Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

This woman dressed all in black, down to the veil over her face. She also had a hat, a very elegant one if I may say so. I was somewhere off in a corner, stationed behind my sword, a.k.a. my broom, dipping a rag into my shield, when she came clattering up the stairs past me like I didn’t even exist. She always went by at the same time. Slicing through the air as she moved, or more like outside of it. I know what a dance is, and this woman danced with every move she made, yet with extreme dignity. In her cold and mechanical movements she was … free. That’s how she wanted it. Any marshal, any statesman that nods to the crowd from a red carpet, could learn a lesson in dignity. To see this … lady walking up the brothel stairs. She had her own room, just to herself. I wasn’t allowed to clean in there. But one day, swayed by curiosity, I knocked on her door. I knew she didn’t have anyone in there. Her door had a peephole, she slid it open. I saw her face, actually just part of it, without the veil, that was enough. She was wearing a black mask, so I couldn’t see even a wedge of skin, only her eyes. Those eyes were naked, like there was nothing behind them anymore. Domineering, icy, very evil. I dropped the rag and stammered something. The peephole slid shut.

I knew what Domination was, what it meant here in this brothel. Whipping, just another one of the numbers in the matrix. Only this was something different. I ran downstairs to the bar and told Litka: Make it a double. An if you got any feelings at all for the wage slave standin in front of you, tell me who that woman is. Ich verstehen nichevo. C’mon, Litka, don’t do this to me. She could see I was a total wreck. And what she told me stuck in my head, my brain translated it from Kanak. You saw her, huh? Yep … the mask, the eyes. Hey, how much does she go for? One trick? Girl behind the bar oughta know these things. She’s not for you … she said a sum that took my breath away. You could get a Rolls Royce for that! Maybe two, said Litka. She started wiping glasses, all at once she had her hands full. You know they always come in the back way for her, through that hallway where we’re not allowed. They built it just for her. Sure I know, I faked. But she takes the stairs. Walks around here like she owns the place, I said. Yeah, she even stops at the bar sometimes. I got a feelin she … likes it here. She gives people these looks sometimes, the girls. They’re afraid of her. She never talks to anyone. An you know what else … the girls say she’s dead. What? No way! The girls say she’s dead … but I think maybe she’s a famous actress, some star or somethin … an guests like havin her here for the atmosphere. Well, Litka, you’re no dummy, kein durak. That’s gotta be it. What those girls said, there’s no way. Then again, you know what the Russians say: vsyo mozhno, anything’s possible … myezhdu nyebom i zemli, between heaven and earth, I added, flipping my thumb up and down. Und under zemliyo, the whore added in Kanak. We laughed. Have another shot on me, Litka. I got a new job. Difrent verk. Luchshi rabota. Grosse marka. Geld. You’re leaving? Varum? It hit her hard, I could tell. There’d been more than one of those shots. She said to definitely stop by sometime … just to say hi. But I didn’t. I knew she was halfway hoping I’d get her out of there. I just wasn’t up for it.

And it was back to riding with Kopic, making merry and whizzing around. I put the brothel out of my mind. Shimako and Chiharu began teaching me words. Omako, they’d whisper, leering. Omako, omaku, omaken, rite nau, Chiharu san, et aussi, Shimako san, heh? Koishii avec moi, yoo super ober lesbien sistrs, ja? Nein, nein, nix omako avec moi, nix omako avec nous! Rien! they giggled, holding each other’s hand. We went for walks through Berlun, alerting each other to landmarks and miracles. One window had an effigy strung up in it. Its face was bloody. Ketchup dripped from it onto the pavement. Nagel für prasident! Any president that’d let this stuff go on’s got some strange ideas about runnin a country, I politicized. Guess they’re just different, Jakob concluded. I went into a bakery to get some rolls. There was a little lake with swans swimming in it. Plus there were like 60 kinds of rolls and not one of em looked normal. I fled. The Japanese Kanaks cracked up laughing and went off to shop on their own. I waited outside, chain-smoking and observing life. When they came out, I carried their bag. They enjoyed it so much, I think sometimes they went shopping just so they could have a guy behind em carrying their bags. It was new for them. They’d look back and giggle. Wave to me every so often. Those two had wads of yen. They were in movies.

I liked their moola, it had holes drilled in it. Reminded me of the shells some of the black Kanaks wore around their necks. Maybe money started somethin like that. People from crustaceans an people’s money from crustaceans’ protective armor. Anything is possible. I pitched yen with Kopic’s kids. They kept winning. Yeah … yeah, I thought to myself, you don’t hafta win every time … looking into the pools of their almond eyes, sparkling as they cleaned me out … just make sure you never lose for keeps, Hansel, an you too, Gretel, be wary on your path in the woods, steer clear of the traps, an torch that monster when it tries to gobble you up.

Chiharu and Shimako were constantly soaking and scrubbing each other. Berlun seemed filthy to them. What snow-white pastures do you hail from, O copper-skinned maidens, golden ones? But they’d escaped them. They knew their way around shopping, the rest of us other things. I was very astonished to hear they thought the salespeople were rude. I always got embarrassed in stores. Exotic-smelling beauties wrapping my pair of potatoes or kilo of milk in silk, tying it up in a bright-colored ribbon, and smiling at me like a newlywed bride. Too many smiles, nothing but considerateness, excessive kindness. But then Shimako san explained that it was just another tribal contract. Dis voman, she pointed a long painted nail at the salesgirl, in Tokyo owt of jop. Imposseeblay to tuch yor noze. Vhen tok to kunden. Before the poor newly unemployed girl could finish blowing her nose, I got it. A smile lit up my face too, though not so my cavity-ridden fangs showed. Oil rite, na ja, panyahtno, honto, tribal contract. And what’s fermenting down there, beneath the surface … I’m quite familiar with that.

I got almost no sleep. But I fell in love with the Carpet Bar. Everywhere else, I’d suffer like an animal. Think strange contradictory thoughts. Get carried away by strong emotions. Just generally be bizarre. But not at Teppich Bar. I’d follow the carpets’ strings and threads as they intertwined in ornamental patterns and then went on to vanish into the inscrutable underside. The top, which was what I could see, was covered with beasts and birds and flowers and people. All gathered together in dazzling colors, and nothing disturbed their peaceful presence. Riders on horseback, falcons on their outstretched arms. An eagle on high. Waiting. Musicians holding their breath, not sending it into their barbaric instruments of twisted wood, a princess in midstride, prepared to dance, prepared to please her beloved, standing full of love, not even stirring. I saw it, it was in the carpet.

But then I started to suffer again. I saw that woman. It was love at first sight. Her pale fragile face framed in thick black hair. And every bone in that face! She touched her companion’s elbow gently: Now you may lead me where you will, but only as long as I grant you permission, I may take wing at any moment …

I knew I loved her strides, and the way they made the air swish along the edge of her dress … the way she would fix her little finger, for an imperceptible instant, at some point in space, space which until she entered it merely existed … uncharged … empty and desolate … I could’ve loved that space alone, preserving it in a silver-trimmed ivory case till the end of my time … naturally, though, I’d’ve rather had her. They settled in a few steps away. The native snapped his fingers, and terrifying the waiter with his crude, vulgar voice, forced him to take their ridiculous order. I cleared my throat … she looked at me … I had to lean on the table. I felt extreme psychophysical desire. I glanced in her direction. She was still sitting there. All of a sudden I felt sick. My genes were going crazy. Those tiny little beasts that everyone’s got inside them were regrouping their ranks. My biorhythm began a new chapter of living. I’m a sensitive guy.