The Little Town Where Time Stood Still

by Bohumil Hrabal

  “You pair of uhlans, what are you getting up to again?”

  “We’re playing at being soldiers,” I said.

  “Play whatever you like, but be quiet about it, the girl in accounts has just spilt a whole bottle of ink!” Francin shouted softly.

  “Where are we supposed to play then?” says I.

  “Wherever you like, climb up the chimney if you want, just as long as we can’t hear you . . . she’s spattered a whole journal with ink!” cried Francin. The sleeves of his white shirt were tucked up at the elbows with elastic bands, he turned about, no longer running now, he waded through the tall grass, I looked after him, and he turned back, I kissed my hand and blew that kiss like a downy feather after him.

  “The chimney?” said Pepin with surprise.

  “The chimney,” I said.

  And Francin disappeared behind the branches, his white shirt now went into the office.

  “So then: Direktion!” exclaimed Uncle Pepin, mounting the first cramp-iron, and then, thinking better of it, he jumped down and said, “After you.”

  And that which I had dreamed of since my very first day at the brewery, finding the strength to climb up the brewery chimney stack, there it was protruding and rising up before me. I leaned my head back and took hold of the first cramp-iron, the perspective ran back upwards in ever diminishing and diminishing rungs, that sixty-metre chimney from that foreshortened angle resembled an aimed heavy gun, I was allured by the fluttering green leotard which someone had tied to the lightning conductor, and that green leotard, while there was a breeze below, that green leotard fluttered and right through the open window I could hear that green leotard making the din of rattling tin, and I caught hold of the first rung, freed a hand and untied the green bow that bound my hair together, and quickly I went up hand over hand, my legs like coupled axles took on the same rhythm. Halfway up the chimney I felt the first buffet of streaming air, my hair was buoyed up, almost ran ahead of me, suddenly all of me was centred in my loose trailing hair, which spread out and enveloped me like music, several times my hair landed on a rung, I had to watch out and slow down the work of my legs, because I was stepping on my own hair, ah, now if Bod’a had been here, he would have held up my hair for me, he would have been changed to an angel, and in his flight he would have kept watch to see that my hair didn’t get caught in the spokes and chain, this chimney climbing of mine was a bit like my bicycle riding. I waited a moment, the wind seemed to have taken it into its head to get a taste of my hair, it lifted and ruffled it so that I had the feeling I was hanging by my hair on a knot tied several rungs above me, then the wind suddenly lulled, my hair untied itself and slowly, like the loosened golden hands on the church tower clock, my hair was falling, as if out of my head a golden peacock spread open wide and then slowly closed its tail. And I used this lull and quickly went up hand over hand, coordinating the motion of my legs with the work of my arms, until I laid my whole hand on the chimney rim, for a moment I recovered my breath like a swimming competitor at the end of a race in the pool, and then I pulled myself up with both arms as if out of the water, cast a leg over the rim, caught hold of the lightning conductor and slowly, as if out of syrup, drew up my other leg. I gathered my hair behind me, sat myself down and tossed my hair over my lap. And suddenly a wind rose and my hair slipped out of my hand, and my golden tresses fluttered out just like last year before the first spring day, my hair flamed out like tendrils of weed in a shallow swift stream, I held on to the lightning conductor with one hand and felt as if I was the goddess of the hunt Diana with a lance, my cheeks burned with rapture and I felt that if I did nothing else in this little town but climb up to the top of this chimney, that might not be much, but I could live on the strength of that for numbers of years, maybe even a whole lifetime. And I leaned forward and from the depth I saw how tiny Uncle Pepin was, just a little wee angel with a head and arms, I wondered how up till now I had had the impression that Uncle Pepin’s hair was thick and curly, but now I saw his bald head rising towards me with its sparse circlet of hair, now that head laid itself on the very rim, out from under it pulled another palm and caught hold of the edge, he looked at me and his face likewise beamed with happiness. He pulled himself up on to the chimney, and as if unconsciously propped one arm at his waist and shaded with the other his eyes.

  “Good God, sister-in-law,” he said with amazement, “this would make a brilliant Beobachtungsstelle or observation post.”

  “Alias viewing tower,” I appended.

