‘There are two channels,’ Luděk said, and he turned the knob, click, to channel 2. He looked at her, nodded. The hospital show was still on. He turned the knob backwards, click, to channel 1.
‘This one is the best one,’ he said.
She couldn’t hear, he knew that. She had no idea what he was saying. Her eyes stared at the images that were on the screen. Farmland, tractors, co-operatives. The country – a place he had never been. A place where everyone worked hard and smiled under a shining sun.
Uncle Bohdan cleared his throat and Luděk looked over. He was standing in the middle of the lounge with his arms folded across his chest. He wanted to go, get back to his beer.
‘I’ll stay,’ Luděk said, and Uncle Bohdan turned and walked right out of the room without saying a single word.
Luděk turned the TV slightly so Mrs Bláža could see it from her armchair. Uncle Bohdan had just plonked it down on a sideboard because there was no TV stand in the room. Luděk hoped it was okay there, and that Mrs Bláža would not try to lift it. If she tried to move it, she might kill herself.
Mrs Bláža’s eyes were still on the screen. Maybe she wouldn’t even watch it much, but it was nice that she could if she wanted to, just like everyone else.
Luděk checked to see if the plants needed watering, but they all looked good, the soil damp. He looked around the room for the cat, but Pepík was nowhere to be seen.
An old movie came on – the Sunday afternoon movie, the ones that Babi liked to watch. Luděk often watched them with her, to keep her company. He thought Mrs Bláža would like this kind of movie, one from the old days.
‘I’d better go,’ Luděk said. But Mrs Bláža’s eyes were closed now, her chin resting down against her chest.
Luděk turned off the TV, and he heard the tube inside power down. He patted it. It had been a pretty good TV, even if it was Russian. He would come back tomorrow to check if Mrs Bláža remembered how to turn it on, how to use it. He would come back tomorrow and make sure.
The flat door was open – the TV softly on. Mrs Bláža was in her chair, the cat curled up on her lap, and Luděk stood close. He said her name, reached out and touched her green cardigan with his fingertips.
Luděk stayed standing by the chair, and the cat looked up at him. Luděk held its gaze, and the moment went on for a long time.
He walked over to the TV and switched it off. It was warm and the screen closed to black – the giant eyelid shutting for the last time.
Silence.
The cat jumped down from Mrs Bláža’s lap onto the old carpet and walked towards Luděk’s feet. It padded around his legs, rubbing its body against Luděk’s skin. It was purring.
‘Come on,’ Luděk said, and he picked up the large cat, held it tightly in his arms.
He carried it past all the dusty picture frames that lined the sideboard, all the black and white photographs of people staring into the camera. Weddings and babies and children gathered around the glowing candles on a birthday cake. Where were they now? Why hadn’t they been there to help? This city was full of old women left behind. Left to keep everything going – to carry the whole goddamn world by themselves.
He took one more look at Mrs Bláža in her chair – her apron still on – and he walked down the hall. He shut the front door gently behind him, Pepík safe in his arms, still purring.
A big truck came to take things away, to clear Mrs Bláža’s ground storey flat. Luděk watched it all from the street, watched the men carrying furniture out, carrying boxes. Babi came down wearing her coat and sat on the stone step. The air did not move and she did not speak. She smoked a cigarette and looked ahead. She smoked another. She was remembering the dead. She was thinking about the people who were no longer here.
How’s your husband?
Dead.
Your son-in-law?
Dead.
Your cousin?
Dead.
How’s your daughter?
Gone.
Gone, but not dead.
Babi put out her cigarette, squashed it into the stone. She caught Luděk’s eye. She was alive. Luděk was alive. The white cat sleeping in their flat was alive. It was enough.
When the truck finally pulled away, full of old things, Mrs Bláža’s plants were left behind on the pavement. Luděk asked if he could take them, because the nights were getting cold and they might freeze, but Babi said he could only have one. He chose the geranium – the one with the bright flowers. He worried about what would happen to all the other plants, but by morning they were all gone, safe inside other people’s flats.
