I was about to choose from the options when I heard vzhhhh Headline News vzhhhh, and on the Grainy I saw: a fella with a mike … standin in the Dump, on a purple heap, couple people behind him, dazzling jackets, but Dump faces, drifters … and the guy said into the camera … garbage monster … killing … bloodshed … tellin how they’d finally made it in and how a couple TV crews had gone down fake trails and were never heard from again … briefly they showed what was left of Vulture’s pack … Titiana dug her nails into my shoulder … the man on TV said the police were in pursuit of the deviant killer, they showed the food pits veiled with flies, even found a skeleton in there … I should hope so, I said … a woman’s skeleton, the reporter announced, pointing to it … he said Bohemian supermarkets were in the process of building an oven system to burn expired food products and leftovers, and that technology subsidies were needed, on that the newsman agreed with the chairman of the Food Product Trust … once this food ceases to exist, so will these people, the chairman said, and they flashed a picture of a kid that looked like Stick … the doozy and reassuring thing was that the police were hot on the killer’s trail … that made me burst out laughing … you’re jolly, said Titiana, but still, you’re all pale … an didn’t you used to wear your hair long, she inquired mournfully … yeah … well, next to them, darlin, you’d look pale as an angel … know that one?
That gave me a little chill, yeah, I know it, I said … an who’re you?
Guesser guesser guess away, said Titiana, parting her ruby-red lips to reveal her dainty teeth … so which option will it be? she asked … here you are, fella, sittin here with everyone else like it’s nothin, like nothin’s goin on at all … scuse me, I said, and I entered the restroom, opened the window, yanked out the screen, and crawled out, hauling myself up on the wall … she stood in the street looking me in the eye … I locked myself in a stall … chattering my teeth. I saw white.
And then … I think I didn’t have a body, I was inside a barracks, wood, fences and stakes, bunks, and on them people. Some in rags. Through the windows, which were bare, I saw the sky, medieval clouds, driven by the wind, apart from that no other movement.
Halflight. Opposite me a figure cloaked in black. I saw a field, I was looking through barbwire. Aright, I mumbled to myself with the tongue that remained to me, aright, me too. I was starting to see … I saw faces around me, if I’d had a body I would’ve frozen, opposite me was Viška … my enemy, I thought, and I heard: She wanted it, it’s obvious … that look, hey, I don’t make mistakes, I’m a man … I heard coming from Viška, sitting there, gaze fixed … somewhere else, maybe inward, I’m hearin his thoughts, it hit me … the little slut, I mean the way she looked at me, there’s no way … yeah, yeah, she was grateful to me for gettin her outta there, maybe I should Ve held off … but that time in the cellar, she offered herself, I could tell … she seduced me, I can’t be wrong … and I loved her, I did … pulled her panties down herself, wouldn’t’ve done that if she was afraid … but maybe I shoulda been firm … and then, then I couldn’t hold back anymore. But I shouldn’t’ve beat her. She told on me. And later … she was all grown up, but she still belonged to me … she couldna been serious about that chump, that hooligan … I gave her a choice, I loved her. And what I turned into, she did that. It was like I was obsessed. But I don’t regret a thing.
This came out of Viška at me, a constantly altering stream … but I don’t believe a word, the goon … he’s deceived himself, the truth’s gotta be different … hers.
And then I heard: Back then, when we crossed the water. Yeah, Morales told me how it goes. That time by the fire … and I saw Vohřecký, and it came from him too, a stream of speech … I felt good there, standin guard by the fire at night, how many times did I wish it could last forever … everyone else asleep an me keepin watch with my weapon, the only one awake … that’s life, that means somethin … came out of Vohřecký … that was where I realized what I wanted to do an who I wanted to be, an one day Morales came, an that was an honor … he was somebody, an he says to me: Hey, amigo, you know how it goes on the Congo? Took a cigarette from me and lit it off a twig, cupped it in his hand, we kept to the side, off in the shadows, cause a the freedom fighters … but he was there with me, an he says: Scorpion’s sittin on the bank of the Congo, river’s flooded, bridges’re all swept away, an he says to the hippopotamus, hey, pal, I gotta get to the other side, there’s this chick I got over there … how bout a lift? But the hippopotamus knew him … not you, lovebug … you’re poisonous, you’ll sting me, you’re wicked … c’mon, that’s nuts, the scorpion says, if I sting you I drown too, right? It’s only logical … so the hippo thinks it over a minute, gives the nod, the scorpion climbs on his back, an the hippo goes swimmin off into the muddy waters … he’s swimmin along, the scorpion starts laughin … an when they get to the middle … the scorpion stings him with all his might, fucks him fulla poison … are you insane, says the hippo, I mean you promised … sorry, pal, the scorpion says … but that’s how it goes on the Congo.
An Morales was right … that’s how it goes, that’s the way it is, it’s cruel, I know … came to me out of Vohřecký … an I got it, an that’s how I was from then on, even after they killed him … I don’t regret a thing that happened. Just those people over there … some of em suffered a lot, we had to do it … an as long as I’m here, God … here … then it’s true … even this is true …
Hi, Potok. Said the figure in black, couldn’t see the face, but the voice I recognized an felt joy.
I knew I’d run into you, we never did get a chance to talk …
Not about that, said Bohler.
I was ashamed the whole time.
An I hated you, he said.
I really like her, the little one too.
You of all people. Maybe it’s good. But you better not hurt her.
We’ve got a contract.
Baloney, with a girl, what contract? Either you’re with her or you’re not.
I kept my mouth shut. Just like that time. When they pulled that trick with the soap on him. Some dumb young con in the showers, soap in his eyes, bends over to wash himself, two guys grab him, an the third rams it in. An when they broke somebody that way, they’d usually toss him around a pretty long time. As long as they felt like it.
Didn’t happen to me. I had practice in speech from all sortsa environments … an soon me an the German shepherds were conversin, me an the dylinas, somehow it worked, soon I had it all scoped out, even the corners, an then the mop an bucket was child’s play, I knew my way around, all those boiler rooms an warehouses an factories from before, in my youth, that did the trick, it’s always the same … but Bohler, straight outta seminary, with his vocabulary an those ministrant moves of his … they ate that shit up … an what was I sposta do? Get myself beat up, killed? Those guys were psychopaths … we were just psychopaths of freedom … foolish kids among cannibals … I stood by the wall, shower running, and they brutalized him. Maybe I should’ve scalded them with the water or whatever … but then it woulda been my turn … wet wedding, they called it, initiation, cable installation, kaolin mine, the old prisoners had lotsa names for it … it wasn’t a question of just one fight, the thing was you hadda hang on there … I didn’t know … maybe years, an I wanted to survive. One joker called it the shower of happiness … monsters. For them it was normal.