Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

The member of parliament who along with his little clique forced through the legislative exemption on the termination of leases owned five buildings himself. Never even got a chance to throw the poor tenants out. His tough luck Micka used to work in a boiler room with his archenemy, now a police officer. And I knew the MP’s stepdaughter, she used to sleep with one of my droogs from the active era. That did the trick. We drank a toast the day she brought us the photocopies of the MP’s real estate contracts with the dates retouched, but we had no clue David would work so fast that three of the buildings fell right in our laps. I stood up for Bohler, so he got the rentals. I still felt like I owed him a lot. As helper, he could only dream of sharing. But he didn’t give a damn, he was interested in more important things.

It was also his idea to gobble up the space in front of the buildings. By now David knew how to stand politely if Mošna the civil servant glanced at his watch, but he didn’t. It didn’t even occur to him. He just looked at the piece of paper David held up to his face. It was a copy of a collective death sentence dated 1952, and the name of the judge was legible. For Mošna it served as sort of an orthographic mirror. The Devil knows whether those unavenged old convicts still dangled in his dreams … in his other hand David held another sheet of paper, and he could’ve said something like: Now sign this, cunt … but he was a polite boy and all he felt for cunts was a mix of grateful respect and tenderness … but I couldn’t think of any other word, he said. So he only said the first part. And Mošna the civil servant signed.

Ludvig the civil servant was sent down to us from heaven itself. Boys, you’ve got it made, you don’t know what it’s like passin the buck all day long, you boys’re livin! Got a little drum kit back home myself, haven’t picked up the sticks in years, though. In his mind we lived wild, exciting lives, for him the adolescent demi-vierges slouching around the basement clubs, the jaded huntresses lining the bars in the places we took him, were all bohemian sexpots. He was our man in the government. When Bohler handed him the aspirin that Micka passed off as LSD, I wanted to rub off the name at least, but David wouldn’t allow it. Sometimes I’d get furious about how easy it was, I’d go totally berserk, but I knew we were just trying to see how far we could push it, testing the spring, we wanted to fly.

Ludvig held the ceiling up with his eyes, panting loudly. Trying not to lose contact with real life. As the conversation rewound from art back to byznys, he miraculously revived. I’ll get you eighty of our best architects to build that palace, terrific boys, every one, Artists that aren’t in it just for the cash! Those architects of yours’ll rob you blind, man! Micka had him spellbound. But we were all “terrific boys.” He never actually did take home any of our female friends, so maybe he was gay. Either it was enough for us to see how desirable he was, groping one of them off in the corner, or he genuinely wasn’t interested.

Pisses me off, said Micka, I’d like to hear what kina setup he’s got at home. Maybe he’s scared to go to a hotel an at home he’s got a wife, I said. More likely he can’t get it up, the theologian said. Micka gave the nod and another terrific boy joined us at our table. Give this architect a break, Ludvig, or I’ll rip your ass to shreds faster than you can say Frank Gehry! Micka yammered. Ludvig pulled out a break and tossed it across the table, for once in his life he had plenty of them for everyone, and amid the general drunkenness it even seemed normal for the artist to be dragging around his diploma, it had gold lettering, we all saw it. Micka was getting better every day, and our man in the government melted, the contract was in the bag, all that was left was to seal it shut.

Then it was up to me to sneak through the window of opportunity with my rich assortment of disguises. David sent out the signals designating where to drop off the envelopes, where to speak plainly and where to be slightly shy, when to stand awkwardly in the doorway with a radiant boyish smile, which decision makers would appreciate a bottle of Water … which officials enjoyed reminiscing about the Sewer days and were eager to pop some wheelies … the sparkling party favors of real life, with girls or without … who said art with a capital A and longed to hobnob with the Names … and since a lot of atelier types were our friends and most of them were poor … they’d get a blazer and a signal on when to be where, now and then someone would speak intriguingly of suicide … and I knew where to stick out my chin, and my shiny teeth and shoes, and where to be just a regular Czech, a little sharp, a little naive … when two hands join, the cause prospers, but if you’re not interested, fuck off an don’t hassle me … who clung to the good old dissident ways, now battling corruption, so I could assure them as a former brother-in-arms that this dynamic group of young men … and the new government building began to be mapped out right on our land … and we weren’t surprised when the price climbed dizzyingly high … we cashed in on the cobblestones … and the funny thing was, we could see the construction site out Bohler’s windows … and coincidentally the firm that won the contract was favorably disposed toward us … they knew why, they weren’t stupid … and when the deliveries got held up, the envelopes would start to rustle, and they were always fatter coming in than they were going out … it tied my guts in knots, how could we get away with it? … the fools, but I wanted it, all the way down to the bottom of the filth and the fun that I got out of it … Micka came up with the gadgets and the threads were my idea, the fabric came from India by way of various tracks through Mongolia, it was unbelievably cheap … we bought up tons of the stuff, and then, with the help of a little baksheesh for various fifth- and sixth-division Ludvigs, coincidentally the rest was slapped with outrageous duties and we became the Indian fabric magnates of our crumbling republic … and while I expended the fleeting remains of my power on hypnotism, sailing through bedrooms and offices and, in one or two delicate cases, fifth-division Ludvigs’ cottages … to get them to bang the stamp … Micka bought some warehouses on the outskirts of Prague for a song … they were full of unsalable dry goods, cheap T-shirts and undies: two million for family, six m. for suckers … and with the help of Bohler’s Laotian lady, they flew to her homeland, where they dropped out of sight for a while, together with the plane, before resurfacing in the form of lotions, ointments, incense, hats suitable for the stony fields of reeducation camps, multicolored ribbons, bamboo boofalo spears, everlasting candles, miniature Buddhas, noisemakers for scaring off birds … we nearly gave Bohler the boot, a pink slip for four m. would’ve meant at least a fall down the stairs, I was there to protect him, but David was tough and Micka always did have a cruel streak … just in the nick of time, though, six cousins of the Laotian kitty flew into town, and they paid in dollars, because those T-shirts and undies had earned them millions in that zany currency of theirs, which they put toward the purchase of crude rubber and got a racket of their own going with Hong Kong. When the communist soil of their homeland got too hot for comfort, they took a quick trip around the world to see their cousin … and no wonder, she was a gem, from her smile right down to the roots of her short hairs, I could sense them whenever I activated the remains of my power … I didn’t even want to think about her belly or her behind, and if my power hadn’t been dying I would’ve taken her away from Bohler … also they wanted to meet the amazing wheeler-dealers we were by then, and get a little or big something going in Eastern Europe, B-o-g willing.