Harlequin's Millions (20 page)

day and rode off from all corners of the little town into the countryside, those country girls were even more tastefully dressed than city girls, but what struck me most was that the children were always nibbling on ice-cream cones, or slices of salami, while in the good old days a simple roll was considered a delicacy, oh I know, there's no comparison between the rolls you get nowadays and what we had in those days, I know, frankfurters these days don't compare with frankfurters back then, but nowadays everyone has what they want and in those days things were different, there were some people who had no money for such treats, and I happen to know that when country women sold butter at the market, they bought margarine for their own families and rolls for the children, but the children I'd seen today, and it's probably the same all over the world, or at least the world that Francin and I still hoped to see someday with the quarter of a million crowns in our savings account, those children are much better off than they used to be, children nowadays, they all have dresses and accessories chosen specially for them by their mothers and relatives, I also noticed that children these days didn't cry the way they used to, that time certainly hadn't stood still in this little town for the people I'd seen streaming back and forth across the square and down the streets and avenues, boarding the buses, that their time was now, that the only time that
had stood still was the time when I was happy, nearly all my friends and acquaintances had gone to that great promenade in the sky … Where is our distinguised poet Jan z Wojkowicz, the man who healed young girls by the laying-on of hands? Where is the musical minister, who gave such comfort to the mourners around the coffin that they went home smiling? Where is that paunchy waiter Procházka, who always had to be careful not to trip over his saber? Where is the horticulturalist and excellent dancer Vinca Tekl, who dozed off while drinking a beer in Hotel Na Knížecí and never woke up? And where is that gallant butcher and former wrestler Vejvoda? The high priest of the unbelievers, Mr. Rajman? Sexton Podhora, who was so dangerously fond of altar boys? Whatever happened to the mystical shoemaker Homola? The fireman Tonda Staněk, who was so proud of his uniform and who not only put out fires but also knew the best way to subdue his own blazing thirst? And speedy Mr. Rychlík and his sister, where did they end up, those two, who could outwalk every pedestrian for miles around? In what possible heaven is Pepin Jůra, who slit calves' throats and believed he was doing God's work? Through what crematorium chimney did the spirit of Oskar Rohr flee, who lost his mind as a result of too much education? Where is Mr. Brabec, the locomotive engineer who was always pulling out his watch and comparing the time
to what he heard over the radio? Where has Mr. Štěpán Mušák gone, that hotheaded young hospital inspector with the fluttering mane? And, if he's still alive, what is he painting now, my great dancing partner and handsome friend, the painter Hanuš Bohman? Who for forty years led funeral processions as director of a funeral parlor? And who am I, whom people once called Andula, like the beautiful actress Andula Sedláčková? I know, I'm a witness to old times too … Where have all my neighbors gone, where are the groups of jobless men who once hung around the brewery in the freezing cold, in the hope that Francin would hire them to transport ice, to chop blocks of ice out of the river and lake and load them onto farm wagons? As we were walking back through the little town, to the retirement home, I saw Francin ogling the young women the way he always did, they were just girls really, whom none could divest of their youthful charm, jean-clad nymphs who looked like mermaids … But Francin, like me, was still living in the little town of the past, he lived in the memory of the time when he was younger, when he was manager of the brewery and decided which barley should be bought for malting, he decided from which company to buy bales of hop, he decided how you could improve beer sales and which publican to hire for a new pub, he'd then become the new pub's official tax adviser, and that was why he was respected and
revered, and he never dreamt that this was exactly why the new owners would accuse him of being the capitalists' henchman and an advocate of anonymous partnership. By the time we arrived at the gate it was dark, in the porter's lodge crazy Mr. Berka sat watching a soap opera, from time to time he'd turn off the sound and add his own soundtrack by replacing it with the taped voices of jazz singers, but the words to the songs were completely at odds with what was happening on the screen, and Mr. Berka was enjoying every minute of it, he was amazed at how well he managed to combine the voices on his tapes with the television images. And in fact, as I watched him through the window, while Francin, still preoccupied, went up to his room to turn on the news from around the world and continue grieving over the fact that his vision of lasting world peace was postponed from one day to the next, that's when I saw that Mr. Berka wasn't really so crazy after all. One Sunday, when Smetana's opera
Libuše
