City, Sister, Silver, page 60
Supposedly there were times when people had to cut each page open as they read. Not only did they read with a knife in hand, which is always a great advantage, you never know who’s out there creepin around disguised as a mail carrier … but they had to at least dance with their wrist bones, move a little at least, and surely when it was gripping, their breathing speeded up, an impatient curse or two sounded out, and so their words merged with the book’s … by the kiosks I spotted a fella, the one I’d come to see, at Galactic they’d told me he worked here and might have a job for me.
Hey-hey, Kája! What’re you doin here … in the dust, like a nut … ciao …
Potok, lookit you, you look like a ghost, I work here, head honcho! Where you been all this time … what do you want?
I’m lookin for work. Lucky coincidence meetin you. Got anything?
Heh, Potok … can you lift that crate?
It lay in back of the vegetable kiosks, thing would’ve been a hard job for four guys.
What’re you pullin on me, Honcho, this is like out of a book … forgot the author though …
What’s an educated guy like you want peasant work for?
Rather have somethin physical, but somethin away from people.
I took it thinkin it was short-term too, but, man, I stayed with it! It’s different nowadays. You’re a hired hand, you’re a hired hand. Boiler rooms’re different too. Don’t you know anyone?
I donno. I know you. To tell the truth I’m broke. I was gone a long time an got behind on rent … I was amazed at how practical and to the point I was … growin up, yep, happens to most.
An Karel … know this one … I don’t need work, I need cash?
Yeah, I know it … that’s me … I’ll take you to the warehouse. You’ve done stock before, but this is different. You’re gonna be unloadin fruit. Give this piece a paper to Burda. An don’t let that scumbag forget about the gloves! Remind him, gloves.
Thanks, I owe you.
Yeah, but you can bet I won’t be lookin for work with you.
I wouldn’t take you anyway.
So I got a job. Socialized myself. It numbed me.
But then … I saw the Romanian Gypsy ladies with their kids again … the beggars, and it hit me, aha, He sends em here, I get it now … hey Honcho, I said one day on our noontime break, I figured out the theory of relativity, here’s how it works, listen: He sends em here, an there’s times it seems to em like they’re in Paradise, what with the packages an the leftovers, yeah, this is the Vest, an they can get by on a couple crowns, but the real reason they’re here is for the sake of the native inhabitants, that’s the theory … What? said Honcho, but it began to dawn on him too … notice, Honcho, nowadays it’s fashionable to say: I don’t have time, it makes people feel tremendously important that they don’t have time, that they’re workin, makes em feel almost American, sittin in those meetings a theirs tryin to solve the unsolvable an not lookin around anymore … they wanna look like the people from the TV series, pissed-off professionals, success, dude, satellites, fast cars, five blondes, etc., get it? Yeah, whenever I’m in a pub I ask: D’you read War and Peace an Gilgamesh yet, or how bout The Man Without Qualities, or Welzl the Eskimo,* you can get through it in a night … yeah, you oughta see the look they get on their faces, like: That’s thick! I don’t have time for that … these days! Isn’t there a movie of it? Like the Bible? Yep, when someone tells me, all dignified and lofty, or with a drained look: I don’t have time, I hear the rattle of the spit an shudder for the fate of humanity … they wanna be like machines, like slaves hitched to the clock, an the only result is an increase in the number of zombie varieties … an what they see on the evening news, those lousy wretches gettin mangled under the wheel of the world, Monday the Kurds, Tuesday the Somanians, Wednesday the Cambodians, Thursday the Halases, Friday the Rennets, Saturday the Ethiopians, Sunday the Bosnians, an the other days’re full of it too, an sometimes it’s all at once, so the dear viewers end up not believing it anymore … that there’s people without plastic, without grub, without teeth, it’s not real anymore … an so crafty Bog sent these raggedy Gypsy women with their deadened urchins out into the world, into the metropolises, so people could see … poverty an how it dulls you, get it? It’s a new tribe, a secret an very important community, they’re everywhere, you know … I saw on TV, the Brits’re tremendously surprised to find they’re even in London, how did those barefoot brownies make it across La Manche without any pounds or ID … not like Venclovský,* that’s for sure … they marveled in Parliament … the witches flew there, straight from His palm, to provoke. An every disgusted glance at them is also the question, why me? Why not you? An every time they give their breast to one of their frozen children, it’s like they’re tellin that pedestrian dashing past with his tie aflutter: Just wait, maybe tomorrow you’ll be the one to fall, you never know, fella, heh … you know?
