The next night, then, we made ceremonious preparations for our copulation. Just to be safe, we persuaded the other guests that they’d be better off finding someplace else, and rented out the whole hotel. The boys agreed to stand guard in case it happened again, but a minor tussle ensued over my knife. Micka didn’t want to take any chances, but David pointed out that without an instrument my anger’s power might not show itself, and besides, I wasn’t that fast. That irked me a little bit, and there might’ve been a minor spat if Bohler hadn’t intervened in time, passing out relics and amulets, setting up the aspen stakes and demon nets, and meaningfully clearing his throat.
Táña and I got down to it then, this time not quickly, in our usual old city style, but gently, kind of country-style like, with blue skies and trees and apples, with foreplay and nibbling and touching all over … we were probably showing off a little for the pseudodrooginas gathered around our bed in case the situation called for litanies. I must humbly note, at least some of them peeked … shall we say … with interest. All of them except for Bohler’s Laotian lady, who, I assume, got a laugh out of our relatively clumsy euro-missionary moves. But she kept herself in check, apart from baring her teeth a few times as she suppressed a catty smile; she checked herself because it was serious. And it worked and it was okay and nothing out of the ordinary happened.
We nearly forgot about the well. Hradil’s boys took turns standing watch down in the cellar, a suitable distance away from the water’s surface, which frightened them. One of the boys, who went by the Mohawk name of Montague, regularly came by to report that the sisters were still missing.
And once upon a smiley city day, finding ourselves with a little free time after our daily briefing, we decided to try Sharky’s trick with the box … spotting Montague, who was trudging back to the cellar to take over from one of his bros … Sharky said, it’s a good thing for a little boy … and told Montague to give it a shot. Given the relatively old age of the box in Sharky’s mind, the price tag was the first thing that intrigued the young Hradil, he was a practical boy. Then he gave the nod and got inside the box. Sharky sent it back to the foul concentration camp, and it took all the strength little Montague had to dodge the furious metal-tipped boots, the whips that could tear right through the box, shredding its fragile contents, not to mention the foul sounds he had to withstand … because Sharky carried around inside him the shuffling of forty-year-old old men, death rattles, shrill commands, soft weeping … more than enough to kill a small creature … but Montague, inside the box, was surprisingly calm and cautious, and then he began to grow with his power, and damn fast too … Sharky turned pale, we were all surprised … none of us had handled it as well as little Montague … screams of insanity and pleas for mercy … he didn’t let anything inside his box … our eyes were popping out of their sockets … he even steered clear of the SS riding boots … Sharky’s showstopper … but all at once Bohler broke out laughing, Micka joined in, and then I saw it too … and Sharky, sweaty and pale, switched off. Hey, Micka explained, the kid pulled a scalpel outta his sleeve an cut a hole in the box, he saw the whole time, he gave eyes to his power, man … then David added an appreciative comment about Montague’s strategic capabilities, and the boy, now out of the box, flushed with embarrassment. It was great the way you stayed in there with that scalpel an didn’t cut yourself, or cut yourself down, an turned your eyes’ power outward, Micka praised Montague. An just the fact that he saw all that stuff an it made him stronger … testifies in and of itself … to a certain quickness an agility, said a slightly emotional Sharky. Hey, uncle boss, Montague said to Sharky. Yes, my boy? Know anyplace that still sells those cool Batas? We froze a little stiff. If all he cares about’s the shoes, if he cares about getting anything else out of that trick besides his own life, he’s damned anyway, no matter how fast he is, flashed through my mind … the others, with sadness in their hearts, were probably thinking the same … the boy went on though … if we could scrounge up somma those boxes an rig em up for small sizes … for dogs an cats an squirrels. What for, boy? Bohler wondered. Cause all those city critters that used to come an drink outta the well’re startin to disappear. Why didn’t you say so, boy?! we asked. I figured my sisters were all that mattered to you guys. Besides cash an booze, you don’t seem to care much what goes on around here. My mom told me so, said Montague. From the mouth of an innocent babe the bloody truth has spoken! roared Bohler. All right, boy, go run along an play or whatever, Bohler continued in a more subdued tone, that box belongs to your old uncle Sharky, an givin it to squirrels would be like givin away his identity, like losin part of his head … an next thing you know he’d be lying belly up in the nearest cruel city hole. Montague brooded a moment or two, then kissed the ring on Bohler’s hand and ran off to the cellar.
6
“I HAD A DREAM.”
We sat there in our club chairs and luxurious leather armchairs … the truth had spoken from the mouth of an innocent babe … David sat all crumpled up, positively reeking of intense city sorrow … I had an urge to uncork the Fiery and take myself a little vacation … Micka wrung his hands, gnashing what few teeth he had left, Bohler leafed through his dog-eared copy of The Married Priest … then he slammed the book down and said firmly: Self-criticism! He was right, we all sensed it. It was time for suicidal self-criticism, the byznys day was down the drain.
