Whenever he thought about the successful birth of his son and his completely insignificant role in it, the role of every man, he plunged into an insecurity that gradually turned to irritation. Sometimes he would go pay a visit to Father František, who had performed their wedding ceremony and who, drawing from either the depths of the earth or his own soul, had created his own version of Catholicism, with which he sought to offer support to Maximilian, although in fact he had so far succeeded only in driving him away from the Church. In those godless days of communism, Father František believed that strictness of faith and rigor of the soul were what were needed to preserve tradition. It was now evident that the current pope had been mistaken in trying to bring the beauteous Christ to unbelievers cloaked in the garments of consumerism and an ill-defined freedom. Certainly life in Bohemia, the most atheistic nation the Earth still tolerated on its surface, had proven this to be true. The only result of the benevolent Father František’s mercilessly long speeches was that Maximilian felt utterly and entirely alone. Alice’s father had moved away to the cottage in Lhotka, and her mother had gone off to live with her distant aunt Anna, who was old and lonesome, and took an exceptional interest in the young family, though she sometimes mixed up Alice’s and Maximilian’s names with the names of other people, living and dead, a small oversight that did nothing to take away from her love. After Kryštof was born, Alice’s father invited them to come stay with him at the cottage. “For the air,” he said, proceeding to spew the names of chemicals and their values in various units. “They’ve measured it all in Prague,” he said, “but it’s secret, top secret, so don’t tell anyone. Unless they do something about it,” he added, “we’re all going to croak like animals, either that or we’re going to mutate into some totally different species.” He never revealed the source of his information on the purity of the water, air, and food supply.
Every now and then they would go and visit him at the cottage. They were a strange family, Maximilian thought. Josef, Alice’s father and the grandfather of their son, had suddenly up and moved out to the cottage just before their marriage, and came into Prague only on holidays, when he was sure he wouldn’t run into his wife, Květa, Alice’s mother and Kryštof’s grandmother. Usually Alice spent most of her time at the cottage weeding the flower beds and doing her father’s laundry. It took a while for Maximilian to realize that was probably the real reason for their visits. He would load his son in the carriage, wheeling him around Lhotka and the edges of the vast forest. When it was warm, he would plant himself on a bench under the trees outside the pub, sipping beer and rocking the baby in his carriage.
One afternoon the voices on the other side of the widespread chestnut tree he was sitting beneath were louder than usual. An older woman with gray hair tucked tightly under a scarf was quarreling with an old man.
“I saw them, Mr. Hořejší. I saw them with my own eyes.”
“What did you see, Růženka? What?”
“The snakes. Huge monsters, thick as my thigh.”
“Your thigh, hmm? And how many years ago?”
“It’s been almost thirty years now,” said another voice.
“Well, I’m telling you, Mr. Hořejší. There were two of them: two big snakes hanging out of the tree, and the bigger one was as thick around as my thigh.”
“You still have nice legs, though. Give me a look, why don’t you, huh?” the old man said, trying to lift the woman’s skirt with his cane.
“Oh, give it a rest, Mr. Hořejší, will you? God knows where that cane has been.”
Maximilian started paying closer attention.
“Well, apparently the things crawled out of that private zoo they had up there at the castle in town. See, when the Americans advanced, the Germans started shooting at them from the hill overlooking the river, and the greenhouses and the zoo and all that were on the other side, where the scrap metal place is now, so when the Americans threw a grenade or whatever it was back at the Germans, it hit the zoo and the animals escaped and scattered all over the woods. A year later my husband, rest his soul, said he saw a great big porcupine, and the priest from the next village, before they locked him up, said he saw monkeys. I’m telling you, that’s what happened!”
“Růženka, please. People say all sorts of things. You know the saying: Talk is cheap!”
“Well, if you don’t believe me, then don’t ask.” Suddenly the woman turned and marched straight up to Maximilian.
“You,” she said. “Yes, you. You’re a Černý, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I mean yes,” Maximilian said. “He’s my father-in-law.”
“So ask Mr. Černý, the engineer, whether it’s true. He saw them too. He saw them.”
“What did he see?” Maximilian asked.
“Oh, forget it,” she said, turning to the old man with the cane and a few other elderly men who had gathered around to listen. “That’s ’cause you’re not from around here. That’s ’cause all of you came after forty-five.”
“Now, Růženka, don’t go dragging that into this,” the man with the cane shouted.
“Ask Černý, he saw the monkeys running all over the woods after they escaped from the zoo. It was a regular menagerie! I’m telling you.”
“Aaah, so what did you say your name was?” the man with the cane asked Maximilian.
“Maximilian.”
“And the little fella’s Kryštof, right?”
“Yeah, that’s our son. But how did you know his name?”
“Everyone knows everything about everyone around here. But make sure you ask that father-in-law of yours, the engineer. You ask if he saw them. If he saw those monkeys.”
“All right,” said Maximilian. “I’ll ask.”
The woman meanwhile waved good-bye to the man with the cane and walked off with a jug of beer.
“You tell me,” said the man, striking his cane on the ground to emphasize each syllable. “You tell me how tropical animals like that could survive the cold. No, sir. They don’t have any winter down there in Africa and Australia. Am I right? And what would they eat, besides?”
“Leaves, Mr. Hořejší! Leaves!” shouted the woman with the jug, who had stopped at the gate to the garden restaurant, hearing the man’s remark.
Maximilian didn’t get a chance to ask his father-in-law that day, but that night he had a dream about being lost in a zoo, so the next day he made a point of inquiring into the matter.
“I saw them. I saw several animals,” said Maximilian’s father-in-law. “The Germans were retreating, the Americans were advancing, and one or the other of them blew the place to smithereens and the animals escaped. That’s war, you know? Until one winter after the war, I don’t remember which year anymore, but it was bitter cold, and all the animals were dying. The priest that was serving there, Růžička or something, I think he was called, but originally he had a German name, he gave a really nice sermon about how it was like living in the Garden of Eden. Paradise and all that. Like we were in paradise and we didn’t even realize it. He saw the animals, too. I think it was just before the coup, or was it after? I can’t remember now. But I’ll tell you more some other time.”