I know, said Honcho, but how bout you … sure you don’t want a little vacation?
No, work is a pleasure for me.
And it was true … except for Burda and the other packer … then I got why it pissed them off that I was there … I unloaded fruit from the trucks and put it in trays, they shipped it in sacks, grade-F stuff pretty much, my job was to pick out the whole ones and put them in boxes … and they were labeled SUPER SPECIAL KLASA NUMBER ONE BORN IN BOHEMIA, so right away I was in the picture. My shed, or as we modernly said back in those days, my hangar, had bluish plastic walls, together with the fruit it was a constant dance of colors. You could track the sun by it. Burda supplied a jumpsuit but told me the gloves’d just run out. On the other side of the tropical-smelling packing house was a kiosk that sold smoked meats and a shack with a REFRESHMENTS sign. We were outside town, by a woodland park, a free range. Large parties of daytrippers made their way here, souring my life with their noisiness, bustling with byznys. Occasionally they’d bum some fruit. Yep, then I began to do a little selling on the side.
The refreshment stand regulars were mostly forestry workers from the nearby Obora,* grazed cattle there. I’d done some exploring … these guys had time galore, but they all looked to be about two or three steps from the train station, by now I could tell. They favored rubber boots and swung their fists as they walked. I spent my time with lemons, switchberries, peaches, the trucks brought kiwis, bananas, parsley … old Burda believed that kiwis spread AIDS, he was always hassling me … one morning, counting over my trays, I realized ten were missing. Burda and Křepek sat at the refreshment stand, the thieves … just grinning at me, and Burda says not to stuff myself so much with raspberries, they’re expensive, said he’s seen me an he’s gonna tell the Boss, couldn’t get anywhere with him. The next day it was the same … give me back my lemons … made a fool of myself … Křepek wore a cross, the dolt, I had half a mind to dance him one, they didn’t know … they thieved like baby magpies, but not a uniform in sight, I began putting in even rotten pieces, just to give me more, and slightly smudged the invoices, it was the only way … you’re in the wheel, heel, so let it ride an wait for her, I said to myself … nothin else I could do. But I enjoyed the work … it gave my nose a workout, now and then I had to use a shovel for the older pieces, Burda cracked up when I asked for gloves, Křepek had new ones I saw, eat shit an die, you proletarians … the lemons smelled good. Lemons don’t waste time with talk, I envied them.
And up in the attic … sometimes I got claustrophobic, there was too much of her smell, too many of her things …
I made some minor repairs around the place. A thing or two to the windows. Rearranged objects. And the bookshelf … I painted red. But I didn’t bring home any flowers. That seemed premature.
And I swore and I begged and they merged.
But I lost my job. It was in the bananas. I thought it was a twig, quite possibly a sprig even … grabbed it, a message from a distant shore, but suddenly it moved, slippery in my palm, I jumped back, a little green snake, a whole nest of them, and they … came shooting out, whizzing past my ears with a sound like a pod cracking open, I raced off, Burda laughing, grabbed the Minimax off the wall an sprayed em, crushed em with my boots, then I had to sit down. I walked up to Burda and he quit laughing. Křepek looked on with interest. But I went back. That day was jinxed. Glimpsing movement out of the corner of my eye, I watched, cautious, and then my eyes really opened wide. It was hairy, big as a soccer ball, and moved at terrifying speed, scamperin up the sack, legs flickin one over the other … I mean I’m an animal lover, but this thing … I snuck past it … away, patting the spot out of habit, raced out of the hangar, and slammed into Burda … he gave me the fish eye … you’re lookin pale, c’mon into the warehouse, they came … the gloves … Go over there, Mr. Burda, we’ve got ourselves a visitor … no, I grabbed him by the sleeve, no … we finished the monstrosity off with a rake … Burda swept him up, what mush was left, to this day I still get goose bumps whenever I remember. An bananas I can do without.
