“Let me sleep on it,” Petr said. “I can probably get the interior ministry on it. You need to regain your focus. You’re flying on some serious currency. And the people are watching.”
The familiar mist shot out of the filter vents, a slightly yellow substance. Bomba!, a revolution in home cleaning and mission sponsor. No more antibacterial wipes, no more Lysol. Once a week, the good housekeeper could place the blue square of Bomba! in the middle of his or her household. Activate, depart the house for five minutes. Meanwhile, the mist would spread around the house and eradicate 99.99993 percent of all bacteria, a ruthlessly efficient genocide. Afterward, the substance would transform itself into harmless nitrogen particles, leaving behind a pleasant citrus scent. Together with the creators of Bomba!, SPCR engineers had developed a new version of the substance to combat any known harmful particle an astronaut might encounter. Bomba!, the commercials cheered. Now in Space! I wondered whether the creature would be affected, whether I would find its dead body and drag it back to Earth. The mist grew thinner.
“All clear,” Petr said. “No trace of foreign substances.”
Behind me, a soft tap on the door.
“Great. Can I get off the grid?” I said.
“I need you stable, Kubo.”
Kubo. What my mother used to call me.
“I get it. I’ll pull it together. Just give me a break and try to find my wife.”
Pause.
“I’ll check on you in three hours,” he said, and his face disappeared from the e-tablet screen.
Another tap. I opened the sealed door. The creature looked like schnitzel just before frying—its skin was covered in fine white powder, its hair dripping eggy yellow mucus. Its lips were a sickly blue. One of its legs was stuck in an empty jumbo jar of Nutella.
“You ate my dessert,” I said.
“My apologies. I found no ova of the aviary type. I toured around the edges of your memory—only for a small amount of time, I promise—and I became what your kind calls depressed.”
“I told you I didn’t want you to do it,” I said.
“Delicious, this spread of Nutella. Rich and creamy, like the Shtoma larvae back home. Crack them open, suck the fat.”
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
“I do not blame you for your curiosity, skinny human. I experienced no pain in my encounter with Earth’s cleaning liquids.”
I swam toward it, wishing the creature wouldn’t disappear. Its lips were closed, and I wondered what kind of cosmic evolution could lead to this species. Did my association of its body parts with Earth’s animals signify a connection, or was I simply reaching desperately for familiarity? Perhaps I was a lunatic for having these thoughts in the first place. I sucked blood from my teeth and rubbed my sore eyes.
“I’m really not happy about the Nutella,” I said. “I only have one jar left.”
“I accept responsibility,” the creature said, “though I do feel my excuse is valid. Your species considers the size of things around you in a comparative context. Things that are bigger than the reflective capacity of your brain terrify you. I found that fear uncomfortable, like sleeping on a bed made of empty Shtoma shells. It infected me. Along with you, I made love to your wife and stalked her as she urinated on pregnancy-detection devices. Along with you, I considered the thing you call death and the existential dread that comes with your ambition. Strange—the spread made of hazelnut felt sticky around my teeth, my stomachs were satiated, and this made my realizations seem less unpleasant. What pains me most, skinny human, is that I now share your fears, though I do not understand them. What will happen when I perish? Why ask such a question when, as the Elders of my tribe declare, certainty is impossible?”
A hallucination could not be full of thoughts that had never occurred to me, could it? Could not be dripping yolky cleaner and bringing on memories in a way that was nearly cinematic, lived in through frames and edges, as if I were at once in a theater seat and strolling around on the screen. Yes, fear was present, and I had no deities to call on for favors, but the sooner I brought on the moment of proof, the sooner I could bear the consequences of either discovering new life within the universe or finding that I had lost my mind.
I reached out my hand, one finger pointed. I could still turn back. Ideas, science, a future for the country, Tůma had said. What if I catch an extraterrestrial for you, senator? Will it inspire the national pride you hoped for? It could not be real. The lips, smoker’s teeth, eyes, lack of genitals—what things could Kuřák’s Freudian analysis reveal about this mosaic of my imagination? Yes, my mother had full lips, part of her movie star appeal. Yes, my father’s teeth were often yellow. More likely, I would bring Tůma a new patient for Bohnice, Prague’s finest establishment for the insane.
I touched the creature’s leg, felt the motel carpet roughness of each individual hair, the steel solidity of bone underneath, the dry skin pulsing gently.
It was there. It was.
“You are here,” I said.
“I am,” it said.
I let go of the creature’s leg and thrust myself backwards, pulling wildly on the wall handles.
“I wish I had the capacity to assist with your emotional distress, skinny human. I cannot offer you the solace of Nutella, for I have consumed it.”
I needed to think, to digest, I needed a distraction from this touch. I left the creature and returned to the lab, where I inventoried old samples, manically trashed my logs and created brand-new ones, polished the glass, and reorganized the items strapped to my table: a lamp, sticky notes, silver pens, a notebook.
I hid in the lab for two hours. When I returned to the corridors, I heard a low snore. In the Lounge, the creature floated in the upper corner, all of its eyes closed, legs folded underneath its belly, forming a nearly perfect sphere. I knew what needed to be done.
