Slowly Jakub walked over to the window and looked blankly out at the tops of the apple and cherry trees, towering beyond them was the golden family stronghold of the Orts (so far Kamila Ortova has not attempted to officially break off our engagement), Ruda Mach picked Sonya like a cherry and now he’s spat out the pit.
So once again Sonya is free as a pit on the ground, but a new tree can grow from a pit on the ground, Sonya with her strawberry-blond halo of hair and with eyes like great fiery emeralds IS NOW FREE FOR ME— I promised her our house and Sonya said: “Sometime later repeat to me what you said this morning…” That sometime later has NOW ARRIVED—
Jakub ran around the room for a while, then lowered himself onto the floor and, lying on his back on his firm blue carpet, his hands behind his head, he dreamed for a good hour — he spent another hour visualizing how it would be.
Suddenly he rose, his mind made up: SONYA WILL BE MY WIFE. And I will make a wife out of her—even from the wreckage. It’s even better from wreckage, and it’s best of all from nothing but molecules of pure womanhood… Jakub Jagr’s mate will have CLASS.
Jakub plunged into the study of his thick diary and on its pages made a series of observations using four different colors of metal pencil, then in black he filled out a money order in the amount of 65 crowns, to the order of Josef Hnyk in Hrusov, and wrote a short note to the latter:
Mr. Hnyk:
Thanks for the report, by post I am sending you an increased payment. From now on send a detailed report every day. I am raising your pay by 25%.
J.
and to the same mountain town, in red pencil on pink paper:
I love you and I will come for you.
J.J.
At 6:15 P.M. Jakub followed his father to the garage (it is a Jagr woman’s place to follow the men’s decisions and nothing more), banged the heavy garage doors behind him, and placed himself on the left side of the vehicle (his father always stood on the right).
“You received a letter from Hrusov!” the sergeant said in the dim light.
“From my informant, Hnyk. Sonya is free,” Jakub announced.
“Ha! Hm! Nonsense! Then that fellow has already left her—”
“Ruda Mach has broken his employment contract and cleared out…”
“Hmm! Then he didn’t stay very long with her—Hmm!”
“He wasn’t a suitable partner for Sonya. Sonya has potential for class.”
“Ha! Hm! Nonsense. What if he’s made her a child?”
“I don’t believe it. Anyway there are methods—”
“Phooey! Phooey! Remember: never anything contrary to nature. Phooey!”
“Certainly, Dad. But with Ruda Mach’s lifestyle, paternity is decidedly not in his interest… And he would know how.”
“Hmm. Only if she knew how as well. If she’s got the spark — ha! Ha! Ha!”
“We’ll find out everything. Meanwhile, what’s important is that the two of them are no longer together.”
“But how long can she hold out—ha! And if she’s got the spark — ha! Ha! Ha!”
“We’ll get there before anybody else.”
“So you still want her?”
“Head over heels. Totally. More than ever before.”
“Ha! Hm! Nonsense. She’s got to have the spark if she gets you so hot and bothered—ha! Ha!
Ha!”
“Dad, I love Sonya.”
“Ha! Hm! Nonsense. You won’t make your mother happy—but never mind. Zlatunka will be furious — that at least will give her some fire. My own daughter doesn’t have the spark—hmm! Enough. What do you propose?”
“We will bring Sonya here in this—” and Jakub banged on the roof of the Jagr family van.
“Ha! Hm! Nonsense. You’re talking about kidnapping?”
“Precisely.”
“And if she doesn’t go along with it? If she’s got the spark — do you know what a devil like that can manage? Ha! Ha! Four men couldn’t hold her down — ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
“I’ve thought it all out. We’ll plan it as a military action.”
“Ha! Ha! Wonderful! No long drawn out rigmarole! A night attack! All’s fair in love and war—ha! All’s fair! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
“If Sonya doesn’t go along—out of concern for her relatives, her neighbors, her friends—we can help her save face: we’ll tie her up, drug her if we have to. I’ll bring chloroform tomorrow.
“Bring ten yards of laundry cord! A backup can of gasoline! Good flashlights! A spare battery! An extra line of communication with Hrusov! By telephone!”
No letter came from Ruda.
