Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

Out by the trash there’s a young boy lyin, I told the bartender some words from a song. Lonesome an sick an maybe cryin, I added from my own head.

Least he ain’t dyin, the bartender said, and I gave up.

What’ll it be? he asked, tossing a sheet of paper in front of me. New menu today.

I ride free, I informed him.

No prob.

I checked it out, two sections. Nothin familiar. I’ll take a beer! I blurted.

Ran out.

Don’t tell me Stalinism’s back?

Came an went, he corrected me.

Then a bottle of red. Locked up.

You’re kiddin.

Míra said the drinks might suit you. Warned us you were his special guest tonight. I aim to accommodate.

I studied the names.

I-n-c B-b. Zat some crossword puzzle?

That’s the Incest Bomb. Little sister tequila an big brother mescal.

Make it a double.

The other drink was called Secret Urge. I asked what was in it.

It’s a secret.

I slammed my alms voucher down on the bar. Tell me! I got a permit.

But then it wouldn’t be secret.

I drank the Incest Bomb, tasted good. I knew there was no way for Hadraba to know what She-Dog had said, but still the coincidence struck me as suspicious.

Since when’d you get this stuff? An since when do you guys use hitlers as bouncers?

The drinks since today. The second question I’m deleting, doesn’t compute. You work for the Ministry of Fear?

I’m in the pay of the Ministry of Love. So there’s no hitlers here?

Just the ones we throw out.

When I tried the Secret Urge, everything turned brighter.

What’s this?

Whatever you want.

It’s kina weird …

Just your secret urge, man, who knows what strange desires you got inside … passions …

Now don’t go analyzin me like some Moravian* …

Yup, Freud, Freud, we’re all paranoid, the bartender sang, his spider jiggling.

I noticed some pale kid with glasses on waving to me from one of the tables … I’m used to being relatively famous from the days of my acting career … nodded back … he went on waving an pointing to the chair next to him … all right, all right, I started over, glasses in hand … passed Padre Booze sitting at a table in a dirty frock, famous character, priest … had to hide out a long time in Romania, or Albania … got mixed up in some killing in Mexico … bad priest, Bohler said. He was a skinny little man, teens made fun of him, giving him their confessions, he took it seriously …

Hi there! I told the kid, I’m Potok … yes I know, he nodded eagerly, the way they always do … but I didn’t want to look stuck-up, so instead of asking his name right away I jabbered something, sat down, and said: Oh I know, we … you … we met … you’re … it never failed. Benito! he blurted. Oh right, hi there, Benito, cheers. He sat hunched over the table, jotting something down in a smudged notebook … What’s the time? looked at his watch and answered himself. Then looked up. Oh no, I’m not Benito, he just walked in, Colombian’s thewordrountheministry … coke, he gibbered, but that’s secret. And turn the page. Romul* sends his greetings.

Now I knew which way the wind was blowing. Romul was a pseudodroog from the Sewer. A warrior who knew how to be in several places at once. Fought for rule of law. Drank vodka. Our ways had parted when he took on the responsibility of being a bigwig at the Ministry. The Organization had never exploited it though. He was probably the only one we knew wouldn’t climb on a tentacle, would’ve chopped it off. There were more than plenty of others at the Ministry to bend.

How the heck is he? I inquired politely.

Great, amazing! the kid shouted.

I’m an Agent, he offered me his hand under the table.

You new there?

Yeah, he said blissfully.

He was obviously one of Romul’s discoveries. Romul had this thing for dragging unknown gravediggers out of their villages, musty geeks out of libraries, country bumpkins that looked like they couldn’t count to five away from their beers and plows, and making top-notch agents out of them. The young ones especially admired him. Apart from fighting for justice, Romul was fond of two things: booze and high-speed driving. Since he didn’t have much time, he had to combine the two. The young agents who worshiped him grew beards like Romul, dressed like Romul, screamed at people like Romul, taught themselves to draw a Colt like Romul, and learned to guzzle booze like Romul, mowing down hens in out-of-the-way districts. “Romuling” even became an expression around the Pearl. The mortality rate at the Ministry soared. They sloughed it off on the KGB. Leaked factoids about Mosada and MC5. The devotion of Romul’s youngbloods reminded me of Micka and his beloved samurais.

The main reason I’m here is that scuffle of yours with the juveniles.

You mean the stalingos?

Could be the Leftist Front, Pioneers for a Red Future, Defenders of Flora and Fauna, them probly not, Black Horsemen, Terror Brigade, hah, it’s all over the board nowadays, comin in from the Balkans an Ukraine, well, that’s secret, an there’s gonna be reactors, uranium, stuff’s movin’s thewordrountheministry …

Huh?

We have to go by process of elimination. Logically. They were hitlers.

We know that. But how do you know?

We’ve known a while now … we saw it … in a crystal ball, how do I … our prognosticators … fortune-tellers an poets an psychotrons …

I nodded understandingly: the Ministry was known for its tendency to mysticism.

Let’s just say our clairvoyants saw the whole thing a long time ago. No doubt the question of intervention occurs to you, yes. But you have to understand, the Ministry is rebuilding, we lack vehicles and personnel, we’re looking for able recruits, and the main thing is, what’s done can’t be undone! In other words, once our clairvoyants focused in they saw it, and if they saw it, then it already happened!

But why focus in on us? We’re lily-white. We’ve got a contract!

That may be.

But?

There’s a few things here …

Past, present, or future?

Always.

So what, we deal in trade. Bohemia’s a landscape an a lion an late childhood … the shadow of suspicion being cast upset me, I explained … the Organization doesn’t give a damn about the state, that’s all we know. At least we’re not responsible for those warheads blessed by the Kiev Metropolitan. Or those rifles you send to Central Serbia!

So what, the same shipments go to the Bosnian Jamahiriya! We’re maintaining the balance. Plus it’s just defensive an preventative weapons. A colleague of mine, you donno him …

We know that Hunkie warrior alright.

I know, said the Agent. But what’re we supposed to do? The United States of Europe won’t let us in. An MATO won’t take us either, we don’t even have standardized ammunition! So what’re we supposed to do, we have to look out for ourselves.

An those contracts with the Kavkhaz Emirates …

If we don’t sell arms, someone else will. When those assassins got our first free president, it was written in his will. That’s the word round the Ministry! It may be somewhat apparently absurd … but even Mauretania and Oceania don’t want us. We have to act sensibly.

Hunt for the mote in your own eyes. We don’t give a damn about your laws. Those judges a yours, sendin people to the penalty box. We’re a tribe, we got a contract. Fuck if I’m fetchin coffee for some monster that used to interrogate me in whatever piece-a-shit office he parks his ass in now.

But you do business with em!

So what, that’s my free choice. No one’s forcin me. My business. An besides, it’s perverted.

But we’ve got constitutions!

Made by the same guys as the old ones. Doctors with degrees from bolshevik instytutes. Lawyers from hell, Agent. Constitutions’re scraps a paper. Sworn on by the same guys that went by the old ones, an now they’re laughin. Never been happier. Used to be they squelched whoever they were ordered to, to get a spot at the watering hole. Now they squelch for whoever pays. What we’ve got here’s bad old early England. The outbreak of industry. The pirates’ve got the cash, an they hire moppets to keep the wheel spinnin. There’s no law, just old Darwin. I know. I’m in on it too. I say that sincerely, as an animal. Apologies for getting upset!