by Jáchym Topol
Is somebody still in there? I asked, coughing. His terrified eyes, my eyes full of tears, the smoke: it was too late. If there was anybody still in there, it was too late, and we both knew it. I shoved him out of the door, jumped out after him. Rolf, the idiot, staggering – he’ll run right into their arms, in his underwear. They’ll catch him soon, I’m sure.
I squeezed myself in between the stones of a demolished wall and just kept staring at the Comenium door. I guess I was waiting. Would anyone else find their way out? I should’ve checked the bunks first. Stupid cops! They don’t do anything right! I should’ve checked! I know. There was a sharp stone digging into my back, but I ignored it.
I heard voices coming closer. Walking through the wreckage, men in hard hats and orange vests, putting out small fires, tearing down debris. They hadn’t reached the Comenium yet. They won’t find me, I told myself. No way. I blended in with the heaps of ruins and smoking debris. There were tyre tracks running all over the dust that covered the rubble of bricks.
Huh, they must’ve given Sara some kind of sedative! With that rage of hers! They never would’ve got her in that car otherwise, that’s for sure.
My scorched flesh throbbed through the ash and dust stuck to my hands. Nothing serious. But I didn’t spare the saliva, just to be safe. Suddenly a jolt of fear ran through me, I winced, singed fingers fumbling through my pockets, yes, got it, it was still there. My little Spider.
And the key to the airport locker too.
Hat, coat, good pair of boots, warm pants, socks – Alex had rattled them off like a list of presents I would find waiting under the Christmas tree.
It’s cold where we live, he said.
Your go-between, who has yet to be picked, will be waiting for you at the airport in Prague. At the full moon, he said.
It’s the only time they fly. He laughed.
I crept up the goat track to the hollow in the bushes and stayed there. A couple of others sauntered in towards evening. Most of them were excited about the fire. I guess they liked the change. Somebody gave me some ointment for my hands. A while back, they had picked the army warehouses clean, it was from there. Stank of the army, that’s for sure. But it cooled the burn.
Somebody pounced on my back and started throwing punches, a blind man screaming that I took his brother to the gallows. The others laughed and pulled him off.
Everybody around here’s been sayin’ that, said Jenda Kůs. Don’t worry, they’re just tryin’ to show off. And even if he did, so what? Kůs snarled, looking around. If he took him, he took him. He was a con, it was his job, what was he supposed to do? You’d have done the same.
They grumbled a while till somebody opened another jug. Apparently they had an inexhaustible supply. Also from the army.
Seeing as I was going to live with them, they left me alone.
I waited for the full moon. Till the moon was full, yep, round as Maruška’s face.
I was happy in our hole in the hill, my hands were healing. Sometimes Kamínek slept in there too.
And the bums brought news. Yeah, they’re lookin’ for you! Heh heh heh. They liked that I was dependent on them.
What about Lebo?
He split with that Swedish chick, been stickin’ it to her the whole time, said somebody in the hole. Ole Lebo, yep! Nobody puts one over on him. I bet he’s kickin’ it in the Caribbean right now, ha ha.
Bullshit, said somebody else. The cops cracked him on the head, he was the first one they got! I saw him in the ambulance. His head was all bloody and bandaged!
Who wouldn’t want that Swedish babe? Old Lebo took the money and ran, before the state could scoop it up! Good for him!
Nah, he’s still back there, said somebody else. In the bunkroom. Burnt to a crisp. He put up a fight. Got conked on the head and went down. By the time they went back for him, he was toast!
What about Rolf? Where’s he? I asked.
They didn’t know. They didn’t care.
But the scouts reported back that a lot of the Comenium’s students had been picked up by their parents, who descended on the town from every corner of the civilized world. The rest of them threw their packs on their backs, waved good-bye with their passports and credit cards, and went on their way.
You can stay here a while, Kůs assured me.
What about Lebo?
My idea was to comb through the wreckage of the Comenium and find out for sure. I would bury what was left of him at night, if I had to. But it was impossible. The cops had a barricade up and a guard standing watch.
Nobody was allowed to go poking around in the ruins. Everybody knew about the mental cases and their scavenging.
The moon grew. I watched it every night.
What about Lebo? And what about me? All I got out of these questions was sadness and the certainty that I had to get away.
One night, after yet another session of sitting around the fire, bickering and fighting over that nasty booze of theirs, I slipped away and crept down the goat track. Where there used to be houses, now there were machines. Steamrollers, levellers, crushing debris, tearing down foundations, knocking down walls, and bulldozing it all into pits. Instead of Central Square there was a plain littered with ruins. Where the Comenium had once stood there was nothing, just machines in the dark.
I went running back and stood above the hollow, breathing hard. I looked up: the moon was almost ripe.
I sat down on my behind and slid into the pit, our hole. No one said a word.
They were roasting meat, I could smell it, and then I saw, uh-huh, an old frayed collar lying in the dirt, something gleaming in the shadows behind a pile of branches: horns. It was Bojek’s head.
No, I said.
Listen! somebody said, practically shoving a bottle down my throat. Vojtek saw Lebo!
