Harlequin's Millions (10 page)

full of apples, went and stood next to the assistant brewmaster's wife, and even though for the past two days they had addressed me as Madame and smiled at me politely when I gave them beer and bread, now they stood looking at me just like the three workers, their eyes burned with rage at something I had been the cause of, they were indignant, the world would be better off without me, now they were all looking at me and suddenly I couldn't help thinking that they must have had some sense of shame, or they would've started punching me, given me such a beating that the world would have had to do without me after all, it was better that I go straight back to the house I'd been allotted, or better still, that Francin and I go live somewhere else, because a whole new era had begun and the old times, my golden times, were over, they had slipped away right before my eyes, in the brewery orchard as well as in the little town, where I'd been spending less and less time, because ever since the war was over I'd had the uneasy feeling that the people there didn't like me anymore, that they didn't see me, as if I had become transparent, they looked right through me, as if I weren't there … It's raining now, for the second day in a row it's raining at the retirement home, I sit by the window, drops of water stream down the windowpane, below me are the little town and the pink ramparts and the pink streets and the pink church in a blue haze of rain. It's raining, but
in the western sky is a patch of pink light, somewhere out there the sun has already broken through the rain, it's the moment just before a rainbow appears, the air is filled with shreds of beige mist. In the corridors the rediffusion boxes tenderly play “Harlequin's Millions,” actually, half the old women here at the retirement home come from the little town, I know practically all of them and they know me, they now seem to be in much better shape than I am, they have dentures, they're more pain-stakingly groomed, comb their hair with great care, while my hair is cropped like a reform-school girl's. What must they think when they see me here in my cotton dresses, when they see me always on the move, always wandering around the castle, curiously studying the ceilings and walls, standing before that gigantic, elaborate gate, looking up at that gate in a permanent state of amazement … Yet I know perfectly well that even now, just as in the old days when these women couldn't forgive the fact that I was the wife of the manager and that I liked wearing beautiful clothes … The old women still don't forgive me, can't forgive me, for being different from them, for walking around like a slob, they don't forgive me that they like to watch television, that they find the programs not only entertaining but educational, but that no one ever sees me gazing at a television screen the way I gaze at the tapestries on the former castle walls … I never go to the lectures organized at the
castle by cultural officials from the little town, no one has ever even seen me reading a book … and so once again I'm different from the rest, once again I've detached myself from their community. And I must say I'm rather proud that I am who I am, two of the old women had even bought jeans and were showing them off in front of me, but I walked past without paying them any attention, indifferently, they purposely ran to catch up with me, said hello, I returned their greeting, but strutted right past them, just as when I was still a lady and wore the kind of clothes you saw in
Elegante Welt
, even here at the castle I didn't live as the others did, four or eight to a room, no, I had my own little room, where I lived alone with my husband, so really I was living here just as I had in the brewery, in our four rooms … Now the sun came out, the rain spilled down on the little town, someone opened a window in the corridor and the fluttering curtains filtered the damp, fragrant air, the frescoes on the walls and ceilings blazed with color, I walked across the polished floor of the corridor, which was bathed in pink and gold sunbeams, and peered carefully and with emotion into the darkened hall, gradually I could make out the eight hospital beds where the old women lay, old women who no longer had the strength to get up, they pushed themselves up on their elbows, but then collapsed and sank back into their pillows, they lay there under a light
