The Ice Cream Man (12 page)

The director nods.

“Hmm. Not too shabby. But do you think I haven’t already thought of all that?”

“Even Blažek’s sick dog?”

“Not that, I admit. But I’m sure there would have been something else in its place.”

“I don’t doubt that. The whole film is filled with those mongrels.”

The director points a finger at the woman. “If you have a mouth like that on you, then you remind me more of Ms. Zachovalová than Esther Vorszda. I took care that Ms. Zachovalová doesn’t find out anything about Esther’s husband until he turns up. She was absolutely livid.”

“I absolutely understand her.”

“Then the one-legged actor turned up on set. I’ll never forget the look on Ms. Zachovalová’s face. She was drawn to the man like a magnet. Ms. Zachovalová kept ordering him somewhere off to the side, flapping and moaning around him, but the man’s patience never deserted him. If anyone else intruded on them, Ms. Zachovalová would zip her mouth shut and make a sour face, whereas the one-legged man did not consider anyone to be an intruder.”

“What’s he doing these days? Where is he?”

“No idea. Perhaps he turns up wherever anyone needs a cripple for a role.”

“Was he an actor when he still had both legs?”

“Everyone asked him the same thing when he came to the screen test. He laughed and asked if we actually thought the theater academy accepted the lame and the blind. Remarkably good-natured guy, in spite of everything.”

The woman smokes her cigarette down to the end and stares at it. “What about that one leg? One night I dreamed that I was discovered in the park without a head. The police tried to identify my body, but it was impossible without the head. They could only see that I was a woman. I don’t think I’d been the victim of violence; apparently it had been an accident. They tried to find my head but couldn’t.”

“What about your son and husband? Didn’t anyone notice you were missing?”

“I don’t know. I’d gone missing, but no one believed I was dead. Maybe they just thought I’d finally left. Then I woke up. For a couple of minutes, I was so distressed, I would have stubbed out a cigarette somewhere on my neck just to acquire some sort of
identifying
mark, but I couldn’t find the cigarettes, and then I heard my son running water in the bathroom . . . would you like me to do it now?”

“Do what?”

“Burn a mark into my skin.”

“Come on, don’t be silly.”

“I’m serious.”

“Don’t be foolish.”

“I’ll do it if you ask.”

“What has doing that got to do with me? Why would I want you to burn yourself?”

“Do you think I wouldn’t do it if I could do it painlessly? You don’t understand anything. I can’t do it otherwise.”

“What?”

“The mark.”

The director snatches the cigarette end from the woman’s hand, crushes it into the ashtray on his belly, and places the ashtray on the bedside table.

The director lies on the bed and watches in silence as the woman gets dressed. The last thing she searches for is her other shoe, and as she crouches down on the floor to look under the bed, the director says, “You’re not Esther.”

The woman gets up. “Is it underneath you?”

“What?”

“My shoe.”

“I think I’d be able to feel if I were lying on a shoe.”

“Of course you can feel it. But you don’t want me to find it.”

“I want you to search for something. When you’re searching, I can see you’re not Esther.”

“You mean I’m not
your
Esther.”

“What other Esther should you play?”

“I know very well who I am.”

“The woman you’re trying to play would have been interested in Tomáš, not the one-legged man.”

“I don’t need to play anything.”

“You only know what doesn’t need to be played. You’re not so stupid that you would’ve pretended to enjoy yourself with me. But you didn’t take it all the way, to the place where Esther is.”

The woman gives a sneer. “Well, where is she? With that man who no longer exists?”

“Why do you always say ‘that man’? Why don’t you say ‘Tomáš’?”

“Tomáš.”

“Look me in the eye and say it again.”

“Tomáš.”

“The look in your eyes is convincing, but your voice betrays the fact that there is no Tomáš.”

“There’s always a Tomáš.”

“Of course, there’s always someone you need to save. How else would they have gotten you to join a shadow theater? I really can’t believe this is any sort of vocation. There’s someone who will keep his head above water as long as they have access to you.”

The director sits up and takes a shoe out from under his pillow.

“Is this yours?”

The woman snatches the shoe from him, lifts her leg, and attempts to slip the shoe on while standing on one foot, as the director gives her a slight shove and she falls to the floor.

