The combinations, p.100
The Combinations, page 100
* Wisdom got in the parlous life of farce. [:]
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the gloom. A doorway. He thought he heard voices. The dwarf & someone else.
He approached with caution. As quietly as he could, he pushed the door open &
peered around the edge.
The Patriot Klub had been turned into a dump. The air, a stale bitter
odour redolent of ether, sulphur, formaldehyde. Junk was piled where the chairs
& tables had been. Rolls of painted canvas. Curtains. Bits of painted scenery.
Costume racks. Stage lights. A movie poster in a broken frame stuck out
between lightstands: V.F. Entertainment presents THE TERATOLOGISTS .
“Golem City, . Cheskoslovnikia is occupied by the Nazis & suffering under
the brutal regime controlled by v-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, the
vicious sadist known as Der Schlächter.” Alice Steinerová stared out at him with
preternaturally blue eyes.
‘My god,’ he mumbled, ‘that too.’
But his thoughts were interrupted by voices approaching. He glanced
around to see where they were coming from. He caught sight of a ventriloquist’s
dummy, mouth agape, sitting on an old wine barrel. It seemed to watch him
with horrible dead-of-night eyes.* And behind the dummy, a table with dozens
of brown leather attaché cases piled up in rows, all more or less identical to the
ones the dwarf had been carrying. The voices were coming closer. Němec edged
between the piles of junk & crouched down behind some painted wooden
scenery shaped like the crests of waves. They were the same two voices he’d
heard before. The dwarf’s was a nasally whine. The other belonged to a woman.
Middle High Krautisch. Like a voice that’d had too much gin & cigarettes.
There was something familiar about it.
‘We’ll have to do something about that,’ the woman said. ‘Our partners
don’t appreciate loose threads.’
‘The Boss knows all about it,’ said the dwarf.
‘Maybe he doesn’t know as much as he thinks.’
‘He’s no schmuck, sister. When the time’s right…’
Němec flinched. For a moment it sounded as though the voices were
coming from right beside him, there in the room. He held his breath. But it
must’ve been an illusion, for in a moment they began fading-out again in the
direction of the passageway. There must’ve been some other way out. Other
rooms, too, beside the one he was in. He decided he ought to take a look around
* “Now don’t get excited, I was only joking, you know me. Maxwell! Take your hands off me! Stop
playing! Maxwell! Here you fool! Officer! Quickly! Open this door!” [:]
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while he had the chance. But then the lights went out & the voices receded into
nothingness. Němec froze. It was impossible, in the dark, to gauge which
direction he was supposed to go. His walking stick slipped from his hand &
clattered. He groped around for it. Something rustled. He caught a draught, it
seemed to carry the voices back with it. The acoustics wavered. Then the voices
grew louder again, as if approaching from behind him now. For one brief
moment a light flared but just as suddenly was gone. Němec blinked, doubly
blinded. In a clear baritone he heard the woman say —
‘But can he be relied on?’
‘Boss has him all figured,’ the dwarf said, ‘like clockwork. That’s the only
thing that matters.’
Can who be relied on? To do what?
After a while something banged & then silence. Němec stood up & tried
to work his way back out to the passageway. He ran into a clothesrack. It tipped
over. He steadied himself, breathing hard. Don’t panic. Eventually, after much
trial & error, he found the door. He felt around the frame for a lightswitch. No
luck. He limped up the incline in the dark, using his walkingstick like a
blindman. The way up seemed much longer than the way down. There was a
distant echo of plumbing at work. Well, kiddo, you’ve sure got a nose for it. Then
without any warning he ran straight into a heavy wooden door.
A door, but no light. And the door was locked. No handle even. Nothing.
Had the passage forked? Had he wound up at a dead end? The answer seemed
too mundane. For the time being, at least, Němec was stuck with the conclusion
that the dwarf & his accomplice had simply locked-up behind them. The
prospects looked rather black. Blacker than a blacked-out cinema without the
exit lights. Already he could hear the rats sizing him up for a meal. Then right
on cue this prating voice in the back of his head, full of scorn,* saying —
Hey, Němec you idiot. Yolk for brains. Try getting your eggshell around this
one. Dolt, cretin, turd. They were right about you all along. Snivelling little. See if you
can write your way out of this. Haha. You couldn’t write your way out of a wet paper
bag. You don’t even exist. You’re just the Old Man’s golem, doing the dog work after he
copped-out. Haunting the empty house. The outhouse. Hooohooo! Waiting for the
* Thinking, no doubt, what a joy to look forward to, his conscience’s company for the rest of his
happy life down there. The love that bearest, & all that. Telling himself the more you know the less you think, or the more you think the less you know. And whose bright idea was it to get caught up in all this anyway? [:]
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Daddymummy to come back and switch your brain off so you can go to sleep. Hey,
bright boy! All you need to do is crack the code, whisper the magic words, the
heebiejeebie routine. Yeah, piss on your stick and make the solemn sign. And up from
the floorboards the subtle vapours’ll rise, hehe. ’Cos he ain’t really dead, is he? No, he
never left. He’s been hiding, testing you, watching you all the time. And like a diligent
little imbecile you’ve kept your nose stuck in that Babel Book, trying to keep up
appearances, eh? Look the part. Act the role… ’Cos you couldn’t figure out anything
better to do with that brilliant future of yours, could you, Squillhead? How’s it go?
