Daniela Kapitánová - Samko Tále's Cemetery Book

Because my Mum always had a feeling about who had a feeling, because my Mum could have become a great artist herself regarding the piano, except that she got ill with a bad back and never became a great artist.

When my Mum was still a little girl because she was only four years old, she was already such a great artist that she was once asked to play for President Masaryk.

President Masaryk was a President way back when we still had Czechoslovakia, so we had a Czechoslovak President, too But he wasn’t a Working Class President, he was a Capitalist one.

My Mum used to play the piano in Topoľčianky which is a resort where all the Presidents used to go. She wore a white dress. Grandmummy and Grandaddy and Uncle Otto went with her. And then my Mum was given a signed photograph along with a little statue. It was a statue of a girl with geese. The girl and the geese were all made out of china. My Mum had so much respect for them that she kept them in a glass case all her life.

The photo showed President Masaryk but I’ve never seen him, because after the Capitalists were gone and the Communist Party came, Grandaddy took the photograph away and burned it. Because it showed President Masaryk and he was a Capitalist and you never know what might happen.

That made my Mum very sad and she used to say that Grandaddy shouldn’t have done that to her.

But Grandaddy did it because you can’t be too careful.

My Mum loved President Masaryk and so did my Dad, even though he was a Czech. But my Dad hated the First Working Class President Klement Gottwald and this is how he used to make fun of him:

‘Little Klement

Big excrement.’

Meaning he was being rude, because excrement is a rude word.

I really hated it when my Dad said rude things about the First Working Class President Klement Gottwald because I was frightened that Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences) might find out about it, because he loved him due to the Persian hat and due to having the same initials. I was frightened that he might find out about the sort of things my Dad had said about the First Working Class President and that he might be offended, so instead I went and reported it. Because you never know what might happen and what’s what and why and how, right?

Right.

Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences) was very pleased that I told him.

We were both very pleased after I told him.

Every time I went to see Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences) in the Communist Party I was very pleased, because not everyone was allowed to go in there whenever they felt like it. The only people who could go in there were those who were allowed to go in there. And I was always allowed to go in there. There was a big staircase with a security man at the entrance. The security man wore a uniform. All the security men knew me and they always said, ‘Hello Samko, here you are again,’ and they would ring up to Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences) to ask if I could go up to see him without me having to ask them, because you couldn’t just go and see him just like that.

It wasn’t just like that at all.

He had a secretary as well as walls made of wood. It was very nice.

Other people, like my Dad or my Mum, were never in the Communist Party, only me and Grandaddy but he’s only been to the Ground Floor. That’s why people envied me because I used to go into the Communist Party whenever I felt like it. This is what it said on the door of Karol Gunár’s (PhD Social Sciences)’s office:

Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences).

Secretary

Sometimes I had to wait too because everybody there was very hard-working and sometimes they worked very hard. Then I would look out of the window and I could see the Water Tower. Every time I waited for Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences) I looked at the Water Tower.

It was very tall.

Later they built a fence around it. They built the fence around it after it all happened to Tonko Szedílek. The fence was very tall, too.

I myself am not very tall but that’s only because of this illness that I have, otherwise I’m healthy and hard-working. And I’m respected by people and everybody else.

Anyway.

There’s just one thing I don’t get and that’s why Tonko said that he didn’t care what Darinka Gunárová did, but sometimes he looked at her in a funny way and then I didn’t know what was what and why and how, because of the way he looked at her. And she also looked at him like that but then all the girls looked at him like that because he was very well developed regarding P.E. and all the girls used to notice him due to that.

I didn’t notice him like that because I’m not a girl.

But Tonko said that he didn’t care about Darinka Gunárová, even though she had lots of white teeth and even though she came top of our class regarding schoolwork.

Sometimes Tonko told me what it was like Up There and how everyone loved one another and he also told me about his Father who was Up There and how his Father would come and get him one day and how he would take me along and everything would be all right then. He never said that Darinka Gunárová was supposed to go Up There too because he always said that he wasn’t interested in Darinka Gunárová.

That’s why I thought that it was very weird when I found out that Darinka Gunárová was supposed to go up the Water Tower, too.

Because that had always been our big secret, all these things regarding his Father and what it was like Up There and that’s why I never told anyone, not even Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences), because I didn’t know if I was supposed to report regarding Tonko as well. Sometimes I reported things regarding Katuša Szedíleková because we used to go and see her at work sometimes. She had a job regarding the Sewers and other kinds of water. That’s what Katuša Szedíleková did. And Tonko and I would sometimes go and see her and sometimes we were allowed to stamp things.

Katuša Szedíleková had all sorts of rubber stamps. I used to love stamping things because I liked it very much. Sometimes she would let me stamp envelopes. I loved doing that, too.

Nobody in my family had a rubber stamp and I wasn’t very happy about that because I love stamping things. My Dad’s job was regarding woodworking and they didn’t have any rubber stamps there, and my Mum had a disabled back so she didn’t have any rubber stamps either, and neither did Grandaddy even though he had his Notebook which was very important even though its pages weren’t lined.

But these days anyone can have a rubber stamp, even that idiot Krkan from Recycling has one but I’m never going to ask him to let me stamp things because I don’t want that idiot Krkan to think he and his Recycling are something special.

Ivana and Žebrák don’t have any rubber stamps either because artists don’t have rubber stamps. Margita is the only one who has some due to sending children to children’s homes because it’s the law to have rubber stamps when you do that.

Except that Margita doesn’t like me to come and see her at work and that’s why I’ve never been to see her at work, so I can’t ask her to let me stamp envelopes because I never go to see her at work.

Sometimes when I have lunch at her house Margita tells these stories about how she sent a child into a children’s home and what it was like and whatever and sometimes when she tells a story like that I think to myself that I’m really good at stamping envelopes and that sending children into children’s homes is not such a big deal either, so Margita can keep all those stories to herself.

But Margita knows everyone in Komárno due to her work and everyone knows her and all the Gypsies are scared of her and say hello to her.

I’m not scared of her because I’m not a Gypsy.