by Jáchym Topol
*
Yes, Rolf really pulled it off: there was some fabulous footage. The money just kept rolling in after that … and rolling and rolling – piles of cash.
Not only that, but our students came up with lots of ideas for grants and loans and subsidies to cover the costs of the launch of our educational centre, the only one of its kind in the world.
Sara, being practical, coordinated the operation.
The students started looking for money on their own, so their parents and relatives often ended up on our list, along with an impressive constellation of companies, firms, businesses, and other establishments.
That was the situation when me and Rolf and Bojek met the two Belarusians.
And from that moment on Alex didn’t let me out of his sight. As for Maruška, well, I would’ve loved to talk to her, to stroll around town with her or something. But she was with Alex constantly, like his shadow.
And one evening, during the dancing, Alex pulled the same move he had used against the camera, only this time against a person. Feita, one of the bunk seekers who had come out of his depression and landed back on his feet with us, was dancing, feeling no pain, and, emboldened by the red grass, he asked Maruška to join him. She of course declined – she never danced – but the blissed-out Feita tried to lift her up, and all of a sudden Alex was there and Feita was knocked to the ground.
Alex stood over him. Waiting to see what the other students would do? What I would do? We’d never had anything like that happen here before. Feita’s friends dragged him away, gave him something to drink. And went on dancing. The Belarusians walked around in a bit of a bubble after that. Maruška doesn’t dance, OK, now everybody knows.
*
We worked without rest, building a new life for the town on the ruins of its past.
And one day Lea remembered that before she went crazy with pain and confusion she had been an outstanding student of architecture, so I started riding around in taxis with her, lugging easels and drawing boards, all sorts of tools and supplies that smelled like the first day of school. We also bought a set of special erasers and some other stuff over the Internet. Lea and I never slept overnight in Prague.
At Lea’s urging, and under her supervision, many of our students left their computer games and blogs, or however they spent their free time, and cleared away some of the rubble, carting away fallen beams and piles of bricks, creating a clean and welcoming space for her studio.
In winter we’ll take over the barracks, Lea said, looking ahead.
And together with her fellow architects, and other artistically gifted students, she set to work.
We’ll rebuild anything in Terezín that has fallen or is falling down, she said. It goes without saying that we won’t look for guidance to the unresponsive Monument or the unwilling government. We’ll go our own way!
And when, one evening, Lea the Great laid out for Lebo her latest idea – namely, to team up with the eminent architects of the world, through her alma mater naturally, and launch a competition for the renewal and general beautification of the town – ahem, how about it?
Lebo beamed.
It’s going to cost some money of course, quite a bit in fact, said the slightly red-faced Lea.
Lebo laughed.
He walked happily among the easels as the students drew new versions of the fallen walls, collapsed homes, and flood barriers, boldly sketching the new, proud towers of an expansive town that up until now had existed only in our minds.
Lebo was central and crucial and indispensable to all of us, talking to the crowds in the Main Tent during the day and to us at the evening sittings. I often pounded away on the computer alone now, following his instructions and our previous efforts.
I had our contacts, the whole database, stored safely away in the Spider, and also on the computer, and I added to it constantly.
Alex sat with me at the computer in the bunkroom.
He must have had the plan in his head for a long time.
He quickly realized the only one with a full list of our lucrative network, from whales to minnows, was me.
Not all of the Comenium’s activities were suitable for television and the eyes of the world: the evening sittings in our squat were just for us.
Every evening the newcomers, as well as the old hands, would sit in a circle around Lebo.
