LITMIR.BIZ

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hurt, we cried to show everyone we were still kids, in case they started worrying we were up to some adult shit. But I remember those curtains and how much I wanted to cry about my destiny and I’m sure Janka did too, and so I just reached out my hand and Janka took it, and that was enough, and actually, it was incredible, to hold on to something instead of wetting myself.

      *

      I don’t know what to do with History, the big one that belongs to all of us and my small one, like a keychain.

      *

      Yeah, we were about 10, I think, and yeah, I just hit Janka on the sternum and yelled at her. Asked her where her revolution was, for fuck’s sake. The sun was out. Jana was clogged up beneath her thin auburn bangs, the rest of her hair long and flat. She had that good-girl look down. Even when I brushed my hair, I still looked like I’d mess something up for somebody.

      They were announcing the withdrawal of the Soviet forces, those last T-72 tanks and armored vehicles rolling through the streets with their artillery snouts and gouged-eye stares. Jana got real good at fingering her hair quickly into two straight plaits. I was testing out my middle finger at cloud formations, sunsets, horizons …

      I told Janka, listen, we’ve been pooing and peeing on each other for too long in this country and it’s about time someone built a modern toilet.

      By that time, my mamka had sloped from her flirty mania back into a subdued and self-conscious stare, stirred up by that early case of electroshock therapy she had. Those days, she was too depressed to be political. And my papka was just getting really sick then, before we knew it was a terminal disease.

      “Janka, you gotta be your own person!” I yelled at her. (That’s why I was hitting her in the sternum. ’Cause she wouldn’t say nothing in response, I mean …)

      Then finally she said, “I want a nice modern toilet too, you know.”

      *

      Politics got full of wonder, miraculous even, not knowing what would happen. Other things, we did know. Like my papka who was sick. We bought a grave ahead of time. Still the world kept on folding and unfolding, creasing itself this way or that, borders, agreements, yeah I was showing off the scars on my body to Janka, like guarded checkpoints I snuck myself past.

      *

      She told me she wanted to cut off her hair, I said good idea, it’s weighing you down. She asked her mamka and her mamka said no, absolutely not, your hair looks nice the way it is, so I stole the big pair of sewing scissors from our neighbor Ms Květa and Janka pointed where, and I chopped it off straight at the chin. Her mamka freaked, what have you done, then of course, turned on me, got my mamka involved (bad idea). My mamka showed her how to freak out properly. She got my papka’s belt and started lashing it in the air like a horsewhip, so of course I took a run for it, and she went after me, and got a couple of lashes in, but I also gave her the tongue twice and a solid two-finger salute, so we were even.

      Jana asked to see my welts so I showed her, shoulder-blade, neck, forearm, but said it was definitely worth it. She looked out of this world with her new hair. I wore sweaters for a while, sweat it out in spring, till the welts healed.

      *

      Fuck, we were almost teens and it was tough. We’d go up and down Dvořákovo Street and stand outside of the Prague Conservatory, that yellow building like a huge plastic stick of butter. One July it got so hot, I thought it smelled salty and oily. I was wearing long trousers because I was trying to hide three fat bruises on my right thigh.

      In school, people thought my papka was a military man and he was strict, so I just let them think that, and Jana added a comment or two to keep the rumors going on my behalf. Yeah, her mamka was mush, and her daddy was out of it, but the thing is, she didn’t know about getting a beating, really. The thing is, it’s kinda embarrassing when it’s your mamka that does it. Janka said her mamka never slapped her or her brother Vilèm around. They only got spanked by their daddy’s hand, and Vilèm got the belt a couple of times because he liked to have the last word, but he grew out of that, and Janka was attentive by nature.

      I churned a bit of spit in my mouth and shot it as far as I could. “What if my spit was made of fire?” I asked Janka.

      *

      We’d go by the Vltava River, kicking pebbles with our shoes. We’d walk by that old Jewish cemetery, past the Staroměstská metro, to the astronomical clock tower, the biggie tourist trap, now that tourists were flocking in. Near the bottom of the clock tower was a series of layered astronomical dials—the sun, the moon, and the zodiac—just below two windows out of which would appear a rotating circle of apostles. Placed around the astronomical dials, there were small statues representing the evils of life: Vanity, a man admiring himself in a small mirror; Greed, a man holding a bag of gold—you get the picture—and lastly (my favorite) Death, a skeleton holding an hourglass in one hand and the clock’s bell-ringing rope in the other.

      On the hour, Death rung his bell, the apostles rotated in their windows like, “Ohhhnooo!” and the three evils shook their heads from side to side, saying, “Please, please, I don’t wanna go” (too bad, suckers).

      Afterward, we’d cross the bridge to Letenské Park, and just hang out at the kolotoč, the old carousel in the middle, a closed-up mustard hexagon with those grinning life-size horses, carved from wood and covered in real horse leather, stuck in mid-gallop on their metal stakes.

      *

      I got my period before Jana despite being as flat and skinny as a birch tree, so yeah, I bragged a little. Then Jana got hers soon enough, right on her birthday, and our country, the former Czechoslovakia, split. I told Jana her ovaries burst and cracked our nation in two, ha ha. That New Year, people danced a little harder as the snow dusted down the black sky. Janka and I were both sitting under the table, our heads touching the top when we sat up straight, so we hunched and chatted and snuffed at anyone who told us that we were too old to sit under the table on New Year’s Eve. All the adults were so involved with their own bodies, they danced with closed eyes, then Slavek’s papka plugged in the strobe light that Slavek had gotten him, and everyone swiveled around the thick rays of white and yellow and green and blue.

      Then we saw it, between two flashing strobes of white, her mamka kissed my mamka on the lips in a quiet, lag way. They held each other, with their mouths pressing together, as around them hands and elbows jutted into the multi-colored flashes. It looked like forever, but before we could say anything out loud, it was done. Our mamkas parted and soon they were dancing with our daddies. I climbed out from the table and stood there, wanting to run around their legs like the Malá Narcis that I was. I could feel it swelling up in me, I could have even given my pee trick a go, but that stunt was old news. Janka climbed out and stood next to me. She pulled out her hand and I reached it and took it. We were anonymous pillars, standing the test of time.

      *

      I followed my mamka into the shared kitchen and stood behind her until she turned around. Then I asked, “Why did Mrs Táňa kiss you on the lips?”

      Her eyes flashed.

      “It’s not what you think,” she said and began to feign rubbing a stain out of her dress.

      She stopped, looked up at me, and said, “If you must know, your father is going to die.” She took a breath and I kept looking at her, so she said, “He is ill and he’s going to die young and I will be left all alone.” Her eyes began to heat up, then she grabbed her skirt again and began rubbing, like sparking the fabric against itself.

      “It’s awful, awful, the diseases that climb into your body and putrefy the organs. You think it can’t happen, or someone else, or later, but it swells right up inside you, deep inside and makes room for itself until you’re wheezing for mercy—” then she just stopped talking.

      I knew what it was. My index finger was high and snug in my nostril, grabbing at something promising. She slapped my hand out from my face and screamed, “Don’t pick your nose when I’m explaining death to you! Bože na

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