III. Hanicka Kohoutkova (22), elem. teacher
Teachers Inst. with honors
Passion: children and animals
Erot: undevel.
Other: lilacs, esp. white, jasmine
Charact: a kid, naïve, sinc.
10:34 on arrival of R 30. 192 minutes. Depart 1:46 R 28
A large white box with a pale blue ribbon, held like a baby, on the platform of the Pardubice station—it belonged to a tall (5 ft. 7) girl with light chestnut hair.
“It looks like you’re waiting for me—”
“Yes.”
“I recognized you by the box.”
“Yes.”
“Should we go for a little walk?”
“Yes.”
From the station to the tiny park in front of the chemistry school and then to the main street, “Wouldn’t it be better to turn off somewhere?” said Jacek, “Why?” she retorted, and down the main street to the square with the Green Gate, fortunately Pardubice soon comes to an end and from the square there are stairs leading to a large park, on the bench between the two lovers the barrier of the black satchel and the white box with the ribbon.
“We should have a little talk, Hanicka.”
“Yes, Jacek.”
White clusters of lilac burst forth from the tops of bushes, Jacek walked across the lawn and with repeated jumps gathered some flowers, Hanicka ran after him, clapped her hands, suddenly took off her shoes, and hop hop we’ve got a beautiful bouquet, flushed Hanicka laughed and Jacek tried to kiss her, “What are you up to?” and she patiently offered him her tender forehead.
“You taste like condensed milk…”
“Hey, I like that, and the best thing is eating it with strawberries!”
“And what else do you like?”
“Are we going to be so familiar right off?”
“Yes.”
“First of all I like children. That’s why I teach. Children are terribly sweet. I like them very much… And then white lilacs and jasmine… I like all white flowers very much, especially white lilacs and also—”
“And animals?”
“I like animals very much. At home we have lots of animals. We have chickens, rabbits, ducks—”
“And your Mother?”
“I like Mom and Dad best of all.”
“Could you like me too?”
“That’s why we’re meeting—”
A Maytime fairy tale on the succulent meadows of Pardubice, where everything asks for caressing and where there is only a single mountain far and wide, Kuneticka, a green angelfood cake on a warm green plate.
On the train now, Jacek placed the white box with the ribbon in the baggage net above his seat, Hanicka herself had baked him the poppyseed coffee cake inside, she smiled at him from below the window, “I’m so happy that I have my own boyfriend now—” and R 28 left at 1:46.
IV. Lida Adalska (25), forest ranger’s widow
Schooling: scarcely
Erot: sincere
Other: lives in a forest rang. lodge
Charact: ?
2:48 in the car, 14 mins. DO NOT GET OFF! Depart 3:02
On the platform at Ceska Trebova a woman with a white box, Jacek leaned out and waved, the woman came to the window—just 14 mins!—with a placid smile.
“I’m Jost.”
“I’m Adalska.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t get out, because I have to—”
“That doesn’t matter. I just wanted to see you.”
“I’m terribly sorry, but in a couple of minutes—”
“That’s enough. Don’t say anything more, please.”
She looked up at the window and smiled, a beautiful woman at life’s summit, all around her the flow of those transferring for Ostrava, Krnov, and Zilina, they bumped into her but with dignity she held her place all fourteen of those minutes, one after another, as if embedded in the stone of the platform, and finally now the whistle, “Mrs. Adalska, next time I’ll come for longer…”
“It really was kind of you. This is from me—” and she handed Jacek her white box, already the train was getting under way, “—it’s what I always gave my husband when he went away.”
“Lida, I… I thank you and definitely—”
“It’s me who should thank you.”
R 28 continued on its way east through meadows and woods, in Lida’s box there was bread, meat, salt, and a large dry apple in a dazzlingly white napkin, Jacek bit his lips, what else in God’s name do you want, and with horror he opened his blue spiral notebook.
