The final verse of Volrab’s epic, to be recited at night, orders me:
Cross yourself and sleep like the dead
the first verses, to be recited in the morning, don’t give me much time for meditation:
Clean up the kitchen
And scrub the floor.
Scrub up the bar
And the corridor.
they go on remorselessly in the kitchen, the hall, and the guest rooms.
Hard-working girls are beloved by the Lord,
They start with No. 4 for their reward.
Jakub’s old No. 4 had always been spartan, now it was even more so, and on the table there was of course no box of candy for me and no letter … will Jakub write me again today? … If only it were already ten o’clock (and if only a letter had come from Ruda)…
Room No. 3 has always been occupied by the Baladas, but the wife, Lisaveta, had gone to Usti already to support her husband, who slept until lunchtime (after which he likes to take a nap).
Mr. Ziki goes on paying for room No. 2 all year long, but it’s been a long time since he’s shown up here. With pleasure, Sonya strode across the soft purple carpet made of sheepskins and again I play with his perfumes and his fancy metal gentlemen’s toys in leather cases, I peek into his wardrobe, of course (the study of men is a preparation for my vocation), where once again several more expensive baubles have accumulated, and on the pile of shirts of the finest chocolate-brown cotton (Mr. Ziki is ready for autumn; in winter the pile will be made of wool and of flannel) there lay a woven whip, made of a painfully yellow leather.
Room No. 6 is empty, the doctoral Berkas are already boozing it in some Usti bar or wine-cellar and definitely fighting every night … I’d never strike my husband … Perhaps not even when he beat me.
And room No. 5—OWWW—is empty, too.
At ten the mail arrives. I love you and I will come for you, Jakub has written me again. No letter from Ruda.
But remember, and the kitchen too don’t shirk—
Hard-working girls aren’t afraid of work.
and she peels potatoes, shines shoes, beats eggs, shapes liver dumplings for soup, cuts the dumplings with a thread, cleans cucumbers as well as Volrab’s pipe (but now for money), sugars the pastry slices, dishes out the soup, serves the customers at their tables and smiles prettily at each of them (until I’m forewoman in the Cottex drying room, this will have to do), washes the furniture, polishes the billiard cues, and only has a chance to rest a bit during the afternoon when she works in the bar.
The bar’s empty as the grave and for hours all I did was stand around, serve a few beers, and that was all … Not till late in the evening did Petrik Metalka come running in (he was on foot because he’d sold his motorbike to pay for his visits to the bar) and with a bang he started off with sparkling wine.
Tuesday (I love you and I will come for you, Jakub made the same claim every day, no letter from Ruda) was just like Monday, only Petrik Metelka dashed in at half-past two in the afternoon and ordered a bottle of bubbly, Wednesday was just like Thursday, and Friday was the same as Saturday and Monday—only that more customers began to trickle in and demand increased— this is what it will be like all the time. Six months of this (no letter from Ruda).
“Watch out for that guy,” Volrab whispered to me when he handed me the second bottle of sparkling wine for Petrik Metelka, it was four in the afternoon.
“But he behaves decently and he’s our best customer…”
“I don’t like his eyes, he’s got that not quite sane sparkle like that naval cadet who bumped himself off right in our bar… And this guy’s already sold off his motorbike to pay us and they say he’s been stealing damask.”
Petrik Metalka’s eyes were only a trifle red and they kept gazing at me … was it on account of me that he sat there hour after hour “consuming,” a good boy with a clean record—was it on account of me that he’d started stealing?—I would have been happy to do something for him, but there was nothing I could do for him and he didn’t dare speak to me here … Who knows, maybe one day we’ll meet at Cottex … Who knows, maybe one day we’ll go through that gate together… (no letter from Ruda).
That afternoon I spent two whole hours sitting at the kitchen table (Volrabka had to trim her nails and scrub her paws well, and she was furious at having to serve beer instead of me) designing posters for the Third Floricultural Evening (to be held this very Sunday, August 29, 8 crowns admission, in the starring role the popular Sonya Cechova), they were hung on our gate and on the door of the Hrusov post office. My boss was pleased, he pressed a can of Spanish sardines into my hand (so his dear Volrabka wouldn’t see) and ordered another twenty place cards for the tables, marked RESERVÈ.
