HE HAD ENTIRELY IMMERSED HIMSELF in the wretched watch and there it was, devoid of all its entrails apart from some little cogs which were apparently attached to the mechanism of the hands. He extracted one of these cogs using tweezers, held it up to the light, twirled it in his fingers, eyes half-shut.
“Here it is, dear sir! Either the cog was badly cut and was acting up for that reason or it wasn’t lying dead level, thus distorting the entire mechanism of your watch. I can’t say which as I don’t have the appropriate tool with me: do you want to come back tomorrow evening?” I replied that come tomorrow I’d be on my way to Paris. He seemed sorry about this, but remained silent.
“Please keep the watch,” I said. “You’ve laboured over it and I have another at home, a gold watch.”
“Keep it? No, that’s out of the question! Give me your address, I’ll send the watch on.”
“All right. I live in rue Monsieur, number nineteen. Do you want to make a note of that?”
“What for? My memory is far too good, I remember everything as though it were etched upon it as on stone. You’re an educated man. Can you teach me how to forget?”
“If that’s all,” I said laughing, “I certainly can.” Breathing heavily he stared at me with his right eye wide open. He had drunk excessively, but was still lucid. As for me, no amount of alcohol, even a quantity like that affects me.
“Well, come on! How can I forget?” he asked with unusual intensity.
I was ashamed of my big mouth. “Well, you know the answer yourself, there’s only one way: old father time.”
“But how long?”
“A year, or two, perhaps five.”
“And if five years haven’t helped, what then?” I said nothing. Nor did he. We continued to drink. The tavern was beginning to empty. The tall, slim waitress came past every now and then, skimming the head of the toy trader with her bare arm. He pretended not to notice, but his smile seemed increasingly bitter. And yet he was deeply affected as I could tell from his hands. He couldn’t control them as well as the expression in his eyes.
“It’s a bitter-sweet thing being the slave of a woman. And it’s the same for a woman. But why should he, the Oom-Pah, the lawful husband, be entitled to only sweetness and light? I’ll be honest, sometimes I beat Jarmila. Mostly Mondays. Although I danced with her nearly every Sunday in the inn as her husband was sitting on the terrace blowing into his instrument with his fat cheeks. As his musical part dictated he played only the bass notes, emitting flaccid, gurgling sounds like a merry pig: gorged and gratified, robust and rotund. His rosy, ugly mug, smug with glee, reflected in the shiny brass belly of the horn which she’d had to polish for him in the morning until it gleamed. He played well, with gusto—and downed his beers. He allowed us to dance, the young lass and lad. But he made up for it at night, taking what was his by law. Not under sacks, to the scampering of mice, not in the stinking residue of feathers, a little blood and muck always sticking to the quills … No, upstairs in the softest of downy white quilts. I didn’t take it out on him, but on her. In spite of her condition. I didn’t hit her hard, mind, oh no. And she clawed at me or half-strangled me when I returned from a tête-à-tête with a girl at some house entrance or at the well. I wanted to get away from her. Enough was enough! I could easily get married: I was well-respected in the place as a qualified watchmaker and precision mechanic; not badly decorated, either, as a former artillery gunner in the war and a reservist in our Czech army. They didn’t hit one another though! And when the child came, what joy for the pair of them! The pair of them! Did he deserve it? I was the one she had wanted it from, therefore it was mine, right? Tell me honestly, could I really leave it to him? It’s not natural, no human could do it! And I was to be left with nothing! Did he know? Did he not know? He could not possibly believe that his wife who had been barren all along, infertile, would suddenly ripen for him, bear his fruit and bring a little Oom-Pah into the world? No, oh no. The child was mine. If there’s one thing I know in this deceitful world, it’s that. At first she admitted as much. It couldn’t be otherwise. Just like me, as the pictures in the album at home will show you, the child was born with a halo of hair like rays of sun; his father-by-law, on the other hand, had been black as the night in his youth, and was now grey as sand. My dear sir, I don’t know if you have wife and child, nor whether one should wish these earthly treasures on a man who has not embarked on this path yet …” He glanced at my bare ring finger, but I didn’t respond to his question. “No,” he said, “if you’re not married yet, don’t do it. If you have never held a new-born child in your arms and if it hasn’t yet dampened your skin with its warm pee,” he was chortling now, a child himself, and I could see his beautiful, sharp teeth, “then let it be. I said to her: ‘Jarmila, come on, let’s go now! It’s the only way, Jarmila, believe me!’ She acted as though she didn’t understand.
‘Go to Prague, you mean?’ she said. ‘I’d like to travel to Prague, it’s meant to be so beautiful, so elegant and such fun!’
‘Take our child in your arms, wrap your scarf round your head, and let’s sail from Hamburg. Come on. I’ll take care of you!’
‘Only as far as America?’ she asked in a derisive tone I didn’t know her capable of. ‘Off to America with a new-born baby on one arm and you, with only your good looks and wits to declare, on the other? Prague for a day, fine! America and the unknown? Never! Penniless! Forever? I think not.’
‘But what’s to become of the four of us?’ I asked, foolishly.
‘Four? Only two! You and me! Am I not yours?’ she whispered, drawing me into her house, into the bedroom, showering my forearm with a hundred kisses or more, from the palm of my hand upwards to the elbow, even the place that our child had dampened. Her beautiful, full bosom heaved with every hot breath (we were of course alone in her house, her husband away buying feathers from small farmers). She unfastened the brooch of her blouse with its splendid embroidery (the local women are all accomplished at embroidery, and Jarmila was perhaps most talented of all!); she lifted the child very gently from the cradle and held him in her hands and let him sup; whenever the strong little rascal let go of her nipple I could see it erect, gleaming rosy-red in the dusky room. I watched the baby sucking and gurgling and laughing, a picture of contentment and health, thank God! I sat very quietly, taking in everything and saying nothing. Perhaps none of this was mine. And yet I stayed! I heard footsteps outside and thought it must be one of the farm-hands, thankfully both friends of mine. Or maybe even be the brother-in-law, the schoolmaster. But she didn’t think so and dropped her blouse even further: I now could see her body changed by our love, rather like dough that rises in the tepid warmth of the oven. From her navel down to her hips were slight, tender furrows, like etched lines, stretching from one side to the other. This was new to me, and frighteningly beautiful. I averted my eyes. ‘Look! These are from you as well,’ she said, ‘They’ll never disappear.’ Her arms too had grown fuller and lost the slenderness of youth. ‘Don’t you want me anymore?’ she asked. ‘I love you,’ I replied. It was then, I think, I confessed my love to her for the first time. But she didn’t respond in kind. So I left the bedroom and the house, left even the village, and walked for an hour into a little forest. I didn’t see her again for a long time. Believe it or not, I struck up a friendship with Oom-Pah’s brother, the schoolmaster. He lent me beautiful books, and I made him beautiful clocks, with cuckoos or pleasant chimes. I even planned to make him a revolving globe out of a bowling ball, old maps and papier-mâché, but I didn’t manage to. His sister-in-law came by often: Maruschka, a very lovely, innocent creature, willowy, and brunette, but with work-worn hands which were not as fine as Jarmila’s. Her hair had a tart smell, not like Jarmila’s, which smelled like corn-flowers … My child was christened, and the Oom-Pah swaggered around proudly. He sat below at the dignitaries’ table now on Sundays, while I was playing the violin on the podium, fluffing my way through. Maruschka, practically my bride, listened, and so did the other one, Jarmila. But finally the Oom-Pah couldn’t bear it any longer. He came upstairs, forced me off, and took up his instrument. I just laughed. I didn’t mind.”