Catapult

by Paral, VladimIr

  “It all went out the window the day we met…”

  “She must have loved you very much, but no matter, we’ll figure out how to bring this to a head. We’ve got one person left who didn’t fail…”

  “Who could that be?”

  “You yourself! And now to business—how do you do it?”

  “How do I do what?”

  “Not fail. Let’s look at the details: afternoons you come home from work, well—”

  “Very rarely nowadays… Well, in the afternoon I come home from work, I say a couple of meaningless sentences to Lenka, I play a while with Lenicka, but Grandma does that more, then we eat, we watch TV, I go to bed and go to sleep before Lenka comes to bed, only on Saturday— and then not every week, well, and on Sunday we take Lenicka into bed with us and after dinner we go with Grandma to the zoo. Sometimes we go to the garden, the other day we went to that new café on Strekov Hill…”

  “Don’t tease me, you must give me all your techniques and recipes, your strategies and tactics, your dodges and tricks—”

  “But I really…”

  “Do you mean to say that you’re loved just because you’re you? It almost looks that way, but no matter, we’ll simply imitate you. So let’s go—what are you like, anyway?”

  “Me?… Quite normal… though in some respects perhaps… on the whole… but then not quite… on the other hand, of course… to tell the truth… still… there are certain but it’s hard… I think I’d… I don’t think I’d… more or less…”

  “You’ll be forced to train me in your image,” in the car Tomas Roll grinned and pressed on the accelerator, “but first, sir, what is that image made of, anyway, besides some canvas, a frame, and a hook for hanging up?”

  V — nineteen

  Jacek hurried across the excavated plain past the ten- and twelve-story buildings shining above him with their fresh facades, the first white curtain in our fourteen-story has appeared on the eighth floor left, “We’ll be the last to hang ours up,” Anna laughed in the white-and-blue kitchen, in the corner an electric refrigerator purred quietly, the apartment all ready to be moved into, only by the door to the bathroom a big hole in the wall, “I had them move the outlet higher so you wouldn’t have to use an extension cord when you shave… Just so I don’t forget, yesterday I got a call from the prime minister’s office, when are you going to take over the chemical department at the information institute—”

  “Anci, you know, I’m not really sure I’m up to that…”

  “Don’t be crazy, before you an ordinary druggist had the position and he was in it eleven years… you just have a little inferiority complex, right? Don’t be afraid, Jacek, you’re really too good for a sinecure like that, usually they sweep the worn-out big shots into those jobs, but you’ve got something upstairs and you can make something of it, you’ll show them what you’re worth…” TAKE IT DOWN, DWARF, THERE’S MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM.

  “…and Comrade Dr. Mach was very satisfied with the goose, though he didn’t show it,” Hanicka Kohoutkova told him in the evening on the bench in front of the pink little house. “Dad thinks you’re going to live here under his wing till you retire and he wants to have a serious talk with you soon— Jacek, you haven’t asked him for my hand yet!”

  “Have you thought it over well, Hanicka?”

  “Very thoroughly. At the end of the school year we always prepare reports on all the pupils, on their conduct, personality, potential for development, talents, character traits, a complete profile. Every year over thirty reports, several hundred pages. I’m good at doing profiles.”

  “And what’s mine?”

  “You’re an ideal husband. Mama says so too.” NOTE IT DOWN, MIDGET. “Because you’re mature now and you’ve sown your wild oats.”

  A cigarette on the stump in front of the forest ranger’s, “Wait, I have to light up—” Jacek said, he extracted his hand from Lida’s clasp and the cigarette gleamed in the twilight, “You said I’m a good man, but you also said that life here isn’t easy, the house, the farming, the children… Lida, I’m beginning to think seriously whether I really…”

  “You’re a good man and life here isn’t easy, but when you love children and the forest… and if you’ll love me a little bit, too…”

  “Uncle come give me a kiss too!” Janicka called from the window, “March to bed!” cried Lida, “I’ll grab you—where it hurts!” cried Jacek, and he ran up the stairs to the children’s room, of all the children all over the world Arnostek and Janicka went to bed the fastest, but on both their faces their eyelids quivered as they artlessly tried to fool their Uncle who comes to court their Mama, Jacek stroked the apparently sleeping Arnostek and gave Janicka a kiss on the forehead, the little girl tenderly took hold of his ear so he couldn’t escape her yet, “When you go way, Uncle, I’ve got you here on the pitcher…” “On what picture, Janicka?” “On that one there—” and the child’s finger pointed towards the well-known picture of an angel guiding a little boy and girl over a broken footbridge, “—that’s Arnostek and me and you—” WRITE IT DOWN, IMP!