“What’s wrong with you?” she shouts in exasperation.

“Don’t get angry. Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve pushed people around to see what happens.”

“Have you no sense of imagination at all? They’ll either fall over or stay standing.”

“But what about in between falling and standing? Have you ever watched carefully? Sometimes it looks like they’re flying.”

“I thought I already knew their tricks,” the director says after a moment. “I didn’t know they sent out women as well these days. Did you get what you were after?”

The woman opens her handbag and puts her cigarette case inside.

“Are you an actress?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Do you know why I’m asking? Because you managed to fool a professional.”

“You’re as easy to fool as any other man.”

“Your talent is wasted on them; there’s nothing to show for it. You are the country’s best-kept secret in terms of acting talent. If you are an actress, I don’t understand how a shadow theater like this could be fulfilling for you.”

The woman’s gaze lingers on him for a while, then he adds, “You’re not particularly pretty. They’re not stupid enough to use a woman who is too beautiful.”

“Hang on a minute. What do you intend to say to them? That you were found out? Will that cause problems for you? Or me?”

“I’ll tell them you didn’t believe me.”

“Did you ever actually go to the movies there?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Just the once?”

“Five times in Olomouc, twice in Ostrava.”

“Are you lying?”

“Why would I lie?”

“Why did you go?”

“I wanted to see the film.”

“Why so many times? Wouldn’t once or twice have been enough for this part?”

“You’re going around in circles. If you don’t believe me, you don’t believe me.”

“I’m not angry if you’re on their payroll. But were you already on their payroll when you were there in the movie theater—or did they recruit you there precisely because you were watching the film? How does it work? Is there someone else reporting in from Prague, Plzeň, Karlovy Vary? And what about all the theaters in small towns and villages, who’s taking care of them? If there are too many observers, won’t that break the chain of coincidences? Who’s looking at the bigger picture?”

“I get the feeling you don’t want to see me again. And I have other things to do.”

“Don’t you understand the question?”

The woman forces her foot into her shoe; her toes are compressed into a narrow wedge pointing toward the door.

“I want to see you again, one last time,” says the director.

“Wasn’t this the last time?”

“You won’t be disappointed.”

“What about them? Won’t they be disappointed?”

“No, they won’t. They’re obsessed with everything that was left on the cutting-room floor. They won’t miss out on that if you come tomorrow.”

When they meet in the same café the next day, the woman is less heavily made up.

“Have you had breakfast?”

“Yes.”

“What did you have?”

“Coffee and a roll.”

“That’s not enough. I’ll get you a couple of boiled eggs.”

“I don’t want any.”

As she eats a boiled egg, the director steals a glance under the table.

“Are you planning to walk in those shoes?”

“You didn’t tell me what I should wear.”

“Well, they’re your feet.”

The woman places the half-eaten boiled egg on her plate.

“I don’t want any more.”

“Eat it up.”

Outside on the street, the director takes the woman by the hand and pulls her along behind him as he climbs aboard a tram just as the doors are about to close. They ride a few stops until they reach the edge of the park, at which point the director says, “Let’s go, quickly now.” They go through the park at a half run; the woman struggles to keep up with him. On the other side of the park, the director leads the woman to a car parked at the curb, opens the door, and pushes her inside.

The director drives for a long time without saying a word, glancing in his side mirror. Only once they have left the city does he adjust his posture and place one hand on the woman’s knee.

“What do you think? Have we managed to shake them off?”

“Where are we going?”

“Have we gotten rid of them?”

“I hope so.”

“Now you’re all mine.”

During the journey, the director pretends to be absorbed in thought while observing the woman constantly. The woman sits in silence, looking at the scenery. After they have been driving for an hour, she says with surprising irritation in her voice, “I can’t be away from home all day.”

“I’m sure this isn’t the first time. He’ll get around all right.”

“But my son’s small. He gets tired with the boy around and can’t keep up if he wants to run out into the street.

“So he takes after his mother.”

“Stop the car.”

He calmly brakes and steers the car to the side of the road. The woman adds aggressively, “What use is it going anywhere? How will it change anything?”

“I’m taking you back to your family home.”

