by Frank Wynne
I was afraid of them. I think that had it not been for feeling the proximity of other visitors and the guard, I would not have been bold enough to remain alone with them. “You eat them alive with your eyes, hey,” the guard said, laughing; he likely thought I was a little cracked. What he didn’t notice was that it was they devouring me slowly with their eyes, in a cannibalism of gold. At any distance from the aquarium, I had only to think of them, it was as though I were being affected from a distance. It got to the point that I was going every day, and at night I thought of them immobile in the darkness, slowly putting a hand out which immediately encountered another. Perhaps their eyes could see in the dead of night, and for them the day continued indefinitely. The eyes of axolotls have no lids.
I know now that there was nothing strange, that that had to occur. Leaning over in front of the tank each morning, the recognition was greater. They were suffering, every fiber of my body reached toward that stifled pain, that stiff torment at the bottom of the tank. They were lying in wait for something, a remote dominion destroyed, an age of liberty when the world had been that of the axolotls. Not possible that such a terrible expression which was attaining the overthrow of that forced blankness on their stone faces should carry any message other than one of pain, proof of that eternal sentence, of that liquid hell they were undergoing. Hopelessly, I wanted to prove to myself that my own sensibility was projecting a nonexistent consciousness upon the axolotls. They and I knew. So there was nothing strange in what happened. My face was pressed against the glass of the aquarium, my eyes were attempting once more to penetrate the mystery of those eyes of gold without iris, without pupil. I saw from very close up the face of an axolotl immobile next to the glass. No transition and no surprise, I saw my face against the glass, I saw it on the outside of the tank, I saw it on the other side of the glass. Then my face drew back and I understood.
Only one thing was strange: to go on thinking as usual, to know. To realize that was, for the first moment, like the horror of a man buried alive awaking to his fate. Outside, my face came close to the glass again, I saw my mouth, the lips compressed with the effort of understanding the axolotls. I was an axolotl and now I knew instantly that no understanding was possible. He was outside the aquarium, his thinking was a thinking outside the tank. Recognizing him, being him himself, I was an axolotl and in my world. The horror began—I learned in the same moment—of believing myself prisoner in the body of an axolotl, metamorphosed into him with my human mind intact, buried alive in an axolotl, condemned to move lucidly among unconscious creatures. But that stopped when a foot just grazed my face, when I moved just a little to one side and saw an axolotl next to me who was looking at me, and understood that he knew also, no communication possible, but very clearly. Or I was also in him, or all of us were thinking humanlike, incapable of expression, limited to the golden splendor of our eyes looking at the face of the man pressed against the aquarium.
He returned many times, but he comes less often now. Weeks pass without his showing up. I saw him yesterday, he looked at me for a long time and left briskly. It seemed to me that he was not so much interested in us any more, that he was coming out of habit. Since the only thing I do is think, I could think about him a lot. It occurs to me that at the beginning we continued to communicate, that he felt more than ever one with the mystery which was claiming him. But the bridges were broken between him and me, because what was his obsession is now an axolotl, alien to his human life. I think that at the beginning I was capable of returning to him in a certain way—ah, only in a certain way—and of keeping awake his desire to know us better. I am an axolotl for good now, and if I think like a man it’s only because every axolotl thinks like a man inside his rosy stone semblance. I believe that all this succeeded in communicating something to him in those first days, when I was still he. And in this final solitude to which he no longer comes, I console myself by thinking that perhaps he is going to write a story about us, that, believing he’s making up a story, he’s going to write all this about axolotls.
A DULL AFTERNOON
Bohumil Hrabal
Translated from the Czech by Michael Henry Heim
Bohumil Hrabal (1914–1997). Born in Brno, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hrabal studied law at Charles University in Prague, but never practiced the profession, working variously as a travelling salesman, in a theatre, and at a factory. Regarded by many Czechs as one of the finest writers of the twentieth century, Hrabal’s best-known novels are Closely Observed Trains and I Served the King of England, both filmed by acclaimed Czech director Jiří Menzel, who won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1968. After his death, and according to his wishes, he is buried in an oak coffin branded Pivovar Polná (Polná Brewery), the brewery where his mother and stepfather met.