  Tanicka Rambouskova rushed out of the Svitavy station to the door of the train car with an enormous suitcase in one hand, in the other two umbrellas and a parasol, “Move over, Jacek, I’m coming along!” “But I’m going to Brno!” “Well, I’ll find some place to stay.” “But the trade fair’s coming and everything’s full up.” “So I’ll sleep in the waiting room at the station.” “The police’ll pick you up!” “Then I’ll sleep at the police station!” she kept shoving onto the train and Jacek was forced to push her off the steps, the suitcase struck her on the knee, Tanicka let go of the suitcase and stabbed Jacek in the stomach with the umbrellas and the parasol, fortunately the train was already starting up, but the return trip from Brno would be safer on a plane, “On the way back from Brno I’ll definitely stop off for you, my love—” “You bastard, you disgusting old billy goat—” “Darling—” “You fiend—” YOU NEEDN’T BOTHER WITH THIS, SHRIMP.

  “… and you don’t write, you don’t answer, do you think that for you they’ll keep a job like that on ice till Christmas?” Mojmira was getting upset, “I don’t feel up to it—” Jacek said, weaving his way through Brno Main Station with his traveling satchel in his hand, “but can’t you read and type, you ox?!” “And as for the two of us, Mojenda, you need at least thirty people to have any fun and there’s only one of me…” “If you’re going to give me the gate, say so right out—” “You know so many people, people more interesting than me, so why do you think I should be—”

  Mojmira clawed at Jacek’s satchel and violently pulled it toward her so that he had to whirl around and face her, “And if I’m fond of you?” “Who in Brno aren’t you fond of?” “But they’re—hell, OK, I love you!” “Why?” “Think I know? Maybe because you’re somebody different, you’re not just made of cardboard, maybe because you’re simply a man—” WRITE THAT DOWN, YOU WHIPPERSNAPPER, in front of the airline building across the street stood a blue-gray airport bus and a man in uniform was dusting off the seats.

  In a blue-and-white room a blue-gray electric fan was humming and five men in white labcoats were gazing across a wide table somewhere over Jacek’s head, “It’s easy to calculate according to the Gibbs-Helmholtz proportion,” the sweat-drenched Jacek completed the last question of his fellowship interview, swallowed air, and glanced stealthily at Benedikt Smrcek, who was presiding, “Perhaps that will suffice,” said Bena, and the men around him murmured something, “We’ll inform you of the results in writing within a week,” said the institute secretary, “Wait in the anteroom—” Bena added, and Jacek got up, bowed smartly, went out the door into the anteroom of aluminum and plate glass, and with a feeling of relief sank into a foam shell on metal legs.

  From a pile of magazines on an asymmetrical table a recognizable face smiled out at Jacek from the cover of Atomic Technology, on a strange-looking little balcony in a forest of cables our château tennis pla
yer and the master of two billiard tables with the high-protein diet, Jozef completing the preparatory phase for the final stage of thermo- nuclear synthesis, we dined together that day and what have you accomplished in the meantime and what have I accomplished, but already now they’re deliberating whether to take me on as a soldier in your Grand Army—

  Five men in white labcoats passed through the anteroom, Bena came last and slowed down till the others had disappeared, “The Party, the Union, and the Scientific Council still have to give their blessing,” he smiled. “That means—” Jacek took a deep breath, “I voted for you,” replied Benedikt the Great, “of the seven you were the best. Now all you’ve got to do is bore your way in—” “Like a laser beam—” WRITE IT DOWN, IMP!

  From under the daybed Nada pulled out a box as big as a suitcase and from under tissue paper a blue-gray vacuum cleaner gleamed, “… and it’s got a whole bunch of attachments with brushes and without them, this nozzle is for sucking dirt out of cracks, see, and what a beautiful color…”

  “A wonderful color—” “Don’t touch it! It’s for the new apartment, for the time being we’ll only look at it, a wet rag’s enough for these rotten old planks, it isn’t worth buying carpeting for this place…,” and tenderly Nada wiped off the attachments and the body of the machine, covered them with paper, and pushed them back in again, kneeling as before a monstrance.

