Four Sonyas

by Paral, VladimIr

  As soon as she could hear Sonya’s footsteps going up the stairs, softly but like lightning Berta pounced on Sonya’s things: some hand-me-downs (washed to death), worn-out shoes, under her mattress a novel by someone named Lanoux, but where are her personal documents? Evidently the Volrabs are keeping them to hold the girl in their clutches. But how is it possible that the girl should have so pitifully few things? After more searching Berta found in the bottom layer of mattresses (on the springs beneath it was nothing but Spanish sardines, which meant that old Volrab was also a thief) a flat candy box (cognac-flavored creams), in it two hundred-notes and a five-crown note (apparently all of her cash-on-hand and capital) and a few letters from someone named Jarunka, nothing but the silly prattle of two girls, but there were two other letters which will be of interest to Mr. Holy.

  On the first (a white sheet of office stationery) in hand-printed letters: “I LOVE YOU AND WANT TO MARRY YOU. J.J.”

  On the second (pink stationery, on the envelope just a single word: SONYA, an envelope without a stamp or a postmark, apparently delivered by hand): “Sonya, I love you. Be ready to go. On Saturday I will take you and show you our home. J.J.”

  “When I glanced into the bar last evening,” Berta told the Volrabs after breakfast, “it seemed to me that I saw Engineer Jagr, from Usti, one of those youngish blonds.”

  “You did see him, and he is from Usti,” Volrabka said with her mouth full.

  “A hooligan,” Volrab said with his mouth full.

  “By any chance, is his name Josef?”

  “Jakub.”

  So J.J. is Jagr from room No. 4.

  When Sonya came back from cleaning the rooms, it did not escape Berta’s notice that in the kitchen the girl was up to something around her bed, and then she saw Sonya quickly take something out of her empty pail and stick it under her mattress (we know where she put it and that it can’t get away from us).

  “I’m going out to get some air—” Berta mumbled, and she went noisily down the corridor, nimbly removed her slippers at the end of it, ran quickly up to the rooms (on the way she went over Engineer Holy’s plan in her mind), and once she got her bearings (the plan was as precise as the engineer himself) she pushed her way into room No. 4 without making a sound:

  In the wardrobe gleaming red shorts suitable for a nightclub acrobat, still with their price tag (“PRICE 76,—”) and several white shirts of second-category quality. In the suitcase crumpled newspapers, color pencils, and official stationery with the Cottex letterhead. In the night table two blank pieces of pink stationery (just like the one under the girl’s mattress) and two more candy boxes (“Blue Dessert” and chocolate-covered cherries). Satisfied, Berta left Jagr’s room after less than two minutes (her speed was so great she failed to notice Jakub’s checkpoint hairs on the door of the wardrobe and on the suitcase).

  Room No. 5 was that bastard Mach’s: a vagabond’s room right down to that banged-up guitar on the wall. Under the washbasin freshly washed socks were drying, he had probably managed to do this before leaving for work, but certainly he hadn’t managed to put in a vase that disgustingly fresh white gladiolus from the hotel garden!

  Two minutes later (after five short raps) Berta was already making her report in room No. 2 across the way:

  “She wakes up at half past five. She’s very nicely developed. You’ll be satisfied with her, sir. At night the Volrabs lock all the doors and bolt the window, they take the keys with them to their bedroom. I have a feeling they’re watching me. She insists she’s a virgin. She’s reading a novel by someone named Lanoux. She asked about Mrs. Aja and she took the liberty of calling you Ziki. She has practically nothing at all. Her papers are evidently kept by the Volrabs. Volrab stores sardines in her bed, nearly a hundred cans of them. She corresponds with someone named Jarunka, but it’s nothing more than the silly prattle of two girls. Jagr, in room No. 5, wrote her that he loves her, that she should be ready, and that on Saturday he would take her with him and show her to his parents.”

  “This Saturday?” asked Ziki, and he dipped a biscuit in his ‘early morning tea.’

  “The letter wasn’t mailed and has no postmark. I think Jagr writes her fairly often and leaves the letters lying around his room, where she finds them while cleaning and takes them off to hide under her mattress. Today she got another one, I’ll let you know about tomorrow.”

