Harlequin's Millions (9 page)

doorway and heaped reproaches on Francin and me, she shouted at us that the golden days of the rich were numbered and that soon everything would be the way it eventually turned out to be. As I sat crouched and listening under the kitchen window, I heard that Francin actually shared the maids' opinion, but was afraid of violence, he always thought that if everyone were to become just like him, the people and the situation would change automatically, if only because the rich would start sharing their wealth more fairly with others … And when I walked into the kitchen, it was over. Francin broke off the conversation, stammered something and then went upstairs, the maid blushed deeply and began making up the trundle bed. Francin certainly had his secrets! Every month I found a bar of chocolate in his briefcase, with
chocolat au lait
on the wrapper, and each time the chocolate bar would disappear and I never knew who Francin had given it to, as a friendly gesture perhaps, a small gift … Any time I saw one of the maids chewing something, I'd squeeze her cheeks together and force her to open her mouth, but each time she was only chewing a bit of dried apple or a crust of bread, and each time those maids would laugh at me, sometimes they tried to make me pry open their mouths, they even wrestled with me, those girls, they fought me tooth and nail until I was forced
to open their mouths myself, completely convinced I'd find
chocolat au lait
inside, but once again it would only be a bit of dried apple … And so I never got a single bar of the chocolate, which disappeared every month, year in year out, and to this day, here in the retirement home, I still don't know who Francin was giving away the milk chocolate to all those years. One night I came home from my rehearsal earlier than usual, Anka from Budečko was sitting in the cellar cutting up apples for the goats, the light in the cellar was going on and off, the maid shrieked with laughter, I quietly unlocked the front door, and in the hallway Francin was standing next to the cellar door switching the light on and off and he was laughing with his mouth full of
chocolat au lait
, Anka from Budečko was in the cellar howling with laughter, Francin kept flipping the light on and off and nearly choked on the chocolate, he was as happy as a child … Quietly, I went outside again, to the front of the brewery, I walked back and forth for a while, so as not to intrude on Francin's happiness, because if I had walked in and surprised him, Francin would've immediately begun making up his bed for the night, his body would've started hurting all over, he would've fired up the tall stove and crawled into bed and swallowed a few aspirins and begged me to kneel down so he could say his last good-byes, because he'd be
dead by morning … Whatever happened to Anka from Budečko, that maid of ours with her one tooth? Now I think it was probably Anka who got all that chocolate, that
chocolat au lait
 … I'm walking down the footpath in the castle park, it's a good thing there are no more maids, the two old lady pensioners in flowered dresses are sitting on a bench, I can't see them anymore, but I can hear them through the shrubbery … Yes, yes, says the voice of one old lady, so that night he came around with his daughter's urn in my shopping net. The ample bosom of the other woman rises and she exclaims … Good heavens! I walk on, past the statues, which I hardly notice anymore, it's a good thing that there are no more maids, that they disappeared along with the golden days, it's a good thing that there are no maids, it's a good thing that they're not … Now I'm standing in front of the statue of Winter, a fur cloak billows around the gaunt, naked old man, the cloak floats three inches above his chilled body, his fur cap looms against the sky like a bishop's miter, but the old man is warming his hands over small flames that rise up through a bucket full of holes, which is being held up to him by a chubby cupid. The two old lady pensioners drag themselves along on their stiff legs, now they've turned the corner and are walking through the tunnel of pruned red beeches, leaving only a
trail of sand behind them, as if someone has been walking along dragging two sacks of grain, two dead deer … What a shock! cries a voice from the red foliage … But why would anyone go swimming in the Adriatic? And the other voice cries, in a heartrending tone … Heaven help us …

        T
HE PENSIONERS LIVING IN THE OLD CASTLE ARE
actually in a permanent state of half-sleep, the doctor sees to it that they get enough sleep and anything even resembling consciousness is nipped in the bud. The nurses generously replenish this half-sleep with pills and injections, they're constantly on the alert to make sure that no one is ever entirely awake. Everyone wears diapers in bed, like babies, and the nurses who have to change those diapers are like young mothers, every time you turn around they're hurrying off to throw the stinking diapers into plastic pails, there's always the sound of running water somewhere as the nurses wash their hands, and every morning the sheets are changed, whole piles of wrinkled sheets with yellow stains, stinking piles, which are thrown out the open window into the