No, Honcho, not even in asbestos armor. I got somethin I wanna wait for … that was too much.
Heh, most people quit when they come across em, but they’re not dangerous, sposedly … old Burda’s not afraid of em, that other guy either, they’re the only ones that can stand it, weird people, huh?
You can say that again. Why didn’t ya tell me?
You wouldna believed. Plus you’da wanted to see.
That’s true. You could show that shit at carnivals.
You know, old Burda already thought a that.
But he mowed it down …
He enjoys that too. Forget it. Hey, there’s a spot open at the stand. Why doncha take it? That kid Kasel’s there on his own, kinuva twit.
While the first job was a fragrant plant with dangerous flesh moving in its midst … this flesh reeked and was dead. Still, it seemed safer. Now I sold human beings scrag ends, veal, and lardlings. They wanted it.
Occasionally it was a wild ride, the surface was always greasy. I was glad I’d kept my hair short since that time Černá had cut it. My current employment was just as tough to fathom as the rest. But if the world were knowable, you’d run up against its borders. This way at least you get somewhere.
Daily I saw hundreds of people, that part I liked. The idea of Sister … on her way … coming here to buy this, was exciting. Mothers would visit the stand with fairly little kids … for market reasons I couldn’t refuse them. Doctors, soccer players, miners, vagabonds, metalheads, civil servants, all stepped up to the counter … I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror anymore. It pissed me off they bought the stuff, I overcharged like crazy.
Kasel tossed dead meat on the grill, sizzling it beyond recognition in fat, my new partner was a surly young man, eternally lost in thought. Whenever there was a moment free he’d hunch in the corner, casting suspicious glances, and sometimes scribbling to himself. I was afraid he was taking down my mistakes … knew that from my other jobs … waiting tables for instance … addition mistakes: So, Mr. Supreme Commander in Chief, sir, that gives us 6 lardlings, 8 Melinda sodas, 4 brews, brewskies, ho-ho, 16 veals, those boys a yours sure can pack it in, yes siree, Boss Coal Baron, an two double portions of scrag ends for the lovely young lady, which makes: eight thousand two hundred an twenny, on the nose! … but if the old fart added it up himself and said pompously: Hah, it’s six thousand seven hundred an ten … I’d break out the trench tactics, my words flying like turds into a cesspool: Oh my goodness gracious, why I added this here from the next table, pardon me, I’m on my own today, an that’s three thou straight up, cross my heart an hope to die! He gave me four, it cost two, and it wasn’t worth a thing. Everyone did it. I wouldn’t’ve lasted there a week otherwise. That’s the way it went in kiosk paradise. They explained that to me fast.
One day Kasel dropped a sheet of paper … leave it, he twisted his hands into claws … but I got a glimpse, man, you’re writin verse! … he blushed … but I didn’t tease him. At least he wasn’t ratting. I breathed a sigh of relief. Felt like an asshole.
After work … couldn’t stand it in the flat, it occurred to me … to go out to the Rock, see Bohler, pay the old buddy a visit … but I still felt a little guilty about what’d happened … back in the slammer … and without a rowdy bunch around, I don’t know … I sat around Galactic checking out the people, Micka might turn up, there were lotsa familiar faces there, new and old alike, I knew that if Černá showed up in town her steps would surely lead to these places … and besides, you can be alone in a crowd if you’re smart about where you sit … there were always videos and tapes going, back in the bush, I stuck my head in the sand, and once again speech was starting to grab me, I met people … now it was mainly Prague 3 … after being raised their whole lives as atheists, they began to pull new words from the vocab of the sects that were suddenly teeming all over … heavy, serious words, like lot, penance, punishment … some young people mixed biblical expressions with the language of grunge guitar groups … sorry dude, plug that in, an’ve you, like, ever done penance? … I heard once … and international drug lingo got a dash or two of protectorate argot, and poking out of it all like straw was a Marxist pictur-esqueness … got a copacetic metajoint here’ll knock your bulletin board off … I picked up idioms and images … and English, the Latin of today’s communities … broukn ingliš … and broukn ček … a broken tongue, and a new feeling grew from the unsoundness, maybe, or the other way round, I don’t know … in any case it was accelerated.