“Fine, just drive then.”

The director stops the car at the edge of the same park they left a few hours before.

“I can take you all the way there if you want.”

“Where?”

“Where you live.”

“What for? You don’t even believe that’s where I live.”

“Maybe I’d like to see how much trouble there’s been on my account. You could introduce me to your husband. Just how quickly do they arrange for a one-legged man to be there? But surely they must know how easy it is to get a man to look like a cripple.”

“I don’t bring men home.” She is about to open the car door, but hesitates.

“Where would we have gone?”

“Into the mountains.”

“The mountains are too far away.”

“I don’t mean the tall mountains.”

“Which other ones do you mean?”

“Other ones? I would have taken you to the forest that grows in the hills. You remember, the forest we talked about right at the start.”

“What would have happened there?”

“I don’t know. Don’t you understand?”

The woman stares straight ahead. “We can go there tomorrow.”

“No, it’s not possible to go there anymore. It’s not just a place. You have to go there at the right time. We could have been there now. But we’re here.”

She opens the door and gets out, then walks quickly as if she were expecting the street corner to vanish right before she vanishes around it herself.

The director stays another night in the hotel and has breakfast the next morning at the woman’s usual café. He does not expect to see the woman, but he drinks his coffee so slowly that it gets cold, and a film of milk forms on its surface and sticks to the roof of his mouth.

No one bothers him in Prague. They no longer come to his office or phone him. He feels certain that a car has vanished from his own street, and late in the evening, after coming home from work, he stares at an empty space between two cars. The new film he has been planning, the one he was so enthusiastic about, suddenly seems ridiculous. They have an unerring sense of smell. They’ve sniffed him out, barely paused to shake their heads, and continued on their way.

IV

TORCH NUMBER ZERO

I
don’t have a girl in Prague

don’t have a girl in Pra

on’t have a girl in Pr

n’t have a girl in P

t have a girl in

have a girl i

ave a girl

ve a gir

e a gi

a g

g

—The piano player in the film
Loves of a Blonde

I go to Bílá Labut to buy a plastic jerry can. The shop assistant, whose bra is blatantly visible through her thin sweater, approaches me with a smile.

“Can I help you?”

“Do you have any large containers for liquids?”

“We’re sold out.”

“You don’t have a single one?”

“They’ve been big sellers.”

The shop assistant strokes her sweater over her belly, and her smile twitches. She is most certainly pregnant and fearful of everything: food poisoning, tanks, even me.

“What are you planning to use the container for?”

I glare at her with a look on my face that causes her to take a couple of side steps behind the counter and place her hand on the phone.

“I’ll see what I can do. There might be some in the stockroom.”

It starts to feel like I might as well leave. The shop assistant is still on the phone with the stockroom when a man in a dark suit and tie strides up behind me. He doesn’t look like a stockroom manager, more like the department store’s head of security, screwing his way through the girls from the hosiery department, singly or in various combinations.

“What’s your name?”

“Jan Vorszda.”

“Follow me.”

My head feels rigid; I immediately regress to the level of a duckling and waddle off behind the man. We go up in the elevator. There are some other people there. Would he grab me by the sleeve if I attempted to slip out on another floor with the others? He walks next to me on my right side down the corridor, maybe half a step behind, and directs me into a small office where there is a desk with a heavy-looking set of drawers hanging below it like a bull’s testicles. There is a black swivel chair behind the desk and an ordinary wooden chair in front, which I am to sit on.

“What are you doing in Prague, Jan?” He addresses me by my first name now, picks up a pencil and a notepad, and leans far back in his well-sprung leather fortress.

“I live here.”

“So, what else besides living? What do you get up to during the day?”

“I’m a student.”

“Which department?”

“Math and natural sciences.”

“Do you take part in student activities?”

“Why do you need to ask me about that?”

“Listen, Jan. We needn’t waste the whole afternoon on this.”

The man starts fiddling with the backrest on the chair, then finds the right lever and tilts it back at a 45-degree angle. Then he tosses the pencil and notepad on the desk and clasps his hands across his stomach. He’s slim; his shirt is white, and his midnight-black belt must get the young ladies’ mouths watering.

“What do you need a jerry can for?”