Every day I stayed in bed a little longer, until I wasn’t getting up till after nine, when the mail comes, and when a letter from Ruda might come like an electric shock treatment—but no letter came. However, Jakub Jagr did write me: I love you and I will come for you.
The long walks of an abandoned wife. It rained almost every day. I bought a cheap loden coat and wore it with the collar turned up, and I wore the sneakers from Ruda along the wet, shiny black asphalt as far as Rokytnice, as far as Pasky, as far as Korenov, and towards the New Mexico Motel, across the river is Poland… whenever a car came by on those narrow roads I turned my back on it and climbed down (so I wouldn’t get splashed) into the ditch, where fragrant grass and gleaming ferns grew in great abundance.
I still had almost a thousand crowns from Ruda, so I could permit myself all sorts of things. I spent lots of my time shopping (I’ll never buy myself a watch), nothing but inexpensive sweets, milk, and eggs (so that the thousand crowns would last as long as possible…), and my friends sighed over me and pushed gifts into my hands, from Mrs. Astrid Kozakova a white Norwegian sweater with white sheep on the front (and some sort of arrows coming down from the neck), from Mrs. Dvorakova a kilo of boiled cranberries, from Mrs. Hnyk a bag of dried linden flowers, from Sekalka a yard of gleaming Moravian sausage and a used men’s umbrella, and from pretty little Alzbeta a string of wooden pearls which her boyfriend had crafted at home on a lathe.
In the next-to-last house on the road to Rokytnice lived a woman who read Tarot cards for three crowns. She asked me in (it was pouring buckets and Sekalka hadn’t given me the umbrella yet).
I sat in the fortune-teller’s kitchen, the oven kept us warm, its fire glowed through the cracks, her sick husband was lying in bed staring up at the ceiling. I had to make three stacks out of the deck of cards, using only my left hand (the hand nearest my heart), the fortune-teller gave her husband tea to drink (while he drank he watched me, then he kept looking at me and smiling) and she foretold “much trouble, but also much joy, a sudden trip and then right away another one, no more happiness with a strong brunet, nor with a young blond, only with the fifth man will contentment come…,” oh my, she took three crowns from me and her husband waved when I left (later I bought him a children’s harmonica for six crowns, and on my next walk there I gave it to him, and every time I walked along the road to Rokytnice I heard the sound of a harmonica coming from the fortune-teller’s house.)
I love you and I will come for you, Jakub wrote me every day—no letter came from Ruda—and Volrab asked me, “So, I mean, how are things going?” I’d like to know that myself, Mr. Volrab.
The last time I went out to Saddle Meadow, the mountain peaks were lost in the clouds as if they’d gone off somewhere into the sky and vanished. It rained interminably. The grass by the swimming pool had turned yellow, the pond shivered with cold and with the circles made by falling raindrops. It rained interminably.
With my old men’s umbrella I would walk the wet asphalt as far as Korenov, sometimes to the Polish frontier — but the next afternoon I was always in front of the Cottex gate. We women would greet one another in silence and wait… Then the siren would blow and the men would come out.
Women and girls would come out as well … The next morning I got up at five (anyway, I’d been up since midnight from the noise) and by six I’d already gone in the front gate. In
the office they made me wait a whole hour, but then Director Kaska apologized very nicely and personally took me on a tour of the plant.
I’d already seen the bleaching room, that’s more for men (although women do work there and I’d like to be one of them), the rest of the place was just enchanting: the room where they make starch is wet, but lively as a swimming pool in summer, girls splash and shout at each other, the radio’s on, and the foreman, Mr. Pohoraly (a handsome man), very nicely asked me to stay (“until you retire”) and then winked at me out of the corner of his eye. I’d like it here!
The adjusting room is actually like one enormous office, dry, warm, clean, and bright, women in white sit behind long tables and their work is like what they do at the post office. I’d like to work here too!
But the most beautiful is the drying room, a large warm hall bathed in the rosy glow that comes from the jaws of the drying machines (big as buses), girls in nothing but bras and shorts, always two by two, feed the machines rolls of wet fabric and help its teeth bite into the edges of the cloth, and from then on the machine does everything itself, it slowly swallows the wet cloth and out of the other end (a good way off) it slowly rolls up the dry cloth, which smells of ironing and home, of childhood and mama… Always two by two, half-naked girls raise each roll with an elegant movement of their arms and their entire bodies, they’re beautiful in the rosy glow — it’s a ballet! — here they dance their job and their vocation.
