The Little Town Where Time Stood Still Read online

  “Gentlemen, if I may be so bold, I invite you all to our slaughtering party,” I said.

  And Doctor Gruntorád declared:

  “Manager, have ten crates of bottled lager brought over from the plant. No no, make it twelve!”

  “Come along, this way, gentlemen, if you please, but you’ll have to eat the pork goulash with a spoon from a soup bowl, right up to the brim! And in a little bit we’ll have sausages too with horseradish, and barley and breadcrumb puddings. Gentlemen, come this way please,” with a motion of my blood-spattered hand I invited my guests in by the rear entrance.

  It was late at night when the members of the management board dispersed to go home in their buggies. I accompanied each with a lamp in my hand, the vehicles drove up in front of the entrance, glowing carriage lamps fitted on mudguards illuminated the dimly gleaming hindquarters of horses, all the members of the management board squeezed Francin’s hand and clapped him on the shoulder. That night I slept alone in the bedroom, cold air streamed in through the open window, on planks between chairs the sausages and puddings glittered on their rye straw, right by the bed on long boards lay cooling the dismembered parts of the pig, the boned and apportioned hams, the chops and roasting joints, the shoulders and knees and legs, all laid out according to Mr Myclík’s orderly system. As I got into bed I could hear Francin in the kitchen getting up and pouring himself some lukewarm coffee, taking some dry bread to chew with it, it had been a tremendous blow-out, all the members of the management board ate abundantly, only Francin stood there in the kitchen drinking lukewarm coffee and chewing dry bread with it. I lay in the feather quilt, and before I fell asleep, I stretched out a hand and touched a shoulder, then I fingered a joint and went dozing off with my fingers on a virginal tenderloin, and dreamed of eating a whole pig. When towards morning I woke, I had such a thirst, I went barefoot to fetch a bottle of beer, pulled off the stopper and drank greedily, then I lit the lamp, and holding it in my fingers, I went from one bit of pork to the next, unable to restrain myself from lighting the primus and slicing off two lovely lean schnitzels from the leg. I beat them out thin, salted and peppered them and cooked them in butter in eight minutes flat, all that time, which seemed to me an eternity, my mouth was watering, that was what I needed, to eat practically the whole of the two legs, in simple unbreaded schnitzels sprinkled with lemon juice. I added some water to the schnitzels, covered the pan with a lid, out of which angry steam huffed and puffed, and now I laid those schnitzels on a plate and ate them greedily, as always I got my nightdress spattered, just as I always spatter my blouse with juice or gravy, because when I eat, I don’t just eat, I guzzle . . . and when I had finished and wiped the plate with bread, I saw through the open door how, there in the twilight gloom, Francin’s eyes were staring, just those eyes reproaching me again for eating as ill becomes a decent woman, and it was as well I had eaten my fill already, for that look of his always spoilt my appetite, I bent over the lamp, but then I remembered the reek of the wick would affect the flavour of the meat, I carried the lamp into the passage and blew it out with a powerful puff of breath. And so I climbed into bed, and feeling the shoulder of pork, dropped off to sleep, looking forward in the morning when I woke to making two more plain schnitzels.