I love you and I will come for you, Jakub wrote me (no letter from Ruda), and on Tuesday morning Volrab had another run-in with Volrabka when he decided “to teach me a few things, ‘cause our Sonya is really talented.”
Carrying a pail, a brush, and two rags, Volrabka was furious at having to clean up the rooms, and my boss explained to me first of all that “a hostess is to an ordinary waitress like a corporal is to a buck private, a nightclub hostess is more like a first lieutenant, and the proprietress gives orders like a major, and there are even ladies like colonels and generals, who have chauffeurs and four poodles on a single leash, and the chauffeur’s got to open the limo door for them.
“Sonya, the most you are is a hostess, and only when I close my eyes. Okay, when you’re serving one customer and at the table next to him there’s another promising customer, lean over for the first one, but wink at the second, and when you serve the second one, do just the opposite, okay, sit here like you’re the first customer, this marble cake can be the second, I’m Sonya and now I’ll do a fine demonstration for you—”
“Volrab in the role of Sonya” was just tremendous (even better than scrubbing toilet seats), I clapped my hands, Volrab impersonated Sonya to the point that he almost seduced the marble cake, he showed off for a good hour, till the cabbage had burned, and Volrabka gave us a devil of a time about it. But Volrab had developed a powerful appetite for lecturing and he “taught me a few more things” as soon as Volrabka was out of the kitchen. “Let’s get moving, our darling’ll be back from the rabbits, sit down and watch, now I’ll demonstrate how you should work on a boozed-up pater familias…” and again Volrab went into a trance (every so often something would burn, and each time Volrabka would give me an increasingly evil eye).
After the posters for the Third Floricultural Evening had been nailed up, the bar began to fill up again just like it had at the height of the season. From Thursday on, Postmaster Hudlicky, Ranger Sames, and the veterinarian with the clogged artery, Srol, mingled with the non-residents (no letter from Ruda), who came in in droves and drank heavily, most of all the luckless Petrik Metelka with his endless series of sparkling wines (everyone said he was stealing damask from Cottex and selling it to unknown weavers in Vichov, Rokytnice, Ponikla, and Semily), I performed Volrab’s verses in the bar (behind the counter Volrab snorted with delight), and as soon as I went out into the corridor (there was nothing for me to do: I went out there more and more often), two or even four gentlemen would come running out behind me and whisper amazing things in my ear, Volrab always let us whisper like that for a minute or so, then he would hurl himself into the corridor after us, stamp like a bull, and thunder forth: “Not until eight o’clock on Sunday evening, gentlemen! Back to the bar at once, please, I have things to do, and the kitchen’ll be busy, too!”
While I was parading through the bar like a peacock, Volrabka was in the kitchen ready to burst, in the morning I had very little food, but the boss would stick his Spanish sardines right in my mouth, until my chin was shiny with oil (Volrabka noticed this and each time she would give me an increasingly evil eye).
On Friday (no letter from Ruda) the customers in the bar hit each other with cuesticks. Petrik Metalka broke someone’s glasses, on Saturday he crammed
the head of another customer into the kitchen sink, right into the bottles that were soaking there. Then someone called from Prague (could it be that mysterious stranger with the sixteen roses?) and reserved the Bridal Suite for Sunday night. No letter came from Ruda.
On Sunday morning Volrab woke up early, before breakfast even, he wanted to “teach me a few final things,” but Volrabka suddenly rebelled.
“I say the girl’s going to clean up the rooms!” she shouted, “in a little while you won’t be able to tell who’s the servant and who’s the boss!”