This is where I want to work!
“Gladly, of course,” Director Kaska smiled at me, “right away, perhaps tomorrow. Come at six A.M., bring your I.D. booklet, and you can start at once.”
“My I. D. booklet?…” But I don’t have one, Volrab took it away from me the very first day I came to the hotel—
“It’s just a formality,” the director smiled, “so we’ll look forward to having you! And please give my greetings to Comrade Engineer Jagr… it’s important to me, I thank you!”
“My I.D. booklet—,” I said to Volrab at the bar, and I opened my hand, “right away, nice and fast!”
“It’s not so easy, Sonya,” said Volrab, and quietly he drew himself a beer.
“Is it my I.D. or yours?! Well?! Right away, on the double! Tomorrow I start work at Cottex!”
“As your lawful guardian and legal fiduciary, I won’t give it to you—”
“You won’t?! I’ll go to the police right away!”
“And you’ll stay there. Until they haul you off to the district court in Jilemnice and then to prison. So go ahead—and count on my giving you what-for at the hearing!”
“But it isn’t possible that— After all, it’s my I.D…”
“It is, and I’ll give it to you in person—”
“Uncle! I beg you…”
“—only when you’ve worked off the debt you’ve run up here!”
“I’ve run up a debt with you? No, you’ve run one up with me—two years’ pay…”
“Quit singing that same old tune, my dear, or you’ll work me up into a froth! You have a long record of going through food, clothing, light, and heat… you’ve run up a bill for an even four thousand.”
“I’ve never seen that much money in all my life…”
“But I’ll give you a fair chance to work it off. If you’ll come back, I’ll pay you … ahh … five hundred a month!”
“I make a thousand in the drying room!”
“That’ll be the day. Well, just so you can see how much I love you … I’ll pay you … ahh … seven hundred a month, even if it ruins me!”
“So that would be four thousand two hundred at the end of six months.”
“Right on the nose. And then you can go off to Cottex and in a year you’ll be running the place.”
“And you’ll really pay me seven hundred cash every month?”
“On the first of every month!”
“That’ll be the day! In two whole years you paid me just five crowns — and that came out of a hundred-note I brought you—no! I won’t let myself be exploited again!”
“Just as you wish, my dear. Go and think about what you owe me. It’s exactly four thousand … and every day twenty-two crowns gets added on, for room No. 5.”
I dragged myself up to my number 5 (how long can I go on paying twenty-two crowns for my room, that’s six hundred sixty crowns a month just for lodging), in my soaking wet loden coat I collapsed on the bed and bawled for hours, then I just wheezed for a while, what will I do all night… Before they pulled down the shade in the store, I had just enough time to buy myself a bottle of rum.
Back “home,” I went right to the bathroom to get hot water out of the heater, I filled the flowered pot halfway (I’d bought two of them with Ruda’s money, along with saucers, plates, and a teapot—why didn’t I think to buy regular shoes instead of sneakers!—in my vocation as a wife I was just an apprentice…), I topped it up with rum from the bottle, drank half of it, and then filled it up with rum “Jamaican style” … in an hour I didn’t give a damn.
Next morning my head felt ghastly, I thought that right then I could have been dancing freely and professionally in the drying room at Cottex — and so I went on gulping grog and luckily fell asleep, waking up just before two in the afternoon— time to go to the gate and meet my husband. I bawled and gulped some more.
But I couldn’t go back to sleep and the rum was all gone, I threw my still wet loden coat over my shirt and in my eternally wet sneakers I ran out for another bottle … but it was Saturday and the store was closed. There was nothing left but to buy my consolation at Volrab’s bar (with its twenty-percent markup).
“So we’ve got thirty-seven plus seven forty, that makes exactly forty-four forty,” Volrab counted happily, but he pushed away my hand and the money. “Keep it, Sonya, I’ll put it on the cuff for you. So we’ve got four thousand plus twenty-two for a room plus forty-four forty, that makes a grand total of precisely…”
“I can pay you for the rum right now.”
