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 jewellery, 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.

Today, when he returned drawn by the yoke of bullocks, he asked me to shut my eyes. And he carried something through into the living room. And then he put the light out in the living room and took me by the hand and led me through with closed eyes, he sat me down on the little armchair in front of the mirror, then he went and drew the curtains. I heard the lid snap open and thought he’d bought me a hat-box, but then I heard him stick the plug in the collar of the socket, I thought he’d bought me some sort of mixer, patent cooker or solar lamp, and then I heard a sizzling, slowly ascending rumble. Francin laid his hand gently on my shoulder and said ‘Now.’ And I opened my eyes, and what I saw was marvellous to behold. Francin stood there like a magician, in his fingers he held a tube, in which there shone a pale blue light, a kind of thick purple violet light, which shone on Francin’s hands and face and clothes, a purple violet dampened fire in a glass tube, which Francin put close to my hand, and my arm went magnetic, I could feel purple sawdust sizzling out of that light, immaterial sparklets, which entered me and imbued me with fragrance, so that I had the scent of a summer thunderstorm, the air in the room had the scent too, like air after lightning strikes, and Francin slowly lifted the wonderful thing and put it close to his own face, I saw again that handsome profile of his, Francin stood solemnly here like Gunnar Tolnes, and then ran that tube over the open case, and there on the red plush, lining the lid as well, were set in a fan shape all kinds of brush heads, pipes and bells, all of it was made of glass and enclosed like bottles, dozens of instruments of glass, and Francin pulled off the tube and took out of the case and fixed into the bakelite holder one wonderful object after another, and each time that glass vessel glowed and filled with purple violet light, which fizzled and passed through into the human body just as required. Francin changed and experimented with all these electrodes with their neon gas content, saying quietly, ‘Maryška, now Uncle Pepin can bawl his head off, now they can make trouble at the brewery, now people can insult me as they please, but here … here are these sparks of healing which turn into health, high frequencies which give you a new joie de vivre, fresh courage in life … Maryška, this is for you too, for your nerves, for your health, this one here is a cathode which treats your ears, this cathode here massages the heart, imagine, a heart-enhancing sizzling phosphorescence! And this one is for hysteria and epilepsy, this violet ozone removes your desire to do in public things a decent person can only think of or do at home, and other electrodes are for styes and liver-spots, torn muscles and migraine, the fifteenth one is for hyperaemia of the brain and hallucinations,’ said Francin talking quietly, and in front of me spread those neon-filled forms, each one different, these electrodes were more like great pistils or stamens or orchid blooms than curative instruments. I listened to all this and for the first time ever I was speechless with surprise, even though those electrodes for hallucinations and high frequencies for hysteria and epilepsy concealed a direct reference to me, I had no reason to resist, so benumbed was I by that purple violet beauty. Francin put on an electrode in the form of an earpiece, he put it close to my forehead, I looked at myself in the mirror, and there was a stunning sight! I looked like a beautiful water maiden, like those young ladies in Art Nouveau pictures, purple violet, with ringlets singed by the evening star! Vacuum flasks with a purple violet storm of polar radiation! And again Francin leaned over the case and into the bakelite holder he stuck a neon comb, this neon comb glowed like an advertising sign over some ladies’ accessories shop in Vienna or Paris, and Francin came close to me, planted that sizzling comb in my hair, I looked at myself in the mirror and I knew that there was nothing more I could wish for but to comb through my tresses with that comb. And Francin slowly, as if he knew it, ran that shining comb through my tempestuous hair, reaching down to the ground, and again he reared up and again he ran through it with the high frequency fed comb. I began to quiver all over, I had to hug myself, Francin breathed out quietly, every time he couldn’t stop himself from plunging his whole face into those tresses of mine, which felt so good in that purple violet cold storm that when the comb returned the hair ends rose with it, and again that purple violet comb forging down through my hair, that blueish dinghy plunging through the rapids, that cascade of my hair, that purple violet marrowed hollow glass comb! ‘Maryška,’ Francin whispered and sat down behind me and again slowly drew the comb through my electric charged hair, ‘Mary, this we’re going to do every day now, I brought this to assuage life’s hubbub with its blue shading, quieten your nerves, while for me the electrodes will rather be coloured red, to quicken the blood circulation and invigorate the living organism …’ said Francin talking softly. And from the boxroom behind the kitchen hammer blows rang out, and an annoyed and ever crosser and crosser voice rose up, Uncle Pepin, who had come for a fortnight, and had been with us now for a whole month, and Francin, when I stroked him under the lamp and smoothed away his trepidation with the curve of my hand, he told me he was horrified by the idea of Pepin staying with us twenty years, and maybe the rest of his life. And Uncle Pepin mended us our boots and shoes, in the boxroom where he also slept, but they weren’t just shoes for him, they were something alive, which Uncle Pepin wrestled with, boxed to the floor, he cursed and swore for days on end, and I heard swear-words I’d never heard before, and also every half an hour Uncle took the shoe he was mending, and when he’d cursed and sworn at it, he’d slam it down, chuck it away, and then he’d sit on his stool and sulk. When he’d settled down, he would turn round slowly, take a look at the shoe, ask its forgiveness and lift it up again, stroke it, then go on pegging it and threading it tight, and having somehow clumsy fingers, he always yelped out, so that I came running, thinking he’d stuck the knife in his chest, but it was only the thread which wouldn’t pull through the sole, and the whole shoe threatened to rebel, indeed did, like a wound-up spring jumping out of a gramophone, so that shoe shot away like soap out of your palm, and it leapt right up on to the cupboard or the ceiling, as if there was a little motor in it, and when it flew out of Uncle’s hand, Uncle flung himself after the shoe, like a goalkeeper making a flying save of the ball …

And now Uncle yelled out, ‘Damn! Blast!’

