The Drowning Of A Goldfish Read online

  At the end of the following year, his family was enlarged by a daughter. Taking into account the unfavorable view the authorities had with respect to large families, he settled for two children.

  His son was meant for medicine, his daughter for marriage. The fact that his son would have preferred to become a photographer and his daughter a teacher was irrelevant. The limbs must follow the head.

  Velenský’s son, endowed with the delicate beauty of his mother, copied his father’s ethics. He gave him nothing but satisfaction.

  Velenský’s daughter, as sound in body as in mind, broke away from her family at the age of sixteen.

  This minor event aside, the life of the village cop Velenský could have passed for idyllic. Clever enough to manage under a variety of governments, including Nazi rule, he set up a chicken farm for his wife, an undertaking both patriotic and prosperous—did it not save these poor townspeople from famine?—which allowed him to rise to the ranks of the village rich. With shrewd foresight, he did not deposit the money in the bank, its value being too uncertain in those troubled times of Nazi occupation. Instead, he bought land, a form of wealth that even a bomb could not take away from him. He never for a single moment doubted the victory of the Brown Nazi order over the red chaos and, knowing the Nazis’ esteem for private property, he was sure he would be a winner. He rented out the land to small farmers who made payments in grain. This, in turn, allowed him to expand his chicken farm, to trade grain, eggs, and chickens for other goods, to acquire more land, and further his social standing.

  Everything was meticulously planned. His son, speaking German better than a German, won a competition allowing him to work at a Nazi airport, twenty kilometres from his village. Thus, he avoided the obligatory service in the German Reich, required for all young people of his age, and could look forward to the end of the war. Then, he could start studying medicine at the university.

  He did not opt for German citizenship, to which he was entitled since his great-grandmother was German. To fight in the war was not part of Velenský’s plans.

  Rudolf was a model son. While frequently dating girls from well-to-do families, he never ventured too far. To prepare a successful marriage needs patience. He would save himself for a union worthy of a doctor and certainly, after his studies, he could strike an even better deal. Nothing is more pathetic than an ill-matched marriage, conceived by a stupid teenage romance.

  To satisfy his carnal impulses, Rudolf chose a notorious village slut. In case anything went wrong, let her try and prove who was the child’s real father!

  Rudolf’s first sexual experience dated back to his childhood, when he spent his school vacation in a German village in order to learn the language. One afternoon, when he was tossing a ball with his host’s daughter, a girl with flaxen, braided hair, it began to rain. They climbed into the loft of a barn, where the darkness smelled sweetly of hay and ripe fruit. He leapt forward, eager to retrieve the ball, which the girl had hidden in her arms and plunged his hands into something soft and round …

  An ear-piercing scream of pain made him free his prey and he pulled back his hands in startled confusion.

  “Naturally, she was blushing,” he related to me one day.

  “You can well imagine how painful it was to her—a virgin! She cried out, confused. ‘It is not a ball, Rudolf!’

  “And me, I understood and respected her innocence …”

  Rudolf often bestowed upon me little stories of his past and acted the role of a professor. He planned to mold me into an ideal wife, reserved and submissive, concerned with nothing but her husband’s needs. He was confident of his final success.

  “A man can do what he wants with a woman whom he has deflowered,” confessed he, with a wistful smile.

  In Rudolf’s arsenal, there was a whole series of stories about women, oblivious of their reputation, who would give themselves up to forbidden physical pleasures.

  “He threw this tart to the ground amidst the bushes. It was winter and snow covered the ground …” Rudolf knew my horror of the cold. “He tore off her panties and penetrated her; a job quickly done. Then, shaking the snow off his coat, he left without saying a word. How could a man respect a slut who consented so easily to being laid?”

  Another source of intimidation was Rudolf’s ex-girl friend Nataša.

  “An indulgent nymphomaniac, impudent like Messalina who, in the fury of fornication, did not even try to hide her orgasm!”

  When, during a holiday of skiing, she fell and broke her leg, Rudolf left her where she lay. Let her other flirtations take care of her! Rudolf was not prepared to waste his vacation looking after a tramp.

