Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

Bohler stretched an stood up.

I know what you’re thinkin, said Shark Stein, but none a that, there’ll be no collective baptisms of the dead in this place!

An why not? asked Bohler, readying his vessel.

An no consecrating either, I’m tellin ya!

Now now, son, find your humility …

These are my tribe’s people, damn it, an it was Christians that did this to em, for cryin out loud …

Go on, cutiepie, whadda ya mean your tribe? My little Praguish bastard blend.

Where’re you from, Cassock? Micka spoke up.

Since when’ve you got somethin against the little mother, priestie, I took the stronger side at random.

What, are you crazy, Bohler, askin Stein about his tribe?! C’mon, we’re a tribe! said David.

Yeah yeah, Micka cracked a grin, I’d say the gentleman comes from the mighty nation of Crybabies!

We’re on the site where millions died a large an weighty death, brothers … Bohler stepped back in.

Yeah exactly, said Shark Stein.

Yeah exactly, an that’s why it’s all the same, said Micka.

Unfortunately I hafta agree, I said.

No, said David. Look at us, we’re not dead.

We had to think about that one a little.

David walked over an gave me a slap. Ho ho, who’da thought the sissy had it in im … I hunched up slightly, cocking my hands at the proper height, a little above my thighs …

See, you macaque, you gotta be alive if that hurt, said David.

I readjusted my hands to their original position.

Vida, vida, the old ploy still works, Bohler snickered with delight.

We strolled around, back an forth, walking across the skeletons, all of a sudden it worked again. It didn’t affect us anymore.

How bout that, said one of us, now it works again. An maybe it won’t in a while, another one of us added.

If we had the Fiery here, this stuff’d be like dry leaves, said one of us, poking some bones with his shoe; one of us, an incorrigible human being.

An then, O my brothers, knights, an skippers, we each settled into the dream our own way. We got used to that timeless place, brothers, to that Auschwitzian grave. After all, we were well aware that at the end of each life is death, as Comrade Stalin used to say.

Bohler walked around, anointing whatever skulls Shark Stein would permit, the more crumbled ones that Sharky conceded might be … partially … of Aryan origin … maybe. Sharky didn’t take his eyes off him, an meanwhile tried to get his bearings. Once upon a time the wind blew here, he said, and once upon a time it shuddered at the sight. An you can definitely tell your compass points, it’s always good to know where you’re at. Which way’s left an which way’s right.

I just hung around watching the others until it occurred to me that if I found a few strong thigh an calf bones, an maybe a pelvis or two, I could set up a little podium. I spotted Sharky behind the ovens … testing out the box trick on location. But I gotta come clean, chiefs an bosses, I got a pretty good laugh out of it: never mind Batas, he was curled up inside a box barely big enough for the Keds of two tin soldiers!

An Micka, Micka the helmsman, said: Well, might as well! An started looking around for gold teeth. At first he was only kidding: Ho ho ho an Heh heh heh, but then he got obsessed an started poking through the gratings, an believe it or not, dear chiefs, in the old clogged unraked gratings on the ovens’ outer wall, where the heat I guess wasn’t as fierce, he found a little lump of gold! Right away him an Sharky started arguing how much it could fetch. Sharky played hard an heavy, quoting figures off commodity exchanges an fuming at the ridiculous sums, but Micka glowed, because he’d found his time, Das Kapital.

And shortly after we’d gotten acclimatized, so to speak, to that place left over from hell, a terrifying gale kicked up, whipping bones around, picking them up in bunches and flinging them in our faces, and all those protective playful structures we’d built in anticipation of death were lost.

The first one to go was my small, perhaps I could say impromptu, outdoor stage, right after I had finally gotten it stabilized and somewhat tentatively rehearsed the short but justifiedly popular monologue of a dramatic figure from olden times, the young aristocrat holding a skull. His question, put as much to the skull’s empty eye sockets as to the bulging, bloodshot eyes of homo sapiens’ arbitrary representative, was also a question for me: the right query in a suitable place.

Good old English rang in my ears with unusual urgency. And especially of course that important question mark; the reply to the dead Dane’s question, coincidentally negative, could only be made with great discomfort … and only thus do words become deeds … but the thought of running my heart through with some old bone grossed me out … and I didn’t have my dear old knife with me, but from historical writings I know of a certain widespread practice employed by the Aztec princes at that fatal turning point when Cortéz and his pack of metal-plated rednecks shattered their time: biting off your own tongue and swallowing it, resulting in strangulation … I found my tongue with my teeth, clamped it in the gate, and held it there a second, but it hurt too much … I simply lack the upbringing to be a son of the Sun … so I went on polishing my monologue while searching for reinforcements for my stage, but then another unruly thought got me started laughing again … about the skull the brilliant playwright inserted in the young man’s hand for his immortal monologue … with the kind of props I had handy, the playwright known as the Swan of Avon would most likely have given up composing his titillating pieces for the enjoyment of strapping journeyman butchers and gone out screaming wildly in the nearest local loony bin.

And then the aforementioned gale interrupted my speculations … grasping hold of us, lofting us upward, circling over the ovens, which we bid, with what we hoped was our last glance, finally farewell, and then we were flying … like a squad of celestial aquabelles, we were five, and suddenly the sun was warm, and then, O brothers and blood brothers, I sighted the Face once again, but the happiness I felt at that instant, stunning me from my capillaries right up into my medulla, suddenly turned to fright as something happened to the Face … and then I don’t know … I was flying in front, until suddenly Sharky went flying past, shoes first … And that’s the end.

And the voice left me. I dug my nails into my palm and looked around the room. Shifted my head and saw the sun. Setting. The lawn behind our buildings glittered in the last rays. Then it was dark. The grass is black now, I thought to myself. Went to the window and looked out. I was expecting the ritual of friendly muttering, but instead someone smacked me in the head, somebody else gave me a kick, I didn’t fight back. It would’ve been only normal if I’d gotten a bit of an ass-kicking. But nobody was up for it. Best bring in the Fiery, I told the shadow leaning over me. My dream had been so dark and long, it had swallowed up the whole byznys day. We didn’t get to Sharky. Or to the well and its mysteries either.

THE METAL FLOWED. ON THE SUBWAY WITH L. BOHLER THE GREAT. I LEAP AND HEAR SHE-DOG.

And the next day we turned up for our regular briefing in byznys suits unpunctured by any dream bones. And began spinning metal. I had the delicate task of pitting a second-division Ludvig against two fifth-division Ludvigs. Usually it was no problem, given that most superiors squelch their inferiors just to prove their manhood. Power instead of balls, drugs, and a smile. That’s the way it was, is, and always will be … we, however, were only out to squelch certain inferiors, and only at the right time.