truck in the courtyard and then brought to the laundry room in the former library of the monastery, where the Augustinians once studied everything that had ever been written, separating the books that were of use to them from the dangerous ones, the library, which is now a laundry and boiler room … And the rooms are filled with the smells of a maternity clinic, the smell of diapers and babies, of expectant mothers working their way toward birth, but here in the castle under the pall of those smells everyone is slowly but surely working their way toward death. And the nurses hand out pills and give injections to make the pensioners' journey toward death more bearable, to make sure they aren't too aware of it all, if an old woman happens to wake up and raise herself on her elbows and look around and realize her situation, she immediately calls for the nurse to come give her a medicinal drink and some pills to dispel reality, and then the old lady sinks back into her dreams, her half-sleep … Outside, too, on sunny days when the pensioners stroll through the park and across the courtyard, most of them are half asleep, and because they have no place to go, many of them will simply stand around looking at the open gate, they could go anywhere they wanted, but it's just like with songbirds, when you forget to shut the wire door of their wire cage, the old folks wander in and out, sometimes they even set out for the little town, but halfway down the avenue
of trees, time suddenly stands still for them, they've lost their goal, there's no reason to go any farther, so they turn around, suddenly they no longer feel like going for a beer, or a cup of coffee, no longer feel like seeing the pigeon market, or the tea room, or any young folk, the pensioners turn around and head back home, the huge castle gate with its splendid ironwork, like the Winged Victory of Samothrace, is open wide, but one mighty sweep of its wings and the pensioners turn back, because an old person really has no place to go, and when they do go anywhere, it's back to the memories, to the heart of the life that was once as much of a reality as … as what? I was always glad to run into two particular pensioners, who walked along together at the same pace, so cheerfully, both had canes, which they swung in time to their footsteps like the windshield wipers of a car, they themselves were perfectly aware that they had turned into two windshield wipers moving in tandem, they strutted along in that whimsical way, laughing, joking, making funny faces and cheering up the other pensioners, who sat on benches scribbling mysterious symbols in the sand with their canes, their nonsensical scribbling was a rhythmical accompaniment to their rudderless thoughts … I was especially fond of one pensioner who was so sensitive to the cold that he wore a winter coat even in summer, he'd stand at the castle gate staring down the avenue, all the way to the
church, where there was always light, sunshine, where the dense crowns of the chestnuts ended, he wore a winter coat and two mittens joined by a cord that ran along the inside of his coat across his shoulders and through his sleeves, so he wouldn't lose them, the way mothers do with their young children, the way his wife had done when she brought him here … I had lost my heart to one of the old ladies who, one night when a storm rose and gusts of wind shook the castle and rattled the shutters off their hinges, packed up her most valuable possessions and came downstairs dressed and ready to go, with her umbrella tied to her suitcase and her identity card clutched in her hand, she was an elderly Sudeten-German woman who had lived somewhere near Pecer before the war, and after the war, she said, when they began transporting us, I was nearly thirty and still unmarried, at a certain hour on a certain day, the old crone in charge of our colony, where only six families lived, that old crone ordered us to scrub all six tables and cover them with tablecloths, on those tablecloths we had to place fresh bread and a knife and a dish with a lump of fresh butter, and then the old hag, who was in charge of our colony deep in the forest near Pecer, ordered all six families to stand outside in front of their six houses, each mother had to tie up her most valuable possessions in a tablecloth and hold her identity card and other documents in her hand, the German woman
