Harlequin's Millions

by Bohumil Hrabal

  14

  ON THE SECOND FLOOR OF THE RETIREMENT HOME is the ward for bedridden patients. From the cabinet in my room I took out a well-worn, clear plastic shopping bag with the label Alois Šisler, hat and cap maker, and walked through the corridor, where petunias and asparagus ferns cascaded from the windowsills and the sounds of the string orchestra cascaded from the speakers, unfurling like petals of whispering horsehair and colorful calligraphic initials, like the ones Francin used in the brewery book for the first letters of the first and last names of the publicans who bought their beer from us. A long black skirt rustled past and before me stood a nurse, she looked at me and beamed with happiness, she was fat, and the gold frame of her glasses dug into her nose. She said to me … Grandpa will soon be departing to the other side of people and things, I suggest you go in and see him, and if he has any other family, tell them to come say their good-byes … And she opened the door and I walked from the sunny corridor into the ward for bedridden patients. There was a deep darkness here, the room faced north, but through the windows you could see the sun shining on the tall trees, whose crowns reached all the way to the third floor, to the light. The windows were so jubilantly filled with sunlit foliage, it was as if the trees were illuminated from below by floodlights, they were aspens with smooth branches and their leaves trembled and made a great rushing sound, as if there was a waterfall or a splashing, sparkling fountain outside in the garden. When my eyes had grown used to the darkness, I saw Francin sitting in a chair at the head of the bed where Uncle Pepin lay, Pepin was unbelievably small, he had his arms folded under his head and was looking up at the ceiling, I saw that in those eyes time was slowing down, or had already stood still. The nurse leaned over him, with one arm under his back she picked him up as if he were a child, that’s how light he was, she lifted him like a little girl lifting her doll out of the doll carriage to play with it. Grandpa, said the nurse, you have visitors. And she uncovered Uncle’s legs, and those legs were milky white, as if they’d been soaking for weeks in limewater. Francin gave a shrug and looked dully at his brother, I noticed Uncle Pepin was wearing a diaper, like a baby. The nurse undid the diaper and said gaily … Very good, Grandpa, you didn’t wet yourself today, shall we put you on the commode? And Uncle Pepin said nothing, he was completely helpless, he kept on staring at the ceiling and his eyes were pale blue like the faded blossoms of the blue lilac, like two frozen forget-me-nots. The nurse drew up the commode, a kind of piano bench, she removed the top lid and placed Uncle Pepin on the bench with the chamber pot underneath. But he slumped sideways, and Francin had to hold him up. And there he sat, our Uncle Pepin, his legs were now blue, and his toes and the soles of his feet with the hard, white, peeling skin looked bleached. There he sat, naked, with only a towel to cover him, he sat there like a statue of Christ crowned with thorns. I waited, in complete confusion, for the moment when Uncle’s bowels would empty and you’d hear the unpleasant sound, in complete confusion I opened the shopping bag and took out a white seaman’s cap, the renowned seaman’s cap Uncle Pepin used to wear a quarter of a century ago when he visited the pretty young girls in the bars, the cap Mr. Šisler had made for him based on a picture of Hans Albers, when he starred in the film La Paloma. I showed Uncle the cap, held it up to his face, but he looked right through it, not even that seaman’s cap interested him anymore, the cap that always revived him and kindled his passion, the cap he had lost on various occasions or those young ladies of his had walked off with, each time Mr. Šisler had made him a new one, but now all that had come to an end, because Uncle Pepin didn’t even smile when he saw the cap, it no longer called anything to mind, or perhaps it did, but he was already somewhere else, somewhere he had actually been for the past few years. I put the cap on his head, but it slipped down over his ears, that’s how much weight he had lost, his head must’ve shrunk a few sizes. The nurse waited with a piece of toilet paper in her hand and said … Our grandpa hasn’t been eating lately. I stood up and pretended to be interested in the fiercely lit trees in the windows, their leaves fluttering madly, as if they were being shaken in a winnowing machine. In one of the bay windows stood a bed, on the bed was a man, half lying, half sitting, he had a pair of silver-rimmed glasses on his nose and lightning-quick knitting needles between his fingers with which he was knitting and crocheting a large doily for a large table, he had wrapped the thread around his fingers and worked on and on, a filigree of twigs and leaves grew slowly from under his moving hands, every so often he glanced out the window at all that trembling nature, which seemed to be illuminated for this man alone, he took the image and crocheted what he saw over and over, the doily was already so big that it covered his whole bed and fell along the bed board to the floor, above