3.
Yes, man has developed a terrific appetite for life. Since it became likely that no other life awaits him in the skies, man has decided to stay where he is for as long as possible, or in other words to chew the chewing gum of his life as lengthily as possible and amuse himself the while by blowing little bubbles. If the statistics are to be believed, the difference is truly impressive: at the beginning of the twentieth century the average lifespan was around forty-five years, in the middle of the century it had increased to sixty-six, while today, at the very beginning of the twenty-first century, the average age achieved is the fine figure of seventy-six. In the course of a mere hundred years, people have extended their life expectancy by nearly fifty per cent. Admittedly, this statistical boom has occurred in the more peaceful and richer parts of the world. Because in Africa people still die like flies, probably more quickly and effectively than ever before.
Dr Topolanek was sitting alone in the hotel lecture hall, thinking. A photograph of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was flickering on the projection screen. Today Dr Topolanek wanted to say something about the communist idea of longevity, but he had no one to say it to. The lecture hall was empty.
Yes, the communists were skilled. The new communist man had to live long, collectively and industriously, by the strength of his own will, rather than genetic inheritance. For inherit ance, even genetic, was not acknowledged. Illness, depression, suicide, physical weakness – that had all been dreamed up by the bourgeoisie, defeatists and deserters from the frontline of life. Belief in a better, hybrid tomorrow permeated all the pores of communist society. Michurin and Lysenko were concerned that what the communist masses might one day eat should be as good and abundant as possible. Later everyone laughed at them. And today everyone devours those gigantic smelly strawberries blown up with gas, but strangely no one laughs any more, nor does anyone ask any questions. Not to mention those white Dutch aubergines, which seem to have grown up in Michurin’s garden! The famous Caucasian Nikolai Chapkovsky lived under communism and died at a hundred and forty-six. Centenarians sprang up in those days like mushrooms after rain, mainly in the Caucasus, their longevity confirming the idea that their countryman, Stalin, would live if not long, then forever. He did not live especially long, or forever. Alexander Bogomolets, the author of Extending Life, invented the famous serum named after him. The serum combined with regular transfusions was his recipe for rejuvenation. Everyone laughed at him too, later: it was all part of the megalomaniac communist delusion. Today clinics offering complete blood transfusions are springing up everywhere, but only those with deep pockets can indulge themselves in a change of blood. Serums too, somewhat more advanced, are on the daily menu of those who can afford them. Gerovital, a cream made from the placenta, could only have been invented under communism, when abortion was the most common means of contraception, and here the Romanian Ana Aslan should be acknowledged… Whether the cream really was made from placenta or not no one knows, but Charles de Gaulle, Pablo Picasso, Konrad Adenauer, Salvador Dali, Charlie Chaplin, John F. Kennedy, Omar Sharif and many others made a pilgrimage to Ana Aslan, and communism did not bother them in the slightest. Mankind has always been obsessed by death, immortality and longevity. Battles have always been waged on that territory, and they are still being waged today, that is where things were always liveliest. One vast army of people – in medicine, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics – serves another army which has taken on the task of living as long as possible and looking as good as possible. They are both firmly connected, like organ donors and their recipients.
There was nothing wrong with Topolanek’s ‘theory’. The theory, as always, was frustrated by brazen, disobedient and unpredictable life. In addition to the insultingly empty hall, that ‘life’ now appeared in the doorway in the shape of an unexpected visitor, a tall, agitated old woman, who demanded, more with gestures than words, that Topolanek accompany her urgently to the golf course! Dr Topolanek turned off the projector, grabbed his doctor’s bag, which he kept with him at all times, and set off after his flustered visitor.
And what about us? We shall hurry after them. While in life one may often demur and dither, the tale hurries on – we all know whither!
4.
As they made their way to the golf course, Mr Shaker had given Kukla a vivacious account of the meaning of his existence. He was like the drawer in an old-fashioned lady’s dressing table, which emits clouds of powder when opened. Mr Shaker choked on his own words. Kukla felt sorry for him, as she did for everyone who saw their work as the only reason for their existence. She found this human machine producing words, movements and gestures amusing, until the moment when the conversation snagged on Rosie, Mr Shaker’s daughter.
‘Rosie is, unfortunately, incompatible.’
‘How do you mean, incompatible?’ asked Kukla.
‘It is our duty to make ourselves into better and more perfect beings than God made us, is it not?’ said Mr Shaker.
‘I can’t see what your daughter’s lacking,’ said Kukla.
‘There’s nothing lacking, unfortunately; on the contrary, there’s altogether too much of her.’
‘That’s just a bit of puppy fat, youthful sturdiness.’
‘Sturdiness could be the source of her future unhappiness. Unfortunately, we live in a time when even a little excess weight determines our life’s course.’
It could not be said that Mr Shaker was not concerned about his daughter. But his concern was for the product, and, in Mr Shaker’s eyes, although of course he would never have admitted it, Rosie was a kind of reject.
‘What about your wife?’
‘My late wife… She was perfect. Like you,’ said Mr Shaker.