Just after noon a young man—no, he was more of a kid—walked into our neighborhood bar. Nobody knew who he was or where he’d come from. Anyway, he sat down at the table under the compressor and ordered three packs of cigarettes and a beer. Then he opened up this book he had with him, and from then on all he did was read, drink, and smoke. His fingers were all yellow, probably from smoking each cigarette down to where it burned him. Now and then he’d feel around on the tablecloth for a cigarette, light it off the old butt, and puff away. But never for a second did he lift his eyes from his book.
For a while nobody paid any attention to him, because it was just before a soccer game, and the place was packed with the pregame regulars, all dressed up and raring to go—full of spirit for whatever team they were rooting for. They kept straightening their backs as if their coats didn’t fit, puffing out their chests, and striking poses with their hands in their pockets. And standing there at the counter downing their last beers, they argued over whether their team would win four-one or five-one.
Then out they streamed, laughing and strutting so that you could tell from three blocks off that they were on their way to the game. When they got to the movie theater at the corner they all turned and waved back at the glass doors, where two heads nodded back. One head belonged to old Jupa, whose doctor had made him cut out soccer after he had two heart attacks in the stands, and the other one—it belonged to the bartender, and he couldn’t go because he ran the place. The soccer fans held up their hands, gesticulating. By this time they had reached a sign reading No Burials on Sunday, the current attraction at our local movie house. But if you looked out the glass doors of our beer place, what you saw was Burials on Sunday, because the corner of the building jutted out a little in the direction of the street and covered up the No. They were a happy bunch; anyone could tell they had the game all sewed up. Soon they were just tiny specks at the end of our long street.
They missed their streetcar; it rolled past them, its three cars transformed into three red stripes. So they turned around one more time, waved again … and then crossed over onto the island in the middle of the street….
At three o’clock the bartender pushed a button, and the compressor motor on the wall above that kid—he was still reading away—the motor started up and a red light came on. The bartender purposely dropped a cracked stein from as high as he could reach, and even though it hit the floor like a cannon ball, that guy just kept on reading. There was even a smile on his face. The bartender waved his hands in front of the kid’s eyes but they never left the book. All he did was grin. “He can’t hear, he can’t see, he’s halfway through his second pack of cigarettes, and I’m about to bring him beer number five. I wonder when he’s going to take his little trip over to the john? What is this generation coming to?”
Old man Jupa, who was sitting over by the other wall, facing the kid, made a gesture of despair and shook his head as if to say, “What’s the use of talking?”
Then in came someone else no one had ever seen before. A slightly humpbacked, gray-haired little guy carrying a pot of sauerkraut. A pot of sauerkraut on a Sunday afternoon! He ordered a beer and put the pot down in front of him—so
he wouldn’t forget it, I guess. He rubbed his hands together and looked out the door into the street.
Old man Jupa couldn’t take it any longer. “What is this generation coming to anyway? I just wonder what that pipsqueak is reading. I bet it’s pornography or some kind of thriller. That’s what it is—a sleazy detective story. What a deadhead! Everyone else goes to the game, but His Excellency just sits and reads. Disgusting!”
All in all, he wasn’t at all bad-looking. He was wearing the kind of sweater only a mother or a girl friend could knit, the kind that weighs a good twenty-five pounds. He had a red bandana around his neck with a well-made knot; it was like those bandanas bricklayers and village musicians used to wear, tied with a knot as small as a jelly bean. And his head, bent over the book, played up a shock of shiny black hair that looked as if it’d just been doused in motor oil.
The bartender squatted on his heels and looked the boy in the face from below. When he’d had his fill, he stood up and said, “I’ll be damned if that guy isn’t actually crying!” And he pointed to the tears that had begun to fall all over the page—drip, drop, drip—like beer from the tap.
