I tried to ask them what it was like living here. My inquiry struck them as amusing. Couldn’t I see? There was nothing to do except get drunk. Sometimes there was some shooting going on. And the pigs squeal a lot because there’s nothing to feed them.
Then they ceased paying attention to me, and I didn’t dare disturb them.
The waiter chased us out sometime after midnight, and I skulked behind the singing brigade workers to the farm. In a large barn by the light of an oil lamp, I counted twelve military bunks with bare straw mattresses — two were empty. One of the girls reeled over to me carrying three blankets and suggested I put one under my head. There was a pump in the yard if I wanted to wash up.
When I awoke in the morning, the bedroom was already half empty. Two brigade workers were getting ready to go to the dentist in Sušice, and if I wanted a ride, the bus was leaving in a moment. The girl who had been sitting on the lap of the comrade wearing the cowboy hat was still asleep, with her head wrapped in a wet towel. Another was just walking into the room with a bucketful of water and a rag tied around a broom.
I said I would like to pay for my bed.
Payment was not necessary; the beds were free. She laid aside her broom and complained for a bit. If they didn’t get a little milk from the cows and hadn’t found some year-old potatoes in the basement, they would have died like the pigs here who are dying of hunger. Then she led me to the sty to see several gaunt and squealing swine. Behind them stood two filthy goats.
I went back to the pub for breakfast. The now sober waiter asked me how I’d slept. He then wanted to know which one I’d chosen. They’re all sluts, he explained. Why did I think they had come here? They wanted to get rid of them at the factories, so they booted them to this place. Here they had plenty of customers, and he pointed to the tavern where several border guards were standing.
Afterward, I climbed a steep hill above the town. I saw several cows being watched by a boy around my age. He was sitting, leaning against a tree and smoking a small pipe. I recognized him as one of my bedfellows.
He was surprised I was still around. Did I perhaps relish the beauty of the wilderness? It was the asshole of the world is how he explained his relationship to the local splendor. I tend cattle, he added as if in apology. They couldn’t find anything else for him to do.
He took from his wrist a copper bracelet embossed with grape clusters and rose blossoms and handed it to me to show what he used to do. He added that they’d sent him here as punishment for attending Mass on Sundays.
Here Mass is celebrated only once a month, but on the other hand you’re closer to God. Or at least the sky.
I went back to the farm. Only the brunette with the wet towel on her head was there. She gave a sigh of apology, since she obviously looked so awful. She knew she shouldn’t drink that much, but just let him try to tell her what to do. She opened one of the wardrobes and pulled out a bottle of rum and two mustard glasses. I said I didn’t drink, and she poured one for herself. “I can’t work anyway.” She pulled up her military shirt, which was buttoned this time, and I saw on her belly a bloody, inflamed gash. She explained that they’d been fighting a bit. She’d probably gotten this from a pitchfork. She didn’t remember much of what had happened. I asked if she’d seen a doctor. She waved her hand. She wouldn’t get any sick leave, so what was the point? Again she offered me a glass of rum, and when I refused, she drank it. Then she stretched out on the bed, stared at the ceiling covered with cobwebs and damp plaster, and after a moment said, “I’ll kill myself someday anyway. But before that I’m going to break somebody’s jaw. I can’t stand guys. Especially those clever swine who sent us to this shit hole.”
Right away the next day I wrote a somewhat moralistic article in which I claimed that the brigade workers here, who had been dispatched into unexpectedly arduous circumstances, felt like outcasts. They had no idea how to live or work in these new surroundings, so they drank or they tried to save themselves by running away. At the editorial office, they were appalled. I was told that if I was going to mention the negative aspects, I had to balance them out with something positive. Then they asked if I’d stopped by the district secretariat of the Union of Youth. I admitted that I hadn’t. After that they talked on the phone for a long time and then advised me to go to Dolní Krušec, where brigade workers were fulfilling the plan by 212 percent.
Thus I received my first lesson concerning what you were allowed or, rather, what you were forbidden to write about if you wanted to get your reportage published.
So what could I write about? Where was the border of what was allowed? Was it the duty of every journalist or writer to offer up only praise, only confirm the image of a society where, except for a few enemies and conspirators, everyone was enthusiastically building socialism?
It occurred to me that instead of an article, I could write a short story about the brigade I saw in the Kašperské Mountains. I composed it in one rather protracted evening. I invented a teacher and had her tell the story of her experiences on the brigade. In a remote spot where the workers were toiling away, morale was gradually disintegrating. Then a young boy got blood poisoning and had to be taken immediately to the doctor in town. The telephones were not working, and the only means of transportation was a tractor that the brigade workers had received for their labor. Unfortunately, at this critical moment the driver was so drunk that he couldn’t get up from his chair in the pub. The teacher finally got behind the wheel of the tractor and drove the boy to the doctor. Everything ended happily and moreover brought the brigade workers around to see the error of their ways. Even though I had invented the entire story, including the happy ending, I thought I had actually said something about reality. In a paroxysm of pride, I took the story to Literární noviny, which I considered the most dignified literary platform.
To my surprise, the editors asked to publish my story under the title “Far from the People.” Neither they nor I suspected that, despite the double happy ending, it could provoke the party overseers. But nonetheless I allowed myself to describe how the brigade workers were starting to get drunk and lose the sense of purpose of their activity.
Perhaps you cannot imagine those long evenings in April and May. Not a soul outside, just rain and wind — and inside? Some go to the pub, others stay inside and remain silent. . I wanted to read, and then I was struck by the thought: Why should I read? Perhaps there are others who think everything here is pointless and without purpose — even work, because for us it has ceased to be something valuable. . None of us, after all, lives only to work off his hours in the field. . Everything is done for the people. . and at the same time you see how people are going to seed before your very eyes. What are we doing here? If I had to live like this for a year or two, I would probably say: Why live at all?
I was called to a meeting of the editorial board where the chair of the Writers’ Union himself, Jan Drda, would be speaking. The famous Jan Drda tried to analyze the subject of my prose. He said that I was obviously a talented and, in view of my youth, a promising author. He also praised my attempt to compose a story about the present day. But was reality actually so dreary? Can we really say that our young workers are losing their sense of the meaning of life, that the result of their collective effort is the question: Why live at all?