was being shown on television, Mr. Berka, who wasn't guarding the gate that day, had suddenly turned off the sound, on the screen the legendary prophetess Libuše, surrounded by her lady friends and dressed in old Slavic robes, was combing her hair and when the other women began speaking to her, Mr. Berka switched on his tape recorder, it took him several moments to find the right place on the tape, but then a song with guitar
accompaniment rang out through the dining hall and the Elderberries, those three lovely ladies from Prague, sang … Seen my ad in the classified? Keep on reading, you might be the one I might be needing … All the pensioners who were watching the television broadcast of
Libuše
that Sunday were alarmed at first, but the longer they watched the more they began to enjoy it, the way Mr. Berka was playing around with his tapes, with the sound of the television turned off. When Chrudoš aired his grievances to Libuše, who had to cast judgment, Mr. Berka wound the tape forward and a moment later Chrudoš's theatrical gestures were accompanied by the voice of Pavel Bobek … Rock ‘n' roll, I gave you the best days of my life, all those summer mornings, all the most beautiful days … And a few minutes later when Libuše pronounced her wise verdict on the television screen in the feud between Chrudoš and his brother over a plot of land, Mr. Berka wound the tape forward, announced the name of the singer Věra Špinarová and a moment later her voice floated through the castle dining hall … Oh yes sir, I can boogie, but I need a certain song, I can boogie, boogie woogie, all night long … And the pensioners who sat watching were completely captivated by all this new magnificence, they had seen
Libuše
many times before, but never a
Libuše
like this … And then came the scene in which messengers were sent to get farmer Přemysl and bring
him back as Libuše's future bridegroom, this was accompanied by the voice of Waldemar Matuška … The journey west is long … and Přemysl answered the messengers with a mournful tune, sung by Karel Zich … My life is unlucky, my steps are hollow … I'm followed by a shadow … and then the dance orchestras accompanied and complemented the sequence of television images so perfectly that when Přemysl was standing before Libuše, Mr. Berka quickly wound the tape forward, adjusted the volume and on the screen Přemysl raised his hand and on the tape Milan Chladil sang … Oh I gaze at your white veil, you finally have what you've been dreaming of, whoever could've known that you, my darling, would marry me and be my love … and Libuše answered him with a song, sung with great feeling by Eva Pilarová … Will you take me as I am, although you know I'm only an illusion, if you take me as I am, I'll be truer than true … And when Libuše reached out her hand onscreen to Přemysl and gazed deeply into his eyes … Mr. Berka quickly turned over the tape and I heard the duet I'd always loved, the sad, beautiful voices of Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, who sang that wistful love song together … While I give to you and you give to me … True love, true love … But then the dining hall door flew open and in stormed the head nurse and she turned the knob and the screen went black, she threw her hands in the air and thundered at Mr.
Berka … You never know when to stop, do you? Do you want to be sent home? And Mr. Berka meekly picked up his tapes and left, and all of us who had seen his
Libuše
thought it was a shame, for the next half hour we sat there arguing, argued about which song Mr. Berka would have used for the scene where Libuše prophesizes the founding of Prague. I started moving again and the sensitive Mr. Berka yanked the plug out of the wall, he clicked on a flashlight and came running out in confusion, shining the light in my face … What is it, what do you want? I said … Mr. Berka, I can't sleep thinking about it, that time you livened up
Libuše
with your tapes … Livened up
Libuše
? What're you talking about? asked Mr. Berka, terrified. I said … Mr. Berka, the
Libuše
that was shown on television that Sunday, when the nurse came in and ruined everything, what other tapes did you have ready? Mr. Berka was overjoyed … Oh, that
Libuše
! Yes, I really should play it for you again … I've now got a new tape all ready for Přemysl, when he comes riding up to Libuše, he starts singing to her … Hello, Dolly, well hello, Dolly, it's so nice to have you back where you belong … The way Mr. Armstrong sings it … You're lookin' swell, Dolly, I can tell, Dolly, You're still … Hello? I'd staggered slightly, I was suddenly dazzled by this information, Mr. Berka took advantage of this and whispered in my ear … And when Přemysl and Libuše are on TV again, I'll turn off
the sound and play the best song I've ever recorded, at full blast … Save your kisses for me, kisses for me, baby, bye-bye … and then those little-girlish voices … I luv you!… right? I'll go there and you'll come here … ha ha!… I looove yooou!… cried and sang the enthusiastic Mr. Berka, and just then Francin came back down the path, the news was over, he walked with such difficulty that it was as if he were carrying his own tombstone on his shoulder, the news today, as always, was even worse than yesterday, everlasting peace was forever being relegated to somewhere back in the good-for-nothing old days … Mr. Berka shined his flashlight on Francin and ran around him in circles crying with horror … What have you done with that beautiful cap? Did you leave it lying somewhere? Lord, what I wouldn't give to have worn that famous cap! Tell me, my friends, where has it gone?

