Bohumil Hrabal - Mr. Kafka - And Other Tales From the Time of the Cult

“I hope it’s not like the last time they tried to make a movie in the steelworks,” said the Frenchman. “Everyone was gone home for the day, so the film guys had to bang on buckets and drop tin cans from way up to make factory noises. They talked all enthusiastic about completing their plan.”

“Here’s a good spot,” said the director. “Just slap some whitewash on that wall, and then we’ll set up the aquariums with some fish in them… a spot of greenery over here; make it look like a birch grove… and you,” he pointed at the grinders, “you guys want to be in this, right?”

“Thanks for asking,” said the Judge, stopping the hoist. “Ever since they evicted me — and it’s a wonder they didn’t lock me up — I’ve been doing wonderfully. Do you know, my rheumatism has completely vanished?” He pushed the right button this time, since there was no other choice.

“I don’t suppose you’ll be sending the authorities a thank-you telegram,” said Vindy, and he raised his glove and gave a signal.

“I won’t,” said the Judge, “but somehow, I’ve become a simpler person psychologically.” The chain with its shiny tackle descended into the cloud of greenish vapor rising from the hydrochloric acid. “Before, I used to drive everywhere. Now I take the streetcar. I used to drink imported beer — Bernkasteler or Badestube. Now I drink Kozel from Velké Popovice. Instead of going to the club, I go to the warming hut, and so on. .. In tens of thousands of years, mankind hasn’t essentially changed. The thing is, my friend, I was neither prosecutor nor defence attorney. I merely listened and drew my conclusions from the two sides arguing their case before me. You know, I’m still as keen on Dreiser and Picasso and Chaplin as I ever was, but today I’d put my landlady up against any of them. Every morning, she dresses three children who are still half-asleep and drags them off to the nursery and toward evening she picks them up and brings them home again. To me, that woman is a greater piece of work than the Dove of Peace, or Monsieur Verdoux , or An American Tragedy …

“What if your landlady were a communist,” said Vindy, ejecting a thread of silver spittle from his mouth. “What would you say then?”

“But that’s precisely what she is, and how!” said the Judge, bending over and brushing the remaining bits of slag off the slabs of iron. “I know what I’m talking about, my friend. My parents ran a boarding house and had seven children.”

“Well,” said the Dairyman, “we won’t tell our mothers anything, and then we’ll take them to the movies and surprise them.”

“Right, then,” said the director. “Sit around on these ingots, some of you lean against the wagon, one of you hold this map and pretend to be pointing something out, and the rest of you read the newspaper. When I give the signal, you’ll all start pretending to have a lively discussion about what you’ve just been reading.”

One of the film crew pulled some freshly cut birch saplings out of the van and began arranging them, while the director motioned him to shift the branches to the right, and then a bit more to the left, and then forward a bit, perfect!

“It’ll be just like the Feast of Corpus Christi,” said the Restaurateur.

“In other words, you’ve been saved,” said Vindy and he leaned over, whisking off the steel slabs.

“You could say so,” said the Judge, while the acid gnawed away at what remained of his shoe. “Now I live alone in a tiny room. I call it my submarine room. Every day I bring bits of wood home from the factory — leftovers from broken crates, small pieces of Russian birch they packed the Russian chrome in, Norwegian oak veneer from the ferrosilicon crates, sometimes pieces of German fir from the nickel crates — and then I sit at home in my submarine and the walls are sweating from the humidity, and I sit there as if I’m in a sauna and stoke the fire with Norwegian and Spanish oak and German fir and watch until the flames have consumed everything… then I gaze into the dying embers until the warmth is gone and all that remains is an amorphous-looking structure. Sometimes I bring back pieces of wood with company names branded into them, stoke the fire, and the letters no longer make sense. .. I gaze into the open stove and watch the flames licking away at Fiskaa Norway… Metalwerke Saxonia… Made in Yugoslavia… Meeraker Sverige… the fire dissolves and scrambles the words and their meaning and in the end, everything just burns up and is gone. .. And I think how wonderful it is to have been forced into this situation. .. I’d never have had the courage to do it myself,” said the Judge. He lifted his head from the cloud of greenish vapor.

“What do you do on Sundays?” asked Vindy, as he maneuvered the hook into the sling and then pushed the button.

“On Sunday my landlady dresses up her three children, and I take them for a walk through Julius Fučik Park. They let me keep one good suit, so when I go out walking, I’m still Judge Hasterer out to take the air. But most of all, I enjoyed living with my daughter. When they moved us out, we got a room that was one sofa length each way. We called it The Chapel. Every morning, we’d comb the plaster out of each other’s hair, and the soles of our feet were covered with plaster too. The main waste pipe for the entire building ran right through the middle of our tiny room, so every time someone flushed a toilet or let water out of the sink, we’d hear it cascading down past us. There was a bathroom next to where we slept, and the taps were right where our heads rested against the wall. If our neighbors got up before we did and turned on the taps, we’d both have the same dream — that water was pouring out of our heads. And there were other nice things about our little chapel. There was some kind of research institute next door where we could hear gigantic machines drilling or cutting up enormous pieces of steel all day long, and I’d imagine that our little chapel was a giant tooth being endlessly drilled by a huge dental drill, and, do you know, it made my molars ache.”

As he was talking, the Judge walked along the boards behind Vindy, who was pushing the steel along in an iron barrow.

“The acid’s fagged out,“ said Vindy. “Time for a new demijohn.”

“Let’s do a brief rehearsal,” said the director, looking at his watch. “We still have a shoot in Chomutov. You take the map, that’s it, open it up, and you, open the newspaper… and when I signal the rest of you to shout, ‘Americans, go jump in the ocean!’ I want you,” he said, pointing to the Prosecutor, “to say ‘That’ll be the day!’ in a skeptical tone of voice.”

“Not doing it,” said the Prosecutor, raising his hand. “I’m in enough trouble as it is. If anything’s going to help me out here, I’d rather say, ‘Yankee go home!’ ”

“All right, that’s perfect. ‘Yankee go home’ it is,” nodded the director. “Now we’ll do a couple of framing shots, and then we’ll go straight to film. It’s going to be called Lunch Break in Our Factories .”

“But we’re not eating anything,” the Priest objected.

“Then get something,” said the director.

“We’ve already had our lunches. We can pretend to drink from empty cups, like the chorus of musketeers in Dalibor , but a salami sandwich would… ”

“Absolutely,” said the director, rolling up his sleeves. “But time’s flying. Move the aquariums up against the wall, and meanwhile, go buy yourselves some salami and rolls.”

“You buy it, and expense it,” said the Cop. “Aren’t we worth it?”

“Jesus!” sighed the director, rolling his eyes.

Vindy pointed the way, then jumped up on the edge of the vat and down the other side. The Judge, holding the control pendant, followed after him with the hoist.