  3

  Bod’a Červinka always took great pains with my hair. He said, “That hair of yours is a hark back to the golden days of yore, never have I had such hair under my comb before.” When Bod’a combed out my hair, it was as if he had lit two burning torches in the shop, there in the mirrors and bowls and glass bottles the fire of my hair blazed up, and I had to admit that Bod’a was right. Never did I see my hair look so beautiful elsewhere as it did in Bod’a’s shop, when he washed it in camomile infusion, which I boiled myself and brought along in a milk can. While my hair was still wet it never had the promise of what began to happen to it when it dried out; the moment it started to dry it was as if in those streaming tresses thousands of golden bees were born, thousands of little tiny fireflies, the crackling of thousands of little tiny amber crystals. And when Bod’a first drew the comb through this mane of tresses, there came a crackling and a hissing from them, and they swelled and grew and seethed, till Bod’a had to kneel down, as if he were grooming the tails of a couple of stallions with a currycomb. And his shop was illuminated with it, cyclists jumped off their bikes and pressed their faces to the window to confirm and explain what had so startled their eyes. And Bod’a himself dwelt in the cloudy expanse of my hair, he always locked and closed the shop so as not to be disturbed, every now and again he sniffed at the scent of it, and when he had finished combing he breathed out blissfully, and only then did he bind the hair, just as the mood, which I trusted, took him, sometimes with a purple, at other times a green, or else a red or a blue ribbon, as if I was part of a Catholic rite, as if my hair was part of some feast of the church. Then he unlocked the shop, brought me my bicycle, hung the can on the frame, and helped me ceremoniously up on to the saddle. By then there was a crowd of people in front of the shop, everyone stared at that hair smelling sweetly of camomile. When I leant on the pedals Mr Bod’a ran alongside for a bit and held up my hair to prevent it from catching in the chain or the spokes. And when I had got up enough speed Mr Bod’a tossed up a corner of my tresses in the air, as you would throw up in the air a star or a kite up into the sky, and breathless he returned to the shop. And I rode off, and as my hair blew behind me, I could hear its crackling, like someone rubbing salt or silk, like when rain trickles off down a tin roof, like Wiener schnitzel frying, so that torch of tresses blew behind me, as when boys at dusk with burning pitch broomsticks run about on the Mayday night of Philip and James or burn witches, so the smoke of my hair blew behind me. And people stopped, and I wasn’t surprised that they couldn’t tear themselves away from that blowing hair as it came and accosted them like an advertisement. And I felt good myself when I saw how I was seen, the empty can of camomile jangled on the handlebars and the comb of streaming air swept my hair back. I rode through the square, all glances converging on my flowing tresses like spokes on the wheels of this bicycle on which my moving Ego trod the pedals. Francin met me twice flowing along like this, and each time this blowing hair of mine took his breath away, he didn’t even acknowledge my presence, he was quite incapable of calling out to me, he just stood there numbed by my unexpected apparition, pressing himself to the wall and obliged to pause a moment to get his breath back. I had the feeling he would have keeled over if I had spoken to him, it was his loving adoration which pressed him to the wall, like the picture by Aleš of the orphan child in all the school readers. And I trod on the pedals, knocking my knees alternately against the can, cyclists riding the other way halted, some turned their bikes and sped after me, overtook me, only to turn their bicycles round and ride again to meet me, and they greeted my little blouse and milk can and my blowing hair and me in my entirety, and affably and understandingly I granted them this show and only regretted I did not have the ability to ride to meet myself like this one day, so that I could also take pleasure in what I took pride in and could not be ashamed of. I rode once more through the square, and then up the main thoroughfare, there stood the Orion motorcycle in front of the Grand, in front of it Francin holding a spark plug in his fingers, there he stood with that motorbike of his, and certainly he saw me, but he pretended not to, his Orion was always playing up with its ignition and whatnot, so that Francin carried always in the sidecar with him not only all his spanners and wrenches and screwdrivers, but also a little treadle lathe. And next to Francin stood two members of the management board of our limited-liability brewery. Before slapping my shoe on the pavement I reached behind me and drew my hair forward, and laid it in my lap.

  “Hello, Francin,” I said.

  And Francin blew into the spark plug, but when he heard me the spark plug dropped from his fingers, his face had two smudges on it from the repairing.

  “Good day to you,” the two management board members greet
ed me.

  “Good morning, lovely weather, isn’t it?” I said, and Francin blushed to the roots of his hair.

  “Where have you dropped that spark plug, Francin?” I said.

