The development on Sunday morning—featherbeds hung out of the windows exuding the collective dampness left from Saturday’s fulfillment of marital duties, last night’s satisfied lazily shaking standardized white pails out into trashcans, gnawed bones, molding halves of lemons, dripping garbage wrapped in pieces of newspaper, and the hard heels of loaves of bread, still unwashed children grudgingly dragged shopping nets crammed with clinking empty bottles to the self-service store, while last night’s participants with pale veiny legs and droplets of hardened grease in the corners of their eyes, hit by rotating house duty, torpidly pushed along the rice-straw brooms purchased only after repeated, often evening-long meetings of the co-op members, a hundred speakers blared out the same stupid hit, and in the windows a thousand Trosts—Jacek fled onto the bus as out of a tunnel, shaken up amid the shaking throng until, after the fifth stop, he could feel in his legs that the bus was beginning to climb the mountains, so far no one had got out, at the final stop they all got out, Jacek last, with downcast eyes he crossed the highway, stepped into some bushes, crouched, and with his face in his hands waited a while until the last voice had faded into the distance and vanished.
The grass was green again, perhaps it had been so even beneath the snow, on the twigs a billion green micro- explosions—Jacek struck out on one of his guaranteed unfrequented paths, but to be safe he soon deserted it and made his way upward through the underbrush and over the rocks, here you could drink right out of the brook, he tried to walk on all fours, on all fours backwards and somersaults forwards and backwards and sideways, out from under some pine needles he dug up a slightly rotted stick and rapped with it and knocked things down and leaped with the stick across the brook, and with the stick he made a short, deep furrow at a right angle to the brook, then he pushed together a dam of stones, clay, and wood, and when he pulled away a barrier on the bank, the water streamed in the new direction, drove leaves along with it and, aided by the stick, bit powerfully into the soil, tore up pieces of turf, and washed them quickly along—increase the declivity and finish choking off the old channel and the liberated cascades could rush onto the hard, sleeping earth, tear pieces from it, and strike and resound against the very rock of the mountain. Naked, Jacek lay on the warm grass and through the silence the sun penetrated his entire body.
Suddenly it was late, Jacek rose as if he’d been struck on the head, he gathered up the sun-warmed pieces of his clothing, which itched now on his sweaty body, and dazed by the harsh glare he staggered in his heavy, heated boots through the underbrush and over the rocks down to the path and the waiting bus. The Hurts, in their matching homemade folk-style jackets, hardly noticed Jacek, they whispered as they rocked on the plate-metal steps, holding hands in a whitening clasp.
The development on Sunday afternoon—surrounded by young greenery, blocks of buildings with delicate pastel hues, behind the windows vases of pussy willows and lively music, on the clean-swept concrete road a children’s carnival, little girls with toy baby carriages and parasols, a gang of little boys on a surrealistic wagon made from an ironing board, their neighbors the Tosnars with their six-tiered pipe organ of girls, daddies with children on their shoulders sitting on sandbox rims.
Grandma, Lenka, and Lenicka were about to leave for the garden plot, but Lenicka wouldn’t let them, she’d rather make yumyum, in perfect unison her Daddy and she put away a huge cutlet apiece, one potato for Daddy and one for Lenicka, “That girl only eats her food when you’re around—” and they left for the garden plot, Jacek took the ecstatic Lenicka on his shoulders and carried her across the road to a field, set her up in a tree, and acted like a bear, Lenicka was afraid and ecstatic, her hands around his neck, and wet, great great big kisses.
After unremitting digging, watering, and fertilizing, the tiny square of clay soil had at last sent up its first green shoots. Kneeling, Grandma and Lenka fondled the diminutive beds, Lenicka with them on her knees, in the soil on the bodies of these three generations something eternal and eternally fresh, WHERE DO WE COME FROM, here on each bit of earth a young woman and a half-naked man against the tepid undulation of the reddening horizon. And in the twilight across the broad road in a slow chain of duos and trios with tools on their shoulders, silent, covered with stigmata of clay in the flickering of the fluorescent streetlights. Behind the crowd, sadly dragging along, a solitary figure in a green windbreaker with a hood, his neighbor Mestek was coming back from the mountains, his carved cane tapping out its lonely beat.
