The Little Town Where Time Stood Still

by Bohumil Hrabal

  10

  One day Dad came back with Uncle and no fungi, but full of enormous enthusiasm. The next day Dad bought the biggest size of lorry tyres, loaded them in his Škoda 430, removed the back seats and put in his tool kit and stuff, as well as his treadle lathe, and Uncle Pepin too, they took several days’ worth of food with them and blankets and drove out to the woods. The day before, when they’d been out searching for mushrooms, Dad had discovered a lorry in the bushes, it was a White, and it totally enchanted him, the lorry had no tyres, it was all overgrown with brambles and raspberry bushes, there was even a birch sapling poking through the cabin, but when Dad lifted the bonnet, he was dumbstruck. The engine was intact, because it was chrome-plated or made of some special steel, it wasn’t just an engine, it was a whole engine-room, and when he took a look at the chassis he found that this lorry had drives on every wheel, and so he and Uncle Pepin jacked up each wheel in turn, fixed tyres on the hubs, and when the lorry was back on its feet, Dad dismantled the carburettor, and then the distributor, Uncle’s vision was as if he were swimming under water again, so Dad gave him every part to touch, and Uncle nodded away contentedly. Then Dad took out the big end as well and he was jubilant, the engine hadn’t seized at all, it was still lubricated as if it had stopped only yesterday . . . So Dad inspected the level of petrol in the tank, topped it up from his canisters, fixed the starting handle, and turned it over once, slowly turning the engine over to get the right mixture and put it at the top, dead centre, then he cranked and the engine sprang into life, and Dad hopped about the woods and shouted and sang, and Uncle Pepin cleared his throat, he wanted to sing a high C as well, but his voice failed, he wanted to dance with his brother, just for his brother’s sake, but he stumbled and fell into the raspberry bushes and brambles. And Dad climbed into the cabin, stepped on the gas, and the engine roared, emitting a jubilant voice, a merry white singing noise, then Dad cut off some birch stems, and adjusted the engine revolutions with more gas . . . Then he got up into the driving seat, revved up the engine, carefully, anxiously pushed down the clutch, put it in gear, and when he released the clutch there were drops of moisture on his brow, but the White not only started, not only moved, but took all that little forest growth along with it, mercilessly tearing it, snapping effortlessly all those hundreds of sprigs and roots which had overgrown it with great vigour, and the engine didn’t blink an eyelid when it came to boggy ground, Dad shouted and Uncle, whom he had seated beside him, wanted to shout out something joyful too, to make his brother happy, but he couldn’t utter a single note. And Dad was so overjoyed, that he sat Pepin close beside him and gave him the steering-wheel, then he opened the door and jumped out of the cabin, Uncle Pepin just gripped on to the steering-wheel for grim death, dumb with horror and with the responsibility entrusted to him by his brother in letting him drive this vehicle, but in fact nothing could really happen, because the White was heaving its way through a clearing, quite slowly, almost at a walking pace . . . And Dad took a look at the flaps from the back, then he ran forward and gazed at the White from in front as if it were a complete novelty, as if he’d never seen this lorry before, and each time he looked at the White, from whatever side or angle, every time he could see that this lorry was a really fine vehicle, especially if he were just to give it some new oak side flaps. And now he felt that the rest of his life had all just been leading up to this point, the fact that he’d been an accountant, then a manager, and finally just about director of the brewery, was really all a mistake, he felt that right from the very start he was actually made to be a lorry driver by profession, now his amateur love for engines had turned professional, just like someone who spends thirty years writing poems and stories after work for his desk drawer, and then decides to quit work, get away from it all and do nothing else but what he reckons to be his real calling. And so Dad drove the White out on to the road, stopped, returned for the Škoda 430 and drove it back to the White, where Uncle Pepin sat feverishly gripping the steering wheel, then Dad drove on half a mile or so in the White and returned for the Škoda, and bit by bit Dad drove on until they arrived home to the yard . . . And that night he couldn’t sleep, he woke up constantly and went out with the torch to look at the lorry, he lifted the bonnet and inspected the engine again, and couldn’t get over the wondrousness of it all. In the morning he went straight to the National Committee to report what he had found, and he bought that lorry from the National Renewal Fund for ten thousand crowns out of his restricted account. And straightaway he set about giving it new side flaps, and after a month Dad announced he was going to start using the White to deliver vegetables, he needed to augment his pension. So Dad started delivering vegetables, Uncle Pepin went with him as his delivery boy, every time they reached the field or the vegetable store people asked, “Where’s your assistant?” And Dad would ask them to help him get Uncle Pepin down out of the cabin, and when they saw Uncle