the gardener grinned and laughed, forcing the laughter out like some kind of substance. I’d gotten used to my sleigh bell, the gardener was right.
I was glad to be able to tell him goodbye. We stood there, the faint sun of early spring glaring in the mist above us, like a medallion I guess. When I’d finished my smoke, he slapped me on the back and made a sign like he couldn’t see, struggling with the rake … At the top of the ladder I got a slight case of vertigo, but I swung myself up and was over the hump and holding on and dangling down, let go, and rolled up to the feet of some pedestrian, a baldy in a tie with a briefcase … back again, I told him, he moved his legs out of the way … I got up and felt fine.
I rubbed my eyes, shut off my view, then stared back … the door had a knocker, yep … and that symbol, the sign on the door, I was there the whole time … another place that’d changed masters, now it belonged to the sisters, oh She-Dog, I was right on top of the spot the whole time … and surely, my She-Dog, it’s thanks to your forgiveness, because you forgave me, that I came back … and I’m alive, I won’t go there, not down those steps and into that cellar, I just climbed down a high wall, now I’m on the other side … and I’m going to live and I’m not going back in there, not anymore.
23
BUT I WASN’T SURPRISED. ODD JOBS. I WAIT. I SEE … THE CURVE OF HER NECK.
Černá wasn’t there. At the entrance my heart was pounding and I had to lean on the banister, the rest of the floors I sprinted up, and burst in the door … and she wasn’t there, she couldn’t be. Everything was as she’d left it. As if nothing had happened since. I remembered our last night together. Never did forget it.
There were candle stumps and dust all over. Her clothes and mine. I went through the flat. A bottle still chilling in the bathtub, refrigerator full. I threw out the spoiled stuff, wiped off the dust and swept away the cobwebs. Calmly and quite methodically tidied up. Fine, I’ll start over. With everything. I’ll wait and ask questions. And if she doesn’t turn up, I’ll hit the road. Just as soon as it gets warmer. I was lured to her desk, maybe she had some papers in there. But I didn’t dare yet. That was her territory. I could turn to the authorities. I mean there’s no way a girl could just vanish, is there? In a small country like this? Oh yeah, there’s a way, you know there is. I sat on the bed. I was scared to lie down. I might start howling and tear up the pillows.
And that little piece of metal was gone. The one I swiped that proved to me the whole story was true. It wasn’t there. But I wasn’t surprised.
Černá’s didn’t exist anymore. Galactic had different owners. I realized I knew a lot of people only by their nicknames. I hunted around for Micka. Couldn’t find him in the phone book. At the Dóm they told me he showed up from time to time. With his partners. But where he was or what he was up to, they couldn’t say. Or didn’t want to. They didn’t know me. I’d sit around the Dóm, nursing my drink, hadn’t found much money back at the attic. Everything here was going fast, and the loot I’d saved up in the Organization era wasn’t valid anymore. I took it as a sign.
You been gone long … said some of my friends … yeah, an far, I laughed. And I admit I spent a night or two with Cepková … out of loneliness I guess. Hers and mine. But. I couldn’t make love. I was sick a long time, I told her … an you probly still are, that’s okay … I think we were both secretly studying our wrinkles and guessing at the deep scars in each other, yeah, more that than sex … didn’t see each other much after that, and when we did just said hello … slowly I sank back into the old acquaintances and habits and talk … nobody’d heard about Černá, Spider an Hadraba’re in Germany, got some clubs goin there … the bartender grinned, but bartenders never know nothin … I began asking around for work and eating out of cans, it was a shock after the fare at the convent, but I was used to extremes from the train station … I didn’t really believe Černá was living with someone else out there, and if so, that’s fine too, as you like, my dear, you’re free … but I’ve gotta see you an it’s gonna happen, you’ve got to come to the little mother, you she-wolf … where’re you traipsing around, girl, which way does your path lead … I sent out signals to her, and she was in my dreams.
And one day … one of those smiley city days when the autumn sun so casually bestows its gilding as generously on any rat snout as on the faraway deep forests’ ancient trails … having bottomed out on cash, I strode into some new establishment to make an inquiry … there were more and more tavernas every day … I walked the city, put myself on the job market … I got up early, when it seems like the air is still fresh, and the people are too, everything just getting under way, like how many times before … striding through the underpasses and taking it to the sidewalks and crossing on green, I eyed Prague the Pearl like a hawk, and I studied the rotten vegetables, how their leaves’d gracefully float to the ground while the salesman impatiently stuffed em into some held-out plastic bag … and I saw clouds of dust, mysterious maps changing in the air, and windows full of things I don’t need, but someone might … and I noticed the wires running out of the walls, and I liked the movement of the wires woven into the bicycle that just rode by, and the traffic lights with their three-stanza composition, the pedestrians as the refrain … I shook my healed head in wonder, striking out with the footsoldiers, like when the king sends out his army into the labyrinth of the streets, but watch out which king, and watch out, your labyrinth’s mirrored … I gawked at colorful jackets in bookstore windows, and some of the books sent out a signal, I went after them … I’d begun to read again … since my honey wasn’t around … and besides, amid the city noise, the slalom, the rattling trams, and the chattering waterfall of the crowd when you go fast and the voices merge … books at least seemed polite … saying: Here we are, take us or leave us, guess you’ll be leavin us, huh? Yep, books’re polite, don’t bark an pounce like those fucked-up Martian machine melodies, alla those computerized hits churned out with impunity by the brutal robot narcomafia to fool you along the way … a book you’ve got to fold open and weigh for yourself if you want it, that’s your business.
