Evenings we’d go out occasionally, though for now we stayed away from the usual establishments.
In this one coffeehouse, the only spot free was the chess table. While Černá went off to make a phone call, I didn’t ask who to, I set up the board, just for the heck of it … reminiscing about bread knights and bishops … as long as we’re using bread for this, an old man there told me, then everything’s fine, totally springtime.
Springtime, he said.
You wanna play?
Let’s give it a try.
We moved the pieces in various sequences, but with all the talking and drinking we never did finish that first match … the chessboard was like our center of gravity, it’s good to have something there on the table … mostly just old ladies went there, we often knocked back a goodly number of shots ourselves … that made the waiters as happy as us … Černá busted up when the black-and-white … penguin helpin her into her mangy jacket said: Come again, madam … I didn’t laugh. And outside she grabbed me and said: This is new to me, let’s be together. Černá … don’t say that, or I … you’ll never leave me. We stepped across a puddle, and for a second it seemed like a pit, a shaft that led to somewhere, and as I squinted, playin around with the flashes of light inside the water, Černá said: You better believe I won’t leave you, not ever, it wouldn’t work anyway. But … you donno anything! You like me too much. I took a look at her, the look on her face was … nasty, as if she didn’t like the idea, as if what awaited us … which I believed was good things together … as if she didn’t want it. All you guys piss me off! You too! she said. I turned around and walked off, and when I looked back over my shoulder she was standin there by the puddle, alone … motionless, I could see her eyes, just the gleam, I could feel her, she was inside me … her figure’s seared into my body and whatever’s outside that outline I sliced off long ago … it lasts to this day, after all that happened … then we walked side by side in silence and the city was friendly. I donno why.
And the next morning Smoothy smiled when I grabbed the envelope, he probly had a hunch I wanted out. We took off for some factory again, we’d been callin around for two days on this one. Got inside no problem. Smoothy was somewhat … shaken up, which was unusual, maybe we knew each other so well by now he didn’t consider it necessary to keep the mask on for me … after three months now of livin this life … it went without a hitch, we found the block, the hallway, for once there was no one standin in our way … Smoothy stops and pulls out a smoke … this time, Mr. Potok, he says, this time I am hoping to see my son, so I beg you for extraordinary, yes, extraordinary readiness in the event of an emergency … I swallowed what I had on the tip of my tongue, namely that I’m not some kina gorilla, etc., and asked: Son? I could see he was hesitant … somehow he didn’t want to open the door right away … by speaking again, literally by moving his tongue in his mouth, he regained his confidence: As we pushed off in our, so-to-speak, family boat from the shores of our homeland, which had become inhospitable, indeed perilous and harsh, we heard the crackling of machine guns … Smoothy dramatically lowered his voice, while I rolled my eyes and clutched my heart … by now I knew he enjoyed it, it was our idiom … we paddled furiously, but one of my sons, the eldest, was hit and fell in the water … we learned later on that he was imprisoned, reeducated, and afterward … like most of the gentlemen we have found and transported to the place of destination … he changed his identity, and his face, Mr. Potok, his face … and I fear I shall not recognize him … Smoothy whispered the end of his speech, and I could tell he was in a bad way … but … clearly full of what he called the mission … he walked up to the door and opened it.
This one didn’t look good at all, a bit like a frog or a monkey, eyes bulging out of his gigantic head. He peered at us open-mouthed, obviously not expecting a visit, staring, back leaned up against the fridge, wrapped around, to be safe, with a chain and two locks. But it was definitely him, he stood up and shrieked … Smoothy teetered ever so slightly, Dapper Dan in a suit, and across from him this … hulk. Smoothy spread his hands, started chattering away, loud and fast, I could tell this was the moment, so I slid over to the window, stared out, waiting off to the side.
I was still ashamed. For dorm managers, officials, phone operators, bosses … when they found out we were looking for a slope, they generally behaved impossibly … their inner life manifested itself, absolutely pointlessly, in acts of often unintentional cruelty … callousness … weighing down the sky over all our heads … definitely better to wallow in the muck than to deal with a horrid person.
Maybe there were exceptions, never met em, there wasn’t time … after one frustrating inquiry I folded again and got drunk, despite all of Smoothy’s reassuring maneuvers I got liquored up in some backwoods dive … the yellows there had a special table and designated glasses, to prevent any accidental mixing, which anyway they never had anything about on TV, so it didn’t exist … I shouted out somethin about farmers that came from the area of certain camps where labor had been the great liberator … Smoothy played a Japanese tourist and took pictures of them, or they would’ve kicked my ass, and they would’ve been right, I took it too far …
All the old tricks and suits and cons, otherwise known as fast work, didn’t give me any pleasure, I was too ashamed for my tribe’s people, even around Smoothy, who’d lived here, as he informed me, more than ten years, he’d seen it all before, he just laughed. I didn’t even know why it bothered me so much, except that every now and then I’d get seized by this vague feeling that me and Černá were threatened too … brutally and from all sides.
I had no idea what kinda capo Hunter was either, I just took their side by instinct, but when it came to their mission I think … they’d’ve done whatever was necessary, wouldn’t’ve shied away from any filth, they were warriors and it was a pretty cruel war. Petitions didn’t interest them.
Mr. Potok, Smoothy lectured me again one day, it is true we now know that nothing is what it seems, but what is truly meant to be and what purpose it serves, that is the real riddle … this applies of course to the entire universe, including even the most trivial objects, and to be specific, take for example Semtex, you see, you Czechs sent it to our enemies at just the right moment … that was what finished off the Americans back then, but you know, our men … well, you know a lot already, but did you know that our boys from the base in Thailand, who sometimes spend weeks at a time on the trail in order to punish as many Communists as possible, carry little bits of Semtex along for their stomachs? It’s the truth, especially, now don’t be angry, but especially our men from Eastern Europe have rather damaged stomachs and a bit of Semtex, a truly tiny little bit, can give an exhausted warrior a proper cleaning out, believe me.
Even though it was obvious I already had at least one foot in the trap … see, one day over at Smoothy’s place, after we’d found the fifth relative, I spotted a couple familiar-looking suitcases in the foyer, sparkling steel, like you see on TV, couldn’t lift even one of em … in the blink of an eye Smoothy was standing in front of me, smiling, a little sadly I thought, I donno. But I shouldn’t’ve touched em. I shouldn’t’ve even seen em. And once I had, I should’ve acted like it was soap. Maybe it was a test.
It was love for her that got me caught in the ropes, desire makes me manic. Despite everything I’d gotten myself into, despite the agonizing restlessness that kept me on edge, I was happy. I knew that some things you have to pay for … but my time with Černá was the most beautiful time of all … I think few mortals have experienced anything like it, she gave me strength … few men, when it comes time for Starry Bog to run the film, can find a couple frames where they’re with their sister … I mean every guy, man or boy, even the poor fucks everyone’s written off, is searching for his sister, that’s all there is, it’s a possibility … for life with the gods here and now, and every move she makes is a war against Evil, and a privilege too, I knew that … and our stay here is limited, and just to find your sister means a lot … and the more time my trips with Smoothy took, and the closer I got to the end of my job, the better prepared I was.