Outside their window, in the network of eighty windows of the building across the way, in the open four-sided grottos of gradated shades of gold, young women leaving bathrooms and half-naked men with their cigarettes lit, the unheard trampling back and forth and the springs of tones mixing in the lake of music that rose over the buildings.
“Jacinek, my darling…,” Lenka whispered, my wife, we know each other as no one else, a perfect interplay of limbs, love-making simple as milk, a wife with whom I live and with whom I have a child, WHO ARE WE, there is no peace outside existence in an order, never with anyone else but you, my love, I must tell you that—
“Lenunka…”
She was asleep already.
On Tuesday we are going away again. And then again and again.
WHERE ARE WE GOING—and where would we like to go—
Part II — Games — five
Jacek put on his sunglasses before he got off the streetcar, and as he got off he read the time on his wristwatch: 3:28. So the trip from Cottex to the main square takes 13 minutes.
He walked past the column with its enormous painted poster of Candy’s jazz orchestra, over to the office of the notice agency: SERVICE TO THE PUBLIC. The notice was still there.
646 ROOM with balc. in Vanov. Beautiful view. For rent or for sale.
In the PERSONALS column below, the outcries of a 48-yr.-old bach. farmer and several healthy pensioners a 27-year-old intel. no childr., looking for intel. husb. up to 35, and a college graduate of the same age a 25-year-old refined wom. of girl. appear. offered herself, and she even had her own furn. apart. For less sensitive tastes there was a 30-year-old div. woman, native of Usti likes the woods, for whom Child is no obsticle.
In the crammed columns of POSITIONS AVAILABLE dozens of appeals blared out for all sorts of people, for anyone who might be willing to work anywhere, whatever might come into his head.
Jacek drew in his breath and went through the swinging door. In front of the counter stood a line of five persons, all buying tickets for The Red Gentleman.
“Six forty-six,” Jacek said in a barely audible voice.
Behind the counter a disturbingly beautiful girl typed out the address on a card and, smiling, asked him for twenty hellers.
When he reached the bus stop it was 3:44; according to the timetable, the bus to Vanov leaves every twenty minutes, every :10, :30, and :50 until 11:00 P.M., after that every hour. Since the streetcar arrived at the square at 3:28, it was possible to catch the bus at 3:30, a perfect connection.
The red 3:50 bus arrived at 3:49, it’s true, but loading held it up till 3:51. During the ride Jacek took off his dark glasses and memorized the address: J. Krivinka, 71 Dock Street, Vanov. It was 4:07 when he got off the bus, and after two minutes of brisk walking he stood before No. 71, so that—subtracting the time he had spent at the notice agency—it was 34 minutes in all from Cottex.
On the whole, J. Krivinka made a solid impression, right away he laid his cards on the table: he already had six prospective tenants, but he needed money and would sell the separate room on the second floor to whoever would buy a quarter share in the house for 2,760 crowns and thus become a co-owner, the price was so low because the house had been confiscated, all the papers were in perfect order.
On the second floor there was a separate electric meter, running water, a toilet and, besides the bedroom, a small storeroom was available. The room measured some 200 sq. ft., dry, well-maintained, a light switch and two outlets, a washbasin, a varnished floor, t
wo alcoves, glass doors onto the balcony and a large double window with two shutters, as for the furniture we’ll come to terms, my daughter will be glad to do your laundry, the grocery store is right down the street, and there’s a bar around the corner, it’s a five-minute walk to the pool and there’s the dock, it has stairs and you can tie up a boat there, in winter you can go skiing just above the garden, we’re rarely home, never in summer, it’s the real outdoors, you don’t need any curtains here, you can heat with coal or with gas, or with oil if you’d rather have oil, it’s really nice, it’s rare that one finds something so nice and it would really be yours exclusively, “Just look—” said J. Krivinka, and he went over to the window.
“Thanks so much, but if I could just have a moment here… alone…”
“Stop by on your way down.”