Mrs Bláža’s geranium bloomed pink fluorescent on the kitchen windowsill – so brilliant it lit up the room.
Luděk looked after it.
A postcard on the kitchen table. Lots of bright cars and tall buildings and a blue, blue sky. Greetings from Melbourne.
Luděk held it in his hands. He read the words written in black pen on the back.
My darling boy,
I am coming home –
And I will never leave you again.
Maminka xxx
He had collected programs from all of his mother’s tours. She would save him one from each city, and they were mostly in English – but sometimes in French or Spanish or Italian. And there was a picture of her in each program – her face, her dark eyes. And there was always an ad for Czechoslovak Airlines on the back of each program, and it would say, ‘The Black Theatre of Prague Fly on Czechoslovak Airlines.’ Now Czechoslovak Airlines was going to fly his mama home. She would take off in a whole different place, fly up in the sky, and then land down in Prague. She was coming home.
Luděk got out of bed and snow was falling.
He did not love snow. It got trampled into hard ice quickly and all the stairs became giant stone slides. Black ice and bloody snow. Whoosh, someone was always going down right in front of him, going down hard on their backsides. Luděk couldn’t move fast in the snow. He couldn’t run. He had to walk carefully like everyone else or end up on his backside, too, with sodden, freezing pants. It was only October and he felt cheated to have the last bit of autumn ripped away. You never knew when winter was going to creep up.
‘Luděk!’
He got some socks out of the drawer and put them on his bare feet.
Babi was standing in the hall holding on to a ladder, the manhole to the roof space open.
‘Can you find the sled?’ she said.
Luděk stared at her. He had never seen a sled, never heard of a sled. If there was a sled he would have been using it every winter on the streets and on the hills.
‘Up the back – behind the boxes.’
Luděk hated getting in the roof space. It was dark and it was dusty and it smelt bad like old rotting leaves.
He stepped up the rungs of the ladder in his socks and put his head through the manhole. He could only see near the entrance where the light sliced in. Boxes, bags, an old worn suitcase.
‘Up the back,’ Babi yelled, and she tapped the back of his legs with her hand. He continued moving up the ladder.
The space was small and the roof pitched just above his head. He wished he had put on shoes now. His socks would get wrecked, and he might stand on a nail or a spider or an old dead rat.
‘Luděk?’
God, couldn’t she give him a minute? Even if he found a sled, what did she want with it, anyway?
Luděk let his eyes get used to the low light. Everything was packed in so tight. He slid a box out of the way and dust whooshed into the air and went up his nose. He blinked his eyes, held a sneeze. What was all this stuff? Some of it must be Mama’s things. Mama’s records would be up here. He wanted to get one out, put it on Děda’s stereo in the lounge and listen.
He slid another box out of the way and touched the slanting roof with his hand until he reached the end of the space. Now he had to get down on his knees to fit. He felt around, felt the floor, felt the wall – there was something right up the back
. Something wooden, and rounded. A sled.
‘It’s here,’ he called.
‘What?’ Babi yelled. Her head appeared at the top of the ladder in the square of light. She was squinting.
‘I found it,’ Luděk said.
‘Can you bring it down?’
Luděk didn’t answer. Was she drunk? How would he get it down? He rubbed his eyes. Dust had got in and they had begun to itch.
‘Luděk?’
‘Okay,’ he said.
Babi disappeared back down the ladder.
It was not easy moving the sled. It was heavy and awkward – and it would only fit through the manhole on an angle. If Luděk dropped it, he might kill Babi. It might bust a hole in the floor as well. He told Babi to get out of the way, but she hovered right underneath him, hopping from one foot to the other. Luděk stepped onto the ladder and eased the sled out of the hole.
‘Don’t drop it!’ Babi said.
Luděk couldn’t speak. He had the full weight of the sled against his chest now and he stepped quickly down the rungs – down, down, sliding the sled against the ladder. When he stepped onto the floor, the sled slipped down with a thud.
