At the gate I turned, feeling a stab in the back from a shiny knitting-needle… and there by the black grand piano stood the old solicitor, shading his nightmarish features against the spray of sharp sunlight with his basket, his frame all twisted, and firing at me with the death-ray of his eye, which passed through me and cast such a bright light on the white brickwork of the gatepost like if I’d focussed a lens so as to burn a hole in the back of my hand or was waiting for my cotton sleeve to catch fire. Such was the power of this human stare, this fine wire of a strange aqueous humour emitted by the wretched, but triumphant old solicitor. I called out: “Who are you?” And the old man gibbered, bowing towards me: “I’m a corpse who’s forgotten to die.” And the sun shone on the rabbit house, which, divided into separate hutches, reared up behind him, with the does basking in it, their babies before them, fond does, perhaps impelled by their love to cherish the day when their offspring would grow up and have the good fortune to move into the body of the Petrof grand, where they would wage that age-old, terrible struggle, which goes on among men as much as among animals, for sexual supremacy, a struggle victorious until one even stronger comes along and bites off the vitals of the strongest rabbits, depriving them of their power, because this is the only way of progress, the only way for the strong to maintain their position, while all that awaits those who have lost out is the knife or a blow to the skull, though the meat of the emasculated, the castrated, is always more tender and free of the obnoxious odour of sex, that odour that makes the world go round.
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6 JUMBO
WE’VE BEEN UNLUCKY with our pub landlords, or have we? For one, Mr Sborník was such a chilly mortal that the enamelled cast-iron stove was red-hot even in summer, and as he conveyed mugs of beer from tap to table, mine host Mr Sborník wore a long fur coat and shivered with cold, while we dripped with sweat in proportion to our vast intake of beer. Those endless beers! Another licensee was, for his part, so fired up the whole time, so jealous was he of his wife, that he didn’t have any heating on even in winter. It was enough to look or smile at his wife and he would threaten to cash up and close the pub for the day. And sometimes he did. This publican was called Zákon, which means ‘law’, which is why he had a complex about bringing the patrons’ behaviour into line. So when he brought a customer his beer and the customer wasn’t sitting like kids in school, he would hold the beer back and even start yelling at him: “Is that the way to sit in a pub, all sprawled out and cross-legged like that? You’re getting no beer until you sit nicely.” And even as he taught his patrons how to behave, Mr Zákon still managed to keep an eye out in case anyone was looking knowingly at his wife, exchanging signs with her, or making sheep’s eyes at her. Finally our best landlord was the landlady called Romana, who had a gall bladder problem that she treated by drinking diabetic brandy or whisky, and she had with her a gorgeous little daughter, who she bathed every night in the bar sink, because our Keeper’s Lodge was devoid of sanitary facilities. If at that moment a patron ordered tea or coffee, with the little girl sitting in the sink among the cups and saucers, Romana would wash a cup in the soap suds and then serve them a really nice coffee with lovely bubbles and the flavour of an honest cognac. She was nice to all the patrons, she’d come and sit with them, and they would help treat her gall bladder with brandy or whisky. The only one she didn’t like was Mr Bělohlávek, an aircraft mechanic who didn’t come often, but when he did, it was worth it. As he took his seat he’d be down in the dumps, but after four beers and black rum coffees he was fine and then one time he asked me what I was doing on the sixth of January. And when I said I was free, Mr Bělohlávek invited me for tea in Voronezh, enthusing about how we’d take off with Chief Pilot Mazura and spend the evening in Poprad, where he had a gipsy band ready and waiting, then in the morning we’d set off for Voronezh, where he would repair a broken-down TU134, in the afternoon we’d have a bite to eat, caviar and champagne, and land back in Prague in the early evening. But that wasn’t what drove a wedge between Romana and Mr Bělohlávek, the aircraft mechanic. Once, after five beers, he unwound and told the whole pub, with passion: “So, being a pilot, that’s no mean thing! In essence it’s a world of mathematics and geometry, and in this entire district, that world has been entrusted to me and Mr Hubka the engineer alone!” Mr Bělohlávek exulted, full of sparkle and on brilliant form. And Romana took a sip of