him, suspended from a hook, was a trapeze he could pull himself up on, because under the doily his legs were completely paralyzed, yet his hands moved as nimbly as those old women who spend their lives knitting and crocheting Brussels lace. When I turned around I heard the sound of emptying intestines, the nurse smiled and a halo appeared around her starched white cap. In the bed next to Uncle Pepin lay a man with stumps on both hands instead of fingers, on his nightstand was tea in a saucer and another little plate of bread cut into small cubes, he raised himself up on his stumps and leaned toward the plate like a whipped dog and greedily ate the bread, piece by piece, with his lips, then he leaned out of bed a bit farther to lap at the lukewarm tea. Someone touched my arm and there before me stood an old man who squeaked tearfully … It’s terrible, Ma’am, I’m ninety-six years old and I still haven’t died, just my luck, I’ve got a good heart and lungs, you see, so I’m practically immortal, it’s a terrible thing, let me tell you … I nodded, completely confused again, and fixed my eyes on the man who in those few moments had crocheted yet another leaf into the lace, now I could see there were tiny birds sitting among the twigs in the foliage, and the man kept looking out the window and quickly returning to his doily, so he could capture in his work what he had just seen outside, as if he were playing a zither or guitar and had to keep glancing at the roaring, soaring notes of the leaves. All done, said the nurse. I turned around and saw the nurse carrying away the chamber pot, Uncle Pepin’s seaman’s cap had fallen off, Francin picked it up, brushed it off with his elbow and put it on his own head, he held on to his brother to keep him from falling, and when the nurse returned she lifted Uncle Pepin, light as a feather, carried him to his bed, while Francin drew back the covers, and then the nurse laid him down and carefully diapered him. We stood there for a while at the head of Uncle’s bed, in the darkness, outside the leaves shone crazily, drenched in blistering sunlight, in the bay window the needles moved like a bird caught by its wings. Once again Uncle Pepin folded one arm under his head and stared up at the ceiling, he didn’t blink, he just stared. The nurse gently removed the seaman’s cap from Francin’s head, handed it to him and nodded and smiled. Not here, she said, outside. And she walked to the window, stretched out her arm, her enormous figure was silhouetted against the windowpanes, she unbolted the window and opened it wide. The monotonous roar of the tall aspens came pouring into the ward for bedridden patients, the leaves were as loud as aircraft engines. Francin leaned over his brother and said … Pepin, what are you thinking about? The nurse came back and looked down at Uncle’s purple lips that whispered … What will happen to love … The sound of the leaves grew louder, they buzzed and swirled in the open window like a swarm of demented bees. What did you say, Francin asked, and put his ear to Uncle’s lips that whispered … What will happen to love … Francin repeated this to me and looked at me, frightened … What will happen to love? he repeated. The nurse bent down, lightly touched Francin’s sleeve and nodded sweetly, Francin understood and got up, he stepped back from the bed, I stepped back too, the nurse opened the door and we backed out into the corridor. Francin put on the seaman’s cap and I could just see through the slowly closing door that the man in the bed in the bay window had stopped knitting and crocheting and was looking a
t me, I could see only the gleaming frame of his silver glasses and the silver needles in his hands. In the corridor the string orchestra softly purred “Harlequin’s Millions,” from the ground floor came the smell of sour sauce and spilled soup, the clinking of spoons and plates, and the young cook sang with great feeling in her womanly voice … If I were a singing swan, I’d fly to you, and in my final hour I’d serenade you, with my very last sigh … We walked through the gate of the retirement home, Mr. Berka was on duty as gatekeeper again, Francin saluted him and the old man came running out and made a deep bow from the waist, he just couldn’t get enough of that splendid seaman’s cap, he stroked it and fondled it and asked Francin if he could have it, he offered him a hundred crowns for that cap, but Francin handed him five crowns and said … here, have a beer instead. And we walked on aimlessly, steeped in thought, I was reminded of the time Dr. Gruntorád had declared that Uncle Pepin would soon be unable to walk and that the only thing that could save him was plenty of exercise, so every day Francin made sure there was an empty tire in the yard, he attached a large bicycle pump to the valve and thrust the pump into Uncle’s hands and Uncle held the base of the pump in place with his shoe and started pumping, all morning long he pushed and pulled, bending and stretching, like a jumping jack, the kind of toy children play with by pulling on a string, so that the arms and legs move up and down, Uncle Pepin had such good lungs, because he’d never smoked, and if he had it was only a cigar, which he’d been offered by one of the pretty young girls in the bars, a