The Little Town Where Time Stood Still Read online

  “Bóchalena?” I clasped my hands: “Your sister?”

  “Sister? No. Local woman, old girl that crammed herself all day with apples and buns, for thirty years she’d always be saying, ‘Oh, you young folks, I’ll be gone soon, I dinna want to do nothing, just sleep . . .’ me neither, I’m no exactly one hundred percent,” said Uncle, untying the cords of his haversack and tumbling all his cobbler’s tools out on the floor, and Francin, hearing the clatter, covered his face with his hands and groaned, as if Uncle had tumbled all that shoemaker’s equipment out into his brains.

  “Uncle Jožin,” I said, shoving the baking tin in front of his face, “have yourself a bun.”

  And Uncle Pepin ate two buns, and declared, “I’m really no a hundred percent.”

  “Surely no,” I fell on my knees and clasped my hands over those lasts and hammers and leather-cutting knives and other cobbler’s bits and pieces.

  “You just watch it!” Uncle Pepin cried with alarm. “Dinna go and mess it up with that hair of yours, but listen Francin lad, Zbořil the priest’s broke his leg at the hip sae bad he’ll just be a cripple for life. Uncle Zavičák, he was up doing the roof of the church tower when the cradle slipped and him with it and down he went, but he grabs a hold of the hand of the clock, and there he is, holding on to this hand on the tower clock, but the hand shifts, it slips from a quarter past eleven right down to half past, and so, as Uncle goes hurtling, his hands lose their grip on the clock hand and he just plummets, but there’s lime trees growing down there, so Uncle plonks into the top of one of they, and Zbořil the vicar, as he just stands there watching, he’s wringing his hands to see Zavičák drop from branch to branch, and then he falls on his back on the ground, and Zbořil comes rushing over to congratulate him, but he overlooks this step, see, he falls and breaks his leg, so old Zavičák has to load up Zbořil the minister, and off they cart him to the hospital in Prostějov.”

  I picked up a wooden last for a lady’s shoe and stroked it.

  “These are really lovely things, aren’t they, Francin?” I said, but Francin groaned, as if I was showing him a rat or a frog.

  “Aye they’re right beauties,” said Uncle and pulled out his pince-nez, placed it on his nose, and there were no lenses in the pince-nez, and Francin, when he saw that lensless pince-nez on his brother’s nose, he whimpered, he almost wept and turned to the wall, then he tossed about and the springs of the sofa moaned just like Francin.

  “And what’s our Uncle over in the Great Lakes doing?” I asked.

  Uncle gave a dismissive wave of the hand, and took Francin by the shoulder and turned him round to face him, and related to him in a great voice full of glee:

  “Well now, Uncle Metud over in the Great Lakes he’s begun to get a wee bit strange, and one day he read a notice in the paper: Suffer from boredom? Get yourself a racoon. And Uncle Metud, what with having no kids and that, he replied to the ad, and in a week’s time the beast arrived, in a packing case. Well that was a thing now! Just like a child, it made friends with anybody going, but there was one special thing about it, you see, the German for racoon is Waschbär, and whatever that racoon saw, it simply had to wash it, and so it washed Uncle Metud’s alarm clock and three watches, till nobody could put them together again. Then one day it washed all the spices. And again, when Uncle Metud took his bicycle to pieces, the racoon went and washed the parts for him in the nearest creek, and the neighbours were coming along saying: Uncle Metud, would you be needing this piece of junk at all? We just found it over in the creek! And after they’d brought him several bits like that, Metud went to have a look himself, and that racoon had gone off with practically the whole bang shoot. My those buns are good though. And that racoon he would only do his business in the wardrobe, so the whole building stank of his pee, in the end they had to lock everything up from him, they even had to start whispering when they spoke together. My those buns are good, pity I’m no one hundred percent. But the racoon kept watching to see where they put the key, it went and unlocked whatever they were keeping from him. But the worst of it was, the animal kept a look-out in the evenings, and soon as Uncle Metud gave Auntie a wee kiss, the racoon went for him and wanted to have some too, so Uncle Metud had to go down to the woods wi’ Auntie Rozára courting like before they were married, and still they had to keep turning round in case the racoon was right there behind them. And so there was no time for boredom, till once they went off for two days and the racoon was sae bored that this one Whitsun holiday he dismantled the whole big tiled stove in the living room, made such a muck of the furnishings and the feather quilt and the linen in the commode, that Uncle Metud sat down and wrote him an ad to The Moravian Eagle: Suffer from boredom? Get yourself a racoon! And ever since then he’s been cured of his melancholia.”

  Uncle Pepin went on, and as he talked he ate one bun after another, and now he felt into the baking tin, he fingered the whole baking tin, and finding it empty he waved a hand and said:

  “I’m no quite one hundred percent.”

