Catapult

by Paral, VladimIr

  Toward evening Jacek came home, in no way missed, in Jacek’s T-shirt with Lenka’s apron tied around his waist Nora was preparing Hungarian fish soup and Mexican goulash, Lenka was merrily grating the cheese, and together they went to bathe Lenicka, “I thought that kind of husband had long since died out…,” Lenka laughed, “That’s nothing,” Nora laughed, “I used to do the ironing, and one winter I even did embroidery with my wife…”

  After supper both of them took a cup of rosehip tea with jam into the living room and talked about Stravinsky and Kandinsky, what sort of men they were, Jacek went out onto the balcony with a chair and a glass of cognac and facing the strip of dark blue sky he smoked cigarette after cigarette, the couple on the sofa and the husband outside, it would be only an occasional release from the barracks to visit the town’s dance hall, and after all Lenka doesn’t want to commit a sin, so just bring a new husband into the apartment and thus preserve the numerical status quo, soldier for soldier, CAPTAIN, THANKS FOR THE SIGNAL, when the bottom of a gasoline storage tank cracks it’s best to call the firefighters, all that has to be done is to let water in, and then out of the hole in the bottom only water will flow, it’s heavier, and the gasoline will remain undisturbed in the cracked storage tank until you pump it into a new tank—since Lenka and Nora had forgotten about Jacek, they were almost frightened when he suddenly came in from the balcony, “Don’t bother getting up—” said Jacek, “tomorrow I’m going to Brno, please put two white shirts in my satchel, and no lunch…”

  “Don’t forget the white plush…”

  Outside the window above the houses a shining blue hangar, Jacek tiptoed through the apartment, away from the sleeping Lenka past the sleeping Nora into the foyer, take the traveling satchel and the blue-gray raincoat, CAPTAIN, THANKS FOR THE UNIFORM—

  A great four-day cruise on the green cushions of the black steamship from beach to beach along the entire coast, Jacek stepped out of the sea and up the steps with his black satchel like a trident in his hand, like Neptune himself, greeted and welcomed by naiad after naiad, fed, indulged, fondled, loved, and respected, the Belvedere, the Jeannette, the Palma, the Stefanie, the Kvarner, the Naiad, the Speranza, and in exchange for just the one beach at the Residence he got the Miramar as a point of departure for Africa—

  “What’s happened here?” Jacek was frightened, Lenka locked in the kitchen and Nora throwing into his suitcase the things he’d laid out on a chair, “Nothing, to be precise.”

  “You want to leave? Why?” Jacek whispered, crushed.

  “Didn’t you know that tomorrow Grandma’s coming back from the hot springs?”

  “But that can be taken care of… Would you rather live in the chem plant dorm, in a room for four with bunkbeds?”

  “I’ve been living in one for three days now and there are nine of us in a room.”

  “Did Lenka do anything…”

  “Lenka didn’t do anything. When you described her to me on the train you said that she’s intelligent, decent, a good cook…”

  “And isn’t all of that true?”

  “It is, anyone can tell that in half an hour himself. But you forgot to tell me the main thing about her.”

  “What main thing?”

  With a sigh Nora picked up the suitcase and shook it, it was almost empty, he carried it into the foyer, tore his blue-gray raincoat off the coat tree, and threw it over his shoulders, CAPTAIN, WHY DOES HE GET TO MAKE THE FLIGHT INSTEAD OF ME, “Couldn’t you possibly change your mind…,” Jacek groaned, “if I were to ask you—”

  “I’d come to fear you,” N. Hradnik said. “Farewell, Mrs. Jostova, and thanks for everything—” he called to the glass panel of the locked door, and he left in silence.

  “Nora was fine at first,” Lenka said, holding Lenicka in her arms, “but when you went away he tried to take advantage of the situation, I had to go for Jarda Mestek at once…”

  “Jarda?”

  “… and in the meantime Mr. Hradnik had vanished. Today he only came back for the things he’d left behind in his haste. Jacek, when are you going to bring me that white plush—”

  “Next time, definitely.”

  Post another man at once in the deserter’s place, “And so I’m extremely grateful to you, Mr. Mestek,” Jacek said in his neighbor’s bachelor apartment, “you’ve done so much for us already…”

  “But it’s nothing, I was glad to…” Mr. Mestek smiled. Jarda.

  “And why shouldn’t we call each other by our nicknames, after all, when we’re almost like members of the same family. Mine is Jacek—”

  “Mine is Jarda—

  “I know. Lenka uses it more and more lately: Jarda says this, Jarda thinks that, Jarda would never—she likes you, you know…”

  “I’m not so sure myself…”

  “But she does. Just now she was saying how surprised she was that you’re alone all the time. Such an intelligent, decent man—those were her words—and then such a good-looking one, very good-looking, in fact… Why once in the middle of the night she whispered your name in her sleep…”

  “Oh, that’s hard to believe!”

  “She did, but I’m not jealous, on the contrary—”

  “You’d have no reason to be.”

  “But you see I’m very glad to know that Lenka has someone to depend on when I’m not around, someone who… who…”

  “You don’t know her very well, Jacek. Not very well at all.”

