Harlequin's Millions (18 page)

frantically to him to get out of there, they were about to start firing the cannons, Francin gathered his nerve and jumped out of the truck, he opened the hood and went back to get a screwdriver and a wrench, then removed the carburetor, and when he had taken out the float and blown through the jet, he saw the lieutenant, who was listening to his field telephone and then with a sweep of his hand damned Francin to hell, the lieutenant looked at his watch, raised his arm, several of the artillerists stopped their ears, and then the lieutenant gave the command and the first salvo was fired, and Francin watched as the side rails were torn off the White and all the bottles of soda and seltzer went flying to pieces in the ditch, the blast also ripped off the hood, with Francin on top, and he flew over the ripening fields as if he were sitting on an elephant's ear, flying through the air like Mr. Jirout, a maltster, in his younger years, when he was shot out of a cannon at the local fairs, and when the air grew still again Francin landed on the edge of the farthest ditch, still holding the carburetor and showered with broken glass. And with the force of the second salvo the White spun halfway around and the remaining crates were flung out and the torn-off side rails came flying by … and with each blast in honor of the unveiling of the memorial stone for the famous general the truck was lifted off the ground and turned halfway around, like a wretched little mouse being teased
by a cat's paw … Francin would tell me enthusiastically that between blasts from the ceremonial cannons he poked his head out of the ditch and looked around, trembling, to see what had happened to Uncle Pepin. Finally he caught sight of him in a patch of blackthorn and rosehip bushes, he was sitting there in his car seat in those springy bushes and with every solemn boom of celebratory artillery fire Uncle Pepin rocked back and forth in the branches as if he were being rocked to sleep in an old-fashioned wicker baby carriage. When the cannons had finished firing, the lieutenant came running over and when he saw to his relief that Francin had only a rip in his pants and a torn eyebrow and that Uncle Pepin had been rocking all that time in the arms of the bushes, he gave an order, soldiers came running up and carried Uncle Pepin away, he was still in a sitting position, and Francin told me later, roaring with laughter, that his brother had looked just like that monument to a certain Czech writer … But the White had taken such a beating that the soldiers loaded it onto an artillery tractor and carted it off to the town square, and when they'd unloaded it onto the pavement the whole thing collapsed, with a tremendous roar, like a mortally wounded prehistoric monster … I said to myself, smiling, how nice it was to look back years later on an event that had been so threatening you'd had to be careful you didn't get killed, how nice to have witnessed
something so terrible, something everyone was afraid of, but that still, after a while, when you'd gotten over it, in the end you were glad to have seen and experienced events you'd had to pay for with your own self, by becoming submissive, softhearted … I was so infatuated with those sandstone statues in the castle park that it was two months before I noticed that the statues of May and June had cement breasts, a bit of cement at the elbow, cement-patched bellies and a cement eye. The cement looked so different from the sandstone, the cement eyes and breasts were so lifeless that they would certainly catch the eye of anyone who saw them. But I had been so excited by the charm of those nude statues, by their sweetness, which flowed from their hair to the nails on their bare feet, that I'd never noticed the cement repairs. And then it occurred to me that the statues' wounds must have been there for a reason, and I asked the old castle gardener, an elderly pensioner, about it and he told me there had been a time, perhaps during the war, when this castle was a cadet school, and when the cadets graduated from this military academy and became officers, they got drunk and shot off the military pistols they'd received that day along with their new uniforms, they fired them in the castle garden and wounded a few of the statues. Said the old gardener, laughing … But before they turned the castle into a retirement home, it was a boarding school, young boys were
trained here as bricklayers and as part of their final exam they had to replace with cement all the bits of the statues that had been shot off by the officers. At first I was shocked, but later on the statues seemed even more beautiful to me than before, I experienced it tangibly, as if it had happened to me, as if I'd been standing on one of those plinths and those young officers had fired at my naked body, when I walked past the statues, I could actually feel those young bricklayers replacing with cement everything that had been shattered by bullets from the military pistols … What is life? Everything that once was, everything an old person thinks back on and tells you stories about, everything that no longer matters and is gone for good. And still! Once again I went walking around the pleasure park, the Count's park, and all those wounded sandstone beauties looked suddenly more beautiful than they could ever have looked to Count Špork and his friends, for the first time I noticed not only the beautiful female bodies, but also the objects they were holding that went along with the statues, a churn that July was leaning against, she was busily churning butter, I could hear the pounding of the butter being churned, like the sound of a lovers' bed, I saw a rose in sandstone hair, roses pouring from sandstone hands, a bouquet of roses shooting out of the basket like a geyser, touching the thigh of a naked beauty whose limbs smelled of butter and roses … For the first
