The Drowning Of A Goldfish (7 page)

A goldfish suffocates when removed from its crystal globe.

I look towards the windows. The darkness is dense, the universe squeezed into this tight and sticky kitchen for the bourgeois' use.

He eats, therefore he is.

I abhor, therefore I am.

We are sitting at the table. It's 10:00 and they are talking.

One drinks a glass of slivowitz. They drink a glass of slivowitz.

One clinks glasses. They clink glasses. To health. To success. To their success. To my defeat.

One goes to bed. The bed is huge, spongy, suffocating. The eiderdown is as heavy as cast iron.

At my side, Rudolf is starting to snore. The food was saturating, the booze was excellent. His day was well spent.

Every quarter of an hour, a cuckoo comes out of the clock, filling my sleepless night with its mocking voice.

Rudolf's snoring is multiplied by the deafening rasp of his father and the hissing respiration of his stepmother.

Country life has a thousand voices; none of them is mine.

In solitary night vigil, I pierce the darkness with my sightless eyes. At the bottom of my throat, my heart throbs in alarm.

Under the faded sky, mad dogs are howling at the moon.

In the morning we go to pay a visit of respect to the grave of Rudolf's mother. Every window squints at us with eager, suspicious eyes.

Did Velenský's son make a good catch? Did he marry according to his social standing? Has he got an heiress? Is she beautiful? The verdict is made in a second. If this ugly duckling has not got a fortune, the long years of Rudolf's studies were wasted. They are dead sure to be right. Would an heiress walk around hatless, furless, skinny, ungroomed, without high heels? A rich woman is soft, white, plump, and dignified.

I am treading along beside Rudolf, my head low, feeling miserable and lost.

The cemetery is small and rural and surrounds a church of curvy baroque style. Not a peaceful place to rest, it reflects all the village's rivalries, jealousies, and grudges. The rich keep their place in the sun, lying in dry, light sand. The poor rot amidst moistness and mildew. Rudolf's mother is buried in an opulent marble tomb, her husband's future dwelling.

Velenský's second wife, a widow herself, will retire, in all decency, to her former husband, under a modest stone sepulcher.

The bourgeois mold is solid as a rock.

Rudolf's mother had the name and the virtues of the famous Virgin. Tender and obedient, she adapted to her husband's will as quietly as leaves to wind. To encourage her sweet behavior, the cop whipped her with the crop used to chastise the children and the dog.

The German shepherd revolted against it, destroyed the crop, buried the rod, and paid for it with his life. Being untamable, he was shot dead by the cop.

Mary died of cancer.

She had concealed her rotting cheek beneath a shawl, using the other to smile. The family should be spared her disgrace. She was scared that her disease would be known. Later on, who would marry a girl with a cancerous mother?!

She worked right up to her last breath, cooking for the family, caring for the chickens and tending the garden.

One day, she died in silence.

The widower wailed, expressing his distress with long, drawn moans. The burial was an imposing drama. Four strong men were needed to prevent him from jumping into the open grave of his beloved wife.

From then on, Velenský never stopped lamenting. The disloyalty of his deceased wife, who had retired herself from duty, was the eternal subject of his complaint.

He was betrayed! His reputation had suffered! He had been tricked into marrying a disease-ridden woman, a mere cripple! And this had happened to him! TO HIM! an honest man, with nothing to hide! He had been dishonored! Slandered, stripped of his honor!

How could he now face his children? Had he not failed them with such a mother? Had he not endangered their success in society? What a debilitating wound he had inflicted upon them! A father with no sense of decency; would they ever forgive him?! Must he fall under the burden of his guilt?!

All that I know about Mary is from a photo, taken on her wedding day, where a young girl with an angelic face floats in uninhibited admiration, looking up towards the man who, in his grandness and generosity, consented to marry her, the daughter of simple country folks, unworthy of the honor of becoming Mrs. Cop.

Velenský, solemn in his rigorously buttoned uniform, is perched above her. In order to reach up above his wife, a head taller than himself, the cop mounted a footstool, from where he is staring at the public with a satisfied sneer on his waxy face.