So I took the pail, the broom, two rags and slowly (so that Volrabka would notice—she did) trudged up to clean up the guest rooms, I skipped the bathroom and the WC, since the whole floor was empty — so I didn’t really have anything to clean, all I did was glance into the empty No. 4, in No. 3 I let Beda Balada, the thinker, go on sleeping, I only glanced into No. 2 (Mr. Ziki’s still out of town) and didn’t even stick my neck into No. 6, in room No. 5 all I did was stand in silence for a bit looking at the beds my husband and I had slept on … the guitar with its strings cut was still hanging on the wall, like a disemboweled body … suddenly I felt empty, as if I no longer felt any pain…
Only No. 1, the Bridal Suite, required much attention in order to be ready for that evening, and it’s the one nice room here, as if it somehow didn’t belong here, almost beautiful, as if it had dropped here out of the sky—
Conscientiously I wiped the two windows and the glass door out to the balcony, the fashionable white furniture, the tall mirror, and the white double bed under the white canopy, on my knees I crawled across the floor and scrubbed every corner — the gentleman deserves it for the sixteen roses, and one likes to serve when there are such beautiful things around.
After lunch my boss let me off so that I could get my beauty sleep for the evening, in his bed (Volrabka gave me an especially evil eye), and when I came back to the kitchen all rested up and rosy, Volrab sent Volrabka to clean out the sty for the new pig (he too would be called Emil) and then put on a demonstration of how to arouse desire in four men at the same time. To entice me, he brought out a can of export frankfurters (for years he’d been hiding the can from his darling), stuck a cold frank right in my mouth, and then began twisting his hips and playing the coquette like a rather prim Carmen— at that moment Volrabka burst into the kitchen and roared louder than I ever could have imagined (even Volrab was surprised, he quickly snapped to, kept mum, and got lost).
“The show’s over, Volrab — march to the sty and clean it up yourself! I’ll get the girl dressed now.
Clothes off—”
I had to carry water to the basin, cold water, put it on the ground, step into it, and raise my hands over my head. And my mama and daddy Volrabka began to scrub me, but with the floorbrush … This wasn’t for cleanliness but as punishment, and it was, to the point where tears poured from my eyes, Volrabka rubbed the bristles into me and scratched the skin on my thighs until I began to cry out and howl with pain.
“By Monday it’ll all be over, and working here’ll be as rough as serving in the army. Just don’t forget that here you’re nothing but a drudge—a drudge and that’s it.”
And she whipped me with a wet washrag (that really hurts) until I knelt before her on the bristles of the floorbrush and kissed her paw.
Madelon, pour me some wine,
Let’s be very merry—
I sang in the bar that evening and played the piano, again in my white dress with the newly resewn flounces, on my lips the revolting taste of colorless machine oil (it extends my kissability) and under my eyelids vinegar (so that my eyes would shine seductively), my body sore from Volrabka’s brush and the burning stripes from the wet washrag, with flowers in my hair I sing, play, and offer myself, that is my job and my vocation.
All the tables in the bar are full already and every last chair is taken, the gentlemen are fidgeting impatiently…
“After the charming musical overture we go on to the first drawing — there will be more such drawings and each member of the audience will win one! — the floral lottery of our third celebrated floricultural soirée—” my boss Volrab announced, how many of these soirées will I live through over the next six months, which were now dragging out to entire years — and what will be left of me after all those years…
“Sonya, step forward, let the gentlemen see what awaits them—” my boss proclaims, and already he’s selling tickets for my charm—how long can it last—and for my mouth, he sells them in threes, in fives, in whole dozens (the Rokytnice sexton has hauled in a whole cartload of flowers today) and men’s hands are grabbing and snatching them out of the pail.
The first one, Ranger Sames, puts his flowers on the piano (he has maybe fifteen of them), sinks his hard bony fingers into both of my cheeks and stretches them apart until tears pour from my vinegary eyes, and thus he cashes in with his first “pinching operation”—
But all at once he falls backwards and the reddened face of Petrik Metelka appears above him. “Sonya, I won’t give you up,” Petrik screams, and like a hammer he swings a heavy bottle of bubbly down on the head of my first customer.