cigar that always made him nauseous but the girls happy, because then they could take him to bed and make him feel better again. So Pepin would spend the whole morning pumping, every other minute Francin came with a mallet, he felt and tapped the enormous tire, praised his brother and then took him inside to have lunch and in the afternoon Uncle Pepin pumped up a second tire, he pumped and pumped, for hours on end, so that he’d get enough exercise to keep his sclerosis at bay. And in the evening, while Pepin was drinking milk and eating a piece of bread, Francin spread that dry bread with an inch of lard, then went out into the yard and unscrewed the valve and slowly let the air out of both tires, so the next morning Uncle Pepin could start all over again, like Sisyphus and the boulder. When Francin let the air out of the tires, I always had the feeling that the sound of the air escaping was like human breath, which you exhaled until the day you died, and that every life and everything that was alive was exactly the same in all its meaninglessness as what Francin did every day with the tires, with Uncle Pepin pumping them up and Francin letting out the air in the evening so that everything could start all over again. I always put my fingers in my ears when I heard that long and continuous and then continuously decreasing sound of a deflating tire, I begged Francin to stop, because every day I had to live through my own death. Then Francin had a better idea. In the morning he took Pepin to a water pump with a barrel underneath, a great big beer barrel, and Pepin starting pumping water to water the plants, he pumped and pumped and when he thought it was nearly noon, he felt around inside the barrel and either went on pumping or, if the water was up to the rim, he sat down on the doorstep and listened to his own thoughts. And while Uncle Pepin was having lunch, Francin watered the garden, he kept on watering until the barrel was completely empty, so that in the afternoon Pepin could start pumping again, until it was full to the brim. And in the evening Francin watered the garden until the barrel was empty. When it rained, Francin knocked a hole in the bottom, put in a plug and whatever Uncle pumped into the barrel, as soon as Francin pulled out the plug, it ran out again. After a while he stopped putting the plug back in, Uncle pumped and the water flowed straight through a ditch into the garden, and when Uncle Pepin thought the barrel was full, he ran his fingers along the rim of the barrel, leaned over, but never felt any water, and all the same he went on pumping, went on listening to the water splashing into the barrel, he listened to the melodious creaking and clicking of the pump and waited for the bells to ring out the noon or evening hour, when the radios on the street corners broadcast the evening news. In the evening Uncle Pepin would sit motionlessly in the kitchen next to the sideboard, sitting behind him was the old tomcat Celestýn, who had found us again in our new home on the Elbe, he too had been eaten away by time, like Uncle Pepin, both were toothless, they even had similar faces, every now and then Uncle Pepin would turn around and reach out his hand, and when he felt the cat’s head, he stroked it, the cat nuzzled his palm, so the two old fellows were always touching, Uncle Pepin would say contentedly … Are you there? And Celestýn would sit and purr, he was practically sitting on Uncle’s shoulder, he sat there on the sideboard so close to Uncle that he could touch him, and Uncle Pepin knew, and Celestýn too, that as long as they could touch, life on earth would be in perfect harmony. So every night they waited for each other, Uncle Pepin and Celestýn, and if they felt like having a chat, Celestýn went and sat behind Uncle and laid his paw on Uncle’s shoulder, Uncle sat on his chair next to the sideboard where the tomcat was sitting, he sat there like a king, those two understood each other so well, they kept on touching until it was time to go to bed. And so it happened one day that when Francin was sprinkling the garden with water that Pepin had pumped into the barrel, so that Uncle could start pumping again the next morning, Uncle Pepin sat down on the chair, felt around behind him, but didn’t feel the tomcat’s head. He asked several times … Are you there? But the tomcat gave no reply, nor did he reply the following night, or a week later. And all that time, night after night, Uncle Pepin sat in his chair, feeling around behind him and asking … Are you there? But Celestýn never came, because tomcats never die in the house, but in the wild, in some secluded place, like old elephants. And Uncle Pepin never again sat down on the chair next to the sideboard, he just stood there, with one hand resting on the spot where the tomcat Celestýn used to sit, then went to bed, so that the next morning he could pump water into the barrel, which leaked right out again, just as before he had pumped up those two meaningless tires, which Francin would deflate every night, to keep Pepin alive a bit longer, even though his life had no more meaning, like time itself, which had stood still on the church tower when the hands fell off the clock and stopped moving, because in the little town a time had come for