I recovered a scalpel from the lab. What is a scientist to do when faced with impossible possibilities? A scientist gathers data and studies it in accordance with the scientific method. I pondered whether I could risk carving out a skin sample, or perhaps a scrape, and quickly come back to the lab before the creature realized what was happening. There was the safer option of collecting hair only. This was the way. If I put an item under the microscope and found real particles, I could be sure. Particles do not lie. Elements are truth tellers. For a moment, I considered simply plunging the scalpel into the creature’s belly, spilling whatever insides it held all over the ship—there couldn’t be more tangible proof than that. With an intense headache and shaking fingers, side effects of the sleep medication, I approached the alien creature, counted its exhales. I lifted the knife, deciding to go with the sound option of gathering hair.
With its eyes still closed, the creature said, “I would not follow your intentions here, skinny human.”
I flinched. The sentence was a pure growl.
The eyes opened. Its legs did not move.
My eyelids pulsated, I couldn’t swallow. There had to be a way. Something I could place underneath a microscope to affirm or refute my senses. At that moment, it seemed more important than stealing fire from Olympus or splitting the atom. What I did was inevitable.
I plunged the blade forward, toward the creature’s back.
It caught the scalpel with one of its legs, while three others wrapped around my body. We flew upwards at a staggering speed, and it pressed its full weight against my chest, stomach, and groin. The pressure of the legs was like a trio of wandering snakes; I could not move a single body part below the neck.
“You refuse to be my subject, yet you subject me,” the creature said. There seemed to be no anger, only a statement of fact. The scalpel flew toward the Lounge window.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“This I know, skinny human. But the body must not be violated. This is the greatest truth of the universe.”
“You know this has been… unexpected. I have to know if you’re here.”
�
��Imagine my wonder when I discovered Earth,” it said.
“It can’t compare to all the other things you have seen.”
It was silent.
“Give me a skin sample. A small one. So I can be sure. We can be subject to each other. Do you have a name? Something I can call you?”
More silence. Its grip loosened. The belly was warm, spread over me like a water bed mattress.
“Perhaps this was a mistake,” the creature said. “Yes, I am certain of it.” It let go of my torso and swiftly made its way through the corridors.
“It wasn’t,” I said. “Stay here.”
I pulled myself forward on the railings, but I could not match the creature’s speed. Soon it vanished out of sight. I looked inside the lab, my bunk, the kitchen, the bathroom, every corner of the Lounge. I shouted, pleaded for it to return. I promised to give it whatever it needed. I promised I would never consider violating it again. I promised it was simply too important.
There was no response.
Hours later, when I finally crawled inside the Womb and dimmed the lights, dripping twice the recommended dose of Sladké Sny onto my tongue, I again felt the pressure around my temples, witnessed an array of colored stains in my vision. My jaw ached from the infected molar. The creature probed on then, despite its absence. It was looking for a specific day. The day a stranger appeared in my life carrying an artifact belonging to my father. An iron shoe.
The Iron Shoe
TWO DAYS AFTER my thirteenth birthday, I am bedridden with fever and stomachaches. Grandma checks on me every few hours as I read Robinson Crusoe and puke into the bucket usually used for pig blood. It is a rainy summer, and through the window I can see Grandpa, cursing the sky and squishing his boots in the mud as he stuffs hay inside the rabbit cages. Water captured by the gutters travels to a small tub from which Grandma draws to hydrate the houseplants. The chickens are sleeping inside the coop, their claws grasping at the wooden poles that serve as their beds. From the rooftop of the house, two black cats fall into the mud, hissing and screaming. I am not sure whether they are killing each other or mating, and I’m not sure whether the difference matters.
In my sweat I have lost track of days, unsure whether it is Sunday or Thursday, when a blue Nissan pulls up to our gate. A suited man exits the car, straightens out the creases in his jacket, and takes a purple backpack out of his trunk. His knock carries through the cold hallway. Grandma talks to him by the front door. I walk out of my room and try to hear their whispers.
“Go to sleep,” Grandma says to me.
“So this is the boy,” the stranger says. He speaks from the corner of his mouth, and despite the deep pox scars on his cheeks, he has the look of a movie actor—a defined jaw covered in stubble, his eyes cold, his hair slicked but not greasy.
Grandpa walks in from the yard, a cigarette between his teeth, a chunk of bulgur in his hand. He listens to the man.
“Jakub, bed,” Grandpa says. He gestures for the stranger to follow him into the living room and shuts the door behind him. I count to sixty and walk over to the door. I slowly take the key out of its hole and peep through. Grandpa sits with a beer, while the stranger puts his wet backpack on the table and pulls out a rusty metal shoe, so large it could only fit a proper giant. Grandma waters her plants, her back turned to the men.
“Like I said, I was once, in a very specific way, closely tied to your son,” the man says. “When we first met, he introduced me to the shoe you see on your table. He took me to an interrogation room in the secret police headquarters and he asked if I liked poetry.”