Well, that made old man Jupa furious. “What a bastard! No wonder we don’t have any soccer players! Strong as an ox, and he blubbers like a baby! Disgusting!” And he spit on the floor with great gusto.
The little man who’d brought in the pot of sauerkraut opened his hands and said, “It’s all on account of the young people having no ideals. When I was his age I was out on the field. Merz, the famous center forward, had taken a bad spill, and the best center forward of all time, Karel Koželuh, had to go in for him. Johnny Dick, our coach, said to me, ‘You take over inside left.’ So even though I had trained to play outside right, I started my career playing inside left. One time, though, Johnny Dick waved a telegram at me across the field and yelled, “You’re in luck. Our outside right is out.’ So I finally did get a chance to play outside right.”
The little man looked up at old man Jupa, who had the reputation of being an expert, and Jupa said, “Then you must have known Jimmy too, the back who played with Kuchynka.”
“Sure I knew him. But Jimmy was his first name. Do you happen to remember his last name?”
All of a sudden you could’ve heard a pin drop. Jupa had frozen. Then with a grin the little man started up again. “How could you know, anyway? His name was Jimmy Ottaway, and he was English and a crackerjack player.”
“What about Kanhäuser?” snapped Jupa.
But the little guy came back with a gesture that showed in no uncertain terms what he thought of our Jupa. “What are you bringing Kanhäuser into the picture for? He didn’t start playing with us until ’24!”
By this time the kid was feeling around for another cigarette. He lit it off the old butt and shook his yellow fingers for a few seconds—he must have burned himself—but he never let up reading. And now he was laughing, laughing like a hyena, laughing until he was weak.
Old man Jupa jumped up, banged his fist down hard on the table right next to the book, yelled, “Why, you dirty brat, you! Nobody’s going to laugh at me!” and went back to his seat.
The boy was so caught up in what he was reading he had broken out into a sweat, so he wiped off his forehead, loosened the bandana, and rolled up the sleeves of his sweater. He was enjoying the book so much that in a burst of high spirits he banged his fist on the table—and so hard that everything took a leap. The bartender was just bringing him another beer.
“You’re not the only one here, pipsqueak,” the bartender screamed into his ear. “Keep your little tricks to yourself.”
So anyway, the young guy—he was still reading and still chuckling away—felt his way up to the glass of beer, took it out of the bartender’s hand, and managed to take a deep drink without moving his eyes off the page.
“Beer number six, cigarette number twenty-one,” said the bartender in disgust. “What a generation they’re going to make, let me tell you. Christ, if he was my son I’d tear that cigarette out of his mouth, even if his whole chin came with it,” he yelled, demonstrating on himself how he’d rip off half the kid’s face. “But if I want to teach him a lesson, the smart aleck would have the police on my back in two seconds flat!”
Then, to punctuate his statement, he punched the compressor button. The red light went out.
By now Jupa had regained his composure, and he turned to the little man and said, “People who know something about soccer say that only Bican at the height of his career was up to playing with the Real Club.”
The little man pushed his pot of sauerkraut to the middle of the table and said, “Oh no! Bican never had the creativity a center forward needs. The only player who would have been up to the Real Club was Karel Koželuh. Koželuh had a feeling for team play. And why? Because he played outside left to my outside right. That’s why.” Then he pulled the pot back to the edge of the table, fished out some sauerkraut with the tips of his fingers, raised the limp little sheaf above his head, opened his mouth, and dropped it in. As he munched, he offered some to Jupa. “Help yourself. It’s good for you.” But all he got for his pains was a face that clearly said, “Anything but sauerkraut. I can never keep it down.” Old man Jupa had begun to look awfully small and awfully miserable.