other people, a time full of élan and new endeavors, a time that gladly demolished all that was old, it was the time of a new generation that couldn’t give a damn that the time of cattle markets and Christmas markets and farmers’ markets had stood still, that the time of afternoon strolls and evening promenades was long gone, that political parties no longer organized outings to the forest, outings combined with raffles and picnics and shooting galleries, gone were the days of Carnival balls and festive dance parties and horseback rides through the countryside, gone were the masquerades and allegorical processions and the winter Bacchus and Carnival parades, gone were the days of beautification associations and their competitions for the best painted windows in town, there were no more plays, time had stood still in all five of our little theaters, gone were the days of the Sokol festivals and summer gymnastics camps, where starting at four o’clock in the afternoon the young gymnasts, first the pupils and then the juniors, displayed their skills, gone were the days of men’s and women’s evening calisthenics, in that little town of ours no one could bring back the time when the symphony orchestra and choral societies played and sang to their hearts’ delight, the processions of pensioners walking through the municipal park on Ostrov, the pairs of lovers by the river and in the streamside forest, they had all vanished, no more graduation parties, not a single pub where people still made time for betting games, not a single pub where women served the drinks, gone were the days of the famous white pudding and sausages that the smokehouse workers delivered to the pubs at four in the afternoon and the Mariáš players would lay down their cards and buy themselves a sausage and a roll, gone were the days of singing while doing the carpentry work and the malting, you never heard a barrel organ outside your window anymore, e
verything that was old and connected with the old days had been lost in the flow of the hands on the church clock, or fallen into a deep sleep, as if those old times had choked on a piece of poisoned apple like Snow White, but no prince ever came or ever will, because the old society, the society that Francin, Pepin and I belonged to, is so old that it no longer has any strength or courage, and that’s why it’s no wonder that a time has come of huge posters and huge meetings and huge parades that raise their fist at everything old, and the old people themselves are defenseless, they live on memories or die quietly and slowly, like Uncle Pepin, like Francin or I if we had been in the same situation. And so we walked on through the twilit streets of the little town, we were approached by a shaggy-haired youth wearing a colorful shirt and denim jacket, he pointed to the seaman’s cap on Francin’s head and asked … Sir, will you sell me that amazing cap, I’ll give you a hundred crowns for it … Francin grabbed hold of the cap with both hands, as if the wind were trying to make off with it, and shook his head. The young man asked again … please, I’ll give you two hundred, two hundred-crown notes … But Francin said … Not even five hundred, not even a thousand. And the young man shrugged and walked away, we were standing in the square, I could tell that all Francin really wanted was to go home, to the castle, to his little room, it was time to listen to the news from around the world, the news he’d been following for twenty, thirty years, and this was how I’d always known him, a man deeply involved with the rest of the world, this little town meant nothing to Francin, while I was falling more and more in love with its past, with what was no longer there. I didn’t even need the three old witnesses to go walking with me anymore, the old gentlemen who had told me so much about everything that had happened here so long ago, all I had to do was look around me and I could see the evening of Sunday the thirteenth of December, eighteen-hundred-and-thirty-five, it was bitter cold, but the windows of the Black Eagle shone brightly on the corner of the square and Church Street, the butchers’ guild was there celebrating the election of a new president … The master butchers raised their splendid guild goblets and drank a toast: God bless you, the Lord God will, God will, God will, God bless you! On the goblet was a picture of a butcher in a white apron with his cudgel aimed at the forehead of an ox, next to that a picture of a dog. At eight o’clock in the evening, after night watchman Štolba, the master potter from the Bobnitzer Gate, had sounded the hour, he came along to the gathering. He sat down by the door and after a hearty supper and frequent servings of beer, coffee and punch had turned red as a beet. After a while he took off his fur coat and was seeing double. But his conscience bothered him and he went outside, into the square. He shuffled past Vštečka’s pharmacy, Dominik Hovátko’s dry goods, Jan Fleischmann’s house and Josef Seigerschmidt’s shop and found himself standing in front of Café Klecanský, where they were just changing the post horses. The night watchman staggered toward the postal coach and saw that the door had been left ajar. There was no one inside. He put his halberd on the ground and climbed