blanket, which weighed them down like a white tombstone, a monument … But high above them was an enormous fresco that stretched to all four corners of the old ballroom ceiling, a fresco of a group of nude young women, their eyes filled with longing, who gazed toward where their lover might be, a young man who wasn't visible just yet, but whose arrival they sensed, I looked alternately at the ceiling and the beds, where the old women wiped their mouths, and their eyes looked at me reproachfully, they were clearly envious of me, that I could still walk, that I could take care of myself, they even wished I'd ridicule them, if only with my eyes, so that they could tell me everything they thought about themselves, the retirement home and life in general … But above them were all those naked women, floating and swimming around in pure sensuality, women who were unable and had no reason to conceal what it was they were swimming in, a succulent sea of men's gazes … And the women in the fresco on the ceiling of the ward for bedridden women, these beauties were encircled by divine cupids, plump, naked children, cherubs, who scattered flowers over the lovers from a cornucopia, oleander blossoms and camellias and flowers that grew in the Mediterranean and that I used to grow in flowerpots on the windowsill … Cupids, angels, flitting across the fresco like sperm, like the beginning of a love from which beautiful children are
born … I looked at the fresco and was astounded by the shameless sensuality of those nude young women, and I wished, and perhaps the eight old women lying in their white beds gazing upward wished too, that one day, when the time had come, one of the women on the ceiling would reach out her hands and offer me her fingers to pull myself up on, out of my deathbed and into that womanly heaven, into their midst … just as when my mother lay dying and imagined she heard the thundering of an organ and that Mother Mary leaned down to her from the heavens, brushing against her with her blue robes, and reached out her hand and pulled her upward … And I backed out of the ward for bedridden women, my eyes were burning, and in the corridor I pushed aside the nylon curtains and looked out the third-floor window and across the river, to where the beige brewery rose, the place where I'd been happy, but what is it, what was it, that happiness of mine? Unhappiness was always just around the corner … The assistant brewer and his wife had left the brewery and after that Francin was fired too. He had objected quietly … But I've never played the boss, have I? And the chairman of the Council of Workers answered benignly … No, Mr. Francin, you've never played the boss, you've always been kind and friendly to us, but that only works against you now, because by treating us decently you took the edge off the class struggle, understand?
Francin shook his head and said … No, I don't understand, but I do understand that I'll have to get used to the situation … And the chairman of the Council of Workers said, relieved … Then I suggest you begin by immediately clearing out the garage, your car is in there, on wooden blocks, you'll have to move it, along with all those jerry cans and spare parts, otherwise we'll do it ourselves and dump the whole mess outside the brewery wall … And Francin walked into his office for the last time, emptied the drawers of his American desk, the contents spilled out onto the floor, the workers' director, laughing, handed him the fallen pencils and pens, the members of the Council of Workers came in to have a look and were delighted when Francin knocked over the ink pots and bottles of gum arabic, no one offered to help, everyone just stood there staring at him, as if they were witnessing a train collision, a car crash, a natural disaster, no one felt sorry for him, no one spoke to him, because they saw and were viewing the scene they had always dreamt of, the scene in which the brewery manager, his head bowed in shame, leaves to make way for the victorious new director, who is accountable only to them, the workers, the Council of Workers … And when Francin had carried away all his writing supplies in a laundry basket, including the three elbow pads he used to keep his shirt clean, no one offered to hold the door open for him, so that
Francin, both hands clutching the handles of the wicker basket and his chin pressed against the stack of old calendars that reached to his neck, had to put the basket down on the ground, open the door slightly, hold it open with the tip of his shoe and then lift the basket and open the door the rest of the way with his knee and slip outside … And when he returned to pick up his last few things, he also took the two old potbellied kerosene lamps from the cabinet, the ones with the round wicks, lamps that hummed when they burned and spread such a delicious warmth over your hands as you wrote … Then the workers' director spoke … Those lamps are no longer yours, they're listed in the brewery inventory, which we now own lock, stock and barrel … He puffed out his chest and Francin blushed and asked … What if I buy the lamps, those lamps were witness to my golden times, when I was happy … But the workers' director was firm … The lamps are ours, you've already made enough of a fortune with this brewery, you had that villa built, that castle on the river, while the workers were starving … but then again, what do
