Four Sonyas

by Paral, VladimIr

  The next day, shortly after lunch (nothing new from Lada Tringl in the morning nor from Ivos Rybicka just before lunch, while Jakub sent chocolate-covered cherries and his love on pink stationery, and he telephoned eight times) a telegraph delivery boy drove into the courtyard on a motorcycle and handed me an express telegram from Prague:

  AT ANY COST GET A JOB WITH L.L. STOP LETTER FOLLOWS M.M.

  Manek was going to send me a letter! — After so many telegrams I certainly deserved one.

  “That telegram of yours cheered you up some, didn’t it!” Drapal said enviously (he liked getting letters, but he never got any telegrams), and he tried to read it over my shoulder.

  “We’re going to have to part, Mr. Drapal!”

  “No! You wouldn’t do that to me — Not after that truly titanic battle I waged for you…”

  Just then the phone rang and Jakub, for the ninth time that day, tried to enlist me.

  “No,” I told him definitely. “I’m going to transfer to the main production office!”

  “Then this is my Waterloo and my Verdun,” Drapal wept and, for the rest of the shift, he trotted around the bookshelves, I sat at his dark desk and for the rest of the shift read Defense Strategies in Chess. The most modern opening is to advance the queen’s pawn, which opens the queen on the very first move.

  So I went straight from Cottex to buy a sweater with a plunging neckline (one that hugged me shamelessly tight) and in the reading room of the town library, until it closed, I crammed into my head all the encyclopedia and dictionary entries dealing with factory production. From early the next morning I looked in vain through Drapal’s PS-VTEI, PTK, study room and reading room for anything about production that I still didn’t know, and then I spent a good hour modifying my standard-issue white labcoat so that I could display as much as possible of my new sweater (inconspicuously I pinned back the labcoat’s lapels all the way up to the shoulders).

  The next morning Lada Tringl and, just before lunch, Ivos Rybicka—but so far nothing from L.L., but I’ll show you! And I showed him: long before half past twelve (L.L. comes to lunch precisely at 12:32) I parked myself at the door to the cafeteria, and as soon as he appeared in the corridor I breathed in deeply, drew in my stomach like an old yoga adept, and walked up to L.L. so that my breasts nearly knocked him over—”Good day,” is all he said, and he looked at me dimly (as if making fun of me?).

  I analyzed this during the remainder of the shift, while walking through the shelves, and then I went straight from Cottex to buy a turtle-neck sweater and a scarf that made me look like a nun, in the town library I went back over everything on production until I knew it backwards, forwards, and randomly, quick as a whip, at the singles dorm I wrote Manek the news and that same evening I sent it from the main post office, registered express.

  Early the next morning I had Drapal order for PTK thirty-six books in which there might be something having to do with production (I had noted the titles down at the town library), I personally carried the order to the Cottex mail unit, and I waited at the door until the mail came — I got a whole box of mail, ran to the WC with it, and hurriedly picked through the mass of letters for Drapal (from the Society of the Friends of Cremation, the Mexican Scouts, the Dortmund firm Alles für Turistik, the steering committee for Bridging the Bering Strait, and the South Australian Highway Information Service), until suddenly out popped a gray envelope with my name on it. It was from Manek:

  My Sonya,

  From now on I will write to you more frequently. It is now necessary and in our best interest that you should gain maximum influence over L.L., so that he will be obedient to our commands. Together we will employ every possible means, but you should act cautiously and inform me in advance of each new step. Enter his division now, study L.L. in detail and from every point of view, his character, habits, weaknesses, and lifestyle. Form close contacts with those under him and let me know everything about them. Don’t wait for L. Tringl and I. Rybicka to bring you a letter of appointment from L.L. on a silver platter, but provoke them into acting to further our cause. Enlist other helpers and give me a running commentary of everything that goes on. Beginning with your next letter, number all your reports. Keep our connection a very deep secret.

  I trust you and will entrust you with this important mission, the purpose of which

  I will reveal to you at the proper time.

  I kiss you,

  Your Manek

  Maximum influence over L.L. — and I had started out with that idiotic sweater and my labcoat’s lapels all pinned up … like a stupid goose.