It was only extremely exceptionally that we engaged in self-criticism, only in those heavy-duty cases when we’d seriously crushed someone, not that we ever broke the rules of our little entente, oh no, but every now and then the dictates of the market economy obliged us to pull a dirty trick or two. Our victims we didn’t care about; if someone gets under the wheel, doesn’t know how to use his power, that’s his business. We performed self-criticism in order to be purer … more ardently prepared for the coming of the Messiach.
Supposedly self-criticism was an old bolshevik class invention developed to perfection by that bloody Mao, a teacher. We dusted it off so we could use it, not abuse it, in freedom. Bohler always went first.
I had a dream, he said. I was walkin around that old city of ours, slacks an a sport jacket on, decked out in my civvies, makin the rounds of the bars an the usual spots, keepin my eyes peeled for sinners, some infected whores I might persuade to leave behind their disgusting ways, a scamp or two to reel in, you know how it is, guys. An I admit my bosom was warmed with satisfaction an heinous pride, because the day before I’d snagged three little goons, herded em into an old garage, trampled their toyfils, an baptized em. After some deliberation I let em keep their weapons, they wouldn’t get far without em, an they seemed to be genuinely contrite, so I went ahead an sanctified their little guns an knives. An the day before that I set a few hookers straight an also succeeded in heavily stigmatizin this one disgusting sinner I caught abusin his kids … so now Bog’ll easily recognize the fiend … an O my pals, that selfsame day, I overcame stiff resistance from a band of revoltingly bloody butchers to save two blind old forsaken horses from slaughter an set em free on our lawn … I admit, as I strode along, I felt nothin but good feelings. Well … as we all know, our first free president’s lovely new vision, namely clean quiet streets an cozy little pubs an delightful little shops sellin all kindsa grub, is becoming a reality all over the place, lots of folks’re enjoyin vitamins in the comfort of their homes an plenty of folks’re movin outta the village up to the castle, but we also know that the cellars’re full. So I’m walkin around, an I see the human misery an the vice an the falsehood, an the sinners an their victims, people whose hearts’re red with rancor an people whose hearts’re broken in two, an as I’m strollin toward the landing in the stench of the toxic Moldau, I’m warmed with pride that I’m on the right side … doin what I can to aid His coming … an then I see this derelict standin outside a taproom … a disgusting old guy in lousy rags … face totally ravaged with goose blotches, the skin drippin off … an his filthy body was shakin all over from booze, or the lack of it … an people were stoppin to laugh at him, subjectin him to ridicule an scorn, this guy was absolutely under the wheel, an I mean deep … just these baggy things smeared with shit for pants … whimperin for change in this shaky voice … an little scamps were chuckin mud an dirt clods, one of em hit him smack in the face an he didn’t even feel it … so I stop next to the freak an start fishin around in my pocket … I admit I too felt scorn an contempt … the bozo … starin down at the ground the way old panhandlers do … but just then he lifts his watery eyes … an I see it’s my father, my dad … an he recognized me too, an he’s so out of it he says: Michal, Michálek, get me outta here … which was what he always said when my mom sent me to bring him home from whatever dive he’d blown all his cash in that night, an he’d be just sittin there blitzed in the corner, an the guys’d all laugh an say … your angel’s come for you, Bohler, get up … an I’d take him home, an he’d always find enough strength left to take a few swipes at me … coulda killed him, that piece a shit … then I split … left my mother to deal with him, since she was the cow who’d married him … an it didn’t take him long to drive her into the grave either … an now here he was, standin right in front of me, the creep, an his eyes livened up a little … but he was just too out of it, an he goes: Help a poor soul, mister … didn’t know who I was anymore … but I knew … an I knew he could sense I was there … caught that greedy flash in his eyes, an suddenly I didn’t give a damn about all the people around, an I go: Do you know who I am? Do you recognize me? Pop! An that ugly mug opens its eyes an says: Yeah, you’re my son Michal, course I know you … I’m tellin you, guys an buddies a mine, I felt like deckin him on the spot for all the things he’d done, for what he’d done to himself … but then came pity an I realized he was in there somewhere … there musta been somethin we’d never talked about, some evil spirit that cut him down … somethin I didn’t understand … now he was really bad off, worse than a battered animal … an I was scared to death that we would never get to talk about it … scared it was too late … an it was, he didn’t know me anymore … an, O my friends, I asked a couple lamebrains in the crowd to wait there with him while I raced off to find a doctor, or whoever it is you go for in those kinds of situations … but I couldn’t find anyone, an by the time I got back that old lush, my pop, was gone of course … an when I burst into the taproom they probly thought I was nuts, nobody knew him, nobody’d seen him. An that’s that. I figure by now he’s gotta be dead. An I never did give him that change he was askin for …