told me without emotion, she too had had to obey that old Baba, just like everyone else in the colony she had to hand over all her money and Baba distributed it among the families, giving them each as much as she felt they needed … And so at noon on that day in nineteen-hundred-and-forty-five, six families sat outside their farmhouses, where they'd let the stoves go out, Baba suddenly changed her mind and walked into each farmhouse and stopped all the clocks and then came back out again, the police arrived and without shedding a tear Baba got into the car to have herself thrown out of the country like all the rest, and never again would they see the colony here in the Sudeten Mountains where they had been born, and their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers … said the little old German woman, but I escaped from the wagon and spent the rest of my days working as a weaver in a factory in Broumov and now I'm retired and every so often I go back to have a look at the sunken road near Pecer, our farms are now weekend cottages, I was sitting there one day on the hillside and a young man invited me to come closer, I had nothing to be afraid of, because he'd guessed, seeing me sitting there from morning till noon, that I wanted to come inside and take whatever was left of what may still have been mine, but I blushed with shame and fled into the forest, because I would've died on the spot if I'd seen the place where
I'd once lived. Said the German woman, who, whenever there was a loud noise from somewhere, a chimney falling, an old oak felled by a storm, hitting the ground with a mighty crash that shook the castle walls, when that happened she wrapped her most valuable possessions in an old tablecloth and went running down the stairs into the vestibule, sat down under the old pendulum clock, clutching her identity card, and waited for something terrible to happen. She would even rise fearfully, turn and open the door of the glass case and stop the clock … I understand her, that German woman, because when the war was over, they nationalized the brewery where Francin was manager, the stocks were all sold to the workers, even Uncle Pepin had three shares and he shouted day and night at me and Francin that he was now a millionaire and that all the workers were now millionaires, he had stood in the doorway bellowing out everything he had against us, how he and the workers were now in charge, now nobody could exploit him ever again, now he could even fire Francin, now he, maltster and former shoemaker, was a millionaire, now it was for him to decide whether Francin would pitch barrels and haul ice in the winter, now he'd have us evicted and we could damn well go live in the servants' quarters and he'd move into our four rooms, now they had a Council of Workers here and that council was what used to be the Executive Board, now
the workers themselves would sit here once a month in the conference room at the long table, which was covered with green worsted like a billiard table … I'd turned pale and Uncle kept on shouting and roaring with laughter and waving around his shares from the nationalized brewery, and later, when I walked through the little town, I knew how despondent I must have looked, while the women in the little town, all those women who for twenty-five years I had tormented with my condescending smile and my dresses straight out of
Elegante Welt
, now they smiled condescendingly at me as they walked past, I saw the way they walked, their heads held high, proud that the brewery now belonged to the workers and that rumor had it we'd be moving soon, that we were being evicted and that only those who did real work would be allowed to live there. And when I got back to the brewery, the brand new chairman of the Council of Workers was standing opposite the assistant brewmaster shouting at him, We don't have to work for a slave driver anymore, we don't have to put up with His Lordship Francin anymore with his goddamn castle on the Elbe, no, never again! From now on we'll divide up the work among ourselves! And the assistant brewmaster snarled at him … I've been appointed as your superior, and as long as there's an Executive Board, you'll answer to me! I stood riveted to the ground, the master cooper looked serious and stern. He
replied … You obviously haven't been paying attention, from now on the brewery is a national enterprise, from now on we're in charge and I'm the chairman of the Council of Workers … And the master cooper sliced his hand through the air as if he were chopping the world in two, the assistant brewmaster ran after him wailing … But I'm one of you, I worked here with you in the fermentation room, just an ordinary worker … He grabbed the cooper by the sleeve, but the cooper pulled away and said, raising his voice … You've always been against us, you've always wanted what the big bosses wanted, and not only that, you've always lorded it over us, and that's something we can never forgive, aren't even allowed to forgive … the assistant brewmaster tried to defend himself … But you didn't hire me! The master cooper turned around, raised his hand and roared with laughter … That's true, the bosses hired you, and now we workers are firing you, incidentally your notice is in the mail, you'd better just stay home and not come back to the brewery … And the assistant brewmaster went away, his eyes filled with tears, I never liked him much, he probably didn't like me either, still, it didn't take much effort for me to imagine that his fate was quite closely connected with ours, after all, we belonged to the same class, to the people who had run the brewery, given orders to the workers, not because they wanted to, but because they had to, because that was
