Then it was up to me to sneak through the window of opportunity with my rich assortment of disguises. David sent out the signals designating where to drop off the envelopes, where to speak plainly and where to be slightly shy, when to stand awkwardly in the doorway with a radiant boyish smile, which decision makers would appreciate a bottle of Water … which officials enjoyed reminiscing about the Sewer days and were eager to pop some wheelies … the sparkling party favors of real life, with girls or without … who said art with a capital A and longed to hobnob with the Names … and since a lot of atelier types were our friends and most of them were poor … they’d get a blazer and a signal on when to be where, now and then someone would speak intriguingly of suicide … and I knew where to stick out my chin, and my shiny teeth and shoes, and where to be just a regular Czech, a little sharp, a little naive … when two hands join, the cause prospers, but if you’re not interested, fuck off an don’t hassle me … who clung to the good old dissident ways, now battling corruption, so I could assure them as a former brother-in-arms that this dynamic group of young men … and the new government building began to be mapped out right on our land … and we weren’t surprised when the price climbed dizzyingly high … we cashed in on the cobblestones … and the funny thing was, we could see the construction site out Bohler’s windows … and coincidentally the firm that won the contract was favorably disposed toward us … they knew why, they weren’t stupid … and when the deliveries got held up, the envelopes would start to rustle, and they were always fatter coming in than they were going out … it tied my guts in knots, how could we get away with it? … the fools, but I wanted it, all the way down to the bottom of the filth and the fun that I got out of it … Micka came up with the gadgets and the threads were my idea, the fabric came from India by way of various tracks through Mongolia, it was unbelievably cheap … we bought up tons of the stuff, and then, with the help of a little baksheesh for various fifth- and sixth-division Ludvigs, coincidentally the rest was slapped with outrageous duties and we became the Indian fabric magnates of our crumbling republic … and while I expended the fleeting remains of my power on hypnotism, sailing through bedrooms and offices and, in one or two delicate cases, fifth-division Ludvigs’ cottages … to get them to bang the stamp … Micka bought some warehouses on the outskirts of Prague for a song … they were full of unsalable dry goods, cheap T-shirts and undies: two million for family, six m. for suckers … and with the help of Bohler’s Laotian lady, they flew to her homeland, where they dropped out of sight for a while, together with the plane, before resurfacing in the form of lotions, ointments, incense, hats suitable for the stony fields of reeducation camps, multicolored ribbons, bamboo boofalo spears, everlasting candles, miniature Buddhas, noisemakers for scaring off birds … we nearly gave Bohler the boot, a pink slip for four m. would’ve meant at least a fall down the stairs, I was there to protect him, but David was tough and Micka always did have a cruel streak … just in the nick of time, though, six cousins of the Laotian kitty flew into town, and they paid in dollars, because those T-shirts and undies had earned them millions in that zany currency of theirs, which they put toward the purchase of crude rubber and got a racket of their own going with Hong Kong. When the communist soil of their homeland got too hot for comfort, they took a quick trip around the world to see their cousin … and no wonder, she was a gem, from her smile right down to the roots of her short hairs, I could sense them whenever I activated the remains of my power … I didn’t even want to think about her belly or her behind, and if my power hadn’t been dying I would’ve taken her away from Bohler … also they wanted to meet the amazing wheeler-dealers we were by then, and get a little or big something going in Eastern Europe, B-o-g willing.
Put em in the buildings, David told Bohler.
C’mon, that’s crazy, everything’s taken, they’d hafta live with me!
One policy we adopted immediately so as not to please the Devil too much was no throwing out tenants. There was one thing, however … our sole infringement upon the domain of tenant rights … that we persuaded them to do … which was to take all their disgusting wall-size screens and various heathen TVs and lug them out to the lawn in back … where Bohler took an ax and chopped them up, one by one, because there’s no reasoning with Evil. Then we knocked their satellites off the roof, and of course we paid them back for it all, down to the last haler … it’s just that all sortsa Tides an Mr. Hydes come crawlin outta that satanic tube, the old ideological stupidifier, an they’re hungry for human heads …. especially children’s … an hell if we’re gonna share our home with a bunch a ghouls, Bohler argued, the rest of us nodded approvingly.
Only now he had a bunch of agnostics crashing right in his own flat. Aw c’mon, that bag on the third floor’s gonna kick the bucket any day now, Micka consoled the theologian, just stick it out, c’mon, you got the biggest place.
Bohler and his Laotian blossom had five rooms to themselves; true, in one he’d built a small altar, but it was our assessment he surely still had room to fit in a few Buddhas.
Hey, try to get along with em, Micka continued, they’re great, really, I’m tellin ya, an once we get asylum for em, he gave me a meaningful look, they’re gonna come in damn handy, David nodded. The yellow race is gonna dominate for the next century, minimum, plain as day, even says so in the Bible, doesn’t it, David? Yep, David said. Hah, hah, said Bohler.
If worst comes to worst we can make the Laotians passports, no big deal, I thought to myself, standing on the second floor of the imposing skyscraper of the Department of Foreigners, it seemed hostile from the second I walked in … but then in the hallway I ran into Lexa, hey there, nice a you to drop by, he said, c’mon into my office. I didn’t know I had a friend from the active era sitting in such an important seat. Guess I oughta update my lists, I made a mental note.
Once upon a time the two of us had packed books together in the same warehouse, actually brochures, mounds of brochures, Marx and Lenin and Krupskaya and Engelmord, it goaded us so much we started planning to build a balloon to fly us over the wires, I expressed concern about the firepower in the guard towers, but Lexa had a solution: We’ll just metal-plate the thing. That was the last of that. Maybe this time, though, he’d come up with something better.
Listen, Jituš, said Lexa, switch A over to C for me an keep it down, will ya, I got an old buddy in here. Miluš, get a move on with that two-o-five, the Boss’ll be comin in any minute! Irča, he called, and as the beauty walked in he said: Irča honey, I want you to meet Potok, he’s an artist, an actor. Wow! What were you in? Well, there was My Sweet Wittle Willage* … Wow! Who’d you play? Actually, I, uh … just Šafránová in that one. She walked out. Lexa didn’t laugh. Sorry, I snapped, I said … Nah, forget it, I just wanted to show the girls that I’m … you know, now that I’m a pencil pusher an all. Hey, how bout you guys, how bout you, how’s life? Still actin? Oh yeah, and how, I almost burst out laughing. Then I thought of something, hey Lexa, you know a Major Mrkvica, works in passports? Yeah, good guy, just got promoted. He’s that piece a shit that wouldn’t let my first wife see me, I said. I’d like to spit in his face, that’s the scumbag that advised me to emigrate … in the interests of the state, he told me, that Major Fuckface …
Hey, Lexa stood up. I know this stuff as well as you do, darn it. But he’s a pro, we need these people. I come up against it each an every day. But Christ, you’re out boozin it up, playin around in some theater, someone’s gotta do this stuff.