brandy and said: “And what about geometry and me? Could it be entrusted to me too?” Mr Bělohlávek pulled himself up to his full height and exulted even more: “No, lady, it is entrusted only to men, certainly not you!” And Romana said: “Why on earth not?” And Mr Bělohlávek banged his fist on the table as proof of his zeal and bellowed: “No, because, lady, it can be taken for granted that you’re dumb.” Romana reddened and said: “Thank you very much!” And Mr Bělohlávek had been on form ever since the time he’d taken a tractor-load of open sandwiches and the police were waiting for the tractor by the main gate of the collective farm, and Mr Bělohlávek, clutching fifty open sandwiches, commanded: “Head for the fence, ram the fence and enter the farm from the rear!” And the tractor-driver drove through the fence and then they’d carried on drinking and feasting in the cow-shed while the policemen vainly rubbed their hands as they waited by the main gate with a breathalyser. When Mr Bělohlávek finished this story, I asked him the fundamental question: “How come you did that, what gave you the idea, Mr Bělohlávek?” And he shouted triumphantly: “Why? I’d had six beers and six rums and I was on form!” And so from that time on he was on form, not often, but sometimes he was, because otherwise, when sober, he was shy, reticent, diffident and given to blushing. However, like I say, Romana had been the licensee before Mr Zákon and I want to tell you the sort of things that happened during the time he was landlord. Back then, winters were harsh, but Zákon kept a coal fire in the kitchen and in the little room where has wife and child must have been. Any patron who entered the pub would be shivering with cold and Mr Zákon let anyone who wanted, and it was but a moment before everyone wanted, drape a white tablecloth round their shoulders. So they all sat there in their white tablecloths, the tables had white cloths, and outside there was the covering of white snow that had fallen. So we the patrons could get warm, Mr Bělohlávek suggested putting three ashtrays together and warming our hands over some burning cigarette papers and dog-ends. Then mine host Mr Zákon brought in an enamel crock pot, a huge great pot, brown, with handles, which he stood on the three ashtrays in which bits of paper and newspaper and finally some wooden toothpicks were burning, then he brought his tiny tot in and slipped it into the pot, and it was freezing cold in the pub, but the baby was warm and cosy inside the enamel pot and having our hands warm brightened the rest of us a bit too. And at that moment the door swung open and in among the white figures of the patrons and the white of the tablecloths came a chimney sweep, the village sweep with his brush, and he was so miserable that he didn’t even help himself to a tablecloth, but just as he was, still covered in soot, he sat down at a table, placed his head in his hands and ordered a strong grog, and then he stared absently at the ceiling and said: “Well this year’s been awful and the one that’s coming’s going to be ghastly… It says here I’m charged with raping my wife, yes, wife!” And the other patrons were startled: “You what??” And Mr Zákon pronounced: “That can’t be right.” And the sweep took out his wallet and he rose, leaving the imprint of his elbows and hands on the white tablecloth, and then he went and placed his hands on a clean tablecloth and showed us the writ from the district court charging him with raping his wife. And the patrons scrambled over one another to read the writ and the sweep walked round and round, leaving handprints like dirty footprints all over the tablecloth, and the landlord shouted: “Wait!” And he spread a newspaper out and told the chimney sweep to sit in one spot and keep his filthy mawlers off the cloth and on the newspaper, or he wouldn’t make him the grog he’d ordered… And the sweep rambled on about his wife having found another bloke, that she loved him and that she’d already got herself a solicitor and wanted a divorce, and so one time the sweep had forced her, under threat of violence, like the ancient Romans did when they carried off the Sabine women, and she’d had to bow to his will. The patrons were amazed, re-read it, and the landlord, Mr Zákon, shook his fist towards the kitchen at his wife beyond the wall, a rare and timid beauty who may have weighed seventy-eight kilos, but her hair was the colour of straw or limewood shavings, and her blue eyes were such a surprise out here in the woods that none of the patrons could tear themselves away from her hair and eyes, and that drove Mr Zákon mad. Mr Zákon said menacingly: “Huh, if my one tried pulling a trick like that! A true Slav household’s not supposed to have an axe in sight, and I’ve got one!” And the sweep rose, and, probably so drunk by