  Jacek got up, took in at a glance the saucepans with old, hardened grease, the bundle of filigree carved canes, the piles of crossword puzzles, the socks drying on the string hung from the windowlatch to the latch on the door, all that bachelor squalor, he sighed and stole away.

  Darling, come, please please please, wrote Anna, WAITING LIKE LAST TIME, Tina wired, and from Tanicka an exclamation:

  Sweet drop of honey

  Trickle into the comb!

  Jacek paced his office at Cottex like a beast in a cage, CAPTAIN, I REQUEST INSTRUCTIONS, your parachutist has deserted and the next man from the local reserves is unsuited for the task, how can I attack without troops—

  On his desk Tanicka’s poem, the telegram, and the envelope from Prague, did we dream it or did a ray of sunlight really fall on the blue-gray metal, the Zeta flashed a gleam and Jacek stopped short in the middle of the room, CAPTAIN, SIGNAL RECEIVED, carry out a paratroop recruitment drive, the escalation will culminate in a mass parachute drop, and already Jacek was pressing the corresponding keys of the newly assigned Zeta:

  28-YEAR-OLD wom. off. work., divor. with 3-year-old charm. daught. and own furn. 1st-cat. apart. seeks partner, key word: “LIVE!”

  and then on the envelope the address of the Personals section of Prace, Jacek tenderly caressed the aviation-blue machine, zeta is the last letter of the alphabet, and he stopped to reflect: flight wouldn’t be as easy as an ocean voyage, the failures up to now dictate a revision of the old maps, one must get to know the squadron assigned and, most important, become familiar with the terrain to be conquered, to learn where the stores of oil are, where the communications, the junctions, and the dams, where the artillery units and where the staff, perhaps our conjectures concerning the territory are incorrect—

  V — seventeen

  A large yellow envelope, METERED MAIL, was already there, not much more than a pound, Jacek tore open the paper and from the large yellow envelope a stream of dozens of variously colored smaller ones splattered onto his desk, on all them in different hands and in different places the same thing:

  Live! 64063-v

  Jacek piled up the letters and then he counted them, only 62, that’s because of Lenicka, he took his letter opener out of the drawer and began to open the paratroopers’ applications:

  Dear Lady!

  I read your ad in Prace and I’m in just as bad a fix as you, my girl is six, only we don’t have a 1st-cat. apartment and that is certainly a basis and condition for

  Dismissed, next—

  Mada
me:

  Your advertisement today strongly attracted my interest. Although I’m 44 and I limp a little on my right leg

  Dear Comrade!

  I’m also an office worker, to be precise the assistant chief of the top contract division of an important consumer co-op handling the manufacture of durable feedstuffs and first of all

  My three children, Svatopluk, Zdislava and Zaboj

  I am taking the liberty of answering you. Please send me the precise dimensions of your apartment, i.e., including bathroom, WC

  I’m 34 a yung felow you see and lively to. I’m surching for a lively girlfriend I’ve got a boy but they dont make me pay for him

  I’d like very much to meet you and I’d like your picture. For the time being I don’t enclose my own for understandable reasons. I’m big in build, the photo and a detailed description of the apartment with information on whether a garage can be built nearby

  I too was deceived and I believed in her so much. I’d like to believe again, or at least hope, for what can life do to us now

  still feel young and I’d like to try a third time if the apartment isn’t on the top floor We don’t have anybody to do the cooking and the two children need warm food not yet forty I’d be glad to move two children also deceived and so By a first-category apartment we surely both understand it to include central heating, a bathroom with hot water and a gas or electric They need a mama in your apartment we fix our food all sorts of ways in your apartment with your apartment your apartment

  With a sigh Jacek classified the letters into acceptable, marginal, and discards, he transferred the sheets from one pile to another like cards and sighed more and more, at one point the acceptable pile had vanished entirely and everything was in the discards, the divorced, the retired, and the fathers of several children were only interested in a cook and someone to take care of their children, and all of them wanted to marry the apartment, what a pitiful squadron of mercenaries and retired paratroopers, Jacek drank strong coffee and with a cigarette he sat down at the blue-gray Zeta, he prepared 16 draft calls, first of all some recruitment slogans, From a hundred letters just your letter revealing real intelligence and an unusual you surely won’t be disappointed, then a tactical comment, for reasons which you will certainly appreciate I am compelled for the time being to act for the woman advertising, and a Napoleonic (“Soldiers! I will lead you on to fertile plains…”) conclusion: for contentment, happiness and a new life, and he dropped 16 letters into the mailbox.