In the meanwhile the kid—his eyes still glued to the book—had stood up. Nobody’d ever have guessed how tall he was. They don’t make them much taller. And the way he held that book of his, you’d think he’d never done anything in his life but hold books like that. He pushed back his chair like a count and then stood stock still in the middle of the room. There must have been some magic in what he was reading. Then he made his way over to the door at the other end of the room with Rest Rooms This Way painted on it, opened the door as if he’d done it a thousand times before, and disappeared into our old clubroom. (The clubroom used to have a showcase with our pennants and cups, from the time when you could still get a good game of soccer going in our part of Prague, but now it was being used to store crates of beer and soft drinks.)
Anyway, the bartender had just enough time to say, “What a nut,” and point to the closing door, when suddenly we heard a loud crash of bottles followed by a soft tinkling of glass. He threw open the door for all to see, and what they saw was that young punk stumbling his way through an ocean of empty bottles, and—get this—his book still planted firmly in front of his face. Finally he got to the next door. He felt around for the doorknob, turned it, and went into the men’s room.
The bartender tiptoed up to the door, opened it a crack, and peeked in. Then he closed it again, crossed through the clubroom, came back into the main room, and said mournfully, ‘What an awful sight. Picture him—standing there pissing away, and with the other hand he’s holding the book—and reading! And that cigarette dangling from his lower lip. No, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve been serving beer for thirty years now, and never have I seen the likes of it. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know,” and he shook his head, “but this generation will be the death of us.”
Jupa asked the little man suspiciously whether he had ever played international ball. “Of course,” he answered. “Man, did I have a stroke of hard luck in Stockholm once. I get this beautiful pass, see! So I close my eyes and sidekick it. But the Swedish center half stuck his foot out, and that was the last thing I remembered. Later, in the hospital, Kuchynka told me he heard the bone crack three times and could almost see the stars. I didn’t break the leg, though, just tore off the kneecap. You should have seen how it swelled up. It’s a good thing we had a real specialist in Prague—our own Johny Madden.”
At this point the young guy came back, reading and smoking and making what looked like treble clefs in the air with his cigarette. He leaned against the doorjamb with the toes of one foot resting on the floor and the heel straight up and down. After a while he started back to his seat, but when he got to the center of the room he stopped and wrinkled up his forehead, as if something he’d read h
ad given him a terrible shock. Then he shook his head, and tears as big as hailstones began to fall. Some of them fell on the back of old man Jupa’s hand, and Jupa jumped up and shouted, “Nobody’s going to cry over me!” Anyway, when the kid finally got back to his place, he practically collapsed into the chair.
Old man Jupa was furious. “Who ever heard of such a thing! Johny Madden a knee specialist. Johny Madden was a coach!” He looked up at the bartender, and the bartender began to laugh.
The guest, who was just about to drop another sheaf of sauerkraut into his mouth, jerked his head forward, threw the sauerkraut back into the pot, and said, “You can’t be very up on things if you don’t know about the miracles Johny Madden used to perform on sprained ankles. Why, all the ballerinas used to go to him. He had a ballerina in there with him the time they brought me in. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll have you fixed up in no time,’ he said to me while he massaged the dancer. Johny Madden … he was a great coach too of course….” And he picked up the sauerkraut again, threw his head back, and dropped it into his mouth.
Now old man Jupa had a reputation for being an expert, and he was fit to be tied. He stroked his bald head in self-pity and kept saying, “Impossible, impossible,” to himself. He seemed to have begun to shrink as soon as he started talking to the little guy. His neck was gone; his head sat right on his shoulders.
The bartender tried to save the day by pushing the button on the master board. It lit up the red light and started the compressor motor growling. “Sometimes I wonder,” he said, “where those punks get their money. When I was a kid, you were a millionaire if you had enough for a few beers!”
“Forget about him,” old man Jupa chimed in. “He’ll end up in reform school anyway. Just look at him. Four o’clock in the afternoon, this game could knock our team out of first place, and all our noble friend here can do is sit and chain-smoke and get sloshed. Where else is he going to end up but jail? He’ll probably go and murder a cigar store lady.”
