Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

The stand began to annoy me. Once I knew the tricks, I wanted to move on. Anywhere. Though me and Kasel were getting close. Now I was waiting for Černá with every movement of my heart, she’ll definitely come to the attic too … and I’d left a note for her there … maybe she’s abroad, I thought. And fixated on that. Of course, maybe she went to the islands, the sea, we talked about it all the time, her especially …

Now I was out of Honcho’s jurisdiction. We saw each other from time to time. But then they locked him up. And Burda became boss of the grounds. He called me over one day.

Hey … you … c’mere!

Right with you, maestro, I promptly obeyed.

Hey, you always got that look … an you ain’t no fledgling, boy, no sir! You ain’t no boy no more … musta had some schoolin. Isn’t in your papers though, why’s that? You got strange papers, real strange! Who are you … flappin around, gawkin? The fellas say … hey … answer me! Seems to me you’re … some kina lumpenproleterrier!

No I’m not, but you’re dumb as a guinea pig, Mr. Burda.

Huh?

Just what I said … shit … I tore off my apron … yeah right, grinding my teeth, it’s always somethin, fuckhead, questions, I’m goin … goin!

Now look, you don’t hafta … what’s buggin you, son?

Nothin, an I apologize. But I’m goin.

So you don’t want the job?

Can’t you see? I’m a bigger dummy than you, I know. It’s just that it doesn’t matter.

I knocked over a pan and the lardlings started to burn, Kasel was off in the woods somewhere … probly writing, the twit.

Don’t be so unhappy all the time!

Yeah yeah. Aright then, I’m … goin.

Go ahead, for today. But come back tomorrow. If you want.

It annoyed me. I annoyed myself. Casting sinister glances into shop windows, ugh. Hm! Lumpen, yeah maybe. If you insist. I still reeked of grease, cut my hair … left the smell on for mystical protection … against debauchery, I’ll give myself a good washing-up later, when the time comes. When the Conductor at long last raises his baton and hews into the forest of intermingling symphonies. I stink. But it’s good to wash up before you kill yourself. It’s the decent thing to do, right? Didn’t your mom ever tell you? I tried to be mean to myself, talking tough and brassy to my reflection … whenever it flickered past, in a shop window, a puddle … but my face just mocked me, leering at my soul …

Next day I was back at the stand again. With Kasel. He was more cheerful now, not so closemouthed. Started luggin in all sortsa tabloids, magazines, ploppin em down in the lardlings and goose necks next to the bubbling pots … and then one day on break he couldn’t hold back and whipped it out, a photo of him, hair slicked back and parted … one magazine had him loungin in the grass … man, you’re all over the place, I marveled … yeah, that’s excellent … he went off about some youth anthology comin out next week, he’s in it! Got it all lined up an squared away an ridin high from here on in!

He spoke feverishly of receptions and readings, full-page interviews, literary polls! We started talking about it … I’m the best, said Kasel, flushed, everyone’s finally startin to get it, I’m the best, an I’m a couple lengths out in fronna the rest, he said, stirring the lardlings … but, I told him sagely, recalling Sister Maria Coseta and her Rose of Wounds … I mean it’s not like art’s a steeplechase, I mean the dead are outta your league anyway … but I’m alive! Kasel screamed, hacking open a roast lamb’s neck with the cleaver … good point … but I thought back to Jícha and the Kulchur section, maybe it was best to leave the imparted paths of my murdered friends inside me a little longer … don’t take it too fast, I told Kasel … after all, anyone that knows how to read can write somethin good … screw you! Kasel said to my smart remark, it’s not about writin one good poem, it’s what comes next, what’s in between, it’s survivin from one to the next, an after … that’s what’s interesting! Aha, I said … but I didn’t bring in those scribblings of mine I had at Černá’s flat, it would’ve wounded him, and I didn’t want a mortal enemy.

