Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

For a couple hours we watched a movie about the construction of some dam, then was some snow show with ads or somethin, music videos … the youngsters gawked. What else … when evenings they’d bring their gramma down and she’d start in with that singsong voice: … come a ridin in on thir wagguns, lookin fir promises, an nothin … all’s there is out here’s thi Benat firest, thi Benat marshis … an up above thi Benat stirs, an thi olduns set to diggin, diggin an clearin an burnin, an lo an behold: Halob’s balk … an thi lovely, most loveliest, Losins’ field … an Kropacek’s ditch … and their gramma’d go on like that night after night, the young ones knew it all by heart … they didn’t have anything written down … just that old Bible … from the good monks of Kralice* … where old Losin wrote down the names of his sons and daughters as they were born or passed away, as his grampa and his grampa’s father had done before him … it wasn’t till afterwards I realized why they poured my green-onion soup in a plastic bowl with an ad for Coca-Cola on it while they put theirs in earthenware … it was a big rarity, all the boys envied me, the littlest ones couldn’t control themselves … as I finished eating, slowly and ceremoniously like the rest, they’d climb all over me, wriggling around to get the best view … first you’d see the writing on the sides and then the bottle of Coke, I didn’t want to torture them, so I’d start gulping like a dog till the old man would hiss at me and Abram knit his brow … this all came later on, of course, along with many more things.

But first I stood there out in the yard, amid the chicken droppings, somewhere big dogs barking … all sorts of weird sheds and lean-tos, the house, well, from up close it was pretty squalid … and then I saw his thumbs, bandaged thickly and soaking wet … still bleeding … someone whacked me from behind, the boys … next thing I knew, there were four of them on top of me, and that was fine, since they were mostly just scrapping with each other, but the old woman intervened again, shooing them off … my head churned like a horse pit, Černá … out there in the woods, she’d better have strong protection … and sitting down on a wooden bench I felt a prick … She-Dog’s so powerful, what if she harms her, but again I felt the puff of wings and my heart swayed up, relieved … the old woman set down a bowl of soup in front of me … the men and boys, David’s bros, sat along the walls, the old man at the head … praying … and me, dunce, spoon in hand … one of them, the lanky one, glared up at me from his prayer with great hatred … I put down my spoon and quick clasped my hands, totally just like once upon a time … long as the old woman is gonna protect me, I’ll hold out, I thought … and next to me sat David.

He didn’t pray, gulping down the hot stuff … it wasn’t him anymore. Face puffy and white … a gourd, I thought, sweating guiltily, yeah, guess it was us … and we didn’t tell Helena where he was either, we didn’t know, we didn’t watch over our brother … but nobody asked any questions … they just let me be there. The old woman parried their first hateful lunge … and then I guess innate kindheartedness triumphed, I thought at the time … and also curiosity.

What protected me at first maybe … it was totally stupid … but when those two busted into Černá’s flat an Vohřecký tore open my shirt, right after I gave em the nod I’d slipped on some T-shirts, the ones Černá used to appraise with a screwing up of her left eye … in other words I was now draped in a remarkable jumble of cotton, reigned over by some reincarnation of I guess it was Travolta, underneath I had a matching set, SUPER DISCO, for one … all my hamburger-shack loot I’d yanked off the coat rack, plus a jacket of Černá’s she probly got from somebody else, I didn’t ask … and the boys followed me around the yard, I was afraid they were gonna do somethin to me … but they were just checkin me out … at first they wouldn’t let me near David, I tried … assuming She-Dog’d sent me to help him … and perhaps, though it might’ve been blasphemy on my part, to somehow atone for what I’d done … to her.

Where yew from, mistir? One stepped in my way … from Prague … they yelled, grabbed me, and dragged me in to their gramma … she got up and started talkin … I caught some … they thought Prague was going to send out its people to bring them back, all the best people live in Prague, they earnestly declared … big-hearted … rich and happy … an where’m I? I asked Abram, he was obviously the boys’ boss … Banatka, this here’s Banatka all arown, an Vladan Dragač, lord a thi barrow … Barrow? I wasn’t any wiser for asking … then the old man’s sharp voice rang through the yard and the boys’ siesta was over … I watched David walk away … most of the boys were pretty strapping, probly worked their tails off, and even if they didn’t know all the flimflams and treacheries I did, I wouldn’t’ve wanted to offend even the ones goin on fifteen … one of em was a hunchback though, started trailin behind me, yakkin away … I went out back to look in on the boys, it was pretty wild … they were tillin the field, but the way they were tillin, two on the plow, the third one urgin em on an steerin … they had a horse, but only one … what I gathered, he was for Abram, him or Kubik’d go for supplies … the little cripple kept scuttlin after me, tuggin at my jacket … I began to understand … he wanted to see my shirts, went totally nuts for this one heinous thing with the Eiffel Tower an Café Bitch, where I got it from I donno … I gave it to him … he didn’t trust me … put it on right away, it hung down to his knees, he dragged me off … somewhere, granary I guess, scurryin up the steps like a squirrel, flingin his little body around … then he shows me: Pssst! Drags me over behind the sacks, whips out a crate an scrabbles around, then hands me a book like it’s some kina sacrament, an old thing with photos of ancient Egypt, pyramids, camels, I had some acquaintance … then he whips out … a postcard of the Clock, the one in the Pearl, puts em both on the ground, Eiffel shirt in between, slaps the floor, an says: Speak! Not only that, but he said it totally normally … so I settled in on the sacks … Losín, pointing to him, Potok, pointing to myself.

Potok, yeah, he said, what else?

Where are we … you boy you!

Banatka! he started jabberin on, an I didn’t get much, but it sounded kina like Romany or Romanesque, an old word here an there …

Me Benjamín, knockin his chest. Then he whips out a book again, a notepad … ships stuck all over it and … la mare, he says, la mare … taps the paper, lookin at me …

Not me! I said fast, donno that one … or the sea.

No?

That night … the old woman took me in to see David, in the settin room as they called it, had it all to himself, slept on top of the stove, I realized I was sposta climb up there too, that didn’t thrill me … I don’t handle close quarters too well … but objections were no help, she had practice with her whipper-snappers, so she put out the candle and I lay there in the dark, next to David, my blood brother … who fell asleep right away, I guess, breathin regular, on his back, had to squeeze in right up next to him … what’s that old bag want from me, what kina punishment is this, didn’t fall asleep till daybreak, then got woken by some squeaking noise … I figured it was David, over by the window … started to say somethin … took a look, he was standin on an overturned footstool, the squeaking was comin from underneath, he was squashin some mouse or whatever, poor thing.

That morning the old woman showed me how to change David’s bandages, brought us into the kitchen, to a tub of warm water, outside it was just getting light out, but everyone was up already, all ten or twelve brothers, there weren’t any girls … everyone quiet as we rewrapped him, they gathered like that every morning to look … at David’s wounds, the flesh was clean, I was worried it was infected, but no … it was totally clean and the blood seeped out … from some bottomless inside, and David held on.