Four Sonyas

by Paral, VladimIr

  Sonya has become great and I have shrunk from a fairy-tale prince to the everyday stature of the quite ordinary man in love, of which there are millions … and I am happy to be one of them.

  If only that age-old fireplace of stories, old, noble, and foolish, ever so deeply human and therefore beautiful, would never go out, but instead become more numerous than they would be if they had actually happened. If only Sonya would keep the fire burning, fanned by the breath I get from those ancient fires, accessible to all who wish to warm themselves.

  After my return from Dobris Castle and the Trianon, R. gave me a good hiding, like a dog, and I had to spend two hours kneeling on dried peas. Mama cried all night long, and she was already light as a child in my arms.

  Now whenever R. allows me to read, all I read are classical love stories, because on my own I could never write Sonya anything more than I LOVE YOU, a thousand times in each letter.

  Because for love and for life it’s enough to

  At this point Josef Novak finished writing his fairy tale. He had stopped in the middle of a sentence, no doubt because he had to run off to brush Rynolt’s trousers or get him some beer.

  It made me sick … all over, but especially my stomach. Incredulously I looked around the little room: on the walls scenes from fairy tales, on the floor an electric train set, and on the wardrobe a blow-up pink elephant … As the author Josef Novak wrote: it’s enough.

  Out of habit (from PS-VTEI, PTK, the firm’s reading room and study room) and a bit out of boredom as well, I went over to the boy’s bookcase. I caught sight of the book by Lorenz and Wasserman—The Himalayas, Roof of the World—the boy had used excerpts from—and on a page he’d marked, I found the following passage underlined with a red crayon:

  It is the custom to view Mount Everest at dawn. Out of the red strip of dawn in the east the first ray of sunlight flares up and flies through the darkness, and strikes the peaks of the highest mountains on earth, and then the sun rises and spreads its golden-red fire over the eternal snows of Everest and its lieutenants Makala and Lhotse…”

  That’s the way the boy described it last summer at dinner at the Gastronome Restaurant in Liberec. The man who had seen Mount Everest… The book by Messrs. Lorenz and Wasserman bears the stamp of the Prague Library, and beside it are others, novels, encyclopedias, and dictionaries, he had most likely plagiarized some of the ones I used to study for my degree exam … It was not I who corresponded with my husband, it was the Prague Library corresponding with the one in Usti.

  At the very end of the boy’s bookshelf, apparently used very often, an open issue of World Literature was lying open, with quotations from surrealists underlined in red:

  “It’s out of the question for us to carry on human relations with fish. Queneau.” The well-read boy had made good use of this in the thinly wooded steppes above Dobris Castle, and had, of course, forgotten to cite M. Queneau.

  “Is it really necessary to do something about the laziness of rails between the passage of two trains? Duchamp.” My boy had plagiarized this in his telegram NR. 84 and had, of course, forgotten to cite M. Duchamp.

  “Will someone finally begin to defend the infinite? Aragon.” My boy was no doubt preparing to include this in his next letter to me.

  I took the boy’s red crayon and underlined another quotation for him:

  “Cut yourself in half and gulp down one of the halves. Arp.”

  And to give him some practical advice, I underlined another quote with his crayon:

  “If we return to ourselves, it’s wise to take roads that are passable. Breton.”

  And I put Josef Novak’s fairy tale back into its black school folder, tied it up, and hid it underneath the fairy tale ALICE IN WONDERLAND, where he himself had taken refuge … I did it so that Arno Rynolt wouldn’t read about himself as the wicked R. and make the boy kneel on dried peas again.

  And I left.

  Mrs. Rynoltova went along with me to say goodbye, there was fear in her eyes.

  “Don’t be afraid, Mrs. Rynoltova. Our case is closed. You’ll have your son at home now for good.”

  “Thank you a thousand times,” the old woman sighed with infinite relief, “you know, he, my Josef…”

  “I know. He’s still just a boy.”

  “Yes. I’m very glad you noticed that, too … like your officer. Are you taking Josef’s photograph with you?”

  “What would I do with it? Although… let me have it for my souvenir album.”

  “That’s fine, I still have five more copies. I don’t know how I can thank you for everything, Miss… Miss…”

  “Names aren’t important. And I’m no longer Miss … I’ve been married twice already.”

  “Really? You’re so young…”

  “I fell into the clutches of unscrupulous men … twice already. So goodbye, and don’t tell the boy I’ve been here. He’d only worry unnecessarily, and Mr. Rynolt would whip him again.”

