Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

We stopped eating. She stared at her paper napkin. After a while the waiter turned up. Schmeck gut? Ja, natürlich. Picking the spinach out of the crust with her fork, Sister said: I’ll never forget this spinach. And then she smiled at me.

I don’t remember leaving there. I had that smile inside me. Outside it had turned chilly, I put my warm-up back on. Through the glass I spotted the waiter. Černá waved goodbye to him. We’d left all our cash there. That spinach pitsa was expensive.

And then … I babbled incessantly, we’d had a lot to drink … Černá wanted to walk into town, take off … I talked her into staying, to observe life … in a few spots there were fires burning, apparently some of the marketeers spent their nights here too. By one of the fires we saw Pepek and Vlasta, the only people we knew. They had slivovice. We sat down with them. Holding hands.

In the morning we woke with a start all at once. We were on the bus, wrapped in a blanket. But the inside looked different, divided in two by plywood, with a mat on the floor in one part. As we clambered out rather groggily, we saw the bus was adorned with a plywood sign: MASSAGE PARLOR, it said, with a painting of … the Věstonice Venus,* I joked … but I wasn’t laughing. The bus steps chilled my feet. There were other coaches too, most of em full of wares. A greasy-lookin guy or two waking up and starting breakfast. Hungover … we straggled through the market as it came to life … I looked to see if there were any tomatoes lyin around at least … it’s awful here, Sister, sorry, mea culpa. Huh? Well, if you’re done with the tour an you’ve said your goodbyes, let’s clear out … better hitch, that new jacket a yours, you are stylin! Well well, look who’s out of bed already, sweetiepie and … honeybun, come and have yourselves a nice cup of coffee, the day’s under way, you need nourishment, no fasting! It was Pepek, sitting in the tent and waving. I went in first, yeah, to say our goodbyes … to the pimp. Vlasta was sitting there too. In her face I could see the truly devastating effects of the previous night. She was coverin em over with makeup. How old’re you anyway? I hissed to Černá in our language. Twenny-six now, why. You look younger, Sister. An how bout you? The same, I lied. I guess I’m infantile, a bum, an all that. I’m feelin down. Yeah, said Černá, but the coffee’s good. Mr. Vandas here would like to ask you, Pepek pointed to the fat guy who’d served us the goulash the day before … so that was the boss makin lecherous eyes at my girl … what language do you speak? Oh we were just foolin around, said Černá, sipping her coffee. Otherwise we speak normal, Czech.

And then it began. Something happened to me. Like I lapsed. All day long I was racin around in the whirl and the hum, draggin Černá behind me. She was patient with me, after all I’m pretty witty. And then, that morning, as we were sitting there drinking our coffee … Pepek half-jokingly offered her a job, Vlasta nodded her head … into the tent walked two cops, I broke out in sweat, they settled in next to Vandas and poured themselves a cup of coffee, gabbing away, Slovaks … Pepek tugged at my sleeve, winking and sticking out his tongue, want an intro, those two’re the filthiest officers under the sun, you bet your ass … eagerly he regaled me with incredible anecdotes from Vandas’s dizzying career … making no attempt to hide his admiration … an you bet you got me to thank that you’re sittin here with him now … yep, an your sister too, heh, skinny, but nice tits on her … shut up, I said, more astonished than anything else … c’mon, that’s just guy-talk, Pepek said with a smirk … bullshit … now that’s more like it … like I was sayin, those officers’re real dogs an they bark when Vandas tells em to, get it? I got it all right, so did Sister.

Vandas, Vandas. He made and sold the goulash himself. Guess he enjoyed it. Slicing meat. He had a few flunkies around, why he put up with Pepek I don’t get. Vandas was there to handle taxes and also served as arbiter. Determined who set up shop and where. Who got the nod and who got the boot, who started and who was finished.

Me and my little sister understood his arrangement with the local cops all too well. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t in a hurry and let me screw around the market. Seriously, it was like a lapse. By afternoon I was drunk again. In my euphoria I traded my pants and belt for a pair of fatigues. Even got some cash, the transaction took more than half an hour, and I think both me and the small Asian man got more satisfaction from the exchange of words than from the deal itself. While I changed, behind some shack, I got so wrapped up in looking forward to scarin Černá that my pistol nearly fell out. Couldn’t be easier to buy a holster, I mumbled, a dozen shapes an sizes … but I bought another bottle instead. The pants were big on me.

I made friends at the stands, swaggered … in the dust. Listened. One thing I found out was that in Albanian “death” is vdakya and “prison” is burg. The first one sounds almost too Slavic to be true, and on hearing the second my brain floods with delicacies from McDonald’s, does it mean anything? My verdict was yes. Most of the storytelling took place at the cologne stand. If those flasks weren’t stolen, then I’m Pako Rabon. But they didn’t swipe em in Cologne. One pharmacy there sprayed their flowers with the stuff. Why all the biggest storytellers and fibbers congregated by the perfumes, I don’t know. Maybe it was the Albanian girl. I pointed her out to Černá. That’s kina how you useta look ten years ago! Y’know she keeps starin at me? Sittin there starin … An that Gypsy lady tells fortunes. Know what she told me, Sister?! Where’d you dig up those pants, holy shit! So what … I rolled up the cuffs, they’re big. You know why they always lie? So one day they can tell the truth. You just keep on lyin an lyin an then nobody knows when you finally come clean. But you get it outta your system. That’s the thing about storytellers, little sister! Pity old Homer’s dead, but nah, he’d probly be splicin movies, these days …

I know I was still with Černá when they rounded up the horses. For Vandas. Whole herd disappeared. Most of the riders were Gypsies. Then the days started flashing by. One night I got in a fight with some guy by the fire. Rolled around on the ground was all. The fun wore off fast. I got scared he’d lifted it. Luckily I went back to the spot later on and found the gun.

Somethin’s wrong with you, said Černá as we snuggled inside the bus. Pepek and Vlasta were snoring away on the mat.

I donno what it is, Černá, I wanna but I can’t. Sposedly it’s normal. He doesn’t wanna!

You’re too drunk. Not like you usually are. Not like with me. You’re not happy.

Today, Černá, I saw, they got this bigget an they do fights … out by that cabin they got this mud hut built into the ground, an they stick him in there an let rats loose. I won three hundred. It was sick the way he snarfed those things. It was insane. I thought he’d just bite em, I didn’t realize. Maybe they’re actually mice.

My sweet … snap out of it, we gotta get outta here, c’mon, right now. You’re … sorry, you don’t exactly smell like flowers.

Yeah, it’s the dust. Černá, we’re never gonna see this again, it’s all gonna disappear.

But c’mon, it’s revolting.

But you’re gorgeous. A woman’s not a woman next to you.

They’re wasted, if I lived like them, you’d see! C’mon, let’s go.

Wait’ll morning, I really feel weird.

But in the morning … in the morning Černá sold her jacket … then I saw her with Vlasta scraping a stack of potatoes for goulash. And Vlasta! A couple times I’d seen the line at the bus, guys making small talk, smoking while they waited … it was the market’s top draw, that Massage Parlor. One time I was standing there and it struck me that if Černá … he said in a week we’d have enough for a trip around the world, but that sick shit … and besides, without a shower, just a washtub … better me go in there than her … it was too much.