With his hand pressed against his lips Jacek waited until the steps on the staircase had ceased, then he spread out his arms as if to embrace all the things needed to live—
Breathless with exhilaration he found the perforated door of a small food cupboard beneath the window, its two shelves were more than enough for a bottle of milk, a quarter-loaf of bread, a can of herring, a couple of eggs, some cheese and a bottle of wine, one pot and one saucepan, the one alcove for his dirty laundry and the other for developing photographs, on the floor there could be a brown shag rug and on the wall a carmine-colored hanging, for the corner a wing chair and a floor lamp, for the wall a bookcase and a small radio, for the opposite one an arrangement of nude photos clipped from magazines and sprayed with shellac, or one of bottle labels, or a globe? No, a guitar and a daybed in the corner, the bed linen in one alcove, the dirty laundry in the storeroom off the corridor, there he could keep his skis and his off-season clothing, a paddle, a tent, and a kettle, a daybed in the corner and on it a black leather cushion, and beside it a little table for a bottle, two glasses and an ashtray, a large mirror, a low ottoman so she wouldn’t have to throw things on the floor and so they could see the sky while making love.
With his eyes half closed he silently approached the window, gently opened the door to the balcony, and one step over the threshold: the tops of the trees flowed in a trembling glitter all the way down to the river, through the unbelievable tranquillity and the transparent, gleaming air a barge passed downstream, the open path of sparkling waves to the Decin docks, under Speranza’s windows, and on to the docks of Hamburg, the beaches of Cuxhaven, and out to sea—the moist green of the opposite bank stretched up through the tiers of deserted vineyards to the shaggy masses of forests and between gray, stiffened cascades of rock, straight up the sharp curve of the mountain’s crest.
The dial of his watch shouted 4:42 and Jacek bit his lower lip hard, gently but hurriedly he closed the balcony door and rushed down the stairs. “I’ll bring the money in a week!” he called to Krivinka in the doorway, and he ran to the bus stop and the bus drove rapidly away out of the valley.
Jacek changed at the main square and took the streetcar through the canyon of familiar facades, none of which could be skipped, endlessly to the end of the line at Vseborice, quickly between the solid concrete enclosing strips of long-since-dead grass, trampled day after day, past dozens of ironically identical copies of the four-story apartment house unit model T 03 to his own T 03, No. 511/13, straight up the stairs to the third story, and already from behind the door that bears our name cries of laughter can be heard.
Grandma and Lenka were putting on a puppet show, on the back of a kitchen chair their hands holding the wires, on the seat the action of the fairy tale was reaching a climax, and on a cushion on the floor the spectator, Lenicka, was biting her little fist in excitement.
“Did you bring the money?” Lenka whispered, and then, slowly, with dignity, moving the figure of the water-goblin a little, “…whoo whoo whoo, whoo whoo whoo… I’ve swum across nine brooks and nine ponds and the princess isn’t anywhere, whoo whoo whoo, where is she?”
Gripped by the story, Grandma scarcely nodded, hiding the princess behind the chair leg she lisped, “I’m hiding here, I’m afraaid of the water-goblin—”
“Where is she, whoo whoo whoo, where is she? Lenicka, tell me, where is that wretched little girl hiding?”
“I don’t know—” Lenicka lied, choking with excitement, “She isn’t here—”
“But she was here just a little while ago—whoo whoo whoo!”
“No she wasn’t, watagobwin, oh no—”
“It’s water-goblin,” Jacek whispered, “and you mustn’t tell fibs, my darling—,” but no one paid any attention to him, except Lenicka, who cried out, “Daddy go way!” back over her shoulder and then right back with her eyes fixed on the kitchen chair, what was the hurry anyway—
The performance dragged on and on, and Jacek’s efforts to enter the action successively as a king, a wicked witch, a bandit, and a giraffe were rejected four times over, “Go way, Daddy—” Lenicka repeated louder and louder until she screamed it, after the performance she and Grandma cut out paper stars, then with Lenka she made necklaces out of bits of folded newspaper, Daddy in disfavor, and she threw the water pistol at his feet, then trampled it, the celluloid cracked and it was all over for the toy from Brno.
On the table and the sideboard a pile of plates and dishes with the uneaten remains of five different courses, “I left you some buns on the tray—” but the cottage cheese in the buns had been picked out by a child’s fingers, obviously unwashed, “Well then, find something in the pantry—,” but the eggs were for Lenicka, the ham for Grandma for tomorrow, don’t cut into the bacon, the cheese is for your snack tomorrow, the sardines are for sandwiches, they didn’t deliver the beer.