you
think, my fellow workers? Let's be generous, take the lamps, as relics of your golden times … So Francin gathered up the last of his things and left, but the workers' director called out after him in the courtyard … Since those golden times of yours are never coming back, we've divided up the shares among ourselves, we're
the millionaires now, we're the shareholders of the brewery … and not only is the brewery ours, but all the malt houses, all the locomotives, all the banks, all the hop gardens, all the factories, everything … Then he slammed the door shut and Francin carried off the last of his things … I stand in the castle corridor, looking down at the spotless floor, what is human happiness? Whatever it is, unhappiness is always lurking just around the corner … Someone is standing in front of me, the palm of a hand flashes before my eyes like a mirror, yes, it's one of the witnesses to old times, Mr. Otokar Rykr, who tells me joyfully … In the old days, in the little town where time stood still, the pubs were always bustling with noise and excitement, this went on all night and didn't end until cockcrow, which wasn't surprising, considering how little you had to pay in those days for a glass of good beer, a genuine Malvaz. In those days a glass of Malvaz was truly like liquid bread. Even reputable citizens took part in these drinking sprees, young and old. Among them were a number of valiant drinkers, who could easily down twenty-five pints or more on a night like that. The high point was drinking from the communal two-liter, a double tankard, sometimes in the shape of a glass boot, an old student tradition that required a certain dexterity on the part of the imbiber, if he didn't want to spill beer all over himself. The drinking sprees always commenced with a fixed ritual. The first
drinker duly baptized the double tankard by slapping the glass three times with the flat of his hand, from top to bottom, without spilling a drop. Then, amid shouts of Ho, ho, ho … hosanna!, he gulped down as much brew as he could. After that the glass boot would be passed to his neighbor. The more a fellow could drink at a time, the more of a hero he was. Each man linked arms with the man beside him, while at the same time hoisting his glass to his lips, they drank a toast to brotherhood and drained their glasses dry, or juiced 'm down, as they say … Due to the lack of a respectable tea room at that late hour the beer drinkers usually concluded their nightly carousals in one of the four pubs where you were served by waitresses, Café Krystlík, opposite the former brewery, where for a couple of pennies they could sit around, preferably in the kitchen, slurping glasses of black coffee. Now and then a few of them would straggle homeward, but only after the priest had left the nearby rectory to celebrate morning mass … said Mr. Rykr, witness to old times. I stroked the back of his wrinkled hand, but he knew that I wanted to be alone, that I didn't want to keep on dreaming, but to keep replaying over and over everything that had been. Night was coming on, and I stood outside on the damp staircase lost in thought, the sandstone statues disappeared in the gathering darkness, but in the sky to the north, above the outline of the magnificent aspens
and oaks, was the luminous glow of a great city, our army garrison camp, the darker it grew the brighter it glowed, like the aurora borealis. Somewhere behind the mountains and hills, the military garrison shone proudly, with its airport and administrative buildings, amusement halls and barracks, movie theaters and other luminous centers of culture … And that light, which shot across the hills and groves like a billiard ball, lit up the statues along the avenues of red birches, the bodies of the young sandstone women were cloaked in evening mist, as if the young women had just bathed and rubbed themselves with fragrant oils in readiness for the game of love, their sultry gazes were filled with longing and all of a sudden I realized how much I'd missed out on in life, before I could turn around all the young men who had once loved me had grown old, just as I had, I, who stand here now beside these gentle statues lit by a military garrison, somewhere beyond the hills and forests, a town we call our Chicago … A feather floats up to the stars and already I'm living in a state of utter happiness.