what the Executive Board of the brewery, a limited liability corporation, paid them to do. At that moment it dawned on me that for a quarter of my life and more I'd been a source of great aggravation to all the women in the little town, the wives who lived in a kitchen and one room, and that I, with my three pigs, had in fact provoked the wives of the station staff and the railroad workers, women who were willing to travel all the way to Prague with their rail pass to buy cheaper lard and bacon, while I had pails full of lard and smoked meat from the pigs I fed with waste from the brewery, with draff and sludge, the only thing we may have had in common was that I never went on vacation, just like the other women, who set out in the summertime with buckets to pluck blackberries and raspberries and blueberries … But the assistant brewmaster was no longer allowed into the brewery. That autumn I'd gone out to pick apples and pears and nuts, my payment in kind, I was standing with two hired pensioners on the ladders, picking the fruit I had earned and dropping it into a basket, when the assistant brewmaster's wife appeared and climbed up onto my ladder and began picking apples and putting them in her own basket, she was weeping and wailing that this was
her
tree, it had been her tree for thirty years and the profits from this tree had always been
her
payment in kind. I was seized with anger, and said to her, yes, it used to be yours, but your husband's
been fired, now all the apples and pears are ours, half the orchard, and this Reinette tree is on our half! And I scraped off my shoes on the rung of the ladder, the mud fell on the face of the assistant brewmaster's wife, but she furiously scrambled her way up and went on picking the apples within her reach, the ladder tilted and sank farther into the branches under the weight of the two bodies, but the assistant brewmaster's wife scrambled higher, several piles of apples were already gleaming in the grass under the old trees, but the assistant brewmaster's wife climbed up another rung, I went down a rung and stepped on the back of her hand, the hand holding on to the rung, and then she grabbed me like a madwoman by the hem of my dress and pulled herself up a few rungs, she leaned sideways to reach the apples, but the branches in the crowns gave way, the apples fell and the ladder slid diagonally down past the branches, pulling down Reinettes in its wake, and we fell slowly to the ground, the assistant brewmaster's wife fell on top of me, I pushed her off, the baskets of apples tipped over and the apples spilled out, the assistant brewmaster's wife quickly filled her baskets with apples from my piles and dumped them into her wheelbarrow, I let her take as many as she wanted, but then tore the shafts out of her hands and tipped over the wheelbarrow full of apples into my pile, and we stood there face-to-face, our eyes narrowed, and
weighed the empty baskets in our hands to see if they were heavy enough to be used as weapons, I was waiting for the perfect moment to launch the attack with a hefty swing of my basket, hoping to win the fight and defend the ten quintal of apples we'd picked in two days' time, when suddenly three workers from the malt house appeared, led by the master cooper, and marched straight across the autumn grass to the piles of apples, when I looked up at the approaching men the assistant brewmaster's wife saw her chance and gave me a shove. I fell onto the pile of apples but jumped right back up and threw the assistant brewmaster's wife down with all my might and raised my basket, but the master cooper took my hand gently and said … From now on there will be no more payment in kind, the orchard and the fruit are ours. The piles of apples, even the ladders and baskets, everything is ours. From this day on we will pick the fruit and nuts, we have children, grandchildren, and even if we didn't, the orchard now belongs to us and not to the bosses … The assistant brewmaster's wife got up, leered at the three workers and grinned at me triumphantly, while I suddenly felt sad, the two pensioners whom I'd fed for two days and given bottles of beer, every evening I paid them and gave them each a basket of apples to take home, those two, who only moments ago had been hidden in the crown of an apple tree, now climbed down the ladder with baskets