Then we went to her place, first thing next day. She lived out across from Ohrada. Attic flat. It was a sizable room with a kitchen and … no more plastic bags and no walkway. Just stairs and dens, it was excellent. Table and some shelves. Music stuff. Looked like she coulda wriggled outta there at any moment. Books. Those’re … mostly presents, she said.
Yep, assorted Holans* and Senecas, plus Anthologies and Libraries of Wisdom, even Sunshine Meditations, stuff you give in the family on name days … in packages tied with ribbon. I threw a fit in front of the bookshelf once … yep, those’re givers, all right! Jeffers and the Lyres of Love, for relatives an smart folks it’s a can’t-miss … just so long as the girl reads, heh-heh, they say to themselves, tuggin at their caps, that stuff’s been boiled to death in the textbook pot, bout as dangerous as milk … won’t give the little one crazy ideas, but sometimes … sometimes she outwits em … lyin around and whatnot … nothin goin on … maybe she’s got her period, a hangover, the blues, maybe a combination … peace and quiet reign and there’s nobody on the phone, no godforsaken visitor to interrupt the moment, and the girl reaches for the book and it happens … the words and sentences come to life, a miracle, how many times has it happened already … aright aright, if the books bother you I’ll throw a blanket over em. I just keep em here for the noise, when I rehearse, the neighbors, soundproofing, get it?
I solemnly presented her with the Solingens, she disappeared into the kitchen, and I went through my jacket … the photos I’d taken from that old guy were gone. Černá … but I left it alone. She took em, I lost em … same difference, like when I told her about my search. Bolkon? Never heard of it, maybe it used to be called somethin different … my folks lived on Lenin, I donno … Dernet, donno him … I’ve met some junkies, who hasn’t, but in that part of town? Aright, Černá, it was probly a false trail, I’m glad.
I took a look around the attic, but there was just one other flat up there. In the back. That’s Max, said Černá … quiet type … that Mr. Dráp guy mighta moved out, haven’t seen him for a while.
Sometimes pigeons landed on the windowsill at night, Černá told me she used to give them food. I kept examining her face, her body … when I wasn’t out driving with Smoothy, I would just sit still and, say, pretend like I was reading … even managed to keep my mouth shut … and that says a lot, when you don’t have to fill the agonizing dying of time with words, that’s intimacy … to call it a happy time wouldn’t be right, it was nonstop tenderness, and that’s beyond words.
Hey, you haven’t turned a page, half an hour now.
I was havin a little dream about you.
I’m right here.
We drank. But the Fiery had a different effect on me now. It was like being rocked in a cradle as we wove our words together, and at times our tongues … I had a feeling she sensed my need and at first just went along because she didn’t have any way out, or just happened to have an urge to be with somebody right that second, but then again … especially when we were side by side, her touching me … it was entirely possible she needed it too, that she was hungry for the same thing as me.
She didn’t wear any protective stuff, her body was clean, almost … I don’t need silver, she told me, and I believed her. But I didn’t take the Madonna off, even though … Černá wanted me to … get totally naked … I can’t stand when guys’ve got circles an hoops. But I never removed that silver of mine.
She told stories, the sound of her raspy voice beside me … I liked that she’d also acted before, not in Prague, and to my surprise … you worked at a paper? You, a secretary, I think I’m gonna faint! In TV, no shit? I couldn’t picture it. And then she started to get into singing, into getting somewhere with singing … including into people.
Was it fun workin … at Černá’s?
There no. But it was fun singin … fuckin with those assholes’ dicks. An seein how bad they wanted it, seein em go for it …
C’mon, they’re not all …
From up there they’re just faces. One big face. Sometimes they all merge.
No time to choose?
Sometimes yeah, sometimes you choose … I chose you. An here you are. I remember, know what we used to call you guys?
No.
The quiet table. There weren’t a lot of em. Always … someone grabbin my ass.
I thought you liked that … an Hadraba told me … never mind.
I hated that … there was this kid that used to sit with you, big beak … kina skinny, dark … I liked him too.
Sharky!
Uh … David, he told me his name was …
Nope. That’s another guy.
Well he said he was David, I donno why. An I been meanin to ask … why’d you climb into that receptacle that time … cut yourself up …
I got bored, everyone just starin … quiet table, huh?
I told her the myth about the rib too. How Bog wrenched it outta that first guy. Said I didn’t believe he took just that rib and gave it to her. I was glad she knew the ancient legend of Hermaphroditus. When she talked about it, it was like she was telling me about up there and down below.
We were never anywhere else, either.
The days went by. We didn’t count them.
Those days … my dear raising a ruckus on the stairs … drinking Three Musketeers beer, sitting in nothing but red bikini briefs with spiderweb lace around the edges on one of those afternoons … yanking my hair … rolling up her amazing eyelashes with her secret wand, me holding her head … and wires quivering in the air overhead, steam rising out of the sewers, walls sagging with century-old plaster, swaths of savage city skin … walking past a playground ringing out with clipped commands, it’s muggy, walking along the bridge, slow and tired, a storm’s about to hit … we feel the first drops and she flags down a cab, riding uphill, the air opens with a flash, sharp light, light from above. Illuminated street.
It’s obvious the guy goes on top, since he gives the seed. The woman’s closer to the soil, that’s why she gives birth, but the guy flies. So he’s more scared of what’s up above. The woman holds on an she’s underneath, it’s obvious, I believe it.
But I mean the ground’s also got … dangerous things in it.
So what. The ground you can hold onto.
Well, Černá, if you say so, you oughta know … who’s that Moriak on your door, your father? … I don’t mean to pry.
That’s me. Not my father! Not that guy! I was fuckin sick an tired of draggin around that “ová.” That’s just a trick forefather Čech invented so he wouldn’t hafta remember his wives’ names. Now every woman’s an “ová.”
You’re an “á.” Ever have kids?
No.
I stayed with her. And one time as I was sittin in the window listenin to some story of Černá’s, somethin from the past … I saw an incredible light show, breathtaking colors, a little bitty spider weavin his net at high speed, it wasn’t a trap though, couldn’t’ve caught a thing in it, I figured it was a game, or some secret message for somebody about the joy of motion … it was a silky and mysterious web, lifting with the wind, billowing with the gusts, like it was there just for the wind, or the wind just for it, they merged.