Harlequin's Millions (4 page)

He took a bow, stepped back and turned his head upward, in profile, and now it was Mr. Rykr who held forth … There was one lumberyard, three saddlers, all named Holomoucký, four cabinetmakers, nineteen shoemakers and equally as many taprooms, six of them for hard liquor, two buttermakers, two brickmakers, one soap-boiler, two bookbinders, one fisherman in Zálabí, two millers, Karel Radimský and Josef Mlejnek, three locksmiths, one milkmaid, three weavers, one wood turner, two hairdressers, one roofer, two wool dyers, five market vendors, one stove fitter, no less than five dry and fancy goods shops, two flour warehouses, one shop that sold kitchenware, the glazier was named Krása … Mr. Otokar Rykr intoned, clearly, solemnly, filled with emotion, like someone reciting a litany of Mary, the wind had swept the square so clean that the cobblestones gleamed like Mr. Rykr's pomaded hair. Just then, coming out of Mostecká Street, were two huge women, giantesses, Uncle Pepin would have said, as big as Maria Theresa, they walked along, both with dyed blond hair swept into a high ponytail and tied with a long white scarf, their hair stuck up like plumes, as if the women were holding it up with their own hands … they were walking along and complaining bitterly, one of them even appeared to have tears in her eyes, they walked across the square, in front of them ran a little dog that kept turning to look back at them,
but the giantesses kept on walking, both were smoking cigarettes, now and then the wind crumbled tiny sparks off the tips that flew on ahead until they went out. Then we began moving again, we crossed the square and walked through the streets, peered into the windows of the houses, in each one a blue screen beamed, the image on the screen trembled with the movements of the players, you could see the profiles of the people sitting in front of the television, here and there someone stood up, but his silhouette kept on watching, and someone else poured beer from a glass jug without taking his eyes off the screen, so as not to miss a single movement, a single pass. Mr. Kořínek spoke, in a high voice … A hundred years ago in our little town there were twenty pubs, ten bars and thirteen shops that sold beer. But the people also had other means of amusement. Traveling magicians, illusionists and theatrical troupes all came to our little town. On rare occasions there was even a magic lantern show, with painted slides projected on a screen. Later there were moving images, which caused quite a sensation. As early as nineteen-hundred-and-five there was a tent on Na rejdišti where scenes were projected from the Russo-Japanese War, and the audience cheered whenever the Japanese fled from the Russians. These shows always had a narrator, and sometimes musical accompaniment from the enormous horn of a gramophone. The
images were called magical-spiritualistic. On Thursday May the third, eighteen-hundred-and-ninety-eight, one such performance was held in the Pelikán clubhouse by the Prague artist and cinematic pioneer Viktor Ponrepo. On Sunday November the fourth there was a similar performance at Hotel Na Knížecí by mind reader and hypnotist Schobl. By nineteen-hundred-and-eight you had Ponec's traveling cinema on Na rejdišti and Korba's nightclub the Royal Bishop, both had moving images … We walked along the Velký Val, the motionless water shone through the overhanging branches of the old chestnut trees like a black mirror, in which the gas lamps were reflected in a mesh of leaves, we walked past the tall, dismal-looking manor house, past its high walls, through the battered gate a large lantern shone down on piles of scrap metal, piles of discarded refrigerators, radiators, baby carriages, piles of defective radios and television sets. Mr. Václav Kořínek was moved. Above the streets the sounds from all the televisions murmured and mingled, shouts and cheers that blended with the encouraging cries of thirty thousand viewers, their voices murmuring like the sea, like the surf, ebbing and swelling rhythmically, above those waves the voice of the commentator triumphed, emphatic, enthusiastic, sometimes his voice merged with the screams and shouts, which merged with the sound of a military trumpet. Mr. Kořínek continued … When my
grandfather was discharged from the army, he got married and worked as a farmhand in Michle, near Prague. In eighteen-hundred-and-sixty-four he came here on foot with his wife and three young children, whom he transported in a baby carriage, underneath which he had tied a few pots and pans, he came here to work for Zedrich. Here too Grandpa was a farmhand and coachman … spoke Mr. Kořínek, and tapped on the crumbling wall of the manor house, which is now a collection site for scrap metal and old paper. And he went on … They were given a place to live in the servants' quarters, in a large room with one family living in each corner. The stove stood in the middle and they all had to share it. These people had no theater, or magic shows, or any other form of entertainment. There were several of these rooms in the house, one next to the other. The people were contented, for the most part, they didn't know much else outside of their daily grind, and since each of these farmhands was allowed to fatten up one or two hogs a year, slaughtering time was always great fun. And Grandpa always looked forward to the annual veterans' reunion, where they met to discuss their uniforms, which had to be properly soldierlike, with a tunic, starred insignia and a
