City, Sister, Silver, page 61
Know anything about her?
An you smell kina funky, Potok, sorry to say …
Know anything about her, or anyone who knows her?
No. But why don’t you go look her up at Moony’s?
What’s that? Where is it?
You know, Moony Bank, that new one over on Liberation Ave., she’s right there, next to the entrance … wait a sec … wait!
I didn’t wait, I ran … but I should’ve waited and let Tusk finish. Saved myself the trouble.
They threw me out. I got all the way to the director. Took me about two hours. A minute wasn’t enough for me to state my case. He wasn’t interested. Some sheriff types chased me down the stairs. She wasn’t employed there, nothing. Not a clue. I stood outside fuming, high noon … and then, then I raised my eyes … and saw her.
A guy, slick type, dazzling teeth and splashed with cologne, climbing out of a car and smiling, cheerfully striding up the bank steps, turning around and waving, and waving back from the car an elegant lady, with a veil across the temperamental glint in her eyes, dressed in the delicate tulle of high society, there you were, Černá, lightly and gracefully waving your arm, clad in a white glove up to the elbow … the movie ran in a loop proclaiming that Moony bills made everyone happy … and the guy got out and hustled inside, waving to the lady … and over … and over … and over … after ten loops the name of the bank’s founding father came up, glowing in neon, and then it ran again …
Oh my Černá, there you were, done up as a gorgeous lady, a lady who knows, and they didn’t even hafta bother with the makeup, very gorgeous …
And then I figured it out, it was in her eyes … she’s just tryin it out, foolin around, takin a little break from it all, like me at the stand, and maybe … maybe she’s tryin to give me a sign.
The bank was a dead end. But I found the studios where they’d made the ad. Wouldn’t let me see their records, and the billing office naturally threw me out. Anyway, who knew what name she’d used. If any. The studios … were endless unfortunately.
I thought back to the mirrors in the old coffeehouse we used to go to together, here it was doors and Makeup Toucher-Uppers … I talked my way in as a journalist … prowled around, she could be anywhere, down any hallway, behind any door, in some disguise, behind any mirror … could.
I flashed through prop rooms, crept down hallways, sidestepped gaffers, emerged from trapdoors without warning, and passed many girls, one I chased down … burst in on a crowd scene, they were shooting the Battle of Lipany,* and one of the wounded, I wiped the ketchup off her face … nope, wasn’t her, I had to bolt, the director … and his crew chased me around the flaming barns … I absorbed their language, walking around with a carpenter’s satchel, that’s the way us Czechs sneak into Parliament, St. Matthew’s Fair, and Freemason Lodges, it’s like a broom … I ran through the middle of dramas, speech … Beda, flip the synch there to number two, an lights on the balance beam, great, bring in that jib an here we go … the place was like a spaceship, maybe you’re wandering around here, little sister, among the aliens … in one office I spotted a familiar-looking folder, a catalog … young rising stars and breakout starlets, slashes and crosses and numbers marked next to them by pudgy, sweaty, clumsy fingers … 1 ‘s with stars and swooning exclamation points, I ran through the rankings with a pounding heart, photo after photo, she wasn’t there … though one face, in profile, no, uh-uh … I moved on … that actress there’s got some of her movements … she was all bleached white, though, with scales on her body, couldn’t see her face … but the voice, raspy, different … maybe some hardships behind it though, found a suit in the men’s room and put it on, lady made me do an interview with her, wouldn’t let go a me … I grabbed my satchel and slipped through the opening … next door they were shooting a gothic horror, I changed into a priest’s costume in a nearby prop room, begging forgiveness, it wasn’t blasphemy, I just … I gotta test it out … and the voice that came from the Iron Maiden, and the corner of the snow-white veil, I interrupted the scene, ruined the movie, dragged the captive into the light … but it wasn’t Černá, just some regular old pasty-face … I left the studios in a gloomy mood. The light lurched along the cliffs.
