Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

I mean everyone knows … back in today’s central woman, Europe, there’s nothing but dogs, they wiped out the wolves, on this reservation the only thing left to do was devote yourself to illegal shamanship and just here and there and occasionally, for a fleeting moment, dance and possess the strength of a warrior, a mortal prepared to die.

There was beating in the streets, ready and waiting, but the people with vision went back for it again and again because it was the realest thing they had left.

Čáp hurling cobblestones at a personnel carrier on Železná Street, giving his juveniles a thrill … because the kingdom won’t happen all by itself, that’s just common sense. It was motion, it was new. It didn’t matter how many people accepted the motion, all it takes is one rotten tooth in a loyal healthy smile to give the Monster a headache …

And none of our citizens, whose stupid heads contained a shrewdly manipulated image of Poles as the hungry, wretched enemy, had a clue … and no one over in Poland had a clue about those rowdy Czechs … no one had a clue how crazy we were … no one eavesdropping from a satellite or dangling in an airshaft listening in on the scarred speech of our cooperatives, that accelerated city-speak … sitting in their cottages or squatting in the slammer, no one had a clue what the conspiracy was really about … all those scattered gangs of the city underground preparing for the important assignment, hastening toward a final solution for the soul’s design … auguring from their own dread-filled intestines, tensely watching the quivering skies … secretly going for the future’s throat in a conspiracy to nothing less than murder … namely, the brutal and conclusive assassination of Josef Vissarionovich Švejk.*

DAVID LEARNS. THE BYZNYS PATH. THE LAOTIANS. WHAT WAS WORN. THE WELL.

And then I stood in the street, it was freedom, half past six, weather roughly March. Clouds above, asphalt below, people with shopping bags walking the street, children and dogs in tow, it was freedom and time out of joint was going mad. I let it drag me in, it was a different dance than with She-Dog, different than the dance of the rose, different than with the truncheons, there was no end to it, it seemed endless. Human time had accelerated, I was disguised as a young man with a tiger-stripe tie, files under my arm, walking to an appointment with my associates. Walking at just the right pace to be there on time, fifteen minutes early, that was part of the social contract, our own little entente. I could’ve afforded a car if I’d wanted one, I was just afraid to drive. Micka had changed too. Tiger stripes suited him. He wanted to make cash spin the way my She-Dog spun on electricity, but he didn’t know how to send out the signals. Micka handled the paperwork, forgetting all his past hospital treatments he’d finished school and become a lawyer, it was freedom and he began smoking cigars. For the signals there was David, strategist and head of our little entente, the only one of us from the countryside, he’d climbed trees till the age of eighteen, which also made him the only one of us in sound health. All he needed to learn was the basics.

Hey, last time we went to see Mošna, he looked at his watch three times, Micka tutored him. What about it, David said studiously. Next time Mošna peeks at his watch, we get up an go, said Micka, it’s an unmistakable sign. How’s that? our boss wanted to know. Every textbook for future psychiatrists strictly forbids lookin at your watch, it gives sensitive patients the feelin they’re takin up too much time, an rightfully so, said Micka. End of doctor’s story, I added.

Micka was the first to enlighten David about the Secret. But it wasn’t totally necessary, because David was born a man of the contract, all he lacked was the terminology. Together then we taught him how to eat with silverware, have eyes in the back of his head, talk with women, hand out bribes, be in three places at once, ride the subway without holding on, smear invoices and puff on them, creep through the fax, and use the phone. Which is better to eat with in a Vietnamese restaurant, David, chopsticks or silverware? Chopsticks I guess, right? With chopsticks you’ve got one hand free, with silverware you’re at least holdin a blade, think about it now, think hard. David nodded and Micka gave me a look of pride. I tried too: Okay, David, what’s heavier, a kilo of feathers or a kilo of garnets? Dummy. C’mon now, what’s lighter, a liter from the head or a wheel? He hesitated, but he knew.

We knew that Slovaks were fast Moravians, Moravians were a few bricks shy of a load, Czechs thought around the corner, Praguers were stuck-up pigs, and all of us were on the same map. Micka and I had been born with asphalt between our fingers, Bohler didn’t know who he was but had a degree in theology, and David was a hick but caught on at the speed of light and didn’t have any hang-ups since we were there to hold his hand. Even in his innocent phase, when he was still getting up to speed, not one Prague pig ever said a thing about the ludicrous way he moved or his overall appearance, not to mention the threads and the accent. Many a hanger-on was tempted no doubt, but we never gave them the chance.

If I didn’t know him, though, or didn’t get that vibe right away, I might like to slug him one myself, Micka admitted one night during a dance party at the Dom. We watched the horrified look on the face of one of our girlfriends as David attempted to move with her. Bohler just gave a perverted laugh. I felt a passionate longing for She-Dog run through me, something between a toothache and the thought of a sharp knife, careful, what’s the connection with David? Is it a sign? I asked myself, or maybe my power. It didn’t reply.

Micka organized the papers, tampering with rubber stamps, tuning in the contacts, pressing the lever to the ground, it was just about to begin, we were letting the genie out of the bottle, and I for one was hoping it would go in a straight line, I stretched and twisted my body, rehearsing my speech for the play.

Bohler stood by, the helper, also waiting for motion, eyes fixed upward. We were ready.

David meanwhile ridiculously rolled his eyes and cocked his head, paying no attention to how he moved his knees and elbows, sometimes even walking without moving his arms at all, as if he were herding cows. Whenever we went to the Galactic Bar, Černá’s, or the Dom, he would sprawl out and stare around at the carpetbaggers and local rabble, guzzle down the Water and not pay attention at all to his left, where the angel of death most often lurks. He didn’t see why he should spit whenever he saw a black cat, ain’t packin no chew, fellers, he puzzled. He didn’t see why we always kept handy a toothpick, clothespin, or length of stick when we ate at snackbar counters, not realizing how many times knocking on wood had warded off serious screw-ups. He climbed into cabs headfirst as a rule instead of with his feet. He wasn’t afraid of fog or gloom. He didn’t know to weep at the right moment, when your world is complete and like a cup that’s overflowing, to relax the motion of your sweet red heart, but that was one thing we couldn’t teach him. He didn’t know it was crucial to puke after drinking cheap wine or liquor to avoid breaking out in goose blotches. We weren’t drinking the cheap stuff for long, though. We also banned him from wearing necklaces … then you’re sweaty an unflexible, Micka lectured him. That made David sad, he was used to wearing necklaces of teeth and claws from bears he’d killed back home, up in the mountains. Rings’re all that’s allowed, an earring at the extreme, bracelets’re up to the individual, silver’s good if that’s your thing. Silver’s always good, I tried to comfort him. Micka went into the details: short hair, long hair, normal ponytail, okay, but never one a those thin little braids, you’re a man, not a rat.