The Prague Orgy (4 page)

Mr. Vodicka is fastidious with the introductions. Bolotka translates.
“
He is saying to Olga that the boy has never seen a woman. That
’
s how Mr. Vodicka has got him in from the street.
He promised he would show him one. He is telling Olga that
she has to show it to him, otherwise the boy will go.
”

“
What do you do now?
”
I ask Olga.

“
What
I
do? I show it to him.
I
have you to fuck me. Mr.
Vodicka has only dreams to fuck. He is more frightened of
everything than I am.
”

“
You
’
re doing it out of sentiment.
”

Placing my hands over her breasts, Olga says,
“
If it weren
’
t
for sentiment, Zuckerman, one person would not pass another
person a glass of water.
”

Czech exchange. Bolotka translates.

Olga says to Mr. V.,
“
First I want to see his.
”

The boy won
’
t hear of it. Plump, smooth, dark, and cruel: a
very creamy caramel dessert.

Olga waves her hand. The hell with it, get out, go.

“
Why do you want to see it?
”
I ask her.

“
I don
’
t. I have seen too many already. Mr. Vodicka wants to see it.
”

For five minutes she addresses the boy in the softest, most caressing Czech, until, at last, he shuffles childishly toward the sofa and, frowning at the ceiling, undoes his zipper. Olga summons him one step closer and then, with two fingers and a thumb, reaches delicately into his trousers. The boy yawns. She withdraws his penis. Mr. Vodicka l
ooks. We all look. Light entert
ainment in occupied Prague.

“
Now,
”
says O
l
ga,
“
they will put on television a photograph of me with his prick. Everywhere in this house there are cameras. On the street someone is always snapping my picture. Half the country is employed spying on the other half.
I
am a rotten degenerate bourgeois negativis
t-
pseudo
-
artist—and this will prove it. This is how they destroy me.
”

“
Why do you do it then?
”

“
It is too silly not to.
”
In English she says to Mr. V.,
“
Come, I
’
ll show it to him.
”
She zips the boy up and leads him away, Mr. Vodicka eagerly following.

“
Are
cameras hidden here?
”
I ask Bolotka.

“
Ktenek says no, only microphones. Maybe there are cameras in the bedrooms, for the fucking. Bui you go on the floor and turn the light out. Don
’
t worry. Don
’
t be scared. You want to fuck her, fuck her on the floor. Nobody would take your picture there.
”

“
Who is the lover who wants to kill her?
”

“
Don
’
t be afraid of him; he won
’
t kill her or you either. He doesn
’
t even want to see her. One night Olga is drunk and angry because he is tired of her, and she finds out he has a new girl friend, so she telephones the police and she
t
ells them tha
t
he has threatened to murder her. The police come, and by then the joke is over and he is undressed and sorry about the new girl friend. But the police are also drunk, so they lake him away. The whole country is drunk. Our president must go on television for three hours to tell the people to stop drinking and go back
‘
to work. You get onto a streetcar at night when the great working class is on its way home, and the great working class smells like a brewery.
”

“
What happened to Olga
’
s lover?
”

“
He has a note from a doctor saying he is a psychiatric case.
”

“
Is he?
”

“
He carries the note to be l
eft alone. They leave you alone
if you can prove you are crazy. He is a perfectly reasonable
person: he is interested in fucking women and writing poems,
and not in stupid politics. This proves he is
not
crazy. But the
police come and they read the note and they take him to the
lunatic asylum. He is still there. Olga thinks now he will kill
her because of what she did. But he is happy where he is. In
the lunatic asylum he is not required to be a worker all day in
the railway office. There he has some peace and quiet and at
last he writes something again. There he has the whole day to
write poems instead of railroad tickets.
”

“
How do you all live like this?
”

“
Human adaptability is a great blessing.
”

Olga, who has returned, sits herself on my lap.

“
Where is Mr. Vodicka?
”
I ask her.

“
He stays in the loo with the boy.
”

“
What did you do to them, Olga?
”
Bolotka asks.

“
I did nothing. When I showed it to him, the boy screamed.
I took down my pants and he screamed,
‘
It
’
s awful.
’
But Mr.
Vodicka was bending over, with his hands on his knees, and
studying me through his thick glasses. Maybe he wants to write
about something new. He is studying me through his glasses, and then he says to the boy,
‘
Oh, I don
’
t know, my friend—it
’
s
not our cup of tea, but from an aesthetic point of view it
’
s not
horrible?
”

Ten-thirty. I am to meet Hos and Hoffman in a wine bar at eleven. Everyone believes
I
am visiting Prague to commiserate
with their proscribed writers when in fact I am here to strike a
deal with the woman full of
touha
on my lap.

