I remembered the flowers that by now must have been wilting in my bag. I quickly commanded the computer to wipe out the text, and I went to look for Mr Vandas. I found him in the hall with Miss Kosinová, who, perhaps because she doesn't have children of her own, behaves all the more maternally to those around her. They were giving food to his two little girls.
'Do you know what?' he asked, rinsing out the milk bottle. 'They've just registered the eight millionth chemical. Wait a minute, I'll show it to you.'
What he brought was not the chemical itself, just a piece of paper on which he had written: 2-(4-chloro-5-etocy-2fluorophenyl)-4,5,6,7,-tetrahydro-3methyl-2 H-indazol.
'How long can they go on getting away with this?' he asked.
As if summoned to answer that gloomy question, the youthful Mr Bauer appeared in the hall. I knew him as a quiet man whose glum, rather dreamy expression reminded
me of that of a poet, but now he announced loudly: 'I've just finished my calculations. In five years, the Jeseníky Mountains will be kaput, and in seven, the Beskyds and the Šumava.'
Mr Vandas put the flowers next to a picture of his wife. 'How about the Tatras?' he asked.
'I don't have the Tatras, the Slovaks are doing them. If it wouldn't be too much trouble,' he said, turning to me, 'I have some print-outs here that should go to Dr Myslivec in Komořan. But there's no hurry; he'll be at lunch now anyway. '
'Of course,' I said.
His elder daughter handed me a piece of paper with a drawing on it. There were three green trees, with coloured birds flying among them, and several animals grazing on the grass, of which I could only safely identify a giraffe. There were no people.
'What's this you've drawn?'
'It's the Garden of Eden,' she said. 'It's for Mama, when she comes home.'
'Can't those forests be saved?' I asked Bauer.
'They could,' Bauer explained. 'But people would have to die out first. Of course, if this keeps up, they'll die out anyway, but not before they destroy everything.'
'The process could be slowed down,' Miss Kosinová explained to me, 'if we invested in conservation, but there's no money, and there's going to be less and less. It's enough to make you despair.'
'The only question,' said Bauer, 'is will the forests die out in five years or in ten. I recently ran the Krkonoše and the Jizerské Mountains through the computer. They write about all the reforestation going on, but nothing will ever grow
there any more. And before some mutant species that thrives on sulphur establishes itself, there'll be nothing but rocks left.'
'I don't think it's so hopeless,' said Miss Kosinová. 'People will eventually come to understand that they're destroying the world they have to live in.'
'Sure, people will — maybe,' Bauer admitted. 'But the guys on top couldn't care less. They don't give a damn about our calculations.'
The younger girl began to cry.
'There, there now,' said Miss Kosinová. 'You see, you're only just scaring little children.'
I went with Bauer to get his papers. 'The forest situation doesn't seem so hopeless to her because she's not working on it,' he complained. 'But you should hear her when she's talking about her water full of salmonella. If it were up to me,' he went on, 'I'd devise a programme that would tell us how to take all the garbage that's destroying us and render it harmless before we throw it out — but no one would have it, not even if I gave it away.'
'Do you really think humanity won't survive?' I asked.
'Pretty much,' he said. 'This is how it is: our water is down the drain, the seas are full of oil and all kinds of poison, the air — well, you can see for yourself what kind of shape that's in, forests all over the world are dying or being cut down, soils are being eroded and degraded, the deserts are expanding and the gene pool is shrinking. Add in the degenerating ozone layer, plus a Chernobyl every once in a while, the awful waste products they're cramming down every big hole they can find, and — you just heard Vandas— the hideous new shit they're constantly creating. . '
'How long do we have?' I asked.
'Well,' he said, thoughtfully, 'you could more or less calculate it.' He handed me a bundle of print-outs, I stuffed them into my bag and we parted.
At the bus stop, I discovered that the bus to Komořan had left a few minutes ahead of me, and the next one wouldn't be along for fifteen minutes. As I was taking a book out of my bag to read, I heard a tapping sound behind me, like the sound a blind person makes. And sure enough, when I turned around, there was an enormous old man with a white cane. I had seen him here several times before at this time of day; he was probably going somewhere for lunch. Usually, he had someone guiding him, but this time he was alone, so I asked him if I could be of any help. He thanked me and said that he'd be very grateful if I could take him through the underpass to the other side. He had a rather strange accent, perhaps from Ostrava, or even further east.
As I led him down into the underpass, he counted the steps. When he reached ten, he said, with regret in his voice, 'That's as far as I can count.'
His admission surprised me. 'Where are you from?' I asked.
'From Arobidzhan. In Asia.'
'Somewhere in Russia?'
'It's at ninety-one latitude and fifty-six longitude. Right where they cross.'
'There, you see, you can count to more than ten.'
'No, they told me, and I remembered it.' He started counting the stairs again up to ten. I continued for him to sixteen. By that time we were at the bottom.
'You know how to count?' He seemed astonished. 'How far? To a hundred?'
'About that.'
'Are you a legionnaire?'
'No, why did you think that?'
"There were legionnaires in Arobidzhan. They spoke Czech too.' He began to count the steps going up. When he got to ten, he didn't stop as he'd done before, but merely repeated, on each step, 'Ten, ten, ten.'
'I'm not from Arobidzhan,' I said. 'I've never even heard of it. Is it in Siberia?'
Further than that.'
'I'll find it on the map.'
'Are you a geography teacher?'
'What makes you think that?'
Tou have a map at home.' He stopped to catch his breath.
'I've got a lot of maps at home.'
'Aren't you afraid? Or are you from the cartographical institute?'
'No,' I said, 'I'm a courier.'
'Are you delivering letters?'
'No, other things.'
'Aha,' he said, 'Summonses, warrants, verdicts. Piff, paff, boom!'
'No,' I said. 'I've already said, I'm not from Arobidzhan.'
'That's too bad,' he said. 'You should see it in winter when the Northern Lights come out. Beautiful! And the snow! The harder the times, the more snow there was. And wolves. You'd be interested, because I'll bet you're not really a courier, I'll bet you're one of those artists.'
I was surprised. 'How did you know?' I said.
'Not a musician,' he said. Tou have no ear for music. Just for people. But that's important too.'
We were approaching the exit to the street. In a low voice he counted off the last stairs: 'Ten, ten, ten.'
'Which bus number are you taking?'