  “Like Bóchalena,” I said.

  “What nonsense are you blethering?” Uncle Pepin broke into a shout: “Bóchalena was just a poor old thing that crammed herself with apples, except she also had visions . . .”

  “Was it the apples?” I interrupted.

  “Bollocks! Visions, these old lassies get visions, she got it from the church,” Uncle Pepin said choking, “a great big horse flying in the night over our wee town, and the mane and tail of that horse blazing with fire, well and as Bóchalena said at the time, ‘It’ll be war,’ and it was war too, but Francin lad, last year the whole town was in a right tizz! The old women were falling down on their knees, I saw it too, over the square and over the church, this baby Jesus figure flying through the air! But then it all came out, that tootsy wee chappie Lolan had been out watching his lambs, and the airyplanes exercising overhead, lugging after them some kind of punchbag and potting at it with their popguns, they clean forgot about the rope, you see, and as it dangled along the ground, so it got tangled up all round Lolan’s leg, and him a braw wee child too, with his dainty fair hair, and as the airyplane flew upwards, the rope went up and Lolan with it, and right over our wee town Lolan went, flying through the air, but the old women they thought it was baby Jesus, specially when the rope got hooked up on a lime tree by the church, and this baby Jesus fell down like Uncle Zavičák, tumbling from branch to branch, and then wee Lolan falls to earth and says ‘Where are all my poor wee lambs?’ and the old women knelt down for him to bless them.”

  So Uncle continued, and his voice was resounding and triumphant and blared right through the room.

  Francin got dressed, pulled on his coat, his frock-coat, tied with his fingers his tie shaped like a cabbage leaf, I adjusted his gutta-percha collar with folded-down corners, raised my eyes and gazed into his, and gave him a little peck on the tip of his finger.

  “A fortnight?” he whispered. “You’ll see, he’ll stay a fortnight right enough, and maybe just the rest of his life!”

  When I saw how unhappy he was, I planted a proper kiss on his lips, and he was embarrassed, he looked at me reproachfully, a decent woman doesn’t behave like this in public, even though the only public present was actually Uncle Pepin, and Francin extracted himself from my embrace and went off through the back entrance to the office. Through the wall I heard the glazed swing doors burst open, ah, Francin and his “decent behaved woman”, ever since I married him, he’s been raising the matter, raising the spectre of this decent woman, sketching out the pattern of his model woman, which I never was and never could be, I that so much loved eating cherries, but when I ate them my way, greedily and ravenously, he reddened to the roots of his hair, and I couldn’t fathom the cause of his annoyance, until I saw for myself, that a cherry held in my lips was indeed a reason for his discomfiture, because a decent woman simply doesn’t eat cherries quite so greedily as that. When in the autumn I scrubbed the heads of corn on the cob, again he looked a
t my scrubbing palm and the tiny glints of fire in my eyes, and there again, a decent woman just doesn’t scrub corn on the cob quite like that, and if she does, well not with such great laughter and flaming eyes as mine, if some male stranger were to see this, he might see in my hands scrubbing that corn on the cob some sort of a sign favourable to his hankerings.

  Uncle Pepin laid out his precious cobbler’s treasure on a little stool, then he took off my shoe, and elaborating to me on all its parts, he replaced his lensless pince-nez and said to me grandly:

  “And since you’re a lady of such outstanding intellectuality, I’m going to mend you all your broken shoes, because I’ve made footwear for the official supplier by appointment to the court, that was patronised not only by the imperial court, but all throughout the world, that delivered shoes . . .”

  “By bicycle,” said I.

  “Bollocks!” roared Uncle Pepin. “Do you think your court supplier is just the same as your common or garden rat-catcher, or peltmonger? He delivers by ship and by rail, if the Emperor ever met his sort riding on a bicycle . . .”

  “Did the Emperor ride a bicycle too?” I clasped my hands.

  “What are you twittering on about, you twittering magpie?” Uncle shouted. “I’m telling you, if the Emperor met the likes of your court-appointed supplier riding on a bicycle he’d have taken his . . .”

  “Bicycle off him,” I said.

  “Bollocks! Taken his court appointment off him and the eagle out of his crest!” Uncle Pepin choked and spluttered, but then, taking a look at the stool, he gave a blissful grin, took out a pot, opened it, sniffed and gave it to me to sniff too and waved his hand:

  “Feast your eyes on this, sister-in-law, it’s cobbler’s glue alias shoemaker’s gum,” said Uncle Pepin, placing the open pot on a chair.

  Through the wall you could hear the rattling of chairs in the boardroom, subdued conversation, the shuffling of heels, then the chairs went silent and Francin opened the meeting in a quiet voice with a report on the state of the brewery over the past month.

  “Uncle Jožin,” I ventured, “so this man really supplied shoes to the court and the estates?”