“I will offer you a beer if you take your wet belongings off of my wife’s table,” Grandpa says.
“I apologize,” the stranger says but keeps the shoe where it is. “I told him that I dabbled. I enjoyed the classics, like any other university student. William Blake, is what I told your son. He asked whether I wrote poetry too.”
“Your time is wasted here,” Grandpa says.
“I don’t write poetry, Mr. Procházka. I like the stuff, but I’m no good at seeing the world in pictures. But your son was certain about my editorship of some international newsletter. A call to action. He was certain I wrote verse calling for a violent revolution, a tsarian slaughter of Party leadership and their families, opening the gates of our country to capitalists and once again enslaving the working class. He was so certain he put my feet inside these shoes. This is one of them, right here.”
The man pats the shoe.
“You do know my son has passed,” Grandpa says.
“Do your legs ever fall asleep? In a violent way, I mean. You try to stand up but you have no control, like someone severed the nerves and you are no longer in command of your own flesh. It’s like that with these shoes. Your son was very gentle when he shaved my chest and placed the charges, right underneath my nipples. He coughed politely when he pushed my chair a little closer to the wall, so I could rest my head. Inserted a piece of cardboard in my mouth to bite on. He patted me on the shoulder, like a stranger telling someone they dropped a coin, before he pushed a button and watched as the galoshes circulated the charge through the marrow of my bones. You become a human light bulb. You piss yourself, you cry a little, and you take the pen and sign, you shout, Oh yes, I did it all, I wrote poems. But your son—I cannot speak for the other Party officers, but I can speak with every cell of my body about your son—he would not let me confess so soon. He lowered the charge and he described the average day in the life of my mother. Morning, he said, she has a roll with jam and Edam cheese. She brushes her teeth with Elmex while she listens to dechovka on the radio. She takes the A line to Old Town Square, where she works as a typist. For lunch, she makes a ham roll, except for Mondays, when she uses the schnitzel left over from Sunday, placing it between two slices of rye bread with a pickle. On her lunch break, she reads plays. She arrives home around four and watches television while she peels potatoes and cooks sauerkraut pork for dinner. This is when your son’s face became very serious, Mr. Procházka, you see, because here he truly had me, and he was happy, but he could not show his sadistic pleasure. Your son, he had shame. He was very serious when he told me my mother copulated with my father on Wednesdays only, and she would never allow him to release inside of her, because she believed there would be another world war and the Americans would kill all of us, and why make more children only to watch them die? Like me, I’m sure you are wondering whether your son made these things up simply to terrorize me, or whether the Bolsheviks actually watched through their windows as my father and mother did or did not pleasure each other. I will always wonder, Mr. Procházka. What am I to do, ask my mother? I can see you are curious too. After this story, your son allowed my numb fingers to sign a paper, and he took that paper and he glowed like a little runt about to deliver the morning paper to its master. What do you think about that?”
Grandma stands still, looking out the window. Grandpa gets up from his chair, groans a little, and takes a moment to straighten his back. He walks to the refrigerator and takes out a beer. He puts it on the table, opens it, and drinks half of it in one gulp.
“Do you want me to apologize on his behalf?” Grandpa says. “Well, I can’t. Because I can’t be sure he would be sorry at this moment. I can’t be sure if he would regret anything. He was a man of conviction.”
“Aren’t you curious how I got the shoe? I’m a wealthy man now, Mr. Procházka. The privatization has been kind to me. I dabble in iron, zinc. Some weapons contracts. I’m even looking into opening a couple fast-food stores downtown. I bought this shoe from a friend of mine at the police inventory. I know it is the one I had an intimate relationship with because the serial number burned itself onto my skin. Can you imagine? The prosecution was going to use it against your son, to shit on your name for the next ten generations, but he managed to depart before they could. I picture him crawling along the steel rope and cutting it himself, the coward he was. Do you think I traveled from Prague to hear an old man say he
is sorry? Take your apology and go feed it to your swine.”
Grandpa finishes the beer. He stands up and grabs the empty bottle by its neck. Grandma drops her spray bottle. The stranger scratches through his stubble, making the sound of a match struck on a matchbox. I wait for my grandfather to hurt the stranger, but he does not raise the bottle. His hand shakes. He sets the bottle down and breaks into a fit of smoker’s cough, roars like a wounded bear until Grandma hands him a mint sucker and rubs his back. The stranger taps on the shoe with his finger to the rhythm of the rain. There is almost a politeness to it, as if he is giving his opponent a turn.
“That was rude,” the stranger says. “I don’t mean to insult your occupation or the wisdom of your age. But tell me, how could I stay away? There ought to be some rules in this universe. The Party gave your family rewards because your son was a good dog. Tell me I don’t deserve justice. Convince me I shouldn’t be here, and I will go, and never return.”
“Are you a religious man?” Grandpa asks.
“No.”
“Then go fuck yourself with justice. A car ran over one of our cats last week. Who should I go to for reparations? Men don’t always pay for their mistakes.”
Spaceman of Bohemia Page 6