Anyone could enter the Main Tent for a fee, but the evening sittings were just for the core of our community, the Comenium. Evenings were for the bunk seekers – we could always pick them out among the ordinary tourists and prying types, Sara and Lea the Great without fail, and even Rolf by now. They were the ones who brought the bunk seekers to Lebo. It was only truly worth it for the unhappy and ill. Here in the house of Comenius, in our squat, it was all for real. Lebo would sit on the bunk where his mother had given birth illegally and he had acquired his name and talk about the long-ago horrors of the town of evil, the death of tens of thousands within the walls where we now breathe, and all those who walked out of these walls to the trains that carried them to their death. Then he would pass around the objects, so we all had a chance to touch them, bringing his tale of the past so vividly to life that images of what had happened flashed before our eyes. Some would cry out, yes, many shed tears, but Lebo had a way out for even the most hopeless: It happened and it’s impossible to grasp, but despite all the horror you can live on. Look at me! I was born here and I’m still alive! Lebo’s words pierced the black clouds in the heads of those hypersensitive youths like a red-hot iron, and Sara got the idea of lighting the night with candles, so Lebo’s ideas would make even more of an impression. Lebo’s talk was more powerful than all the displays and textbook pages put together. Yes, the students loved his teaching, and during those long evenings in our squat, stoned on rampart grass, they trembled in their bunks, inserting their minds into Lebo’s like fingers in a wound.
But then something changed.
As our fame advanced around the world, as our fame increased, it happened.
The footage of our games, the images of dancing girls, flew around the world. We were famous. But a lot of journalists weren’t writing the same thing as Rolf and his friends. Newspapers still ran front-page photos of Lebo, proud and upright in his black suit, but surrounded by a group of girls in flowing dresses and skirts, adorned with blades of grass. ‘Hippie Commune in Town of Death’, read one caption. ‘Old Jew Operates Harem’, said another. And then they really started to write about us a lot, and we were getting too many people, and some of them were calling us names. According to our enemies, we were shamelessly milking people’s misery to pay for our orgies. They sent detectives and a taxman and the financial guard to investigate.
Naturally, accounting wasn’t our organization’s strong point.
Our strong point was enthusiasm.
Several investigations were opened. Inspectors raided our stalls and confiscated our goods, saying they wanted to ascertain if they were legally acquired. Hygiene officials, disguised as tourists, purchased large quantities of ghetto pizza and sent samples to a lab. We were forbidden to sell any more till the results came back. And more charges followed. There were summonses to interrogations crumpled up in little balls and tossed all over the place.
It wasn’t a good time for me.
I knew I couldn’t go to jail.
But where would I go?
Then I got a package. With a letter and a return address.
I thought maybe someone had spotted the picture of me as Lebo’s right-hand man, the way Sara had. No one had ever written to me before, let alone from America. I walked through the grass, taking Bojek with me, and opened the letter.
Dear co-worker,
I know your sentence is over. I found work in the US and I work in more than one state, so I’m confident that our profession has a future. The game that you once helped create has met with some success, so I’ve decided to pay you a small sum as a token of my gratitude. If you would like to continue our work
, please let me know.
Sincerely,
It was signed Mr Mára. Bojek nuzzled the envelope. I pushed him away and grabbed it. A CD-ROM. Hidden and Dangerous Deluxe 5. Ha! That was the game the students at the Comenium played the most. Not me, I didn’t have time.
I didn’t read the letter again. I crumpled it into a little ball and threw it away. Let the wind take it, I thought.
I was sitting by the ramparts with Bojek, the only one left of my flock, blind and lame, poor thing, in his frayed collar.
All of a sudden Alex was standing there in front of me. With Maruška. She was smiling.
He offered me a job. In his country, Belarus. He said all I needed was the data from the Comenium, the contacts we had made with the generous financial world, tucked away inside my head and in the Spider, the flash drive, that tiny little piece of technology.
I’d get the details when I arrived.
Alex sat down in the grass and Maruška just stood, looking at me. I gazed up at her as Alex explained to me that the Comenium’s situation was untenable.
He talked about accusations of embezzlement, tax evasion, extortion, obstruction of government administration, contempt of court, occupation of public property, destruction of public property, disturbing the peace. He mentioned a section of the penal code on corruption of youth, and many other sections that would swoop down upon the normally tranquil surface of our lives in Terezín like gluttonous cormorants on a muddy pool swarming with fish.