trying to carry cases of vegetables, but every so often going astray with a case and missing the lorry completely, they put Uncle back in the cabin and helped to load it themselves, and so after that whenever they saw Dad’s vehicle coming and Uncle Pepin as delivery boy the workmen in the store would say, “We want to get it done quicker, better leave Uncle where he is . . .” So then Dad closed up the flaps, they threw a few more cases up on top for him, Dad carefully lashed the whole load down with ropes and took the steering-wheel with a great happy laugh, he stuffed the delivery chits in his side pocket, and nothing gave him greater delight than the prospect of driving along in his lorry to other towns, over hills and dales, listening to the White’s engine eating away the miles, and all the way Dad sang aloud and Uncle Pepin bleated away with him. And again when they reached their destination, Dad backed up on to the ramp or against the warehouse, and when they asked Dad if he had an assistant with him, Dad said yes, but could they help him get his assistant down, and when they got Uncle Pepin down and saw what a wretched state he was in, either they put him back in the lorry or they sat him in a chair and loaded the boxes themselves, because they all wanted to get the load done a bit quicker. So Dad went about delivering vegetables, then he started delivering stoves over to Moravia, nothing was too much for Dad, somehow or other the era which had gone against him had now put him back on his feet. It seemed, as the years advanced, as if they were being discounted, for Dad now acquired again the strength he’d had in his youth, and his muscles and back grew stout, and his arms were like shovels, and his fingers splayed out, and when he closed his hand it became a working-class fist, just like the ones on the posters. And now Dad, like Pepin once, began to tell grotesque yarns about his youth, he shouted and raved ecstatically as he spoke, just as Uncle Pepin had shouted too as he told his yarns, but now he was in such a wretched state that he only smiled, in fact Dad eventually spotted that in order to avoid shouting and raving ecstatically, instead Uncle Pepin would excite and aggravate Dad with questions and purposely ill-put remarks, so that Dad would shout just like Uncle Pepin had used to do a quarter of a century ago, when he first came to the brewery on that fortnight’s visit. And his vision wasn’t really all that hopeless either, many a time Dad said, “What’s that passing over there, Jožka?” And Uncle Pepin said, “Old woman on a bike.” And Dad said, “What’s she got on the handlebars, a horse-collar?” And Uncle quietly exploded: “What’re you on about, it’s a wreath.” And Dad said, “And what’s that writing on the ribbon? R.I.P.?” But Uncle Pepin looked and said, “What d’ye mean, you’re as daft as in a test afore noon! It says One Last Farewell . . .” Then Dad would sigh, and Uncle Pepin would clasp his fingers, because, you see, he knew he was not incapable of seeing, but now he’d proved that actually he could, he could see only too well. But Uncle Pepin had resolved that his eyesight was bad, and so it was. Dad gave him a birthday card to sign for his female cousin, but Uncle signed it in the wrong place, on the table, on the oil-cloth covering. And so spring came round again, and Dad started delivering fizzy drinks and lemonade. In May they wen
t out taking refreshments to a nearby small town where there was to be a solemn unveiling of a memorial to a famous general, but as they were leaving Dad had to change a tyre, so they were a bit late. When he and Uncle Pepin reached the town they were stopped by a lieutenant of artillery who instructed Dad to wait — in ten minutes’ time there was to be a gun salute from the ditch to inaugurate the unveiling of the memorial. But Dad said it would only take him a couple of minutes to drive past the artillery battery, he was coming with refreshments for the ceremony and it was nearly noon already, the schoolchildren assembled for the opening were bound to be thirsty, like all young people the whole world over. So the lieutenant of artillery made radio contact once more with the town square, and he was told that the lorry with refreshments might pass, because there was sufficient time. And Dad saluted and the White drove on, slowly it drove along and Dad could see the artillery strung out in the ditch, 122 mm guns, serviced by seven gunners, and so he passed the first gun, and as he passed the second he saw the gunner in the sunlight with his ammunition standing right beside the gun, at the third Dad observed how the men were kneeling by the gun-carriage anchoring it more firmly to the ground . . . And for the first time in its whole life the White began to sputter, a speck of soot in the carburettor, no doubt, Dad took fright and Uncle Pepin said, “What if we stall, there’s still seven guns to go!” And the White came to a dead stop . . . And Dad went rheumatic, he needed someone to warm his joints with a soldering iron, not only his knees, but his arms as well, he just gripped the steering-wheel and saw the lieutenant signalling at him from a distance to get the hell out of there, gesticulating: shoo, shoo! Like shooing chickens the lieutenant gesticulated to the White to get out of there, and Dad rallied himself, jumped out, lifted the bonnet, then returned to get his screwdriver and spanners, with quick motions he released the carburettor, and just as Dad unscrewed the