into the coach, then closed the door behind him and soon fell asleep on the cushioned seat. He didn’t even wake up when the fresh horses set off at a trot for the nearby town of Loučeň. No one got on there, and so the coachman, thinking the coach was empty, continued all the way to Mladá Boleslav. There the night watchman awoke, when the postal coach stopped in the main square, and quickly climbed out of the coach. Realizing he had neglected his duty, he began blowing his horn. Suddenly a pair of police hands seized him from behind. What’s all this honking? I’m just doing my duty, after all I’m the night watchman of the majestic little town where time stood still! I told this to Francin, who smiled, I told him that story, which the old witness Mr. Václav Kořínek had told me at least ten times. But I could see that Francin had his mind on solving all the political crises in Europe and Asia, Africa and America, he was busy contemplating the fact that foreign armies had invaded some peace-loving state, or a news report he’d just heard, that there had been yet another border change, another assassination attempt on a prime minister, another session of the World Peace Council, another oil tanker accident that posed yet another threat to clean oceans, animals, fish and marine birds, another cordial meeting where opinions were continually exchanged about which no one would ever hear anything substantial. I was finished with my story, and pointed to the district council office on the corner. In our little town they published a weekly called Civic Affairs, edited by Mr. Florian, who happened to share his name with one of the saints on the plague column. Editor in chief Florian had a wonderful sense of humor. Late one night he was walking back from Hotel Na Knížecí to his house in Boleslav Street, and as he was crossing the square, he heard a night watchman walking down Boleslav Street toward the square and singing a song as he walked, as was the custom in those days … The clock struck twelve, praise God on high! Oh holy Saint Florian, hear our cry … At that same moment Mr. Florian turned the corner where the district council office now stands, and appeared before the night watchman, saying … Here I am! How can I help? The night watchman dropped his lantern and halberd and Mr. Florian had to escort him home, because the night watchman couldn’t get over the shock … I said, laughing, the way I always laughed when the witness to old times Mr. Karel Výborný told it to me. Francin smiled, but also reached for his cap, as if it were about to be blown off by the wind, and at the same time looked at his watch and saw that he had missed the world news, the overview of political events, he stiffened, imagine if something had happened, some meeting between top government representatives, who had exchanged experiences that were less important for either party than for the rest of the world, imagine if at this very moment world peace had been declared, if at this very moment all fighting had ceased, all wars had ended, and the representatives of all people and all races and classes had agreed to come together, that even now those delegations were on a plane, being flown to wherever it was they’d decided to go? That was what Francin dreamt of, he wished for nothing more, that was why he got up at night and listened to the news reports, imagine if everyone had realized that you couldn’t live without peace, that there was no other way … And that was why after every news broadcast, and he listened at least ten times a day, he always had faith that one day he would hear that there was peace on earth … So we walked on, I linked my arm through Francin’s, but at the corner of Tyrš Street I couldn’t help myself and said, pointing … In eighteen-hundred-and-eighty-eight the lawyer Viktor Tangl, born and bred in Lysá, moved into that house, he was always elegantly dressed, with his short pale chestnut beard, monocle and pale spats, like a diplomat, a striking figure on the streets of our little town. In winter he used to go swimming in the Elbe, in a hole he had cut in the ice. It’s very possible that this eccentricity was one of the factors that contributed to his untimely end … I said, and then added … That house belonged to Zedrich on the Corner, just as the old witness Otokar Rykr had told me. But Francin shook his head and said … I know, and then we walked onto the bridge, the beige-colored brewery shimmered in the evening twilight. Francin leaned over the railing and we watched the water flowing quietly below us. And Francin held the seaman’s cap in the air, that renowned cap of Uncle Pepin’s, which for a quarter of a century had sailed from the brewery to the little town, calling at the inns and the pubs where the drinks were served by women, the white seaman’s cap that represented the olden golden times, just like the braid of gold thread along the brim. And Francin held on to the cap and when a gust of wind blew up from the river, he simply let it go, the breeze lifted it slightly and the cap, which had been worn by Hans Albers in La Paloma, went sailing downward, it hovered briefly above the dark, honey-colored water and then landed on its surface and was carried away by the current, toward Hamburg, Hans Albers’s birthplace and the setting of La Paloma, the film Uncle Pepin so loved to imagine himself in … As we walked back to the retirement home, the shops were just closing, the square and the streets were filled with people, I recognized hardly any