  Enter his division now — that won’t be an easy nut to crack, but even if it were the biggest coconut from the Indies…

  Form close contacts with those under him — “Ladicka,” I was saying two minutes later (I had called Comrade L. Tringl out into the corridor, by telephone), “the trousers you’re wearing today could just as easily be worn by the Prince of Wales!”

  “They’re just what I wear to go to work in,” L. Tringl muttered happily.

  “I’d like to see what you wear on Sundays…”

  “Then I’ll pick out a pair of those to wear tomorrow…”

  “But you wouldn’t wear those to work, surely…”

  “OK, but then how—” (I smiled at him prettily) “—hey, Sonya, you’ll go out with me on Sunday!”

  “I’d like to, I really would—” (I sighed and paused meaningfully) “—but I couldn’t even think of such a thing so long as the question of my job with you hasn’t been resolved…”

  “So far L.L. hasn’t expressed …”

  “So I should wait until you bring me a letter of appointment on a silver platter?”

  “Sonya, I’d be terribly happy to, but I really don’t know—”

  “So think it over and in the meantime iron your Sunday trousers! And send me Ivos Rybicka, perhaps I won’t have to provoke him into activity—”

  L. Tringl shuffled off and a minute later out came I. Rybicka with a smile on his face.

  “Sonya, dear, starlet, darling, what are you doing this afternoon and evening?”

  “I don’t know yet, Ivosek. Do you have any suggestions?”

  “Ten thousand. Number One: at five in front of the Savoy.”

  “You know, I’d go for that—” and I smiled at him beautifully.

  “Sonya, honey, scoopsie, doll-face, I’m ready to celebrate, by five I’ll be parked in front of the café.”

  “—if only I had things settled with that crazy old bore Drapal. Couldn’t you push a little to help me sit near you?”

  “I’ve been working on L.L. all day long … You know, but first you’ve got to get rid of Ida Papouskova…”

  “What’s she like?”

  “A witch.”

  “Well then…”

  “She’s worse than that, but L.L.’s no barbarian—”

  “Then ciao. I didn’t think you were as much a wimp as Lada Tringl—but you’re even wimpier. At least he’s got some ideas … so forgive me for bothering you.”

  “So, five at the Savoy…”

  “Work that out with Ida Papouskova!”

  Enlist other helpers— “Sir,” I said to Drapal, “do you know who’s the best walker in the plant?”

  “Me.”

  “Of course, but I mean which woman?”

  “It could be you, if only you—”

  “I could never cover as much territory as Ida Papouskova. We were just discussing her — she’s a fantastic walker … In other respects they don’t speak well of her, but they say she’s always reflecting and always striving against someone—she’ll probably get the sack soon.”

  “Ida Papouskova?” Drapal said thoughtfully, and he disappeared into the shelves.

  I wrote Report No. 1 to Manek, then went straight from work to the main post office and sent it off registered express, I spent the rest of the day outside L.L.’s house.

  He drove up in a gray Skoda, license no. UL-26-01, parke
d it in the garage, and disappeared into a gray house. At 5:11 the lights went on in his second-floor apartment. At 7:37 the lights went out, and a little later L.L. came out with a pretty but not very exciting woman (about 40) and a defiantly beautiful girl (probably the daughter and probably 20), went into the garage (I took a thorough look at both of them and then went back behind the telephone booth), he drove out in his gray Skoda, galantly opened the door for his daughter, who sat up front with him (his wife crawled in behind), and L.L. drove off toward the center of town. I rang the porter’s bell, asked whether Dr. Spacek lived here, and when it became obvious that he didn’t, I began to whimper until the porter’s wife took me inside, gave me tea with honey, and jabbered on a good two hours, from which I compiled information to send Manek the very same day by express mail. Report No. 2:

  L.L. has lived in this building for nine years. He enjoys a good reputation. No one has anything on him. He only goes out with his family, except on Thursdays to play chess at the Union Café, and sometimes he drives to the woods, but usually with his daughter.

