Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

Then Benjamín took me by the sleeve and we went. With David. The little hunchback boy took care of the sheep. Didn’t have my T-shirt on anymore, but he gave me … what might easily’ve been a shirt at one point. Back in Napoleon’s days. I put it on. It made him happy.

We sat on the hillside among the sheep, Benjamín grillin me, me grillin him, and it wasn’t gettin anywhere.

Banatka, damn it! I took a stick and scratched in the dirt … Here’s the world. Where’re we?

Here, he banged the ground. Took a clump of dirt and set it down on my very imprecise map. Jabbed his finger into it and said: Lord Vladan Dragač.

Lord Barrow? I inquired.

Benjamín nodded happily. That was all I could get out of him.

I tried to spend time with David, but … he’d just squat wherever we put him, runnin his hands through the grass … I told him stories, but only Benjamín got anything out of that … every now an then he’d fire one of my worse words back at me … so I toned it down a little … here I am with the sheep, on one side an idiot, forgive me, David, on the other a cripple, forgive me, Benjamín, an me in the middle, like King Salaman, me I won’t forgive.

She-Dog, what do I do. How do I get outta this, there’s gotta be some scam, some trick. Helena! I shouted at David. Nothin. But … Benjamín perked up.

Bitch, he says.

Huh, Benjamín, c’mon … David’s wife, Helenka!

Yup, nodded Benjamín.

Was she here?

No answer.

She ran off when she saw him, is that it?

Nope.

What is this crap, you donno, you’re just makin it up, show-off …

Eyed me askance. But he took the bait. Shilly-shallied … yeah, I had to swear up an down the holy of holies I’d never tell a soul, which of course now I’ve broken my oath.

Abram said: Bitch. No be here with Davidko.

But she was pregnant!

Ah know. That’s haw cum they chaysed hir off.

That was as much as I learned.

David. He still looked the same, all of us’d definitely changed since then. Yep, turned old and hoarse.

Not him. But there was a strange quality to his face, even in spite of the overall, unfortunately, dimwittedness … an enthusiasm, perhaps. There were moments, but only moments, he looked like he knew it all, like he had it all under control … and there was something working inside him. With a design. But then again maybe I just imagined it.

The boys treated him with respect when he walked around the yard … with that awful mechanical stride, either clearing outta the way or gently steering him around. They never called him anything but Davidko or Davidik. Even though … they were constantly ribbin each other, givin each other lickings … the old man harried em, the old woman too, she made em toe the line … but … in all the days I was there I never saw a single one snivelin off in the corner cause his bro’d trampled his matchbox car or some similar mortality … no, most of the time they were … exhilarated, they were untamed … sometimes they fought like horses … but, I noticed, no kicking in the balls, no ganging up or eye-gouging … more like practice for who versus who … soon I came to realize they were savin their brutality for somebody else … an when from time to time a genuine disturbance broke out, Abram an Kubík were there to tame em down … there was also one called Daník, evidently the family pride, he didn’t even haul the plow … Daník was a wisenheimer … a bit of a loner, like Benjamín, only Benjamín was the family jester, the cheerer-upper, the crackpot … Daník had a place of his own too, out in the barn … one day, stuffed full of herb soup again, they hauled me out there … the old man an Abram an Daník an me, I took a look … he had these pits in there, an in one of em was this thing covered in rawhide, a stick, but smoothed an shaped, an Daník takes the string, draws it back, an goes fshhh … tok! I gaped … they mumbled somethin, all I could get was they were talkin about Benjamín, Abram walked off … they all went back, Benjamín proudly luggin the book about Egypt under his arm … barely draggin, but it was clear he wasn’t gonna let Abram get his paws on it, set the book down on the threshing floor, slowly, painstakingly … relishing it … turnin the pages an jabberin away, the old man went stompin off … Benjamín gets right up an points, a painting in some ancient crypt, mummies, yeah yeah … taps his finger, there on the wall, hunters an bowmen … my eyes pop, yeah … bow … it’s a bow! I barked out the proper word. They just stared. In Prague that’s called a bow, an you invented one, Daník! A bow … there’s bows in Prahah? Yeah, lots, it’s normal there. Daník’s lip sank, probly thought he was the first … c’mon, your gramma told you they’ve got everything in the world there, right, an her gramma told her … so he calmed down.

