Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

I sat of course with my back to the screen, and one day … froze, hearing a voice, hers, it was unmistakable, I got up, gripping the table, but it wasn’t just in my head anymore, I turned to the screen, a split second … merer than mere, the woman put on a mask, a Cat Head, walked off screen, the News came on … What was that? I guess I shouted … heads turned my way, Tusk says, what’s the big deal, some ad … for sumthin … I fought my way through to the office upstairs, the guy the clips belonged to was there, looked familiar, but I didn’t take the time to flip through the index in my head … it’d started to ache … I tape it off TV, all over, I donno … I stuck to him like a leech, he played it for me that night … it was her, Černá.

Maybe … yes. Her face was there for literally just the blink of an eye … she seemed skinnier and more carefree, but maybe I was only imagining it. And I could see in my loved one’s face that she’d paid … my little sister had dearly paid.

But I couldn’t find out who’d shot it or where. The agency didn’t exist anymore. The stuff the ad was for wasn’t sold anymore. There weren’t any credits, just pseudonames. No one even puts a date on videos. It didn’t exist. From time to time she’d flash by, at random, in front of a few stoned, drunk, or apathetic faces. In a pub. But she was alive.

I had it made into a photo. A pretty big one. And then … I spotted her again. Bumming around the street, I stepped up to a bookstore window, eying the silent covers, and suddenly … there she was, in negative, but it was her. The book was some kina … nonsense … nothin to do with the cover. I held it in my hand. And the chase was on. Kasel had a little more work at the stand. Only … history repeated itself … the publisher was some small-time bootlegger, now extinct … I bought em out, small print run, movin slow, the salesclerk said … so maybe there’s not too many people droolin over my little sister, the author hadn’t written anything else, some poet guy, used a pen name … the photographer’s name was in the colophon though … I took off running and didn’t stop till I got to the hospital building, I was already dressed the part, human, and with that stench of burnt fat on me … they let me in, but … he didn’t live there anymore, I rang the neighbors’, pretty insistently, an older lady opened: You don’t know? Mr. Meždek passed away. Car accident. Why, it was all over the papers, and the car … Only I didn’t read the papers. And that was another mistake. Could’ve saved myself a lot of trouble.

I also went to Bolkon Street, went … and my heart knotted up at the sight of that lady, it choked me up … different guy sittin around in the kitchen, same type though … somebody’d sent them money a couple times, the old man figured it was her … I sat very dejectedly, he slugged me on the back, you’ll get over it, there’s plenty of fish … yeah, but without my little minnow, the sea’ll be black and stormy:

the dark star of love

took me by the hand

and led me into old age

and left me there

and we won’t make love anymore

ever again

came to me. They were talking at me, both. Then I went down the stairs, slowly, holding onto the banister. Like someone that was pretty crushed.

And then I bounced back from the bottom again and lightened up.

A few days later, at Galactic … the ad for Muorex came on again, and I studied the face a second, Tusk elbowed me … got a thing for cat food, dude, or’re you checkin out Černá … looks like her, huh?

Ee! He shrieked as I grabbed his elbow.

You know her … talk!

Chill out, haven’t seen her … a while, you mean that singer, right.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, I knew her when she was hangin with Morti, buddy a mine, the Martian, you knew him, what’re you lookin at … Potok, careful, it’s one thing drinkin all day when you’re twenny, but doin it now with the same body … an brain, hah, yeah, well, ain’t what it useta be … I knew her back in Berlun. After the Wall came down. Or was it before?

What was she doin there!

Let go a me, whadda ya think you’re doin … anyway, then Morti freaked, military an shit, she blew him off, an good thing too, he really freaked … then I guess he took off, it’s been ages now since I …

What did she do in Berlun?

What else, nothin … I donno, waited tables in some dive I heard, I donno … same as everyone, I never had nothin with her.

That I believe, Tusk, hey …

What’d you call me … somethin wrong with my teeth? … you should talk, look like an ad for Paradentall, only prior to use, heh heh, that’s a good one …

Know anything about her?