I could say the roof leaks. But it doesn’t; it’s never leaked. That’s something they could easily check up on. But I need to come up with something related to water. It’s the opposite of fire. It’s a harmless liquid, unless there’s so much of it you might drown. I should have thought of a reason why I needed a jerry can. Do I need one at all? Is it really going to happen? And since when have they demanded that department-store customers give reasons for why they need everyday items? Although everybody knows when that started.

“To use in my student digs. Sometimes there’s only water on the first floor, when it doesn’t reach the pipes upstairs.”

“Where is it you live? Jarov?”

“No.”

He does not demand any further explanation; it is enough for him that I do not live in Jarov.

“What else is on your shopping list today?”

What else could there be? “Bread, beer, sausages.”

“Where are your parents?”

“In Olomouc.”

“That’s where you’re from,” he says, and even though it’s not a question, I nod my head like a talisman hung from a car’s rearview mirror to guard against accidents.

“What sort of work do your parents do?”

“My mother’s a teacher.”

“What subjects?” He is already starting to get annoyed at having to milk my replies because I don’t give any details.

“Languages—French and English.”

“Doesn’t she speak any Russian?”

“Yes, she does. She’s fluent in five languages, actually.”

“So, let’s see,” the man holds up his fingers and starts to count. “Russian, Czech, French, and English. What’s the fifth one?”

“German.”

“What about your father?”

“My father’s on an invalid pension. He’s still fighting the Germans.”

I manage to get a smile to play across the man’s mouth, which has no lips whatsoever. He is not grinning at me but at his own witticism, which he shares with me.

“There’s still plenty of them to kill.”

He observes my reaction, then adds, “What’s your opinion of these recent events, Jan?”

“Any particular event you have in mind?”

“Oh, just that a namesake of yours came here to buy a plastic jerry can, that sort of thing.”

Languishing for three days with 85 percent burns, national mourning, crowds pouring into the streets, so that’s
that sort of thing
. And now they’re interrogating every student by the name of Jan who comes in to buy a jerry can. There have already been two Jans who have immolated themselves, and there’s sure to be a third one to complete the tricolor: liberty, fraternity, and equality. Presumably I would be the “liberty” of those three. Fraternity and equality are much more difficult.

I weigh my answer to the question, racking my brain, even though the answers make no difference; they are just discovering how difficult it is for me to give an answer. But it mustn’t be too easy, either. I am unable to think a single clear thought; my mind is completely filled with feelings—fear and anguish, now mixed with something strangely stirring, in case they truly imagine me to be concealing
potential
beneath my plumage. Under the strain of my silence, the man nevertheless does not repeat or rephrase his question, but instead asks how my studies have been progressing. Do I have too many lectures, do I still manage to read in the evenings afterward? Am I overexerting myself, do I get enough sleep? Could I even be feeling a bit under the weather?

“Have you been to see the doctor recently?”

“I haven’t had any reason to.”

“It’s important to know when to get help.”

The man gets up from his chair and turns his back to me, places his hands on his hips, and looks down over the bustle in the street.

“Look, Jan, are you sure you don’t have any flammable liquids hidden under your bed?”

He does seem fairly experienced, doesn’t waste time studying my face when he asks this question, which he has kept stored up like bread before a general strike; he is now using his ears, counting how many seconds I remain dumbstruck, then gauging every nuance of my voice, every intonation, tremor, sudden strain of my vocal cords, and tensing of my tongue as blood flows to the areas where it is needed most.

“I’m sure.”

“Well, then, we can leave it there.” He turns, smiles a gentle, boozy smile, and raises his eyebrows encouragingly when he sees that I am still sitting there, as if I might be afraid the chair is glued to my backside and I’ll have to walk home wagging a wooden tail behind me.

When I reach the door, the telephone rings. He gestures to me to wait as he listens to the person providing information on the other end of the line.

“They have some jerry cans in the stockroom. There’s one waiting for you downstairs.”

My mother stops short in the doorway, looks around, and puts her hand over her nose.

“For goodness’ sake, Jan. What’s that smell?”

