“It’s not for you. Clear out!” I said, and I took his guitar off the nail in the wall and tossed it into his lap.
“Whatever you say, but first a little music, okay? I’m all for that, I like music—” Ruda Mach smiled and began to strum his guitar for me. He quietly took off his boots, one boot pushing the other off. I stood with my hands folded, worrying what I should do … all alone with this lug.
“Sonya, come here and sit next to me…”
“Get lost!” I screamed at him, and I kicked over his suitcase. A heel flew off of my golden slipper, damn!
“Don’t kick that like a soccer ball,” Ruda Mach said quietly, “or you’ll break the present I brought you…” and he picked up his suitcase and took out a tiny mirror (worth about three crowns), on the back there was a calendar (Manek had never given me anything—).
“I’ll call the police!” I said.
“No you won’t. Sonya, come here—” Ruda Mach said softly, and still seated he pulled his shirt over his head, and once again I found myself pressed between him and the wall—
“You deserted me!” I screamed right into his face, and then I struck his face with my fist (he just laughed).
“But now I’ve come for you again.”
“You betrayed me and you left me—” and with all my strength I punched him between the eyes (he just shook it off).
“But now I’m back with you again.”
His arms were tough as tires, and he pulled me down onto the rug (a beauty that had cost four hundred crowns, with a quiet pattern, second-category) with a force I could not oppose all alone, why am I ALONE, I howled “MAAANEEK—” and I felt a terrible RAGE at Manek … I hated him, and I stopped resisting Ruda.
“Sonya … Love…” whispered Ruda Mach (my first husband), “I wanted to see you so much … So tell me, what have you been up to all this time?”
“When was the last time we saw each other?”
“Last summer, in the mountains … We were living together in my room, number five…”
“Number five, that’s right … It was five that I liked to clean best … And after that the Bridal Suite…”
“So tell me, what’ve you been up to all this time?”
“What have I been up to … I don’t know myself anymore … Maybe I just dreamed it all … Yes, this is what I want … And tomorrow morning I’ll get up, take that leather satchel, and go shopping for two … two pounds of bread … and ten dekas of cheese … but my husband prefers meat … Two slices of pot roast and two pounds of tomatoes … and beer for my… And a white handkerchief…”
“Sonya … Love…” whispered Ruda Mach, and tenderly he took me again… Then he fell right to sleep and in a minute he was snoring lightly.
I slept like the dead and dreamt about monkeys.
“Hi, love,” Ruda Mach yawned, squinted at his wristwatch (he never took it off in bed), and he was already on his feet, from the bathroom Ruda’s joyful splashing in the shower (in a bathroom a man is a song), and when Ruda came back to the bedroom the streaming water glistened on his tough bronzed back and the hard and mobile forms of his muscles and sinews, and it sparkled in the dark growth of his chest (after a bath a man is poetry).
“Give me my shirt—” he muttered (he always wakes up angry), and when he pulled it over his wet body, the water marbleized the fabric.
“Here,” he said, and he put a wad of hundred-notes on the glass-topped table, “I’m off to see about a job and when I get it I’ll stay with it. So long … and buy me some swimming trunks. I’ll be home at three.”
And then he left. I double-locked the door after him and devoid of any thought I paced through my apartment (how much of it is still mine?), tripped over Ruda’s suitcase, fell down, and bumped my knee — until suddenly I came to my senses.
That’s it! Isn’t it all too much all at once?
How many exams I’ve passed already. How many times I’ve gotten ready for my wedding. How many times I’ve started at the very beginning … started with nothing and after three disasters three times become a new person — now I want to BE a new person.
“I’m a woman now, Manek … your Spanish Riding School reins are too long for me now, I’ve run around the ring so many times now and all you do is keep turning in place in the middle of the sandy arena with your absurdly long whip … I want to have you in the saddle now and feel your spurs, eat from your hand, and perhaps even be beaten—but I CAN NO LONGER BE ALONE.
AND I DON’T WANT TO BE. AND I WON’T.