“
You have to get up, Olga.
I
’
m
going.
”

“
I come with you.
”

“
You must have patience,
”
Bolotka says to me.
“
Ours is a
small country. We do not have so many millions of fifteen-year-
old girls. But if you will have patience, she will come. And she
will be worth it. The little Czech dumpling that we all like to
eat. What is your hurry? What are you afraid of? You see—
nothing happens. You do whatever you want in Prague and no
body cares. You cannot have such freedom in New York.
”

“
He does not want a girl of fifteen,
”
says Olga.
“
They are
old whores by now, those little girls. He wants one who is forty.
”

I slide Olga off my lap and stand up to leave.

“
Why do you act like this?
”
Olga asks.
“
You come all the way to Czechoslovakia and then you act like this. I will never
see you again.
”

“
Yes you will.
”

“
You are lying. You wil
l
go back to those American girls and talk about Indians and fuck them. Next time you will tell me before, and
I
will study my Indian tribes and then we will fuck.
”

“
Have lunch with me tomorrow, Olga. I
’
ll pick you up here.
”

“
But what about
tonight
?
Why don
’
t you fuck me
now?
Why are you leaving me, if you like me? I don
’
t understand these American writers.
”

Neither, if they could see me, would my American readers. I am not fucking everyone, or indeed anyone, but sit quietly on the sofa being polite. I am a dignified, well-behaved, reliable spectator, secure, urbane, calm, polite, the quiet respectable one who does not take his trousers off, and
these
are the menacing writers. All the treats and blandishments, all the spoils that spoU are mine, and yet what a witty, stylish comedy of manners these have-nots of Prague make out of their unbearable condition, this crushing business of being completely balked and walking the treadmill of humiliation. They, silenced, are all mouth.
I
am only ears—and plans, an American gentleman abroad, with the bracing if old-fashioned illusion that he is playing a worthwhile, dignified, and honorable role.

Bolotka offers Olga a comforting explanation for why she is no longer in my lap.
“
He is a middle-class boy. Leave him alone.
”

“
But this is a classless society,
”
she says.
“
This is socialism. What good is socialism if when I want to nobody will fuck me? All the great international figures come to Prague to see our oppression, but none of them will ever fuck me. Why is that? Sartre was here and he would not fuck me. Simone de Beauvoir came with him and she would not fuck me. Heinrich Boll, Carlos Fuentes, Graham Greene—and none of them will fuck me. Now you, and it is the same thing. You think to sign a petition will save Czechoslovakia,
but what will save Czechoslovakia would be to fuck Olga.
”

“
Olga is drunk.
”
Bolotka says.

“
She
’
s also crying,
”
I point out.

“
Don
’
t worry about her,
”
Bolotka says.
“
This is just Olga.
”

“
Now.
”
says Olga,
“
they will interrogate me about you. For six hours they will interrogate me about you, and I won
’
t even be able to tell them we fucked.
”

“
Is that what happens?
”
I ask Bolotka.

“
Their interrogations are not to be dramatized,
”
he says.
“
It is routine work. Whenever someone is questioned by Czech police he is questioned about every
thing that he can be asked.
They are interested in everything. Now they are interested in you, but it does not mean that to be in touch with you could compromise anybody and that the police could accuse people who are in touch with you. They don
’
t need that to accuse people. If they want to accuse you, they accuse you, and they don
’
t need anything. If they interrogate me about why you came to Czechoslovakia, I will tell them,
”

“
Yes? What will you say?
”

“
I will tell them you came for the fifteen-year-old girls.
I
will say,
‘
Read his book and you will see why he came.
’
Olga will be all right. In a couple of weeks Klenek returns home and Olga will be fine. You don
’
t have to bother to fuck her tonight. Someone will do it, don
’
t worry.
”

“
1 will
not
be all right,
”
Olga cries.
“
Marry me and take me away from here. Zuckerman, if you marry me. they must let me go. That is the law—even
they
obey it. You wouldn
’
t have to fuck me. You could fuck the American girls. You wouldn
’
t have to love me, or even give me money.
”

“
And she would scrub your floors,
”
says Bolotka,
“
and iron your beautiful shirts. Wouldn
’
t you, Olga?
”

“
Yes! Yes! I would iron your shirts all day long.
”

“
That would be the first week,
”
Bolotka says.
“
Then would begin the second week and the excitement of being Mr. Olga.
”

“
That isn
’
t true,
”
she says,
“
I would leave him alone.
”

“
Then would begin the vodka,
”
Bolotka says.
“
Then would begin the adventures.
”

“
Not in America,
”
weeps Olga.

“
Oh,
”
says Bolotka,
“
you would not be homesick for Prague in New York City?
”

“
No!
”

“
Olga, in America you would shoot yourself.
”

“
I will shoot myself
here.
”

“
With what?
”
asks Bo
l
otka.

“
A tank! Tonight! I will steal a Russian tank and I will shoot myself with it tonight!
”