Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

WHO I MEET. AND WHO I’M WITH. KARLOVICE. CRYSTAL S.R.O. AND WHAT IT’S FOR. OLD WORDS, THAT SOUND. I LIFTED MY HANDS.

And one day, one smiley city day when the sun again showed its experienced face through the dust, I saw in the distance, by one of the kiosks … a distinctive gait, her hair, she was walking … leading a small child by the hand, my eyes popped and I … ran over … spotted her again in the crowd of daytrippers, elbowing through, I did too … shoving them out of my way, faster, again the crowd closed around her, but it was her, my friend … and at the end of the road there was nothing again but a whirl of dust from a bus.

I hastened back to the kiosk where I’d spotted her … Viets or whoever … shirt, pant, digital, casset, one let loose with a wide smile … no, quick, that girl that was here, he reshuffled a stack of jeans … she’s a friend of mine … she was here with a child … where do they live? His face shut down, looking like an Aztec from a stone frieze in a temple in the festering jungle, the silent face of the full moon itself … aright, I picked up a pair of jeans, he snatched them back … I no know nobody, turned away … wouldn’t get anything outta him, that was obvious … made the rounds of a few spots in town where she might’ve been, in vain.

There were lots of Asians at the markets, but among the Vietnamese I didn’t have any friends. It had all been too fast with Smoothy. I waited, even set up a rearview mirror over the flock of sizzling lardlings so I could see, Kasel was puzzled. And absent. Getting more vexed and restless every day … uh-huh, it’s everywhere now, he mumbled to himself … they print it all over, there’s even a book, an nothin … nothin’s goin on … so maybe, just maybe, yeah, it isn’t just for its own sake, I knew it, there’s no destination, there’s only the way, the path … you’re burnin the scrags, I alerted him … he was lost in reverie.

And then … Hi there! I said, she looked at me, the little one in tow, sizing me up like a rapscallion … but there was a twinkle in her eyes … we were reunited. Tempestuously. I admit, I was taken when she spoke.

I’s you … tha’s goo’. This is Son!

He hid behind her … yelped when we hugged. The poet was on his own with the meat that day. It was too much. What she told me. It was horrible. From then on, she came to see me often.

We’d sit on a bench in the park. The boy eyeing the squirrels with interest … well, he wasn’t exactly a looker … Bohleresque features … but maybe later, his mom’s beauty, all that cat and gazelle, then again in a boy I donno, I donno … she told me stories … dea’, she said of my buddy … and then, when we were living together, in the one building where we could, I began to visit the Press Center and piece it together from old newspapers, because there were times I didn’t understand, and also, she didn’t like going back much … but some of it she told me the very first day, through tears.

I didn’t want to go back to the buildings at all, but with her and Son it was different. Besides, the attic … when I thought of Černá I still … I still trembled.

And that was the first thing I had to share with Lady Laos. After all the things she’d told me as I held her in my arms … taking the weight off her … maybe it was cruel … but I considered it essential to say: Don’t get mad, honey, but there’s a woman, she’s traveling … an when she gets back I’m gonna be with her. Or we’re gonna be together somehow. That’s the way it is. How about it?

We all gonna be together? inquired Lady Laos.

We lived together, side by side, helping each other. Protecting each other.

The little boy enjoyed prowling around the old farm equipment just in back of the sheds, seemed the technical type, into levers and chrome stuff … took apart the watch I’d bought, seeing as I had a job now … but … the boy couldn’t speak much, his Czech was like his mom’s, Bohler hadn’t had much time, I took him on as my student … but he sti’ need schoo’, Lao decided, I didn’t take that away from her. She herself called him Son, sounded to her like a proper name. He also had a Laotian one, that one I couldn’t pronounce, plus the one Bohler had baptized him with … at times the youngster had trouble in the sandbox with the locals. Because of how he looked. How he spoke. He soon stopped being afraid of me. Asked questions himself. Bohler had wanted his name to be Vojtěch.*

Lao had landed back in the buildings a while ago. They didn’t have any bad vibes for her, just the opposite … though she was surprised to find the cellar filled in with concrete. With a diligence unique to her, she had set up a tailor and dressmaker workshop. She and her compatriots sewed for sale, I was awed … on flywheel Singers. Their husbands and brothers and cousins dropped them off in the morning and the ladies would sit there going all day, there was always lots of chatting involved and now and then a song or two. At first I was very cautious around the guys. But the copper, blue, and dark one patted me on my scar one day and said: You crasy … you safe he’e, no way fo’ Hun’er … you jus’ imagine!

I had my doubts. But me and the men would exchange greetings, solemnly, ceremoniously, sincerely, and with many smiles, slipping through the hallways.

The capitalists advanced. What they sewed went to the kiosks, where the other tribe members took over … they even set up a nursery and something like a school, I noticed Vojtěch was in charge there, and I glowed pretty bright … no no no, he stomped the sand, not baroon! he told a slant-eyed boy, balloon, but have i’ you’ way … the lessons bore fruit, we’d go for walks on the lawn, once we’d cleaned it up … the rest of the street was nearly deserted, a fire or two in the ruins at night, but Lao had taught me … safety first … I noticed two or three husbands or cousins were in the sewing room at all times, and they may’ve looked condescending and lordly … but they were looking out.

I lugged some books over from Černá’s place and settled into a flat on the second floor … me and Lao were together only occasionally, but more and more often. And if anyone honorable feverishly opposed it … I could only gently point out how extremely fortunate it is when all the cruelty that’s been, is, an always will be isn’t so visible cause you’re with someone you hold, an your palm’s just right to cover their heart, worn paper-thin with anxieties … to shield it from the barb of solitude that drives you mad, pounding, an you hold that someone so tight that you also cover yourself. Lao. Peeking across the bed at each other in our unwritten agreement. We got close.

And then one day the little boy said: I’m tired! I’m … so tired! He was startled to see my eyes bug, I interrupted our ball game, it reminded me … he watched me run off … I flew through the buildings in horror … but Granny Macešková wasn’t there. Not a trace. Not a trace of anything … that might remain of her. Even walked across the concrete in the cellar, examined the surface … maybe here. Maybe she’s here somewhere.

I combed through the buildings, checked around the flats, the remains, there weren’t any tenants left and Lao had hinted one of her friends would like to move in with her family … it was strange, sometimes she treated me as though it were still the old times and I was one of the owners, I guess it suited her, she was settling into our contract on her own terms.

And mornings, every morning on the days commonly considered working, I flew out the door to the tram to see Kasel, who’d tell me how he’d sent out grant applications, better look aroun for someone, I’ll be packin it in soon … he’d say confidently … headin out to an Art Colony, hey … an when I get there I’m gonna write about how we worked our balls off here, you’ll see … yeah, definitely, it’ll be a bestseller, I can’t wait, Kasim … and we’d flip the lardlings and chop up the rest, and the third possibility we’d fling into the sizzling fat, by now we were a pretty fine-tuned duo.