“A few days later I sent my brother to see the old man and ask what he had meant by his words and what I should do. I wanted him to explain everything in plain and simple terms. I was just an ordinary businessman, not a scholar like him. The answer came back: ‘Give up the things you love most.’ After a few days of denial, rage, and considerable annoyance, I sent my best, most spirited stallion to the director of the city orphanage to sell to help pay for the children’s food and clothes. He sold it at the market for a large loss; I was seized with such rage when I found out that I went straight over to see him. As I stepped into the room where he sat hunched over the orphanage’s hopeless accounts, ready to upbraid him for losing at least a third of the thoroughbred’s actual worth, we were suddenly interrupted by two children, a boy and his sister whose scarf he had taken and refused to give back. For some reason I had the feeling I knew them from somewhere. The girl begged her brother at first, then tried to take it back by force. But he was at least a head taller, and standing on his tiptoes he waved the scarf above his head, well out of her reach. The director chided them both, snatched the faded scarf from the boy, returned it to his sister, pushed them out the door into the yard, and turned to me: ‘Do you know those children? Years ago supposedly their oldest brother rode with you on a trade expedition. They say he died somewhere in the mountains. Their parents passed away prematurely, and they didn’t have anyone else except their older brother, who did what he could to provide for them, but he died on your expedition through the mountains, leaving them orphans.’ My head suddenly started to spin, and when I came to on the bench, the director was gripping me by the shoulders. Those children were the brother and sister of my servant, the one who had tried to rob me and whom I had shot without hesitation. The director was talking to me, but I couldn’t hear a word he said, I just saw his mouth moving and the puzzled look in his eyes. I came back to my senses only when he held a cup of tea to my lips. I walked out and the next day I donated funds for him to expand the shelter. Another few days later, I went back to the director and inquired as to whether it might be possible for me to adopt these children, the brother and sister of the man I had killed. His face lit up and he said clearly the gossip he had heard about me was wrong. It wasn’t true my soul was as hard as stone. When I saw the way his feelings were reflected on his face, with every flicker of his soul visible, I was amazed he hadn’t sold the thoroughbred for even less. I had the children officially declared as my own, and since they were older than the ones my wife had given birth to, they were assured by law of receiving the largest share of my property in the event that Azrael changed his mind and decided to let me die someday. Later, my wife told me there had been nights when I cried out in my sleep, screaming words she had never heard me speak, such as guilt and shame, and begging for forgiveness. I still remember some of those dreams, as harsh as God’s justice, whose care crushes us as we crush olives in a wooden press to make oil. A few months later, I heard one of my assistants in the carpet warehouse say to another: ‘Our master has really gone downhill the past few weeks. He got old all of a sudden.’ They never did find out why I gave them a week off and paid the dowry of one of their daughters.
“That day I went back to see my wife’s uncle. But the house was abandoned and the old man was gone. The neighbors said he had gone off to buy sacred manuscripts near the border with Armenia. When I told my wife, she said she went to cook and clean for him every now and then, and that he had left a letter for us with the neighbors. The calligraphy was more beautiful than any I have ever seen since. In it, my wife’s uncle, who still addressed her as ‘my little one,’ wished us both a good life and said that he had heard my fate, like a river, had returned to its original course. Then, as is the wont of old people, he spent forever reminiscing about the days when he was young and my wife and the other children played in his room. The days when he was still full of pride and daring enough to draw back the curtain concealing God’s intentions. But now, he said, he understood that our fate was even for him an invitation to step into the unknown.
“As testified to by this story of mine, I too recently found myself remembering moments in my youth, which is something only old and sick people do. That’s me now, old and sick, just waiting for Azrael to escort me on my way. I suspect his visit will coincide with the ripening of the olives, and I hope there will be time still for me to complete this year’s harvest.”
Dr. Lukavský had taken down a few notes while listening to the story, and the next day he went to the library and compared a few different versions of the stories from The Thousand and One Nights. He began with the table of contents. Then he looked in the index. Finally, he looked through the story titles, and even read some of them. But he couldn’t find the pastry chef’s story anywhere. After more than an hour he realized he had to give up the search since it was time for his afternoon appointments. I must have overlooked it, he concluded. It must be from here. But amid the crush of other work, he was unable to devote any further attention to verifying the sources of the pastry chef’s lively imagination.
9. EROTIC GAMES
When they took Josef away on suspicion of subversion, Alice was exactly three months and four days old. Květa didn’t know what to do or where to go, she just had a feeling she had to do something, and fast. It felt as if speed was the most important thing, as if charging recklessly forward, like spring shoots bursting forth from the earth, offered some sort of hope. She took the baby and went to her mother’s. But the moment Květa saw her mother standing there, old and uncomprehending, she realized that it wasn’t only Josef she had to worry about, but her mother as well. Changing her granddaughter’s diapers, she began to look settled and peaceful again. Květa explained to her that three men had shown up at their door, ordering Josef to collect his identification papers and come with them. They wouldn’t even let her touch him, and when she disobeyed and tried to hug him good-bye, one of the men stepped in between them and put his hands firmly on his hips. It was the first time Květa had ever encountered fear. Her arguments, pleas, and explanations fell on deaf ears. Making the whole thing even harder was that it wasn’t at all clear what to argue against, what to plead, or what to explain. All her efforts seemed to be completely ineffective. They took him away, just like that. She was surprised at how calm and restrained her husband was. Almost as if he wanted to go, to be with them. As if there were some kind of secret bond between them. As if … And then they took him away. And he was out of her sight. She ran down the stairs with them, in spite of his quick and unexpectedly firm shake of the head to signal his disapproval, as though he knew something she didn’t. But then when she got to the front door of the building, she heard her child scream, and the sound of her daughter’s vocal cords stamped her heart or soul or brain with resolute sobriety. Her daughter’s cry was a cry of pain and, now also, longing for Josef. Longing like a guest, bold, brash, and sober, who has registered, pulled out his credentials and slapped them down on the reception counter, the trump in a game lost in advance, and doesn’t mind in the slightest that the previous guest hasn’t packed yet, left, and returned the keys, isn’t put off one bit that the sheets haven’t been changed. Longing just soberly and matter-of-factly watched as the three men led Josef away, knowing he was to replace Josef and stand in for him. Her daughter’s cry made Květa run back up the stairs, lift her into her arms, and part the curtains so she could see out the window to where the car with her husband was parked. But they were all gone. Afterward, her mother tried to reassure her, saying it had been five years since the war now, things had finally settled down, they were all Czechs after all, nothing could happen as long as a person was honest and decent and hardworking, what could they possibly do to him?