Catapult

by Paral, VladimIr

  Along the row of old chestnut trees, around the gas works and the pyramid of dead soil torn from the earth, the monument with the moldering lion, what time can do to metal, the linden tree with its sign and on the hill our yellow retreat, but it isn’t ours, it’s only rented, and Jacek rode on to the end of the line, tore his way through the underbrush and over rocks upward until a swift stream stopped him, the strong whirl of white foam over well-washed boulders, the water rushed over pebbles and was quiet only in the sandy shallows, once there were no valleys, only mountain chains, and their peaks sprouted up from the depths of the earth, but time and water had divided mountain from mountain and cut into them ever more deeply and wide, what fate was the water preparing for the rock, how systematically it carried out its fearful, patient torture, rock turns against its fellow rock, thigh-joint crushes collar-bone, rib pierces shoulder-blade, and the vertebrae mill themselves into bone meal, sand is the epilogue of the rigid mountain, sandstorms appease entropy with time, and duration is the highway to a desert.

  Over the mountain stream it began to get dark, the foamy water caressed the rocks and rubbed off molecule after molecule, the monotonous splash of the irreversible victory of water, but one thinking man with a pick and shovel has power enough to offset the division of mountains and the diversion of waters.

  Jacek came back on the last bus and silently he walked through the apartment that bore his nameplate and out onto his balcony, to fly or not to fly, not to fly is the end, but how to take off, down from the mountains dark clouds covered the whole sky and suddenly it began to thunder, the first drops fell on Jacek’s feet and he didn’t bother to pull them in, after all a man doesn’t dissolve in water, Lenka came through the door out onto the balcony, lightning and thunder again, now right above their heads, and Lenka fled the balcony, my wife is afraid of storms and inside Lenicka squeals with terror.

  “It ain’t nothing—” Trost shouted over the storm, and he led the frightened Lenka back onto the balcony, “rainwater gives you a pretty mug—,” Trost neighed, and he leaned out over the rail, he let the heavy drops of water fall on his face, beneath the protecting arch formed by his body the now calm and laughing Lenka took the laundry down from the line and with cries of joy Lenicka caught raindrops in her hands.

  “Come in,” Lenka called onto the balcony late that evening, “he’s gone.”

  Jacek put the mattresses from the obstacle course back onto the sofa and dropped down on it, late at night Lenka came for him in her blue-gray apron and Jacek went down before her on his knees.

  “I understand, Jacek,” Lenka whispered, “you’re not happy at home anymore and you’re afraid to admit it—we can’t go on like this any longer. I won’t drive you away, but it might be better for everyone if you were to go yourself.”

  CATAPULTED and in his soul there sounded forth a military anthem, CAPTAIN, TOMORROW I FLY—

  “Tomorrow I’m flying to Brno, and please…”

  “Two white shirts in your satchel, and no lunch. And this—” and Lenka pulled out of the pocket of her blue-gray apron a small clay monster with many pairs of eyes, the good-hearted imp had given us an ocarina.

  “I’m flying with my suitcase, it’s already packed.”

  VI — twenty-three

  The unbuttoned iridescent raincoat shows off the suede leather of the jacket and the narrow stripe of the black leather tie highlights the dazzling whiteness of the nylon shirt, Graduate Fellow (today was October 1) Engineer Jaromir Jost clicked his tongue in the mirror, walked with his suitcase slowly up the steps to Platform Two at Usti Main Station, and at 5:14 he left on the R 10 express to Prague.

  Sitting by the window, facing forward, Jacek read the headlines of the newspaper and glanced at the back page of the Black Chronicle,

  Although 24-year-old Ludovit Feher did not know how to swim, he attempted to cross the fish pond near Turnanske Podhradi on a raft. He fell into the water and drowned.

  From Prague Central Station to the airline building, in the airport bus no one asked him for his ticket and by comparison with the sooty train station the airport was like a concert hall, on the other side of the red-and-white railing as far as the eye could see in all directions a concrete wasteland of runways for takeoff and landing, a yellow truck drives among the waiting planes and a red lead car with FOLLOW ME in big letters rushes toward the horizon.

  Roaring, a giant Pan Am Boeing taxied in, slowly turned, and came to a stop, a motorized stairway pulled up and passenger after passenger stepped out, the first one looked familiar, it was the thirty-three-year-old atomic physicist Jozef, he jumped nimbly down onto the tarmac and already a cluster of people was bounding up to him, “Excuse me, please—” Jacek overheard his piercing voice, and now he was running up the stairs to a waiting Aeroflot TU-104A, immediately the heavy metal doors closed behind him, the TU-104A began to thunder, made its turn, and with a roar it taxied toward the runway.