  I got rid of the false eyelashes and the hairnet and the stupid hat, I stuffed them all into an overflowing garbage can.

  The women employees at the Prague Adjustment Center of natl. enter. Cottex like some distraction during their monotonous work (sifting powders into boxes and pasting on labels), and Josef Novak, Rynolt’s Simple Simon and, beside Rynolt himself, the only male employee, is an inexhaustible source of merriment for them.

  “What’s up, Jozifek? Have you found yourself a girl yet?” Mrs. Matouskova screeched at him, and all the women broke into laughter: just imagine that scarecrow Josef with a girl!

  “You’ll have to pick one who’ll let you play with your train set!” the trainee Zdenka burst into laughter (to entertain his employees, Rynolt often gives out tidbits concerning his step-idiot).

  “Girls, each of you chip in five crowns and we’ll buy Jozifek a scooter!” cries Ivuska, a fifteen-year-old who rarely comes to work (she has a stinking rich father).

  “Great idea!” “Girls, seriously, let’s all chip in!” “At least we won’t have to wait so long for him to bring our morning snack!” the women screeched and laughed.

  Wearing a shabby, standard-issue white labcoat over his bare frame and tattered canvas trousers with a rope around his waist, Josef Novak was sweeping the shop floor under the women’s feet, he smiled patiently and didn’t try to interfere with their fun, until their merry hubbub enticed Arno Rynolt to leave his “Director’s Office” and come into the workshop.

  “You girls seem to be having a lot of fun,” Rynolt said with a sweet (forced) smile, “so then, which of you has a birthday today…”

  “None of us, Mr. Rynolt,” shot back the youngest and most brazen of them all, Ivuska, “but if you’ll send out for a bottle, we might let you have a sip!”

  “I’ll send out, Ivuska, I’ll send out,” Rynolt prattled affably, “only you finish that Bulgarian shipment for me. Pretty please, girls, the end of the month’s only a few days away— And, Mrs. Brunclikova, could you be so kind as to take the bicycle to the post office…”

  “I don’t feel so hot,” whimpered Mrs. Brunclikova. “I can’t take this scorcher … Couldn’t Josef do it again?”

  “What wouldn’t I do to please my ladies,” Rynolt jabbered charmingly, “but girls, pretty please, let’s take care of that Bulgarian shipment…” and he sent Anna’s idiot off to the post office on the bicycle.

  When Josef Novak came back from the post office, he sprinkled the courtyard to keep down the dust, helped the women carry boxes to the warehouse, ran out to get bread for Mrs. Matouskova and, on the way, got a pack of American Winston cigarettes for Ivuska and five pounds of potatoes for Mrs. Brunclikova, washed the floor, the showers, and the toilets in the women’s room, and burned used wrapping paper until Rynolt called him into the garage by honking the horn.

  “Tomorrow you’ll paint the barrier!” Rynolt ordered him when the gatekeeper raised it to permit them to exit, the paint had cracked a little, “that’s the first thing any visitor sees. Pick up the
paint tomorrow and have it done before coffee break, understand!”

  “Yes, Mr. Rynolt. Shall I paint it red and white again?”

  “No! Pink with silver stars!”

  “That would be beautiful…”

  “You idiot,” Rynolt let off steam and with a violent jerk (he had always had trouble changing gears) he burst out of the factory grounds.

  When he got to Pod schody 4, Rynolt parked in front, ordered Anna’s idiot to wash the car, and went to give Anna a dressing down, all to cleanse himself of those unavoidable pleasantries he’d offered to his personnel (it’s damn hard to find anyone to work in Prague and it’s almost impossible to keep her), Matouskova wants to give notice and then that gatekeeper, who does nothing but knit, has let it be known that if she doesn’t get a raise, she won’t be back after vacation.

  Josef Novak washed the car with loving care (he had bought the most expensive auto shampoo out of his own savings) until it shone like a mirror, and stood beside it, gazing toward the house, until Rynolt examined his work from the window and with a nod permitted him to play until evening.

  Josef Novak ran upstairs to the third floor, he didn’t have to ring, for Mama was already waiting in the doorway. While they were still in the vestibule (so Rynolt wouldn’t see it) she gave her son a slice of bread with butter and honey and stroked his hair, which was already beginning to gray at the temples.