This photo is all that has remained of Mary. Her son, a passionate photographer, never found his mother a subject worthy of his art.

“I regret it with all my heart. Can you imagine the joy of this poor woman if I had asked her to pose for me?” he told me one day.

With Rudolf's photos, you pose.

You are standing still; you take a position with a flattering angle; you are smiling; you are saying “cheese,” your mouth half-open; your breasts up and pointing towards the spectator; your hair just done; your bare shoulders luring … Rudolf's females know how to market their charms.

Rudolf is a collector. He still keeps them all—the photos of the village sweethearts, of the darlings from his dancing classes, of the bathing beauties from the pool, of the nymphs from the ponds, of the mermaids at the beaches, pasted meticulously and methodically on the pages of gold-rimmed albums.

The dreams of Rudolf have the body of a slut.

We place the bouquet of plastic flowers on Mary's tomb.

The forest is full of blooming snowdrops, of branches of fir trees, of mistletoe, and of soft, green moss.

The deceased wife of a retired cop deserves “something better.”

“And what would the people say?! One has the means. One can afford an expensive, everlasting bouquet which will still look nice in summer!

“Everyone has to see that you are willing to spend some money in memory of your saintly mother, Rudolf,” says the cop.

We are standing in front of Mary's tomb.

Rudolf, his head piously lowered, his face somber, gives a heavy sigh. Two meager tears appear between his silky eyelashes and trickle down across his lovely cheeks.

What a pity that his mother does not live now, when he would love this saintly woman so much, when he would care for her, return her devotion a thousand times.

“All would change,” babbles Rudolf, making the sign of the cross on the marble tomb.

It is noon. His conscience is at peace; his stomach rumbles.

We leave the cemetery to go home.

The retired cop enters. His second wife hastily appears, cackling like a startled hen. She helps him take off his coat, brings him a stool to sit down. He sticks his boot between her thighs; she pulls with all her might, the boot comes off and she falls hard on her bottom.

The cop's face lightens up and he chokes with glee. What fun!

The wife stifles a painful cry, rubs her bruised buttocks, and laughs heartily.

Good women often laugh.

After the putsch of 1948, Mary's brother, a farmer neither rich nor poor, had the foresight to become a member of the Communist Party, which rewarded him with a promotion to the head of the Velen farming cooperative.

With time, his son succeeded him. As in every oligarchy, the communist one is hereditary.

Thus, the retired cop Velenský got another piece of the cake. The cooperative would come to turn the soil of his garden, to sow the field behind his house with grain, and to harvest it later.

Did Velenský need to fertilize his ground? Nothing simpler than that. During the night, sacks would appear on his porch; he only had to spread it.

Did he need wood for winter? The cooperative's chain saw would be at his disposal.

In order to fill his cellar with potatoes, he would only have to nod.

In short, his in-laws were useful people with whom it was advisable to stay on good terms. Hence, their invitation to lunch had to be accepted.

Their farm is at the other end of the village. Leaving the cemetery, we turn down a narrow lane, bordered by tall, barren poplar trees. We pass the school, a low-slung, gray, prison-like building. In front of it some dirty ducks float in the black spittle of a village pond.

The deserted stables are all that is left of the old farm. The animals were transferred to the cooperative.

The farmhouse is in a sad state. The plaster is crumbling, exposing bare bricks. The coating and painting must wait for better times.

We enter the farmhouse. The corridor is dark and I hit against a washing machine, suppressing a cry of pain.

The passage is obstructed by a variety of disparate objects. They store them there until they learn how to use them. You have to spend your money somehow and this seems to be their sole purpose for the time being.

The in-laws notice us and hurry to meet us. I am being inspected, weighed, found to be frail.

At the table, I am being stuffed. They are kind, and feeling pity for me, they encourage me to eat.

If I stay with them, I shall “fatten up like a sparrow after the harvest,” they promise me.

“City people don't know how to eat properly … But then, they don't have the means,” they add, tapping me generously on my back to show that, in spite of my thinness, I am all right.