        I
WALK SLOWLY DOWN THE CASTLE LANE, OLD WOMEN
are feeding the birds, they empty or crumble bread and rolls into feeders that look like the rediffusion boxes, the titmice, sparrows, warblers are practically eating from their hands, now I'm standing in front of a large bulletin board strewn with hundreds of thumbtacks pinned to schedules of movies playing in the little town, there's also an old death notice, I'll post Uncle Pepin's death notice here too, he died early this morning. The thumbtacks with the latest messages are brand new, but people have undoubtedly been tacking messages to this bulletin board for more than ten years, many of the thumbtacks are rusted through, yet each of them still holds a bit of moldering paper in place, because no one ever bothers to pull out the old thumbtacks, everyone who
comes here with a notice in his hand tears down the old piece of paper, the old death notice, and, in its place or directly beside it, tacks up what he considers his civil duty, that is, to draw other people's attention to new movie schedules, lectures, death notices and so on. So here I stand looking at the bulletin board and wondering where to pin Uncle's death notice, in a little while the men from the funeral home will be coming with the coffin to take him away, I try pulling out a rain-rusted thumbtack with my fingernail, but it's no use, the scrap of paper acts as a kind of clamp, which is why the thumbtacks are stuck so tightly, like all those thumbtacks from last year, some may be only a few years old, but they're still impossible to remove, the scrap of paper is moldy, yellowed or completely brown, I see that some of the old thumbtacks have lost their little caps, only their sharp points are sticking out, I run my hand over the bulletin board and it feels like one of those cylinders with sharp pins, those revolving cylinders from an old music box built into a painting, my aunt had one just like it, the music box played a religious song, or like the raised dots that help you read if you're blind. Yes, yes, tomorrow I'll post that death notice here too … Lost in thought I walked back to the courtyard and down the footpaths to the Count's greenhouse, which is now the mortuary. Uncle Pepin lay stretched out on a gurney, a metal table with wheels, he was still wrapped in a sheet, under
the taut linen I could see the outline of his head and feet, the four corners of the sheet were knotted firmly over his stomach, and when I had given a nod to his mortal remains, I suddenly had an idea and tapped Uncle on the forehead and listened carefully. And then I heard coughing behind me, once again I rapped on the forehead of the corpse and listened even more carefully. Come in! said human voices behind me, and when I turned around, there they stood, the three witnesses to old times, they bowed politely, they were wearing their Sunday best and beaming with some great happiness. They were holding up their notebooks the way singers in a choir hold up their scores, Mr. Václav Kořínek beat time with his finger and then burst into song … In the little town where time stood still, there was singing and music making, in pubs and clubhouses … But the most important event for these music enthusiasts … was their performance at High Mass … Among the first violins is the amateur actor Červinka, who always plays out of tune … the second violins give the pitch to choirmaster Vraný … Šnora is hunting for his bow … Cyrus tunes his viola … Votava tootles a few notes on his clarinet … Dlabač the Useless polishes his flute with a handkerchief … Fajtl, Holub and Stůj assemble their French horns … Tavík adjusts the pegs on his bass … in the choir Mr. Dlabač the Baron chats pleasantly with the singers Márinka, Bertička and Fanynka … 
Rubinger is last to arrive, in his raglan, he'd stopped for a bite to eat at Café U Fišerů … today the dead are also among them … the tenor Slabihoudek and the bass Vágner … At a given sign the organ blower Mareška puts her foot down on the pedal of the bellows and the mass begins with a solo on the kettledrums, which Krása beats with great bravado … the organist, schoolteacher Lhota, slowly pushes in the stops of the organ … and improvises, pianissimo, a prelude on his favorite song … Think it over, Mařenka, think it over … This was told to me by old Mr. Špoutil, the fellow who used to own a stationer's in the former apothecary shop … Mr. Václav Kořínek finished singing and the scent of a sweet love song drifted through the greenhouse. I glanced around and the three old witnesses smiled, looked me in the eye and suddenly they seemed much younger, as they always did, come to think of it, when they reminisced about long-ago events to which they alone held the key. Mr. Karel Výborný went and stood at Uncle Pepin's head, bowed, opened his notebook and gazed up at the ceiling of the glass mortuary, the panes of glass had been painted dark blue and Mr. Karel Výborný lectured … On the banks of Ostrov, where the weir ended, stood a little shack, where in salmon-run season the watchman from the salmon fishery would spend the night … The shack was connected to the taut net by a wire with a little bell on the end of