Babi’s eyes were wide.
‘I won’t be able to get it back up there,’ Luděk said. ‘Uncle Bohdan will have to do it.’
But Babi didn’t say anything. She just kept staring at the sled.
It was handmade and ancient, and the wooden slats had been painted once – maybe dark green, or dark blue, but the paint was mostly gone. But the two curved feet still looked good, solid. Babi ran her hand over the seat and pressed down. The slats let out a little squeal.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Get your snow gear out.’
Luděk stared at her.
‘Go on, before I change my mind and make you go to school.’
Luděk’s snow gear was old and tight as hell. God, he’d grown. His pants were too short and his ankles would freeze. Babi got him an extra pair of socks and he pulled them up as far as they would go. He put on the striped beanie Babi had made him. It was okay, except for the big pom-pom on the top. He wished she hadn’t put that on. But he had his new coat, the parka from Aunty Máňa, and that was something. It was like a spacesuit, and no one else would have one like it.
Luděk pulled the wooden sled along the streets and it slushed slowly through the thick snow. There was not one car moving. You could sled down any street you wanted, sled anywhere. The whole city had turned into a playground and kids were slipping and screaming and sliding in every direction. He wasn’t the only one lucky enough to get out of school that day.
Babi did not seem to worry about slipping over like she normally did when it snowed. She walked fast, she marched on and on, not stopping once and Luděk was puffed keeping up.
God, this sled must be as old as Mama, or even older. It was a bit embarrassing having such an old sled, and being with Babi. Other kids had metal sleds that they carried easily on their backs. Other kids were with their siblings or friends. They were not with their grandmothers.
Finally, they got to the parkland and Luděk could see the hill. Petřín Hill – the best place to sled in the whole city.
Luděk thought they should start from halfway up the hill just to test the sled. He was worried about how he was going to steer it, how he was going to stop. But Babi kept on marching right to the top. He’d tell her that he would do a solo run first, and then he would bring the sled back up. But Babi sat down on the seat and told Luděk to sit in front of her. He shook his head. She might break her back. She might die.
‘Luděk!’ Babi said.
He sat down.
The seat creaked and moaned, and before he could get his feet wedged in against the frame, Babi kicked them off with her foot. Luděk grabbed the sides of the sled as they started moving. They were not going too fast, not yet – and maybe this would be okay. Maybe it would be fine and the sled would be slow because it was so old. But then they picked up speed, slipped into a well-worn track on the steepest part of the hill, and the weight of the sled was pulling them down faster, pulling them down harder. Luděk could hardly see, and the cold air whipped past his face and made his eyes water. He hoped they weren’t heading towards any trees. He hoped people would get out of their way. Then his stomach flipped. He felt the sled lift off the ground – up – up – and for a moment they were flying. For a moment they were soaring through the air.
Luděk lay on his back and looked up at the white sky. Snowflakes fell on his face and melted on his skin. He wriggled to sit up. Babi was lying flat on her back in the snow, the sled on its side.
‘Are you okay?’ Luděk said.
Babi was making strange sounds like she was choking, and Luděk stood up. He ran over and looked down at her face.
She was laughing.
‘I think the sled is broken,’ Luděk said. And it was broken. Bits of it had cracked off completely.
Babi’s whole body was shaking now. She put her hands on her cheeks. ‘Oh, Luděk!’ she said. And she laughed even harder. ‘We flew. We flew!’
Luděk had never seen her like this, and now he was smiling, too.
They had flown.
‘Are you okay?’ Luděk asked again, and he held out his hands and helped her to sit up. Her short, curled hair was full of snow and tears rolled down her face.
‘Thank you,’ she said, still giggling.
‘Are you upset about the sled?’ Luděk said.
Babi shook her head and got to her feet. She wiped snow off her pants, shook snow out of her hair.
‘It went out with a bang,’ she said.
