Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

You wanna stay, I don’t see why not, don’t make no difference to nobody else, said Vulture, tugging his beard. We even winter here. Jus find yerself a stove. Foxy tossed some planks on the fire. They started it with gasoline. An Jasuda’s comin tomorrow, boy’re you gonna feast. Vulture handed me a piece of bread. Stuff yerself.

The first thing that struck me about the bums … a few were obviously boozed-out derelicts, but all of them were dressed pretty normal. Vulture clued me in that they’d found it all at the Dump. Yup, wasn’t worth diddly till Jasuda come along. Even promised to build a shower! For the ladies. Ain’t too many a them though. Stick clambered down from the tractor and said: Forget the shower, wait’ll we get a proper rain, Dump’ll change. You’ll see! They even had wine, in cartons. Said there was hectoliters of it. Fermented red. But my body said: Enough. I took one sip and threw up. You sick? said Foxy. Everyone perked up their ears … cause if you’re real sick, like for real, then uh-uh, ya can’t be here … Vulture said earnestly, Mr. Jasuda looks out for that … otherwise we’d all end up sick … no, I’m not sick, just tired … Vulture threw a poncho over me … here, take it, he said … rains a lot out here, drizzles … you’re gonna need it. Cushy livin though, best home I ever had, best grub … an they’re always truckin stuff in. We got it easy here. An the Dump’ll be aroun long as all the rest of it is.

They told me where to come the next day. And to bring a sack.

That night I couldn’t sleep. It rained, drumming down on the metal, and to its rhythm I remembered … thinking and dreaming. That day I’d found a magazine. Inside it was an ad for some … movie or something … there was tension in the picture, I don’t know why I tore it out, and then an ad for spinach, You’ve never tasted better … it reminded me of Černá, what I’d told her. But maybe what I’d told her wasn’t true anymore … no, these things don’t go away, it’ll be there long as I live. I tore out that one too. There were tons of newspapers and magazines, floating around all over the place.

Jasuda. The trucks rolled up one by one. Dumped food into the pit. Turned around and drove off. Made room for the next. The pit was left over from something. Looked like an explosion. There were a few others like it down at that end of the Dump.

They clued me in around the fire, the stuff came from supermarkets, all expired, but lots of it wasn’t spoiled … and I saw … fish, lots of stiff fish with metallic eyes … chickens … and then packages, bright-colored packages with stuff inside … salamis … melons, then some fruits I didn’t recognize … doesn’t it rot down at the bottom? I said to someone’s back, but they didn’t even turn around … pheasant, fuck, I could go for a pheasant, said somebody else, and others began walking up, I spotted the girl I’d met the first day, she had to be crazy, laughing, didn’t belong to any crew, just laughing, wriggling in the mud that was left behind from the rains … I saw an old woman with a wheelbarrow … they started tossing meat into the pit out of the back of one of the trucks that didn’t have a tilt-up bed, and it was disgusting, the people around the pit fell silent … I saw half a pig, sheep’s heads, they were tossing sheep’s heads into the pit, one after the next … the meat covered over what was in the pit from before and flies began to swarm … I shuffled impatiently, even licked my lips, I noticed … my stomach was growling, but then the next truck came and the meat, the chunks of flesh, got buried under an avalanche of packages, yogurts, more salami … that’s Mr. Jasuda, Vulture nudged me with his elbow, on his head a Tyrolean cap with a feather … Jasuda strode around the pit, a tall guy in a suit, but with slippers on his feet and an umbrella in his hand, waving it around and rattling on, I couldn’t hear what about … we came too late, said Vulture mournfully, giving me another swipe of the elbow … when he points our way, move it! Jasuda waved his umbrella to a cluster of people who raced into the pit and began rummaging around, cramming food into sacks and bags, they didn’t have to fight over it, there was plenty for everyone … and then, I couldn’t believe my eyes or ears, Jasuda pulled out a silver whistle and gave a shrill blast, the people in the pit froze … slowly picked themselves up and walked off with their spoils, Jasuda gave the nod to another crew … hey, Vulture nudged me, old lady aksed me ta give ya this, we got no use for it … he handed me a jacket, dazzling … green, but a new shade, the kind of thing only skiers used to wear till it caught on, it was warm though, zipper and everything … I was taken with it … thanks, thanks a lot, it’s beautiful … Jasuda brought duds in once, liquidation … wasn’t sellin or whatever, no need for thanks … a lot of the people here had coats like mine, ski caps too … a commotion broke out by the pit, the girl was still in there scrounging around despite Jasuda’s emphatic whistle … Vulture grabs my elbow and says: That cow’s gonna ruin everything, oughta get rid a elements like her … if she gets Jasuda pissed, he could jus call the whole thing off, an with winter comin … damn, what’s that guy’s problem, blowin his whistle at me, I say … can it, pal, says Vulture, where do you think we’d be without Jasuda, he’s the one maintains aroun here, he’s the one keeps order, don’t ever say that again! … finally it was our turn, I crawled down into the pit with two other guys, the choice stuff was already gone, we stood on top of the slippery meat, passing up the stuff in packages, I stuck with Vulture’s crew, the people from the fire … the girl drifted in again, had to shove her out of my way … it was like one great big bowl of goulash … in there with the sheep’s heads, they made me sick to my stomach, hunks of flesh hanging off their throats, eyes shut … I snagged a head of lettuce, tossed up a bunch of rotten bananas … Stick suddenly staggered and slipped, reached out … I gave him a hand, and when I peeked up … Jasuda was looking right at me … a second ago I’d stuffed a piece of cheese in my pocket, packaged, hope he didn’t see me, maybe it’s not allowed … he didn’t say a word though, just smiled at the crazy girl … I flung up canned goods, Vulture collected them in a sack … I didn’t know how often the trucks came and I was afraid I’d hear the whistle … and I did … holding a chicken wrapped in foil, and as I raised my hand to toss it up I saw Jasuda again, tensely following me with his eyes, I put the chicken down … he smiled. Stick helped me up and together we dragged out the third, Míra they called him … c’mon up, I stretched my hand out to the girl, she sat on her haunches nibbling a stick of salami, covered with blood from the slaughtered animals, but so were all of us who’d been in the pit … Stick gave me a nudge, we gathered up the sacks and tied them shut. Just one truck left now, waiting I guess for Jasuda … le’s go, c’mon, gimme a hand, said Vulture, wrestling a sack onto his back. We were almost the last ones left on the trail, we had a pretty long walk ahead of us … my sack was heavy … wait, Vulture … he didn’t mind me calling him that … what about the girl? Who, that cow? … she’ll stay. What? That’s right, an he’ll be there too … he’ll wait! What’s he gonna do to her? Hey, c’mon … ya can pick up a water bottle over at our place, got no water there where you are. Wait, Vulture … who is that guy, who is he? That’s Mr. Jasuda. Nobody knows where he’s from. An stop askin questions aready, we got a lot to be thankful for.

Besides the frequent rain, it drizzled constantly, and the nights were different too. It was light. Maybe because of the moon reflecting off the tinfoil, there were shiny surfaces everywhere, glass, sheet metal … at night you could see. It was bright. Silhouettes of trash heaps undulated through the Dump, so this was the sea I’d finally reached, not much murmuring, no waves crashing, one over the other, going forward, going nowhere … but underneath, the Dump was alive, sometimes it erupted, once I saw a fire break out, breach a trail, but since everything was soggy with moisture from the rain, the fires never spread, they only smoldered out … here and there a cloud of smoke would pass over the Dump, it occurred to me there might be some new creatures being born … out of the chemicals … some new thing … some kina dragon.