The stand began to annoy me. Once I knew the tricks, I wanted to move on. Anywhere. Though me and Kasel were getting close. Now I was waiting for Černá with every movement of my heart, she’ll definitely come to the attic too … and I’d left a note for her there … maybe she’s abroad, I thought. And fixated on that. Of course, maybe she went to the islands, the sea, we talked about it all the time, her especially …
Now I was out of Honcho’s jurisdiction. We saw each other from time to time. But then they locked him up. And Burda became boss of the grounds. He called me over one day.
Hey … you … c’mere!
Right with you, maestro, I promptly obeyed.
Hey, you always got that look … an you ain’t no fledgling, boy, no sir! You ain’t no boy no more … musta had some schoolin. Isn’t in your papers though, why’s that? You got strange papers, real strange! Who are you … flappin around, gawkin? The fellas say … hey … answer me! Seems to me you’re … some kina lumpenproleterrier!
No I’m not, but you’re dumb as a guinea pig, Mr. Burda.
Huh?
Just what I said … shit … I tore off my apron … yeah right, grinding my teeth, it’s always somethin, fuckhead, questions, I’m goin … goin!
Now look, you don’t hafta … what’s buggin you, son?
Nothin, an I apologize. But I’m goin.
So you don’t want the job?
Can’t you see? I’m a bigger dummy than you, I know. It’s just that it doesn’t matter.
I knocked over a pan and the lardlings started to burn, Kasel was off in the woods somewhere … probly writing, the twit.
Don’t be so unhappy all the time!
Yeah yeah. Aright then, I’m … goin.
Go ahead, for today. But come back tomorrow. If you want.
It annoyed me. I annoyed myself. Casting sinister glances into shop windows, ugh. Hm! Lumpen, yeah maybe. If you insist. I still reeked of grease, cut my hair … left the smell on for mystical protection … against debauchery, I’ll give myself a good washing-up later, when the time comes. When the Conductor at long last raises his baton and hews into the forest of intermingling symphonies. I stink. But it’s good to wash up before you kill yourself. It’s the decent thing to do, right? Didn’t your mom ever tell you? I tried to be mean to myself, talking tough and brassy to my reflection … whenever it flickered past, in a shop window, a puddle … but my face just mocked me, leering at my soul …
Next day I was back at the stand again. With Kasel. He was more cheerful now, not so closemouthed. Started luggin in all sortsa tabloids, magazines, ploppin em down in the lardlings and goose necks next to the bubbling pots … and then one day on break he couldn’t hold back and whipped it out, a photo of him, hair slicked back and parted … one magazine had him loungin in the grass … man, you’re all over the place, I marveled … yeah, that’s excellent … he went off about some youth anthology comin out next week, he’s in it! Got it all lined up an squared away an ridin high from here on in!
He spoke feverishly of receptions and readings, full-page interviews, literary polls! We started talking about it … I’m the best, said Kasel, flushed, everyone’s finally startin to get it, I’m the best, an I’m a couple lengths out in fronna the rest, he said, stirring the lardlings … but, I told him sagely, recalling Sister Maria Coseta and her Rose of Wounds … I mean it’s not like art’s a steeplechase, I mean the dead are outta your league anyway … but I’m alive! Kasel screamed, hacking open a roast lamb’s neck with the cleaver … good point … but I thought back to Jícha and the Kulchur section, maybe it was best to leave the imparted paths of my murdered friends inside me a little longer … don’t take it too fast, I told Kasel … after all, anyone that knows how to read can write somethin good … screw you! Kasel said to my smart remark, it’s not about writin one good poem, it’s what comes next, what’s in between, it’s survivin from one to the next, an after … that’s what’s interesting! Aha, I said … but I didn’t bring in those scribblings of mine I had at Černá’s flat, it would’ve wounded him, and I didn’t want a mortal enemy.
He’d show me pictures of authors in magazines … they’re out there somewhere, here in the Pearl, an they don’t know it yet, Kasel said, but I’m here too an they’re outta luck … he spoke like that sometimes … so what’re you doin here, with all that ambition … an talent! … in a dumbass job like this, I inquired … he made a mysterious face, but I soon figured it out.