Babi picked up a few pieces of broken sled, and piled them on the main body.
‘My papa made this sled,’ she said. ‘For me and Máňa.’
Luděk looked at her wide eyes, and it was like he could see a movie there, one that she was watching, too. Two sisters sledding and laughing and running in the snow. Two sisters dressed in woollen hats and woollen coats, wearing the same brown leather boots. Two sisters playing and dreaming and laughing. Before the war. Before everything.
For all the time he had known Babi, she had been old. She was his babi, his grandma. He had never thought of her as young. He had never thought of a life before him.
‘Maybe your mother can get you a new sled,’ Babi said. ‘One of those metal ones.’
Luděk nodded. They started walking.
He wanted to ask if Mama was better now – if Mama was okay, not like before – but he didn’t ask. Maybe he was scared of the answer. Maybe he didn’t want Mama to come back. He could stay with Babi, stay in the flat. It had been his home for so long. Just him and Babi. He couldn’t leave her alone. He wouldn’t go.
‘I thought your mother should stay in Australia,’ Babi said. ‘To have a better life.’
Luděk could hear the broken sled struggle to slide and he had to pull it hard. Babi stopped walking, turned to face him.
Luděk looked down at his old rubber boots.
‘I wrecked it,’ he said, ‘for Mama. Didn’t I?’
He could hear Babi’s breath – hard, alive. She put an arm around him and pulled him in.
‘She loves you. She is coming home because she loves you.’
Luděk looked up at her face. He knew she was telling the truth.
‘It will all be okay,’ Babi said. ‘I promise.’
He almost cried then, because he did want Mama to come home. He wanted it more than anything.
‘I have lived so long without my sister, without those I love, and I am used to it. But that won’t be your life.’
Luděk put his head against her strong frame and hugged her back. And he didn’t care who saw him. His babi.
The Magician
1978
My city has become darker – almost blacked out. And we are shut in.
I see it everywhere – the lost, the broken.
This Kingdom of Forgetting.
I must work harder.
I must see d
ifferently.
Where there is only black, I will see colour.
Where there is only black, I will see in fluorescent light.
I collect the broken and put them in my suitcase. I take them with me – my actors, my dancers. I make them see in light.
I put the broken in my suitcase and take them with me until they are ready to go home again.
There is still love.
Tábor
1981
Mama used her savings from the theatre to buy a white Fiat 127. She gave the pea-green Wartburg to Uncle Bohdan for good. She bought Babi a trip to Australia to thank her for all she had done.
The Fiat was new and shiny and it had a tape player with good speakers. But now Aleš sat in the passenger seat next to Mama, and there was a baby in the back next to him. But that was okay. That was fine.
His little sister.
They no longer lived in the city, but they still listened to rock and roll, and when the Rolling Stones came on, Mama always sang along. Luděk could wind the window down whenever he wanted because the air was clean and clear and no one minded if their hair got messed up. But sometimes Luděk missed the flat on the third floor, just him and Babi, no one else. He missed his city, where he ran and ran the old streets and was invisible.
Down a lane, up the stone stairs – Luděk runs. Short skirts, mothers in their summer dresses pushing prams. Another carefree Saturday.
An old man and his wife hold hands. They walk slowly on the uneven cobbles. You have to watch where you step. You have to walk like a duck on the old stones. Luděk zips around the corner, the river up ahead with the glowing light coming off it. Kids are on the banks making rafts out of old junk, out of anything they can get their hands on. Luděk wants to join them, to follow the other kids and float like a white swan on the river. But Babi will kill him. The river is so dirty, so full of rubbish. How do the swans even survive? How do they live?
There is a huge hole in the pavement right on the corner, and it goes down to some medieval underworld. Someone put wooden guards around it, but that just makes kids dare each other to climb over and get closer to the hole. It happened when a big truck came thundering down the street. Someone could have been sucked down if they were standing on that spot. Someone could have been killed.
There Was Still Love Page 10