        “H
ARLEQUIN
'
S
M
ILLIONS
”
SWEETLY FILLS THE GAPS
like cotton candy between the news from around the world and the news from home, and especially between the musical interludes, the brass bands, which so captivate some of the old men and women that they prick up their ears, sit up straight, their eyes sparkling, and start tapping out the rhythm in the air, but hardly anyone here ever listens to the news, or, thanks to a special internal alarm, they only hear what they want to hear. I can't help thinking that if war broke out, no one in the retirement home would notice, especially if it was time to prepare for lunch. Here at the home, lunch is practically a holiday, it's a moment everyone looks forward to, except perhaps those with a damaged stomach or liver, but even they look forward with that same enthusiasm to
their unsalted, unpeppered soup and tasteless porridge. The pensioners start getting ready almost an hour beforehand, they glance impatiently at the clock and rather than wait around they stroll up and down the corridor, or outside, if the weather's good, and five minutes before the nearly fourteen-foot doors swing open, they're standing in line and staring vacantly ahead, swallowing spittle and saying nothing. And when the doors open, those who are able quickly push their way to the front, those who walk with a limp push hardest, and then they all sink down into their seats at the table, and some of them, to avoid thinking about food and tormenting themselves with the thought, begin carefully polishing their napkin-wrapped silverware and their soup bowls, they hold the bowls up to the light to make sure they're completely clean, instantly hundreds of faint specks of light appear on the ceiling and walls, reflections of polished spoons, hundreds of tiny mirrors wander over the enormous fresco, filling the entire ceiling of the Count's former banquet hall, which is as big as a train station, the fresco bulges and billows across the ceiling like a gigantic awning, at its center is a cavalry battle, Greek soldiers with plumes hacking mercilessly at heavily armored Persians, swords gleaming, every phase of the cavalry battle is shown, falling, dying men and horses, everyone and everything is locked in bloody combat, in the middle Alexander
the Great, his eyes blazing, swings his sword left and right and his phalanx advances and drags the enemies from their horses, hundreds of faces contorted with the lust for battle, hundreds of men, who have suffered a fatal sword blow to the chest or throat, tumble from their horses, but at that very moment they meet the eyes of their commander, who swings his sword and sows death and destruction while at the same time giving all his warriors the confidence that the battle will ultimately be won, there's even an old warrior who shields his commander with his own body and after receiving the sword's blow meant for his master, falls headless to the ground, without the commander even realizing it, swords flash, hundreds of arms inflict blow after blow, hundreds of lances, hundreds of clanging shields ward off hundreds of swords, the whole dining hall ceiling is filled with groaning, screaming, clattering, crashing and neighing, because even the horses are fighting each other, fighting and biting … but below this, in hundreds of chairs, are four hundred pensioners, and because the soup still hasn't been served, they once again start polishing their bowls, and four hundred bowls flicker across the ceiling, with their shallow porcelain bottoms they scan the battlefield like searchlights, no one looks up, not even Francin, only I look and I'm amazed at what I see there, what I'm witness to, this is better than a movie theater, a movie theater is for anyone and everyone,
you just pay for whatever you want to see, here no one bothers to look, I alone have the honor of seeing this … This morning Francin has already listened to all the European radio stations, he has no interest in what happens at the retirement home, his body is here, but his mind is always elsewhere, checking in with each of the radio stations that broadcast the news in Czech, scouring the pages of the atlas to locate all the places in the world where something newsworthy has happened, he's just like a Mariáš player, always checking his watch and afraid he might miss some important detail, afraid to miss even a single minute … sometimes he forces a smile in my direction, from a distance, he looks down on me, and it's true, I live and breathe this castle, I can stand for hours on the balcony looking out at the little town where we once lived together … and then the soup arrives, the girls from the kitchen bring tureens of steaming soup, four hundred pairs of eyes look up and all those eyes are filled with enthusiasm, everyone serves themselves with the soup ladle, those who have Parkinson's are served by others, the hall is filled with the steam from dozens of soup tureens, the shuffling of shoes, boots and slippers, the tinkling of impatient spoons, I perceive all these sounds together with that fresco billowing over the dining hall like a tarp over a gigantic hayrick, and then there's the impatient tinkling of spoons against porcelain, slurping,
