Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

And then I went back to Crystal and tried to get inside again.

But carpenters didn’t work on this place, there wasn’t a single opening … it was an enormous structure, reaching toward the clouds … maybe touching them … astronauts musta built this tower, Gaudí’d be floored … I thought up some new tricks. Wait’ll the rear admirals see me on TV, that’ll make em button their lips. Cut em down to size.

And then one day old Burda walked up to the stand: Say, boys, you eat that stuff you sell? We laughed wholeheartedly. Good, cause as of next week City Hall’s declarin that shit illegal … Finally! said Kasel … I’m glad, boys, that you’re takin it like that, see I’m gonna build … Křepek an me been savin up to buy us a little Mack Donald’s, already signed an everything … an I got some great outfits for ya, fit cha like a glove … laughing our heads off, me and Kasim began dousing each other with beer, we stank like hell anyway and at least the beer attracted wasps so you had to be alert, didn’t get too sluggish … Burda stared … this is no joke, they’ll give ya an allowance for clothes an shaves, plus a uniform, red on top, green below, copacetic slippers to boot, an you can work your way up … so ya really don’t want it, huh? spoiled brats … in the end Burda got drunk with us, we closed up shop, leaving the dead meat to its natural course … let’s torch the place, Kasim suggested, but Burda wouldn’t allow it … his good mood didn’t last long, old fogies, sometimes when they get a drink in em: Go ahead an leave, boys, see if I care, pissed me off anyways … but me an this park, we remember the Kaiser, an there’s always been squirrels here, an what’ll happen to them now … this is all gonna be an amusement park … ah, they’ll survive somehow, an if they don’t, no big deal, I wrote a poem about em, Kasim consoled him, we turned gloomy anyway though …

Then we told Burda goodbye, he’d seemed somewhat suspect to me anyway since that incident with the spider, we stole what cash there was and staggered off … we hit every place we could think of, and then, at Galactic … I was entertaining Kasim with stories from my shoots … and suddenly on TV … a perfect ad, kick-ass … Soapy Happysoap, hey, that’s me too … in the washing machine, donno if Sister’11 be able to tell … listen, said Kasim seriously, this is unadulterated commercialism, what’ll the city underground say … it doesn’t matter, Kasim … you gotta spread yourself around if you ever want her to find you … and the Grainy glows even in the circular corrals of the O jib ways, in icy igloos, even if Sister’s plodding through the desert it’ll catch up to her at the first oasis, she’ll know it’s me, even if she’s hiding her beautiful face beneath a black veil among Muslims, the Grainy’ll chase her down even in an old log cabin in Sázava, get it, even among the bronzed, happy youth on Mykonos, Ios, Sumatra, I’ll come on screen, and my sister, out there in the islands, will see that I’m waiting faithfully for her … an not washin much, to discourage the others … just then a girl with braids the color of fire pulled up a seat at our table … we’d been eyeing each other a while now, that was one of the reasons I’d been braggin about my film work … Titiana swept her hair back from her forehead and laid her hand on my shoulder in an unmistakable way … why’re you shoutin, what’s all the shoutin for, c’mon, the News is on, an you there watch, watch closely, she told me … Kasim was asleep … and Titiana added: So, my place, or yours, or nothin?

I was about to choose from the options when I heard vzhhhh Headline News vzhhhh, and on the Grainy I saw: a fella with a mike … standin in the Dump, on a purple heap, couple people behind him, dazzling jackets, but Dump faces, drifters … and the guy said into the camera … garbage monster … killing … bloodshed … tellin how they’d finally made it in and how a couple TV crews had gone down fake trails and were never heard from again … briefly they showed what was left of Vulture’s pack … Titiana dug her nails into my shoulder … the man on TV said the police were in pursuit of the deviant killer, they showed the food pits veiled with flies, even found a skeleton in there … I should hope so, I said … a woman’s skeleton, the reporter announced, pointing to it … he said Bohemian supermarkets were in the process of building an oven system to burn expired food products and leftovers, and that technology subsidies were needed, on that the newsman agreed with the chairman of the Food Product Trust … once this food ceases to exist, so will these people, the chairman said, and they flashed a picture of a kid that looked like Stick … the doozy and reassuring thing was that the police were hot on the killer’s trail … that made me burst out laughing … you’re jolly, said Titiana, but still, you’re all pale … an didn’t you used to wear your hair long, she inquired mournfully … yeah … well, next to them, darlin, you’d look pale as an angel … know that one?

