“Fuck that fucking motherfucker!” Junec bursts out in English.
Žofré’s expression is unhappy. His fat body fidgets in the chair. Martin should speak Slovak, he says. Martin must know, after all, that Žofré’s never learned English.
Martin grabs a slipper and hurls it at Žofré.
Žofré dissolves in the air for a moment but, as soon as the danger is over, he reappears in his chair.
“Yes,” Žofré says, “Žofré doesn’t speak English and Martin has forgotten his Slovak. What a shame,” he says, resentfully shaking his head.
“That’s right,” says Junec. “And it was bound to happen that way because, while I worked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and was in regular contact with Americans, you were boozing in the Slovak Club with our fellow countrymen!”
“And what did that do for you?” Žofré laughs. “Soon you won’t know how to buy even a bread roll in Slovak.”
“What did that do for me?” Martin Junec repeats, and gets out of bed. “This is what it did: I used to be a Slovak-trained electrician and former idiot, and now I control seventy-five per cent of the stock of Artisania Lamps, which I founded. And when I feel like having a bread roll, then I can buy it and the whole bakery, too. And what did drinking do for you? You’ve been dead for the last three years. That’s what!”
Martin goes into the bathroom. Žofré dissolves above the armchair he was sitting in and instantly rematerializes, standing in the bathroom doorway.
“A long time ago, when we still lived here,” says Junec, his mouth full of toothpaste, “there used to be a TV series: Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). Do you remember?”
Martin turns to Žofré. Žofré shrugs.
“Randall was a private detective, you know?” says Martin. “He had a friend who was a detective, too. He got killed. But he stayed on earth and helped his friend investigate. Never ever would I have believed that such a thing was possible and that I’d be involved. Fuck this fucking life!”
“You talk like an idiot from a school for the subnormal,” says Žofré. “Baťa has spent fifty years in America and still switches to fluent Czech at a moment’s notice.”
“Like hell he does, Žofré,” says Martin and starts getting dressed. “You always were a dirty motherfucker and you still are. even now you’re dead. The only thing I regret is the moment that I let Hruškovič persuade me to have you in the band. That’s when it started. When you drank yourself to death in the US, I told myself, maybe it was a good thing. But who could have known that you’d appear a week after your funeral? But don’t worry, buddy! This isn’t going to last very long. Don’t you worry!”
“I know you’ve phoned Hruškovič,” Žofré says reproachfully. “I know very well what he’s up to now! You want to get rid of me, but it will take a fucking good psychic to make me leave you in peace. When I was dying, I promised Edna to keep an eye on you.”
“Leave Edna out of this!” Junec orders him. “She couldn’t understand a single word you said!”
“That makes no difference,” the ghost retorts. “Promises are promises.”
“Suddenly!” Martin shouts at the mirror, as if calling on it as a witness. “Suddenly! You hated her and all the time you were as jealous as a wild boar, and now we have these promises. Just don’t take it too far! And scram!”
“Yes,” admits Žofré sadly. “I hurt her a lot. That’s why I have to atone for it.”
“Oh, shut up,” says Junec wearily and stretches out on the bed again.
“Besides, it’s not fair, anyway,” Žofré continues. “I’ve always tried to help you. Didn’t I give you advice?”
“Oh yes, you did,” Junec admits. “You advised me. But it was all crap advice. Like recommending carved plywood chandeliers for the concert halls. The Phantom of the Opera is a piece of shit compared to what happened in Atlanta when one of those chandeliers dried out and fell into the auditorium. Lucky it was empty at the time! And, like an idiot, I went on listening to you for a while. I really should have realised that if someone was stupid when alive, then even after death he wouldn’t get any cleverer. You, on the other hand, got even more stupid!”
“Well, yes,” Žofré admits, self-critically. “Mistakes happened. But they won’t happen again.”
“You can bet on that, buddy!” Junec says. “They won’t. And now get lost!”
“Nothing simpler,” announces Žofré judiciously and with a grin of condescension dissolves in the air just in time to prevent a projectile, Martin’s slipper, from hitting his astral body.
* * *
The little girl was very small; she’d been born very recently. She peed into nappies that absorbed everything. She ate instant creamed wheat, she smiled happily when rubbed with baby lotion. She was regularly washed with baby soap and made happy goo-goo sounds.
In no time she reached the age of dolls with limbs that bent and fairytale ponies with fairytale manes. The little girl talked about them, her eyes wide with excitement. She smiled and her front teeth were visibly bigger than the rest. This was thought to make her attractive. Her teeth had no trouble biting into good quality chocolate. The little girl brushed them with fruit-flavour toothpaste. She kept brushing them and around that time, without being aware of it, she had her first period.
Very quickly, right before our eyes, the little girl turned into a young lady. The young lady started to menstruate regularly into good quality sanitary towels and tampons; she washed her hair with shampoo and conditioner, and banged the metal door of the medicine cabinet. She began to shave her legs. She chewed good minty chewing gum. Whenever she arrived somewhere she’d be offered a bottle of cola right away. The cola would be served from an ice bucket. The young lady would gladly drink her fill. Her teeth didn’t break and fall out only because of the good-quality toothpaste she used all her life.
Then she met someone. He was just like her. He smiled with his white teeth, looked a bit silly, but wasn’t really. His head was bit smaller than it should have been, but he did have a nice muscular body. He moved in a vigorous, manly way.
The young lady was becoming more and more lady-like. She learned how to walk elegantly, like a model. While walking, she would put her left foot where the right one should be, and vice versa. She moved a bit slower, her figure was rounded. Her hair hung loose. She wore tights. She was drinking champagne now. A bit of foam would always be left on her lips. Her boyfriend — maybe the same one, maybe a different one — watched her admiringly. They bought the same denim suits and resembled each other.
Soon the young lady got a job. We don’t know where and what she studied, and we shan’t even find out what she did afterwards. Dressed in a miniskirt and top, surrounded by flashing computer screens, blinds, and colleagues scurrying about in suits, underneath a slowly rotating fan, she was constantly on the phone. Maybe she’d become the manager of a successful company.
She and her co-worker seemed to have found each other right away. He was like her boyfriend, except that he wore glasses, was a few years older and had a softer face. The young woman began to wear glasses, too. Thin wire frames did not detract at all from her youthful charm. She and her new boyfriend would go to the theatre and to concerts. The former boyfriend did everything he could to hold on to her. He even showed up on his motorcycle and rode through the office where she worked. The young woman gave in to his charm for one last time, accepted the jeans that he brought along, put them on, and hopped on the back seat of the motorcycle in front of her colleague’s sad eyes.