it, and when a salmon leapt over the wire and landed in the net … the weight of its own body tugged at the wire … and the little bell rang in the shack … Mr. Karel Výborný paused and listened, and in the mortuary there was the tinkling of a little bell, more and more joined in until a whole chorus of bells in every pitch rang out in the former castle greenhouse, which had now become a gigantic aquarium into which huge fish were plunging diagonally down from the sky, thousands of sparkling salmon, even in the air they could see to their horror that their journey upstream had come to an end, their eyes saw the nets and with each new leap the death bells tolled for their blissful swim against the current, upriver to somewhere in the north, to clean water, to the game of love. I stuck my fingers in my ears, but Mr. Karel Výborný went on directing other schools of salmon as they plunged into invisible nets, then brought down his hand, and there was a great silence and Mr. Výborný resumed his lecture … The salmon swims upstream until he reaches a high floodgate, he swims back a bit, then rushes forward and leaps … Some salmon were true record breakers, they could leap right over a taut net … And I raised my eyes and above me happy salmon were flying through the air, adorned with water droplets that glistened in the sunlight … I sighed with them, and was happy, blissfully happy about their love, which drove them upstream in search of
new floodgates, just as there were obstacles to be overcome with every love. But Mr. Karel Výborný grabbed me by the elbow and squeezed so hard that I screamed with pain. Then he bowed again to the corpse and continued … Under the mill wheel … someone had placed a creel … a large crate full of holes … fish that were carried along by the current and were caught in the creel … these fish were tossed back into the Elbe … but during the eel runs the creel was full in no time, you could make a handsome profit … Cried Mr. Karel Výborný and my hand flew to my throat, the former castle greenhouse had turned into a stinking crate full of holes and slippery fish and eels fell down from above in a gush of water and landed with a thud on the mortuary floor, I was up to my knees in the wriggling fish, I could feel their tails thrashing against me, their fins, I could feel them ripping my stockings with their sharp gill covers, I screamed with horror and disgust, but when I looked at the three witnesses to old times, they were smiling, all three wore pale blue suits and orange neckties, as if they were standing on the promenade waiting for the spa orchestra to begin. The elegant Mr. Otokar Rykr now stepped forward, bowed to the dead man, and I saw in my great confusion that Mr. Rykr had a number on his back, a green number pinned to the back of his jacket with large safety pins … And Mr. Rykr sang in his tenor voice, while pinching his throat gently with
the fingers of his right hand … In the old days the little town where time stood still was extremely popular among long-distance runners … They would often run more than twenty laps around the square … their jesterlike running gear was embellished with glittering trinkets and jingling bells … the long-distance runners used to challenge onlookers to a race, for money … Mr. Otokar Rykr pointed to the wall and I saw that on the other side of the glass young men were running past in long johns, their running was a kind of almost-falling, they ran so fast their fingers nearly skimmed the cobblestones below them, but at that breakneck speed they never touched the ground, they jumped around like monkeys and shouted to me as they ran by, signaled to me with their arms to come running with them, but Mr. Otokar Rykr signaled to them with his walking stick, and the long-distance runners disappeared. And the witness to old times cried in a loud voice, as if he were arguing with someone and now made an assertion to prove himself right … A true, bona fide sportsman in the little town where time stood still was the railroad engineer Karel Palme … he was originally from Upper Austria … even as far back as the summer of eighteen-hundred-and-eighty-five he was riding a high-wheeler … figure skating … skiing … his first skiing attempt drew a crowd of curious, envious onlookers who wanted to get a glimpse of this singular sport … at the