That gave me a little chill, yeah, I know it, I said … an who’re you?

Guesser guesser guess away, said Titiana, parting her ruby-red lips to reveal her dainty teeth … so which option will it be? she asked … here you are, fella, sittin here with everyone else like it’s nothin, like nothin’s goin on at all … scuse me, I said, and I entered the restroom, opened the window, yanked out the screen, and crawled out, hauling myself up on the wall … she stood in the street looking me in the eye … I locked myself in a stall … chattering my teeth. I saw white.

And then … I think I didn’t have a body, I was inside a barracks, wood, fences and stakes, bunks, and on them people. Some in rags. Through the windows, which were bare, I saw the sky, medieval clouds, driven by the wind, apart from that no other movement.

Halflight. Opposite me a figure cloaked in black. I saw a field, I was looking through barbwire. Aright, I mumbled to myself with the tongue that remained to me, aright, me too. I was starting to see … I saw faces around me, if I’d had a body I would’ve frozen, opposite me was Viška … my enemy, I thought, and I heard: She wanted it, it’s obvious … that look, hey, I don’t make mistakes, I’m a man … I heard coming from Viška, sitting there, gaze fixed … somewhere else, maybe inward, I’m hearin his thoughts, it hit me … the little slut, I mean the way she looked at me, there’s no way … yeah, yeah, she was grateful to me for gettin her outta there, maybe I should Ve held off … but that time in the cellar, she offered herself, I could tell … she seduced me, I can’t be wrong … and I loved her, I did … pulled her panties down herself, wouldn’t’ve done that if she was afraid … but maybe I shoulda been firm … and then, then I couldn’t hold back anymore. But I shouldn’t’ve beat her. She told on me. And later … she was all grown up, but she still belonged to me … she couldna been serious about that chump, that hooligan … I gave her a choice, I loved her. And what I turned into, she did that. It was like I was obsessed. But I don’t regret a thing.

This came out of Viška at me, a constantly altering stream … but I don’t believe a word, the goon … he’s deceived himself, the truth’s gotta be different … hers.

And then I heard: Back then, when we crossed the water. Yeah, Morales told me how it goes. That time by the fire … and I saw Vohřecký, and it came from him too, a stream of speech … I felt good there, standin guard by the fire at night, how many times did I wish it could last forever … everyone else asleep an me keepin watch with my weapon, the only one awake … that’s life, that means somethin … came out of Vohřecký … that was where I realized what I wanted to do an who I wanted to be, an one day Morales came, an that was an honor … he was somebody, an he says to me: Hey, amigo, you know how it goes on the Congo? Took a cigarette from me and lit it off a twig, cupped it in his hand, we kept to the side, off in the shadows, cause a the freedom fighters … but he was there with me, an he says: Scorpion’s sittin on the bank of the Congo, river’s flooded, bridges’re all swept away, an he says to the hippopotamus, hey, pal, I gotta get to the other side, there’s this chick I got over there … how bout a lift? But the hippopotamus knew him … not you, lovebug … you’re poisonous, you’ll sting me, you’re wicked … c’mon, that’s nuts, the scorpion says, if I sting you I drown too, right? It’s only logical … so the hippo thinks it over a minute, gives the nod, the scorpion climbs on his back, an the hippo goes swimmin off into the muddy waters … he’s swimmin along, the scorpion starts laughin … an when they get to the middle … the scorpion stings him with all his might, fucks him fulla poison … are you insane, says the hippo, I mean you promised … sorry, pal, the scorpion says … but that’s how it goes on the Congo.