Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

Now I was the one shaken … she’d told me a lot, a strand of hair had slipped out from under her veil, she was twisting it.

And the next day I was feeling much better, pacing around the bed and calling my room a cell, purely in jest … the next day she brought in a little man in spectacles carrying another chair … this is Father Antonio, also known as Lobo, Father Lobo, Sister Maria said, flashing that smile of hers … and he’s going to teach you Spanish … I hope you won’t refuse … of course not, great idea, I love the sound of that language … galeón, I barked at the little man … caravela, I said, he sat down … caballero, I gave it a try … misericordia, he volleyed back, and I shut up, having exhausted my vocabulary. He began cleaning his glasses. I saw that movement afterwards many times, every day. It astonished me how similar Spanish grammar was to the Bohemian tongue’s, and I liked the upside-down question marks, chopping back at the sentences, spearing them like hooks.

Out? Maria, out is the last thing I want, I don’t want to see anyone … I’m dying to go to her place, but I don’t dare yet, no, I have to wait … can’t imagine myself on the street yet, but I gotta start runnin or somethin … I missed movement. We had an agreement, a pact, that I wouldn’t wander around the convent.

Maria said there weren’t any men there at all, Father Antonio walked over each day from Břevnov,* and I rejoiced when he told me what Lobo meant, el Lobo … the only man there was the gardener, he was deaf and mute … Maria got an idea and made a few inquiries … yes, you can help him out, but …

They let me walk around the garden, I had to tie a little bell around my knee … some of the sisters are strict and don’t want to see any men, this way they’ll know when you’re coming … so I got my own clothes back, winter was closing in, I’d been there a long time, I was feeling strong, a couple times it occurred to me, jump up an swing over the wall an I’m gone, who knows what they got planned for me … in the garden was a ladder for the apple trees, I watched them a lot … but I think I stayed for Maria’s sake, slacking off with the gardener and carting around manure, jingling at the sisters, occasionally they’d go for walks dressed in their flowing vestments, like something from another world … sometimes it was misty.

The gardener was a smoker, the first few I could barely stomach, but I was coming back … coming back to life.

I might, said Maria, I might have to go away.

What? No!

Yes, we have missions, in the Andes and elsewhere … and now I can tell you, you may go one day too.

With you?

No, that’s out of the question, she laughed, I told you, the order may ask something of you.

They’ve found other people with signs …

Yes, said Maria.

And the order sent them somewhere?

Yes.

And hey, sweet Maria, did they come back?

Yes, on my honor, they did come back. But they belong to the order.

Didn’t find anyone, huh?

That’s right, said Maria. No one.

Tell me what it’s all about, Sister.

Come on, you know.

I got a hunch, but I donno nothin. And let me tell you, sweet Maria, thank you for everything. Now, since there might not be an opportunity.

You’re going to run away? Leave?

Not just yet.

Now you’re lying.

You can understand, Maria, my girl’s all I care about. Černá’s her name. I can’t just wake up one day, learn Spanish, an set out into the jungle, or the mountains, or I donno where, to go look for some Saint.

You of all people can, Maria laughed. I could tell you that I’ll be punished, severely punished, if you leave. But it wouldn’t be true. If you do run away though, I warn you. You owe a debt to the order. And one day, sooner or later, you’ll have to pay it back.

What, you mean they’ll come after me?

They’ll know where you are.

For another week or so, I would learn Spanish in the morning — Yo no tengo dinero, for instance — and then, between lunch and supper, I’d learn sign language from the gardener. Mostly all the old fogy taught me was phrases like: get the rake, bring the watering pot, weed this, water that, more manure, want a smoke? We jingled.

And one night … I couldn’t sleep, all riled up thinking of Černá … craving her with all my might … the door to my room flapped open like a black wing, noiselessly, a chill gusted in from the hall, and in walked Maria, leaned her back against the doorframe, some simple coat on over her habit, gasping for breath … this is it, she said, I have to go … I got up, then quick snatched the covers back … she just shook her head, that movement that says, yeah yeah … so, she said … watch yourself out there, Sister, an I owe you a lot, really … forget it, and you watch yourself too, then at last I walked over to her, caught hold of her shoulders, but she gently pushed me away … placed a finger on my lips, said: God be with you … and was gone.

I didn’t go after her, I never went after her, we had a sort of pact. I couldn’t sleep a wink afterwards. And during my morning lesson I was rather unfocused.

I expected a scar when they took off my bandages, but I’d only lost a little hair … on the side that wasn’t wounded, it had even grown out a little. I’ll get my do fixed somewhere else, I told myself. Since Maria had left, the only people I’d seen were Father Antonio and the gardener. I’m betraying you, dear sisters, but for her sake … I’m more bound to her, don’t be angry … and to the spot where I’d seen the image of the Saint, I said rudely: I don’t know who you are, but thank you for showing me your beautiful face … and don’t you get mad either, you know what I saw in your face … I think you definitely get what I’m sayin, and wish me luck on my journey … after all, what do I know, you’re the Great One … just that time is still running and the order knows about me. Samaritas, protect your Maria Anna Fatima Coseta, I mean it! … and me too, if possible … Christ, protect us all if you’ve got the power, everybody needs it … or if you choose, your business … I nearly crossed myself, but with the order still unrecognized … I worked it out somehow.

In the morning I left my pajamas there.

It woulda been pretty shitty to steal em.

And then … despite the fact that he was making the sign for the watering pot, I snatched the ladder and propped it against the wall, the old geez leaned on his rake and watched … afraid he’d try to stop me, I crept up the ladder … keeping on the alert, he made another sign … all right, I said to myself, I’ll risk it, on purpose, see what it does … I jumped down and went over … he handed me one and lit it, I kept watching in case he made a sudden move, wouldn’t’ve advised it, but no, he just nodded his head and blinked his eyes, rapped his forehead and pointed to me and then pointed … I quick undid the bell, the gardener grinned and laughed, forcing the laughter out like some kind of substance. I’d gotten used to my sleigh bell, the gardener was right.

I was glad to be able to tell him goodbye. We stood there, the faint sun of early spring glaring in the mist above us, like a medallion I guess. When I’d finished my smoke, he slapped me on the back and made a sign like he couldn’t see, struggling with the rake … At the top of the ladder I got a slight case of vertigo, but I swung myself up and was over the hump and holding on and dangling down, let go, and rolled up to the feet of some pedestrian, a baldy in a tie with a briefcase … back again, I told him, he moved his legs out of the way … I got up and felt fine.

I rubbed my eyes, shut off my view, then stared back … the door had a knocker, yep … and that symbol, the sign on the door, I was there the whole time … another place that’d changed masters, now it belonged to the sisters, oh She-Dog, I was right on top of the spot the whole time … and surely, my She-Dog, it’s thanks to your forgiveness, because you forgave me, that I came back … and I’m alive, I won’t go there, not down those steps and into that cellar, I just climbed down a high wall, now I’m on the other side … and I’m going to live and I’m not going back in there, not anymore.