  Only 11 replies, of which 2 broke off the correspondence (is that office worker of yours literate? Unfortunately I have a lot to do with the authorities and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if, and I’ve turned your letter over to the police to check up on the suspicious circumstances), what poverty compared with the music of the women’s offers, but the existence of a go-between had awakened fears even among eight of the nine acceptables, two had procedural doubts why doesn’t she write herself, she wouldn’t have to give her name does she really know you’re acting for her in this rather important business, but one remaining one felt, on the contrary, joy I am a passionate adherent of psychoanalysis and find it a fascinating idea to penetrate through an intermediary who is an intimate friend, from all nine acceptables, however, came nine tidal waves of insistent questions

  I’d like to believe in spite of this, but I’d be happy to find out more please write in more detail about her character, interests and preferences does she prefer company or being alone? what are her ideas about marriage and does she really want is she lively or quiet? the main thing is her interests does she like to read and if so which present-day Czech authors her character is she sincere? does she like classical music and specifically what without using big words describe her personality and inclinations truthfully and specifically her attitude towards nature about history and cultural monuments specifically and in great detail describe her character and her significant features more about her psychic personality and in more detail what she expects from her partner and what she longs to give her ideals and her dreams what more specifically she actually means by the slogan “Live!” what she’s really like—the territory put up for annexation, what its mountains are like, its lowlands and rivers, how it is populated and what mineral wealth it has, what fauna and flora, what grain it grows and what vegetables, how terribly little we know about the evacuated territory—

  In the bathroom an alternately hot and cold shower, Jacek then unscrewed the shower head and turned the swift stream straight on his body, hot-and-cold showers whip you up to peak efficiency, and with his hair wet he sat down again at his flying machine, Dear Sir, thanks for your I assure you completely she is fond of company, but not even while alone does she she is lively and at the same time restrained she likes to read and reads almost exclusively present-day Czech writers “What present-day Czech writers do you know?” Jacek asked Mija over the telephone, “… what’s that? The Dictionary of Czech Writers… aha… in the town library, many thanks and so long,” you can’t do it all in one day, so then the next, Jacek pulled the sheet out of the typewriter and again, Dear Sir, thanks for your I can assure you completely she has an intense interest in history and knows all about the Moravian rulers Jost and, hell, which other ones were there, how do I cross out the and, and were they really rulers, wish I’d asked her sometime, but there wasn’t time, Jacek pulled the sheet out of the typewriter and so let’s just answer the things we know about Lenka, classical music probably not, well, we used to listen to it, but not so much anymore, attitude towards nature, she likes gardening, of course, and she used to go to the woods with me, good God, why did she give that up, of course it was the child, but then Grandma was always happy to, is she lively or quiet? she’s quiet and she’s lively too, in detail describe her personality her interests her character truthfully and specifically her character and her significant features about her psychic personality more and in more detail what she expects I don’t know what she longs to give her ideals and dreams I don’t know what she really means I don’t know what she’s really like I DON’T KNOW HER AT ALL, Jacek bit his cheeks and twisted the sweaty hair on his temples as painfully as he could, the damp of the shower had now been replaced by sweat, can I still give a profile of MY OWN WIFE, eat this paper if you can’t do at least ten lines, Jacek pushed another sheet into the machine as if the last cartridge into a barrel pointed at himself, Dear Sir, thanks for your I can assure you completely and now for your question as to what she’s really like She’s

  The keys of the typewriter were like forty jeering eyeballs, for a long time Jacek pushed the space bar with his finger and finally he took out the sheet and began to thoughtfully chew it up.

  “We can go to bed,” Nada said in the room overlooking the Decin harbor, “but even then you have to answer one very important question…”

  “Truthfully and specifically…,” Jacek whispered, and he shivered.

  “The co-op I applied to wants to know our wedding date. If it isn’t this year or next, they’ll cross us off the list.”

  “But Nadezda, isn’t getting married too conventional…”

  “It’s insane, but we’ll sleep better in a first-category apartment than we do in this dump. I’ll buy an apron for the first time in my life and a cookbook and a feather-duster and a vacuum cleaner—I’m looking forward to the first time I vacuum our first carpet as if it were my wedding night, those I’ve already had—you’ll be amazed what all will pick its way out of me, why you’re looking at me as if you were seeing me for the first time—oh Jacek, you still have so much to learn about me…”

  “I can’t catch the afternoon train, but we can still catch it—”

  “But first that date—”

  At last the Ford Taunus came out of Tina’s room and unceremoniously Jacek squeezed into the still open door, “You were standing outside the door—” comb in hand, Tina was astounded, she was painfully beautiful and torturingly disheveled, “But you kept him here a whole eternity!” �
�Not at all, he flew out of here like a bat out of hell…” “Darling, couldn’t you really give it up, I’ll pay you out of my salary—” “With every cent you’re paid we’d have to save for years to buy that gas station, lover boy!”

  “… you’re like a little boy, like a schoolboy…,” Tina whispered, caressing Jacek’s head on her lap, “but it’ll soon be over, never fear, I want that gas station mainly so we’ll be rid of this bar for good and rid of all this, believe me, more for that than for the money, someday I want to be the guest and not one of the staff, to have an honest profit instead of two-bit tips and crumpled hundred-notes, and most of all I want to have my peace of mind and like a banded middle-class wife go afternoons for my coffee with whipped cream and cake with a husband who has the same band I’ve got, two bands they take off only in the coffin—”

  “They opened a new café on Strekov Hill last month,” said Lenka, wringing a rag out into a bucket, “and if it stays rainy, we could go there sometime…”

  “For coffee with whipped cream and cake!”

  “That’s it! So let’s go?”

  “But you could have gone there long ago, when I was away, with the little one, or Grandma could have stayed with her…”