Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

Well, I said to myself soberly, now I’m gonna find out where the place is. How does he know about Černá?

What’s that you said about my girl?

Just that you can call her so she needn’t be concerned.

How do you know I’m … with somebody?

I was only assuming.

Yeah right, bullshit, all of a sudden I started to wonder if maybe this character was Vohřecký’s contact, he’d make noodles outta Side Pocket, though you never can tell who’ll cook who till the banquet’s on the table. Till afterwards.

For me Jícha was joined with … what he’d done to Černá … and I didn’t give him another thought otherwise …

What are you thinking about, Mr. Potok, my master’s voice said from behind me. Perhaps it would be more reasonable to drive straight, it is not wise to elect the left-hand lane. We might be faced with oncoming traffic!

I pictured how much I would earn off this trip … if it turned out all right, and I was fast … and how I’d pool the envelopes from Rudolf with the chuckles from Hunter and the two of us’d take off … at least for a while … we drove on down the highway … come night I remembered that guy was a tank driver … woke him up and got in back with Smoothy, for once he was quiet … but it was impossible to sleep, I guess drivin a tank in some Cambodian jungle, tryin to make stiffs out of every livin thing in sight, is a little different than haulin down some fucked-up white man’s highway … I was pretty rough on Paulina’s lover … then Smoothy woke up and started tellin me what Pol Pot and Saloth Sar were like, and what the Khmers Rouges used to do when they ran out of lime for graves … got it firsthand from the tank driver … Smoothy, don’t you have a driver’s license?

But of course!

Then take over, I can’t see anymore.

Excuse me, Mr. Potok, but that’s your job.

The jerk at the motel wouldn’t take us: said they could’ve tolerated Smoothy, would’ve put a cot for him in my room, but the tank driver had a jumpsuit on … even though Smoothy’s Czech was better than mine, the guy at the reception desk talked right through him: This is a private establishment, he told me, as if anyone but the Devil cared what kinda pact they’d signed with him.

I kicked at the gravel. Smoothy, amazingly, spoke briefly and to the point. He explained what was at stake. It was all the same to the tank driver … he was used to the factory, being on the road was like paradise for him. Even if he wasn’t allowed to drive anymore. The two of us had a beer, Smoothy made do with a cognac, and we spent the night in the car.

Above all, Smoothy told me, you have no idea what it’s like for our men when those youngsters attack them … the colonel here could dispatch four of them in eight seconds, just between us, that’s the only thing he really knows how to do, but he can’t … he has a mission … it’s very frustrating for him that he is not able to act correctly in this regard, and the youngsters are very unreasonable and very careless.

He stuck a photo under my nose, cut out of some newspaper … I shouldn’t’ve looked … it was the faces of four girls, Asians, they’d been thrashed, bloodied and battered, noses broken, I figured each of those plucked blossoms for about seventeen … Smoothy talked …

There were times the wheel’s motion got me so carried away that I woke Černá up and: Let’s roll! Not to give any orders, Sister, but hurry, let’s roll!

Where to, what’s up?

We gotta get to Paree right now, I gotta measure this classroom there where Pol Pot learned to build a fence, take a string an some chalk, I wanna see it … maybe then I’ll understand.

No you won’t, an I wanna sleep!

Usually, once we were up strugglin with our night demons anyway, we’d dive all over each other, I used to keep track of who was on top and who was on bottom, now sometimes it got mixed up … who soothed who, who crushed who, depending on our urge, and that was shared. Nothing stood in the way of our desire to hold each other, ourselves. Černá … didn’t talk about it like me, but … there was something we had in common. Those little scars. Hers definitely didn’t come from a bicycle, or from scoopin out crayfish from under rocks, back in the days of some sweet helpless childhood. She had her own stuff. That’s how come the fingers in fists, that’s how come sometimes at night … she lay in bed with her eyes open. Sobbin … only when she thought I was asleep. It’s pretty disgusting listenin to a girl try to cry so she won’t wake the guy next to her. One time I grabbed her hair and yanked her outta bed, I couldn’t stand that quiet grief … but she kneed me so hard I saw sparks … afterwards she attended to the spot, which she’d aimed for out of habit, she sobbingly explained, with breath and hair damp with tears … and we began anew.

What did I know. I must’ve been a pain in the ass sometimes, once the bliss had run its course and our bodies were gathering strength for the next round: Let’s roll! Černá, c’mon. Outta here, anywhere!

Number one I don’t wanna, number two I don’t wanna, number three I don’t wanna, an number four it’s always what you want an never what I want!

Thanks, I don’t wanna anymore.

The night before that last trip we talked a long time. Tell me, Černá, when was the first time you thought you … how come I didn’t know you back then … where’re you from?

I’m with you, aren’t I? The questions you ask in bed … an I’ll tell you when I feel like it … but there was one I liked, he had a car.

Hah, I shoulda known … some dumb car …

What do you know, you donno … it was so fast all of a sudden … I’d wait somewhere, by the side of the road, so they couldn’t see me … an suddenly we’d be gone, far away, get it? I didn’t know anything around there … he showed me churches, graveyards, I never knew before about castles an all that. We also went to a lake together, he wanted some fisherman to take our picture, to remember it by, but I told him: No! It’s stupid, you can’t take a picture of that, no way. An the castle was huge, I was real young. I never knew knights were that short before, shorter than us, they had shorter doorways, shorter beds … I was too young.

Knights, I know! They went through doors too, right! What didn’t you know about castles though, in school they taught us …

I didn’t listen to that crap a theirs.

Now I get it … he was older. I’m not jealous!

Yeah you are … an you oughta be! Cause I gave it to him. Well, it wasn’t the first time, not by far … but I wanted to, he was nice. We had to go someplace without people … the cemetery. No one bothered us there. People only go on certain dates. We picked up on that. It smelled of flowers. Just on those dates, the rest a the time they put fake ones out, idiots. Doesn’t help the dead, I think. So that’s where we did it, that was the safest place. But it didn’t do much for me. Not like with you, I swear, how come you’re not talkin … what’s wrong?

I was sniffin around her ear, checkin it out. It reminded me of a clam, a mussel, it was amazing. I listened, heard something … but it was just her stomach growling, stuck the tip of my tongue in … she began to get carried away, but it made me think of … the sea.

Černá, get up, right now, let’s go. To the sea! Why didn’t I think of that, I’ve never seen the sea … I’ll see it with you, that’s what we’re together for. Definitely! We’ll rent a boat, cruise around … hey, you can ski, I’ll steer, my bronze chest glittering with drops of water … you’ll wave to everyone … afterwards we’ll head in for campari an roulette … we’ll be incognito, mysterious foreigners! … coconuts an palm trees … we’ll scrape up the cash … you can sing along to the surf, listen, the water’s silver foam on your lips along with the words to some song, how’s that? Then I’ll bury you in the sand so just your breasts an head stick out … an then you’ll bury me!