float chamber and loosed the jet and blew into it, he saw the lieutenant listening to his radio, and then with a single dismissive flap of his hand he consigned Dad to perdition, he looked at his watch, raised his arm and glanced again at his wristwatch, and all the gunners were truly concentrating now, some of the soldiers clapped their hands to their ears . . . And then the lieutenant gave the command with a flap of his hand in the sunny morning air, and the first volley rang out, and with that first volley Dad saw how the side flaps were torn off the back of the White and all the fizzy drinks were swept away and a shower of glass like a snowstorm rose far into the landscape and glittered, and Dad felt a great buffet of air rip off the bonnet, and that was probably his saving grace, because away on that bonnet Dad flew as if carried on elephant’s ears, over the ripening cornfield, hurtling through the air just like Mr Jirout once did at the fair, Jirout the maltster who in his younger days had himself shot out of a cannon at village carnivals, and when the force of air diminished, Dad landed with his bonnet on the ground, sailing across to the very edge of the ditch, still holding his carburettor, and then he was showered in a spray of glass and splinters . . . The second volley spun the White right round and swept away any remaining cases with their already smashed fizzy drinks and the ripped-off side pieces flew over Dad’s head . . . Then came further blasts, Dad managed to pop up his head in time to see how the White was shifted a bit further each time and turned at another angle and with every blast there was a bit less of it, and Dad tried to peer through the dust to see what had happened to Uncle Pepin . . . And after sliding into the ditch Dad saw that Uncle Pepin was there in the blackthorn and dog-rose bushes, still sitting on his lorry seat, which must have flown through the air likewise with him and landed him here on these springy bouncing bushes, and after each celebratory volley of artillery the bushes shook with the force of gusts of wind and Uncle rocked to and fro as if in an old wickerwork rocking pram. And then the solemn inauguration of the memorial to be unveiled in the town square commenced with a speech broadcast and amplified on loudspeakers which were distributed not only on pillars by the verges of all the roads leading into town, but also close by on a number of plum trees, and the grand voice solemnly portrayed and narrated some glorious episode in the general’s life-story . . . And the lieutenant came running over, and when he saw that Dad only had a ripped coat and torn trousers, and Uncle Pepin was still rocking away there on his seat in the springy embrace of the bushes, he spread out his hands, and Dad remarked that it was force majeure, it was the first time in two years, the first time ever the carburettor had played up, and that was a great achievement, even if . . . Dad ran on pitifully, pointing to the fragments and wreck of the lorry, which had been carried off bodily by the force of the air current right into the fields . . . And now two gunners, one on each side, carted off Uncle Pepin enthroned on his lorry seat, looking like a real monument to a Czech writer . . . And they loaded Uncle on to a military vehicle. By the time they reached the square a couple of minutes later the monument was still to be unveiled, smartly dressed soldiers and citizens had re-emerged from arcades and houses, children in tunics and kerchiefs ran cautiously out again, and the paving of the square all around the statue glittered with shards and fragments and splinters of glass from the bottles of refreshing lemonade and other drinks, which the artillery fire had pounded and shattered but the great gust of wind had carried even this far, and one or two foreheads were peppered with cuts, and nurses fixed sticking plasters and bound up the scars . . . And so it happened that the music playing was the national anthem, and the mayor pulled the rope, and as the sheet came floating down, the statue of the general rose, towering up, and the military saluted, and the soldiers put Uncle Pepin down, plonked him down on some boards on the trestles of a stall selling plaques and other mementos, so that they could salute the anthem too . . . But Uncle Pepin leaned over and fell together with the seat, the steel underframe of which made a terrible clang on the paving . . . But no one could do anything about it, because everybody has to stand to attention of course during the national anthem. And a military caterpillar tractor arrived on the square as well, pulling the shattered White lorry, which limped so badly on all its four wheels, that while the anthem was finishing, the caterpillar tractor stopped, and the soldiers saluted, but then with a great clashing of iron and steel on the paving of the square the whole White lorry caved in and collapsed like some antediluvian beast, wounded mastodon, or Loch Ness monster. And still the White’s centre of gravity gave it no rest, a few more ounces of weight slumped it over to one side, enough to turn it on its back, showering out with a crash the last splinters and remains of bottles left stuck at the bottom and in the chassis and interstices of the engine. And the national anthem finished, and those already pockmarked by the glass couldn’t help themselves, when they saw that second monument at the lower end of the square they fled into the side streets and passageways