of them. The shops that once had first and last names were now called Butcher Shop and Unity Department Store, Bakery and Shoe Repair, Tea room and Car Parts. I smiled and was happy that I had been there, that I had been able to see with my own eyes how times had changed, how nearly all the old people were gone and had been replaced by young women and young men, everything was the opposite of what it used to be. Hardly any of the people streaming past were wearing a tie, everyone wore their hair very differently than I used to, or Francin, the pants worn by the young women and girls were quite provocative, they showed their figures to advantage, those jeans, tight in the crotch and around the bottom, it was as if these young women had just climbed out of the water, I noticed that even little girls were wearing jeans, like the adults, everywhere I looked all I saw was young women in tight pants, but what could you do? I noticed that it had become almost impossible to tell who held what position in the little town where time actually hadn’t stood still, in the old days you knew immediately who was a doctor and who was an engineer, who was a shopkeeper and who was a worker, who was a schoolteacher and who was a music teacher, now I’m glad things are the way they are, as I see it people have merged into a few different types, but when I looked at the men that day I couldn’t possibly imagine who they were or what they did. They wore jeans, leather jackets and army shirts, open at the neck, with their flowing hair they looked more like poets, in the old days only exceptional men had such a voluminous head of hair, men who played the violin or were painters or writers, two of whom I knew from photographs: Jack London and Vrchlický … We walked through the little town, I knew this was the time of day when the square and streets were filled with people, but that within the hour the last buses would’ve departed and soon it would be time for supper and then television, the streets would be empty, though you might see someone hurrying by, a couple of latecomers, or a few dozen lucky souls on their way to the pub. Once when an important soccer match was being televised, it was the European Championships, I was walking through the little town, I saw the glowing screens behind the windows, I heard the voice of the man commenting excitedly on what he saw there in Belgrade, I heard the roar of thousands of spectators, eyewitnesses, I was walking through the little town and didn’t meet a soul, the streets were deserted, because everyone was inside watching the soccer match. I can remember, in the days when I was young, in those days you’d see crowds of people walking across the square and through the streets and down Palacký Avenue, just walking, the young people strolled up and down the promenade, but what good is that to me now? I’m a different person in a different place and times have changed, these times have their own special charm, and as I walked along beside Francin, who was horrified by all those new people, I kept silent and in the end I was glad the old times were gone, that along with those times the town paupers were gone too, the barefoot children, and the confused and the homeless who wandered through the square and the little town, like old Mrs. Lašman and Pepin Páclík, Mrs. Lašman slept outside the courthouse, when it snowed she sought shelter in a niche, the old woman thought she was a countess who had millions, but all the rich people who had once distinguished themselves from the rest were gone. I’d been one of them, I always wore clothes that no one else in the little town had, gone were the days of the young men who wore suede jackets and handsome ties and perforated shoes from Kabele’s in Prague, men who knew how to carry an umbrella, there were ten, fifteen of them, in summer the young fellows would strut through the square in their impeccable shirts, their pullovers, during the Feast of the Resurrection it was customary in the little town for every father to buy something new for his children, a suit, a dress, or even just a scarf, but it had to be something new to evoke a sense of rebirth and happiness, I can still remember a square teeming with people and a promenade filled with happy girls and women and boys and young men, but on the outskirts of the little town, things were very different. Today I saw, I had always seen it, but today was the first time it ever really struck me, I could suddenly even make a comparison, I now saw that almost everyone in the little town was wearing what they liked, there was no longer any difference between them and the country girls and boys, even the girls who boarded the bus at the end of the day and rode off from all corners of the little town into the countryside, those country girls were even more tastefully dressed than city girls, but what struck me most was that the children were always nibbling on ice-cream cones, or slices of salami, while in the good old days a simple roll was considered a delicacy, oh I know, there’s no