V. Tanicka Rambouskova (20), bookkeeper at a flax mill.
Business school graduate
Passion: Tanicka Rambouskova
Erot: novels for girls
Other: terr. chaos
Charact: an incred. ambit. brat
3:23 on arrival of R 28. 115 mins. Depart 5:18 R 8
“…and we’ll leave this place for good. Some time in Prague and then out into the world—” Tanicka danced far ahead of Jacek and only from time to time glanced back at him, in addition to his satchel, he had to carry her enormous empty white box, most likely visible to jets seven miles up, “I know men too well already—” she asserted at one corner of the station building, “—never has one of them had me and none of them ever will—” at the other.
“That of course makes any further correspondence dubious,” said Jacek.
“No, just the opposite, you’ll fall in love with me and I’ll flirt with you and that will attract you most!”
“How old are you really, Tanicka? Show me your ID card.”
“And suppose I’m only eighteen? What does it matter—”
“In the letter you said twenty.”
“A little white lie, so as not to discourage you from the beginning. Next time I’d like to meet in Prague or at least in Ceska Trebova. What kind of car do you have?”
“A white eighteen-cylinder Cadillac with a trailer.”
“Why did you come by train then?”
“My left carburetor exploded and I had to wait for a repairman from Washington. They won’t give him a passport…”
“I wish I had my own passport…”
“The foreign minister himself would provide one for my wife.”
“Why did you get divorced— oh, that’s a stupid question! You felt hemmed in, you longed for freedom, air, the sea, distant lands… and women. Your wife became indifferent soon after marriage, only for the sake of the child you kept up the appearance of a happy marriage, until one day a woman crossed your path like a ray of light in the darkness, and the garden of singing roses opened for the mournful knight… Come, let’s sit at the station, I like the tracks and the smoke… We’ll have a fine love affair.”
Tanicka’s white box didn’t fit into the net above his seat, Jacek carefully placed it on the seat beside him and for the last time he leaned out of the window.
“You see—” whispered Tanicka below him on the platform, “no, you don’t see in the slightest how beautiful life is, how terribly beautiful—” and R 8 pulled out of Svitavy at 5:20, two minutes late according to the timetable.
VI. Dr. Mojmira Stratilova (29), translator
Studied at the Fac. of Phil., a year in Paris
Long sents. w/o commas or content
Pure flame of soul w/o body, pure abstraction
Charact: delicate, subt., ether., immater. angel 6:35 according to the sta. clock
By 6:50 according to the sta. clock six women had come and gone, one after another on someone’s arm, at 6:52 a seventh rushed up, grotesquely tousled, straight toward Jacek who, leaning against the wall in a semi-recumbent position, already half-asleep, was now as ransacked and empty as the white boxes traveling by express to the east, “You’re the one, yes—Jacek? All happiness, hi! Listen, weren’t you supposed to have a rolled-up magazine in your right hand? What’s that—me and a white box? Ha-ha, that’s a good one! I’m frightfully hungry and if you haven’t got any money let’s go dine at a
stupid couple’s I know, you don’t have to pay any attention to them… You’ve got money? Do you feel like investing in me?” Distracted, Jacek only nodded apathetically.
Two vodkas, two eggs with horseradish, two Rumford soups, two Moravian skewers flambée, two bottles of red Moravian wine, “What else?”
Two portions of kidneys en papillote, two portions of carp à la Moulin, and two bottles of white Tramin, “What else?”
Two orders of fried Swiss cheese and, worn out, Jacek gave in, it’d been a long day and tomorrow we want to get up at half-past five, two double cognacs “Armenian, and salvage me two portions of bones besides—” Jacek ordered for Mojmira, and he asked the headwaiter to find him a place to room and board in Prague, preferably in the forest ranger’s lodge, then all of a sudden a car of some sort and on the back seat he clapped shut like a pocket knife.