Federbüsche
, a stiff shako with cocks' feathers. The platoon commanders wore waistbands with long tassels and the chief commanders had sashes across their chest and the whole
troop had its own standard … he said, and we crossed a quiet little bridge and came to the water tower, once again the wind rose and raised clouds of dust and paper and leaves, once again we turned around and walked backward, with our backs to the windstorm blowing in from the streets, and as we walked backward I could see into the window of every house, into the living rooms, the half-dark kitchens, where a blue screen beamed and where all the eyes of the viewers were fixed on the playing field, just like the eyes of the viewers sitting in their living rooms, the extraordinarily important soccer match was still underway, the images moved back and forth, someone stood up in a living room and thrashed his arms around, then sank back down into his chair or onto the sofa or was pulled down by his family, his friends. Walking backward in this way, we made a circle and wound up back at the square, the wind chased the scraps of paper and empty ice-cream wrappers and cardboard cigarette cartons, it drove them on like little paper pin-wheels, in an uneven rhythm. And three chubby girls came running, trotting, out of Mostecká Street, they wore tracksuits, over which they had pulled on a second tracksuit made of clear plastic, and so, wrapped in cellophane, like boxes of chocolates, they came trotting in from the river island, Ostrov, when they ran past us they smelled of fresh air and wind, they were bareheaded and their thick hair dripped with sweat,
that's how fast they were trotting, they panted and the sweat poured down their faces, as if they were in the shower, but they smiled and trotted into Eliška Street, they were delighted to be shedding a few extra pounds, and convinced that only then would they be as happy as girls whose weight was in proportion to their height … Mr. Karel Výborný pointed to the plague column and said … A hundred years ago the police didn't have much to do around here, the occasional drunk, or a brawl in a pub that no longer exists, like the Little Stomper and the Big Stomper, the Heavenly Host, the Bloody Paw, Café Pigskin and so on. Their other duties were to make sure the pubs closed on time, chase away boys who were swimming in forbidden places, especially those who dove off the railing of the wooden bridge that once stood next to the home of the Halíř family. The chief of police at the time was District Manager Šulc, who was always in plainclothes, he wore a black tailcoat, on his head was a majestic black uniform cap with a cockade. He was rarely seen on the streets, with the exception of Mondays and Thursdays, when he opened the weekly market in the square at the appointed hour by shouting, in a powerful voice: You may begin shopping! And at the same moment a police officer would mount a metal flag with the town arms on the railing around the plague column … And once again the wind dropped, the three witnesses to
old times left the square and turned into Mostecká Street, I walked between them, we walked in the road, because there was no traffic, none at all, no cars or motorcycles, my heart pounded with all those stories of things I knew absolutely nothing about, I turned around and only now did I see the real square, I saw there what could no longer be seen, but what my three friends and I did see, those old witnesses to old times, of which I myself was now one. I shivered, imagine if these old men grew angry with me, if I said something to offend them, something that made them hate me, not like me anymore, I wished they could stay here forever, or at least for as long as I did, so they could keep telling me stories about things that had happened long ago, which excited me more than the old Czech legends. So after a while we stopped and stood in the middle of the bridge, from the depths of the river to the lamps rising high above the piers the wind carried the smell of chemicals, of washed pyrite and phenol, which for years had been floating down from somewhere in Chvaletice and turned that beautiful river into an industrial cesspool of brown sludge and its water the color of alder sap, blood-red water you could no longer swim in. Mr. Kořínek, his pale hair billowing around his sharply defined profile, which, as he spoke, was so beautiful that it was as if the old witness were young again, telling his stories made him fifty years younger, this Mr. Kořínek