  “Why you?” Nada grinned. “A woman’s got to marry someone, so why not you?” IMPORTUNATE ADVERTISER. “Besides, I’ll be twenty-four next year and my pelvis is beginning to stiffen—it hurts then, you know.” ARE YOU TAKING THIS DOWN? “And now come to bed—you’ve only got a few months till the long intermission… with a child we can get an apartment faster!”

  The bell sounded for the last funicular down, the tourists paid and left, the big white Mercedes 250S strolled right up to the tap, casually looked around the empty bar, and roughly pulled Tina toward him, by the window Jacek put his hands over his face, a noise, the white giant tried to pull the golden-orange Tina over the counter and Jacek jumped in through the open window, “Jacek—” Tina cried, “see this gentleman out!” and Jacek rushed through the bar to the counter, “Heraus, du Saukerl!” he roared with gusto, and then he corrected himself, even more cheerfully, “I mean—HINAUS!”

  Tina tossed the keys into the office, in full stride she untied her apron and tossed it over a chair, she took Jacek by the hand and on the double let’s catch the funicular, on the seat together they were borne aloft over clearings and forests and on each pylon a jerk up and then a drop down and on the next pylon the count was down one again, in Bohosudov they serve coffee with whipped cream and cake right by the bus stop, Tina carefully wiped her fingers and drew out a small blue etui, on the black velvet two golden bands, “Just take it,” she smiled, “it isn’t legally binding and for my business it’s better to have one than not… carry it in your wallet with your change…”

  “… and you’re as insanely jealous as Othello, Jacek.”

  “But not a bit where Lenka’s at stake.”

  “You trust her,” Tina sighed, “and that’s a greater sign of love than being angry that she’s fooling around with someone else or afraid that she’s enjoying it more than with you…” YOU DON’T HAVE TO TAKE EVERYTHING DOWN, MY DEAR SIR—

  In front of our building on the rim of the sandbox Tomas Roll, dressed in a black sweater and black jeans, like a little devil in the circle of children having a wonderful time, in his hand a glass ball filled with water, in the water a mountain, and when you shake it up snow starts to fall on the mountain, Roll winked at Jacek and gave the ball to the ecstatic Lenicka.

  “Who’s he?” asked Lenka, pointing at the dwarf from the kitchen window. “He told me he knows you well…”

  “He said that?”

  “Those very words. When he tried to pull Lenicka into his car I ran out to complain, but he was very well behaved and he apologized, he said you’d given him permission to play with her. Did you?”

  “I came close to hiring him for that.”

  “I hope you didn’t, but he is touchingly fond of children and he’s lots of fun—”

  “Depends on how you take it. If you’d like I’ll ask him in.”

  “Why not,” Lenka laughed. “You know, Jacek, the wonderful thing about you is you’re never jealous…”

  MR. ROLL, MOST RESPECTED SIR, “I trust you,” Jacek whispered, “and that’s a greater sign of lo—” DON’T WRITE THIS DOWN and bring me back my child right away, “Lenicka!” Jacek roared out the window, “Come home!” the little girl was playing with the imp’s glass ball and didn’t want to come home for anything in the world, “You must always listen to your Daddy—” croaked the dwarf, deftly and easily he picked the little girl up in his gorilla-like arms, he was extremely easy to train, and he carried her to Jacek in the doorway, “Please come in—” Lenka smiled at him and Jacek had to introduce them, Tomas Roll kissed Lenka’s hand and she took it very nicely, Grandma served him butter cookies on a tray and Lenicka pulled him away to show him her toys, it’s a wonder the three females start a fight over him, and then the dwarf outdid himself, he turned somersaults and walked through the kitchen on his hands, the apartment turned into a vaudeville theater and Jacek himself yielded for a time to the charm of the little acrobat, the clown, and then suddenly he clapped his hands, “That’s enough—”

  With a cartwheel Tomas Roll again stood on his legs, bowed and scraped, and obligingly disappeared, Jacek stood by the window and pressed the warm little body against his own, the black imp jumped into his red car and drove off with a loud honk-honk through the pastel- colored buildings of the development, “Daddy, when will Uncle Woll come again—”

  “Never, little one, never fear…” “But Daddy—,” Trost appeared in the window across the way with his child in his arms, as if on purpose stuck into a denim shirt faded to a blue-gray, CAPTAIN, ARE YOU MAKING FUN OF ME, OR IS THIS A WARNING SIGNAL IN MY MIRROR—