Manek, I’ve already finished your correspondence college, you’ve taught me all you know. Now I have something to teach you: love is being together. I have already grown up in your image, now I will bring you back to life in mine, now I will lift you to it. LOVE IS BEING TOGETHER.
L.L. gave me the day off, good. Ruda Mach left me a bottle of milk in the fridge, that should be enough. I showered and drank warm milk, then packed my suitcase, my nightgown: a green one (for everyday now), into my satchel I put my citizen’s I.D., all my money, my deposit book … and my lipstick, comb, and the mirror with the calendar on the back.
OK. What else should I… I took all Manek’s telegrams and letters out of the wardrobe and burned them, sheet by sheet, over the bathtub. And I used the shower hose to rinse the black ashes down the drain.
OK. What else should I… In front of the bathroom mirror I carefully combed my hair and made myself up.
OK. What else… There was a sip of milk left in the bottle, I drank it … may the taste remain on my palate and my tongue, so that my first kiss will taste of milk.
I double-locked the door and, with my suitcase and my satchel, I quietly ran down the stairs, I wouldn’t have liked to run into L.L. now—
“Miss Cechova,” the porter called after me, “the postman left you this yesterday—”
I opened the thick package from Prague out on the street (but how glad I would have been to go back upstairs and wait for you at home), inside was the tome Principles of Industrial Programming and a letter from Manek saying that the Hotel Trianon, where we’d forgotten it, had returned the book to him and that he loved me (four pages), but no COME or I’M COMING.
I crammed the tome into my suitcase, I threw the envelope on the dusty street, and I took streetcar No. 3 to the main station.
BOOK THREE
SONYA 01
I am standing with my suitcase in front of the gray Liberec station, red streetcars climb up the hill toward me and with a clang they go back down, the Hotel Imperial is three minutes down this street. But this time I won’t expose myself. During my three-hour train ride from Usti, I had time to think everything over. All that’s left is action.
I took a red streetcar down the hill past the glass doors of the Imperial and on as far as the second square, last summer I had noticed another hotel not far from here and I soon found it, it was called the Golden Lion and they had a single room for me on the fourth floor. I unpacked my things and settled in. I will stay here until I’ve tracked Manek down.
All that’s left is action. I made inquiries at the reception desk, and at a specialty shop near the theater I bought the sort of false eyelashes fashion models wear, the blackest, longest, and thickest they had, and a hairnet, then at an office supplies store a large, thick notebook bound in black, a ballpoint pen, and a cheap briefcase made of artificial leather. Then elsewhere on the square a horrible-looking hat with a turned-up brim.
In my hotel room I spent a lot of time in front of the mirror putting on the false eyelashes: they were so long and thick, they sat on my eyes like two big black moths. I put my hair up, fastened it with hairpins, stuffed it into the net, and topped it all off with the horrible hat, which I turned up over my ears and in back — even Manek wouldn’t recognize me now.
I blink, with difficulty, so I can get accustomed to wearing the eyelashes, they make my eyes tear up (poor fashion models: I don’t envy them their job or their vocation), and I go on getting ready. On the labe
l of the thick notebook I write, in large letters, OFFICIAL TRIPS JULY-DECEMBER and then I start laying out the inside, there have to be a lot of columns, since I didn’t buy a ruler I have to make lines using something else, I dig into my suitcase, I find the tome Principles of Industrial Programming and, using its edges, I draw lines on the first fifty pages of the notebook, in the columns I’ve made I use the ballpoint pen to write all sorts of dates, names, and numbers.
Then I lick my thumb, rub it on all the pages, wipe it against the label on the cover, and roll the notebook in the dust under the bed (I did a better job with the rooms I cleaned at the Hubertus), then I go to work on the briefcase I’ve just bought, it looks much too new so I smear it with the ballpoint pen, spit on it a little, rub it on the floor, trample it, and bend it over my knees, until finally it looks authentic. Then I put in the thick notebook I’ve worked on so long, wink at myself in the mirror (the false eyelashes really look terrific from a distance), and take a streetcar to the Hotel Imperial.