I sat of course with my back to the screen, and one day … froze, hearing a voice, hers, it was unmistakable, I got up, gripping the table, but it wasn’t just in my head anymore, I turned to the screen, a split second … merer than mere, the woman put on a mask, a Cat Head, walked off screen, the News came on … What was that? I guess I shouted … heads turned my way, Tusk says, what’s the big deal, some ad … for sumthin … I fought my way through to the office upstairs, the guy the clips belonged to was there, looked familiar, but I didn’t take the time to flip through the index in my head … it’d started to ache … I tape it off TV, all over, I donno … I stuck to him like a leech, he played it for me that night … it was her, Černá.
Maybe … yes. Her face was there for literally just the blink of an eye … she seemed skinnier and more carefree, but maybe I was only imagining it. And I could see in my loved one’s face that she’d paid … my little sister had dearly paid.
But I couldn’t find out who’d shot it or where. The agency didn’t exist anymore. The stuff the ad was for wasn’t sold anymore. There weren’t any credits, just pseudonames. No one even puts a date on videos. It didn’t exist. From time to time she’d flash by, at random, in front of a few stoned, drunk, or apathetic faces. In a pub. But she was alive.
I had it made into a photo. A pretty big one. And then … I spotted her again. Bumming around the street, I stepped up to a bookstore window, eying the silent covers, and suddenly … there she was, in negative, but it was her. The book was some kina … nonsense … nothin to do with the cover. I held it in my hand. And the chase was on. Kasel had a little more work at the stand. Only … history repeated itself … the publisher was some small-time bootlegger, now extinct … I bought em out, small print run, movin slow, the salesclerk said … so maybe there’s not too many people droolin over my little sister, the author hadn’t written anything else, some poet guy, used a pen name … the photographer’s name was in the colophon though … I took off running and didn’t stop till I got to the hospital building, I was already dressed the part, human, and with that stench of burnt fat on me … they let me in, but … he didn’t live there anymore, I rang the neighbors’, pretty insistently, an older lady opened: You don’t know? Mr. Meždek passed away. Car accident. Why, it was all over the papers, and the car … Only I didn’t read the papers. And that was another mistake. Could’ve saved myself a lot of trouble.
I also went to Bolkon Street, went … and my heart knotted up at the sight of that lady, it choked me up … different guy sittin around in the kitchen, same type though … somebody’d sent them money a couple times, the old man figured it was her … I sat very dejectedly, he slugged me on the back, you’ll get over it, there’s plenty of fish … yeah, but without my little minnow, the sea’ll be black and stormy:
the dark star of love
took me by the hand
and led me into old age
and left me there
and we won’t make love anymore
ever again
came to me. They were talking at me, both. Then I went down the stairs, slowly, holding onto the banister. Like someone that was pretty crushed.
And then I bounced back from the bottom again and lightened up.
A few days later, at Galactic … the ad for Muorex came on again, and I studied the face a second, Tusk elbowed me … got a thing for cat food, dude, or’re you checkin out Černá … looks like her, huh?
Ee! He shrieked as I grabbed his elbow.
You know her … talk!
Chill out, haven’t seen her … a while, you mean that singer, right.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, I knew her when she was hangin with Morti, buddy a mine, the Martian, you knew him, what’re you lookin at … Potok, careful, it’s one thing drinkin all day when you’re twenny, but doin it now with the same body … an brain, hah, yeah, well, ain’t what it useta be … I knew her back in Berlun. After the Wall came down. Or was it before?
What was she doin there!
Let go a me, whadda ya think you’re doin … anyway, then Morti freaked, military an shit, she blew him off, an good thing too, he really freaked … then I guess he took off, it’s been ages now since I …
What did she do in Berlun?
What else, nothin … I donno, waited tables in some dive I heard, I donno … same as everyone, I never had nothin with her.
That I believe, Tusk, hey …
What’d you call me … somethin wrong with my teeth? … you should talk, look like an ad for Paradentall, only prior to use, heh heh, that’s a good one …
