The Drowning Of A Goldfish (14 page)

What if all my degrees, acquired so diligently and painfully, were nothing but scraps of paper which will not enable me to earn a living?

I would like to tame my fear like a docile dog who sits down at my command; but my fear is an obstinate and untrainable cat. It bites me at will, it sneaks into my bed, pressing its sleek body against mine and, stretching out, it digs its claws into my defenseless flesh.

This fear is in me forever, the only certainty I possess, the only companion on whom I can depend. My unique hope is to appease it by talking about it.

“What have you been doing?” wonder my students, noticing my swollen and reddened hands, as I open the book to start the lesson.

“Nothing much,” I say evasively, trying to hide my hands under the textbook. “We have received an apartment and I am trying to put things in order, not an easy job for a novice like me.”

“You must be crazy! Why didn't you tell us?! After work, we'll come and help you. Just give us the key and all will be clean and shiny in an instant. You should be ashamed of being too proud to ask your friends to help you!”

I am blushing. Not out of shame, but from happiness.

“And what about your husband, Comrade, how come he lets you slave for him?!”

“I am just a simple worker, not an educated man like him,” says VaÅ¡ek Holý, whose face and hands are rugged and hard. Inside he is as good and soft as a freshly baked loaf of bread. “In all our life together and we have been living as a couple for nearly forty years now, I have never let my Manka slave for me.”

I say nothing. I smile. There is nothing to say. But, at that moment, I would give everything in exchange for the life of Manka, a worker at a food plant who, when meeting me downtown, always gives me a handful of peanuts, pinched at the plant and asks me if her “old man” is misbehaving.

I love Manka. I admire her. Her heart is as large as her body. She mocks the fact that my father was a banker. She accepts me as I am: skinny, indifferently dressed, hair unkempt, a book in my arms instead of a baby.

I have enjoyed eating at her home. The kitchen is large, warm and sparkling clean. We sit, one pressed against the other, at the huge table; spoons in hand, our heads bowed over the plates.

Manka brings a bubbling pot of soup and serves each of us generously. Before we are permitted to leave, every last drop of her nourishing food has to be consumed. Stuffed, we are well-prepared for the great torpor of the night.

But I realize that I could never be like Manka and she could never be like me.

“To make a world it takes all sorts,” she says kindly.

So be it.

In the evening, my classes finished, I return to the apartment. It is unrecognizable: the windows sparkle, reflecting the light of a naked bulb that someone has wired into the ceiling, the floor is highly polished, the bathtub and the sink are gleaming like the stars in the firmamant, the water tank is fixed.

Everything is flawless: Rudolf needn't be afraid of moving from the cancer pavilion.

Only the furniture is still missing. It comes, piece by piece, offered by my friends. Everybody has something to give.

The apartment is pleasant. A nice, funny, welcoming fleamarket. The furniture does not intimidate me; one can paint it, adapt, cut it off, sand it, do as one likes.

In my room, I paint everything orange, except the white washed walls. Again I have a room all to myself, like when I was a child. Again I have a life that is completely mine.

The apartment was not a trap—how could it be, coming from Vladimír? It is a home, offered by a helping hand.

Rudolf has his own room which he can arrange in his own way. If he does not want my friends' furniture, he has enough money to buy his own, all “worthy of a doctor.”

All has ended well; just like a fairy tale.

Except for Iris.

Iris who burns within me like an open wound.

I lock up my memory.

Once more I throw Iris out of my life.

There is no cruelty against the dead.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1990 by Lidmila Sováková

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2850-9

The Permanent Press

4170 Noyac Road

Sag Harbor, NY 11963

www.thepermanentpress.com

Distributed by Open Road Distribution

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com