Feeling jilted was a lot of it, both boys and girls got a slap in the face from the world too soon, and too soon they saw that the map was blacked out … and only the stupidest humor worked anymore … it was part of their development and they lived in bugged flats … and our conferences were gloomy till Čáp came up with his teaching on ants, but I already said that … and the sun came up in the morning, pretty much every day, and from time to time history gave somebody an idea or a seizure. And out came the Fiery and the day survived on its own.
Good old tribalism … only … I mentioned circling in the cage, frenzy and victims. Anyone who leaps through windows pays for himself, for his demons. It’s easier, though, to catch yourself a cat, a stray dog, a baby swallow, someone quiet and mute, a slave without any rights. Someone who it hurts and who isn’t gonna talk.
Every little kid knows all this, steal his scooter so he gets his bearings early on, so it’s obvious right away; it’s a war of good versus evil, went the word among us.
The gastarbeiters came like manna from heaven in the last years of the old time.
Even the simplest citizens found something to relish in their massive influx.
Hatred threw open its discharge valves and went far into the new time. And Jícha had a job and remained on the scene along with the hatred.
And I tell myself: Everything’s obvious and always has been. I get it all, understand it all, listen with sympathy. Look at myself. I’d do some kicking too. It’s best to get the devil down on the ground and finish him off with your boots.
Jícha also had a knack for recounting his dubious experiences and occasional wheelings and dealings in a pretty entertaining way. Even squeezed some cash out of it now and then. But the old horrors paled with time, the new stories lacked strength and listeners, and his stock plunged irreversibly. Most of the gastarbeiters either left Bohemia or fled to desirable states. What’s more, killing was an everyday thing in the new time and people got tired of Jícha’s reports. He grew glummer and glummer. Just when he realized he could finally write whatever he wanted but nobody cared, the paper dumped him. He got bored with traveling, so he’d put a bomb in the office to give himself something to write about. It went downhill from there. I’d heard he even began writing poems again. But meanwhile the high-school girls had turned old and gruff and lived their own poetry now. The new high-school girls didn’t even read. And Jícha wasn’t interested in teachers. Now and then and more out of habit than anything else, some pal of his in the press still put in a word of praise for him. After all Jícha could get pretty hostile, and the Pearl’s a small place. And the culture section addresses are listed in the front of every dream book. So at least the scrawnier critics were careful. Through some error Jícha even scooped up a few literary prizes. No one knew what for, least of all him. He hung around editorial offices, living off crumbs. Invented dead poets for radio shows. Word got out, and had he been at the zenith of his underground glory they would’ve let it go, but as it was they booted him down the stairs. I’d heard he vanished from the Pearl for a time. Didn’t matter to me, I didn’t exactly miss having him around.
Great to have you back, Hadraba said in Jícha’s direction.
Yeah, haven’t seen you in ages … where you been? I inquired politely.
Faugh! went Spider, I hadn’t noticed him come in.
Guy had a grant! he added with envy.
Yep, Jícha nodded. Went out into the world a literat. And returned a literat and a globetrotter, he proclaimed in a deep voice.
Spider shuffled his feet.
Yep, my friends, dear pack, I returned because it dawned hard on me, Jícha continued. But that’s not what my story’s about.
Hadraba comfortably stretched his legs. Spider clambered over the sack with the corpse and nestled into a chair. Jícha stretched out his back, shut his eyes, and started swaying in place from side to side. I knew what was coming.
Every group in those days used a different storytelling technique to solidify the community. I guess due to my congenital diffidence, I failed to sufficiently highlight the fact that as the Grainy began to cast its flickering glances from the bowels of all sortsa dead eyes on a variety of talking heads, we, the believers and the epicures, were returning to three-dimensional storytellers and actors.
We preferred to let conversation take shape directly before our eyes and purely by means of the pertinent organs, totally like the old times, when life was lived in mud huts and lean-tos. That living speech made for less chill in our rooms. The chill on the inside remained, and if you weren’t satisfied you could deck the three-dimensional being in front of you. Shyness made one stingy with praise.
Jícha, perhaps due to his soul’s violent twistedness, employed the forest method of Kaa the Snake, who all of us knew from the Mowgli movies: Kaa swaying back and forth, his slick, powerful body looping through the sand, then sinking his poisonous fangs into the leaders of the Bandar-log, the Monkey People. But everyone knows that.
Personally, I prefer the rising-voice method.
Yep, yep, O my buddies, I struck out on a journey, said Jícha, eyes shut … swaying ever so slightly left and swaying to the right … set out into the world an I’m gonna tell you about it, friends, Jícha’s body tipped to the left, then to the other side and back … might be good as a brief introduction, boys … hm yeah … listen closely … you can hear me, right, buddies … this’ll be a little tale just for you, for your ears, for your soul … he said, and I noticed Hadraba’s eyelids drooping, Spider I couldn’t see, but he didn’t breathe a word … as for me, my sight went fuzzy … and Jícha let loose … and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’d had it planned in advance … the faker …
9
JÍCHA: “I GOT TANGLED UP. THE TRAP. CARNIVAL. LIVING TONGUE. HEAVY SNOW. SPRING OF NATIONS. DANGEROUS BUS.”
You all know that in the days of my bolshevik youth I occasionally suffered from existence, O my brothers, and I wasn’t ashamed to put it in my tongue, filling sheets of paper with it and drawing attention to myself. Some of you did it too. You scrawled on paper, brothers and pirates, don’t tell me you didn’t, and whatever words they were, they always said the same thing: Here I am. Do you like me? You all know, O wolves and sling shooters, that’s a trap for yawning readers, they don’t know beans. And just like you I walked the city, my turf, searching for objets d’art, objets d’esprit, those antigenocide tablets. You all know, you logrollers and dung beetles, how charged objects originate: through the art of surviving by self-destruction. They don’t win a single thing, but they’re here and you know it, O porters and carters. And as I so crassly and desperately drew attention to myself, O my brothers, little by little I got tangled up in my tongue. Because as I kneaded it for my own use, trampling, stroking, and twisting it, my tongue fought back. And that created tension. And then I got trapped. But before all that, I saw that woman, and here’s a tiny question for you, O archers and sharpshooters.
There’s various possibilities … many … but you’re walkin along … you just got up an you’re walkin along … the landscape’s hostile … on the horizon even a fire or two … walkin along, cold, you need to shit, an you’re hungry … an over in the bushes, lo and behold! a dead body … an you’re walkin along … feelin pretty bad … an not only that, you’re a woman! … but a bit of a floozy, I’d say … an not pretty, not young … pregnant … by someone … probly some soldier … there’s various possibilities, various stuff … you walk through a wisp of filthy air … nothin but scraped-out tin cans lyin all over … it’s somewhat of a junkyard … you hesitate … there’s possibilities … what lies beyond the horizon? doubts begin to sneak in … another horizon … an beyond it … you walk, hesitate, but when you turn around, O soldier’s delight and sutler, when you turn around and look back, dear sister … there’s Egypt! Slavery! And ahead of you and around you … freedom.