was looking upward, but at the same time toward the place where the things he was telling us had really happened … Now he pointed across the river, where above the water the lights of a two-story farmhouse glimmered, completely hidden in the black night, and where the lighted windows were reflected vaguely on the water's surface, he pointed and said … There, do you see, from that very spot, where the light has just gone on in the window, the twenty-six-year-old journalist Jan Neruda admired the splendid view, from the garden of the U Fišerky wine bar, of Ostrov, of the majestic Elbe and the roaring dam. Neruda was also pleased and enthusiastic about the pure, unadulterated Czech spoken by our girls … he said, and turned and pointed to the town, the statue of the Virgin Mary towered above the square, lit from below by street lamps … There, just over there, lived the watchmaker František Donát who, on the twenty-third of July eighteen-hundred-and-ninety, for the greater glory of our little town, entered three clocks in the National Jubilee Exhibition … said Mr. Kořínek in a high-pitched voice, and the lights went on in the windows above the river, one window after another gleamed and gleamed again in the mirror of the water, a window flew open in the mill, the figure of a young man appearered in the glare of a lightbulb, he flung his arms wide and shouted: We won! and threw up a rocket that flared briefly and then fell, shattering to pieces,
the colorful shower of sparks in honor of our victory rained down on the river … The first cars passed, an enthusiastic driver rolled down his window and shouted out … We won, four to one! And he flapped his hands and blessed us, Mr. Kořínek nodded his approval and continued … Three splendid clocks, the great drawing-room clock had a pendulum and extra dials showing the months and the days of the week. This clock was eight feet tall, Renaissance style, and worth two hundred Austrian guilders. The second clock had a repeat movement and struck the quarter hour. The third was a restaurant clock with a little red star that sprang out whenever the clock needed rewinding. Mr. Kořínek stopped talking, in Mostecká Street brightly lit windows flew open, on either side of the street people leaned out, shouting and waving their arms, congratulating each other through the air, when we arrived back at the square it was swarming with people, hotel guests who had been watching the match came pouring out of the Na Knížecí, they ran down the steps cheering and shouting to each other as if they themselves had been victorious, and they weren't entirely wrong, because just moments before we'd been walking through the little town where time stood still and hadn't met a soul, but now the streets were filled with young people, some even carrying flags, they chanted slogans in time with their footsteps and waved their flags and headed for
the square, in the streets the lighted windows trembled, in the living rooms and kitchens people were moving about, they stretched their limbs, weary from the excitement of the game … We held on to each other tightly and made our way back to the castle, just as we reached the avenue of old chestnuts a gust of wind hit us in the back, so hard we nearly fell over backward, as if the wind wanted to trip us up from behind, to knock us flat with one stroke of its huge but affectionate paw. Under the first large tree trunks, in the pitch darkness, Mr. Václav Kořínek gathered us around him, suddenly we all joined in an embrace, we stood around an old tree trunk holding each other by the shoulders and as the branches scraped together moaning and groaning in the treetops, Mr. Kořínek said to us … Nowadays figures and statistics are all that count, and people are much better off than in the old days. At the beginning of the century the
Elbe Daily
wrote … The majority of laborers who work out of town have a chunk of bread and a sip of coffee, or a shot of brandy, as their midday meal, because it isn't possible to bring other cooked food from home and only rarely are their wives or children allowed to bring them lunch … so much for the
Elbe Daily
 … Mr. Otokar Rykr added, with a smile … In my youth ladies' hats varied from cartwheel-sized rounds, topped with botanical gardens and bird sanctuaries, to pert little bonnets. Voluminous hats were
held in place by an eight-inch metal pin, often with an elaborate pin-head. The sharp, protruding tips of these hatpins could be extremely dangerous to those in the vicinity, particularly in a crowd, where many a gentleman was poked in the face by the hatpin of his oblivious lady friend. A fierce battle was waged against these dangerous instruments, until finally a police regulation was enacted that required all hatpin tips be covered with a protective sheath … said Mr. Rykr, witness to old times, and he smiled, and one after another we smiled too, as if this memory had made us young again. But the wind rose and blew through the crowns of the old chestnut trees, the dry branches creaked and groaned and then fell to the ground and the dry wood smashed to pieces like black chandeliers against a granite floor …