  “Bollocks! A viewing tower’s for civilians, but an observation post alias Beobachtungsstelle’s for the military, for the military in time of war to follow the movements of the enemy! Sister-in-law, and you such an intellectual beauty too, if Captain Tonser heard you say that, he’d sock you with his sabre, yelling out, ‘I’ll have your frigging nuts for mincemeat!’ ”

  “Peps,” said I, splashing my legs in the wellspring of air.

  “For Christ’s sake, what would he be having my nuts for mincemeat for? He liked me, I used to carry his sabre!” choked Uncle Pepin, leaning over me, and his face was ominous and threatening like a stone gargoyle on the church roof.

  “Och never mind!” I gave a wave of the hand. “Isn’t it beautiful up here, Uncle Jožin?”

  And I looked over the low-lying landscape, edged with hills and woodlands, I looked at the town and saw how you can only get into our little town by crossing water, how it’s really an island town, above the town the river which flowed around the town divided in two and past the walls two watercourses flowed, which joined up again beyond the town in one river, I saw how actually each road leading through the town and out has two bridges, two crossings, while across the river there is a white stone-built bridge, on which people were standing, leaning on the side-wall and looking over to the brewery chimney, looking at me and Uncle Pepin, at my hair flapping in the breeze, and in the sunlight that hair of mine glittered and shone like a papal banner, while down below the air was calm and still. Across the river there towered the big church, and at the height of my face was the golden clock-face on the tower, and round the church in concentric circles stretched the streets and lanes and houses and buildings. Festooned from every window like feather quilts, petunias and carnations and red pelargonias projected themselves, the whole of this small town was edged with a lacework of walls and from above it resembled a cut chalcedony. And on to that white bridge the fire tender hurtled with its hose, the firemen’s helmets glittered and the bugler held his golden trumpet and bugled “Fire!” and all the firemen wore white hessian uniforms, the red tender thundered across the bridge like an orchestrion, the firemen held on to the rungs standing upright on that clattering fire-engine altar that now dipped behind the buildings and gardens.

  “Is it true, Uncle Jožin, you used to graze goats right up at the front line?” I said.

  “Whoever told you that?” bellowed Uncle Pepin and sat down on the rim, then lay down on his back, folding his arms behind his head.

  “Melichar, the tobacconist,” I said.

  “What would a tobacconist and invalid to boot be doing in the war?” roared Uncle.

  “Melichar was a captain apparently in the war, yesterday Captain Melichar said, ‘God forbid it should come to war and I should have that Pepin chap drilling under me,’ ” said I, holding on to the lightning conductor and looking down at the brewery. And again I wondered to see how the brewery was right outside the town, how it was surrounded all round by a wall, with the little town on the other side, but how along the walls there are tall trees of maple and ash, which also form a square shape, and how this brewery resembled a monastery or a kind of fortress, or prison, how every wall was topped not only with barbed wire, but each and every wall and pillar had set in concrete on its topmost bricks jagged fragments of green bottles, which glittered from above like amethysts and amaranths.

  “How would he have seen me anyway . . . even if I did graze those goats?” said Uncle, and went on lying t
here gazing up at the sky, one leg hooked over his bent knee and swinging the free ankle.

  “With a telescope,” said I.

  “But would the Emperor lend a telescope to any old tobacconist?” said Uncle.

  “As a captain Melichar was issued with two telescopes,” I said, and saw how on the bridge there were now as many people as swallows about to migrate and someone was peering at me from the bridge through a telescope. I gave a smile into that telescope and out of the depths a wind arose and my hair started to splay out like a fan of ostrich plumes, I saw how around my eyes streams of hair were closing in upwards, round the whole of my sitting figure there was a kind of halo like the one on the plague column for the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows, on the column in the town square. . .

  “And if it came to war, what would happen if Melichar was to have me under him, eh?” enquired Pepin and it seemed to me he was grappling with ever growing torpor.