She was perfect until she broke down. Of course Mr Shaker did not use the expression ‘broke down’, he said ‘fell ill’, but he meant ‘broke down’. The mechanism stopped working properly, and Mr Shaker had done everything in his power to get the mechanism mended. But, unfortunately, there was nothing to be done.
‘Strange,’ said Mr Shaker.
‘What’s strange?’
‘Well… When I’m with you I feel as though I were beside a fan,’ he said.
Mr Shaker became exceptionally animated when they reached the golf course, evidently because the role of teacher appealed to his vanity. Kukla didn’t have a clue about golf and Mr Shaker endeavoured to explain the rules. What had always seemed to her pointless – strolling around a grassy expanse with a stick in one’s hand and knocking a little ball into a hole – did after all have some point: being outside in the fresh air.
They were an incompatible couple. The tall, bony woman with large feet and a golf club in her hand strode across the sun-drenched grassy expanse like a kind of female knight. Her partner, a short, breathless man, rushed energetically over the grass like a lawn mower. Kukla watched him: he was saying something, waving his club, gesticulating, demonstrating movements, making her imitate them, waving his arms and hitting the ball energetically with his club.
While Mr Shaker was preoccupied with the idea that all incompatible bodies must be transformed into compatible ones, Kukla had always thought that there was too much noise in this world and amused herself imagining how nice it would be to be able to control that noise, to turn off talkative people like radios, to put silencers on sharp sounds, to turn down the shrill din of ambulance sirens and amplify birdsong. As she waited for the green light at crossings, she imagined stopping the traffic completely for a moment and serenely crossing the road. These were childish imaginings, daydreams, her mental exit lights. Sometimes those daydreams were so strong that they seemed quite real. When she was a little girl, the sheer force of her intentions had sometimes made things happen: something would shift, scrape, collapse, fall onto the floor. With time she learned to walk cautiously through the world, as though on eggshells, quiet and silent as a shadow, accompanied by currents of air whose origin she could never fathom.
* * *
Come on, gest
iculated Mr Shaker, hit the ball. Kukla thought he was far further away than he really was. For God’s sake, come on, the man on the green horizon waved his arms, and Kukla finally swung her club, hit the ball, the ball spun in the air and took flight. The man jumped up and down with delight, bravo, a perfect shot, he made a fist with his thumb pointing up and waved it at Kukla, congratulating her. The little ball hovered for a moment in the air, or at least so it seemed to Kukla, and then with all its force it plummeted and lodged in the man’s wide-open mouth. The man dropped to the ground, as though felled.
When Kukla reached him, Mr Shaker was lying motionless on the grass. The little ball had trickled out of his mouth like saliva and was now calmly settled by his head, like a miniature gravestone. Mr Shaker’s death had been crouching inside an innocent golf ball.
Kukla rushed to the hotel to find Dr Topolanek. They went back together to where Mr Shaker’s body was lying. It seemed to Kukla that in the meantime his body had shrunk. In the course of those ten minutes it had taken her to go and fetch Dr Topolanek, Mr Shaker’s body had condensed and, if it was true that there was a soul which parted from the body after death, then Mr Shaker’s soul weighed as much as ten golf balls.
‘Heart attack!’ announced Dr Topolanek.
And then, smoothing his hair, ruffled by an invisible fan, he turned to Kukla and added:
‘I do hope that this disagreeable incident will not have put you off golf forever. Golf is an exceptionally fine sport.’
* * *
And what about us? We carry on without hesitation. While we may all be targeted by a drawn bow, the tale speeds like Hermes and is never slow.
5.
While everything in a story goes quickly and easily, it’s not usually like that in real life. This time, however, real life surpassed the story in speed and ease. Here’s what happened. Before she set off on this trip, Beba had taken out her pension and meagre savings, and changed it all into euros. The bank gave her a five-hundred-euro note and some change. Beba took the note without thinking. How could she possibly have known all the problems that she would encounter in an EU country, when she tried to change that cursed euro note?
At the hotel reception they told her to try the hotel bureau de change, while the hotel bureau de change directed her to the local banks. She tried two or three banks, and they all gave her the same answer: why didn’t she change the note at a branch of her own bank?
‘But my bank’s in Zagreb!’
‘So why didn’t you change it in Zagreb?’
‘That’s where they gave it to me.’
‘Why don’t you use a credit card?’
‘I haven’t got one.’
‘You’re travelling abroad and you don’t have a credit card!’
‘Not everyone has a credit card, you know!’
‘It’s just as well you told us, because otherwise we might have changed that note, but only if you had shown us a credit card.’
‘I’ve got a passport.’
‘A passport isn’t a relevant document any more. You know how it is with passports, anyone can get an illegal one nowadays for just a few hundred euros!’
‘So, what should I do?’
‘Try an exchange bureau.’
Beba tried several. They told her that five-hundred-euro notes were notorious.
‘Why?’
‘They’ve been forged.’
‘Well, you presumably have those machines that verify notes.’
‘Yes, but they’re no use, since the North Korean forgeries came on the scene.’
Beba was going to ask what on earth North Korea had to do with it all, but she decided against it. Obviously, nothing was going to help.
