Jachim Topol - Gargling With Tar

We stared at the box and the news was over. What was coming next? Mr Kropáček reached out towards me and thumped me on the back, and said, ‘This’ll be something for this young fellow here, just look at his ears twitching like he can’t wait…’ Everybody laughed — ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ — and Mrs Kropáček said, ‘Leave the lad alone, Les. He’s a courier and on duty,’ and she took my glass away, but empty.

We sat and watched television, and the lady on the telly revealed the fairy-tale title of the next programme: Enchanting River ! And at that very instant I must have gone mad, because it suddenly hit me how badly Margash had let me down. After all, I had hoped to leave Siřem for his country! That we’d bury Monkeyface in the sweet-scented grass of a wonderful land! I must have been mad. I was shocked by how much I loathed all of these people, these Siřem people who had called me a rat and an Avar and a filthy beast and a nutcase, and they had given me a stool to sit on to watch television, and they’d known they’d let me, the whole time I was there. Then they started nodding off on their seats and in their armchairs… I must have fallen asleep too. I dreamed about a chicken in embers and I was picking it out of the fire, taking it out of its clay and tapping it, and it was alive and we went off together into the big wide world… and then I heard giggling and loud laughter, and Mrs Kropáček saying, ‘Les, you mucky pup! Get that kid out of here!’ And there was a river on the telly with a naked girl in it. She was swimming and pawing at the water, arching her back in the water and looking straight at me… Czechia come to life, with long hair, standing in the water. I could see her breasts and her beautiful face… and the people in the room were like one big face, patted together out of a mound of flesh, and that fleshy mug went ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ at me. The stool tipped over and I jumped up and ran away, and I was suddenly outdoors in the dark and the cold, and, breathing as much air as I possibly could, I leaned back against the barn and wanked myself off and squirted my seed on the ground.

And before it even dawned on me that this was the very best moment of my life, it had passed.

Inside they poured me another drink. There was no girl on the television, or any troops, and me having had weapons training, I seized Mr Kropáček’s rifle like a pro, but he slapped me on the hand and said, ‘Now then, lad!’

I raised my hand to my mouth and bit it, quick and vicious-like, like a wolf, and suddenly I knew that no-one would ever dare to shout at me again. No-one would dare to slap me or call me ‘animal’ or ‘filthy beast’. No-one would ever dare to pull my ear or bash me or call me ‘little shit’ or ‘little bugger’, because I could kill them — not with a rifle or my bare hands or a knife, but just kill them.

And Mr Kropáček suddenly realized all this too and he knew, and he looked at me and they’d all realized, they all knew, so they just gawped at me. ‘What’s coming next?’ their eyes all asked.

‘Nothing. I’ll let you off for now,’ I thought to myself, and out loud I said, ‘I know a boy whose dad’s a wolf. How about that?’

Mrs Moravčík spluttered and said, ‘Sure you do, lad, and he was brought by a stork, just like you!’ ‘By a lady stork,’ Mr Moravčík chipped in, poking her in the chest, and Mrs Moravčík went, ‘Tee-hee,’ and Mrs Kropáček said, ‘A wolf? That’s nothing, but how about a randy old goat?’ and they all went, ‘Yeah, a goat!’ And Mr Kropáček said, ‘Come, come, old thing!’ and downed another shot and started choking, and Mr Holý shouted, ‘You stud, you!’ and Mrs Moravčík giggled and squealed, ‘Goodness, you men! You’re all goat here and stud there, but you’re just filthy pigs…’ and Mrs Moravčík took a deep breath, ready to say something else, but then we heard this almighty bang, then another and another, and suddenly there was light everywhere outside and the light smashed into the window, breaking the glass, which came flying in at us and we ran for it.

The sky was falling down! Giant storks were flying over the earth, flapping their wings, which were like sails of fire, and there were more great bangs, and the storks snapped their beaks — tak-tak-tak-tak! — and landed at somebody’s feet, but I couldn’t help laughing… Because in those fluttering shadows of the sky I saw pigs instead of clouds! The air was full of squealing piglets, and there was even a huge sow crawling across the black sky, and the shadows of billy goats and nanny goats leaping up high, dog shadows and cockerel shadows riding on the shadows of pigs! And a weasel with a bloody snout was begging on its hind legs in front of some hens that were miaowing like cats… It was great fun, all these rollicking shadows! And above the non-stop rumbling made by the heavens as they cracked open I could hear pigs grunting, goats bleating, and stallions and bulls stamping their hooves, making a throaty rattle, foaming at the mouth… Someone grabbed me by the shoulder and picked me up, and suddenly I was out of all that racket and chaos. Mr Moravčík and Mr Kropáček were standing together and looking up at the sky, as were the others. We stood in darkness. The sky was still thundering. Light still flew across it. But now it was far away.

‘Christ almighty!’ said Mr Kropáček. ‘They’re bombing Louny!’

‘Shit!’ said Mr Moravčík. ‘So it can’t be the Yanks.’

‘They could’ve made a mistake,’ someone said.

‘The Yanks don’t make mistakes,’ said someone else.

For a moment we were all silent.

Then someone said, ‘It’s not Nato. That’s not the Yanks. It’s the Russians.’

Then some woman squeaked, ‘Oh God!’ But the others stayed silent.

‘Where’s the lad?’ someone asked.

And someone said, ‘Quick, find the boy!’

Mr Moravčík came towards me with his arms held out, and Mr Kropáček was also groping in the darkness. They were looking for me! I dodged out of the way and from the road a light whipped through the gloom. It rumbled and shrieked over my head. The Kropáčeks’ cottage shuddered in flames and gradually collapsed. I could hear clanking and roaring coming from the road. There were some monsters by the bridge, crammed together. They had pointy beaks like storks, but they were tanks.

The air hissed again and I heard vroweeee! There was a flash of fire above me and a column of white smoke rose up in the darkness at the very spot where the people from the house had been standing. I took a step towards the bridge and went towards the monsters with my arms raised, outstretched. I went towards the shellfire, with my back to the people trying to catch me, and from the bridge it did it again: vroweeee! The air hissed and one of the tanks drove through the burning house. With a roar and a clank the tank stopped right in front of me, and rising up on top of it was the figure of a man in uniform, and he also raised his arms towards me, and I skipped up and over the tracks like a weasel and now I was on the tank with my dad. We tramp towards each other across the tank’s armour plating, and we laugh for joy in the dark and the smoke and the thudding of shells. We rejoice and embrace! Otherwise I’d have fallen off!

Dad hugged me to him. I sank my face in his belly and I was amazed to have found my father exactly where Commander Vyžlata had told us. Shells whizzed past us. You could still hear shouting, but Dad held me tight, and I got this flash of an idea that even if this man wasn’t my dad, it was definitely better to be standing on a tank than to be a corpse lying shot to ribbons under it. I guess that’s obvious.