Don’t lie to me! The police’ll be interested in this studio a yours! I beg you, Mařenka can do whatever she … but I just have to see my little girl, look what I have for her … he ran, actually more like danced, over to the closet … opened it up, look what good care I take of her, I only want the best for her … pulled out a dress, white with red polka dots, luxury stuff, gold stitching … this one is her favorite … a white summer frock with a bolero, he said … I plopped down on the couch with the stuffed animals … this chick couldn’t be Černá … bolero! … looked like the photographer was in his element … we never, don’t think it for a minute, Mr. Brother sir, that’s not my sort of thing, all she did for me was … dance … he dropped his ass down on that heap a glad rags … frocks … I want the pictures, I said … I don’t have any!
I got up and walked towards him. No, really … wait a minute, there’s just this one from Paris … Laurent put it out … he ran across the room, robe fluttering, dug through the papers on his desk, pulled out some fashion mag, flipped through it till he came to the spread, and offered it to me. I yanked the sacred pages out of his hand and went over to the window … two photos of a very young girl … that’s one thing Černá’s not anymore … still there was somethin … maybe the nape of her neck, the face floated in half-light, her legs were bare, I didn’t know what Černá’s ankles looked like yet … one of the pictures showed the girl from the side, and there was somethin about the way she had her arm raised … for an eternity, the way her hand was bent at the wrist … she’s beautiful, so very beautiful, Meždek said standing next to me … it is a mystery, they are the mystery of life, the gateway … Yeah right, we all come outta cunts, I felt like bein mean … and of death … their mystery is on the inside, like their sex, it is invisible … not like ours … I’ll take this, I yanked out the photos and tossed the rest on the floor … ach, he said … I despised him … even if that Mařenka girl wasn’t Černá … takin their pictures, robbin em, babblin on, what’s he wanna go showin em to everybody for, the world the way it is … what if someone decides to kill that girl for bein so beautiful, it can happen … he stood lookin at me, you want to destroy her just like you destroyed that magazine, you aren’t her brother, you just want her for yourself … just then the doorbell rang.
Is it her? I croaked. No, he said hesitantly … I don’t know which of us got to the door first, but I opened it.
A woman stood there as if carved out of stone, holding the hand of a little girl that looked like an angel from one a those paintings of the Holy Virgin. Maybe it was on purpose. Golden hair down to her shoulders. Tiny lips slightly garnished. Standing somewhat defiantly. I guess the way little girls look when you promise them the biggest cake in the world and a pony named Pony to get them to go to the dentist. I’ve had it, the stone woman said. Leaving us out here like that where all the neighbors can peek at us. She swept past me, dragging the girl after her. Meždek shut the door behind me.
Back out on the street, I stuffed the pictures into my jacket next to the Solingens, a cloud covered over the sun. I’d hafta go back and see Hadraba, that was obvious, I’d run outta leads. Maybe that was just some random street name she’d blabbered out to the cabbie. I wasn’t in the mood for Hadraba or Jícha. But those guys hadda know somethin.
Ach, She-Dog, your pupil and your chief, Potok the patient, Potok the wage slave, convict and merchant, the old actor has forgotten his part. Lost in the wings, plot forgotten … she made no reply, only I knew why. O my She-Dog, give me strength, together we were like Beauty and the Beast, it’s just that now and then we forgot who was who … till then it happened, and it happened to both of us, not just to me, you went and flew off into the air, cause that’s the way it was, I’ve gotta believe it … you went and flew off to a better world … hope you’re doin all right, wherever you are.
I waited for an answer from her, but heard only silence, the street full of sounds a city person can’t perceive.
Salutations, I uttered, nodding to Spidey. May your camels be as grains of desert sand, may your wives be forever pregnant, may your sons humble the tribes under their yoke …
Ah, ciao actor, you talkin Macbeth? inquired the simpleton. Care for a shot?
Absolutely not. I’m on the prowl. Beer.
The bar was empty. This time of day it was closed actually. Pleasantly dim, so the chance wayfarer could concentrate. And also to make it easier to relieve em of their dinero. Spidey was solvin a crossword puzzle. Can’t stand those things.
I need a four-letter word for alebezener.
Nura.
Huh? How’d you know? I donno. Intuition.
This is nonsense. The riddle’s not comin out.
I know whatcha mean. Černá singin here tonight?
Nope. Seven-letter word for metal… starts with U. That’s easy.
How bout tomorrow?
Černá’s through singin here. Six-letter word for sty … shit …
Huh? Wha jou say?
Sty, huh … corral?
What?
I donno. I just donno.
Wha was zat about Černá?
Her? Black Maria’s through giggin here, finito. What’s wrong?
I stood up.
Hey, Potok … with you there’s always somethin. C’mon. Have a beer. Relax. It’s early.
I need to find her. I want her address. Why isn’t she here?
I was articulating like an automaton. I had a terrible urge to slug Spidey. I don’t know why. He hadn’t done anything. Besides, he looked stronger than me.
Look, ask Hadraba. He’s the one gave her the heave-ho. His byz. I’m the bartender, get what I’m sayin? An what’s up? You got some kina deal goin with her? She owe you some cash? Cause tough luck, pal, she owes the club too. That’s all she was doin here was workin off debts.
I don’t got anythin goin with her. I just like her.
Well, she is good-lookin … if you go for that type. Want that beer or not?
Yeah.
But she’s a weird one.
Yeah?
Place like this, people gotta stick together. You know the hordes we get comin in here. She’s too into herself. Acts like the boss when she’s not.
But she is, Spider.
Not here. She’s her own boss, period.
Exactly, one of the few.
Few, heh, that’s a good one.