They chat. Life is flashing by. One works, one eats, one gets married. Babies are born, the old die. Eternity is being sliced for human use.

“If Mary were here, she would be so pleased to see her son a doctor … and married, they add after a moment's hesitation, so as not to make me sad.

I respond to their kindness with bravery: I chew and swallow while my stomach protests, threatening to reject the pasty, thick, excessive meal.

Their generosity crushes me. It is without limits, like the food which swells in my throat and chokes me.

An iron stove, placed in a corner, blasts a suffocating heat. My cheeks are on fire and my skin tightens and twitches with dryness.

We leave as the daylight fades. The dullness of the sky is melting into colorless land; the ground is wavering and trembling beneath my feet. I reach back to grab the railing. A wave of sour acid spurts out of my mouth as I contract and shake. My body refuses all this food. They will never fatten me. I would like to throw up my heart along with their meal.

Rudolf is looking around disgustedly. Let nobody see me. Let him be the only witness to my disgrace and to his shame!

I lift my head and try to smile. The corners of my mouth are vibrating in spasms.

Rudolf stares at me. I smile.

I am at his mercy.

Upon our arrival back in Prague, I learn that my application to enter the university has been refused. This fact, periodically repeated, has started to lose its shrillness. We also learn that Rudolf has just been assigned to Ûstí nad Labem, a town some hundred and twenty kilometres away, where he shall patiently wait until a position opens in Prague.

Rudolf seems to be pleased. All his fellow students have been scattered across the country to remote provincial holes, practicing general medicine in mines, in factories, and in the cooperatives of Moravia and Slovakia. He himself will stay within an arm's reach of the capital and will, for a whole year, attend advanced training in a renowned hospital in order to become a specialist.

Ûstí nad Labem is a town with a violent past. At this moment, it is being rebuilt for the third time in the twentieth century.

Until 1939, it was a town with two ethnic populations, one Czech, the other German. During the Nazi occupation, the Czechs were driven out. After 1945, the same thing happened to the Germans.

Rudolf will be leaving the following day for Ûstí. Father will escort me there in two weeks' time.

The train is entering a dirty, deserted station. Between its rusted tracks, clumps of dusty weeds shiver under macerated newspapers.

The roof of the station, ripped open, lets in the wind and rain.

Doctor Faustus, riding a fire-bomb, abandoned forever this wasted land.

Rudolf awaits me on the platform. At ease, master of himself and others, his eyes are green and hard beneath a soft gray felt hat.

Father delivers me to my husband and walks away in long strides. I watch him disappear. The carriage swallows him as the train whistles and moves off towards Prague.

Rudolf takes my suitcase and heads towards the exit. He does not speak. Everything was said before the wedding.

The large square is empty. Nothing moves except the light as it glides along the façades without touching them.

O Kurosawa! Let your samurai, with his just sword, take me from this city of the dead!

A raucous cry cuts the silence and fades away. A staggering drunk beats against the wall of the town.

The streetcar rattles with age. The wooden seat, hard and flaky, pokes me with its bony fingers.

We roll along the main street. Its fixed immobility is as rigid as an iron bar, ready to strike.

We climb a hill. On both sides, toothless houses carry the souvenirs of war with the total detachment of a dropout.

Rudolf takes my suitcase and we get off.

I am struck by the beauty of the house, surrounded by a large garden. It is a villa of the Belle Epoque style; noble in its form, harmonious in its embellishments.

On its façade, women with glorious bodies stretch out their arms, offering the dazzled visitor garlands of gorgeous flowers.

The two levels carry the crown of turrets with a suave grace. The windows tenderly blend the décor of luxurious fruit with the ivy, gliding gracefully alongside the walls.

Positioned against an emerald hillside, softly rising up from behind, the villa has the immaculate grandeur of a perfect beauty. Time floats around it without touching its perfection. The villa mellows and does not grow old.

The undulating garden overflows with cunning artifacts: trees are sculpted into rounded shapes; boxwood hedges with hard, gleaming leaves, mark pathways to rockeries, scattered with crooked grottoes, in which baroque statues hide their flawless charms.