  “He said, if war came again, he’d just crook his little finger on drill like so . . . and call out, ‘Pepin zu mir!’ And you’d come rushing over with your tongue hanging out and paying your respects and go down before him on one knee,” said I, and when I took a look, Uncle Pepin was asleep, he’d fallen sound asleep, he was lying on the rim of the chimney, which had a slight sway in it, I only noticed it now from that recumbent statue of Uncle Pepin, how we were both perceptibly swaying, as if we were sitting on some kind of pendulum hung in the sky. And the firemen sped from the cross, the horses looked from above as if they had bolted, their back legs were strung out in the harness and their fore legs were shooting straight out in front of their heads, like snails sticking out their horns, the whole of that fire-fighting contraption glittered like a child’s plaything and threatened any minute to fall apart and the pieces of the vehicles would go scattering just like that military vehicle in Truhlářská Street when the grenades it was carrying exploded. And there at the chief’s post stood the chief of the firemen, Mr de Giorgi, member of the management board of the brewery on whose chimney I was seated, a chimney sweep who was also the fire-chief, for instead of just a flat to live in he had a fire-fighting museum, everything that had ever burned down Mr de Giorgi had photographed, he even got hold of photographs from before the blaze, and so on all the walls of his flat he had photographs, always in pairs, a cow before the fire and after it, a dog before the fire and after, an adult male before the fire and after, a barn before the fire and after it, all things, all animals, all persons burnt or affected by fire, all these Mr de Giorgi would photograph, and now to be sure he was only riding off to the brewery because, if it collapsed, he would have a photograph of the brewery manager’s wife before the collapse and one after the collapse . . . and now this fire-fighting orchestrion entered the bend in the road at the brewery gate, the wheels grated and the fire-engine disappeared behind the office, and I was just thinking the firemen must have overturned along with the horses, when they rode out again nobly and trumpeting and then the fire-engine drove right up under the chimney . . . I thought they’d probably start to use their hose in a minute, they’d shower the water right up as high as the top of the chimney, Mr de Giorgi would request me to step out on to the very summit of that gushing geyser, and then slowly they’d start to turn down the tap and I would descend from above on the declining peak of the water spout, but the firemen dashed out of the engine, knelt down, saluted each other with axes and suddenly spread out a big sheet, six firemen stretched out that sheet, they leaned back and gazed upwards, but the sway of the chimney stack was evidently such that the firemen with the sheet had to shift this way and that according to the probable likelihoods of my fall.

  And the members of the management board came riding along in their traps, before they came at a trot, but today those traps came rattling along the roads, from the villages and the town, the horses peltering along at a canter and a gallop. And all those traps not as before, when they stopped outside the office, this time all of them gathered in the brewery yard, where the coopers and the bottlers and the maltsters and everybody stood and all of them gazing upwards with their heads thrown back, as if expecting from on high Jesus’ return or the descending of the Holy Spirit upon them. And now the chairman of the brewery, Doctor Gruntorád in person, rode in from the cross, feudal scion and admirer of the old Austria, as always he sat there on the box holding the reins in his deerskin riding gloves, his inimitable hat elegantly poised over his eyes, smoking his cigarette and biting into its amber holder, and driving the black stallion on into the brewery, while his coachman with a rueful smile lolled back on the plush seat like a lord. . .

  And down below Mr de Giorgi issued vain instructions to the firemen to climb the chimney, finally Mr de Giorgi determined to climb the chimney himself. And his white uniform ascended, pausing often, but continuing again to climb up the rungs, until his helmet finally emerged at my feet.

  “Uncle Jožin,” I shook Uncle who was lying at my feet and Uncle sat up, rubbed his eyes, and leapt up in shock clutching the lightning conductor. Mr de Giorgi hopped up on to the rim, regained his breath, removed his helmet and mopped the sweat with his handkerchief.

  “In the name of the law,” he said, “missus, please climb down. And your brother-in-law too.”

  “Mr de Giorgi, don’t you feel giddy?” says I.

  “I say, in the name of the law, climb down,” repeated Mr de Giorgi.

  “And I say, Mr de Giorgi first?” says I.

  “No,” said Mr de Giorgi gazing into the bowels of the chimney, “for training reasons I shall descend by the inside of the stack,” he appended.

  I held on to the lightning conductor, put my foot on the rung, turned about and my hair blazed up, again that draught from the depth inflated my tresses, they fanned out for the last time, as if they knew it, one last time that golden mane of mine flamed above the brewery chimney, again I blessed with my hair like a huge golden monstrance all those who looked upon me at that moment, and Mr de Giorgi himself was affected by what he saw.