  “Bollocks!” roared Uncle Pepin. “What are you twittering on about like a silly bairn? What’s a court supplier got to do with farming and cattle-estates? A court supplier’s a pretty touchy character, now old Kafka, he was that touchy, always on edge, once when his wee daughter kept bashing her head on every sharp edge of furniture, old Kafka, that court supplier by appointment, he took a whole basketful of shoulder pads out from the workshop and he stuck a pad on every single corner of the furniture, but then what with him being so mighty on edge, he went and flung the door open that sharp, he knocked his wee lassie right out with the door, so Látal now, he advised him just to put another pad on his daughter’s forrid.”

  “Látal, would that be Francin’s cousin, Uncle Jožin?” I said.

  “Balls!” Uncle Pepin cried. “Látal the school-teacher! Last year he fell out of a first floor classroom right in the middle of demonstrating uniform time and motion . . . like it’s when a train just keeps chugging along and along and along and along and along . . . and Látal struck out with both arms flailing and like a train he pounded along over to the open window, and then he fell right out the window, and the whole class rushed gleefully to the window, surely teacher must’ve broken both his legs in the tulip bed, but Látal wasna there, he’d cut round the yard and nipped up the stair, and again, there his train was, chugging along and along and along . . . and in he came to the classroom, behind the backs of the schoolkids that was still leaning out of the window.”

  In the boardroom through the wall you could hear the voice of the chairman, Doctor Gruntorád:

  “Manager, who’s making that infernal roar out there?”

  “Sorry, Sir, my brother’s here on a visit,” said Francin.

  “Well, Manager, just you go and tell your brother from us to pipe down! This is our brewery!”

  “Now that Látal fellow’s wife was Mercina, your cousin, wasn’t she, Uncle Jožin?” I said doucely.

  “Not a bit of it! Mercina’s the one married Uncle Vanřura, chef on the Balkan express, ye know, lived in Bohemia, hereabouts, somewhere in Mnichovo Hradiště, and when that Balkan express went through Mnichovo Hradiště once a week regular, Mercina used to let the dog out every time at half ten, it went down to the station, Uncle Vanřura leant out of the Balkan express and dropped it a muckle parcel of bones, and the dog took it off home, but one day this year, when Vanřura let go the bones, the parcel went and clobbered the stationmaster one, and old Vanřura had to pay for fouling up his uniform!” Uncle Pepin hollered on.

  And again he picked up my shoe and put on that lensless pince-nez and roared out radiantly, “But never you heed this nonsense, I’ll explain it you once all over again, then I’ll hand it to you to have a try! So this here is Pariser Schnitt, and this is the vamp or Gelenk, alias ankle upper. This here is the sole, alias bottom leather, and this is your heel or Absatz. Mind you, sister-in-law, anyone that wants to be a shoemaker or a cobbler has to have a certificate of apprenticeship, and that’s like getting your school leaving certificate or a college doctorate. Now that court-supplier Weinlich . . .”

  “Ulrich?” I said, cupping my ear with my hand.

  “Weinlich!” roared Uncle. “Wein as in wine, there’s this idiot scuffs up his shoes and brings them to this court-supplier chappie Weinlich and the supplier says: ‘Good God man, these shoes are wrecked, what am I supposed to do with them?’ And the idiot says, ‘Sell ’em to the Jews.’ Now Weinlich was Jewish himself, and he starts roaring, ‘So Jews are swine, are they?’ ”

  “Peps,” I said softly.

  “Balls!” thundered Uncle, rearing threateningly over me. “I’ve had nothing but glowing testimonials, and what would a fancy gent like that be associating with me for! What d’ye mean Peps? Sister-in-law, you’re as daft as in a school test afore noon!”

  And Uncle gave himself such a clout on the brow with his fist that his pince-nez flew under the cabinet, but one glance at my shoe simmered him down, he seated himself and pointing with his fingertip continued with his vociferous schooling:

  “And this as we’ve said already’s the Absatz or heel, and on that heel or Absatz there’s the heel-piece, heel-tap, and edge-piece otherwise known amongst the footwear profession as the rand!”

  I picked up a long iron spoon, whose end was as rough as an ox’s tongue, and I said, “Uncle Jožin, this is the Abnehmer, isn’t it?”

  “What?” Uncle roared woundedly. “The Abnehmer is this thing here, Abnehmer alias remover, but the thing you’re got in your hand is a rasp or a file or a scraper!”

  And the door flew open, and in the doorway stood Francin, pressing his tie down with his palm, he spread out his arms and bent his knees, he bowed to Uncle Jožin and then to me, bowed to the waist and said:

  “You two uhlans, what are you yelling away like that for? Jožko, why all the howling?” and he put his hand in the open pot of gum.