  “How about Mach?”

  “She took him a white gladiolus from the garden.”

  “Does she give any other customers flowers?”

  “Apparently not Jagr. The others are still asleep.”

  “Have a look at their rooms when you get the chance. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to turn Jagr and Mach against each other somehow.”

  “Count on me, sir.”

  “Go on acting as usual. Stay in the kitchen. If I need you, I’ll order hot milk with rum.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  Quietly Berta Zahnova went back across to room No. 5, after brief consideration she took a razor blade from the shelf beneath the mirror and slit all the strings of the guitar hanging on the wall. She crossed again to room No. 4, where after a brief search she came across Jakub Jagr’s small yellow swimming pass (with a photo from his childhood no less), crossed again to room No. 5, and dropped the pass on the floor right by the door, silently she ran downstairs, nimbly put her slippers back on, crossed the yard, then sat down in the kitchen at her place in the corner behind the stove and said:

  “You’ve got beautiful flowers in the garden. Mr. Holy would certainly appreciate having some in his room.”

  “Can do,” said Volrab. “Sonya, hop out to the garden and drop off a bouquet in No. 2.”

  “In our hotel we used to place a bouquet in every room every day,” said Berta.

  “Yeah, in those days folks had altogether better manners,” said Volrab, “but the socialist price guide doesn’t mention bouquets. And even seed packets can add to your overhead, you know.”

  During the day, Berta frequently nodded off (conversation with Volrab bogged down somewhat, and Volrab was never especially polite), so that by evening she was again quite fresh, and when Sonya called into the kitchen, “One hot milk with rum for table number two!” in ten seconds Berta was leaning over Ziki’s table in the bar.

  “Mach slipped her something small, a matchbox or the like,” whispered Ziki.

  “Count on me, sir.”

  The next morning at five o’clock, in room No. 2, Berta announced the text of another pink letter from Jagr (“I love you and on Saturday I’ll take you away”), his next box of candy (assorted liqueurs), and another white gladiolus for Mach (nothing of interest in the rooms of the other guests). “And this is what Mach gave her in the bar—” and Berta set down on Ziki’s table a large matchbox (so-called family size), on its yellow label a red crab extended its claws, inside, a child’s doll made from a wild poppy.

  “Telephone Wolf from the post office,” said Ziki over his ‘early morning tea,’ “have him come Sunday afternoon with the van. Have him load on the medium-duty gear.”

  On Thursday afternoon, upon returning to his room, No. 4, Engineer Jakub Jagr was alarmed: for the very first time Sonya has broken into my wardrobe — the hair is torn away from both sides of my suitcase as well … did she act out of mere curiosity or from a new-born personal interest? What do I actually know about her psychological motives and mechanisms—

  With the suitcase open on his lap Jakub passionately re- examined his previous evaluations of Sonya’s replies to his psychotechnical tests, as for instance to the question: Do you respond to a new experience a) pleasantly, b) energetically, c) depressively, d) with much agitation, Sonya had underlined a) pleasantly, although this could indicate nothing more than the curiosity of a hotel maid, but on the other hand, to the question on another test, Would you be interested to know what color ties your fiancé prefers, before you marry him? Sonya had replied YES, an answer that could wonderfully mean—

&nbs
p; In the midst of his dogged concentration on the contents of his suitcase, Jakub suddenly realized that something was out of place (the young technician was known for his precise photographic memory) and immediately detected what it was: his swimming pass had disappeared from the suitcase, a yellow card with his photo on it—

  He instantly embarked on a comprehensive survey, standing on the chair he examined the wardrobe from above, then he pushed the wardrobe and the bed away from the wall, inch by inch, on his knees, he tested the possibility of the floorboards coming unstuck, he scrutinized the drain in the sink, the windowsill, even the facade within an arm’s-length radius of the window, and he unscrewed the globes and bulbs of the chandelier—nothing. But why would Sonya take his swimming pass … BECAUSE IT HAS MY PHOTO ON IT—

  The door of his room flew open and in burst Ruda Mach, he carefully closed the door behind him and said: “By any chance did you lose this—” and in his hand was my swimming pass with my photo on it.