  “We are witnesses to an extraordinary incident, missus, what a pity ladies can’t serve as firemen,” he said and picked up his trumpet, a tiny little trumpet which resembled a ticket conductor’s clippers, he blew on it, but that blowing was so melancholic, like a trussed kid bleating in the slaughterhouse trap, then he kissed my hand and I descended, quickly I hurried down, so as to keep ahead of my hair, which I threatened to tread on, getting embroiled and sending myself plummeting to the depths. And suddenly I saw around me the tops of trees, then I seemed to descend into the branches and from out of the branches I finally laid my foot on terra firma.

  “That was just beautiful,” said Doctor Gruntorád with delight, “but you deserve twenty-five of the best . . .”

  “On the bare bottom,” I said.

  “What were you doing there for goodness’ sake?” enquired the Doctor.

  “Well, as you said, it was just beautiful, and as it was beautiful, so it was dangerous, and as it was dangerous, so it was just absolutely truly made for me . . .” I said, and Francin stood there pallid, his head on his chest, in his frock coat, white cuffs and gutta-percha collar and his tie in the shape of a cabbage leaf.

  And the mechanics opened the great doors of the chimney, soot came tumbling out, and that black glittering cavern was as large as a summerhouse. Uncle Pepin leapt off the last rung and said:

  “So the Austrian Soldat wins another glorious victory, eh?”

  But all were staring into the black chamber at the base of the chimney.

  “What regiment were you? Who were you under?” Doctor Gruntorád enquired.

  “Freiherr von Wucherer,” Uncle Pepin gave a salute.

  “Ruht,” barked the Doctor, and added, “Manager, what is your brother able to do?”

  “He qualified as a shoemaker and worked three years in a brewery,” answered Francin.

  “Well then, Manager, take your brother and put him up in the maltings quarters. The best cure for loudmouths
is work,” said Doctor Gruntorád.

  And in the black cavern a white trouser leg emerged, almost right up at the ceiling of this bower overgrown with soot, the leg groped for the rung, but evidently there wasn’t one, so the leg gyrated away there as if Mr de Giorgi was pedalling a bicycle. And the deputy chief of the firemen issued a command and the firemen ran with their rescue sheet into the chimney, spread the sheet out, and the deputy chief called up into the sooty grime, “Chief, let go! We’re here! We’ve brought the rescue sheet!”

  And Mr de Giorgi let go of the rungs, first of all soot and coal-dust poured out of the chimney, poured out in front of the chimney, tender soft curly little molehills of soot, then coughing resounded and the firemen ran out totally blackened, bearing something in their rescue sheet, as if they had landed some huge pike fish or wels, and they laid the sheet on the ground and out of the soot and dust popped up the totally black figure of Mr de Giorgi, laughing, with white creases of laughter wrinkling all the way across his black visage. Mr de Giorgi drew out his trumpet, blew on it, and declared, “And so we may deem the rescue work accomplished.”

  And he came forward out of the heap of soot and stretched out both arms and extracted congratulations and walked about the place all self-assured and joyfully stiff and wooden and I saw that Mr de Giorgi would live off the memory of that descent by the inside of the chimney not just a couple of years, but all the remainder of his days.