comparison between the rolls you get nowadays and what we had in those days, I know, frankfurters these days don’t compare with frankfurters back then, but nowadays everyone has what they want and in those days things were different, there were some people who had no money for such treats, and I happen to know that when country women sold butter at the market, they bought margarine for their own families and rolls for the children, but the children I’d seen today, and it’s probably the same all over the world, or at least the world that Francin and I still hoped to see someday with the quarter of a million crowns in our savings account, those children are much better off than they used to be, children nowadays, they all have dresses and accessories chosen specially for them by their mothers and relatives, I also noticed that children these days didn’t cry the way they used to, that time certainly hadn’t stood still in this little town for the people I’d seen streaming back and forth across the square and down the streets and avenues, boarding the buses, that their time was now, that the only time that had stood still was the time when I was happy, nearly all my friends and acquaintances had gone to that great promenade in the sky … Where is our distinguised poet Jan z Wojkowicz, the man who healed young girls by the laying-on of hands? Where is the musical minister, who gave such comfort to the mourners around the coffin that they went home smiling? Where is that paunchy waiter Procházka, who always had to be careful not to trip over his saber? Where is the horticulturalist and excellent dancer Vinca Tekl, who dozed off while drinking a beer in Hotel Na Knížecí and never woke up? And where is that gallant butcher and former wrestler Vejvoda? The high priest of the unbelievers, Mr. Rajman? Sexton Podhora, who was so dangerously fond of altar boys? Whatever happened to the mystical shoemaker Homola? The fireman Tonda Staněk, who was so proud of his uniform and who not only put out fires but also knew the best way to subdue his own blazing thirst? And speedy Mr. Rychlík and his sister, where did they end up, those two, who could outwalk every pedestrian for miles around? In what possible heaven is Pepin Jůra, who slit calves’ throats and believed he was doing God’s work? Through what crematorium chimney did the spirit of Oskar Rohr flee, who lost his mind as a result of too much education? Where is Mr. Brabec, the locomotive engineer who was always pulling out his watch and comparing the time to what he heard over the radio? Where has Mr. Štěpán Mušák gone, that hotheaded young hospital inspector with the fluttering mane? And, if he’s still alive, what is he painting now, my great dancing partner and handsome friend, the painter Hanuš Bohman? Who for forty years led funeral processions as director of a funeral parlor? And who am I, whom people once called Andula, like the beautiful actress Andula Sedláčková? I know, I’m a witness to old times too … Where have all my neighbors gone, where are the groups of jobless men who once hung around the brewery in the freezing cold, in the hope that Francin would hire them to transport ice, to chop blocks of ice out of the river and lake and load them onto farm wagons? As we were walking back through the little town, to the retirement home, I saw Francin ogling the young women the way he always did, they were just girls really, whom none could divest of their youthful charm, jean-clad nymphs who looked like mermaids … But Francin, like me, was still living in the little town of the past, he lived in the memory of the time when he was younger, when he was manager of the brewery and decided which barley should be bought for malting, he decided from which company to buy bales of hop, he decided how you could improve beer sales and which publican to hire for
a new pub, he’d then become the new pub’s official tax adviser, and that was why he was respected and revered, and he never dreamt that this was exactly why the new owners would accuse him of being the capitalists’ henchman and an advocate of anonymous partnership. By the time we arrived at the gate it was dark, in the porter’s lodge crazy Mr. Berka sat watching a soap opera, from time to time he’d turn off the sound and add his own soundtrack by replacing it with the taped voices of jazz singers, but the words to the songs were completely at odds with what was happening on the screen, and Mr. Berka was enjoying every minute of it, he was amazed at how well he managed to combine the voices on his tapes with the television images. And in fact, as I watched him through the window, while Francin, still preoccupied, went up to his room to turn on the news from around the world and continue grieving over the fact that his vision of lasting world peace was postponed from one day to the next, that’s when I saw that Mr. Berka wasn’t really so crazy after all. One Sunday, when Smetana’s opera Libuše was being shown on television, Mr. Berka, who wasn’t guarding the gate that day, had suddenly turned off the sound, on the screen the legendary prophetess Libuše, surrounded by her lady friends and dressed in old Slavic robes, was combing her hair and when the other women began speaking to her, Mr. Berka switched on his tape recorder, it