Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

And now and then … I’d poke around the studios, since that was where the trail left off. And also go to the Press Center, putting together that short Bohler story …

Out at the Rock, you see … in the surrounding woods and villages, back in our times, there still lived Gobs.

Bohler had always maintained friendly contact with the creatures, and he didn’t have to twist our arms either … some of the Gobs were a lot of fun … it doesn’t make one bit a difference if folks out here say Gobs aren’t people, it’s no one’s business anyway … they’re here! Bohler thundered.

He would go on religious and reconnaissance missions among the Gobs, they let him instruct their young ones, after a brief moment of hesitation and self-searching he even baptized them, to be on the safe side, as he put it … it’s the one thing that can’t be neglected, he claimed … and the Gobs, when Bohler preached to them, may’ve wagged their furry heads, but they admitted: Yeah, could be somethin to it, leave the seedling in our hearts a while, we’ll play around with it, see what it does, we got the Black Daliah, you know …

Shy creatures, those Gobs … right at the onset of the Sewer period, the Communists smashed their wagons, adopting Gestapo-style edicts against “vagrant lifestyles” and “the Gob public nuisance,” by the end of the Third Reich there weren’t a lotta Gobs left either, whole tribes had disappeared, it was just like with the Gypsies … what was left of them the authorities ordered into the factories … well, the Gobs didn’t sweat it out there long, that sort of movement was foreign to them, they lived in a different time than mere machines … so to keep the Gobs from pickpocketing, the state instead gave them cash, stolen from somewhere else, and that’s what did them in, they spent most of it on the Fiery … and then, when time exploded, the Gobs no longer knew the old way of doing things and didn’t get the new one at all … some lived pretty miserably, stealing … picking pockets … the losses weren’t that heavy, but for the Karlovice town councillors it was enough … infertility, retardation, forty years of the Sewer, black comets, escaped convicts, floods, every scar the township ever suffered they threw at the Gobs, trashed a few of their hideouts … Bohler spoke out against it … and in the Karlovice Courier I found: “This decadent, un-Czech figure canvases his neighbors dressed in a faded cassock. Point your finger at him! He is a heretic, a Pragocentrist, and is urging Gobs to commit attacks. Again yesterday, two people were assaulted by individuals of Gob origin …” etc.

The citizens of Karlovice formed the Society of the White Hood for the Defense of the Purity of the Noble Czech Nation, and it began … some Gobs fought back, but it was the old ethnographic imbalance … the townspeople went out on raiding sprees, strong men with sticks and knives … and the stupid Gobs sat in their hovels scared out of their wits, old folks, children, all together … and then some Gobs said, not anymore, and also took things into their hands … at this point the accounts in the Karlovice Courier get pretty confused … Bohler and several others had begun digging tunnels so the Gobs could flee the township, but demonstrations against them began outside it too … and the Gobs had no country of their own they could flee to, they’d been born here after all … Lao couldn’t understand … the people encircled the Rock just as Bohler and the Gobs and the rest were crawling into the barn, and when the people sicced the dogs on the Gobs, they fought back, as did the others, the theologian skewered an attacker on a pitchfork … I remembered his perverted old smile and that olovrant of his … Evil must be countered with violence, immediate an brutal, remember, colleagues … the priest of the tribe had preached to us … they drowned the Gobs outside of town, cause Gobs donno how to swim, and Bohler went down with em …

Lao?

Mm-hm.

So … someone’ll hafta go out there, I said, jotting notes in my notebook … it’s too late, she told me, and she was right.

Meanwhile … we’d been torn apart … David, now Bohler … Sharky’s off fighting a war, and Micka’s around here somewhere, I felt a pang of nostalgia and said so … and Lao got up and brought me a byznys card, said she’d found it a while back but didn’t know how to read and forgot … I leapt up: Mr. Micka Co. Crystal s.r.o., of course it was a riddle, there hadda be some catch, but at least it gave an address: Golden Cross, Skyscraper 33 … Lao tossed me my clothes and I dressed on the fly, it was late, but knowin him he’d be grindin away … you wan’ snack, she asked with concern … all those memories and she was worried about this old schemer …

Many remarkable buildings had sprung up at Golden Cross, actually not that many, but their shiny glass walls gave the pedestrian, squeezed suddenly beneath a lower horizon, an impression of abundance that greatly amplified any feelings of inferiority … just to be safe, all over the place were submachine gunners and doormen decked out as rear admirals … and I ran aground. It was unbelievable, I mean I was practiced in hallways, walls, holes, trapdoors, me and Micka had learned together, jump, scramble, crawl, fly, smash, go! But here it was a no-go. Not a single garage or barred window or service entrance, and the skyscraper’s walls were smooth … then again it was only logical. This eminent figure had the same schooling as me, he knew how to build a barricade … I didn’t even get to the secretaries.

I made a sport out of it, going over every day in a different getup, mustaches, beards. Lao and Vojtěch kept their fingers crossed, sometimes I took them along … me and the rear admirals and submachine gunners were soon on a first-name basis, swapping remarks about our mothers, amatory abilities, appearance, attire, etc., it was quite entertaining.

I spent plenty of time with Kasim though … he was brooding and distraught, the Art Shacks were all he talked about … old Burda started roaming around again, wearing an odd smile … the literati didn’t come anymore, now they knew about Kasim, and they’d socked it to him in the press pretty good, he’d turned rather bitter, mumbling: Get outta here, dude, here everyone knows ya right away, place is a fishpond, I filled out the application, enclosed translations, bibliography, photo, c’mon, let’s go to a pub, but someplace we won’t run into any writing fucks … that’ll be pretty tough, I replied … he got furious.

I’d disappear straight from the stand to the studios and run around there and … I had a plan now, I’d found a few people I knew that still remembered me from the old times, when I used to recite other people’s monologues, till I got the bug and started in with this thing … remembered me as an actor … earnestly I sought a role, I wanted to leave a trail for Černá, not in a field or the sand anymore, and not on a lake either, uh-uh, not some bent blade of grass, or a notch, or stones, no … now I knew where I had to leave a trail so she’d know that I still was. In this world.

About sixty of us stood there, naked, in a damp cellar, nothin to eat or drink for hours, till the director had time … then he walked in with his entourage, we all fell silent, he pointed his switch … Beda, you know what I need an what for, move it, Jesus, look at those figures … move it, Beda, take him into synch, profiles an straights, let’s get this outta the way an we can all go get laid … Beda pointed to me, I was thrilled. All around me I could sense the daggered looks.

Yes, only I could play Fly Man, it was an ad for Bohemia Halucia Milk of Milks … disguised in fly garb and a fly mask, I flapped my wings around in a huge cup of bad old milk while next to it a gorgeous young lady sipped the one and only proper milk, the totally new Bohemia Halucia Milk of Milks … it gave off these vapors that killed flies in flight, and they plummeted to all sides of the glass at a safe distance from human lips … a prominent Czech composer wrote the music, it was a zinger … I flapped around in there, and in an unguarded moment I made a typical move, a rap of the knuckles, you know it well, my dear … raised a shoulder, you’ve leaned on it, little sister, surely that you’ll recognize too … I hit the jackpot. After that they wanted me everywhere. I also played a fuzzball in the Dust Sucker ad, but you couldn’t really see me.