“And don’t turn on the cold water!”
“Do you have to stand right here?”
“Turn off the radio!”
“Out of the way, please.”
“Don’t smoke here— And not in the bedroom either!”
“You’re in the way.”
Jacek went out on the balcony among the lines of laundry and lit a cigarette, in the kitchen the entertainment had started right up again, as if some unwanted visitor had just left, we’re in the way here—he inhaled deeply as he cautiously paced the narrow concrete floor between boxes, cases, and empty flower pots and gazed at the darkening sky, suddenly an oppressive sense of someone looking—right across the way Trost was spread out in the window.
Trost was pouring out clouds of smoke, behind his elbow on the table a charred baking pan, a bottle of beer on the sill, fists under his chin, and a shamelessly fixed stare—Jacek drew back quickly, stumbled over the laundry tub, and rushed inside, he turned on the light and immediately turned it off again, the blind in this room doesn’t work, and in a fever he walked up and down in the darkness of the room, stuffed his cigarette into the ashtray (its embers could be seen), and what else was left here anyway—
The simplest thing would be to leave without a word—Jacek went out to the foyer, took the key to the cellar off the nail, and went downstairs, the black suitcase would do, he locked the cellar and put the key back on its nail, ten shirts—no, three good shirts and four polyesters, those we can wash ourself, twelve pairs of nylon socks so we only have to wash our socks twice a month, the black leather tie’s enough and six pocket handkerchiefs, three pairs of shorts, three towels, wear the gray suit, and then the suede jacket, a pair of dacron slacks, and the black sweater into the suitcase, there’s a razor at the office, our toothbrush and comb from the bathroom, two pairs of pyjamas, a dagger, and the secret hoard.
Jacek walked through the foyer, from behind the kitchen door whooping and exultation, silently he closed the door, down the stairs and off across the broad road, the shortcut across the dead grass, and finally the last stop on the streetcar line, from over the curve of the mountain range a glow and from the city the streetcar is already coming for us…
…already it was moving into the turnaround, it brought a worn-out family, Mommy with two shopping bags crammed
full, behind her Daddy with a child, the little girl had fallen asleep on Daddy’s arm, and now the family was hurrying home— It wouldn’t work, we could never make up our mind to do it, not yet, not this way, not today—
Jacek turned his back to the streetcar, from the yellow windows of the restaurant the lament of an accordion and near the door the sad figure of his neighbor Mestek in his green windbreaker with a hood sitting over a melancholy plate of kipper and a glass of stale beer, Jacek downed two double slivovitzes, tripe soup, herring and onions, ten ounces of sausage, and three beers, and quietly returned home.
From behind the kitchen door shrieks and loud laughter, they were putting Lenicka to bed and Jacek went to lie down himself, to sleep, tomorrow Lenka’s alarmclock will wake us and we’ll go pet Lenicka, and then a second time we’ll sleep, and the second time we’ll wake up without them.
II — six
The simplest of the other possibilities is to give each other freedom—the famous “improvement” of the Balvins began right at the front door with its double mailbox, double bell, and double visiting cards
DR. MILADA BALVINOVA VITEZSLAV BALVIN
and in a rigorously binary spirit it covered the entire floor-plan of their conveniently symmetrical apartment: on the left Mija’s room, white with a white square yard of foyer, on the right Vitenka’s purple room with a purple square yard of foyer. Common ground—the kitchen, the WC, the bathroom, and the center square yard of foyer—was known as “no man’s land,” and it was azure blue with white and purple enclaves in the two shelves under the mirror, two towel racks, two wings of the food cupboard, and two metal holders for toilet paper.
“I couldn’t get along without the gang,” said Vitenka as he entered his purple wing, “and Mija couldn’t do with it, so why force ourselves on one another—”
On the enormous square dark-red sofa in the middle of the purple room a kneeling girl in a men’s nylon shirt was combing the golden locks of a handsome long-haired boy, on a horsehair mattress right on the floor below them slept a girl in a nylon raincoat, and a mirror hanging askew from the ceiling showed a segment of two uninhibited lovers hidden behind a column of four suitcases stacked one on top of another, “Today it’s kind of dead,” said Vitenka, and he clapped his hands.
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