  “I was just now looking for it…”

  “Do you remember where you left it?”

  “It’s always in my suitcase…”

  “So you don’t remember?”

  “I’m absolutely certain it’s always in my suitcase—Ow!!—”

  This last was Ruda Mach grabbing Jakub by his hair, with a vigorous tug he pulled Jakub’s head forward to his knees and led him (this hurts more than crawling on your knees, and even more than the usual method of being dragged along the floor by your hair) the whole way down the corridor to his own room, No. 5, where he flung him (“OWWWW!!—”) onto the floor and pointed with the swimming pass to his guitar hanging on the wall, with its slashed strings dangling like the hair of a hanged hippy.

  After more swearing and prolonged explanations culminating in a solemn oath with two fingers raised, Ruda released Jakub with the words: “Well, I really don’t know why you would have done it. But then who could it be?”

  Who and why and WHAT CONNECTION DOES IT HAVE TO SONYA— Jakub whispered to the mirror in his room (for the second time already his wet washcloth had grown warm in an effort to relieve his tormented head), of course it wasn’t Sonya who’d cut the guitar strings, it was as if some gang was beginning to take over the hotel — Day after tomorrow I’ll take Sonya home.

  Technical operation in the form of a rehearsal: (Jakub walked downstairs to the ground floor) here at the foot of the stairs I’ll wait for Sonya, I’ll kiss her and take her out through this gate (Sonya has the key: she unlocked it for me that awful Sunday evening) and I’ll take her by the hand (in our other hands we’ll both be carrying suitcases) quickly across the meadow shortcut (or down the street, depending on whether it’s day or night) to the train station (Jakub took the meadow shortcut to the Hrusov station and checked the time on his steel stopwatch: 9 minutes. Via the street it takes 13 minutes) at a time as far as possible linked to the train’s departure (on his pocket calendar Jakub had already checked off the train times according to the glassed-in posters at the station: 5:42, 6:37, 7:44, 14:11, 15:26, 19:31, 22:16 and he had rechecked them according to the posted Czechoslovak Railways timetable), “take one last look—,” I’ll tell her, and Sonya will surely be touched, I’ll be tender toward her and I’ll leave her to think her thoughts, but when we get out at Martinice (6:03, 6:58, 8:05, 14:32, 15:47, 19:52, 22:37) I’ll try to make her laugh, at the Martinice station we can have a glass of wine (tomorrow I’ll buy a bottle of good red and two collapsible cups, a fifth box of candy for the trip) and then by express (R 151, R 47, R 242, R 93) along the Elbe to Usti and by taxi to our home…

  5:57-12:10 Sonya works in the bar beautiful enough to drive one mad with her long, firm, slender legs. An erect, royal Madonna with a halo of strawberry-blond hair. Eyes like moist, warm emeralds. That silvery laugh of hers — and she belongs to that orangutang Mach and that brute takes note of it and brazenly laughs in Sonya’s sunlight, Sonya herself has admitted him into her radiance…

  Tarzan Mach slowly draws a large matchbox out of his pocket (so-called family size), plays with the box with his plump, dirty fingers (on its yellow label some sort of red spider), suddenly he snaps his fingers (at Sonya!) and in a second Sonya is next to him (how she obeys him!) and that bison Mach sticks the matchbox into her apron … How greedily and yet how proprietarily he feasts his eyes on Sonya … And how easily Sonya bears his gaze—

  But what can there be in that box? I don’t know, but I do — I’ve read heaps of crime novels and I always understood cravings for gain, security, power, and pleasure, even sheer boredom or indifference as psychologically explicable motives for murder — now I suddenly realize that it could also be mere jealousy. Even jealousy not based on a thing—how they smile at each other, Beauty and the Beast!—even, so far, jealousy not based on a thing. For if a greater evil is prevented, murder is necessary and logical.

  12:11 A.M. (tomorrow is Saturday already, when I have to take Sonya home) Jakub began to pace back and forth in his room, No. 4, he decided to stay up until morning, when Sonya would come to clean his room, so he could talk with her, on the third (the next to last) pink sheet of stationery all he wrote was: “I LOVE YOU AND I AM WHOLLY YOURS — JAKUB,” he placed the letter on the table and next to it the third box of candy (“Blue Dessert,” the next to last one, and tomorrow I’ll buy a fifth for the trip) and for ninety minutes he looked out the window at the stars.