  Rudolf’s scale of female values swayed between red and white; a chasm gaped between the whore and the lady, and he needed them both.

  We were in Bulgaria, by the sea. A young woman, her head propped up on her arm, tanned and smooth, her eyes half open, was basking in the fire-hot sand. She had the listless beauty of upper class Poles, remote and sensual at the same time.

  “Well, well … I wonder what she is dreaming about, the little slut,” gasped Rudolf, with a shrewd connoisseur’s wink.

  I was collecting and recording. Selections would wait. My file would take shape much later.

  With a short, gasping whistle, the train spits us out on a little stop, lost in the fields, encrusted in a dirty snow.

  Rudolf’s father appears through the billowing steam. He fixes our luggage to his bicycle and peddles away. We follow, trotting along a narrow path, in a plain defined by abruptly protruding mountains in the distance.

  The wind, a greedy leech, invades my coat and clings to my neck; its grasping suckers lift up the borders of my shawl.

  Suddenly, the clouds are swept away; the icy rays of a frozen sun slice my cheek with razor sharpness. I shiver and have a burning desire for warmth.

  With a little flower-bed by the road and a sizeable vegetable garden at the rear, the house is brand new and built of bricks. The tiled roof warmly reflects the sun; the mellow thatched roofs belonging to the past … and the poor.

  The retired cop Velenský is a rich man. His new wife supplied the house and the garden, a real gold mine for those who know how to exploit it. Not one inch is wasted. Lettuce, radishes and beetroots are grown, according to the season. Everything will be traded at the market in the neighboring town.

  The retired cop Velenský is a resourceful man.

  The communists took away his fields and gave him a handsome pension.

  Is he not a combatant for the new order? A fighter of the first hour against the German invaders? A man of order, useful to every regime?

  The retired cop Velenský beams with satisfaction. To do one’s duty does not imply to ignore on which side one’s bread is buttered.

  “Whatever the government, be in accordance with it, Rudolf. Follow and be obedient; their head is bigger than yours. They will tell you in time what is required from you,” he advises his son.

  We are seated at the table. The kitchen is dark. To prevent the heat from escaping, the windows are nailed and the frames are stuffed with yellowed newspaper.

  A bare bulb casts a meager, dirty light on the plastic tablecloth. The air is heavy, greasy, and sour … just like the food that we are being served.

  The retired cop Velenský is the very image of a miser. His compulsive greed is at the core of his torture; it squeezes his heart, it consumes his brain, it eats away his soul.

  Even fields are no longer a sure value! Where shall one put one’s money in these troubled times?!

  In cold sweat, Velenský takes his money to the bank. Is it secure there?! Will he not lose it?!

  He calculates; he speculates and looks around. The comrades, are they doing the same? The government will certainly not deceive its cherished followers, its very support, its own defense! With them it stands, without them it falls.

  Some comrades buy houses—the stupid ones. The clever ones confiscated them from the “enemies of the
working class” when there were still some houses left. The government will not touch the comrades’ private property! Only a fool will cut off the branch on which he is sitting.

  What a shame that one is allowed only a single house, whose proportions have, furthermore, to correspond to the size of one’s family—exception to the rules being gladly granted to prominent Party members. Unfortunately, this is not the case of the retired cop Velenský!

  “Money is so difficult to spend,” grudges Velenský. In fact, it is hardly needed. Food is grown in the garden, a pig is slaughtered, salted, smoked … plenty to eat throughout the year. To drink, there are apples for cider and prunes for “slivowitz.” Good clothes are saved for the church on Sundays and for the occasional National Committee meetings. “And they last so long! Impossible to wear them out!” grumbles the retired cop.

  “Just let those city queers spare us from their culture, seeing silly places, movies, concerts, plays! We have a radio, even a television! We know what to think! We shall stay in slippers at home! In peace! Live our own lives!”