chomping, belching, the tapping of saltshakers against the sides of bowls, eyeglasses bent over those bowls and casting long reflections through the hall, which is filled with silver fish and eyeglass frames, faces that nearly touch the bowls with their chins … four hundred skulls nod up and down to the rhythm of the soup dribbling down along the spoons, through the throat and into the stomach, all those stomachs, even the sick ones, consume the vermicelli and vegetable-laced liquid with great relish, their greed in this first phase is unbelievable, not even children eat as greedily as pensioners, especially those who have digestive trouble, no one eats as greedily as a person with a duodenal ulcer or a nervous stomach, they can hardly even wait for the main course, they torture themselves with the thought, will they get the best piece of meat today? Will they manage to ladle up a few extra dumplings? Extra sauce? And while on the ceiling the young men are slaughtering each other with such ferocity, such envy and hatred, while at the edge of the fresco battlefield the lightly armed Greek soldiers, with their short swords and enormous studded shields, prepare for the decisive attack, for the moment when they can finish off the heavily armed Persians, in the hall below, the main course is brought in on plates, dumplings with meat and sauce, four hundred plates descending from above, and upturned eyes, lit with enthusiasm until the
moment the plate is on the table, and if the portion meets their expectations, their enthusiasm grows, but if the meat is all gristle, that enthusiasm fades, slowly turning to amazement, then to indignation and rage and looking around at other people's pieces of meat, and then knives tinkle, forks raise bits of noodle and meat in the air, and the chewing and swallowing begin … Some of the men, a few dozen of them, have the habit of removing their teeth at the last moment, they do this so inconspicuously, they try so hard to be inconspicuous that almost all of them drop the dentures, which hit the parquet floor with a loud crash, the men lean over to one side, feel around guiltily for their teeth and wrap them in a handkerchief, and then the embarrassed and blushing pensioner tucks his false teeth, handkerchief and all, into his pants' pocket, while dozens of others are taking their teeth out of their pants' pockets and putting them back in their mouths, so that lunch-time is filled with the tinkling of spoons, knives, forks and the clattering of bowls and false teeth … And once again everyone gobbles down their food, as if it's a contest, or as if the battle between the Greeks and the Persians has spread to the hall below, only instead of swords and lances and shields the diners use spoons and knives, forks and napkins … And when everyone has finished their meal, that is to say those who have finished first and polished off what they've been offered by those
who couldn't eat more than half, a kind of lethargy descends, but then suddenly the eaters wake up, only now do they emerge from their food cloud, only now do they begin to feel an inkling of shame when they realize how greedily they've been eating, they look at each other and wonder if their greedy eating has offended anyone, even though everyone has been eating greedily, everyone, even those with health problems, they were the greediest of all, which is why they're now listening to their intestines, their stomach, to hear whether they might have eaten too much, whether any digestive troubles might surface, they listen carefully and swallow powders and take bicarbonate of soda. Those who were in the middle of a Mariáš game are already wrapping their dessert in a napkin and enthusiastically getting up from the table, perhaps they didn't even realize they were eating, they haven't been concentrating, every player has his mind on the card game again, those who lost that morning hope to at least win back what they lost, while those who won are smiling and firmly resolved to win even more, Francin looks at his watch, yes, at one-thirty he'll go off and listen to more news from around the world … and once again “Harlequin's Millions” begins to fill and infuse the hall and the corridor and the footpaths along the castle walls with the cotton candy of violins, with tender, wistful music, as pleasant and inoffensive as a squirt of cologne.