One day the old man got me in a corner, wanted to know when they’re going to come … after all, they’d written mighty Prague that they wanted to go home … now it’s time … their time here was nearly spent … so when’re the Czechs comin for em? They can’t just leave em here, no way! Well, I rattled somethin off … and that same day I’m standin out there with the sheep again, and all of a sudden Benjamín says: “The river of love floats streaming past, we stroll along its lush green banks, singing like the rain, sugar in my coffee” … and looked to see my reaction. I jumped outta my socks.

See, the ones that gathered every so often around the TV, which the old folks would’ve stomped to bits, since there was nothing about it in the Bible, occasionally picked up a Czech pop tune or two … that was their underground, that was how they learned the tongue, secretly findin the modern meanings … so I wasn’t at all surprised when … Kašpar an me’re traipsin through the woods, an all of a sudden he lets loose: “Here they come, tuning their trumpets, arise, sweet breeze, my only love.” So I go: “Headlong toward the trains my white steed dashes, wind in my face, whipping my lashes.” Train he knew a little, lashes too, steed I had to explain. After that they’d ask me things every now and then. I began to act as a missionary.

One day me and Benjamín were analyzing a song, he couldn’t figure out “twilight of the gods, gods creeping out of every bathroom and kitchen,” I couldn’t either, when all at once the hazelwood parted and two men were standin there. Benjamín let out a shriek an hid his head in the grass, I glanced at David, nothin, he just sat there, hands in the dirt.

These two looked very much like Losíns, everyone around here wore the same tattered hundred-year-old manmade wool, even young boys had hats, here and there a white shirt … and one says: Yew thet fellir from Prahah? Yeah. He sat down next to me. Ah’m Cermak, this muh bruthir, also Cermak. Wi’re out yondir, waved a hand over the mountain. C’mon ovir to owr place, Losins, he screwed up his mouth an spat … wi’re gud Szechs, onli ones rown heer, Losins eee. Perti thing, that’s frum houme … fingering my jacket … all of a sudden he noticed David, leaped up, an him an the other walked over to him, Benjamín vanished into the grass, fled without a sound … but they didn’t mean David any harm … just gaped in outright adoration … heer he is, thi one that herds … see his thuhms, so it’s thi trooth, thi holy trooth … it’s him, he’s got thi stingmata … he bleeds … I wanted to take off, there was somethin in the air, but I couldn’t leave David … I go up to him an see … so that’s why he’s always got his hands in the grass … I’d noticed wherever he sat he’d always fiddle around with those hands, an whenever I’d come over he’d scoot forward a little, craftily, it struck me once … and now I saw why … he was tearin up grasshoppers, ants, crushin larvae left an right … teeny-tiny drops of blood, it was a sickening mess … an behind him, where he’d been sittin before … more wings, legs, pinchers, tiny insect bodies torn in two, a fly crawlin around, no, not even crawlin, its wings an legs were gone … an I flashed back to one time Benjamín had tossed him a lizard … an another time he’d brought him a wounded baby swallow … I took the little one aside an asked … Davidko’s playin with thi aminals, he said … yeah, he was playin all right … it was horrifying, and if the Cermaks wanted to play with him now, well, I guess I’d let em, my stomach turned … and they gaped at him, just silently movin their lips … suddenly there was a sound like thunder and one of the Cermaks dropped flat on his back, a hole in his head … the other one went tearin off … the Losíns all came runnin toward us, all of the boys, with pitchforks an axes, Daník had a flintlock, they didn’t even notice me, runnin after Cermak … then Benjamín came draggin in, all outta breath, threw me a glance, peeked at David, an knelt down by the slain Cermak, ran his hands through his pockets … came up with some rope an a bowie, stuck em under his Eiffel T-shirt … that night I lay on the stove next to David again, in that cramped little room, an I told She-Dog … that motionless body with the gourd face touchin me, there was no way to avoid it … an I told She-Dog, this is too much, I can’t take it, I got a hunch what you want now … David, I guess in his sleep, swung his leg over me, I jerked outta the way an looked, he lay there, eyes open, not movin a muscle … like he was waitin … uh-uh, She-Dog, I can’t do this …