Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

Aha. Yeah.

We’ll wait till you’re better. It’s all we can do.

Hm.

The doctor came one more time. The guy with the soft face and glasses. He refused to make any calls or take a letter to the post office, said he didn’t have time. Gave me a shot of penicillin or whatever. Didn’t even want any money. He was pretty nice.

And on my first day as a convalescent I stomped through the sand, delighting in my slow motion … strolling around … then I stood in front of the bus with the plywood sign and Černá went up the Massage Parlor steps with the weary stride of a different woman. She turned around when I said her name, and her face … I’d never seen her like that. It took a while, but then she laughed, the delicate grace returned to her face … and she said: You’re on your feet. What’s up?

Whatcha doin in there. Cleanin?

But I already knew, she never wore makeup like that. Some of the girls in Berlun looked like that, all done up so you couldn’t see much. Some clients liked it, they said. You donno who’s who. You just get off.

Černá, uh-uh, get down here.

What … you’re tellin me? Whadda you know, don’t order me around! An besides, there’s people here.

A couple of characters stood there. All guys, ugly fuckers.

Černá! C’mon, you might, I mean you might have a kid an I’ll leave!

You! Ramblin on again … an what’re you babblin about kids … you? She stomped up a step but then turned back to me.

Get down here! Now!

Don’t yell at me!

One of the bystanders said something. Somebody spit and laughed. Someone said: Get in line. I stood in front of him. Waving my hands around, saying something. He stepped around me. The door clapped shut, she was inside. And the guy moved, walked up the stairs, went in.

I heard an odd noise, I was scared it was just in my brain.

But no, Pepek sat at the wheel, leering at me and honking: toot toot. Doing it with his mouth too. He waved to me and then joined his hands in a gesture. Somebody grabbed my shoulder and the faces went blurry. Up above was the sun. It all fused.

I walked through clumps of dirt. A field. Barbwire, with sheep on the other side. I started toward them, but the voices made me stop.

Do we kill him?

You want to? He’s unconscious though.

Let’s wait till he gets closer then.

It was the Shadows. But this time I saw them. Only very vaguely, one second they were ravens, the next they were bodies in outline, moving through space, two of them … I pretended not to notice … yanking wire off the fence and coiling it as if I’d been hired to … they came from the left, silently … I knew who the Shadows were … and I knew I couldn’t look, holding the wire in my hand, I tread cautiously, and a new song played inside my head … one no one had ever heard yet … about old things that I knew.

All right. Here we are. Are you going to say anything?

There’s no point. Ready to pounce?

Yes.

At that I made my move, horror gave me strength, and I grabbed them without looking, eyes shut tight, they thrashed around but their hearts were small, each of them fit in the palm of my hand. They died, hissing like snakes, now at a loss for words. I strung the beaks and claws on the wire. I wanted to give thanks for the victory, but was afraid what it would bring. I took the wire with the remains and wrapped it around my neck, it hurt, so I tore some bark off a tree. I wore a scarf of bark, rough and fragrant. I went through a forest of crooked trees, I was going home. I don’t know how long. I steered clear of a village and slept in a haystack. I wanted to walk at night too, but the moon didn’t shine. I fell and stumbled. Then I stayed on the ground, and in my mind I saw pictures of me with Sister. The two of us, tangled and naked, and not moving. Not a breath, not a hair moved, nothing. Sometimes my eyes got tired and the picture would crack. But then I figured out that if I moved my eyelids a few times fast, the color was restored and our skin was whole again. When the moon appeared, I walked all night and again I heard that song … the one I had inside me when I tore the stuff off the Shadows and put it on the wire:

I heard a voice

I saw machines

there were ravens there.

Two black birds with whore-licked feathers

hissing whore spit

dripping on the hard earth I tore off the wire

and killed them claws and beaks and wire

became a necklace.

The sun shone

but it was a winter of war. I had my own religion.

People were fodder for death, I held it in my hands

and stroked it. And I was afraid.

Monsters were born in blood.

Blotches grew in the soil.

Water washed over the dirt and the bones.

I came to a city and found the place

my love was there

with a white dress on

laughing

and she was dead.

I sang it and I said it. It was a lot of words. Sometimes I changed them. At daybreak I was stopped by a dog. A little white puppy sat on the slope as if trying to block the way down. My head stopped buzzing with words and I tried to speak to him kindly. He backed away. Then I saw a fire, someone was sitting there. As I made my way downhill, the puppy romped around me but didn’t bark even once. The person at the bottom stood. Behind me I heard a rumbling, the earth began to shake. It was like she was drawing near.

Back at the outset of it all, he bent down over me as I slept and, parting my ribs, took one, then removed my heart from the cage of my body and gave it to her; at least part of it. She left me in the room with the mirror, every path was in there too. And when I looked, bending over the shiny surface, I saw her face. Now I’m counting the shards.

COWS. THAT TIME IN BERLUN.

I got used to it there. And soon I knew when to run up to keep the herd from droppin off. I was alone. There on the hillside my lonely path began. It was beautiful on the hillside. Suka and Shorty herded the cows.

When you came walkin up an collapsed, I didn’t know, said The One Who Herds. From the pistol I figured you for a deserter, or some gangster. Where’d you get that Chezetta? Me, I always liked the Parabella an the Beretta, specially the names. Magnum, now that’s intense! That sucker can blow!

Tomas is the first thing I remember about my new home. The look of him. Had me stumped, the herdsman. Lying there in his shack, I’d see him through the cracks in the wall, walking back and forth, poking around the fire. He looked familiar. And also: The first day I felt better, he brought milk; crouched down at the doormat, I did too; set the mug on the ground, I mimicked him, empty-handed; sat down, me too.

What’re you doing? he said, confused. I repeated his words back at him. Then I told him I must have a fever still, I’d thought he was me. Or maybe it was just that aping him helped me clamber back into life.

You look familiar, he said.

So do you.

You’re lucky you came this way, next valley over’s old Varhola, good luck tryin to understand him. Yeh, feels good to talk normal again. Now where do I know you from, way you talk I’d say the Pearl … Galactic maybe, I useta sweep up there … or Černá’s, useta play there sometimes.

Oh, now I know, I said. You had that crazy act with the wires, you’re that singer … the Blue Negroes.

Yeh. Yes sir. That’s ages ago. Then there was that what’s-her-name.

Yeah.

I had to get away. Least for a while. All I got here’s the radio. An that day you came … I had kind of a hunch. Russkies pulled a raid over the hills there in Kysucní. Lookin for deserters. Shot some girl but that was it. Tea?