Jaroslav Kalfař: Spaceman of Bohemia

I floated into Corridor 4, an improvised lounge, and strapped myself to a seat facing the source of my connection and entertainment—the Flat, its large sleek screen responding flawlessly to touch, its Internet connection provided through satellite SuperCall (major provider of wireless services and mission sponsor). It boasted a database of ten thousand films, from The Maltese Falcon to Ass Blasters 3 . I had limited access to social networking—all communication with the outside world had to go through Central, of course, then public relations, then the office of the president, then back to public relations—but I had the rest of the Web at my disposal, with its magnificent power to entertain any brain on any subject anywhere it could reach its omniscient fingers. I had to wonder: if we could only give a simple laptop to all the starving and the overworked, blanket the globe in the warmth of unlimited Wi-Fi, wouldn’t the starving and the overworking be so much more pleasant, unlimited streaming for all? In my darkest hours on JanHus1, when my eyes hurt too much to read and I was certain something was stalking me whenever I turned my back, I watched dozens of videos of Norman the Sloth, a lazy, always-smiling creature whose owner had the ingenious idea to dress him up in boot-cut jeans and a cowboy hat. I grinned at Norman’s sloth shenanigans and spoke to him under my breath. Norman.

Above the Lounge rested one of the last functioning surveillance cameras on the station, its blue dot of consciousness radiating proudly and watching me live.

Thirty minutes until connection time. I played solitaire, ran my hand over my cheeks to confirm I hadn’t missed a spot. I imagined Lenka getting dressed for me, pulling the smooth tights over her coffee & cream–colored legs, stopping just below the half-moon dimple on her lower back. I practiced my greeting:

Ahoj lásko .

Or, Čau beruško?

Perhaps casual, Ahoj Leni?

I spoke the words in different intonations—higher, lower, gruff, sensitive, semiwhisper, imitation of my own morning voice, Darth Vaderesque, childlike. None of it sounded right. What could I say next?

I love bacon now. I want to feed it to you with my fingers while we sit on a beach in Turkey or Greece. Nothing tastes quite right in Space. I crave the taste of you .

I would remind her of our best days. Of the day we drove out to the lake, smoked pot underneath oak trees, spoke about the places we would travel. We made out in the car and returned home just in time to eat chocolate croissants and fall asleep on a bed filled with crumbs, our chins stained with wine and saliva. Bodies sun-drained and calves coated in rough sand.

Or the day we snuck into the astronomical clock tower and fucked so hard we defaced a national treasure.

Or the evening we married, in the middle of a Moravian vineyard, buzzed and barefoot. We didn’t have to work for happiness then. It simply existed.

This was the one. A break to the streak of our distant, alien conversations. I just knew it. Maybe she’d even close the call booth privacy curtain again. Let me see the reflection of jazz club blue.

A shadow of hairy, arachnid legs peeked from beneath the Lounge counter.

“Not now,” I said, my voice shaking.

The legs disappeared.

Two minutes until the call. I closed all other windows and glared. Would she call early? Even a few seconds would amount to an endless stretch of hope. One minute. She would have to call first. I couldn’t seem desperate. Ten seconds late. I couldn’t give in. Car trouble? One minute late. I breathed deeply, the heart rate statistics on my wristwatch hastened. Two minutes. Fuck. I pressed the dial button.

Someone answered. The expected face of my wife morphed into a gray, stained privacy curtain pulled all the way behind an empty chair.

“Well?” I said to no one.

A large hand, knuckles sprouting patches of red hair, gripped the curtain. It hesitated. No body yet, but I knew this was Petr.

“Hi, yes, I’m waiting,” I said.

The hand pulled the curtain aside and finally I could see the entirety of Petr, mission leader, in his usual black T-shirt, the faded Iron Maiden tattoo on his forearm, a shaved head shiny with perspiration, a biker’s beard extending well to his chest. He sat down and closed the privacy curtain behind him. My pointer finger twitched.

“Jakub, looking sharp. How’s things?” he said.

“Fine. Lenka ready yet?”

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s in the report. Where is she? Today is Wednesday, right?”

“Yes, it’s Wednesday. How’s the nausea? Are the meds working?”

“It feels like you should be hearing me,” I said, arms folded. Petr tapped on the desk with his knuckles. For a while, we were silent.

“Okay,” Petr said, “all right. I’m an engineer. I’m not really trained for this. It’s chaos around here. We’re still trying to figure out what happened.”

“Happened?”

“So, Lenka came in a few hours early today. She fidgeted a lot, wore sunglasses inside. We put her in the break room with some coffee. A few of us tried to talk to her and she just kind of nodded at everything. Kuřák spoke with her for a bit too. And then, twenty-five minutes before your call, she just got up and walked out, walked to the lobby, and our guy down there chased after her, asking what was going on, did she forget something, and she put a cigarette in her mouth and said she needed out.”

“She doesn’t smoke anymore,” I said. “Never mind. When is she coming back?”

“I don’t know. She jumped in her car. I went after her. She locked the doors and then the car wouldn’t start. So I just stood there, she fidgeted with the key, the car coughed, stalled. So she rolls down the window and asks me if I could give her a jump. I told her I couldn’t, I took the bicycle to work today, but I could grab one of the guys from upstairs. And then she just cried, and she told me she couldn’t handle any of this, that she didn’t know why she thought she could, that she couldn’t believe you left the life you had. She punched the steering wheel and turned the key again and the car started. Then she sped off, almost ran over my foot.”

I looked into the blue eye of my webcam, the last working lens capturing my likeness on the ship. Should I name it? It studied me so loyally. I tapped on it in acknowledgment.

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

“I don’t either, Jakub. Maybe she’s going through some things? I’ve got people calling her number on a loop. I’ve got a guy calling her mother. We’ll call some friends. But she just ran off. I guess that’s what I’m telling you. She just ran out of that lobby like Beelzebub was chasing her.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” I said. “She knows how much I need to hear her.”

“Look, we’ll find her. We’ll figure out what’s going on.”

“She didn’t say anything else to you?”

“No.”

“You promise? I fucking swear if you’re lying, or if this is some kind of joke—”

“Jakub, your vitals are a mess. You need to try to focus on the mission right now, stuff you can control. We’ll find her. She’s just having a moment. It’s going to be all right.”

“Don’t tell me what I need right now.”

“Stay with the structure. What were you going to do after the call? Dinner?” Petr said.

“I was going to masturbate and read,” I said.

“Okay, well, I didn’t need to know all of that, but you should proceed with your day. Keep a clear mind.”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“Have a protein bar. Do some cardio. That always helps m—”

I ended the call and unfastened myself from the chair. I slid the tie off my neck and let it flicker down Corridor 3, then unbuttoned my shirt and ripped it off my back. Petr’s voice sounded through the intercom, the last resort of forced access into my world.