LITMIR.BIZ

       Jana

      For the first 19 years of my life, I was a simple Czech girl, a watercolor.

      Those days were a clock run by the workers and the ŠtB, the Czechoslovakian State Security. Workers, dressed in stained beige, loading a truck with big square canvas bags. Workers, wearing buttoned-up shirts, walking to work. Workers, carrying their briefcases with stiff arms. The ŠtB, walking in their plainclothes, snapping hidden photos. Man on steps. Woman with buggy. Man and woman hand in hand. Famous artworks of our era. They tapped telephones, opened letters with their steam apparatus, crawled through the veins of the city and pulled people out, out of their own biographies. People disappeared, reappeared, confessed, reported others … Much fervent artwork was created, in the preferred medium of photography: Man Subverting Republic (Black and White), Woman Distributing (Tryptic), Man and Woman Organizing (Reprint).

      These events closed over like wounds made of water. Life continued. Bubbles of breath rose to the surface and popped. The streets filled up with the absent minded, people walking heavy in their head, burying one worry with another. Anthills and craters. Warm steam from boiling potatoes seeped out of an open window. Pigeons pecked at the bland earth. The ration lines for sugar, coffee, salt, bread … Shadows pinched together in the alleyways, then quickly separated. There were kisses. There were pamphlets. There were foreign bills slipped from one pocket to another. At the corner, a woman crossed the street. On the walkway, a kid fell off his bike. Code or meaningless events? The cat in the window stretched her jaw wide open, as if she were a tiger.

      *

      I was just a particle, a frequency, a rainbow in the sky, a melody on the tip of someone’s consciousness in January 1969, 13 years before my birth, when, in Prague’s Wenceslas Square, Czech student Jan Palach set himself on fire to protest the continued Soviet domination of Czechoslovakia.

      And I was still that immaterial soundless refrain when, a month later, another Czech student, Jan Zajíc, traveled to Prague to the same square for the 21st anniversary of the Communist takeover, on February 25, 1969. He was a nobody kid from Šumperk, where he was attending a technical college, specializing in railroads, and also writing poetry. An hour or so after noon, he walked into the passageway of No. 39 on that square, his white shirt completely soaked. He lit a match and drew it to his chest. His shirt burst into a fur of flames and the body within twitched against itself.

      He had planned to run out of the door into the square, the square where Jan Palach burned like a torch. But fully aflame, his body of 18 years only made it into the hallway, where he collapsed.

      *

      “Why did they do it?” I remember asking my mother.

      “Do what?”

      *

      Let’s just say I know those boys set themselves on fire, not because someone told me, but because floating particles talk among themselves.

      In fact, we were very chatty when, a couple of years after Palach’s protest, the ŠtB tried to destroy any trace of his actions and existence. They exhumed his body after the burial and cremated it. His mother grieved erratically. It’s terrible to mourn a son one never had.

      *

      Then, all of a sudden, I had to leave the chatty circle of particles and be born—and of all places, in Prague—and of all days, on the 1st of January—and of all names, Jana.

      “Why did they do it? Didn’t it hurt a lot? Especially on your face. On your cheeks and on your eyelashes …”

      My mother looked up from the sink, over at me.

      *

      I thought often about this act, so unusual, so special. I kept trying to decide if it’s something I would like to do, or would like to reserve for a very special occasion.

      Once I was bored, I mean so bored I felt like the air inside of me was cracking, so I pleaded with my brother to play with me. He was older and uninterested in my games. Usually, I accepted his rebuff, trudged away and ran traces into the carpet with my fingernails. But this time, my boredom was so immense and unending, the boredom of rooms and rooms of bed-ridden children, eyeing springtime through the window. I told my brother that if he didn’t play with me, I’d set myself on fire. I turned to leave. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward him into what I remember as my first hug.

      *

      I gave up on playtime and resigned myself to endless hours with my face pressed against the window, watching people in the streets below come and go. I felt like I could read their thoughts.

      I followed a woman with my eyes, in her listless walk, carrying a bag, her mind twisting. I should have said—no, just keep quiet, that’s it, silence will show him—remember to save a garlic clove—but who does he think he is, professor’s son—that chicken smelled bad this morning—it’s about getting a little respect—I hope it didn’t go bad—now that she’s eating chicken—I’ll take her to the park this Saturday—That son of a bitch and his goddamn face—Why does my leg itch?—If it comes, it comes. I refuse to be afraid to die.

      *

      Paranoia was our specialty. Before that final autumn of 1989, I remember my uncle telling my father that he shouldn’t sit on the toilet without looking first into the bowl.

      *

      The Communist regime in Czechoslovakia made everyone pragmatic and self-serving. To an alien eye, ironically, we might have looked like a capitalist mental asylum, obsessed to the bone of each day about getting more or less than someone else, and why, and why not, and how—tomorrow, next time—not to let him, not to let her, get more, get mine, get me.

      The young mothers took to the park for information. They’d take a seat on a bench, send their little ones to fumble around together as the gossip began. The park bench was the only safe place to talk, one eye on your child, and the other on the mamkas. They spelled out the necessary information, encoded seamlessly in their chit-chat. Her mother’s dying meant the apartment was up for grabs: A two-bedroom like that, and right on Janáčkovo nábřeží, third floor, windows facing the river, I’ll pay her a visit, poor woman—Lenka, don’t put your face on that, that’s filthy! Your Lenka’s gotta stop touching everything. You know what’s-her-name’s little girl just kept sucking on nails she picked up from the ground. Then she got tetanus and died. Her mouth just rotted away. I know, I know, I’m always telling Lenka if she puts her face and fingers in everything, she’ll get tetanus and die … but you know kids, they’re stubborn. By the way, does Lýdie still come by meant what kind of Western products does she have? And Karel is cheating on her with the director of the mathematics department meant your son better make friends with his. LENKA, I SAID GET YOUR FINGERS OUT OF YOUR MOUTH UNLESS YOU WANT IT TO ROT AWAY LIKE WHAT’S-HER-NAME! … Poor girl. She sure was pretty before her mouth fell off.

      *

      I was a clean-handed little girl. I was not curious about things that could leave a stain. I did not touch dirt. I did not touch puddles. I never secretly plunged a finger into a pot of jam. Although I followed, in my quiet vigor, the initiative of those children, the ones who got onto their stomachs at the curb and shoved their full hand into the gutter, then pulled it out and ran around, chasing the others, all of us shrieking out of the fear and delight we could not voice at home. At home, we had to keep quiet. Your grandma’s sick, keep quiet. Your mother’s got a migraine, keep quiet. The neighbors’ll complain we’ve got a spoiled child, keep quiet.

      Of course, we—the quiet children of the neighborhood— were bottled up with the desire to shriek. We would have welcomed any occasion. We would have chirped in ultimate joy at the sight of someone being stabbed in the street, wishing our hearts into knots that this stabber would pull out his meaty blade and run with it at us, so we could shriek even louder! We were so desperate for every giggle.

      *

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