and arcades. Then the military towed Dad and the White lorry off home, not on its own axles, but on top of a trailer. And they hauled that battle-scarred lorry into the yard and put it right beside the Škoda, they carried in Uncle Pepin, still sitting on his lorry cabin seat, and because Dad’s hip was a little out of joint, they carried him across the yard on that bonnet on which he had earlier sailed through the landscape, and Dad was still holding his carburettor . . . And from then on Dad never really got himself back to rights again, because he could never get the White lorry back to rights either, there Uncle Pepin would sit, while Dad outlined joyful prospects for the future over the two vehicle wrecks, just have to spend a couple of thousand crowns on the bodywork, then the engines will roar into action again, and the White model lorry will deliver its vegetables again and off they’ll go in the family Škoda to visit their old home town . . . So then one day Dad went over the level crossing to the cooper’s to get some oak beams, and there he stopped for a while to watch a painter painting stripes on the level crossing poles, but just as he started to paint, the poles went slowly up, to the clear position. So the painter brought a step-ladder and mounted it and carried on painting from the ladder, but the paint on his
brush ran out, so the painter got down and took his tin and brought it up the ladder and hung it on a hook, and just as he dipped his brush, he’d scarcely begun, when the poles came slowly down again . . . The painter looked round, but no one was watching, only Dad gave a smile, and the painter came quite calmly down the steps, removing the paint tin first and dipping his brush in the paint. But scarcely had he begun to paint the second black stripe when suddenly the poles went up again, there the painter stood, with the paint dripping off his brush, he waited, but it took too long, so he climbed up the steps again, but the paint had run out on his brush, so he came down, but by the time he’d taken his paint tin up and hung it on a hook, the poles came down again, and he hadn’t managed a single stroke . . . Nobody noticed, only Dad, who had seen this conspiracy of fate against him, he gave a smile, but still didn’t see what it meant for himself. And so, while Dad kept on watching from the cooper’s shop over the level crossing, as the poles rose and fell, as a train passed, and locomotives and goods trains shunted, the master painter, instead of getting angry, got calmer and calmer, as he climbed the steps and the poles went down, every time he forgot his paint tin, but he returned patiently to fetch it, only to find the pole moving away from him again after a couple of strokes, and making him change his set-up . . . And Dad suddenly saw in this a symbol of himself, he identified himself with this painting of the poles, he saw in it the image of his own fate, he waited in anticipation, and sure enough, the master painter painted away and finished only a single black stroke. And Dad went on changing the beams and battens and boards, ignoring the fact that the White lorry had broken axles and a smashed-up engine, that every wheel had broken gears and brake drums, he concentrated on the details and refused to contemplate the fundamentals. About the same time the doctor advised that Uncle Pepin had to get some exercise, otherwise he’d stop being able to walk altogether, so every morning Dad set Uncle at the pump and asked him to pump a barrel of water, a two-hundred-litre barrel of water, Uncle pumped away, while Dad went on repairing his vehicles, from the yard you could hear the regular knocking of the arm on the cast-iron neck of the pump and the gurgle of fresh spring water, and Uncle Pepin constantly went over and reached into the barrel to see how the water was rising, and when he felt the level of the water he smiled and pumped on, the neighbours gathered just as before, they asked Uncle questions and Uncle waved his hand and stood there in the sunshine and pumped, made content by the fresh water gushing up from the bowels of the earth, and when he felt the water-level and the barrel was full, it would be afternoon by then, he shuffled his feet, shuffled over towards the yard as if his legs were tied together, felt for the wall, and when he found it, he followed it round till he reached the yard and reported that the barrel was now full. Then in the evening Dad poured the water out over the garden, and when it rained, he bored a hole in the barrel and let the water run out and then he bunged up the hole with a peg. And so the two brothers worked, pegging away, but the result of their work was the same as the contents of the barrel, it began not to have any sense, really just like all of that time, which had stood still, not only on that wonky clock on the church tower which had stopped and nobody came to mend it, but all around them that time was slowly standing still, in some places it had already stopped altogether, while another time, of different people, was out there full of its own élan and new energy and endeavour, but Uncle Pepin and Francin had stopped knowing about that, they no longer bothered about the fact that the time of the cattle markets had stood still, the time of the annual fairs and Advent markets had stood still, the time of the Sunday morning and daily evening promenades had passed away, political parties no longer laid on outings to the woods, joint outings where they had