“Look, kitten, I don’t like to haggle with you over every little extra — if you want to pay, pay everything right away!”
“But I haven’t got that much money…”
“Well then, just so you can see what a good fellow I am — pay me something down, let’s say two thousand five hundred.”
“I haven’t got that much, Uncle…”
“That’s simply awful, you have eaties and drinkies and roll around in a hotel room without paying a single crown—make a note of it, Sonya! You really are one of those “parasitic elements” they talk about, and the gentlemen at the district court in Jilemnice will take that into account.”
“How long could they lock me up?”
“Count on at least a year!”
“A year in prison or half a year with you—it’s hard to see the difference…”
“Shame on you, Sonya, you can’t talk to me like that. Why, I’m your daddy and your mama!”
“And Volrabka’s my mama and my daddy, too, right? Only for two years now I’ve been an orphan.”
I passed the rest of Saturday “Jamaican style.”
After my Sunday breakfast, also à la Jamaica (I had left one more gulp in the bottle), I didn’t give a damn about anything. In my wet loden coat and wet sneakers, with the discarded umbrella, I trudged along the road to Rokytnice (the sound of the harmonica coming from the house of the lying witch struck me as a bad joke), a bus splashed me with mud from my soles to the tip of that stupid umbrella, which poured water on me like a watering can, it was like a sieve (from behind, a gift horse smells!), and so I broke it against a cornerstone, threw the fortune-teller over the fence into the cabbage patch (my fate agonized and bored me), and went back to my expensive room to lie down.
In Hrusov a solitary woman can’t walk on the road even on Sunday … just like any ordinary day.
“We’ve got a real cold snap, huh?” Volrab greeted me in front of the door. “Yeah, fall is knocking on the window and where, little bird, where ar
e you going to hide? We turned the heat on yesterday, and with heat No. 5 is exactly twenty-five crowns a night.”
“So you’ll pay seven hundred a month?”
“That’s what I said.”
“So let’s clink glasses on it, boss. On the house!”
“I always like to clink glasses with the help … So come here, Sonya, come here, dearie…”
I clinked glasses with the boss: starting tomorrow I would earn seven hundred a month … Anyway, my husband told me to wait for him here. And it would easier to endure six months here than a year in prison.
In room No. 5, still my room (until 5:00 P.M. according to the hotel rules) I polished off the bottle of rum and for the last time slept as long as I wanted, calm again—or just resigned?… Outwardly there isn’t any difference between them. And at 5:00 P.M. I packed up my loden coat (still wet), the sneakers (mold was growing on them), the flowered pots and saucers and plates, the double hot-plate—OW!—and I went downstairs to the kitchen.
“Take everything off!” was the first thing my mama and daddy Volrabka said to me, and I had to scrub myself with the heavy brush till I was red all over.
“He did a real job on you,” said Volrabka, she sprinkled me all over with baking soda and I had to scrub myself again.
But the kitchen was warm and the dinner filling and good (we ate a pot of undiluted goulash made for a busload of miners who didn’t turn up) and after dinner I came across my missing sandal … those sandals were, when all is said and done, the best shoes I ever had.
That night Volrab didn’t even lock my window, “So you can see how much we trust you,” he said— but who would want to take me away with him now…
When my four parents had quieted down in their bedroom, I turned on my flashlight under the covers and went on reading the novel by Armand Lanoux, When the Ebbtide Comes, right where I’d left off:
Which of the two is right — Bebe, who doesn’t want to think about anything and who lives only in the lonely present, or Abel, who holds onto the past with teeth and claws?
“Imagine that I belonged to that profession too. At the radio station on St. Ignace Street, they hadn’t waited for me in ′45, that makes sense. There were others there, untouched by that crazy desire to join up. And so I found a job at old Polyta’s, on St. Joachim Street. I told myself, death, that’s a commodity I know about. A dead man does not leave home. It’s not hygienic. And then whatever’s there is there. We don’t complicate things. Ever. And so quick, on the double, we will clean them up nicely, brush them, comb them, paint them, shellac them, polish them till they shine. And then put them in the living room!”
Four Sonyas Page 16