  7

  At the corner of the maltings there was always such a draught, such a wind, that I had to walk practically leaning forward, or turn round and lie back into the gust as into a rocking chair. That gusting sucked up my hair like a hungry smoker sucking on a cigarette. But no sooner had I pushed through this stumbling-block of air, by the door to the maltings there was such a breathless calm, that I fell straight over on my knees or back. And yet I always looked forward with pleasure to this air combat, in which I had to fight for possession of my towels. Once the wind snatched away a bouclé bath wrap, all I could do was grab at it with my hand, and the draught, having its sense of humour, flicked it away from me, I reached out again when the bath towel was very nearly about to touch my hair, but the gust hopped away nimbly a bit further with that great towel wrap, and when it floated down again, I leapt after it, but the gust carried it away up with drawn-out laughter, like a kite that bouclé towel bobbed up in the autumn sky, a white zig-zag-dancing wrap moving to the rhythm of the wind, and it vanished in the darkness over the maltings. And yet it was beautiful, to let yourself be handled on the lips of the breeze, to let yourself fill with the aroma of that windy bath like a peppermint sweet. Then when I felt the doorhandle, the draught from the other side of the door leaned bodily against the door so that I too had to press bodily on that door, but the draught, which had its sense of humour, suddenly stopped and I fell into the dark passage on to my knee. Once I staggered and crashed into a maltster, who fell, but in his fall still kept holding the burning lamp so neatly that it didn’t break. Then, with palm outstretched as though to ward off a storm, I felt the handle to the engine room, the smell of oil and hemp engulfed me warmly like a bath, I closed the door, felt for the key and locked it. Then I lit a candle. The huge distribution wheel sketched out a silvery arc in the spindrift half-darkness, the taut distribution cables gleamed and glittered with oil. The dynamos and motors were like fat African beasts, the oil cans like birds pecking insects off those hippos. Slowly I undressed, turning on the taps of hot water, which ran from a huge boiler into a hundred-hectolitre barrel cut in half. I took off my clothes and listened to the draught whistling through the floors of the maltings right up to the drying-room and rattling the shutters there. And I got into that great big wooden bath, the water is always so hot that I have to turn on the cold water taps, I sit there squatting and the hotness of the water hurts me till my teeth chatter, until the cold water mixes in with the boiling hot, then slowly I settle down and lie back, stretching myself right out. I lie there in that barrel cut in half like the needle in a compass box, I gaze up above myself to the beams where the white boiler vanishes, and I dream, I start to dream, I slowly dissolve in the hot water, like soap powder I float in the hot water, all my limbs relax, I untie all the cloths and sheets into which my past life is wrapped and bound, I open all the baskets and cases and cupboards in which there are images which happened long ago, but which are ever willing to visit me again, beautiful, but colourless images which only in the bath acquire their finishing touches and precise colourings. These are my moving pictures, projected on the screen of my closed eyes, the film whose script and direction were shot by my own life, the film in which I play the lead role, I, who have come now to this spot, this wooden bath, in which I lie . . . I am a little lassie with straw plaits, I play chuckie stones in the middle of the road, I sit cross-legged and scatter the four stones again, ready to take one and throw it up and gather up the three remaining ones in time to catch the first as it falls. Approaching thunder, I fall on my back the moment after scattering the four pebbles, the sky darkens and above me loom terrible maws and buckles and reins, hooves flash over me with their glittering shoes, I close my eyes, dried mud spatters over me, the thundering moves away onward, I get to my feet and see the clattering vehicle drawn by bolting horses, I see the blue sky and out of it leaning over me the head of my worried dad. I am a little lassie, playing on the field track with chuckie stones, my dad always took me off behind the building for safety’s sake, so nothing would happen to me. I see two soldiers running from the woods, I see them running along the meadow path where I am playing, these soldiers are running like two bolting horses, I lie down on my back so as not to be run over, I see the soldiers leaping up, I see above me the soles of the boots full of studs, then the shadow of the soldiers thundered across me and the thump of the army boots dinned and departed down the meadow track. I sat up and saw the soldiers running to the stream — they stop, instead of a footbridge there is a beam hung on chains, the soldiers splay their arms like the two guardian angels over my bed their wings, and then they run over to the other side and run on, in the curve of the track I see their rising shining studs for the last time, now they vanish in the