tombolas and jailhouses and shooting booths, gone were the fancy-dress balls and the festive balls and the village horse-rides, gone were the masquerades and the allegorical processions and the winter processions of Bacchus at Lent, the local amenity societies had ceased to vie amongst themselves for the finest windows in town, the five theatres were closed down and of the two cinemas only one was in operation. Gone too was the time of the Sokol athletic academies and the summer exercise grounds, where at four o’clock in the afternoon the boy and girl juniors filed up and then the novices, gone was the time of the early evening exercises for men and women, nobody in town organised a symphony orchestra any more or a choir, gone were the pensioners walking in procession through the municipal parks, the time of the evening strolls of lovers by the river or through the woods had vanished, the time of the wreaths given to school-leavers had stopped, nobody gambled with cards at the pub, there were none of the establishments with ladies’ service any more, gone with those times were the famous local black puddings and famous sausages, which assistants brought over to the pubs at four in the afternoon and then the players of Mariage put away their cards and bought two sausages and a roll, gone was the time of the carpenters’ and maltsters’ songs to accompany their work, no musical boxes wafted music out through windows, everything linked with the old era had fallen anti-clockwise into a slumber, or as if a lump of food had stuck in its throat, it had choked on it and was slowly dying, the old time had stopped just like Sleeping Beauty eating a poisoned apple, and the Prince didn’t come, couldn’t even come, because the old society no longer had the required strength and courage, and so we had the era of great posters and great meetings, at which fists were shaken against everything that was old, and those who were living by the old time were at home, living quietly on memory . . . And Dad started getting annoyed by the noise of that pump, that constant tapping of the pump arm against the cast-iron neck, he began to be sorry for Uncle and sorry for himself, because Uncle’s pumping up of two hundred litres of water, which Dad let out secretly again in the evening, began to glow in his mind’s eye like a symbol of all that he was doing himself . . . And so, not as a plain substitute, but as a quieter means of keeping Uncle Pepin moving and thereby alive, Dad fetched two enormous inner tubes from the White’s tyres, and every morning he screwed the pump into the valve and all morning Uncle pumped up the tube, with slow movements, it rose, it reared up like a jumping jack, that toy, that figure with strings that children pull, and the jumping jack lifts its legs and arms . . . And so, as Uncle Pepin’s lungs and heart were fine, because he’d never been a smoker, he pumped away, felt the tyre, the inner tube, offered it to Francin to feel, but Francin tapped with a little hammer, praised his brother, and Uncle went pumping on, in the afternoon he pumped up the other tube . . . And at nightfall, when Uncle was sitting in the kitchen and eating his potatoes, Francin let both the tubes down, so that Uncle Pepin would have enough exercise to do again the following day. Whenever Dad heard the sound of the water flowing from the barrel, or heard that strong, but then weakening expiration of air from the inner tube, he couldn’t help thinking that both his and his brother’s, and indeed everyone’s life was the same as what he was doing with the inner tube or the barrel, and later he would return quite pale, with a momentary ghastly pallor, into the kitchen, trembling all over, just like when he had to slaughter a cock, and he did, or slit a rabbit’s throat, and he did, after first stunning it with his fist. Uncle Pepin sat there all evening motionless by the kitchen dresser, the old tomcat Celestine sat just behind, eaten away by time just like Uncle’s face, a tomcat who, when young, slept only under roses and peonies, only he got round almost all the female cats in the district, only he failed to turn up at home for a fortnight, and when he did, he roared out the whole way, “Open up, I’m home! Give me the best you’ve got, quick!” . . . And he got it too, for a long time, just like Uncle Pepin, and he wouldn’t be stroked either, and if you tried, Celestine attacked you straight away, and always he was victorious, like a soldier of the old Austria, he even jumped on Dad’s back when he scolded him with a broom. And Celestine’s face was scarred from brawls, just like Uncle Pepin’s was scarred by wrinkles left from nights on the town and early morning rising, hard graft in the wash-house and boiler-room an
d ice chambers and sewers. Now they sat together, Uncle Pepin felt for the tomcat’s head and said quietly, “Is that you there?” And the tomcat rumbled at Uncle and purred, there he sat, like an owl on a prophetess’s shoulder, close behind Uncle, and the tomcat was snug and so was Uncle. Every evening they sat there, just the two of them, they talked together, just the two of them, they no longer had any communication with others. And then it happened, one day Uncle felt twice for Celestine’s head, and twice there was no purred response back to the question “Are you there?” and Uncle Pepin gave up walking altogether, he never got out of his bed again, just as Celestine, the old tomcat, never came home, because that is not the place where tomcats die.