And it had all started with Beba wanting to buy some hair dye, to fix those grey hairs of hers which had flashed that morning in the Wellness Centre mirror after her chocolate soak. She really could not have asked Pupa for something so trivial. But, apart from that, Beba wanted to have a bit of money of her own, for little needs, for coffee and fruit juice, or hair dye.
In short, when she reached the hotel having got nowhere, Beba found herself breezing into the casino, more by chance than design. At the entrance, she was met by a wave of clamouring voices mingled with the metallic sounds of the roulette wheel, so that for a moment she felt as though she had wandered into a monkey house. But since Beba considered herself a person for whom nothing human is strange, she stopped at the first roulette table, right by the entrance, to see what something she had only ever seen in films looked like in real life.
Most of the players were laying fifty-euro notes on the table. Although some did put a hundred down. The croupier gathered the money from the table and dropped it into an opening, where the notes disappeared at lightning speed. Then he distributed brightly coloured round plastic chips to each of the players, and the players placed them on various numbers. And then the croupier spun the roulette wheel with the little ball, said something in French and passed his hand over the table as though he were clearing away invisible crumbs. That meant that from that moment no one could place any more chips on the numbers or alter their position. The roulette wheel came slowly to rest and the little ball landed in a metal section with a number on it.
Beba liked the look of it, and thought maybe she should try her luck and incidentally change that wretched five-hundredeuro note. On the opposite side of the table sat that morose Russian jerk with the wild hair, who had mocked her so unpleasantly at the Wellness Centre. He was holding a glass in his hand and shifting a Cuban cigar around between his teeth. Beba, who was standing to one side, felt uncomfortable about drawing attention to herself, so she whispered discreetly to the croupier to buy her chips to a value of fifty euros, and give her the change in cash. And she placed her note on the table. The croupier nodded, took the note, put it into the opening and the note disappeared with the speed of lightning. Unlike the other players, who were given a heap of chips, to her great disappointment Beba was given only one. She put it on number 32. That was the first number that occurred to her, nothing significant, just the number of the entrance to the block of flats where she lived. And just as she was expecting the croupier to give her back the rest of her money, he spun the wheel and waved his hand over the table, saying something in French. The little ball spun and spun, and finally came to rest on number 32. Now, instead of plastic chips, Beba received a sheaf of little plastic cards, also in bright colours. The people who had been watching the game muttered something, but Beba did not hear them properly. The din that broke over Beba made her feel a little dizzy. And, truly, as though something had happened to her hearing, the sounds that reached her ears seemed to be coming through cotton wool. Beba followed the croupier’s hands carefully, hoping that he would give her back the rest of her money. She whispered to him again to give her back the rest of her money and the croupier nodded again, and Beba laid her bright plastic cards on number 32 again. In the circumstances she really could not think of a different number, and besides 32 was right in front of her. And again she had no time to think or exchange a word with the croupier; he was already passing his hand over the table as though brushing invisible crumbs and saying something in French. The little ball spun in the roulette wheel, and when it came to a stop the little ball was once again in the opening of number 32. Beba was quite deafened by the clamour and shouting, but again she could not make anything out. Now the croupier handed her a still larger sheaf of bright little plastic cards. Beba gathered them all up, before they could be put back on the table, and now asked the croupier loudly to give her back those four hundred and fifty euros. The croupier told her to collect her money at the cash desk.
‘You might have told me straight away,’ said Beba and, clutching her little cards in her hand, she tried to find the cash desk through the crush, but halfway there she was met by a gentleman carrying a bottle of champagne on a tray. The gentleman insisted on giving her the champagne, but Beba said she had not ordered anything. They all just want to tak
e your money, she thought, and asked the gentleman where the cash desk was. The gentleman was very kind and took her straight there. The lady at the cash desk asked Beba for her bright little cards, and then in return showed her a pile of notes, but Beba said that she would like her four hundred and fifty euros.
‘Would you like us to put the rest into your bank account?’ asked the lady at the cash desk.
‘But my account’s in Zagreb,’ said Beba.
‘We can transfer your money to your account, if you like,’ said the lady.
Beba was afraid that she would be left without change for coffee and fruit juice again, and said that she would prefer to take the money in cash.
‘In that case, madam, I would advise you to deposit the money in the hotel safe,’ said the woman at the cash desk kindly.
‘Do what you like,’ said Beba, ‘but please let me have my four hundred and fifty euros.’
And then that gentleman, who was still carrying the bottle of champagne on the tray, said something to the lady at the cash desk and she handed Beba a form with numbers on it, which Beba had to sign and attach her passport to. Beba was relieved when the lady finally handed her a bundle of four hundred and fifty euros. The gentleman thrust the bottle of champagne into one of her hands and then shook the other one, which was exceedingly strange.
The whole time, Beba had felt that something was wrong with her. She was slightly deaf, as though she had just got off an aeroplane. And her sense of balance was haywire; she swayed as though she was drunk. Indeed, she kept thinking she was going to fall over. And, just as her eyes began to mist, Arnoš Kozeny materialised beside her and took her by the arm.
Baba Yaga Laid an Egg (Myths S.) Page 13