forest bend. The soldiers vanished long ago, but I am still thinking of them. I see myself now, I toddle down to the stream, I put my little shoe on the log, I see the water swirling in the stream, I splay my arms and run along the log, but right in the middle the log slips from under me and I fall into the water—I pedalled away in the depths like mum on her sewing machine, but I couldn’t get a footing on the bottom, at first I drank water, but then I had probably drunk enough water to make me drown, all I saw was how my hair fell free and fluttered along the bottom of the stream and mingled with the green tendrils of weed and water flowers without blooms, I wanted so awfully much to sleep, I couldn’t close my eyes, and everything was full of light and I seemed to be seeing the sky above me through thick spectacles . . . and then I awaken, I see how beautiful it is to be drowned, as if I were at home, lying in heaven in a little bed just like the one we had at home — I saw my hands resting on the feather quilt with forget-me-nots printed over it just like the one that Mummy has, and opposite me hangs a picture of a guardian angel, just like the one we have, and then Mummy came in and said, “Just come on in, children, come along in . . .” and into the kitchen came the little girls from the neighbourhood, and now I knew I was drowned, because the girls, who called me Mary and I called them Hedvig and Evie and Boženka, those girls put holy pictures next to my hands on the quilt, all over my bed there were so many little pictures of guardian angels, and Hedvig said to me, “Mummy told me you were drowned. . .” and she put down another holy picture, and I said, “Why are you giving me that picture then?” And Hedvig said, “You put them in little dead girls’ coffins. . .” and I was crying, because that meant I was really quite quite dead, but then my mummy came in, bringing candies, and when she saw so many little holy pictures Mummy said, “But girls, Mary’s not dead, Doctor Michálek pou
red all the water out of her and breathed new life into her with his breath . . .” and the little girls were disappointed and sorry that there wasn’t going to be a funeral, that I hadn’t died, because they already saw themselves in their white dresses made of curtains and burning in their fingers a big candle decorated with myrtle, and the brass band would play such melancholy music and the girls would go in the procession and they would have their hair all in little curls and they would be crying because I had drowned . . . but now it’s off, this procession, and the crying, all because of those two women who went out to soak their laundry and pulled me out and took me home . . . Dad was so infuriated that time, ah, my dad could be angry like nobody else, Mum bought four wardrobes a year, old cupboards from the secondhand dealer, and whenever Dad got really cross, Mum took him off quick to the summer-house and put an axe in his hand and first Dad would break up the back walls, and then he would smash and curse at the rest of the wardrobe, ripping out the door with such zest and then demolishing the whole cupboard from the side like a matchbox, and after half an hour, when he’d chopped up the wardrobe into splinters, Mum always had such a lot of firewood for kindling and heating . . . and I heard Dad shouting and carrying on about how I’d drowned myself, how I still couldn’t behave like a decent little girl should, because the other girls don’t do such things, I got such a fright that I slipped out of the quilt, put my clothes on and ran out into the yard, and there stood a goods lorry, I clambered up on the back, there by the rear window stood a barrel, I sneaked into that barrel, and it was warm in there, I fell asleep, and when I awoke, I could hear the goods lorry going along, and when I got up I could see through the window that it was getting dark, that close by the rear window was a man’s cap, when I looked from the side I could see it was Mr Brabec, and I stuck my hand through and scratched Mr Brabec behind the ear and said, “Mr Brabec, I’m in here . . .” and Mr Brabec let go the steering wheel and yelled out, and the lorry stopped so sharply that the barrel rolled over in which I was crouched up to the shoulders, and I tumbled out on to the floor and off the floor on to the ground, and I picked myself up from the road and dusted off my wee skirt, and Mr Brabec ran this way and yelled and stamped, and I said, “Mr Brabec, really, it’s me it is.” But Mr Brabec moaned and keeled over, and when the officers came, they put a blanket over Mr Brabec, but that wasn’t enough, one of the officers had to strip almost naked and lie on top of Mr Brabec to keep him warm, later at the police station one of the officers told me I could have been the death of the man, and I remembered Dad and how he would have to smash up another wardrobe, and the officer laid me a fur-coat on the floor and then he took a rope and tied me by the leg to the table leg, and there I lay and wept, above me rocked the soles of boots full of studs, one leg crossed over the other, and I was tied there by the leg to the table leg, and then I fell asleep and Dad appeared over me, kneeling and resting on both arms like legs, they untied me from the table, and when they pulled