time I saw the statue of May in her entirety, one hand resting on the horn of a young goat, the other holding a wooden bowl from which she scatters grain for the chicks hatching out of the eggshells at her feet, while the happy mother hen protects her little family with her wings, the statue of May with the cemented breasts, which the apprentice bricklayers had copied from
Playboy
 … Today for the first time I saw that the sandstone statue of April has one hand resting on an upright spade, while the other caresses a tall bush of ripening lemons, the top of the bush grazes the bare sandstone breasts, which look exactly like the lemons, young officers had shot an eye out of this statue too and several of the lemons had been hit, but I could still see that the statue of the young beauty was even more beautiful with those injuries, like the antique statues that fishermen dredge out of the sea, statues with no arms … Yes, now I could see that all the other statues must've had these same small breasts, not much larger than a boy's, the only statue that hadn't been wounded was February, a dancing statue with a dress clinging to her body, a wet drapery, a dancing Carnival statue carrying a bread basket filled with kolacky and candies, her knee is touching a keg of wine and a tankard, and she's surrounded by the same kind of chickens and ducks grilled on a spit that I used to offer my guests at the brewery at Carnival time, when I was a young woman
filled with rhythm and dance, a woman with small breasts that no one had ever shot at with a military pistol … I noticed that the statues of the months that had been depicted in sandstone as men, that no one had shot at them, the officers were lured only by beautiful women, which was probably as it should be … And for the first time the Count's garden appeared to me in its entirety, two rows of months, then two sphinxes opposite each other, their claws clutching their sandstone plinths as they crouched there guarding the lane, then two sandstone lionesses, tame as watchdogs, and then the stairs to the castle, on the left a heavenly cupid offering a mirror that reflected the moon and a star, on the right another cherub reflecting a beaming sun in an oval platter, and then on the last step two statues, to the left the statue of a woman in a pleated gown, and for the first time I saw that this statue was smiling the broad smile of a woman in love, while at her feet stood a cupid with a quiver full of arrows, with one chubby hand he lifted the hem of her gown and with the other hand pointed to the statue's belly, this winged cherub turned to me and there was something obscene in his grin, because probably every cupid knows that love is supreme … And standing across from this statue was a nearly naked man, one hand resting on a bow and the other drawing an arrow from the quiver on his back, yes, that too was as it should be, a man is young as long as he
can still wound women with his arrows … I stood there enchanted by the knowledge that I had unraveled the mystery of all the statues, in their entirety … on the left the statue of Spring, her profile suffused with an amorous glow, a rose on her forehead, roses in her hair, roses around lap and breasts, around hips, roses arranged in such a way as to accentuate the nakedness of her spring body … and next to her the statue of Summer, ears of wheat in the hair of the naked woman, a sheaf of wheat at her thigh, wheat ears between her fingers, in her other hand a sickle with which she plucks the ears in the wheat field, ears of immortal wheat symbolizing the infinitude that is constantly being revived by the present … and on the other side of the terrace the statues of two men, Autumn, holding an enormous cluster of sandstone grapes against the sky, he crushes the grapes with his other hand, the juice drips into a seashell, which is made of glass, and a cupid, a heavenly sandstone cherub, gulps it down … and then finally the statue of an old man, Winter, which completes the cycle of man and nature and most resembles everything that surrounds me here in the retirement home, once Count Špork's castle, where today I've seen all the sandstone phases that I and the others have lived through, and it makes me regret that when I was young, I forgot about love, which had slipped through my fingers before I knew it … But then, isn't that what life is?

        O
N 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 at 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