  Once in his tiny room, Josef turned on the electric train set (if there wasn’t any noise, Rynolt would be suspicious—he listened to every sound—and would have rushed in at once), and for a while he watched it make its way through the tiny tunnels, past the stations, and over the bridges, and then, since he had adjusted his little railroad so perfectly it could go for whole hours if necessary, he could devote himself to his principal form of play in peace and quiet.

  Without a pause, he picked up Alice in Wonderland, in which he concealed his writing paper and envelopes, and Peter and Lucy and Anna Karenina, which he’d borrowed from the city library. He had decided to write Sonya an especially long letter today, the most beautiful in the world.

  Hastily (since Rynolt could rush in here, even with the train set going) he marked the white sheet NR. 103 and eagerly began to write:

  My Sonya,

  I love you like… and like… and more than…

  And now that you have become great, I will entrust you with an especially important and existentially important task…

  By staying light into the early evening, the summer day fooled him good, and he jumped at the sound of Rynolt’s voice through the wall:

  “Send that idiot out for some beer!”

  Josef Novak hurriedly finished the letter, signed it Your Manek, stuck it in an envelope, and hid it under his shirt.

  Soon thereafter he went down with a jug into the humid air, he felt intensely happy at the sight of a thin strip of dark-blue sky in the chink between the tall tenements, and before he went into the Prince’s Inn he stopped at the corner post office and mailed his letter registered express.

  I walked away as fast as I could, I don’t want to see him again; let it all remain a fairy tale…

  All I carry away with me is his photo, and one day I will place it in my family album, among the photographs of my sons.

  I walked rapidly away from this quarter of tall old tenements. My suitcase struck me on the calves as I hurried along to get away as fast as I could. The buildings made way for a small square, at its its center lime trees were beginning to bloom, a red streetcar rode past and clanged at me so that I would know what route to take from here, and I followed its cheerful voice, here the buildings were more cheerful and on the wide pavements there were more people, women with shopping bags (I want to shop for two), trudging girls and old women, women with baby carriages (I want to have a child, two, three—) and, of course, men.

  I reflected on the position in which I found myself, and it started to seem as if it wasn’t so bad after all, I’m healthy and not yet twenty, I’ve passed my degree exam, I know people, I like them, and now I want to live like them.

  What I really want: human things. An orderly and satisfying life. To be happy. Someone who likes me and whom I like. My own husband, and to have children with him. My own family. I like this world and I want to do all sorts of things in it. And who knows, perhaps some day I’ll even see Mount Everest.

  The streets kept getting wider and livelier and there were more and more people on them, until suddenly I found myself on Wenceslaus Square, gleaming cars flowed through flowing rivers of people, the ground floors of all the buildings suddenly turned to glass, and like one rolling river we rippled through traffic lights, the honking of horns, the noise, the music, the vibrations, and the odors, all the aromas here — whenever I’m so happy that I’m moved, I have to name the aroma of that moment — this heady aroma here is the aroma of the world.

  And I felt men looking at me, I gathered their smiles like strawberries on a glade in June and I smiled prettily at each of them—no, I’ve been alone too long, I won’t be anymore.

  I reflected on the position in which I found myself, and it seemed to me it was a downright excellent one … for nearly a year I had been in the hands of a mere boy—still, in that time I had undoubtedly made progress, I’d have to say.

  And then I wondered whether it would all have been possible WITHOUT that boy from the tiny room with the fairy-tale scenes on the walls, the electric train set, the blow-up pink elephant on the wardrobe, and the books from the city library … With what incredibly simple tricks, with what childish deception he had extracted from me so much I’d never suspected was there … wouldn’t it have worked even WITHOUT those plagiarized letters and telegrams? Why, that boy had written like an adult: ALL YOU NEED IS and I added: TO DO THINGS. There are enough patterns for everyone to choose his own, the libraries are full of books and they can all be borrowed now for free.

  If all the girls in the world…

  And if all the boys and men—

  For nearly a year I’ve been in the hands of a boy, now I want to be in the hands of a real man—so that I might hold him in my hands and so that we might embrace and always be together…

  And HE, whether he is to be my hero and love, a fatherly protector, or even a trusting child—I will not disappoint him and I will be his wife no matter what: this is my job, my love, and my mission.

  We will inform the impatient reader, well in advance, that in the next volume Sonya will pass through a series of vocations and loves (we can’t give everything away), that she will travel through Europe and India (and see Mount Everest), and that we are planning to have to her smile prettily another ninety times or so.

  ENGINEER KAZIMIR DRAPAL ENGINEER LANIMIR SAPAL ENGINEER VLADIMIR PARAL