me out by the arm the officers were so accusing that Dad took the rope and tied that rope round my neck and I burst into tears and called out, “Daddy, I don’t want you to hang me. I don’t want to die on the branch so long . . .” you see, once the cat ate Dad’s liver and Dad hung the cat on a branch for doing that, and the cat he didn’t die till the next day . . . and Dad led me off on the end of the rope to the train, and when we arrived home, Dad led me like a calf on the end of the rope, explaining to everyone how I wasn’t a decent little girl and how he had to lead me on the end of a rope like a bad dog . . . and at home Dad, as soon as Mum saw Dad, straightaway she handed him the axe, I expected Dad to chop off my head just like he did to the turkey cocks and hens, but Dad hurled himself straight at the wardrobe and with one blow smashed through the back wall and with one more swipe of the body, sideways, he smashed through the rest of the cupboard, so that it all fell flat on the ground, like trampling a carton . . . All soap-suddy, I lie there covered in foam, lathering myself and not even noticing, thinking and remembering the images lying deep in the depths of time, images constantly returning, clarifying, augmenting one another. I am a six-year-old girl with loose flowing hair, on the crown of my head it is just caught with little blue ribbon bows, Dad hasn’t broken a single wardrobe on my behalf for a whole year, it’s Sunday noon and I am walking through the little square, in the open windows curtains flutter, you hear the chinking of cutlery and plates, the draught draws out the savour of food, yesterday Dad bought me a sailor suit and umbrella, I stand in front of the water fountain, then I lean over and look at my mirrored hair, coins gleam on the bottom, we think if you throw some money into the water fountain you may have a wish come true, for safety’s sake I threw two twenty-heller bits into the fountain and wished that I should never drown again, never run away from home, and always be a decent little girl, especially when Daddy bought me such lovely clothes and an umbrella. I hopped up on the edge of the fountain to see better how nice I looked in that sailor’s jacket, I looked about, no one was coming, no one was looking out of the window to complain to Daddy, I hopped up on the fountain, and when I leaned over, I saw the lovely pleated skirt and little white sockies and shiny polished shoes, I shook out my hair, and when I looked again at myself reflected in the water, I overbalanced and fell into the fountain, and the water swallowed me up like a great fish when it swallows a tiny little one, again I tried to find the bottom with my shiny little shoe, but the bottom of the fountain was deeper than I was tall, and again I surfaced for air, but I was too frightened to call for help, because Daddy would be too cross, and I was on my way to join the angels, again I was enveloped in a bright sweet world, as if I were a bee fallen into honey. I saw how my head fell slowly to the bottom, beside my eye I saw that twenty-heller coin which I had thrown into the fountain with the wish that I should never drown again, my skirt welled up so grandly and my hair washed across my face and again so slowly the hair grandly returned, and then I wanted to sleep and only moved my legs about very slowly, much more slowly than Mummy pedalling on her sewing machine, and for the last time I saw the little bubbles rising from my mouth, as if I was a bottle of soda or mineral water . . . but again I didn’t drown, one lady saw me, Mrs Krsenská, who had been ten years in a wheelchair and had stomach ulcers, she had been looking out of her window just at the moment I fell in, and one gentleman came running over, Mr Pokorný the photographer, who jumped in after me still with his knife and fork and napkin tucked under his chin, and pulled me out. I woke up on the steps of the fountain, I had the impression it was raining, I took my little umbrella and spread it open, but actually the midday sun was shining and the bell finishing striking the midday hour, Mr Pokorný was leaning over me, water dropped from his napkin and a couple of frizzles of cabbage with it, Mr Pokorný was threatening me with the knife and fork in turn, saying if his dinner had got cold he was going to see to me again, because nice little girls if they want to drown themselves, do it at a proper time and not on the dot of twelve, when the first of the goose is on the table, and I looked and there in all the windows stood the townspeople in their shirts and waistcoats and all holding a fork in one hand and a knife in the other and all of them were looking down at me with annoyed expressions on their faces and indicating that what they’d really like to do was stick me on their forks and cut me up with their knives, and so I stood up and so much water gushed out of me that I thought the clouds had burst, I bowed, not that I wanted to make fun of them, but meaning that I recognised the point and knew I shouldn’t have done it just when the first of the geese were on the roasting pans on a Sunday at noon . . . Now I lie in the brewery bath, in that hundred-hectolitre barrel cut in half, someone walks from the malting floor up to the lodgings where Uncle Pepin now lives too, and out of that hall resounds his frightful roar, “Doh re mi fa so la ti doh . . .” and then again the descending scale, “Doh ti la so fa mi re doh,” just as the water runs out with the dregs of soap deposit. Someone climbs from the malting floor up to the lodgings, probably it’s the young maltster, s