A terrifying clatter like a tank in a scrapyard, a monstrously beautiful alarmclock from the days of the Austrian Empire set for half-past five, on the floor slept a woman in a sweatsuit, Jacek stepped over her, the walls lined with books high as his chest, above them on all four walls a connected strip of reproductions of the Impressionists (here reality has been tranformed into spots of color) without frames, even the white margins had been cut away and all the pictures exulted together, above on the molding a display of empty bottles, So long, angel, and thanks a bonch! Jacek typed on the paper sticking out of the typewriter, below some French poetry, and he ran downstairs, the gate was locked, he burst into the courtyard, hop onto the garbage can and skip over the fence, the scent of fresh asphalt and with it lilacs in full bloom, from the shrubbery four legs projected, and Jacek skipped across the lawns, suddenly a familiar giant plane tree and behind it a small pink palace, at seventeen, behind that bench, he’d been initiated by Mrs. Sbiralova from Medlanky, the second circle of the spiral was beginning to unwind—
On express train R 21 he could sleep his rosy fill from 6:38 to 10:53, there was no need for sudden stops, in Prague baked lamb with spinach and a good local beer, at 1:59 R 55 leaves, up along the current of the springtime river, but why home so soon, what else have we got on the menu:
VII. Tina Vlachova (27), occupation?
Address evident. false
Letters very brief, techn. matter-of-fact
Erot: snapshot in bathing suit, like a Modigl.
Charact: ? WATCH OUT!
Bus: CSAD from Usti at 4:00, stops Bohosudov
Fun. 4:31
63 mins. Dep. 5:34, arr. Usti 6:05, as from
Berl. expr. R 151
Near the Bohosudov Funicular, at a corner, a golden- orange Tina de Modigliani was unaffectedly smoking, “Looks like you’re waiting for me—” no white box, a type you can’t help but speak to and in half an hour you’re talking to as if you’d known her for years, “…and then they made Prague off-limits for me. But it’s OK here as a waitress. I can make out anywhere.”
“I thought you were giving me a fake address…”
“I’ve been here for three months—” and she gestured with her chin toward the vista beyond the funicular, in the pervasive fragrance the numbered metal pylons ran up through the forest to the peak of Supi Mountain, five hundred years ago, it was said, Archbishop Jan came here to sin, then meadows and further on above the precipice of Mt. Kneziste, at its summit the Mosquito Tower chalet, and at the tip of the tower Tina’s room.
“Take me up there sometime… soon…”
“So come back.”
“I’ve traveled five hundred miles to find you… And from my retreat it’s only an hour’s walk through the woods.”
The bus back was already pulling into the turnaround, “Come whenever you want to—” Tina de Modigliani whispered, “but you must always call first!”
Depart 5:34, arr. Usti 6:05 as from the Berl. expr. R 151, streetcar No. 5 to Vseborice, even as the door opened Lenicka’s voice, “Daddy—” and Lenka was coming to welcome him with a smile, “You forgot the white plush again, didn’t you—”
III — thirteen
Daddy don’t go way—” so stay with her until she goes to sleep, in a couple of years she’ll be coming home only to eat and sleep, Daddy the cashier and hotelier, in any case he’d be good for little else by then and this eager child of the electronic age would only be bored by an aging man who had never achieved anything and who himself had never lived, I can only advise you, daughter, not to take after your father—the art of leaving in time—but since they’ve tied us here, the wrists bloodied by sharp nylon cords and the arms weakening with vain twisting, dragged in harness to one’s retirement and then one’s death, a man who once was able to live but who didn’t come up with the courage needed to live, who started to die at the age of thirty-three on a cross of his own construction.
Polish all the shoes in the foyer and take a hot bath, “You’re not coming to bed yet, Lenka?”
“How can I, it’s Thursday!”
“Can I help with anything?”
“Just go to bed, you’ve had enough with your trip.”
Go to bed after your trip and get some sleep before another one, the rest of the night is spent ironing, sewing, or bathing, during the day we don’t see each other and if we do it’s only for a new verification of the fact that we get in each other’s way, what’s left of you, my love—
“Daddy come home today?”
“But he came home last night… So hop into your pants!”
“Daddy put on pants!”
“Shhh—Daddy’s still beddie-bye and we mustn’t…”
“I want to see Daddy!”
And Jacek crawled out of bed, my darlings, and pulled on Lenicka’s tights, she played, she was affectionate, flirtatious, she showed her belly-button and again so many many great big kisses, nothing’s so sweet to kiss as my little one, “Daddy take me to school!” “Daddy has to go beddie-bye some more!” fifty minutes more and then wake up again to the horror of desertion—
On the bright June morning Mommy and Daddy cross the lawn and the little girl flies up between them swinging on their hands, Lenka’s happy laugh and her hair in the wind, “We still know how to run, Jacek—” up to the bronze gate of the institution for discarding children.