I stand there in the middle of the room, glance around helplessly, and start to make defamatory comments about my roommate, who never tidies up after himself. My mother walks across the room the way women walk in films from the ’50s, her legs straight, Achilles tendons taut, handbag over her wrist, wearing a hat. She always wears a hat, even in summer, but it is winter now. She goes over to the desk and peers into the opened cans, prods a half-eaten loaf of bread as if afraid it might be crawling with maggots.

“This whole building is an absolute disgrace. Do you know what this place reminds me of?”

She turns to face me.

“Prison. Long corridors, cell doors stretching off into the distance. Except even prison toilets don’t stink as much as this place. Open a window, for heaven’s sake! Don’t you ever air out this room?”

I go to open the window, though I’ve never managed to open it since I’ve been renting this room. I tug on the bolt every which way, but it doesn’t budge.

“Here, let me try.”

But my mother cannot open the window either. I feel both disappointed and sorry for her. She searches for something and finds a jerry can underneath the desk, the same one I bought the other day at Bílá Labut. It is still pristine and unused. She puts it down on the floor in front of me with a thump.

“What is this? Don’t you even have a proper wastebasket here? For goodness’ sake, get rid of these food scraps.”

My mother hasn’t even begun to remove her hat or coat. It seems as if she finds it difficult to remove or touch anything, and anyway, the stench is infiltrating her clothes.

“Don’t the girls even tidy things up? Or are they too modern as well? Do you ever have girls over?”

“No,” I say, putting the jerry can back under the desk.

My mother doesn’t comment on that, continuing instead, “Well, do you know any girls, Jan?”

“Not very well.”

“I see,” she says. “So, is there anyone you know
not very well
?”

I find an old newspaper under the bed, spread it out, and wrap the cans and loaf of bread in it, then announce I am going to throw it down the trash chute in the stairwell. When I come back, my mother is still standing there, examining and shuffling books and papers on my desk.

“How are your studies going?”

“They’re going all right.”

“Have you passed your exams?”

“I failed the last one.”

“Didn’t you study enough?”

“I was sick and had a temperature.”

“Don’t you look after your health? Do you go for check-ups when you should?”

“I’m in good health.”

“You haven’t started smoking, have you, Jan?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“The air’s so bad in Prague, there’s a stench everywhere. I don’t like Prague at all. You could have gone to the university in Olomouc. But you’ve got to make your own choices; that’s how things are.”

“Come on, Mother, sit down.”

“Where am I going to sit?”

“How about that chair?”

“Is this where you sit and study? Can you take that exam again?”

“Which one?”

“The one you failed. What was it in?”

“Electrical theory.”

My mother laughs drily.

“But you still have to read by candlelight, just like everyone else.”

“Do you know a Pavlina?”

“Pavlina who?”

“Well, she seems to know you.”

“There’s a Pavlina in our class.”

“Are you two an item?”

“Where did she get that idea? And how do you know about her?”

“Don’t worry. If it’s nothing serious.”

“It’s not anything at all.”

“She seems to care for you. And she’s concerned.”

“Do you two know each other?”

“I’ve never seen her in the flesh. But I got a letter from her.” My mother puts her handbag down on the desk and starts to undo the buttons on her winter coat: there is something menacing about this, as if she were fumbling with cartridges before loading a gun. “That’s why I’m here.”

I’m sitting on my bed. The mattress is prickly, even through the blanket.

“Don’t be angry with her,” she continues. “According to her letter, you’ve changed over the course of your first year. You’ve grown quiet and withdrawn. You either shut yourself away in your room, or you’re nowhere to be seen for days on end.”

“What business is it of hers? And how did she get hold of your address, anyway? Do you have that letter with you?”

“Never mind that, it’s personal. I’m not letting you read it.”

“Damn member of the Young Pioneers.”

“I forbid you to show anger toward someone who is expressing concern.”

“Well, are you concerned, Mother? You’re the one who came here.”

I look her straight in the eye; she’s never liked that. Even when she looks right at me, she’s looking somewhere slightly off to the side, the way television anchors do.

“It’s enough for me to hear that you’re not mixed up in anything,” she says, adding after a brief pause, “in any inappropriateness.”

Now it is my turn to laugh, but the laughter dries up in the back of my throat, as if I’d been sleeping with my mouth open for too long.