Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

I believe that I prayed genuinely for the first time in a long while … thought about my folks too, the old family … I’d told them to go screw themselves, back then, in the ancient past, which was hollow … but they used to take me. To church, when I was little. I had to. Now I said: I am not worthy for you to come under my roof, but speak to me just one single word … and my soul will be healed. I said it with affection. But there was silence. And I screamed because … I patted myself down to make sure I hadn’t lost the Madonna too … then I really donno, then I’m lost. She was there. Around my neck.

I walked out of the concourse and off through the park, not because of what Gramps’d said, not because of the day before … and even if it didn’t happen, it was still an important dream, it meant something. I walked away … the sun was coming up, it’s usually a little misty and a little cold then, and suddenly I heard behind me: Wait! Where ya goin?

Away.

Hey … I’m goin with you!

No way, not where I’m goin …

Aw, lemme go with you.

No.

I knew the kid … was still there. Heard him start running and spun around.

Ondra! He stopped.

I’m tellin you … no way!

Way!

Look … I picked up a stone. Cut it out. You can’t come.

Take me with you …

And he started running, so I threw the stone.

I didn’t want to hit him. But I knew he was used to it. He wouldn’t’ve understood otherwise. The last time I turned, he was still standing there. His puny build. Pissed me off. I walked out of the park.

IN A FIELD OF EVER-CHANGING COLORS. WHO I’M SCARED OF. ONWARD, TO THE LAB. THE STONE. SHE’S GOT A VEIL, SHE’S KIND. SHE SAYS: YOU HAVE TO.

I didn’t go to the place with the sign. But once I found myself downtown, where all it’d take was a little jog to get to her attic flat … to the place where we’d shared our things … I couldn’t go there either.

I had the key. Tucked safely in my jacket’s inside pocket. Everything on me hurt. The string didn’t make itself heard, that I kept a watch on. But the pressure on my chest. There, where I had the silver, I could feel every bit of skin, it was like it had scales. Like Madonna’s wise and kindly face was tugging me toward the ground. The ground. I mostly walked with my eyes lowered. I didn’t want to see the others. The thought of disappearing into the trams’ iron bellies struck me with horror. People inside hung on the bars, looking out. I went very cautiously and slowly, following the path. There was only one left.

I hadn’t remembered the Dump like that. Sure … I’d heard a thing or two. It had expanded. The town fathers found it profitable to lease out unused plots of land to big foreign firms, which not only tossed out lots of stuff still usable by the locals, but even paid to do it.

Now the Dump extended from the last housing estates as far as the eye could see. A yellow haze hung over it, lashed by an occasional wind. Smoke climbed skyward in many spots. The clouds, steeped in water, barely moved. I had to walk carefully, paying attention to what I stepped on. The soft stuff often reeked. But soon I came across a trail. The Dump only seemed to be dead. Tires baked on either side, the wind swept heat into my face. A pool of something gurgled beneath the papers. There were artificial mountains. They’d been trucked in. I skirted the mountains and hiked through the canyons. Covered my mouth with my hand in some spots to keep out the ashes tossed by the wind. Between the heaps of garbage it was occasionally calm, sometimes out in the open I had to run from the heat’s scorching tongue. There were patches of hard ground here and there. That didn’t sag. I walked through a field of tin. Pocked with holes. That was where the scrapyard began. Met my first person there, I tried to avoid it but would’ve had to leave the trail. It was a girl, fifteen, sixteen at most, raggedy-looking and scrawny. Her nails were chewed to the quick, I noticed that because she kept waving them in my face. Spit flying, she fired right at me: Seen Bašnák? Where is that guy? I gotta talk to him! I took a step back: I donno. Oh pardon me, she said … got any change? I stepped around her. Now I was deep in the Dump. Other trails crossed the one I was on, intersecting it. I saw piles of crates, all the same, some giant force had stacked them up. Some had burst open. All of em were the same, only some lay on their side, others end on end, I must’ve seen every combination. Broken sides, lids, bottoms. Bound in wire. It struck me this might be infinity. If I was a graphic artist, I’d make postcards from space like this, once we conquer it. Then I found a receptacle full of rotten lemons. Their greenish skins were coated with shiny insects and black flies. But some of em were whole, I stuffed them in my pockets.

I don’t know where they came from. Maybe they crawled out of some hole. There were three, and one said: Hit the road. Hit the fuckin road! I did as I was told. I’d heard about the Dump People. And after all, I was on one of their trails. There were stakes plunged into the greasy slop. I kept them to my left, I came to a pool buzzing with insects, walked past with my eyes and mouth shut. The sound alone was enough to make me itch all over. Maybe they were being born, maybe some of them were just leaving the ground for the first time. I wanted to get somewhere that didn’t belong to anyone. Assuming there was such a place here still. The Dump was filling up fast. I spotted the rusted-out skeleton of a bus with a sheet-metal chimney. Smoke coming out of it. A kid sitting on the steps. Laundry drying on clotheslines. I picked my way around them. Farther along were the machines. Some looked like monster bones, snarled and shattered. Doors, levers, wheels. I crawled under something that used to be a conveyor belt. Changed trails. Saw two old-timers squatting around a fire. A rusty pump bundled in rags looked to be all that was left of the old setup. Water was boiling in a big tin can. One of the old gents had a dog on a leash. It barked at me. I took a trail at random. I was afraid of sinking in, into something I’d never heard of. They could’ve had fake trails too, for people that had no business here. If I lived here, I would. Even the Dump can’t be bottomless, it’s not for everyone. A heap shifted under me, I tumbled into a burst of colors. Plastic bags and packages. Of juice. Multivitamin Nectar. There must’ve been millions of them.

I came to a spot where there was nobody else. Couldn’t see the ground. Just paper and plastic, but it didn’t stink. There weren’t even flies here. In most parts of the Dump it reeked, some spots it was pungent, others it was sour. I came to a metal fence. On the other side, the Dump stretched into the distance. The fence was hidden between the heaps, I’d found it by accident. Alongside it were barrels, a whole row. Painted yellow but peeling now. A corrugated metal roof was set up in one spot, the kind they use for bus stops. I crawled underneath. The barrels were lying on top of sacks, I yanked them out. It was getting dark. I ate the lemons. Then wrapped myself up in the sacks and watched. It started to drizzle, I crept back under the roof. Heard laughter and conversation. At first I thought it was just in my head, but then I made out the flicker of flames. It was far away, the wind carried the sounds to me.

The next day I found some boards in the scrapyard. Sniffed, they smelled like tar, I made a wall out of them. Near the barrels there were also some sacks of hardened cement. When I did construction I used to flip those things onto my back no problem. Now it took me hours to stack them up. Then I took a long break. That evening they were back by the fire. I had to go. I was hungry and thirsty.