Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

When Old Varhola went for supplies, Tomas gave me some cash and an old jumpsuit. A clean one.

I’ll buy the pistol offa you … sometimes wolves come out this way. From Poland. How bout it?

I want it. Only one left in it anyway.

I could come up with more. Well, have it your way. Later!

Thanks. Later.

And I left another way station behind. Now I knew where I wanted to go: to the place with the sign and into the cellar. I knew that the pile of coal wouldn’t be there anymore. But the old time might be. I’d lost Černá. I’m always losing myself, with each move of my heart. But the pistol’s cool butt kept my belly warm and I hadn’t forgotten anything.

Maybe if we had met each other sooner … back then in Berlun … when I first saw the end … stood next to death.

Černá, she’d been there too around that time, like lots of people I knew, hung around the same places as me. I asked her once what she’d done there. She laughed. What else … I sang, an stuff. Where at? Around. Maybe we saw each other. Yeah, maybe. I’d say I saw you there.

But the time we’d had together was so jam-packed that to ask all those questions … I just didn’t care.

I sat on the train, riding … toward the place. The old place with the sign. And maybe I’d see her there again … one last time? Hear her voice? Or aren’t you guiding me anymore? She-Dog?

Because it happened to me in Berlun. I’ll be brief. The Kanak Empire had fallen. One made it to America, two coupled on paper and took off for Australia, another got lost in the subway and was never seen again … someone bet on the Foreign Legion, someone else burgled flats till they nabbed him, Rosie signed up for classes at the university, and another buddy sank so low on drugs and booze he was practically an animal … then the borders cracked beyond repair and lots of them went back … home. One became an entrepreneur and another one wrote a novel, there’s even new kids bein born.

Me and Kopic were standing around … down to our last two marks, the roulette had gone bust … oof, how’re you gonna explain this at home? I worried … some of it I’ll tell, some of it I won’t, let’s go, he said … we bought two peel-off tickets for the Bundeslotterie … legs and fingers shaking … I can’t believe it, Kopic whispered … I won a Yamaha! Congratulations, wait ein moment, bitte … carefully I peeled back the corner of my ticket like silver folio … Kopic! I got a Kawasaki!

We rode through town, solemn and somber on our new machines, our time here was finished, it was obvious, we parted with Kreuzberg, other crosses and crossroads awaited, this place was changing … then I remembered the photos Chiharu and Shimako had of their native realm, including the temples … and noticed the faces on our machines were slanted like Shinto demon faces, the same aesthetic … better sell em, Kopic agreed … and we were back to being loaded again.

Kopic got hold of some brand-new documents, and he and his family set out … for the border … I heard there’s a sign, Kopic said: Welcome to Free Czechoslovakia! Wouldn’t wanna miss that … it’s new … you gonna stick around still? Look for the Queen? Yeah, she got me, but don’t ever talk about her in public, there’s no point. Aright, aright … and I stayed by myself in another flat that belonged to somebody else. And one day … to shorten the chain of events … I got thrown out, so I’m bummin around the train station, keepin a lookout … and I spot a familiar set of crooked legs, that bouncing stride … ça va? Chiharu! ça va! … it was a reunion, we even hugged, and there was no end to the questions and clarifications … the one thing she sadly declined to mention was her pal, and then something grew in her eyes, an idea, apparently … she asked what I was doing … Rien! I gasped happily. Notwithstanding the fact that the cash from the bike was scattering left and right. Getting rid of chuckles I love, it’s comin up with em I don’t like. I prefer my money to appear miraculously.

The next day she offered me a gig, I consented, a little camerawork, no problem! But … it began to smell fishy the moment I arrived … first a little cup of tea, get nice and relaxed … said Chiharu in a kimono … so that’s what you meant by cinematography, aha. And after the tea, as I expected … relaxation gave way to madness, I didn’t care about the guys runnin around with lights and cameras. And that tea of theirs was so strong and exotic, it’s quite possible I didn’t know exactly what I was taking part in. In a tight tangle of bodies, once your pupils are exposed and subjected to the air and the action, you mostly only look in one direction anyway, what’s going on around you is like behind a wall. But you can hear it, of course.

Yeah, sick stuff. I believe that if I’d been harboring any feelings for a girl at that point I would’ve felt alienated, to say the least. But apparently I’d entered a weary period. The kind of depression where you search in the gloom for the fleetingest glimmer of any sort of excitement at all to give you the feeling that you’re still alive.

Besides … insofar as I vaguely recall, it’s entirely possible that by then I didn’t like anyone at all. Least of all myself. I was searching for my Queen … and I already mentioned the kind of woman … the lady in black … I’d met at the whorehouse … mistakenly I assumed that after what I’d seen there, I wouldn’t be sensitive to horrors like that anymore.

I didn’t know yet that the levels of the body’s hell are infinite. That the torture never stops, as one classic says. I was a mere youth, after all.

After one particularly impressive round of gymnastics, Chiharu brought in a delightful little creature and the whole thing started up again.

The one thing I don’t get, I told my celluloid initiator … is I’m not exactly a discobolus … my bod’s nothin to be proud of … doesn’t matter, she assured me, this one’s special, just wait’ll the end … we still spoke Kanak, only now that it was just us it didn’t sound the same anymore … the sense of discovery was gone, the phrases and expressions were all established … what end … there’s more than one part, an don’t worry, you’re just right, it’s good that you’re not handsome … excuse me?! … on film I mean, you’re just the kina klutz we need.

Chiharu!

After all, you always wanted me.

I did, Chiharu, but this is like eating when you’re not hungry.

You don’t even know how to do it, sorry, but you’re like a child, she said.

Huh?

But that’s just what we need for this film, all you guys’re like that.

Who?

You know, you … it’s not your fault.

We shot once, sometimes twice a week, and since I was constantly in a drug haze I could handle it … even when they began to fiddle with the sets … historical costumes and stuff … and besides that pretty girl Chiharu had brought, some guy joined in, squatting on a throne with a dragon mask on, not even moving, luckily … in my state of intoxication I enjoyed the colors … they’ll cut out a lot, Chiharu informed me … it’s gotta be perfect, it’s only for a select few … I didn’t find their film that amazing compared to blockbusters like Moscow Triumphs … but in my clearer moments I admired the props, genuine carved wood, but too many pillows, cushions, and lace curtains for my taste … are those diamonds real too?

Yes, exactly, Chiharu laughed, it’s the real thing, you nailed it!

The walls of the room with the throne in it were covered in swords and daggers … that’s funny, they don’t have any hilt, an that’s what knights had for a cross, an I believe, Chiharu, that Richard the Lion-Hearted could strew a whole arena with those samurais a yours … Now that’ll be the day, the samurais didn’t need any cowardly hand protectors, they twirled theirs … like this! Taking down a weapon, she began gyrating her wrist at such furious speed the blade was like a strip of light, the glittering diamonds slashing through the air like thunderbolts … I backed off.