Chance wasn’t on my side: through the glass doors I saw the reception clerk who had refused last September to give me Manek’s address, because “That would be against Mr. Mansfeld’s categorical wishes.” — I remember his face and every word he spoke to me. Presumably he had been on the day shift since summer — evidently a sly fellow whom Manek had chosen to be his collaborator. How much does Manek pay him to conceal his whereabouts from me (and from others?)?
No matter. We will wait until the shift changes, we will wait till evening, till night, or till tomorrow. I walked around Liberec, I had a few snacks in various places, I rested in the waiting room at the station, I drank coffee at the sweet shop, and every two hours I glanced through the glass doors of the Imperial to see if Manek’s collaborator was still behind the reception desk. Finally, at half past six in the evening he was replaced by an unfamiliar colleague.
I was determined to obtain Manek’s address through three stages of escalation:
1. Trickery: “Good afternoon, my name is Makovickova and the Comrade Chief of our audit department has sent me to your hotel,” I start off by babbling like a real office drudge, “because one of our comrades is claiming reimbursement for a trip here on—” here I start leafing through my smeared-up ledger, “here it is, on August twenty-ninth and thirtieth, but we don’t have an official voucher, and so if you would be so good, I beg you, please tell me if our Comrade Mansfeld was actually here on those days—”
The goal of trickery is to get him to show me the guest book (I’ve never seen one in real life before, but I’ve seen a lot of them in films), where I could find Manek’s address. Should trickery not succeed, a further escalation follows:
2. Bribery: “Your colleague from the day shift promised to give me Mr. Mansfeld’s address for three hundred crowns, I rushed off to get the money but now he isn’t here—couldn’t you give it to me and take the money for him? It’s really urgent and I’m really desperate—”
Either this would have an effect on the reception clerk (I would be smiling especially beautifully at him and batting my eyelashes as well), or he would get an itch himself for the three hundred, or he would go into a rage because the colleague Manek had hired had paid him much less in the past (if he’d paid him at all) — or it wouldn’t work, and then I’d be left with the final stage of escalation:
3. Threat: “I’m putting an end to your dirty little espionage games! You’ve been operating long enough now as a dead letter office—but have you declared your take to the hotel bookkeeper?! I’ve sent a lot of letters and telegrams here—now I’d like to know what you did with them. A human life is at stake. Would you like to make an account of your activities as a collaborator? Here’s how it is: you tell me now or you tell the police in ten minutes!”
I went through the glass doors into the sparkling mahogany lobby and stopped in front of the reception desk. The new clerk was a young, good-looking boy…
“What can I do for you?” he said very very nicely, and even through my almost opaque eyelashes I could see at once that this boy would do anything for me (and it bothered me that I was wearing such a preposterous hat).
“My office has sent me to verify the official travel of one of our workers,” I said and smiled at him beautifully.
“When was that?” he said, and he gave me the sweetest smile.
“The twenty-ninth and thirtieth of August.”
The clerk fished out a heavy file from under the counter (well, there it is: there really is no guest book) and went to sit down at his desk (I’d have needed a periscope to read over his shoulder), he leafed through the registration forms and asked me for the number of the room. I gave him both rooms: 522, where I stayed, and 523, which was Manek’s.
“It checks out: both are under the same name and I’ll write you a confirmation,” said the clerk, and he gave me the most delectable smile and began to write.
“For the record it would be good to have all the dates, his address, and soon — I’ve got a very strict boss … and I’d like so much to come and stay here some time myself…” I told him and smiled very beautifully at him.
“But of course, I’m happy to be of service,” said the clerk, and he gave me the most devoted smile, finished the statement, stamped it, signed it, put it in an envelope, and handed it to me over the counter.
“You are so very kind…” I said to him with a smile of promise.