Francin put away the neon comb, on top of the instruments in the case he laid the sheet of plush, took a look in the direction of Uncle’s cry and said:

‘Those fulgurating currents have given me added strength already.’ And he put the case away in the cupboard, then I pulled on the button and the window blind flew up and the china button clicked lightly against my teeth. Across the orchard I could see the beige maltings, a maltster was walking with a squat lamp in his fingers up the steps to the first floor, then he disappeared, and the lamp appeared again one storey higher, again it disappeared, and reappeared, and all the time with each stair the lamp rose as if it was walking through the dusky brewery by itself, a lamp stepping all on its own up the staircase, then the lamp disappeared, but again reappeared and walked from window to little window over the covered bridge connecting the maltings with the brewhouse. But who was that stepping along at random like that, who was carrying that lamp about, just so that it might seem to rise up through the maltings and brewery all by itself? And I stood by the window and lurked like a hunter in wait for the buck about to come out on to the clearing … and my expectation made me quiver. Now the lamp appeared right up on the cooling-floor, where nobody ever goes at this hour, where there is a vat the size of an ice-hockey rink, a tank in which a whole brew of beer is put to cool, the young stuff … and now the lamp is walking there, a lamp that acts as if it knew I was watching it, a lamp carried just for me, the ten great big four-metre cooling-floor windows are fitted with louvres, open just a crack, like shutters in Italy and Spain, and that lamp walks steadily on, interrupted by those hundreds of louvres, the thin slivered motion of the kindled lamp, which now halts. I saw the window frame with its louvres open and someone with the lamp came out on to the roof of the ice chamber, where there is a mountain of ice piled four storeys high, twelve hundred cartloads of frozen river, of icy ceiling, which cart after cartload is heaped up in the chamber by a bucket-hoist, an ice chamber which is covered on top against the heat by half a metre of sand and river pebbles, on which from spring till autumn houseleeks grow, hundreds and thousands of houseleeks amidst cushions of green moss … and there stands now the squat lamp, which one of the brewery workers has brought up there, a maltster … I opened the window and heard from above a pleasing male voice, as if the kindled lamp were singing: ‘… the love that was, it is gone, ’twas for but a short while, golden lassie, not for long, now she is no more … her life is o’er … to the deep linn by Nymburk town she’s gone …’ And from the boxroom came Francin’s shouting: ‘For God’s sake, give over, please, Jožko!’ And slowly I went out of the room, I didn’t even look today as the electric current slowly ebbed, like that love which drowned in the deep linn. Francin had lit the lamps, I went out into the passage and there sat Francin on a chair, both hands pressed to his chest and urging Uncle to leave it all be, and since he’s here, couldn’t he read or go to church or the pictures, just so long as there’s some peace and quiet in the house … Francin wanted to get up, but somehow he couldn’t, he tried once more, but he was intimately joined to the chair, I put my hand over my mouth, such was my alarm, because I knew that Francin had sat in the pot of cobbler’s glue. Pepin was mortified, he would have liked so much to mend all of his brother’s shoes, he talked about it such a lot because, of whatever he had ever felt affection for in this world, he felt affection for his brother the most, Francin tried to force his way up off the chair, but he couldn’t prise himself free and he bent forward and keeled over, he lay there on the floor and the chair with him. I knelt down and tried to prise Francin free, but the cobbler’s glue alias gum had stuck Francin down so firmly that he looked like an overturned statue of a seated Christ. Uncle Pepin pulled Francin’s shoulders, I tried lying down behind Francin and pulling the chair in the opposite direction, but it seemed more likely that my husband and Pepin’s brother would be torn in half than that we would liberate him from this situation. I rose up and something else rose with my hair, I took my hair in my fingers, drew it on to my lap and saw that my hair had got stuck in the other pot of cobbler’s glue or gum, I took the scissors and snipped off the pot of glue along with the end of hair, there the little container now lay like the Golden Bull of Sicily dipped in the strings of my hair. When Francin saw what had happened to my hair, he pranced up like a horse and a lovely sound of tearing fabric ripped through the boxroom. Francin rolled over free and stood there handsome once more, his eyes filled with healthy predatory sizzling wrath, he took the lasts and pots and boxes of pegs, and Uncle Pepin, I thought the look would be enough to break his heart, but Pepin handed his brother with alacrity everything combustible, and Francin with an ever greater and growing sense of relief chucked it all in the stove. The cobbler’s glue burned up so violently it lifted the stove plates, and the flame was sucked up through the flues into the chimney, a practically two-metre-long flame it was, long as my hair.