Outside, I made a sentimental tour of the Old Town Square, seeking you know who. But that wasn’t a total waste, for I spotted the placard-holder who spoke an English only Danny K could have concocted. I approached her to say hello.
“Aha,” she said. “Here are you.”
“Fine,” I said, glad she remembered me.
“I was waitressing for you to up show.”
“Waitressing? Why not waitering?”
“For in correctly English, ‘waitering’ is for sex male and ‘waitressing’ for sex female.”
“You are the da Vinci, nay, the Einstein, of Queen’s English.”
Then she pulled a card out of her pocket and read:
“If you think by conversationing with me you will small by small sail into a intimical relationboat with me, you—”
“I have no intent—”
“—you mistertaken.”
“No, you miss-taken.” I also pulled out a card from my wallet— Graf’s old veezeet kart — and pretended to read from it. “Because me get violentish ocean-ill, I have no intention of boarding a relation boat with you, even for a short, one-day scruise. Are you kidding? You and me? Me and you?” And I gestured to drive the point home. And even added an operatic, villainous, “Ha!”
At once tears sprang from her eyes. Instantly, I felt sorry for her. Sorry I had made fun of her, sorry I had pulled her foot, using her unique take, rather mis-take, on the English language. I put the card away, looked at her again. Why do we hurt people when they are down? I had nothing against her. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t attractive. She wasn’t a bad sort, just rather pathetic, maybe even down on her luck. Linguistically, an original. But I could not embark. Still, I couldn’t help saying it, even though once I said it, I would gladly have withdrawn the words. But the steamroller was on a downhill roll and the brakes were off. It was too late to unsay, having already said:
“Believe me. Not the next — to-last thing in the world, but the very last thing in the world, even more than that, if that is mathematically possible, is for me to embark—”
And I stopped for a moment, took cognizance of the square with the masses of people buzzing in it. People swirling all around, paying no attention to the man and the woman with the placard talking, throwing soft darts at each other—“for me to embark on a relationboat with you. For such a voyeurage I have no tackets, no teckets, no tickets, tockets, or tuckets.”
Now the tears rolled from her eyes. She pressed her lips. Tried to stop crying. She even tried to smile. Through her tears. Through her tears she tried to smile and I saw those tears and those tears affected me. I gazed at her eyes, her cheekbones, her lips. Actually, with tears rolling down her cheeks, misting in her eyes, she looked rather appealing. Sadness made her plainness sail away. And then a voice I heard as my own added in perfectly good, non-screwy English, “Would you like to join me for a drink, your choice of beverage, after you finish work?”
“Yes,” she said quickly through her tears. “Yes. Off course,” she said, drying her tears. “I now, right now, am finish work. No longer in labor.” She removed her placard. Now I saw her body for the first time, quite nicely, in fact, very nicely shaped. She walked to the base of the clock tower and rested the placard against the wall. Then, turning to me, she said, “I would affectionate to conjoin with you. Terribly. You seemingly actually very nicely.”
I looked at her enticing figure and a wave of heat rose from my hips to the top of the placard, had I been wearing a placard.
“After beverage of your choice,” I took her hand and shook it and told her my name and she said hers was Katerina Maria, “we can later maybe conjugalate some sex male and sex female verbs together in my apartment.”
“Indeedly, yes. To improvingment my minimalish English I have such large desire.”
“And your body English is largely desirable too.”
“I am thanking you. I very muchly desire to taking off the heavy cloak of my bad English.”
“I will help you take off that heavy cloak, Katerina Maria. And I would love to clock you remove, layer by layer, other unwanted ungrammatical undergarments, understand?”
“We shall ocean if you will layer.”
“We shall indeed.”
“Goodly.”
“As you can ocean, I have similar muchly desire too. Even three,” I said.
“Tell, is English you nativity tongue?”
“Why?”
“Because is comedianly.”
“My native tongue is Albanian but since I, alas, am in exile now, my English comes out right to left syntactically Albanish.”
“Can you to me speak something in Albanish?”
What nonsense syllables should I come up with? I wondered. Then it hit me. Why not use the words I know from Jiri and Betty’s language?
“Tara pilus, tara glos.”
“What does it meaning?”
I thought of saying, I love you, but then changed it to: “Too young, too old.”
“Nepa tara glos,” she said, smiling like Mona Lisa only with her eyes.
My head swiveled, then stopped. “How do you know that?”
“On one side, perhaps my front, perhaps my back, I am partial Albanish.”
“Do you speak Albanish?”
“No, but the mother of the mother of mine, this proverbialism was in her folk speech.”
“I am happified if not horrified to hearing this,” I said.
She took my hand and shook it, then said (ex)pertly with tilt of her head: “It is nice to knowing that in both of us Albanish blood runs betwixt us.”
“Goodly.”
“Come,” she said. “Let us to café.” And she touched my forearm, held her hand there a moment, then glided it down to my wrist. I love it when a woman touches just like that, on her own. And the desire rose from my placard to the back of my throat.
“Goodly. And I will leg the bill,” I said.
“No, I will not allow. We shall cleave it.”
Over black coffee (hers) and cocoa-mocha (mine), Katerina Maria told me she had studified drama but could not find labor— hence the placard to support herself. I saw no ring on her finger. She noticed.
“I am not husbanded,” she said. Then, looking at me closely, she added: “You look familial.”
I was used to that, so I didn’t elaborate. “Danny or K?”
“Like Czech author is you resemblement,” Katerina Maria said.
“So it is K after all. Plenty people tell me that.”
“Not K. Hašek. Writer of Nice Soldier Schweik.”
“But but,” I exploded, frightening her somewhat. “Hašek was short, fat, and not too good-looking.”
Katerina Maria shrugged. She smiled into her cup. Maybe she was joking. Maybe she was getting even with me.
I wanted to linger at the café, if only out of politeness, but I could tell she was anxious to pound verbs and stretch nouns.
In my apartment, after a swift English lesson, we reclined on a bed of roses and, with beaps and lounds, boarded the relationboat. Katerina Maria took out her little card and, with a laugh, tore it in two, once, twice, three times. She flung the pieces in the air merrily and watched them float down slowly on us. They fell languidly like thick snowflakes. She tried to catch them with her bare toes.
“Why they fall slow soly?” Katerina Maria asked.
“Because of poor gravity in room. I lowered gravity, increased levity.”
Katerina Maria laughed but didn’t understand a word I said.