Since I was going to negotiate, and into the lion’s den at that, my blade stayed at home. I moved better in the spot around my hip where more often than not my friend weighed me down, but it wasn’t totally me, like I’d suddenly gotten younger. Wouldn’t do me any good anyway. In case of anything. Hope Černá’s not there today, better not be, I sang to myself, wandering along that filthy street that smelled of childhood lindens.
I came to a portal, but the Church of the Martyred Sisters was closed. I didn’t wear a watch, but it was still light. I wanted to pass through saints and angels into a place of Bog. I turned into Station Street toward St. Bruno’s. The bar wasn’t far and I still had plenty of time, so I hung around and observed life a while. You get that hunnerd back to Padevět first thing tomorrow night! a woman in curlers nagged a sulky fellow dumping out the garbage. He made a face up at the second floor and issued a heartfelt threat. The lady vanished. I sympathized, not everyone had to know he owed the guy such disgracefully petty loot. Townspeople walked home from work, stopping off at dives, ladies lugging shopping bags, here and there I even spotted a baby carriage with someone new inside, from time to time a dog passed by. An old lady, basically a crone, clutched her heart, set down her bag, I looked for the nearest phone booth, there weren’t any there, before I could peek around the corner she’d snatched up her bag and chipperly set off again, moving the meat and the bag another piece of life forward. I just let myself drift, happy to pay attention to something besides myself for a while. Hey dylyna,* hey you … three older Gypsies suddenly were standing around me, the meanest-looking one gripped me by the collar, everyone else in hearing range expertly sidestepped. Nah, that’s not him, Fána, uh-uh. Said one, disappointed. Seriously? said Fána, my new enemy. Nah, this one’s got hair, dylyna. It’s not me, really, I rasped. Looked like a slap or two would’ve done Fána some good, guess he didn’t get enough boxing in at the Warehouse today. In the end a sense of justice prevailed in the rot of his scarred soul, Fána let me go, and they trudged off again to see to their affairs, revenge, vanishing from my time. I noticed they had two or three Romany scamps romping ahead of them as feelers. Smart thinkin, I muttered to myself, only it’s not in line with the little entente, it isn’t kosher …
The Church of St. Bruno was closed too, what’s goin on? But there was no one trustworthy around for me to ask.
A college student, I guess, walked by, comely shoulder stooped as she squeezed a tome to her side, I deflected her cool unquestioning gaze and looked: not the Book, but The History of Art beat her hip in time to her stride, she walked like a calm sea, moving up and down, kina like little pedals if you were ridin real, real slow … I stood in front of Černá’s, now in twilight, as the day went out again and the lion’s golden head, the ball of sun, sank unstoppably behind Petřín Hill.
A kid lay flat on his back on the ground, I bent down to the victim … his green mohawk soaked in a puddle, the cheap dye turning it green, like a promo for some movie about the Wild East, maybe Hadraba stuck him out here to attract thrill-seeking tourists. I was careful not to get my hands near his pockets, we know that one, the old police ploy, hah, wallet up the sleeve and on the sleeves go the cuffs, just tryin to help my neighbor, heh, the cop is tickled pink as a prawn, the villain quakes on the ground, and from the heavens sounds the good news of the glorious promotion without any work or prayer. The kid lay there. I quite gently caught hold of his left eyelid and tugged it up to expose the pupil, an oyster without a pearl, like some book about the underworld, youth gone bitter. But unless I was having hallucinations, he was breathing.
It was time to go inside and get my bearings before I came face to face with Hadraba. Halfheartedly I told myself we might be underestimating the danger, and our basic assumption … even if that dumbass was ridin totally without a contract, not even a northern one … why would he make rabid dogs outta us, with all our friends an connections, the guy’s not nuts, he’s a man of business … hitlers musta got revved up an acted on their own … sure, Hadraba’s like the bolsheviks, just wanted to perestroikicize us a little but couldn’t keep the dummies in line, forgot that in their version of freedom, namely dictatorship for everything else that moves, they slip out of control, the way our newly free citizens did when they kicked to pieces the bolshevik’s carefully laid plan, that time in November … when we all filled the squares and loved one another … doubt vibrated lightly through every bone and vein of fear in my wrists … then I remembered the Laosters’ massacred bodies and Helena’s cuts and David’s blood … and last but not least my own, and I made up my mind that if Hadraba really had planned it that way, I’d kill him. Didn’t matter how, I’d find somethin there to dispatch him with. And gripping the door handle, I ever so slightly, and at first a little guilefully, the way you should, summoned up anger … the Laotians and their ruptured stomachs helped, they were my brothers too, this is going to earn me a star in Starry Bog’s thick black book … and anger arrived: head intoxicatingly clear, water rising in the heart, shoulders heavy with frenzied strength, and you feel like having a little dance … running someone over … so I cut it off, trying on the questioning and slightly sharp-edged smile of the brief time between friendship and what comes after, then settled for the mildly tough and somewhat disgustedly bored look with which one enters such establishments, opened the door and was in.
The first room you had to go through was a dank chamber with a single glazed window, a ceiling that dripped, and reeky old rags all over the floor. Behind the bar stood a hulking Northie, I knew him by sight from my frequent visits. This repulsive room, with a couple of broken chairs that looked like the dead had just risen from them, was Hadraba’s flimflam … for deterring normal citizens looking to spend a pleasant night out on the town, bosses proposing to secretaries, mafiosi seeking a quiet box, tuckered-out farm workers crumpling their caps, and similar unwanted guests. He had it all figured out, the signs saying, DITCHDIGGERS KEEP OUT, GO FIND A DIVE, were more or less routine.
Yuck, what a cave, an I wanted dinner, my mom said you do a mean boar here … I gave it a shot. Mirek, like, the boss, like, yeah, said the Northie, was expectin you later, but I’m sposta tell you you’re his special guest an whatever you want’s … the hulk thought hard, scratching his typically thick, long, and greasy northern hair … like, you can drink on the house. Yeah, an like I’m sposta tell you that like Mirek knows all about it an he’s like takin action to make sure everything’s cool. I collapsed, but more out of relief than anything else … if he’s lettin me drink on the house, I guess it means he wants a truce, since he’s a tightwad an he knows I can put it away … Hey, you heard me, so like go on in an we don’t got any food. Huh, I said, startled by the sudden detour. Yeah, you said somethin bout some meat you ate here with your mom. He looked pretty puzzled. I was talkin shit, some stoner’s lyin outside. Yeah, I know, I booted him, guy was fightin. But he’s lyin out there … Hey, what do we care, the hulk said in a Hadraba-like tone of voice, lifting his hands to the sky. Not in the club … not our worry. You goin in? Yeah. How many are there an where’re they waitin? I fired off the bazooka. Hey, like I told ja, Míra’s not in an like you got those drinks … he obviously couldn’t get over the fact that I could get plowed for free … much less that I wasn’t doing it … but my old Iroquois trap didn’t work, and I could only hope that he was really as dumb as he seemed.