Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

Sister sat by the fire, waiting for her things to dry, I gaped in amazement at her skin, golden and soft in the flickering glow … I examined the bony outline of her ribs, jutting out beneath the skin, holding fast the sweet paradise of her innards, her, the eden of her body, her raven-black hair merging with the dark and the paleness of her face reflecting each time she dodged the blaze’s tongue or tossed her head … then, sitting back on her heels and resting her hands on her thighs … she turned around and the flames’ reflection flickered on the skin of her back, her slender neck, I’d never seen her through fire before, through a frolicking wall of flames, shimmering with the air’s motion … we both turned, toward the sound … the guy was gigantic, one eye agog, across the other a black patch, I was crouched at his feet, hidden in shadow … his lace-up boots, green pants, the deserters, my mind raced … but if he didn’t notice me, he saw Černá very well, just let out a groan, for a moment he seemed petrified … it isn’t often a guy comes home to find his fantasies come true, a warm fire and a naked woman … when I looked at Černá, I froze too … she’d scooped up her clothes, but … she smiled at the giant invitingly, running her hands over her breasts … I thought she’d lost her mind … that guy could squash me like a bug if he wanted … the second it hit him that a naked woman was really there and smiling at him, he let out a gasp, threw open his arms, and charged at her … moving faster than I could think … I knocked his feet out from under him, as he fell I grabbed a branch from the fire and conked him, as he raised himself on his elbows I bashed him over the head and stabbed the branch into his face, both of us were roaring … Černá snagged me by the elbow and dragged me out of the hut, running and stumbling … we didn’t stop till far away, still trembling … why’d you do it, why, said Černá, shaking me … Huh? You’re askin me … you’re the one that did it, an c’mon, there’s probly more of em out here. More who? Sheepherders? What sheepherders, that was a deserter, we saw those guys. Now you’re really mixed up, he had long hair an a beard, that was just some oaf, a local! What about the uniform? I saw his boots … He was in rags, that was a sheepherder, army boots’re what people wear in the country … We could’ve made a deal. You slut! Don’t gimme that crap, you were strokin your tits, leadin him on! What’re you babblin … idiot … I covered my chest cause he was starin at me is all … an why’d you jump him, anyway? I mean you got the gun, shit! I mean we coulda tried nice, an then if somethin went wrong you coulda … threatened him with the pistol. An don’t call me slut! Flying into a rage, she hurled herself at me, fingers curled, we tumbled through the grass, her biting, me holding her off with my hands, and I don’t know why … I guess the whole thing … I started laughing, she fell still on top of my hands and whispered: Look. Take a look.

I let her down, she rolled off into the grass. I turned around, in the distance was a fire. It stood out strongly in the dark. The flames whipped the night, billowing white steam … the fabric was soaked with rain … but I knew it was that hovel.

So he stayed in there, I said nonsensically.

Sister turned her face to me and it was full of tears, c’mere, she said, burying her head in my armpit and weeping. I couldn’t. I looked at the stars. Guess it’ll come some other time. An I hope she’ll be there for it. Just let me make it through tonight, I said to myself.

She fell asleep. Maybe he’d come because She-Dog didn’t want me to tell this love of mine … and the pistol, it dug into me, I took it outta my jacket and tucked it under my belt … I wasn’t at all eager for my little sister to know where I carried it. There was only one round left in the gun, and that one … that one I’m savin.

I peered up at and into the stars, chill springs, unmoving eyes on a creature’s wings, openings to elsewhere. And then I also fell asleep. We were pretty tired.

An I had my … it was a wolf dream. We ran off, Raksha squealing with joy … me too, we knocked the lock off the cage and it rattled through the zoo the whole last night, one of us knocked it off with a paw, the chain fell away, and then we ran, running over the hard frozen snow, through the woods, over the dirtclods, along the stones, claws clicking, and we didn’t worry about our tracks because we were running … away.

Her eyes glowed like coals … sometimes she would nip at me, lick me … there, where I had a scar from my collar, the bald patch on the nape of my neck where the fur hadn’t grown back in … she touched her snout to the spot on my ribs where once upon a time the barbwire had cut me, and pieces of wire were left in there, they’d grown into me … I nipped at her too, her scars were inside … the drill where they’d taught her to beg and hold out her paw and roll her peepers and pout her lips, where they’d dressed her up in ribbons and suits so she’d grow into a good little girl, a well-mannered little woman … always at attention, like a snowman kind of, but sexy … where they showed my little sister how to wiggle her ass to please the bosses … to live with idiots the rest of her life in exchange for cash to get makeup and food and a flat … consuming energy on learning how to go ooh and aah whenever the fucking bosses lay down the gospel … but now we were running … and the only trail we left was the fast frozen breath that fell from our fangs … my loved one was a bee and a butterfly and knew how to cut with her claws and her tongue, and I tried too … we learned from each other what was good for the other, and that made both of us stronger … running, and the earth turned beneath us, running by graves and leaping across them, avoiding the bones and glassy stares and empty eyesockets … of wolf skulls … and steering clear of traps and snares, we had experience … with falling stakes and poisoned meat … we made it without harm through the red pack’s territory … and met the last white wolves, they were wracked with disease … and the big black wolves chased us, but we escaped … we, the gray wolves of the Carpathians, had an age-old war with them, they were surprised we fled, their jaws snapping shut on empty air, they had a hunch it was their turn next, the helicopters were on the way … we ran side by side, our bodies touching … running over the earth as it turned, with the wind whistling in our ears like a lament for every dead pack … and the clicking of our claws made the earth’s motion accelerate … we ran over the earth, a mass grave, running away … away from there … and then … but then we stood on the final cliff, above the depths, and nothing was left but to jump off and plunge into the surface, that was where it all began … the depths below sparkled like a mirror and Raksha, my sister, shrank back, tongue drooping, a growl, dark and savage, escaping her throat … Akela nudged her flank with his snout, but she snapped at him … we’re here … come on, Sister, we can’t go back now … come on, let’s jump … let’s fly, we can be together forever … but Raksha turned and ran back … Akela stood at the edge, hesitating, but just for a moment … he ran after her … Raksha had found a hole in the hillside and wouldn’t come out … and Akela didn’t get it, he didn’t know a thing … he stayed outside alone … the only sound from the hole in the ground her growling … warning him … and then it was quiet … Akela was alone … and there was no point, he could go back to the cliff by himself … and fly … but there was no point … he howled, the moon was all he had and it drove his nerves crazy, Akela had no one to lean on … he ran into the woods and killed the first animal he caught scent of … carried it back to the hole … Raksha dragged the meat inside … days went by, and Akela went mad with grief … the solitude, so close to the precipice, and the betrayal … he didn’t know anything … and then he saw Raksha come out of the hole, dragging wearily, creatures all around her … sucking the life from her, taking it for themselves … Akela attacked … but Raksha knew, she’d been expecting it … knocked him off his feet, and he exposed his unprotected belly, offering his neck, the jugular, nothing mattered to him anymore … but she didn’t break the rules … she returned to the creatures … leaving Akela alone with the moon, but now he knew … and his howl was different.