  His wife, Zora, is “a good woman through and through” and sometimes she even lets someone else have her turn in the laundry room. She likes to sleep in, but she keeps a clean house, she scours her floors twice a year and sweeps the balcony every day.

  Their daughter, Lanka, is a “cute little bitch,” she studies something or other in Prague, but “must be goofing off” since “she’s always hanging around here.” “She drags boys into the vestibule” and “squeals when they cuddle.” But she’s very fond of her Daddy, L.L., and he “pampers her like crazy.”

  A perfectly respectable family, quiet and inconspicuous. Every Sunday there’s a champagne bottle in their garbage.

  Manek replied to my letter No. 1 with his telegram NR. 1:

  NR. 1 INCREASE PRESSURE ON L.T. AND I.R. TO REBEL AGAINST L.L. EVEN A STRIKE PERMISSIBLE STOP INVESTIGATE THE POSSIBILITY OF CREATING A LOVE AFFAIR BETWEEN K.D. AND I.P. M.M.

  Even before I got telegram NR. 1, L.T. and I.R. had been getting it on the chin, but nothing had come of it, however Manek’s idea for creating a love affair Kazimir Drapal—Ida Papouskova is marvelous (I’m in the hands of a great strategist—).

  “Mr. Drapal,” I said to K.D. when he emerged from behind a bookshelf holding a tourist map of the Pyrenees, “you’re quite a sly fellow!”

  “So I am, Sonya, but what do you have in mind, concretely speaking?”

  “I’ve been telling you what a marvelous walker, thinker, and striver Ida Papouskova is — and all the time you’ve known it yourself!”

  “Perhaps from you, right? Or could I have read it somewhere…” and Drapal reached behind him and randomly pulled from a shelf the books The Fruits of Knowledge and Let’s Cook Fruit, which I had placed side by side.

  “But all Cottex has been talking about how much she loves you!”

  “Someone … me … of course, after all, that’s obvious … So Ida Papouskova’s set out on the road in search of Light…” and all worked up, K.D. galloped through the shelves, then, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, he ran off to calm down by inspecting the kitchen.

  As soon as he had disappeared through the doorway, I called ex privata industria (suddenly everything I’d studied, even the Latin from my days in school, was beginning to be useful) Jakub Jagr, and heating him up until the telephone started to burn my ear, I asked him to (“…if you really love me—”) take Ida Papouskova into his new division. And with the help of L.T. and I.R. (who were eating out of my hand like trained pigeons) I worked on Ida Papouskova to get the poor woman (actually a frightful one) to come the very next morning to PS-VTEI and PTK, study room and reading room, in a waterproof ski jacket, checkered knee breeches, thick wool checkered knee socks, and hiking boots. Hungrily, Engineer Kazimir Drapal took her behind the bookshelves and in a little while they were walking and disappearing among them together, K.D. gushed as he was long accustomed, but from I.P.’s mouth I heard such phrases as “the defile of St. Gotthard,” “an earnest night march across the mountains,” and “tightrope walking promotes mental concentration”—had I.P. been studying in the town library, too? In any case, the students L.T. and I.R. had done their work fantastically and deserved a reward. I spent a nice evening with them at the Savoy.

  And I kept whipping them on (that is my job now and my vocation) to peak performance, just as I did Jakub Jagr, all of which I reported to Manek in letters Nos. 3 to 11 (for which I received Manek’s telegrams of praise NR. 2 and NR. 3). In letter No. 12 I informed him that K.D. and I.P. were now calling each other by pet names such as “Iduska” and “Kazimourek” (for which telegram of praise NR. 4), and in my urgent telegram No. 13, I announced the first smacking kiss behind the bookshelves. And of course every day at half-past twelve I pretend to be coming out of the plant cafeteria, L.L. passes me each time precisely at 12:32, says, “Good day,” and now smiles at me a little (but peculiarly somehow?).