There’s a sudden uproar in the room, everyone gets up from his table, there’s a rumble of chairs being overturned, and already blows are flying through the bar, someone grabs me, I escape from his clutches, I push someone else’s face away from mine and run to take refuge behind the bar, the stranger from Prague is arguing there with Volrab, but this doesn’t seem to be the time — the first bottle flies into the air, a second hits the chandelier and the shards fall into the tangle of struggling men — Volrab is still arguing with the stranger, at last they come to an agreement, Volrab takes me by the hand and drags me into the kitchen, the stranger covers our retreat.
“Until I get those gentlemen quieted down a bit,” my boss says to me hurriedly, “you will stay in the Bridal Suite, half an hour or so — and when this gentleman from Prague knocks on the door, you’ll open it and you’ll be incredibly, absolutely well behaved and nice to him, understand!”
“But—”
“I don’t have time now for any of your lip! Do you want them to flatten the bar and tear you to pieces again? You already know that the only way to hide from them is in one of the rooms upstairs, with one of the gentlemen—so on the double! And for once you’ll stay put … All I agreed to was half a measly hour—”
From the bar the sounds of shouts and blows. “Take this along and sew up the front of your skirt,” Volrabka said harshly, and painfully she shoved her sewing basket right into my side, what could I do?
“We want Sonya!” the men in the bar roared, and they were already pounding on the door — I flew up the stairs and closed the door of room No. 1 behind me (unlocked, but no key to be found!?), the Bridal Suite.
My skirt was torn up to the waist and the side flounce billowed like the sail of a sinking boat, I sat on the white bed beneath the white canopy and once again sewed my white dress, for the second time I am in a guest room getting ready for my wedding—
I don’t know how long I was sewing, on the one hand it seemed like a minute, on the other as if years had passed, then outside the door light steps, a knock— I took Volrabka’s scissors out of her sewing basket and hid them in my hand.
“Good evening,” the gentleman from Prague said with a smile.
“Good evening!” I said without a smile, and in my hand I readied the scissors for a first stab.
“Your safety is seriously threatened.”
“But I can look after it myself.”
“I doubt it. You must leave this very moment.”
“I’d like that — it’s been two years now. Only I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Please let me take care of you.”
“For half an hour you can do whatever my boss gave you permission to do. But the first time you touch me, I’ll stick this into you…” I showed him the scissors and aimed them his way.”
“If you want
me to, I’ll leave at once and you can lock the door behind me,” he smiled and showed me the key to No. 1.
“For the whole half hour?”
“For as long as you wish. For as long as they leave you locked in here. However, I’m afraid that won’t be very long.”
“I don’t suppose so…”
“You said that for half an hour I can do whatever I wish. Here is the key — lock yourself in. In a minute I’ll knock again. If you want me to, I’ll take you away from here.”
“Where?”
“To safety.”
He placed a key with a tag marked “1” on the glass top of the white night table, bowed to me, and silently left the room.
I jumped up and double-locked the door behind him. If I’d had a watch, I’d have followed its second hand, all sixty of its jumps … but without a watch I had nothing to look at, so I gazed at the fashionable white furniture, the tall mirror in the white frame, the white double bed — the gentleman had behaved unusually well, just like a fairy-tale prince — under the white canopy and through the two windows and the glass door out to the balcony, I looked out into the darkness.
Machine oil all over my lips and vinegar in my eyes, my skin raw from the brush and all over my body the burning stripes from Volrabka’s washrag, downstairs the roar of the impetuous boys in the bar — could things be any worse for me? … I opened the door of the Bridal Suite before the stranger even knocked.
The man put his finger to his lips and indicated by a gesture that I should follow him, quietly I followed him downstairs (the racket from the bar was like the end of the world) and through the door out into the yard, he opened the door of his car, seated me in the back, seated himself behind the steering wheel, and we were on our way, the three illuminated windows of the bar flashed past (the middle one was broken), above them the light in the Bridal Suite which I’d forgotten to turn off…
Four Sonyas Page 17