  We are sitting at the table in our slippers. Shoes wear out a carpet. The carpet is beautiful, a genuine Persian which triggers silky reflections of my childhood. It was exchanged for a piece of pork with an “enemy of the working class.”

  I chew. I swallow. I gag.

  A goldfish suffocates when removed from its crystal globe.

  I look towards the windows. The darkness is dense, the universe squeezed into this tight and sticky kitchen for the bourgeois’ use.

  He eats, therefore he is.

  I abhor, therefore I am.

  We are sitting at the table. It’s 10:00 and they are talking.

  One drinks a glass of slivowitz. They drink a glass of slivowitz.

  One clinks glasses. They clink glasses. To health. To success. To their success. To my defeat.

  One goes to bed. The bed is huge, spongy, suffocating. The eiderdown is as heavy as cast iron.

  At my side, Rudolf is starting to snore. The food was saturating, the booze was excellent. His day was well spent.

  Every quarter of an hour, a cuckoo comes out of the clock, filling my sleepless night with its mocking voice.

  Rudolf’s snoring is multiplied by the deafening rasp of his father and the hissing respiration of his stepmother.

  Country life has a thousand voices; none of them is mine.

  In solitary night vigil, I pierce the darkness with my sightless eyes. At the bottom of my throat, my heart throbs in alarm.

  Under the faded sky, mad dogs are howling at the moon.

  In the morning we go to pay a visit of respect to the grave of Rudolf’s mother. Every window squints at us with eager, suspicious eyes.

  Did Velenský’s son make a good catch? Did he marry according to his social standing? Has he got an heiress? Is she beautiful? The verdict is made in a second. If this ugly duckling has not got a fortune, the long years of Rudolf’s studies were wasted. They are dead sure to be right. Would an heiress walk around hatless, furless, skinny, ungroomed, without high heels? A rich woman is soft, white, plump, and dignified.

  I am treading along beside Rudolf, my head low, feeling miserable and lost.

  The cemetery is small and rural and surrounds a church of curvy baroque style. Not a peaceful place to rest, it reflects all the village’s rivalries, jealousies, and grudges. The rich keep their place in the sun, lying in dry, light sand. The poor rot amidst moistness and mildew. Rudolf’s mother is buried in an opulent marble tomb, her husband’s future dwelling.

  Velenský’s second wife, a widow herself, will retire, in all decency, to her former husband, under a modest stone sepulcher.

  The bourgeois mold is solid as a rock.

  Rudolf’s mother had the name and the virtues of the famous Virgin. Tender and obedient, she adapted to her husband’s will as quietly as leaves to wind. To encourage her sweet behavior, the cop whipped her with the crop used to chastise the children and the dog.

  The German shepherd revolted against it, destroyed the crop, buried the rod, and paid for it with his life. Being untamable, he was shot dead by the cop.

  Mary died of cancer.

  She had concealed her rotting cheek beneath a shawl, using the other to smile. The family should be spared her disgrace. She was scared that her disease would be known. Later on, who would marry a girl with a cancerous mother?!

  She worked right up to her last breath, cooking for the family, caring for the chickens and tending the garden.

  One day, she died in silence.

  The widower wailed, expressing his distress with long, drawn moans. The burial was an imposing drama. Four strong men were needed to prevent him from jumping into the open grave of his beloved wife.

  From then on, Velenský never stopped lamenting. The disloyalty of his deceased wife, who had retired herself from duty, was the eternal subject of his complaint.

  He was betrayed! His reputation had suffered! He had been tricked into marrying a disease-ridden woman, a mere cripple! And this had happened to him! TO HIM! an honest man, with nothing to hide! He had been dishonored! Slandered, stripped of his honor!

  How could he now face his children? Had he not failed them with such a mother? Had he not endangered their success in society? What a debilitating wound he had inflicted upon them! A father with no sense of decency; would they ever forgive him?! Must he fall under the burden of his guilt?!

  All that I know about Mary is from a photo, taken on her wedding day, where a young girl with an angelic face floats in uninhibited admiration, looking up towards the man who, in his grandness and generosity, consented to marry her, the daughter of simple country folks, unworthy of the honor of becoming Mrs. Cop.

