“Prague, you mean? You mean Prague is too well preserved?” the cousin asked.
“Did you know there’s the skeleton of a whale in the National Museum on Wenceslas Square? Don’t ask me what it has to do with the Czech nation’s moral or intellectual values, but imagine you lived inside that skeleton. Every day you would wake up and walk through those ornate halls filled with stuffed marmots, weasels, and hedgehogs that have to be sprayed with naphthalene so they don’t get infested with moths. That’s what Prague is like. Dead and lifeless. Just a bunch of slicked-up carcasses for the tourists to sink their teeth into like hyenas swarming over a hunk of dead meat. Just one great big putrefying tourist attraction. The new bosses don’t give a second thought to the people who actually live there. They don’t even pretend to care about them anymore. Next thing you know they’ll put a glass roof over Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square. It’s only a matter of time. Technically it’s no problem, I could figure it out in three days. Then they’ll seal it off, reserve half for tourists and make the other half into some tacky museum. If you lie down with a museum, you get up with a museum. What else do we expect? We’re getting what we deserve.”
It worried Kryštof to hear his grandpa talk like that. His rambling speeches, leading from nowhere to nowhere, combined with the fact that his ability to play checkers had greatly declined since his stroke, were disturbing. Before he went to the hospital, their victories and defeats had been balanced roughly one-to-one, whereas now his grandpa lost all the time. Not only that, but he had begun using unusual turns of phrase that he previously denounced as imprecise and suitable only for opera librettos, where, as he put it, they had their place. In the past he had always expressed himself in simple, pragmatic terms, speaking clearly and precisely. Now his precision was gone. The one thing that gave Kryštof some reassurance was that in the past few weeks his grandpa had seemed happier and had begun to do a little tidying up at home in Lhotka. Maybe at last he was starting to get a little better.
15. THE CARP LETTER
Dear Sara,
I’ve decided to write you a letter describing my past few days. Yesterday I returned from a course outside of Prague where the bank sent me for several days, and after lugging home my bags full of presents, I decided to go get something to eat. It was freezing out — cracking cold, as they say here, though I’ve yet to figure out what the “cracking” actually means. In any case I’m told it has nothing to do with hitting anyone or anything. That’s just FYI, in case you’re interested, since the Czech we speak at home is a bit different from the Czech they speak here, and seeing as you’re my older sister I thought you might want to know. At any rate, I was on my way to get a bite to eat when I saw some men standing out on the street in leather aprons. I didn’t see any girls or women, so I assume it’s always men, but they had on these long leather aprons, dripping with dirty water. Up until yesterday I thought the locals were quite friendly and rather civilized. At least that’s how they seemed. But the ritual I witnessed yesterday really took me by surprise. It must have been sometime during the night, they lined the street with these big barrels of water with fish inside. They call the barrels “kegs” here, the same as the ones for beer. I don’t think they put fish in their beer, but after yesterday I’m not so sure about anything anymore. What threw me most, though, wasn’t the fact that they had fish in the vats, or that they managed to set them all up in a single day. It’s that they kill them — that’s right, they’re killing them as I write this, right out there in the street, on the corner — right on the spot. The men in the aprons have a set of knives lined up next to them on the table, and a net that looks like a shoddy, oversized snowshoe. Using the net, they scoop the fish out of the water onto the table, and drop a cloth on top of it and hold it down so it can’t slip away. Then they kill the fish with a blow to the neck. Usually it starts flopping around from side to side, since even with its little brain it has a hunch what’s in store. There isn’t any sound at all. It’s completely quiet, except for the water sloshing. I wonder if they would still do the killing out in public if the fish could make noise. If the city was filled with wet, gasping moans and choking and screaming. As it is, the only sound you hear is sloshing water. After the men in aprons deliver the death blow, they hold the fish in place and with a move too quick for me to follow, they slice open its belly and remove the warm, steaming guts. A few times I had a feeling the fish was still alive then, seeing as it was still moving. But when I asked about it, I was assured that by that point the fish are already dead. When they slice open the belly, everything gets covered in blood. Nobody seems in the least bit bothered. Gallbladder, intestines, heart, they throw it all away, along with the rest of the internal organs. I’m sorry I didn’t get too detailed a view of that part, Sara. Even so, I almost threw up several times. I had gone out to get something to eat, but you probably won’t be surprised to hear I didn’t end up getting anything. Actually, that’s an understatement. For two days I couldn’t eat at all, given that I was passing vats full of fish every day. I tried to avoid the execution sites. But then the weather turned cold and puddles of water and fish blood froze on the pavement. After a few days I was finally able to control my gag reflex and I even managed to get a little something down, so I started thinking about it again. I believe this type of behavior is called a custom. I’m no expert, thank God, but I’m fairly sure it can’t be classified as mass hysteria. Number one, it isn’t a group activity. Each person buys his or her fish individually. Number two, nobody shows any signs of heightened emotion. And number three, the locals claim they’ve been engaging in this activity for several hundred years now. I have no way of verifying this, so I remain somewhat skeptical. Nevertheless they enjoy the ritual, and pass it along to their children. It gives them satisfaction and makes them happy. One article I read said some of them take the fish home and put it in their bathtub, so their children can play with it. Then they take the fish, still alive, and set it free in the river. That’s the good news. The bad news is, another article I read said a lot of them take the fish home and kill it themselves. I don’t know whether they don the same ritual clothing: the long leather apron, the tall waterproof boots, and the special cap or hat, which also seems to be part of the professional fish killer’s outfit. My guess is the cap also helps protect them from the cold. I didn’t dare ask my native friends about it, though, since they already suspect that as half-foreigners we don’t share their beliefs, so they tend to be rather careful about what they say when I’m around. Still, they all agree this is the way to celebrate the holiday of peace, joy, and good cheer: Christmas.