weat-soaked and with a ring under one eye, as if he’d fallen on top of a telescope, a ring neatly stamped like a round postmark, it’s bound to be him, now he climbs slowly with his shirt tossed over his shoulder and in one hand he’s carrying the squat lamp like an emperor his imperial orb, and in the other hand the turning shovel like an imperial sceptre, so he climbs upwards, pauses on the landing and sings that sweet song . . . “the love that was, it is gone, ’twas for but a short while, golden lassie, not for long, now she is no more . . . her life is o’er . . . to the deep linn by Nymburk town she’s gone . . .” Quickly I got dressed, tied my hair up in a towel, blew out the candle with a mighty puff and went out into the dark, with my palm stretched out before me, till a dim light trickled out at the bend in the passage from the depths of the malting floor, with yellow lines it edged the angles of the damp steps. From the malting floor resounded the melodic tender tapping of the turning shovels on the wet floor, the rhythmic hiss of the shovelled barley . . . and again that song like a rising sea-tide . . . “the love that was, it is gone . . .” for a moment I stood in the half-darkness, then I descended a couple of steps, the warmth of the germinated barley slapped me on the cheeks, two tubby lamps lit up the beds of barley, paraffin lamps on wooden tripods in the middle of fields of barley, the young maltster stripped to the waist was skipping along with short little paces, gathering shovelfuls of barley from one side and tossing that malt on to the other side and leaving a furrow behind him, as if that labouring wooden shovel were the keel of a boat that cleaves the waves in front but leaves behind smoothness closing in, that handsome maltster lad with every step turned over a shovelful of golden barley and with every shovel his back gleamed more and more with sweat . . .” the love that was, it is gone . . .” the male voice went on filling the low vault of the malting floor, a vault resting on four avenues of black iron pillars . . . now the young lad stood erect like King Barleycorn, the ring beneath his eye sparkled like a spectacle rim, his trunk was altogether swathed in the shining quicksilver of sweat . . . and I went on hearing that song, someone else was singing that elegy now, someone working several fields of barley away, where that second tubby paraffin lamp stood on its wooden tripod . . . the young maltster wiped his face with the full of his palm and discarded a whole handful of sweat . . . I walked on further, my legs were wobbling under me, there a little wee man was turning the barley, he looked more like a pensioned-off jockey, in overalls and beret, he’d just finished one heap, now he took the shovel, scooped up the barley at the edge, and then again those swift little maltster’s paces, the man was almost running, he ruffled the scooped-up barley and the shovel left an exactly cut border in its wake. When this little wee maltster finished off this job and bent and placed in the corner his crossed shovels as his trademark, he straightened up and sang beautifully . . .” ’twas for but a short while, golden girlie, not for long, now she is no more . . . her life is o’er . . .” This was Mr Jirout, the little maltster, who when he met me greeted me always guiltily and with a constant smile, Francin used to tell of him that in his younger days Mr Jirout had been an artiste, shot out of a cannon at fairs, to the rolling of drums they tied him up live in a little blue satin suit, put him into the wooden gun-carriage, then the impresario applied the bluely smouldering fuse, and when the deafening bang came, flame spouted from the mouth of the cannon and then Mr Jirout in person, arms tensed, who upon reaching the apex of his trajectory, spread his arms out wide and fell into the waiting trampoline, scattering smiles and coloured paper roses and blown kisses. When he landed, he jumped up, bounced on the trampoline and bowed and received his ovation, at every fair and every country wake. Once they packed little Mr Jirout into his cannon, and when they shot him out and Mr Jirout reached the apex of his trajectory, he spread his arms out wide and as he fell head foremost slowly downwards he saw he had already gone far beyond the trampoline, the impact in the gun-carriage was stronger than it had ever been before, but all the same Mr Jirout went on smiling and scattering his smiles and coloured paper roses and blown kisses, only to smash himself up beyond the fencing in a pile of timber. After they’d spent a year putting Mr Jirout back on his feet, he found he’d lost the desire to go on scattering his blown kisses and roses, he withdrew from the life of an artiste like a banknote no longer in circulation, and for the last eight years, after getting fully back in the pink, he’s been working in the brewery as a maltster . . . “the love that was, it is gone, ‘twas for but a short while . . .”