He’d show me pictures of authors in magazines … they’re out there somewhere, here in the Pearl, an they don’t know it yet, Kasel said, but I’m here too an they’re outta luck … he spoke like that sometimes … so what’re you doin here, with all that ambition … an talent! … in a dumbass job like this, I inquired … he made a mysterious face, but I soon figured it out.

An odd crew had begun turning up among the daytrippers … hysterics or somethin, I presumed … together constantly, arguing, but I noticed … as soon as one stepped off, the others would get these weird smiles and start jabberin away, pickin him apart, it was obvious … various types, guys and gals, dressed funny … together constantly … boozin at the picnic tables, stuffin emselves with provisions … every day they’d come and walk the trails, fencin excitedly with their arms, terrifyin the squirrels with abrupt, unexpected motions … I was stumped … must be some sanatorium for neurotics around here, I concluded, and went to tell Kasel, but he … stood like a pillar of salt, bug-eyed, and I heard bum … bum, the irregular thump of his blood-red muscle … move it, Kasim, your veal’s burnin, hop to it … he stood there, magazines in his hands … I kept him in the corner of my eye … next day he brought napkins. You’re a strange one, partner, I said … he didn’t react … then the scarecrows showed up again, picked out a table, and ousted a couple families, Kasel got out the paper plates, piled on lardlings and all the rest, covered it up with napkins … are you nuts, since when do we deliver? Since now, said the poet, and off he flew … I picked up the slack and pondered … napkins … and then I got it, yes … he’d stuck those poems of his in with the napkins, and then again … bum … bum, the sound of his heart, I splattered him with beer, I’d knocked back a few, there was no talkin to him that day … the patients out there raisin a ruckus, one screamed so loud the whole park could hear: It is dead, it is no longer possible! and another one said: On the contrary, now it is possible because it no longer matters! and they said: disproportion, discrepancy, identity has taken a blow, reality … I shook my head, reining Kasel in, as they tossed his writing in the trash, it fell to the ground as they finished their meals, evidently Kasel had piled it on, they mopped up their plates with the fruits of his imagination, wiped their hands and chins with it, the pages soggy and translucent with grease, tossed the sheets in the dirt, I saw a high heel pierce a piece of paper, left it there in the mud, with the remains … among the bones … but that’s perfect, I consoled him in vain, that’s the way it lives in real life, that’s exactly the way it is, an … who are those people anyway? That is … he stammered … the elite … they built a Creators Chalet here outside the city, they’re … lyricists and authors and critics, he gasped.

They came all the time, and I got to thinking … actually, what if I … it could be a message for Sister, she’d be able to tell from the words who wrote it, some of them were hers … Kasel got mad though … my idea! All right … I get the veal, you get the lardlings, half and half on the scrag ends, I stood my ground … we grudgingly sized each other up, but he had to give in, of course I wouldn’t allow him to read my verse, or whatever it was, anyway he wasn’t interested … he was dreaming of a new way, the possibilities … a crimson robe and the prince of poetry’s lyre … it started to mess with me too, and then … up to the stand walks a man of about fifty, solid build, graying temples, pipe clenched in strong teeth, pure silk sweater on, parts his red lips … Kasel’s gaspin for breath, an the guy says: Beer! We nearly got in a fight, two cups stood before him in the blink of an eye, a dark and a light … ach, this is almost surrealism, he said, studying the cups … duality, Manichaeanism, he took a sip, smacked his lips, if not … schizophrenia, alcoholism … he staggered, clasped his head, and walked over to his car … the Maestro doesn’t have it easy, said Kasel, but I barely heard him, there, by the car, a flash of white, she was shaking a pebble, some sand, from her shoe … her back was to me, but the curve of her neck … and her calves, as she leaned a heel into the dirt … I dashed out … the writer started the engine … NO! I screamed … the woman climbed in, and they drove off … I leaned against a tree, panting … saw the stand, it brought me back … Kasel went insane, ran out there hollerin, pourin stuff all over em, throwin clumps of lard, the crew, shrieking, beat a retreat, I leaned my forehead against the tree, shut my eyes, and stayed that way.