Pavel Brycz - I, City

“What the hell does that mean?” asks Gilles Villeneuve.

James Hunt erupts in maniacal laughter.

“Well… a lightning-fast knife,” replies a perplexed Alain Prost.

“Dumbass!” Niki Lauda adds.

“Hey, don’t call him names, what do you know? Since when you are so smart?” Alain Prost protests.

“Me? Definitely not Indian, retard!”

“Who you calling retard, you son of a bitch!”

“Craphead!”

“Assface!”

“Toothless cunt!”

“Scumbag!”

“All of you shut up,” Gilles Villeneuve jumps in between the friends, already beginning to fight. “We can write the letter in Czech and give it to our teacher Mrs. Jonášová to translate!”

“Well, yeah, that’d do,” admits Niki Lauda.

“Ok. Ok. Ok.” The boys all agree.

In a few weeks, all the boys are waiting tensely for an answer. The teacher was a bit surprised, though, but when they introduced themselves and told her who Villeneuve and Niki Lauda were, and so on, she gladly translated the letter. She even found the address of the Grand Prix Drivers Association, chaired by Mr. Bernie Ecclestone.

In short, she was a fine woman.

All agreed that when Villeneuve comes to the Most track, they damn well better invite Teach.

“Jesus, Villeneuve…” screams Víťa.

“Goddamn right, vroooom…” exults Libor.

“Gentlemen, in Most…” Zdeněk cries.

Toník silently daydreams about the Flying Canadian at the track in Most.

About going to see him in the depot, bringing him to sign all the cuttings from the car magazines that he’s glued with care into his big notebook with the F-1s. And then Gilles Villeneuve would take off, and again he’d be the fastest, because that’s the way it is. Simple as that. He’s the greatest hotshot. Everyone else can eat his dust.

Toník’s dreamy fever rises each day. Motorcycle, off-road vehicle, and truck races are held on the track in Most, and he goes to see them all only because he waits for Villeneuve, for the only true champion.

Until one day. In the first poll position is Gilles Villeneuve, next to him Niki Lauda, followed by Clay Regazzoni and James Hunt. Their engines are warming up, the green light of the starting semaphore will light up at any moment, the tension rises… and, in that moment, Alain Prost runs to the sandpit behind the house, out of breath and screaming:

“Guys, Villeneuve got killed, Villeneuve got killed, yesterday, Mother saw it all on TV!”

And silence. All of a sudden — a silence I haven’t heard the likes of in years. All are looking at Toník, the best marbles player of the Most Grand Prix, the greatest racer of the children’s sandpit.

Toník bends down for the red clay marble and throws it out of the pit. It falls in the grass, but they all see where. Only no one dares pick it up.

For a while, Toník sits with his head on his knees.

No one says anything. I don’t make a sound.

Such silence that one can hear the grass grow around the thrown marble.

And then Toník gets up.

He runs to the marble quickly. He picks it up and returns it to the racetrack.

“Who are you?” asks Zdeněk, Niki Lauda.

“Gilles Villeneuve,” Toník replies.

I told this story to Jacques Villeneuve, Formula 1 driver, and he said to me: “Yes, in my previous life I was a father, and now I’m a son.”

And then both of us admired the imagination of children — able to come up with games that are immortal.

When next you go to the museum, try to ask the collections’ curator to see a letter that the pope, John Paul II, addressed to me, the city of Most.

The pope’s letters are traditionally called encyclicals and the head of the Church references them only to matters of global importance. In his letters you won’t find glosses such as “Agnieszka, I love you,” and if you do, then be sure that they’re intended only and solely to Agnes Přemyslid in the year of her canonization. And so I am proud to own such a letter, which refers to me personally and with its impassionate Catholic conveyance uplifts me unto the heavens. How did it come that John Paul II sat down and wrote an encyclical to me in particular? Let yourselves be told!

It was the day before Christmas Eve, Year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and ninety six, when the pastor of the Deacon’s Church of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, Doctor of Theology Koukl, had to visit Doctor Říčan, the chief physician of orthopedics at the hospital of Most.

It all happened this way: the doctor of theology had gazed at the starry sky above him so unfortunately that he slipped on the icy ground and broke his leg. Of course, Dr. Říčan fixed his leg, but it took a couple of operations and a long period of recovery, and so it was unthinkable that the pastor would be able to officiate for his parishioners at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

Where was a substitute to be found so quickly? Priests, there are precious few of them, and all already had arranged their stints for the season, and so Th.D. Koukl called his sacristan from the hospital: “Cancel the midnight. Due to contemplation, stargazing, slipping, icy ground and leg, I won’t be able to make it. Do you understand? Repeat it, Sacristan.”

“Cancel the midnight. Due to contemplation, star-gazing, icy ground and leg you can’t make it. I understand,” repeated Charouz the sacristan.

And because right at that time Sacristan Charouz was being visited by Mr. Kolyně and Mr. Látal, the latter repeated after the sacristan:

“What’s that, Mr. Charouz? Due to contemplation, stargazing, slipping, icy ground and leg the midnight is canceled? Incredible!”

“What’s that, through leg, stars, icy ground and contemplation the Christians will be short a feast of God? That’s terrible!” Mr. Kolyně lamented.

Both men were very pious and every Sunday and Friday they assembled for mass at the House of the City of Cherson. They also frequently visited Sacristan Charouz and with him they would dispute which was better, the Catholic or Evangelical faith.

From this, it should be evident that they were both faithful Evangelicals.

“Well, I’ll call off the altar boys and the choir,” said the sacristan and reached for the telephone again.

And suddenly Mr. Kolyně had an idea: “Don’t call off anyone, Sacristan — we’ll celebrate the mass!”

The sacristan was stupefied. “Who we?” he asked.

“Well, the two of us,” Mr. Kolyně declared and pointed a finger at himself and Mr. Látal.

“Sure,” agreed Mr. Látal, “no problem at all.”

“You know how to do it?” The sacristan shook his head in disbelief.

“You see… if you’d listened to our explanations about the Evangelical faith, you’d have long known that every Evangelical is himself a bit of a theologian and priest, since everyone in our Church can lead a mass and interpret the Gospel. Our Church is democratic, for Luther said: ‘Don’t create a nobility to approach God. You must all take responsibility for the interpretation of the Word. You must all take up weapons in the fight against the power of Satan!’” Mr. Látal admonished the sacristan.

“Do you understand?”

“No, gentlemen,” the sacristan shook his head.

“Never mind. What’s important now is to show us where the venerable pastor keeps the vestments, the sacramental wine, the monstrance and the chalice.”

“And you would really celebrate it, boys?” The sacristan was delighted.

“Without a doubt.”

“Don’t even ask!”

They kept their word.

People, I am only an ordinary city. I’m neither the Vatican nor Rome. Nothing seemed strange to me at Midnight Mass.