took him several moments to find the right place on the tape, but then a song with guitar accompaniment rang out through the dining hall and the Elderberries, those three lovely ladies from Prague, sang … Seen my ad in the classified? Keep on reading, you might be the one I might be needing … All the pensioners who were watching the television broadcast of Libuše that Sunday were alarmed at first, but the longer they watched the more they began to enjoy it, the way Mr. Berka was playing around with his tapes, with the sound of the television turned off. When Chrudoš aired his grievances to Libuše, who had to cast judgment, Mr. Berka wound the tape forward and a moment later Chrudoš’s theatrical gestures were accompanied by the voice of Pavel Bobek … Rock ‘n’ roll, I gave you the best days of my life, all those summer mornings, all the most beautiful days … And a few minutes later when Libuše pronounced her wise verdict on the television screen in the feud between Chrudoš and his brother over a plot of land, Mr. Berka wound the tape forward, announced the name of the singer Věra Špinarová and a moment later her voice floated through the castle dining hall … Oh yes sir, I can boogie, but I need a certain song, I can boogie, boogie woogie, all night long … And the pensioners who sat watching were completely captivated by all this new magnificence, they had seen Libuše many times before, but never a Libuše like this … And then came the scene in which messengers were sent to get farmer Přemysl and bring him back as Libuše’s future bridegroom, this was accompanied by the voice of Waldemar Matuška … The journey west is long … and Přemysl answered the messengers with a mournful tune, sung by Karel Zich … My life is unlucky, my steps are hollow … I’m followed by a shadow … and then the dance orchestras accompanied and complemented the sequence of television images so perfectly that when Přemysl was standing before Libuše, Mr. Berka quickly wound the tape forward, adjusted the volume and on the screen Přemysl raised his hand and on the tape Milan Chladil sang … Oh I gaze at your white veil, you finally have what you’ve been dreaming of, whoever could’ve known that you, my darling, would marry me and be my love … and Libuše answered him with a song, sung with great feeling by Eva Pilarová … Will you take me as I am, although you know I’m only an illusion, if you take me as I am, I’ll be truer than true … And when Libuše reached out her hand onscreen to Přemysl and gazed deeply into his eyes … Mr. Berka quickly turned over the tape and I heard the duet I’d always loved, the sad, beautiful voices of Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, who sang that wistful love song together … While I give to you and you give to me … True love, true love … But then the dining hall door flew open and in stormed the head nurse and she turned the knob and the screen went black, she threw her hands in the air and thundered at Mr. Berka … You never know when to stop, do you? Do you want to be sent home? And Mr. Berka meekly picked up his tapes and left, and all of us who had seen his Libuše thought it was a shame, for the next half hour we sat there arguing, argued about which song Mr. Berka would have used for the scene where Libuše prophesizes the founding of Prague. I started moving again and the sensitive Mr. Berka yanked the plug out of the wall, he clicked on a flashlight and came running out in confusion, shining the light in my face … What is it, what do you want? I said … Mr. Berka, I can’t sleep thinking about it, that time you livened up Libuše with your tapes … Livened up Libuše? What’re you talking about? asked Mr. Berka, terrified. I said … Mr. Berka, the Libuše that was shown on television that Sunday, when the nurse came in and ruined everything, what other tapes did you have ready? Mr. Berka was overjoyed … Oh, that Libuše! Yes, I really should play it for you again … I’ve now got a new tape all ready for Přemysl, when he comes riding up to Libuše, he starts singing to her … Hello, Dolly, well hello, Dolly, it’s so nice to have you back where you belong … The way Mr. Armstrong sings it … You’re lookin’ swell, Dolly, I can tell, Dolly, You’re still … Hello? I’d staggered slightly, I was suddenly dazzled by this information, Mr. Berka took advantage of this and whispered in my ear … And when Přemysl and Libuše are on TV again, I’ll turn off the sound and play the best song I’ve ever recorded, at full blast … Save your kisses for me, kisses for me, baby, bye-bye … and then those little-girlish voices … I luv you!… right? I’ll go there and you’ll come here … ha ha!… I looove yooou!… cried and sang the enthusiastic Mr. Berka, and just then Francin came back down the path, the news was over, he walked with such difficulty that it was as if he were carrying his own tombstone on his shoulder, the news today, as always, was even worse than yesterday, everlasting peace was forever being relegated to somewhere back in the good-for-nothing old days … Mr. Berka shined his flashlight on Francin and ran around him in circles crying with horror … What have you done with that beautiful cap? Did you leave it lying somewhere? Lord, what I wouldn’t give to have worn that famous cap! Tell me, my friends, where has it gone?