You, said the horseman. And pointed to Daník. He slowly laid his rifle down and strode forward. No one lamented, they accepted it … like nature, it struck me. I knew … I wasn’t from this world, the old woman had told me, I had a hunch now who she was … it was awful, but I think she had a pact with the Prince … the old man stood there crestfallen, similar to his sons … Daník walked up to the horse and vanished … into the folds of the cloak, and the rider slowly turned around and … rode off.
I snuck into Benjamín’s sailor’s berth an dug out that postcard a his with the Clock … some instinct for self-preservation gave me an idea … Rudolf injected me with some drug an this whole thing is just a dream, I’m ridin in the car with the spooks … but then I’d still have all that to come, no way, I gotta admit, I broke down sobbin right there in the granary …
Hey, mistir! It was Benjamín, pale but holdin up … yew dunno nothin! Lord Vlado, lord a thi barrow, is gunna stick Daník up on a stake, yis he is. But ma bruthirs don go after thi Cermaks an they don git dead, yew know. Just one. Danik, ma bruthir. Lord Vlado is real, real good to us. Lettin us stay here. C’mon, ah’ll show yew sumthin!
Our soup was eaten in peace that night. But I’d made up my mind. Even … the way the boys tilled the field, for instance … takin turns, the old man and Abram kept an eye on that, so whenever one of the boys took the whip too much to his brother, he got it right back the very next day … and whatever one didn’t finish was left for the next, had it all balanced out like scales … and they treated each other great all around … and all those stories their gramma told em … how every balk and forest path and ditch came to be, they had all that firmly inside em and they knew the land they walked on … they’d come into contact with others, apart from the Cermaks, and even with all that hardship … it seemed to me somehow they knew what the universe was, they knew they were alive, and that made em happy … even with all his hootin and hoppin around on those crooked little legs, Benjamín noticed every honeybee … and breathed along with them … what David did with his hands … Benjamín told me he’d never do that, that Davidko was just lost, that’s how he took it, as an exception … and I saw into that awful visit: They didn’t try to please anyone, their life flowed along in orderly fashion … even if they did long for their old land, which they’d dreamed up entirely, including the Pearl … I guess they were happy here. But whenever I brought up girls, I ran into a wall.
Somehow I’d heard the Losin daughters had left … an they weren’t talked about. The bros … every now an then, one of em’d disappear for a time an the others’d go out lookin for him, an when he came back on his own … scowlin … it hit me, the old woman had hinted … they were all related. Chalups, Holeceks, Bendars, Kecliks … everyone that made up this tribe. An one day Kašpar … who, after Kubík, played first fiddle with Abram … left.
That day the old man didn’t show his face outside his settin room. The boys that weren’t workin hung around the yard, bored … an some of em already knew, probly, that they were leavin too … that it was comin to an end there. Cause … bringin in a stranger … nobody here’d ever done that yet. Helena they’d chased out.
It’s up to you, Abram, bring back a girl, c’mon, you wanna protect your bros from the Prince, then show em this, pick up some … chick, an outsider … she’ll be good! … for you … you can teach her your stuff your way, an she’ll teach you too, hey … I told him with the voice of experience. I was two or three years older.
I think he didn’t understand a word. An before supper, before that last bowl of cabbage soup, little Benjamín showed me. Down in the cellar.
He led me down a hallway full of potatoes an cabbage, then we climbed down a ladder an the little guy … showed me a well, the lid was rotten through, Benjamín giggled an made the sign for woman … pretty disgusting at his age, then grabbed his crotch, drew out his face, pale an twisted with scrofula, says: Here Ondráš, ma bruthir, an here Jula … his concubine … Cermacka!
Plainly reveling in the fact that justice had been duly administered … he raised the lid an threw down a woodchip … there were two skeletons down there … plus hair, hair doesn’t rot … in the old well in the chill in the webs, tangled up in each other, plus somethin else, some wire … Ondráš an his Jula, said Benjamín, grinning as he joined the two signs he’d made with his warped little fingers … donno what got into me, I gave him a slap … Benjamín, feelings hurt, sniffled … Maw tol me … said his mom ordered him to show me the family secret, the disgrace of the Losín clan … they’d run away, those two … together, but not far … Benjamín … a plague on both your houses … that’s one tune you donno yet.
Nobody cracked too many jokes around the supper table that night, Daník’s seat was empty … I snuck a peek or two at the old woman, but she just kept refillin my bowl, actin like she always did … everyone kept quiet, but Benjamín was probly right, if they’d gone after the Cermaks, who knows how many more empty chairs there’d be … the Devil, that’s who.
David breathed without a sound, eyes open again … I lay down next to him so we were touching … for the last time I tried, David, pal … you want it … you really want it … if you do, then close your eyes, just gimme a sign, please … but then the candle went out, I couldn’t see beans, licking my thumb I extinguished the wick and said to myself, aright then … leaning over him, I grabbed a pillow and laid it across his face … had to smother him with my whole body … holdin his legs so he couldn’t kick … but it was like he was sucking death in … a minute later it was all over … I laid on my back, waiting for the wings, persuaded that now that I’d done it, She-Dog would take me away … but nothing happened … I just waited.
David was gettin stiff, I reached over to shut his eyes, but then left it … for his bros an dad … shudderin in horror at my deed, I climbed off the stove, she left me here! only she knows why … an then someone knocked on the door.
I had the window open when the old woman walked in. My Davidko, she said softly … I didn’t budge … she had a candle … went to him, then turned to me and said: Let’s go. The words fractured and broken, her voice quivered like the candle flame … I went ahead of her … yeah, it occurred to me to deck her an run for it … but in front of me were two rooms full of heavily breathing sleepers … at any moment I expected the scream that would wake them up, an then what would they do to me … She-Dog, I whispered, I guess I’ll hafta suffer a lot, give a lot for the pain I caused you, but afterwards will I be with you? … I banged into beds, tripped over feet, but the old woman … kept quiet … and the sleepers lay as if under a spell … breathing open-mouthed, in and out, they didn’t even stir … the last one by the door was Benjamín, snoring away too, crutch beneath his bed … here’s Benik, arn’t yew gunna tell im gbye? … she was taking me away! … clumsily I searched myself, flailin my sleeves around, but I managed to get that T-shirt off, the SUPER DISCO one, left it on his pillow … and then we went … the old woman led the way, walkin up the trails … I’d never been up that far with the sheep … she walked both ahead of me and beside me, hard to say … I’d killed this lady’s son … at the top a breeze blew as we walked through the boulders, her thin strong fingers caught me by the elbow, I thought for support, but it was so I wouldn’t stumble … draggin me along … and then we were on a plain, I guess up at the top, and in the distance stood a boulder … I shuddered … a barrow, a burial mound … that’s where she’s takin me, to the stone … lady, no.