age of forty he died of tuberculosis … In about the year eighteen-hundred-and-ninety-two the first cyclists began appearing in the streets of the little town … In those days bicycles were called velocipedes, or boneshakers … they had narrow rubber tires … said Mr. Otokar Rykr, waving his green walking stick, and all along the footpaths of the castle park, on the other side of the greenhouse, bearded men were climbing onto their saddles, a whole swarm, a group of men in jodhpurs, striped shirts and caps with cockades, they tried to overtake one another, waved their arms around, shoved each other aside, skidded and went flying into the air and into the bushes, they fell on their backs and rolled over and over just like in a nightmare, when the sleeper gets all tangled up in his sheets, one cyclist even shot off the road and catapulted into the air, he clung to his handlebars, the bicycle soared through the air as the cyclist tried to kick it out from under him, but the two of them, man and machine, went crashing into the glass wall, the glass was smashed to pieces, but Mr. Otokar Rykr raised his green walking stick and the man and his bicycle and even the fragments of glass from the mortuary wall froze in midair, as if they had turned into a poster for a sporting event … Mr. Karel Výborný straightened his necktie, the time had come for him to kneel down next to Uncle, who lay somewhere under the sheet and, right where his ear would be, sing blissfully … 
My father would send me down to the cellar for wine … I got a hank of sturdy rope … covered it with beeswax … a pair of candles and two boxes of matches, for it's black as night in those underground corridors … Mr. Výborný stopped singing and turned around, Mr. Rykr signaled with his green walking stick and kneeled down next to Mr. Výborný and Mr. Kořínek leaned in toward them, the three witnesses pressed their heads together and sang in three-part harmony … It's black as night in those underground corridors … they sang sweetly and smiled sweetly, then stepped back again as Mr. Výborný went on crooning in the dead man's ear … In the cellar I tied the rope around a beer keg and set out on my journey … a lit candle in my hand and around my neck the coil of rope, which slowly unwound … through countless corridors leading in all directions … dark and dusty rooms, intact or in ruins … huge rats that in the light of the candle were the size of cats … with the help of the unwinding rope I reached the spot under the plague column with the statue of the Virgin Mary in the town square … I'd nearly reached Dočekal's restaurant … when all at once I saw something lying on the ground, it looked like a spur from a riding boot … when I bent down to get a better look my candle went out, just like that … as if someone had blown it out … Mr. Karel Výborný was now chanting and he turned to me and something in his eyes told me that
to this very day, this witness to old times still hadn't returned from underground, from those underground corridors of the little town where time stood still. I cried … But why are you singing for Uncle, who's already dead? And the three witnesses to old times formed a little group, each placed an arm around the shoulder of the man beside him, as if they wanted to have themselves photographed in the old days, they smiled at the camera that wasn't in the greenhouse, with unblinking eyes they tried to put on their best smile and looked me in the eye as if I were the camera. I gave a scream … I'm scared, scared! And the three witnesses answered in chorus … When we were alive, we were scared too … they said, and reached out their hands to me, hands that ended in eyes filled with longing … and they shuffled backward out of the greenhouse. I ran quickly out the open door, at the bend in the path I slipped in the sand, but got up again and ran into the vestibule, where the two old women were sitting in their wheelchairs, they sat there sternly, their arms on the armrests, they sat there like sphinxes. I gathered my nerve and asked … Did three gentlemen just pass by here? The three gentlemen who always go walking with me, the three witnesses to old times? Wearing blue suits and orange neckties? The old women hadn't moved, their profiles were like the fixed profiles of birds in flight. Now they just shook their heads. I said … How long have
you been sitting here? One of the old women raised her hand and pointed, since two o'clock. You mean they really didn't come by? I threw up my hands. “Harlequin's Millions” tumbled from the rediffusion boxes and wrapped its threads around my fingers, “Harlequin's Millions,” in which the voice of the violin was now like a beautifully time-worn but honest reproach. I hurried down to the gatehouse, there sat Mr. Berka, he looked at me absently, he looked but didn't see, I had to wave my hand up and down in front of his eyes like a fan. Finally he came around, blinked twice and asked … Are you looking for someone, Madame? Who have you come to visit? I said … Mr. Berka, you must still be asleep, I was here yesterday, don't you remember, and you wanted that seaman's cap … Please, I whimpered. But Mr. Berka asked, surprised … What cap, and who are you? I said … Mr. Berka, for God's sake, I'm always walking around with three witnesses to old times, didn't you see them leave the gate on their way into town? But Mr. Berka only grew more and more confused … What witnesses, what are you talking about, I think I'd know if … What're their names? And I told him, patiently, the names of the three witnesses, then wrote down the names for him, the names of the three gentlemen, my dearest friends here, on a piece of paper. Mr. Berka picked up the phone, he called the main office, it took a long time, and when he had put down