Hadraba tried to take them away from us, and despite their having already put their thumbprints on a contract with him, we persuaded them to stay with us and spun them off a percentage, and when the lady from the third floor finally passed on … we persuaded the ground-floor tenants from another of our buildings that they would be better off in the smaller space upstairs, and we did it in such a way that they were quite willing and happy to squeeze themselves in. The Laotians opened a shop downstairs, we gave them the cash for another plane, this time with Micka and David keeping a sharp eye on the percentage, and the commerce in Asian junk started up anew.
To tell the truth, the tenancy of our buildings did drop off a little, Bohler gave a bit of a dressing-down to the ones that occasionally complained about the noise from his flat … and there were other problems too, for instance when he told them they were forbidden to walk across our lawn … that lawn is sacred, people, the theologian said, and he who does not hold good housing in high regard deserves tough treatment that he may discover and open up the sources of humility within himself … another few relatives and pals of our Laotians arrived unexpectedly on the next plane … and on the next plane … and the next … securing passports for the stowaways took up a lot of my time, Lexa started to bridle, and violated the law of the community, so Micka and I dug up a few minor allegations, some staler, some fresher, and shot him down, because to aid fugitives is an especially righteous deed, particularly when they turn out to be so good at taking care of themselves … and at bringing in proceeds … and the Laosters just kept selling and selling, and some of them lived in our buildings too … and our slightly disgustingly racist tenants claimed they were scared of them when they went to fetch water from the well … it’s true that around that time a few of our tenants’ children went missing, but we just assumed they’d taken up with the scamp packs … Bohler shuttled back and forth settling disputes between the tenants and the Laotians, a few of whom he’d already persuaded to be baptized. Things came to a head when the Laosters converted the drying room into a pub and the baby carriage room into a Buddhist temple, which Bohler oddly enough permitted … he was getting a little worried though, and one day at our briefing he said the well had begun to lose water again and there was something weird about it. None of us cared, since we preferred the Fiery stuff anyway, but we gave Bohler approval to make Vasil the superintendent. Vasil was a young Ukrainian he’d brought in from South Station to our greasy pots and cruel freedom.
In those rare moments between business and pleasure, we would lounge around our private domains, take naps in Bohler’s flat, play backgammon with the Laosters in their dive … and the new time, in the years 1, 2, 3 … etc., kept us warm and cozy, and a few times, spinning around abruptly, I glimpsed it, even touched it … and several of the Laotian women gave birth … we threw enormous parties, which as a precaution against openly racist sentiments we required all our tenants to attend and bring lavish gifts for the happy mothers … and as time went by, it was sweet to see some of the children growing beautiful flaxen hair, genuine manes … some of the men congratulated me … I just smiled … maybe I forgot to mention that my buddies … well, most of them were Balkan-Ugro-Finnish-backwoods Romany types, Bohler had a few traits that were positively negroid … Micka was missing a few teeth from birth, and the dark-skinned David, like most mountain men, had some difficulty walking on floors … all of us were a little damaged from various acid storms and accidents, but I think I had a few genes that were actually European … as the M.D. eventually confirmed … from the olden days of the Lučan Wars,* the genes of my foreforemother, who stuck by foreforefather Čech* when he chose to settle down here … I’ve got fair hair, totally typically Slavic … and it came as no surprise when my friends Cepková and Elsa the Lion said they had a hunch a few of the Laotian men would happily return the favor, I wasn’t at all opposed, but I left it up to the girls, after all it was freedom …
We held frequent byznys meetings and sociable briefings, sitting around telling stories and fables and mythical parables … mixing narrative techniques and shaking our heads in amazement, spitting tobacco … jingling our silver ornaments … trading experiences … various silver things were worn in those days … talismans, charms, each crew had its stars and crosses and menorahs and labyrinths … animals … dogs, snakes, and dragons are good … my dragon was green, but I hid him in my skin, I’d had him tattooed on … by putting him on my chest I thought he’d help me find my sister … various tribes, most of them actually pseudotribes, but they had protective colors too … the Vonts’ color was yellow … that struck me as unsafe … clans, groups, defensive alliances … the Cellar People, spider worshipers, they put on plays … BKS, also believers … the Ginga Disciples, they took their power from trees … the Machines … the Window People, devotees of cyberspace … the Northerners … the People of the Tower and the People of the Castle … various clubs, gangs, and bands … it wasn’t too wise, back in those days of today, to be on your own … the other reason for wearing silver was that in those fast times it was best to know right away who you were dealing with and who belonged to who, there were multitudes of muddled sects from all over the place … I myself wore one important silver thing that helped me out a lot later on at the Dump … my mom hung it around my neck one day as I was going out … said something like: Hope to see you soon. Dear son! And it hasn’t happened yet, and due to certain circumstances, whether favorable or unfavorable I hesitate to judge, now it never will … my most powerful piece of silver was a medallion of the Black Madonna, the Blessed Virgin of Czestochowa, the one with the spear slash on her cheek, the one that weeps eternal … it was a real old thing, some great-great-great of mine’d hiked all the way to Czestochowa from his home in Lithuania for her, made a pilgrimage … I was real fond of that Black Madonna, she had great power, I wore her under my byznys suits and all of my disguises, even slept with her on … some people cleaned and polished their silver, but I let mine live its own life, and that ancient artifact, that piece of jewelry, turned black …
Various stuff was worn … Bohler for instance had an eagle, eagles see a lot … yep, he’s a seer, said Bohler … tends to be seen up high, an besides he’s fast, an admit it! he looks good too … he’s medieval Indian an isn’t afraid, an besides, there’s not many eagles left, are there? Yeah, cool, Cassock, your eagle’s cool, seriously, way, we all jingled our silver … and maybe that was also the reason we got along with the Laosters so well, they had all kinds of wild pig tusks and shark teeth … they were also believers … being accustomed to the relatively homogeneous population of Bohemia, we confused them with each other at first, this is Tino, said Bohler, well that’s not his real name, but we wouldn’t know how to pronounce it, it’s too tough for us, an that one with the shark tooth’s a great hunter, Lady Laos told me …
It didn’t take long for the Laosters to spread all over the city, all over the country in fact, because the planes just kept on flying … Micka began to forge plans for a small private airport, a definite potential was shaping up to dump Asian junk on a few other countries that had shed the yoke of communism and were in dire need of fresh goods for their nonfunctional markets … our ground floors and cellars turned into a Laotian initiation camp … and bastard Bohemia’s hardened arteries got hit with a fresh dose of Asia.