An odd crew had begun turning up among the daytrippers … hysterics or somethin, I presumed … together constantly, arguing, but I noticed … as soon as one stepped off, the others would get these weird smiles and start jabberin away, pickin him apart, it was obvious … various types, guys and gals, dressed funny … together constantly … boozin at the picnic tables, stuffin emselves with provisions … every day they’d come and walk the trails, fencin excitedly with their arms, terrifyin the squirrels with abrupt, unexpected motions … I was stumped … must be some sanatorium for neurotics around here, I concluded, and went to tell Kasel, but he … stood like a pillar of salt, bug-eyed, and I heard bum … bum, the irregular thump of his blood-red muscle … move it, Kasim, your veal’s burnin, hop to it … he stood there, magazines in his hands … I kept him in the corner of my eye … next day he brought napkins. You’re a strange one, partner, I said … he didn’t react … then the scarecrows showed up again, picked out a table, and ousted a couple families, Kasel got out the paper plates, piled on lardlings and all the rest, covered it up with napkins … are you nuts, since when do we deliver? Since now, said the poet, and off he flew … I picked up the slack and pondered … napkins … and then I got it, yes … he’d stuck those poems of his in with the napkins, and then again … bum … bum, the sound of his heart, I splattered him with beer, I’d knocked back a few, there was no talkin to him that day … the patients out there raisin a ruckus, one screamed so loud the whole park could hear: It is dead, it is no longer possible! and another one said: On the contrary, now it is possible because it no longer matters! and they said: disproportion, discrepancy, identity has taken a blow, reality … I shook my head, reining Kasel in, as they tossed his writing in the trash, it fell to the ground as they finished their meals, evidently Kasel had piled it on, they mopped up their plates with the fruits of his imagination, wiped their hands and chins with it, the pages soggy and translucent with grease, tossed the sheets in the dirt, I saw a high heel pierce a piece of paper, left it there in the mud, with the remains … among the bones … but that’s perfect, I consoled him in vain, that’s the way it lives in real life, that’s exactly the way it is, an … who are those people anyway? That is … he stammered … the elite … they built a Creators Chalet here outside the city, they’re … lyricists and authors and critics, he gasped.
They came all the time, and I got to thinking … actually, what if I … it could be a message for Sister, she’d be able to tell from the words who wrote it, some of them were hers … Kasel got mad though … my idea! All right … I get the veal, you get the lardlings, half and half on the scrag ends, I stood my ground … we grudgingly sized each other up, but he had to give in, of course I wouldn’t allow him to read my verse, or whatever it was, anyway he wasn’t interested … he was dreaming of a new way, the possibilities … a crimson robe and the prince of poetry’s lyre … it started to mess with me too, and then … up to the stand walks a man of about fifty, solid build, graying temples, pipe clenched in strong teeth, pure silk sweater on, parts his red lips … Kasel’s gaspin for breath, an the guy says: Beer! We nearly got in a fight, two cups stood before him in the blink of an eye, a dark and a light … ach, this is almost surrealism, he said, studying the cups … duality, Manichaeanism, he took a sip, smacked his lips, if not … schizophrenia, alcoholism … he staggered, clasped his head, and walked over to his car … the Maestro doesn’t have it easy, said Kasel, but I barely heard him, there, by the car, a flash of white, she was shaking a pebble, some sand, from her shoe … her back was to me, but the curve of her neck … and her calves, as she leaned a heel into the dirt … I dashed out … the writer started the engine … NO! I screamed … the woman climbed in, and they drove off … I leaned against a tree, panting … saw the stand, it brought me back … Kasel went insane, ran out there hollerin, pourin stuff all over em, throwin clumps of lard, the crew, shrieking, beat a retreat, I leaned my forehead against the tree, shut my eyes, and stayed that way.
24
WHO I MEET. AND WHO I’M WITH. KARLOVICE. CRYSTAL S.R.O. AND WHAT IT’S FOR. OLD WORDS, THAT SOUND. I LIFTED MY HANDS.
And one day, one smiley city day when the sun again showed its experienced face through the dust, I saw in the distance, by one of the kiosks … a distinctive gait, her hair, she was walking … leading a small child by the hand, my eyes popped and I … ran over … spotted her again in the crowd of daytrippers, elbowing through, I did too … shoving them out of my way, faster, again the crowd closed around her, but it was her, my friend … and at the end of the road there was nothing again but a whirl of dust from a bus.