The Russkies snatched him! The whites of the blind man’s eyes bulged as the others roared with laughter.
The blind man stamped his foot, enraged.
I wasn’t going to make a fuss. They were already eating goats when I was walking around like the big man. The only reason I was here now was because they let me stay. So I kept quiet.
Lebo got snatched by the Russkies, the blind man yelled. He wouldn’t give up, he defended his position, so they took him off to Moscow, just like Dubček in ’68, the fuckers! the blind man said, flailing his arms.
Ha ha, Vojtek sees Russkies everywhere, he’s nuts!
I can tell a Russki by his smell, every time!
Russkies were the last people he ever saw, so now he smells ’em everywhere, ha ha ha!
It suddenly hit me. Vojtek used to be an explosives expert, a pretty bad one too, I guess. Burned his eyes out with a rocket during the fraternal fireworks to celebrate the Soviet invasion in ’68. That’s when the Soviets took over here in Terezín.
The blind man went on ranting, rattling off his nonsense. I grabbed him, along with everyone else, and held on. Took a slap or two in the face myself. At least it shook the image of Bojek’s head out of my mind.
They sat on top of him, pinned him down. Someone pressed a bottle to his lips.
I climbed out of the pit. Kůs came out after me. He knew I was going and he was glad. He didn’t want any more strife.
Here. Kůs handed me something wrapped in greasy foil.
Meat for the road, he said. And a bottle of red.
Take care.
Take care.
I had barely taken a step before my fingers, more or less healed, were fumbling through my pockets. The key and the Spider, my treasures, they were still there. I jogged across the rubble, slipping between the thistles and the nettles. I knew every blade of grass around here. I walked through Manege Gate, out of town, to the main road, and into the ditch. Not a soul around. I got a move on.
A cop car stops by the milestone.
I crouch right below it, blending in with the nettles.
I don’t move a muscle, taking care the bottle doesn’t clink. Hear a door slam, the radio
crackles, cop gets out, pees in the ditch, the smell of wine, urine, and night. I don’t move. They leave.
The stream of cars is thinning out. I climb up on the road. Morning sun. And I see lights. Prague.
It’s daybreak.
I pull the piece of paper from my pocket with Mr Mára’s address. Just in case. It could come in handy, so I memorize it.
Where is your country anyway? I remember asking Alex.
Between Poland and Russia.
Now I take a step and WELCOME TO PRAGUE, WHERE YOUR LIFE IS GOOD, purrs a talking sign with the city seal. I smash the bottle against it, a few shards fall on the road, the rising sun leans into them, sparkling like it used to on my dad’s medals. That was a long time ago.
7
A rumbling. I open my eyes but I’m not yet awake. Blaring trumpets and the boom-tata-boom of drums. An army parade? First of May? V-Day? Review of troops? I spring to my feet. I want out of this dream. I twitch. Doesn’t work. I hear a blast of sound outside the window … open it, yep, troops parading down the street, far below. Military music, shiny trombones, drum corps, maybe a whole platoon, drums strapped across their chests, just like they’re supposed to be. Next the ranks of infantry, field uniforms and gleaming bayonets. I lean my head against the wall, breathe in, breathe out. The air from outside’s refreshing. I sit back down on the bed. Window, table, hotel room – I’ve been in one of these before.
Now I remember. Prague, me finally there, waving down a taxi, Sara taught me how to do that. Then the airport.
How did it happen?
Country boy scraped by thorns. Aching hands wrapped in rags. Nobody here cares. The airport’s huge, whole hall made of glass, full of light.
Lockers, luggage? There, someone waves.
I walk, squeezing the key Alex gave me tightly in my pocket. And the Spider.
Whoa, a uniform. I’m startled, scared. A minute ago I just ducked a whole row of police.
Brown, reddish hair. Big round eyes. It’s her.
Maruška takes my hand. Smiles. I feel like we’re connected.
She takes the key from me and opens the locker. Pants, jacket, boots, other stuff, just like Alex promised. I walk down the hall with the full plastic bag. She walks behind me. To the toilets.
Get in there and change!
What if somebody comes?
They won’t.
I clean myself up. Stinking of smoke, scratched, achy hands.
There’s a T-shirt in the bag too, dress shirt, all that stuff.
She walks in after me. All of a sudden it’s too much, her scent, the sweetness of her breath. And me in the hole, the fire, the long walk through the ditch. What now? Where am I going? I’ve hardly been anywhere.
She lifts my hands, looks at them closely. Reaches into a satchel she has over her shoulder.
Now she’s washing my hands. No one’s ever done that before. Gently, she spreads ointment on my hands, arms, the burned spots, then wraps them in a clean, dry bandage.
She rolls up my sleeve, gives me an injection. My knees wobble as the needle enters my arm.
She snaps the cuffs around my wrists.
Leave everything to me, she says, leading me down the corridor.
We passed through the checkpoints, I was like a ghost. She had all the papers, documents. I think I slept the whole time on the plane.
My memory of the hotel is also vague. We walked down some corridors. Went up in a lift. No more handcuffs.
