Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

And next day when Kubík, who’d gone for supplies, didn’t come back, the boys went out to look for him. They knew where to go. Him they brought back, the horse was gone. War preparations got under way, I think you could call it that … the only one who came to see me that day was the old woman … kept on sayin: How’s Davidko?

I shook my head. She gave me a sideways look, slyly … did she know?

These old women that live their whole life outdoors … Some of em. Definitely know a lot.

Suddenly she told me: You’ll be goin now, soon. That shook me up, see, I … sometimes I’d feel sick that I was here, while Černá … was out in the woods, somewhere. Everything would go dark on me. Sometimes it was exhausting, but the environment was so new … I hadda be careful … and sometimes, when I no longer knew which way to turn and my spirit was sinking … sometimes I’d feel a slight pressure, like wings … I trusted She-Dog, no … I believed in her.

The boys were out in the yard, Daník … was showin em what a bow was. He himself had a rifle slung over his shoulder. Everyone was in high spirits, little Benjamín gave me a nudge an said they were goin out that night to crush those disgusting Cermaks once an for all … just then one of the little ones they had standin lookout in the hills comes rushin up an shouts: Vlado, here comes Vlado!

And I heard: budda-boom, budda-boom … like horse hoofs. The Losíns fell silent, all of a sudden everyone looked tired and downcast … dejected … I didn’t get what was goin on … we all went out in front … of the estate, and there I saw, heading toward us over the plain, a horseman, crimson cloak flyin … hoofs poundin, but there was something unnatural about the way the sound carried, like maybe some kind of echo … or maybe there was nothing else alive at that moment, motion had come to a standstill … the rider hurtled toward us and Kašpar gave me a nudge and said: Headlawng into thi wind ma white steed dashis, wind in ma face, whippin ma lashis, ah know, ah know thi words to that song tew … that’s not how it goes, I told him … but tears ran down his cheeks, and he said: That is too how it goes.

Now I could see the horseman, oh no, I said to myself … it was the proud Prince, yep, the Dark One, knew him right away … eyes flashing wrath, he dug his spurs into his horse’s flank, it didn’t even bleed … the rider’s teeth gleamed, long and sharp … I started trembling … the old woman whispered: He don see yew. This is owr wirld. This is owr lord Vlado.

And he was on us. Abram stepped forward and said with a humble bow: Yore servant, Abram. Not you, barked the horseman, his armor in the setting sun … the fiery ball was just going down … glistened, but the hands in which Dragan held the reins were dark … probably grave-rot instead of blood.

You, said the horseman. And pointed to Daník. He slowly laid his rifle down and strode forward. No one lamented, they accepted it … like nature, it struck me. I knew … I wasn’t from this world, the old woman had told me, I had a hunch now who she was … it was awful, but I think she had a pact with the Prince … the old man stood there crestfallen, similar to his sons … Daník walked up to the horse and vanished … into the folds of the cloak, and the rider slowly turned around and … rode off.

I snuck into Benjamín’s sailor’s berth an dug out that postcard a his with the Clock … some instinct for self-preservation gave me an idea … Rudolf injected me with some drug an this whole thing is just a dream, I’m ridin in the car with the spooks … but then I’d still have all that to come, no way, I gotta admit, I broke down sobbin right there in the granary …

Hey, mistir! It was Benjamín, pale but holdin up … yew dunno nothin! Lord Vlado, lord a thi barrow, is gunna stick Daník up on a stake, yis he is. But ma bruthirs don go after thi Cermaks an they don git dead, yew know. Just one. Danik, ma bruthir. Lord Vlado is real, real good to us. Lettin us stay here. C’mon, ah’ll show yew sumthin!

Our soup was eaten in peace that night. But I’d made up my mind. Even … the way the boys tilled the field, for instance … takin turns, the old man and Abram kept an eye on that, so whenever one of the boys took the whip too much to his brother, he got it right back the very next day … and whatever one didn’t finish was left for the next, had it all balanced out like scales … and they treated each other great all around … and all those stories their gramma told em … how every balk and forest path and ditch came to be, they had all that firmly inside em and they knew the land they walked on … they’d come into contact with others, apart from the Cermaks, and even with all that hardship … it seemed to me somehow they knew what the universe was, they knew they were alive, and that made em happy … even with all his hootin and hoppin around on those crooked little legs, Benjamín noticed every honeybee … and breathed along with them … what David did with his hands … Benjamín told me he’d never do that, that Davidko was just lost, that’s how he took it, as an exception … and I saw into that awful visit: They didn’t try to please anyone, their life flowed along in orderly fashion … even if they did long for their old land, which they’d dreamed up entirely, including the Pearl … I guess they were happy here. But whenever I brought up girls, I ran into a wall.

Somehow I’d heard the Losin daughters had left … an they weren’t talked about. The bros … every now an then, one of em’d disappear for a time an the others’d go out lookin for him, an when he came back on his own … scowlin … it hit me, the old woman had hinted … they were all related. Chalups, Holeceks, Bendars, Kecliks … everyone that made up this tribe. An one day Kašpar … who, after Kubík, played first fiddle with Abram … left.

That day the old man didn’t show his face outside his settin room. The boys that weren’t workin hung around the yard, bored … an some of em already knew, probly, that they were leavin too … that it was comin to an end there. Cause … bringin in a stranger … nobody here’d ever done that yet. Helena they’d chased out.

It’s up to you, Abram, bring back a girl, c’mon, you wanna protect your bros from the Prince, then show em this, pick up some … chick, an outsider … she’ll be good! … for you … you can teach her your stuff your way, an she’ll teach you too, hey … I told him with the voice of experience. I was two or three years older.

I think he didn’t understand a word. An before supper, before that last bowl of cabbage soup, little Benjamín showed me. Down in the cellar.

He led me down a hallway full of potatoes an cabbage, then we climbed down a ladder an the little guy … showed me a well, the lid was rotten through, Benjamín giggled an made the sign for woman … pretty disgusting at his age, then grabbed his crotch, drew out his face, pale an twisted with scrofula, says: Here Ondráš, ma bruthir, an here Jula … his concubine … Cermacka!

Plainly reveling in the fact that justice had been duly administered … he raised the lid an threw down a woodchip … there were two skeletons down there … plus hair, hair doesn’t rot … in the old well in the chill in the webs, tangled up in each other, plus somethin else, some wire … Ondráš an his Jula, said Benjamín, grinning as he joined the two signs he’d made with his warped little fingers … donno what got into me, I gave him a slap … Benjamín, feelings hurt, sniffled … Maw tol me … said his mom ordered him to show me the family secret, the disgrace of the Losín clan … they’d run away, those two … together, but not far … Benjamín … a plague on both your houses … that’s one tune you donno yet.