now with grief, he kept grabbing the table with his hands, and so his palm-prints promenaded from tablecloth to tablecloth following the publican, and the sweep went on, “Good man, don’t do it, you mustn’t kill her, she’s a human being…” “What!” Mr Zákon roared, “And what am I then? Her spouse or what? Let her be obedient unto her husband!” And the chimney sweep leant on the bar counter and the door opened and in came the beauty who was the landlord’s wife, her hair, radiant as the sun, warming the eyes of all the patrons, and she set down the double-strength grog, and everyone was watching her, Mr Zákon searchingly, wondering whether she might have a lover and, through her solicitor, go and sue him for rape… And suddenly he saw her as so beautiful and desirable and so capable of and predisposed to being loved by a third party that he let out a whinnying sound. And he bellowed: “As of today you’re going to wear a headscarf! Or I’ll shave your head bare, I’ll swear you’ve got lice and that hair will come off!” And he plumped himself down and started shivering so much that he took a tablecloth and put it round his shoulders, one from the pile of tablecloths as a white drape across his shoulders, and he pulled his chair up as the sweep greedily drank his grog and called towards the kitchen: “Another one! And, my friends, that’s not all! The court charges me with obstructing an impending happy marriage…” And there was silence, the tiny head of the baby slumbered sweetly inside the crock pot, which radiated its warmth like a cast-iron stove, a pleasant warmth, we all had our hands on the pot and watched the sleeping baby, which let out a sweet sobbing sound, and there was silence and suddenly Mr Bělohlávek ordered a whole bottle of old engine oil, meaning Fernet-Branca, the landlord staggered off to get the bottle and some glasses and we all got to figuring out and trying to imagine what sort of law it was, what prescription, that sided with a lover and protected him, and so protected an impending happy marriage against the husband. Having poured out the glasses of engine oil, Mr Zákon got up again and satisfied himself that his axe was still propped against the doorpost, then sprawled out on his chair he gazed absently through the wall into the very heart of what had befallen the chimney sweep, who was back on his feet, running his hands over the white, already multiply crisscrossed tablecloths, and dripping tears onto the grime- and soot-stained cloths. “How did you put it?” Mr Zákon enquired. And the chimney sweep got his bulging bag, took a document out with his black hands, it was the wrong one, so along with some soot he shoved it back and then found the right one. He handed it over and the landlord read out: “Re: — obstruction of an impending marriage…” and having read it, he passed the paper round and pronounced: “I’m going to buy two more axes, then let someone come and say I’m obstructing someone’s impending bliss!” And the door opened and out of the kitchen came a straw-yellow radiance of wavy hair, and the landlady was beautiful, as if she had been born of the waters of the sea, a sea of beer and foam, bearing a steaming double-strength grog, and everyone rose, and the tablecloths rose as they also covered their heads, and the eyes of all were fixed on the awesome sight. The landlady had the unfortunate habit of smiling with a slight squint, and her squint was more beautiful than everything else, a squint that left all men with a sense that mine hostess had glimpsed infinity, that she wrote poems, that her heart held some secret. The landlord said: “And I’m going to apply for a gun licence, I’m going to join the hunt!” And the chimney sweep picked up his cup of double-strength grog and his hands shook, and the little spoon chattered even more than his teeth. Then he sat back down and his hands were so large that they completely enfolded the little cup with its inscription ‘Greetings from Hlinsko’ and he cooled his drink with his cold hands. “Gentlemen,” cried Mr Bělohlávek, cheery and relaxed, having downed his sixth beer, “gentlemen, let’s turn the page! Do you know where I went yesterday? Africa, and I flew over Mount Kilimanjaro.” And the men seized on Kilimanjaro and started arguing about where it was. “It’s somewhere near the source of the White Nile,” said Mr Kuzmík. “No way, it’s in South Africa,” said the gamekeeper, Mr Gromus. “Come off it, it’s up near Kuwait, there’s all of thirty trees there and twenty of them belong to the sheikh,” said Mr Franc. And I said: “It’s somewhere where the Germans used to have a colony…” And the last to raise his head was the roadmender, Mr Procházka, who’d been sound asleep, but, as always, heard everything, and he came to and said: “Listen carefully to what I’m about to say: if you’re pissed, Kiliman