  “Passengers for Brno oh three five ready for boarding—” and impatiently Jacek ran toward his plane, we want to be first and get a seat by the window, he handed the stewardess his ticket and rushed up the motorized stairway to our highest beach, made of aluminum, the passengers took their seats, the door banged shut, and three men in blue-gray uniforms walked down the aisle, which of them is the captain—

  The roar of the motors made the cigar-shaped cabin vibrate and outside the window the red warning lights were already flashing in the grass along the runway, signs lit up on either side of the captain’s cabin, on the left PRIPOUTEJTE SE—NADET REMNI—FASTEN SAFETY BELTS and quickly Jacek threw the linen straps over his stomach and drew them tight through the aluminum safety catch, on the right NEKOURIT—NE KURIT—NO SMOKING and Jacek quickly put out his last Carmen cigarette, meanwhile we’ve already taken off, almost without noticing it, and Jacek glanced at his fellow passengers, no one had bothered to fasten his seat belt and a man across the aisle was even smoking a big fat cigar.

  Outside the window the bluest blue-blue sky and below the blindingly bright wing that land a hundred times traversed and conquered, a desk like a steamship, on the first, glassed-in deck a regular library, on the upper deck two telephones, a metal vase for a smokestack, and as a mast towering above it all a magnificent Palma areca, a morning cigarette in the colorists’ lab, outside the windows they’ve torn down a factory chimney which had interfered with the clarity of the hues, in a hot bath a porcelain vessel with our own creation the color of flesh, and drying on a wooden stand Spanish moss, passion auburn, and Victoria blue, the garlands, salvos, tricklings, tremblings, shocks, and caressings of light among the gray fur of the lichens on the trunks in the trampoline of wet pine needles, the forest as recluse and the forest as multitude, the yellow Parisian sky of tin over the narrow creaking bed of hungry youth, ten times happy and each time in a different place, how short a distance it is to Brno, how grotesque this miniature landscape, cars like tiny grains and that line below is the train line, are ten happinesses more or less than one, today the Balvins are beginning to paint their entire apartment green and Petrik Hurt goes on deluding himself, but isn’t a lifetime of self-delusion one of the possible ways to take life firmly in one’s hands, where anyway, in this age of relativity, is the boundary between certainty and self-delusion, obligation of course deprives, but isn’t freedom just the maximum degree of deprivation, certainly also the maximum number of alternative paths, but in the end one can follow only one of them, the extension of a rabbit loose in other people’s gardens or the intension of a gardener at home, and Lenka has already planted apple trees on our piece of ground, all three of us have lain together on the grass and from every side the scent of the hair of a loved one, on our own earth FROM WHICH WE COME our daughter slept her beauty sleep and on the other side of the wall we came together, our longing contained within an order, how much happiness will be left outside such an order— Into the frosty blue space outside the window short lashes of flame from the two tubes on the wing and in his deep s
eat, in horror, Jacek pressed his hand to his throat, the hecatombs of the primordial ocean are buried deep in the earth under heavy pressure, locked between the Miocene and Carboniferous ages rest the masses of the detrital waters and their sands, and when hit by a bore through a seam they burst into a destructive flood which puts an end to all mining activity, in a second the wooden matchsticks and metal wires of presumptuous mining engineering are swept away, divinely, banally I love my wife with whom I live and have a child, and my image is only imaginary, an inconceivable cut-out from a family portrait, never with anyone else but you, Lenunka, my love, I must tell you WHO WE ARE, we Josts, Daddy only played for a time at being a traveler, a sailor, and a pilot, we’re at Brno already, how terribly short a flight it was—

  The plane was landing at the Brno airport, with a jerk Jacek unhooked his linen belt, got up, and started toward the aisle, “Are you crazy, fellow—” his neighbor snapped at him, but without ceremony Jacek stepped over his neighbor’s knees and forced his way out, it was dangerous to delay, so quick, let’s be the first to the exit and we’ll be in time to buy a ticket for the return flight home on this very plane, everyone is hurrying home to his Lenicka and Lenka, I’ll be the first and by the shortest route, down with the netting and the rough chin on the sweet little tummy, nothing’s so sweet to kiss as our little one, and hold her hand till she falls asleep with her thumb in her mouth, this very afternoon we three can go to the pond and the movies and the swings, first I’ll buy both of you ice cream and we’ll take the little one to the pâtisserie, Daddy knows how much you love store-bought pastry, WHERE ARE WE FLYING— but Jacek flew on alone.

  With the warning signs lit up PRIPOUTEJTE SE—NADET REMNI—FASTEN SAFETY BELTS, with thirty-nine passengers seated and one standing, the plane was landing at the Brno airport and as it set down there was an insignificant retardation of the hydraulic system on the wheels, the wheels revolved only a fraction of a second late, and the plane was arrested for just a fraction of a second. But Jacek flew on. The unbelted passengers jerked slightly in their seats and then the plane glided along the ground in perfect order. But Jacek flew down the aisle, the tremendous force of inertia catapulted him forward towards the metal steps, and his face traveled up them as far as the metal platform in front of the captain’s cabin.

  The plane slowed down, turned, stopped, and its engines fell silent. The captain turned off the warning signs and came out of his cabin. From their seats the passengers lifted themselves and their terrified voices.