He stood out in the garden, at his side an old woman … and oh my god, slipped out of me old-fashionedly … the woman was steering him toward a chair … he shuffled along.
See him? She-Dog hissed in my ear.
Yes. But what … what do I do?
You’ll see, said She-Dog. Go on.
Something gave me a nudge from behind … a wing, a breath …
She-Dog, is … is he better? That lady’s steerin him around.
That’s what they do with idiots. Go on! An do it.
I took a step, and then didn’t hear from She-Dog again.
Dogs came charging out, sheepdogs, I stopped in my tracks. A man walked out the door of the … estate. He peered at me suspiciously, but chased off the dogs.
C’mon in! Here fir that icebox?
No sir … Mr. Losín. I … I’m here to see David.
His eyes popped … he dashed inside, I walked into the yard.
David! Buddy, it’s me! … he sat in the chair looking straight ahead, the old woman screamed … the man charged out the door with a rifle.
Step aside, Maw! It’s one a thim gangstirs! Ah’ll kill yew!
She wrenched the rifle out of his hands. No! Came on his own, yew donno why. C’mon in, son. Let David be.
I … stood next to him and when I touched him he was like ice, didn’t notice me at all … his folks were arguing, the old man wanted to shoot me, I remembered how David had told us his dream … exaggerating the dialect to make us vain city hooligans laugh …
I stayed on … and in time I began to lap up their tongue, it was old, but they’d been living out here cut off for so long it had mutated … it was impure, and then I discovered that over the hills and up in the mountains, in all kindsa hovels and tarpaper shacks, the people spoke … Czech … I discovered the tongue was different all over, warped differently, like time here had gone through a grater … I noticed, for one thing, they called the old tree fungus they washed the dishes with detergents, and the plates they called frisbees. That was the underground influence.
After I’d settled in a bit and David’s bros were no longer a threat, one day Abram and Kubik, with much important conspiratorial winking, took me out to the Cave, which belonged to the Holecek estate, and the young Holeceks, with more significant winking and putting of fingers to lips, led me inside … to the underground, as they called it … there were some youngsters there from the settlements, even girls, who darted, squealing, off to the sides, and there was a television.
For a couple hours we watched a movie about the construction of some dam, then was some snow show with ads or somethin, music videos … the youngsters gawked. What else … when evenings they’d bring their gramma down and she’d start in with that singsong voice: … come a ridin in on thir wagguns, lookin fir promises, an nothin … all’s there is out here’s thi Benat firest, thi Benat marshis … an up above thi Benat stirs, an thi olduns set to diggin, diggin an clearin an burnin, an lo an behold: Halob’s balk … an thi lovely, most loveliest, Losins’ field … an Kropacek’s ditch … and their gramma’d go on like that night after night, the young ones knew it all by heart … they didn’t have anything written down … just that old Bible … from the good monks of Kralice* … where old Losin wrote down the names of his sons and daughters as they were born or passed away, as his grampa and his grampa’s father had done before him … it wasn’t till afterwards I realized why they poured my green-onion soup in a plastic bowl with an ad for Coca-Cola on it while they put theirs in earthenware … it was a big rarity, all the boys envied me, the littlest ones couldn’t control themselves … as I finished eating, slowly and ceremoniously like the rest, they’d climb all over me, wriggling around to get the best view … first you’d see the writing on the sides and then the bottle of Coke, I didn’t want to torture them, so I’d start gulping like a dog till the old man would hiss at me and Abram knit his brow … this all came later on, of course, along with many more things.
But first I stood there out in the yard, amid the chicken droppings, somewhere big dogs barking … all sorts of weird sheds and lean-tos, the house, well, from up close it was pretty squalid … and then I saw his thumbs, bandaged thickly and soaking wet … still bleeding … someone whacked me from behind, the boys … next thing I knew, there were four of them on top of me, and that was fine, since they were mostly just scrapping with each other, but the old woman intervened again, shooing them off … my head churned like a horse pit, Černá … out there in the woods, she’d better have strong protection … and sitting down on a wooden bench I felt a prick … She-Dog’s so powerful, what if she harms her, but again I felt the puff of wings and my heart swayed up, relieved … the old woman set down a bowl of soup in front of me … the men and boys, David’s bros, sat along the walls, the old man at the head … praying … and me, dunce, spoon in hand … one of them, the lanky one, glared up at me from his prayer with great hatred … I put down my spoon and quick clasped my hands, totally just like once upon a time … long as the old woman is gonna protect me, I’ll hold out, I thought … and next to me sat David.
He didn’t pray, gulping down the hot stuff … it wasn’t him anymore. Face puffy and white … a gourd, I thought, sweating guiltily, yeah, guess it was us … and we didn’t tell Helena where he was either, we didn’t know, we didn’t watch over our brother … but nobody asked any questions … they just let me be there. The old woman parried their first hateful lunge … and then I guess innate kindheartedness triumphed, I thought at the time … and also curiosity.
What protected me at first maybe … it was totally stupid … but when those two busted into Černá’s flat an Vohřecký tore open my shirt, right after I gave em the nod I’d slipped on some T-shirts, the ones Černá used to appraise with a screwing up of her left eye … in other words I was now draped in a remarkable jumble of cotton, reigned over by some reincarnation of I guess it was Travolta, underneath I had a matching set, SUPER DISCO, for one … all my hamburger-shack loot I’d yanked off the coat rack, plus a jacket of Černá’s she probly got from somebody else, I didn’t ask … and the boys followed me around the yard, I was afraid they were gonna do somethin to me … but they were just checkin me out … at first they wouldn’t let me near David, I tried … assuming She-Dog’d sent me to help him … and perhaps, though it might’ve been blasphemy on my part, to somehow atone for what I’d done … to her.
Where yew from, mistir? One stepped in my way … from Prague … they yelled, grabbed me, and dragged me in to their gramma … she got up and started talkin … I caught some … they thought Prague was going to send out its people to bring them back, all the best people live in Prague, they earnestly declared … big-hearted … rich and happy … an where’m I? I asked Abram, he was obviously the boys’ boss … Banatka, this here’s Banatka all arown, an Vladan Dragač, lord a thi barrow … Barrow? I wasn’t any wiser for asking … then the old man’s sharp voice rang through the yard and the boys’ siesta was over … I watched David walk away … most of the boys were pretty strapping, probly worked their tails off, and even if they didn’t know all the flimflams and treacheries I did, I wouldn’t’ve wanted to offend even the ones goin on fifteen … one of em was a hunchback though, started trailin behind me, yakkin away … I went out back to look in on the boys, it was pretty wild … they were tillin the field, but the way they were tillin, two on the plow, the third one urgin em on an steerin … they had a horse, but only one … what I gathered, he was for Abram, him or Kubik’d go for supplies … the little cripple kept scuttlin after me, tuggin at my jacket … I began to understand … he wanted to see my shirts, went totally nuts for this one heinous thing with the Eiffel Tower an Café Bitch, where I got it from I donno … I gave it to him … he didn’t trust me … put it on right away, it hung down to his knees, he dragged me off … somewhere, granary I guess, scurryin up the steps like a squirrel, flingin his little body around … then he shows me: Pssst! Drags me over behind the sacks, whips out a crate an scrabbles around, then hands me a book like it’s some kina sacrament, an old thing with photos of ancient Egypt, pyramids, camels, I had some acquaintance … then he whips out … a postcard of the Clock, the one in the Pearl, puts em both on the ground, Eiffel shirt in between, slaps the floor, an says: Speak! Not only that, but he said it totally normally … so I settled in on the sacks … Losín, pointing to him, Potok, pointing to myself.