I hastened back to the kiosk where I’d spotted her … Viets or whoever … shirt, pant, digital, casset, one let loose with a wide smile … no, quick, that girl that was here, he reshuffled a stack of jeans … she’s a friend of mine … she was here with a child … where do they live? His face shut down, looking like an Aztec from a stone frieze in a temple in the festering jungle, the silent face of the full moon itself … aright, I picked up a pair of jeans, he snatched them back … I no know nobody, turned away … wouldn’t get anything outta him, that was obvious … made the rounds of a few spots in town where she might’ve been, in vain.
There were lots of Asians at the markets, but among the Vietnamese I didn’t have any friends. It had all been too fast with Smoothy. I waited, even set up a rearview mirror over the flock of sizzling lardlings so I could see, Kasel was puzzled. And absent. Getting more vexed and restless every day … uh-huh, it’s everywhere now, he mumbled to himself … they print it all over, there’s even a book, an nothin … nothin’s goin on … so maybe, just maybe, yeah, it isn’t just for its own sake, I knew it, there’s no destination, there’s only the way, the path … you’re burnin the scrags, I alerted him … he was lost in reverie.
And then … Hi there! I said, she looked at me, the little one in tow, sizing me up like a rapscallion … but there was a twinkle in her eyes … we were reunited. Tempestuously. I admit, I was taken when she spoke.
I’s you … tha’s goo’. This is Son!
He hid behind her … yelped when we hugged. The poet was on his own with the meat that day. It was too much. What she told me. It was horrible. From then on, she came to see me often.
We’d sit on a bench in the park. The boy eyeing the squirrels with interest … well, he wasn’t exactly a looker … Bohleresque features … but maybe later, his mom’s beauty, all that cat and gazelle, then again in a boy I donno, I donno … she told me stories … dea’, she said of my buddy … and then, when we were living together, in the one building where we could, I began to visit the Press Center and piece it together from old newspapers, because there were times I didn’t understand, and also, she didn’t like going back much … but some of it she told me the very first day, through tears.
I didn’t want to go back to the buildings at all, but with her and Son it was different. Besides, the attic … when I thought of Černá I still … I still trembled.
And that was the first thing I had to share with Lady Laos. After all the things she’d told me as I held her in my arms … taking the weight off her … maybe it was cruel … but I considered it essential to say: Don’t get mad, honey, but there’s a woman, she’s traveling … an when she gets back I’m gonna be with her. Or we’re gonna be together somehow. That’s the way it is. How about it?
We all gonna be together? inquired Lady Laos.
We lived together, side by side, helping each other. Protecting each other.
The little boy enjoyed prowling around the old farm equipment just in back of the sheds, seemed the technical type, into levers and chrome stuff … took apart the watch I’d bought, seeing as I had a job now … but … the boy couldn’t speak much, his Czech was like his mom’s, Bohler hadn’t had much time, I took him on as my student … but he sti’ need schoo’, Lao decided, I didn’t take that away from her. She herself called him Son, sounded to her like a proper name. He also had a Laotian one, that one I couldn’t pronounce, plus the one Bohler had baptized him with … at times the youngster had trouble in the sandbox with the locals. Because of how he looked. How he spoke. He soon stopped being afraid of me. Asked questions himself. Bohler had wanted his name to be Vojtěch.*
Lao had landed back in the buildings a while ago. They didn’t have any bad vibes for her, just the opposite … though she was surprised to find the cellar filled in with concrete. With a diligence unique to her, she had set up a tailor and dressmaker workshop. She and her compatriots sewed for sale, I was awed … on flywheel Singers. Their husbands and brothers and cousins dropped them off in the morning and the ladies would sit there going all day, there was always lots of chatting involved and now and then a song or two. At first I was very cautious around the guys. But the copper, blue, and dark one patted me on my scar one day and said: You crasy … you safe he’e, no way fo’ Hun’er … you jus’ imagine!
I had my doubts. But me and the men would exchange greetings, solemnly, ceremoniously, sincerely, and with many smiles, slipping through the hallways.