  In telegram NR. 5 Manek expressed his high appreciation for me (YOU’RE WONDERFUL he telegraphed me!), but at the same time his discontent that the conquest of L.L. IS NOT MAKING ANY PROGRESS. In letter NR. 6 he set forth a profound analysis of the remaining possibilities, rejected my proposal from letter No. 9 (to simulate a wrong-number call and in a simulated conversation with a nonexistent friend of mine to mention that I have a crush on L.L.) as technically problematic, as well as my proposal from letter No. 10 (as if by mistake to put a letter to my friend with the same content into an envelope addressed to L.L. and, if need be, by a similar oversight to send him a photo of myself with a text that gives the impression that I am sending it to a famous photographer from whom I am trying to get a job as a model) as not serious and obviously beneath L.L.’s level. But he wasn’t stingy with his appreciation, he fully approved of the suggestion I made in letter No. 11.

  L.T. had revealed to me when and to which forest L.L. went on Sundays, and I was lucky: from my telephone booth I saw L.L. get into his gray Skoda, all alone.

  I hitchhiked to the forest highway and posted myself on the bridge which, on my tourist map, was marked by a red cross. I waited there in the rain for almost four hours until I caught sight of the gray Skoda UL-26-01.

  “Good day. This is a coincidence, isn’t it?” L.L. said to me with a smile (but sort of strange?), gallantly he opened the door for me and like a drowned rat I crawled in beside him.

  To my two attempts at conversation L.L. reacted on the lower threshold of politeness (NEVER IMPOSE YOURSELF, Manek had wired me in telegram NR. 3), so we went back to Usti in silence.

  “Good-bye,” is all L.L. said to me when gallantly he opened the car door for me, but suddenly he added: “You did say everything, didn’t you?”

  “Yes!” I replied without giving it a thought, I didn’t understand until nighttime (after I had sent off express telegram No. 14), lying on my lower bunk in the dorm (every ten minutes a cigarette butt flew past me), that he was referring to our first conversation in the library. But a whole night wasn’t enough to solve the riddle of his strange smile.

  The soft, thick nylon curtains on the cream-colored window were open just enough to give a view of the treetops. Lying in bed, L.L. counted the last ten leaves (already wrinkled and brown) and uneasily recalled his dream, a spiral plunge in a blue rotation, and then a radiant and frighteningly precise picture of the Alpine peak, huge under its eternal snows, at the base of which Zora and I, on a meadow years ago—huh, thought L.L., and then he got up, stretched, bathed (without even glancing at his body), shaved (Huh—he grinned into the mirror), he kissed Zora on the forehead (why hasn’t pharmaceutical research devised anything for wrinkles?!) and sat down to his breakfast.

  “Where’s Lanka?” he asked, taking the cup of Indian tea Zora handed him.

  “She got some idea into her head and took the morning express to Prague,” Zora complained.

  “Why not. She’s in school there after all, you know,” said L.L., and he plunged a silver spoon into sc
rambled eggs.

  The Ludviks ate in silence.

  “Last week some girl was questioning the porter’s wife about us,” Zora said all of a sudden.

  “A redhead?”

  “I was too embarrassed to ask questions.”

  “She wasn’t.”

  “I don’t understand you, Ludvik…”

  “There’s nothing to understand. She asked questions and you didn’t,” said L.L., he wiped his mouth with his napkin, kissed Zora very tenderly on the mouth (I’ll never hurt you, my love, he said in his heart, and again he recalled the sparkling snow of the Alpine peak), went down to the garage and, while starting his car, thought about what that redhead might be preparing for us today.

  There was more of it today than yesterday: Lada was interceding for her, Ivos was wheedling, and decidedly both of them were begging—what is that girl trying to do to my boys?!

  “… and when he—Comrade Drapal—has so much work with his center for scientific and technical information, along with the whole program of the library, study room and reading room on top of it…” prattled Ida Papouskova (she certainly isn’t going to wear those knee breeches here!) “and when Comrade Cechova is supposed to come here as my replacement—”

  “I know nothing about that,” L.L. told Ida Papouskova (at the same time freezing both his boys with an icy look), and he ordered her to connect him at once with the director of the Research Institute for Pharmacology and Biochemistry in Prague (he had once been director of Cottex), whom he then asked for something to get rid of wrinkles “that will really do the trick, it’s very important for me to have it.”