He added that, according to his sources, it was already decided and the bulldozers were on their way.
How do you know? I said.
Alex motioned towards the ramparts, where a group of Happy Workshop workers were lounging around a sandy pit shaded by bushes, drinking and smoking, indulging their usual habits after calling it a day.
When?
Tomorrow.
Alex smiled and gestured towards the homeless group again.
I shut my eyes and believed him.
The mental cases were still shuffling back and forth between our damaged town and the state-sanctioned territory of the Monument. They had eyes and ears everywhere. If there was something in the offing, they would know.
When I opened my eyes I saw the beautiful face of Maruška. She held my gaze for an instant, then shut her eyes. I lingered in the gentle movement of her eyelids as long as I could, then nodded.
Alex handed me the key to a locker at the airport and described what was in it. He told me when and where to wait for my go-between, who would take me to their homeland.
I said to Alex I thought the best go-between would be Maruška.
We looked at each other. I had no idea what he was thinking.
Doesn’t bother me that you guys are going under, Alex said. You had a good plan. Didn’t work out. Authorities weren’t on your side. Where we live it’s different. You’ll see.
I was really wishing he’d walk away.
I made up mind to go to see Lebo before I left. Maybe Sara, too. I’d already told Alex yes, but still, what would Lebo say? I had to ask.
As soon as the two of them had gone, I grabbed Bojek and crossed the grass to the mental cases, a few dozen metres away.
As I came close, they stiffened. All of a sudden they shrank into a hushed knot of tattered blankets, limbs and rags, booze fumes, a mix of eyes, hair, beards. Now what?
One of them chuckled.
Dumped, huh, big man? I heard a voice hiss from the hole. Got used to marchin’ around like the big man, didn’t cha? And now it’s over, huh? What cha gonna do now, eh?
So Alex was right, it’s been decided, this is the end of the Comenium. Bojek was rubbing against my leg. I slapped him on the back to move along. But he stayed. To my surprise a hand reached out of the knot with a bottle.
Stop yer starin’ and come warm up, ya cunt, someone muttered. I took the bottle. Went and sat down on the edge of their hideout, swinging my legs. Bojek chomped grass, eyeballing me. I had brought this red wine here with Sara, she picked it out, seemed like ages ago. Huh, they must’ve swiped it from the Comenium. Well, what do I care now?
I wanted to go and see Lebo, get up and go rouse the Comenium. But instead I sank down into the pit. A layer of newspapers, rags, strips of blanket protected us from the cold ground. We breathed on each other.
Then someone uncorked a jug of alcohol. We didn’t talk much after that.
And the bulldozers came in the morning.
6
Early the next day the yellow and orange machines rolled through the rubble around Manege Gate. In the dim light of dawn the excavators levelled the goat barn. Machines crushed walls and buildings, bulldozers and wailing sirens driving our students out of their bunk beds. Excavators ploughed into the kitchen, demolishing the ghetto pizza oven. Someone kicked me in the head as they scrambled out of the pit and I started to come round, a siren sinking its teeth into my hungover brain. I heard choppers too. Where’s Lebo? I wondered, clawing my way through the sparse bushes that camouflaged the hollow where I’d spent the night. From the top I could see the Comenium building. Jenda Kůs came up to me, an old guy, maybe he was the one who’d handed me the bottle last night. It was no use trying to get any closer. We saw a swarm of black-clad commandos on Central Square. The excavators and bulldozers tore away at the brick buildings as the members of the demolition crews walked around in orange vests. There were ambulances and students in shorts and T-shirts. Girls, all in a clump, surrounded by cops, walking them to the patrol cars. A couple of them tried to make a break for it, but this was an organized action, they were rounding up everyone. Even Lea the Great! She was wielding a huge pair of compasses, battering them from on high. Then they threw a net, pulled it in, and she was on the ground. I scanned the area for the big man, Lebo. I knew he would put up a fight. We won’t give up a single brick, a single bunk, those were his words. Maybe he had run off and hidden between the buildings somewhere, or maybe he’d already taken a baton blow to the head. Being tall is no help when it comes to a direct hit – he was probably the first one they dragged away. I’m sure he stood up for his people, though, especially now! A blond ponytail flashed behind the backs of the commandos. Sara? Most people went to the ambulances voluntarily. At least they were ambulances, I didn’t see any vans. The police had the Comenium surrounded, and they were taking Aunt Fridrich, who looked huge in her nightgown! I had to laugh. Kůs burst out laughing too. She carried it off pretty gracefully, raising her hands above her head like she was surrendering! Hee hee, Kůs chuckled. We watched the last act of the Comenium through the blades of grass. It was hilarious – cops and doctors all over the place on account of a couple of grannies. Someone tossed a blanket over Aunt Fridrich’s back. I didn’t see the other old ladies, maybe they were already sitting in the ambulances. But what about Lebo? I looked for him till my eyes hurt. No sign of the Belarusians, but that didn’t surprise me.