“From HERE to DEAD.” Well, it’s always a comfort to have something to look
forward to, ain’t it, kiddo? Nightynight.
Němec hammered on the door. It could be days, he thought, weeks even,
abandoned to rot, like a rat caught down a drain. Knock-knock! Who’s there?
Maybe one of the trinketsellers would hear? He beat his stick against the wood.
Long gone. Or the dwarf, unfinished business in the basement. Well, well, what
have we ’ere, eh? Again the sound of plumbing echoed from upstairs. He
pounded with both fists, shouted. Pomoc! Denizens of the dark thrusting
indignant heads out of their holes to see WTF precisely was going on out there
with all that godless ruckus, little red pinhole eyes scoping the scene. Squillhead
pounding & pleading. It sounded as ridiculous as it was.
The din reverberated down the passageway, yet no-one came. Would you?
Gradually Němec wore himself out. He slid down with his back against the wall
& tried to think of other things. His mind went blank. Silence in the peanut
gallery. He sat there like that for what seemed like hours. He’d begun to fall
asleep when he distinctly heard the sound of footsteps. They approached. In a
frenzy he dragged himself to his feet & started hammering all over again. He
stopped to listen. After the echo died down, there was complete silence. He
hammered once more. Nothing. No footsteps, no voice in reply, no Morse code
down the sewer pipes. He gave up. Evidently there hadn’t been any footsteps,
there was no-one out there who could hear him, no-one would ever come.
He sank to the floor. Long despairing minutes passed.
A key grated in the lock.
At first the hurricane lamp appeared to hang by itself in mid-air, then out
of the dark a shape took form beside it. Němec, one red lab-rat eye, one black,
blinked into the light. Bowler hat & walkingstick. Hands raised in a laughable
reflex of capitulation. A stooped watchman, truncheon raised above his head,
blinked back.
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47
___________
CHESK & LESK
Well now, once upon a time, in the days before History was written in books,
there were two bucktoothed, pimply, skinnyarsed brothers from the shtetl of
Chełm, named Chesk & Lesk. The shtetl suffered from acute & unsanitary
overcrowding & there wasn’t enough food, so everyone in the village was
gathered together one Saturday around noon to draw straws & see which two
lucky blighters among them should go off in search of new pastures in the Wild
West &, as fortune would have it, the lots fell to the two brothers. When spring
arrived they set off across the plains with that Great Goal in mind. But as they
walked & walked, slowly they forgot their goal & remained aware only of the
journey itself. And so each day they wandered aimlessly in the direction of the
setting sun, in the belief that their goal would reveal itself at the appropriate
time. Even now, no-one can be sure of what their original goal was. Probably
even it was a mistake. But legend helps to falsify what really existed & to create a
memory of something which never did. And so, one fine day, trudging across
the flat middle of fair Europa, Chesk & Lesk happened upon a giant beetroot
sticking out of the ground. This was no ordinary giant beetroot, more like a
beetroot the size of a very very big hill. Seeing as it was the only landmark for
miles around, the two brothers set about climbing to the top of it, from which,
having planted a flag at the summit (in truth, a dirty handkerchief tied to a
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stick), they gazed north & south across an unbroken expanse, towards the
veritable ends of the Earth. Despairing of their journey, the brothers yet again
drew lots to see which of them would stay to guard their claim over the giant
beetroot & which would forge onwards in search of their Great Goal. This time,
fortune favoured Chesk, who sat down in the shade of the beetroot while his
brother once more set off for regions unknown. As spring dragged into summer,
Chesk found himself growing terribly hungry now that he was unable to wander
from his station to forage for food. Then a bright idea came to him. He dug a
finger into the side of the giant beetroot & discovered the flesh was tender &
juicy & good to eat. Immediately he set about sating his formidable appetite, not
stopping till the whole beetroot was reduced to a pile of slops. Chesk sat there
covered head to toe in beetroot juice moaning & burping, with the greatest gut-
ache known to man. Meanwhile, Lesk had travelled all the way to the very Edge
of the World & found himself on a cold grey rocky shore face-to-face with the
Vast Ocean. Unable to proceed any further, & with no very great prospects
thereabouts, he turned back. But as soon as the Ocean had receded behind him,
he was helpless to distinguish one direction from any other. The sky was
overcast, the land uniformly characterless & flat. He squinted at the horizon in
search of the only landmark he knew, the giant beetroot, but it was nowhere to
be seen. Day after day it was the same, till eventually he gave up hope of ever
finding his brother again & he sat down at the edge of a great cucumber patch &
moaned. Ai ai ai…!