And the pensioners rise, one by one, sometimes a few dozen will get up at the same time, their enthusiasm is gone, they've satisfied their hunger, once again a few dozen pensioners drop their dentures on the oak parquet with its inlaid star, everyone who wears false teeth and removes them before lunch is under the impression that no one else can see him do so, even though every pensioner, since nearly all of them have false teeth, knows exactly what those gestures mean, everyone is ashamed of those teeth, tries to remove them while bending forward, some even pretend they have to tie their shoe, but in almost every case their hand shakes so hard, they're unable to perform the motion of sliding their hand in and out of their mouth and hiding the teeth in a handkerchief, so that the hand, trembling with shame, drops the teeth, which go crashing to the floor and glide across the slippery parquet to the legs of the other pensioners, who watch their comrade with contempt as he leans forward, kneels, and tries to catch the set of teeth as if it were a frightened mouse … And even though every pensioner knows perfectly well that nearly everyone here wears dentures, and even though everyone knows that hockey players, even the most famous, the Canadians, keep their teeth in a glass labeled with their name on a rack above the bench where the celebrated pros put on their skates, and none of them are ashamed of those false teeth, it's just part
of their job, even though they know all that, old people are still ashamed of their teeth, of other people seeing them putting them into their mouth, they all pretend to be doing something else, turning away to do it in secret, as if they're relieving themselves behind a bush or a bathroom door … and so “Harlequin's Millions” accompanies the pensioners back to their rooms, through the corridors, or when the weather is good, to a bench, or on a stroll through the courtyard, where every pensioner inspects himself carefully to see whether the moment has come when sour juices begin gurgling up from the stomach and flooding the mouth, when an indignant gallbladder refuses to process the mass of overheated cooking oil and sour cream and bacon fat, when the duodenum suddenly propels the contents of the stomach into the throat and the unfortunate pensioner throws up everything he has eaten with such relish … “Harlequin's Millions,” that indifferent tape, plays on and on, carelessly dispersing its scent, its melody, so gently and delicately that the only ones who hear it are those who prick up their ears, those who want to hear it, while those who don't want to hear “Harlequin's Millions” get far enough away from the rediffusion boxes that they can no longer hear it, or they do hear, but that's only because they think they hear, they'd have to turn their heads before they could really hear … I usually walk right past those dead spots,
ignoring them, or stand and sit in those places in the corridors and rooms where the notes of “Harlequin's Millions” have slipped to the floor, or are so weakened that they're warped. But sometimes I yearn to hear and be drowned out by the violins, to lose myself in that forest of stringed instruments, in “Harlequin's Millions,” and I'll go stand under one of the speakers, turn my face upward and let myself be sprinkled and showered by the persistent, sentimental music raining down from above, a melody so moving that I dissolve into tears … And only here and only now and only at this very moment under the shower of “Harlequin's Millions” did I hear, coming from the bathroom, the sound of someone retching, and when I moved away from the music and listened more closely, I heard the groaning and puking coming from other toilet stalls, I heard the toilets flushing, the fierce rumbling of the water, the churning and vanishing, the raging through the bowels of the drainpipes of all those scraps of half-digested meals, food that everyone would look forward to all over again, day after day, until one day someone discovers after the first bite that he's not hungry anymore, that he's lost his appetite, that he's slowly but surely headed for starvation, because a triumphant invalid, like the triumphant Greek armies, like the Persian soldiers in whose eyes one can see the oncoming defeat, a triumphant invalid knows all too well what lies ahead, just
as I feel that I'm the only one who really knows what's going on around here. But no, that's not the case at all! I see how the others scrutinize me, I'm constantly surprised at how everyone is always keeping an eye on each other in this place. Everyone is always watching closely to see whether the others aren't looking rather yellowish, or losing weight, every pensioner watches every other pensioner, with no malicious intentions, but only because sooner or later, but inevitably, he sees himself, and only himself, and runs his fingers along his own collapsing face to confirm his suspicions. I see the eyes of the old people who suffer from diabetes, they have to carry around a watch and a scale, and when the barometric pressure drives a nail into their heads, so deeply they can feel it in their mouths, they stagger, have to sit down, quickly swallow a pill, all the invalids, each in their own category, can tell from a distance, when they walk through town, when they see each other for the first time, one invalid can immediately tell by the eyes of the other and the other can immediately tell by the eyes of the first that they're united by a mutual illness … But I see now that each has his own fate, a fate no less difficult than mine, if anything more so, but the people here are more humble than I am, they're modest, they don't flaunt what they know, they may very well know more about this retirement home than I do, but they don't do anything with that knowledge, they