“However I can be of service … I’ve got nothing to do till tomorrow morning…”
I pulled the confirmation out of the envelope and rage clouded my vision as I read:
The management of the Hotel Imperial confirms that on 29-30 August there stayed in rooms Nos. 522 and 523 Mr. Josef Novak, born 10 February 1937 in Prague, domiciled at Prague 4, Pod schody 4, and he paid the bill for his rooms in cash.
“…and the nights here are so long…” said the clerk with a smile of longing — another bribed scoundrel had tried to trick me.
“Scoundrel! You couldn’t think up a stupider name than Josef Novak—you could at least have a little imagination, especially when you lie on hotel stationery—”
“…? Excuse me?? … But I…” The clerical swine behind the counter was playing his part like a great actor. How much does Manek pay him for this?
Out on the street I pulled off my false eyelashes, hat, and hairnet and threw them all into my smudged (unnecessarily!) briefcase … in my room at the Golden Lion I was fit to cry. My husband had raised an unscalable wall against me … Should I go back and wait for another letter from him—while I’m in bed with Ruda Mach?
Joylessly I began to pack my suitcase (L.L. had only given me one day off), I dragged it out as long as I could … but in a few minutes everything was back in the suitcase, there were so few things after all … all that was left was Principles of Industrial Programming, the book I always leave behind…
ALWAYS? — No. Only at the Hotel Trianon—
Quickly I reached for Manek’s last letter, the book had been sent to him from the Trianon, where we had left it underneath our wedding bed, and suddenly I recalled our trip to the Trianon from Dobris Castle, how Manek sat me in the lobby in a medieval high-backed leather armchair and walked up to the counter with his red I.D. booklet—
How many clerks could he bribe, I kept repeating to myself the next day (L.L. will have to wait) when I got off the morning express at Prague Central Station.
The taxi driver in the black Volga knew where the Trianon was, and after twenty minutes on a concrete highway and two minutes on a narrow asphalt road between fields I walked into the elegant yellow building where I had spent my wedding night.
The reception clerk was wearing a tuxedo and again it was someone new … there certainly are enough of them.
“I stayed here on the fifteenth of March in room No. 15,” I told him and smiled at him prettily, “and I left behind a book called Principles of Industrial Programming. My boss sent me here to pick it up.”
“Just a moment,” sa
id the clerk, and he flipped through a notepad and said, “Yes, that’s right, we found the book on March 15 and sent it off to the registration address. A bit late, please forgive us, but we always wait a while to see if the guest turns up in person, since we sometimes have trouble when we forward things … We sent your book on the sixteenth of June.”
“But we ought to have received it by now—”
“You can be sure we sent it registered mail. Here’s the receipt.”
The form gave the Hotel Trianon as addressor, and as addressee: Josef Novak, Prague 4, Pod schody 4.
That time we came here from Dobris Castle, Manek sat me in this lobby in that medieval high-backed leather armchair and walked up to that counter with his red I.D. booklet.
“Is everything in order?” asked the clerk.
“Yes, and thank you,” I said, and I left the building where I had spent my wedding night, got into the black Volga, and asked to be taken to Prague 4, Pod schody 4.
It was a dark, narrow alley of tall old houses, not a tree in sight, not even a blade of grass, and sooty, pale children of the metropolis were playing in the dust. According to a glass- covered list, the occupants of No. 4 were Josef Vanecek, Jiri Petrak, Miroslav Kindl, Pavel Braveny, Radomil Kucera, Lubomir Snezny, Valerie Solcova, Arno Rynolt — of course, no Josef Novak.
Arno Rynolt … the same name as the head of our Prague adjustment center, the one who drove me around Prague! Could it be him? Well, Prague’s a big place.
I let the taxi go, passed through some sort of gate and, in the courtyard, put on my false eyelashes, crammed my hair into the net, and topped it all off with that frightful hat, which I turned up over my neck and ears, and then I went to ask the porter about Josef Novak.
“Yeah, he lives here all right, on the third floor. And Rynoltova’s home, she came home from the dairy store just a little while ago,” the porter’s wife told me most eagerly.
Four Sonyas Page 38