  And I bent down, Francin knelt and searched for the spark plug under the sidecar, I laid a little hankie on the pavement, knelt down and my hair fell beside me, Mr de Giorgi, master chimneysweep, took up my hair tenderly and threw it across his elbow, like a sacristan taking a priest’s robe, Francin kneeled and fixed his eyes under the blue shadow of the motorcycle sidecar, and I saw that my presence had so disconcerted him that he was searching only in order to regain his composure. When we had our wedding it was the same thing again, as he was putting the ring on me his fingers trembled so much that the wedding ring dropped out and rolled away somewhere, and so first Francin, then the witnesses, then the wedding guests, first bending over, then on all fours, and finally the priest himself, all of them were crawling on all fours about the church, until the server found that wedding ring under the pulpit, a little round ring that had rolled off quite the opposite way to where the whole wedding had been searching, down on its hands and knees. And I laughed that day, I just stood there and I laughed. . .

  “There’s something over there by the gutter,” a child said, passing by and bowling his hoop on down the main street.

  And there by the gutter the spark plug lay, Francin picked it up in his fingers, and when he tried to screw it into the engine his hands shook so much that the spark plug chattered in the threads. And the doors of the Grand opened and out came Mr Bernádek, master blacksmith, who drank a keg of Pilsner at a sitting, and he carried out a glass of beer.

  “Come on, young missus, don’t be shy, have one on me!”

  “Cheers, Mr Bernádek!”

  I sank my nose in the foam, raised my arm as if to take the oath, and slowly and with relish I drank down that sweetly bitter liquid, and when I had emptied the glass, I wiped my lips with my forefinger and said, “But our own brewery beer is just as good.”

  Mr Bernádek gave me a bow:

  “But the Pilsner beer, young missus, is nearer to the colour of your hair, allow me . . .” mumbled the master blacksmith, “allow me to go back in and continue drinking in your honour some more of that golden hair of yours.”

  He bowed and left, a presence that weighed a hundred and twenty kilos, and whose trousers made huge flaps at the back, flaps like those of an elephant.

  “Francin,” I said, “are you coming back for your dinner?”

  He tightened the spark plug at the top of the engine, feigning concentration. I bowed to the two honourable members of the management board, trod on the pedals, tossed behind me those streaming tresses of Pilsner, and gaining speed rode off down the narrow lane on to the bridge, and the land beyond the balustrade unfurled in front of me like an umbrella. You could smell the scent of the river, and there in the distance rose the beige-walled brewery with its maltings, our limited-liability company municipal brewery.

  4

  On the lid of the muscle builder box was the message: You too shall possess the same fine physique, powerful muscles and stunning strength!

  And every morning Francin would exercise his muscles, which were just as magnificent as the gladiator’s on the box lid anyway, but Francin saw himself as just a puny little skinned rabbit. I put the pot of potatoes on the stove, took the box with the photo of the great muscle-man on the lid, and read out loud:

  “You too shall have the strength of a tiger that with one blow of its paw kills prey much larger than itself.”

  At that moment Francin glanced out to the pavement, and the muscle builder withered in his fingers, and Francin straightaway collapsed on the ottoman in a heap and said, “Pepin.”

  “Now at last I’m going to see that brother of yours, at long last I’m going to hear something from my little old brother-in-law!”

  And I leant against the window frame, and there on the pavement stood a man, with a small oval hat on his head, wearing check breeches tucked into green Tyrolean stockings, with an upturned nose and on his back an army rucksack.

  “Uncle Jožin,” I called out to him from the doorstep, “come on in.”

  “Which one are you?” asked Uncle Pepin.

  “Your sister-in-law, you’re right welcome!”

  “Christ, I’m a lucky lad, to have such a fine winsome sister-in-law, but what’ve you done with Francin?” Uncle enquired, rolling on into the kitchen and living-room.

  “Here he is, but what’s up with the man? Lying down are you? Good God, man, I’ve come to pay you a visit, I won’t be staying more than a fortnight,” Uncle ran on and his voice boomed and sliced the air like an army banner, like a military command, and Francin felt an electric shock hit him with each word, and he leapt up and wrapped himself in a blanket.

  “All of them sends their love, except Bóchalena, she’s a goner, some joker put gunpowder in her woodpile, when the old thing popped a log on the stove, it went off, lammed her right in the mug, and that was that, she just snuffed it.”