‘Pravda vítězí!’
Primus screamed, in near-falsetto. ‘Truth shall prevail!’
Národní was lit up with the glow of dusk gilding the diminutive figure on
the soapbox. A crowd had blocked off the intersection, flanked by horses &
open-top carriages, juggling clowns, balloon sellers, etc. Surrounded by an
honour guard in black polyester, Miroslav Sládek,* a.k.a. “Primus,”* was baiting
the crowd about Zhids, Gypsies & the National Idea. A fine spray of spittle
glistening in the last orange rays of sunlight.
‘This pious democratic world watches unblinkingly,’ he railed, ‘while an
inferior people drags us into the gutter. We intend henceforth to look after our
* “The Mr Bean of the Far Right.” [:]
* As in the cheapest beer in town. [:]
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own interests. Under no circumstances can we capitulate to threats & coercion!’
A cop stood idly by, picking his nose. A TV cameraman focused on his
shoe, waiting for something to happen.
‘No longer,’ Primus ranted, ‘can we afford to stand at a crossroads. The
time has come to choose the path History has prepared for us!’
Nothing more indecent than a man making love to himself in public. But
you talk loud enough while you’re doing it & there’s always a type of person will
stop & admire the spectacle.
It reminded Němec, in a curious kind of way, of one of the Bugman’s
stories, about an old Libeňák who used to sit smoking a corncob pipe at the
crossroads by Libeňský Bridge, known thereabouts as King Králík: on account of
his always rabbiting-on to folks passing-by about man’s humble lot & how, even
so, he could count himself King of All-He-Surveyed — on account of having
served forty years in the Land Surveyor’s Office, hehe — on account of the fact
he still enjoyed a joke at his own expense as much as the next man — on account
of a cardboard box under the bridge being where he dropped his swag each night
& passed the long Novembers stone drunk — on account of the redundancy
notice served by the Revolution — on account of him having a lot on his mind,
too much even to afford these last eight years a decent night’s sleep, with or
without a roof over his head, though where such a roof might be he solemnly &
stubbornly refused to divulge whenever interviewed by the friendly boys-in-blue
— on account of possessing uncanny (if unsuspected by those in officialdom)
powers of awareness, that for example the forces of Destiny & even of the Law
move in mysterious ways not above causing humiliation & sometimes grievous
bodily harm to the elderly, unemployed &/or homeless — on account of being a
card-carrying graduate of the Old-Skool-of-Hard-Nox, none, though, as hard as
what awaited at the hands of a skinhead posse, a gerrycan & Zippo lighter…
Up on his soapbox, Primus waved his arms frantically while he berated his
audience. There could hardly be any doubt the man was disordered. Nothing
more dangerous than an idiot with a brain. Němec looked around at the crowd to
see what sort of reaction all this crap was getting, expecting smirks, knowing
winks, heads nodding to show they were all in on the joke together. What he
saw was a mob in expectation of commands, faces blank as a Cranach group
portrait. Some were holding banners over their heads. One read:
SOVEREIGNTY, SECURITY, SKLAVICISATION! Another: NO TO
NATO! A third: CHESK FOR THE CHESKS! A fourth, simply: VLAJKA!
A gust of wind blew up & carried Primus’ voice back into itself, so that he stood
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there with his mouth moving & nothing coming out of it, like a man with the
head of a carp. If only, Němec thought, someone’d fry the sonofabitch in
breadcrumbs.
His amusement waned & he moved on, detouring towards the river to
avoid the overspill. He drew looks from the fringe element. He fingered the dent
in his hat where the watchman’s truncheon had stuck & sneered back. They’d
have you up against a wall faster than you can say “Cheese,” kiddo, if they ever got
their way again. Yep & an N-for-Němec painted on his forehead for target
practice, with a star drawn around it just to pretty it up. And all the others like
him. (Were there others like him? He supposed there must be. “Freaks,” not
wholly in the mind, for those real freaks like Primus to hate.) A crumpled
wrapper blew across the street, banners flapped.
The demonstration petered out well before he reached the National
Theatre. In the courtyard, skateboarding Wagnerjugend did tricks to a Siegfried
soundtrack piped through an outdoor speakersystem. Tourists waved cameras. A
tram clanged its bell. The setting sun made the river a picture they usually only
sold on stands. The opera house, meanwhile, was in process of being turned into
a billboard done up in Vegas lights they’d zap on once it got dark enough to
work the advertising routine on the punters. On the steps beneath it, the
Chicken Man held court. He stood, poised roosterlike, now on his left foot, now
his right, clutching a tin can with a cockscomb & a string dangling from the
bottom of it. He fiddled the string in long & short jerks. Bööök bök bök
bgöööööörk! A basket of similarly decorated tin cans lay at his feet as he circled