An you smell kina funky, Potok, sorry to say …

Know anything about her, or anyone who knows her?

No. But why don’t you go look her up at Moony’s?

What’s that? Where is it?

You know, Moony Bank, that new one over on Liberation Ave., she’s right there, next to the entrance … wait a sec … wait!

I didn’t wait, I ran … but I should’ve waited and let Tusk finish. Saved myself the trouble.

They threw me out. I got all the way to the director. Took me about two hours. A minute wasn’t enough for me to state my case. He wasn’t interested. Some sheriff types chased me down the stairs. She wasn’t employed there, nothing. Not a clue. I stood outside fuming, high noon … and then, then I raised my eyes … and saw her.

A guy, slick type, dazzling teeth and splashed with cologne, climbing out of a car and smiling, cheerfully striding up the bank steps, turning around and waving, and waving back from the car an elegant lady, with a veil across the temperamental glint in her eyes, dressed in the delicate tulle of high society, there you were, Černá, lightly and gracefully waving your arm, clad in a white glove up to the elbow … the movie ran in a loop proclaiming that Moony bills made everyone happy … and the guy got out and hustled inside, waving to the lady … and over … and over … and over … after ten loops the name of the bank’s founding father came up, glowing in neon, and then it ran again …

Oh my Černá, there you were, done up as a gorgeous lady, a lady who knows, and they didn’t even hafta bother with the makeup, very gorgeous …

And then I figured it out, it was in her eyes … she’s just tryin it out, foolin around, takin a little break from it all, like me at the stand, and maybe … maybe she’s tryin to give me a sign.

The bank was a dead end. But I found the studios where they’d made the ad. Wouldn’t let me see their records, and the billing office naturally threw me out. Anyway, who knew what name she’d used. If any. The studios … were endless unfortunately.

I thought back to the mirrors in the old coffeehouse we used to go to together, here it was doors and Makeup Toucher-Uppers … I talked my way in as a journalist … prowled around, she could be anywhere, down any hallway, behind any door, in some disguise, behind any mirror … could.

I flashed through prop rooms, crept down hallways, sidestepped gaffers, emerged from trapdoors without warning, and passed many girls, one I chased down … burst in on a crowd scene, they were shooting the Battle of Lipany,* and one of the wounded, I wiped the ketchup off her face … nope, wasn’t her, I had to bolt, the director … and his crew chased me around the flaming barns … I absorbed their language, walking around with a carpenter’s satchel, that’s the way us Czechs sneak into Parliament, St. Matthew’s Fair, and Freemason Lodges, it’s like a broom … I ran through the middle of dramas, speech … Beda, flip the synch there to number two, an lights on the balance beam, great, bring in that jib an here we go … the place was like a spaceship, maybe you’re wandering around here, little sister, among the aliens … in one office I spotted a familiar-looking folder, a catalog … young rising stars and breakout starlets, slashes and crosses and numbers marked next to them by pudgy, sweaty, clumsy fingers … 1 ‘s with stars and swooning exclamation points, I ran through the rankings with a pounding heart, photo after photo, she wasn’t there … though one face, in profile, no, uh-uh … I moved on … that actress there’s got some of her movements … she was all bleached white, though, with scales on her body, couldn’t see her face … but the voice, raspy, different … maybe some hardships behind it though, found a suit in the men’s room and put it on, lady made me do an interview with her, wouldn’t let go a me … I grabbed my satchel and slipped through the opening … next door they were shooting a gothic horror, I changed into a priest’s costume in a nearby prop room, begging forgiveness, it wasn’t blasphemy, I just … I gotta test it out … and the voice that came from the Iron Maiden, and the corner of the snow-white veil, I interrupted the scene, ruined the movie, dragged the captive into the light … but it wasn’t Černá, just some regular old pasty-face … I left the studios in a gloomy mood. The light lurched along the cliffs.