And now I’m here alone. Where’s here? And where’s Alex?
I take a look around, run my bandaged palms over the hard walls. The carpet’s a little burned in places. Wrinkles, like somebody dragged something across it.
Bathroom: dirty, hair in the drain, stinks of chemicals. Some tools, tweezers, wires, on the floor, on a chair by the tub. Brown streaks on the curtain. Doesn’t bother me.
The room always smelled clean, though, when I was with Sara.
Ah, who cares. Maybe somebody’s doing business here too.
I go to the window just as the rumbling swallows up the music again. It’s getting closer.
And then it hits me.
I escaped the fortress town, I made it out of the ruins and the fire.
And they can’t get me now, that’s it, it’s over.
Good.
The rumbling’s closer, everything’s shaking.
I peek out again. I’ve never seen a street so wide in all my life, regiments marching past, soldiers swinging their legs.
Now I see, it’s a tank parade, there are tanks behind the infantry. The Terezín parades didn’t have any tanks, it would’ve disturbed the cobblestones, and my dad never took me to see a parade in Prague. I sit back down on the bed and wonder: What happened to Lebo? What happened to the aunts? What happened to the students? What happened to all my people?
The noise of an armoured vehicle comes through the open window, and the wind. A couple of snowflakes land on my face. Maruška walks in.
Get dressed, she says. It’s cold!
Where are we?
Minsk.
We eat in the hotel basement. Maruška’s face is smooth with sleep, her red hair falls across her shoulders. Fish, sausage, eggs, bread. There’s a queue at the table where the food is being served. But Maruška can take as much as she wants without having to wait. Must be the uniform.
There are no windows. Just a few chandeliers. TV in the corner. At the table next to ours some bullnecked guys in loud conversation, a couple of them with tattoos showing through their white polyester shirts, drinking beer, champagne. They speak Russian, or what sounds like it to me. No tourist types here, no families like you see in Terezín. Another table is occupied by young girls. Tall leather boots, shorts. Blouses. Leather vests over bare breasts. Make-up, jewellery. They don’t look like tourists either, they probably work here. They’re stuffing themselves.
You eat caviar? Maruška asks.
I nod. I eat everything.
You want pelmeni, or draniki?
Which one’s better?
Draniki are Belarusian, pelmeni are Russian.
They both taste great and there’s plenty of it. I start to relax.
Hey, Maruška! What was that injection you gave me back in Prague? And, thanks. I hold out my bandaged hands.
Something to calm you down.
She pulls a cloth pouch from her satchel on the chair next to her. Shakes out a blue pill and hands it to me.
What’s this?
Something to pick you up.
She eats one too.
Is that an army uniform? I examine the cloth. Touch her sleeve.
No, she shakes her head.
Are you a cop?
Of course I wanted to join the police or the army. But the bastards wouldn’t take me. This is from the Ministry of Tourism. I studied travel and tourism in Prague. That’s how I know Czech.
Interesting!
Are you still eating?
Yeah.
Hurry up, let’s go.
Where to?
You’ll see.
Will Alex be there?
You’ll see.
She gets up, pushes back her chair. Picks up the satchel, throws it over her shoulder. I follow her, peeking over at the table of girls. They’ve vanished into thin air, gone. Her satchel’s got a red cross on the corner. Aha, a nurse. And Alex is a medic, right, that fits.
We come out on a huge, wide street in front of the hotel. The soldiers have gone now. There’s a light dusting of snow on the pavement.
Not that I’m shaking with cold, but the wind, when it leans into us, is pretty icy. Maruška’s got a coat on over her uniform, green with epaulettes. Tall leather boots, same as me. Her red hair’s tucked under a beret. I’m grateful to Alex. For her, I mean. And also for the clothes he gave me. I wonder if these are his? We’re the same size.
Yep, sweater, jacket, all real nice.
My tracksuit top, hairbrush, the things I had from my aunts – all that got lost in th
e fire. The other stuff I left in the bathroom at the airport.
I never had too many things of my own. Even now I only have one. The Spider. It sits snugly in my trouser pocket. We walk and I feel warm.
This is the Boulevard of Heroes, Maruška says with a sweep of her hand. My eyes slide down its length, I can’t even see the end.
The buildings on this street are decorated with great big colour portraits of officers. They’re huge. Flat caps, medals, epaulettes, the works. Over six stories tall, I counted. My dad would’ve liked it. But I have to laugh.
All the inhabitants of our battered little town, including our cats, dogs, and goats, could easily have fitted inside any one of these buildings. Our whole squat, the Happy Workshop, all of it.
The street is coated in trampled mud, mixed with snow. The tanks have churned it into mush. The music sounds far away now, through the flakes coming down in clumps.
We’re going to visit Mark Isakyevich Kagan, Maruška says.
Whatever, I think. I couldn’t care less. I’m loving strutting around this strange huge city with her.
Maruška?
Mm-hm?
I feel unbelievable!
Want some more? She fishes around in her satchel. We both pop one.
It was a long trip, Maruška says.
So where’re we going?
The Museum.
All right! I can hardly wait!
Don’t scream.