  “Sonya!” Jakub said the moment Sonya came in to clean his room in the morning. “I love you and I want to marry you. Tomorrow I’ll take you and show you my home.”

  “Uncle and Auntie would never let me,” said Sonya, but then she smiled prettily at Jakub.

  “But you can’t stay here — it gets worse and worse every day.”

  “You’re right about that. Especially now that Mrs. Berta’s sleeping in my bed—”

  “It’s horrible, what they do to you here … Sonya. We must leave tomorrow. Put all your things in a suitcase—”

  “A small shopping bag would do for my things. The little kind that children play with. And I don’t have a suitcase, Uncle took mine away the very first day I came here…”

  “Don’t take anything then, I’ll buy you everything you need and everything you want. We must leave tomorrow! The local to Martinice, the express to Usti, and a taxi to our home…”

  “That would be nice, but—”

  “You’ll love our house. It’s in a green valley at the base of Strizov Mountain, I’ll take you for lovely walks. It’s all white and we’ll have the second floor just for the two of us, in front there’s a garden with beds of gladiolus and roses and a wicket gate overgrown with roses leads to our apple and cherry orchard … At the end there’s a bench I had an urge last spring to paint green, but for you I’ll make it white…”

  “That would be lovely … Oh, Jakub … when I don’t know yet what’s going to happen to me… Something’s definitely going to happen—I have an inkling, you know—but I don’t know what … So I’m asking you before it happens to me … Sometime later say all over again what you said to me this morning…” And Sonya ran out into the corridor and locked herself in another room.

  Jakub walked back and forth from the window to the door, she’s gone before I had a chance to give her the letter and the candy, Sonya hadn’t said YES, but she hadn’t said NO either, it sounded like MAYBE— but do women ever say YES? YES IS WHAT WOMEN MEAN WHEN THEY SAY MAYBE—

  When an hour later he heard Sonya’s footsteps, Jakub ran out into the corridor and gave Sonya the candy and the pink letter. “I understand you and I’ll wait till you decide—” Jakub blurted out, just then the door to No. 3 opened and Beda Balada, in his shorts, began to listen with great interest— “Thanks,” Sonya whispered, she smiled prettily at Jakub, dropped the candy box and the letter into her pail, threw a rag on top of it all, and ran downstairs.

  Jakub had been pacing back and forth in his room, No. 4, for scarcely five more minutes when suddenly from the corridor the quiet rustle of
footsteps and it stopped in front of my door … is it Sonya coming back to look through my things—or perhaps to upgrade her MAYBE to a YES—

  Endlessly and without a single squeak, my door handle descended — is this the way she was coming to declare her love? … Jakub quickly slunk away into a corner and like a criminal hid behind the criminally opening door. Berta Zahnova slipped into the room and silently shut the door behind her.

  Without the slightest hesitation and with terrible deftness she opened my wardrobe, with her left hand she jerked out one of my white shirts, in her right hand there was suddenly a butcher’s knife, she picked the shirt up by its collar to her eye-level, pierced it through the shoulder blades, and then with a vigorous cut she slit the back all the way down, threw it on the floor, and reached for another one of my white shirts.

  “You old bitch!” roared Jakub, and he leapt out at Berta Zahnova.

  The woman kept her cool, all she did was look down at the ground.

  “What’s this all about?” cried Jakub.

  “Pardon me, there’s some misunderstanding—I must have gotten the room numbers mixed up.”

  “So you cut up shirts in other rooms? Maybe the one where you cut the strings of a guitar? And why did you take my swimming pass to room No. 5?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ll say it again: I got the room numbers mixed up. How much did that shirt cost?”

  “A hundred and fifty crowns. So what was that pass thing all about?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Berta Zahnova, who had been fumbling in her apron for some time, and suddenly she pulled out two hundred-notes, placed them on the edge of the washbasin, with her knife in her hand she passed close to the dumbfounded Jakub and, before he could get hold of himself, opened the door with a lightning-like motion and disappeared like a ghost.