“When you’re wittle, Daddy, and I’m all gwowed up, I won’t send you to school.”
“And where will you put me during the day, my darling?”
“I’ll take you by the hand and take you to the pond and the movies and the swings—”
“So give me your hand and we’ll go—” “But Jacek, how about your work?—,” a few work days have already gone for experiments, so today we’ll try a negative one, the little one and Daddy both had to be shown that it would bore them very quickly, Jacek took Lenicka by the hand and systematically led her through the child’s vision, first to the pond to pick posies and bathe her tootsies, a pond in June is not so bad, actually—well, she’s not bored so far, but what next, at ten to the movies to see a silly film in which a little boy and a little girl engage in a moralistic discussion on how to rehabilitate their drunken Daddy, but Lenicka’s spoken subtitles transformed it into a larger-than-life story, half grotesque and half myth, the experiment went aground but, touched, Jacek swung his little girl in the swing for his sixth crown’s worth, “Fwy wif me, Daddy, into the sky—”
In front of the gate of Lenka’s factory a young man waiting with a motorcycle, when was the last time we stood like this, so impatient, of the crowd of exiting women Lenka is still the prettiest, happily the little family makes its way homeward.
Water our strawberry vines, why buy berries from the policeman’s wife in Ritin, all three of us sit down on the grass in the sun and from both sides we smell the scent of a loved one, on our own land, WHERE DO WE COME FROM, our daughter gets her beauty sleep and on the other side of the wall we come together, our longing contained within an order, WHO ARE WE, my wife and I—half- naked, Jacek leaned out the window with a cigarette in his mouth and inhaled deeply, direct
ly opposite was Trost, leaning equally far out his window and equally half-naked, he inhaled deeply too, and behind him the same dull glow of the lamp placed in the same spot as ours, over our beds.
“So yesterday I sank a German steamer,” during Saturday’s sixty-forty Vitenka ecstatically described an international collision of riverboats on the frontier at Hrensko, we were lying in the garden in back of the house, WHERE WILL WE LAND, the afternoon before, Mija had flown off to Tunis.
Mr. Stefacek came out of the tow-cloth storeroom with a new toy for men, a sort of tiny TV set, and when you turned the switch you saw color photos of film Venuses, “My Verka’s better—” Petrik Hurt said with conviction, all that sated happiness in his voice had the sound of conviction.
On the ridged mud of the courtyard a large black limousine with a Brno license plate swayed magnificently, and out of its door, held majestically open for him, floated the general director’s deputy himself, Franta Docekal (the director of Cottex suddenly grew smaller and his two deputies shriveled up completely), in the front part of the director’s office the stout marshal of the courtyard was fanning himself with a handkerchief from those two precious sets we’d been having engraved for months, like gems, one for the Czechoslovak exhibit at the Montreal World Exposition, the other for the Shah of Iran.
Jacek was praised by His Majesty and rose, he grinned mockingly, don’t bother, one possible way to start a career is to clear out, as you know so well yourself—an undistinguished planning expert, Franta Docekal had fallen ill here some years ago with an inflammation of the lungs, “Usti Syndrome,” and the doctors had recommended a healthier climate, the Brno one for instance, here in unhealthy Usti Franta left behind a miserable apartment with a hateful wife and a lame malicious brat, there he married a pretty doctor with her own house and went rapidly to the top, a dizzying career built on an inflammation of the lungs, why not inhale some hydrochloric acid—
On the column in the main square a new color poster, Candy in a white tux BACK FROM HIS TRIUMPHANT YUGOSLAV TOUR, he had it thanks to some stolen mercury and tow-cloth, if it hadn’t been for their mishaps today we’d still have lab assistant Klecanda and planning expert Docekal and Vitenka, with his inferiority complex, came to life only when Mija stabbed him with scissors in a fight and thus provided grounds for the start of the highly successful Balvin Improvement, only through the alcoholism of his first wife and the infidelity of his second, through two misfortunes, had Petrik Hurt found happiness with his Verka, from the depths of failure one bounces back—
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