  Jacek walked through his office and impatiently looked at his watch, when will they come, alcohol is as necessary as milk today, finally Vitenka Balvin entered the room with Petrik Hurt staggering behind him, Jacek shoved at him, for his signature, a red issue slip for our 300 grams of absolute alcohol, Petrik’s hand was shaking so that he couldn’t hit the blank spaces, “What’s the matter with him?” “He ran away from Verka and spent the night in the tow-cloth storeroom… he’s been lapping it up since morning…” “But that isn’t possible, from his Verka—”

  Vertically, as with an engraving tool, Petrik wrote on the blank line Quantity: 3,000 and, rocking, he signed the slip, “I’m drinking my troubles away—” he said in a deep voice, “Once again I’ve got no place to stay…” “For the time being I’ve still got a place,” Vitenka sighed, “but I may be worse off than you…” “You can’t be worse off than me…,” Jacek whispered.

  “Today there won’t be any sixty-forty!”

  “Today no diluting!”

  “We’ll drink our alcohol straight!”

  The murderous drink burned the throat terribly and without any delaying filtration or other detours it went straight to the neurons, “We won’t be calling each other up anymore, `Verenka darling,’ `Petrik darling,’” Petrik Hurt howled, “we won’t go on the swings or for ice cream, you won’t write poems about the two of us and you won’t wait for me at the square by the column…”

  “I can’t go on like this anymore,” whispered Vitenka Balvin, “one half of the apartment an amusement park and bordello, the other a cell for solitary confinement, that’s how our improvement has ended up—you don’t realize, Jacek, what you’ve got at home, every time you get up and go to bed you should kneel and pound your head against the floor in gratitude…”

  “Vitenka, do you really think you’d get a kick out of playing dad and, instead of going to the woods with Milenka Cerna, taking Mom and the kid to the zoo every Sunday…”

  “In three weeks Milenka Cerna’s
a bore, in four she’s poison, and in five it’s total despair—you’ve no idea, Jacek, what you’ve got in Lenka and Lenicka…”

  “So I’ll sign it all over to you with the apartment and the furnishings and all the papers!”

  “Jacek, you’re crazy—”

  “I’m serious, I’d like to clear out for Brno and begin life over again. You see—I’ve been taken on there as a graduate fellow. Vitenka, on my knees I beg you, take Lenicka and Lenka off my hands, you aren’t a midget, the apartment is first-category, it’s got a balcony and a telephone, a refrigerator, a charming little girl, a TV set, and a grandma—and that’s a treasure these days—wall- to-wall carpeting and in the kitchen linoleum at a hundred sixty a yard—it even goes under the sideboard where you can’t see it—a thermometer and a cast of a red hippopotamus on the wall, ten Christmas neckties, all sorts of glass and china, I’ll even leave you my slippers, my gardening jacket, the ficus plant, the funnels, mashers, glass spoons, saucers, spatulas, strainers, and pots… take it all off my hands or it’ll drive me nuts—”

  “Then why don’t you get a divorce?”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “It wouldn’t do—I’m fond of Mija.”

  “Darling, the sun’s shining here, it’s shining on you too, it’s shining on me as it’s shining on you, let’s hold hands and go for ice cream and on the swings we’ll both fly right up to the sky, Verka, Petrik, Verka—the old goat, the fattened Danish cow—” Petrik Hurt roared as the siren sounded for lunch, and he banged his fist on the acrid drying puddles of alcohol, “Fellows, it was like puking to live with that cluck!”

  “Talk if it helps, but you don’t have to insult her…” “Why Petrik, you two have the finest marriage in all Usti…” “He’ll sleep it off.”

  “I’ve slept it off already, I’m just pulling myself out of all this pink shit, fellows, you’ve got no idea what a hell it was, like two disabled soldiers when we’d meet and hook our artificial limbs together, we’d call one another up out of terror, we were worried the other might already be packing his suitcase, we’d both been divorced twice and all told we’ve attended six of our own weddings, what goes bang all of a sudden no one can patch up, but you can lie and go on acting till you’re blue in the face, today you called up less than yesterday, today you came later than yesterday, you came over to me as if you didn’t want to, your note wasn’t as warm as the last one, and that terror makes you phone daily for an hour, jump off the streetcar before you reach the stop, and write poems about the two of us, more and more of them, phone for two hours, jump off the streetcar when it’s still going full tilt, write operas about the two of us, phone for three hours, Petrik, she’d call, and she’d be looking at her watch, Verka, I would just be counting the minutes in terror— Jacek, you don’t have the slightest idea what you’ve got at home…”