A helicopter made another circle over Central Square and disappeared into the sky. The action was over. The ambulances, escorted by patrol cars, slowly pulled away, until the only sound from the square and the surrounding streets was the clamour of demolition crews following in the bulldozers’ tracks with crowbars and hooks. I made up my mind and ran, crouching, down the hillside, which was probably only possible thanks to the general vertigo I felt after all that booze the night before. It only took a minute, down the hill, along the goat track, to the square, dodging the fallen beams and chunks of brickwork, avoiding the men in orange vests shining their lights in the gloom. A couple of cops were still wandering around. I crept closer. The Comenium doors were wide open: this was where they’d brought the students out. Lebo, are you in there? I shouted as loud as I could. Hey, Lebo! All around me machines were rumbling, excavator shovels crushing bricks and beams, stacks of bricks and roofing tiles. So this is a funeral march, I thought. What a strange tune, the town’s last military music. The men with hooks and the cops hadn’t made it this far yet. I slipped into the corridor, tripping
over a trainer, a sweater, stuff that people had dropped as they were being dragged away. The bunkroom was still clammy with the breath of sleepers, blankets scattered all over the ground. I slipped into the computer corner, behind the partition. I’d known what I wanted to do for some time, so I got on with it.
I needed to wipe all my fingerprints off that computer – I didn’t want to go back to jail, I couldn’t. There were notebooks all over the place, floppy disks, CDs, all sorts of junk. I couldn’t wipe my prints off everything, I’d never manage it, so I grabbed a bottle of thinner from under the desk and popped back out to the corridor, where the aunts kept their cleaning things. I took all the thinner, a bottle of alcohol, snatched just one thing off the desk, stuck it in my pocket, a scrap of paper, a piece of shiny envelope with Mr Mára’s US address. Never played that game of his and now I never would. I tore the cap off the bottle with my nails and poured it over everything. One match and the flame went shooting up. Like an idiot I scorched my hair, singed my arms – it hurt so bad my stomach flipped. The plastic melted as the flames went creeping across the boards. I couldn’t believe the way the wood was curling up. Bang! The bottle exploded, red-hot splinters of glass flying every which way. When I opened my eyes again, there were thin flames licking at the bunks, wood crackling. I kicked the desk as I groped my way across the room, my foot slipped on a blanket, there was smoke everywhere. Suddenly I was startled by a squealing sound, a moan. A hand poked out from under the blanket, a tear-stained face, glasses. Come on! I wanted to scream, but instead I just squealed too. I pushed Rolf ahead of me. He was crawling on all fours, I couldn’t get past him. I felt heat on my back, the bunk frames were collapsing. Rolf was hopping on one leg. I gave him a kick and pushed him out of the door, into the corridor. We stood panting, gasping for breath in the smoke. Rolf held on to the door, pointing. But I couldn’t understand, couldn’t hear.