  Velenský, solemn in his rigorously buttoned uniform, is perched above her. In order to reach up above his wife, a head taller than himself, the cop mounted a footstool, from where he is staring at the public with a satisfied sneer on his waxy face.

  This photo is all that has remained of Mary. Her son, a passionate photographer, never found his mother a subject worthy of his art.

  “I regret it with all my heart. Can you imagine the joy of this poor woman if I had asked her to pose for me?” he told me one day.

  With Rudolf’s photos, you pose.

  You are standing still; you take a position with a flattering angle; you are smiling; you are saying “cheese,” your mouth half-open; your breasts up and pointing towards the spectator; your hair just done; your bare shoulders luring … Rudolf’s females know how to market their charms.

  Rudolf is a collector. He still keeps them all—the photos of the village sweethearts, of the darlings from his dancing classes, of the bathing beauties from the pool, of the nymphs from the ponds, of the mermaids at the beaches, pasted meticulously and methodically on the pages of gold-rimmed albums.

  The dreams of Rudolf have the body of a slut.

  We place the bouquet of plastic flowers on Mary’s tomb.

  The forest is full of blooming snowdrops, of branches of fir trees, of mistletoe, and of soft, green moss.

  The deceased wife of a retired cop deserves “something better.”

  “And what would the people say?! One has the means. One can afford an expensive, everlasting bouquet which will still look nice in summer!

  “Everyone has to see that you are willing to spend some money in memory of your saintly mother, Rudolf,” says the cop.

  We are standing in front of Mary’s tomb.

  Rudolf, his head piously lowered, his face somber, gives a heavy sigh. Two meager tears appear between his silky eyelashes and trickle down across his lovely cheeks.

  What a pity that his mother does not live now, when he would love this saintly woman so much, when he would care for her, return her devotion a thousand times.

  “All would change,” babbles Rudolf, making the sign of the cross on the marble tomb.

  It is noon. His conscience is at peace; his stomach rumbles.

  We leav
e the cemetery to go home.

  The retired cop enters. His second wife hastily appears, cackling like a startled hen. She helps him take off his coat, brings him a stool to sit down. He sticks his boot between her thighs; she pulls with all her might, the boot comes off and she falls hard on her bottom.

  The cop’s face lightens up and he chokes with glee. What fun!

  The wife stifles a painful cry, rubs her bruised buttocks, and laughs heartily.

  Good women often laugh.

  After the putsch of 1948, Mary’s brother, a farmer neither rich nor poor, had the foresight to become a member of the Communist Party, which rewarded him with a promotion to the head of the Velen farming cooperative.

  With time, his son succeeded him. As in every oligarchy, the communist one is hereditary.

  Thus, the retired cop Velenský got another piece of the cake. The cooperative would come to turn the soil of his garden, to sow the field behind his house with grain, and to harvest it later.

  Did Velenský need to fertilize his ground? Nothing simpler than that. During the night, sacks would appear on his porch; he only had to spread it.

  Did he need wood for winter? The cooperative’s chain saw would be at his disposal.

  In order to fill his cellar with potatoes, he would only have to nod.

  In short, his in-laws were useful people with whom it was advisable to stay on good terms. Hence, their invitation to lunch had to be accepted.

  Their farm is at the other end of the village. Leaving the cemetery, we turn down a narrow lane, bordered by tall, barren poplar trees. We pass the school, a low-slung, gray, prison-like building. In front of it some dirty ducks float in the black spittle of a village pond.

  The deserted stables are all that is left of the old farm. The animals were transferred to the cooperative.

  The farmhouse is in a sad state. The plaster is crumbling, exposing bare bricks. The coating and painting must wait for better times.

  We enter the farmhouse. The corridor is dark and I hit against a washing machine, suppressing a cry of pain.

  The passage is obstructed by a variety of disparate objects. They store them there until they learn how to use them. You have to spend your money somehow and this seems to be their sole purpose for the time being.