  “It’s no me,” mumbled Uncle Pepin.

  “Who is it then? Is it . . . me for instance?” Francin pointed to himself with both hands.

  “It’s somebody in here, inside of me,” said Uncle Pepin knitting and twisting his fingers with embarrassment.

  “Cool down, the brewery management board is meeting, the chairman himself sent me to give you the message,” Francin raised his hand and retreated into the passage. . .

  Then you could hear Francin’s quiet voice again, carrying on with his report, in which he explained how the debits for the month which had just expired would be evened out by the proceeds of the month to come. I brought over a pot of pork dripping and spread slice after slice of bread for Uncle Pepin, each time as he was about to speak I handed him another slice, but through in the boardroom Francin’s voice came to a halt, you heard the shuffling of heels, then exclamations, the legs of the Thonet chairs rattled, as if all t
he members of the management board had risen to their feet, I thought it must be the end of the meeting, but the voice of the chairman of the brewery management board, Doctor Gruntorád, boomed out: “Meeting adjourned for ten minutes!”

  The door connecting the office with the passage flew open as if with a kick, and into the room rushed Francin, pressing his hand to his tie and shouting:

  “Who put that glue on the chair there for me? Crivens! I’ve got one sheet of paper stuck down so hard I couldn’t even turn the page! Mr de Giorgi tried to help and he got so messed up he couldn’t even get his hands off the green baize! And the chairman’s got it on his pince-nez, it’s stuck fast to his nose! And my fingers, what’s more, have stuck to my tie, look at me!” Francin pulled away his hand and the elastic bands holding his tie went taut.

  “I’ll bring you a bit of warm water,” I said.

  But Francin jerked his hand forward abruptly and the elastic bands stretched and burst, and the hand with the tie shot forward while the elastic bands jabbed Francin in the neck, and he moaned softly like a little boy: “Oooh!”

  Uncle Pepin took the lid off the pot, presented it to Francin and announced proudly:

  “This stuff is manufactured by that Mecca of the footwear world, the Vienna firm of Salamander and Co.!”

  And Uncle held up his lensless pince-nez to his nose.

  5

  Every month Francin went to Prague on his motorcycle, but every time something broke down, so he had to mend it. All the same he would return radiant, handsome, and I always had to hear down to the last detail all the things he had had to do to make his unroadworthy Orion into a motorcycle again, one that always made it to its destination. Made it means that the motorcycle got back to the brewery, even though sometimes he had to push it the last stretch. But he never cursed and swore, he would push the whole contraption ten, fifteen, or maybe only five kilometres, and when he pushed the Orion in from Zvěřínek, a village three kilometres away, Francin enthused about how much better it was getting. Today Francin returned from Prague pulled by a yoke of bullocks. When he had paid the farmer he rushed into the kitchen, and as always I gave him a hug, we stepped again under the rise-and-fall lamp, and anybody peeping in the window would have had to wonder. For when Francin returned from Prague, each time there was this particular ritual, Francin shut his eyes and I reached into his breast pocket, but Francin shook his head, and then I unbuttoned his coat and reached into his waistcoat pocket, and Francin still shook his head, and then I reached into his trouser pocket and Francin nodded his head, and all the while he kept his eyes blissfully closed, and always I drew out of some place of concealment in his clothing a little tiny parcel, and out of that parcel, which I slowly unwrapped, feigning astonished surprise and delight, I unpacked a little ring, sometimes a brooch, once a wristwatch even. But this ritual was not the first, before, when Francin returned from Prague, where he went once a month to visit Brewers House, when he came in, he always waited till it was getting dark, told me to shut my eyes, and I used to shut my eyes the minute he came into the kitchen, Francin led me off to the living room, sat me in front of the mirror and made me promise I wouldn’t look, and when I promised, he put a wonderful hat on my head, and Francin said, “Now,” and I looked into the mirror and took that hat in my fingers and adjusted it to my own taste, then turned round and Francin enquired of me, “Who was it bought you this, Maryška?” and I said, “Francin,” and kissed him on the hand and he stroked me. And other times he brought me something which he put round my neck and which chilled me, and I opened my eyes, and there in the mirror was glittering a necklace, a piece of Jablonec jewelry, and Francin would ask me, “Who was it bought you this?” And I kissed him on the hand and said, “You, Francin.” And then he asked, “And who is this Francin?” And I said: “My little hubby.” And so every month I got some present or other, Francin had all my body measurements, he knew them off by heart, he always used to ask me casually, in advance, what might I possibly like to have? And I never said it out straight, I always chatted on about something and Francin got the message. And then, the first time he brought me a ring, he stepped under the rise-and-fall lamp and taught me for the first time to search through his pockets, greater and lesser, and I always guessed where the present probably was, but always I went for that place last, to make Francin happy.