The Combinations, page 63
books that looked like they sold by the metre down on Libeňský Island. There
were a couple of filing cabinets in two shades of beige next to a window with
venetians at half-mast that faced onto a courtyard. A dead fly with its feet
pointing up lay in the middle of the windowsill. Němec almost felt sorry for it.
Bareš didn’t bother to look up from whatever he was doing, which didn’t
seem to be much. The door closed on one of those wheezing automatic hinges
that like to play sillybuggers with you if you don’t get out of the way in time.
Němec dodged a hatstand & went mid-way across the floor & waited. The floor
was checkerboard linoleum, the kind that makes you dizzy just to look at it. No
doubt it produced an effect on the clientele. It’d had enough wear at least to tell
you something about the man sitting behind the desk, but not a hell of a lot.
Evidently the real work was done out front.
After he’d finished perusing whatever priceless document was spread out in
front of him Bareš glanced up & seemed almost surprised to find Němec standing
there. He must’ve made a queer sight for the lawyer, an overgrown scarecrow in a
bowler hat & undertaker’s suit, leaning on a stick, shopping bag under one arm.
Graciously Bareš indicated he should take a seat. Apart from the executive piece of
equipment the lawyer was sitting on, there was only one other chair in the room
— it was one of those stiff-backed affairs they sold at a discount from Sweden,
designed to make you as uncomfortable as an hourly rate permits.
Bareš wasn’t the sort of man who was ever immediately recognisable: grey,
shapeless, with a forehead that glistened under a permanent sheen of hair oil &
perspiration. But Němec recognised him anyway. He’d seen him before, at
Strašnice crematorium, six months previous. The Prof’s funeral, if you could call
being turned into potting ash a funeral. He was dressed in a duck-egg-blue
polyester suit that probably convinced his clients he wasn’t about to embezzle
their finances, at least not till he’d been invited to with a signed power of
attorney. A faint sprinkling of dandruff gave the shoulders a softness that’s
sometimes comforting in a man two sizes too big for his clothes. To the
unsuspecting he’d’ve looked no more threatening than an overstuffed pillow.
Němec set his bundle on the edge of the lawyer’s desk, one pendulous
boob staring up from it like a sloppy drunk’s eye, catching Bareš unawares. He
gazed back at it queerly while in as few words as possible Němec explained why
399
he’d come — requesting, in short, a letter of authorisation to view the Prof’s
papers consigned in the State Archive.
‘Oh? Well. Unless you’re a relative, or make a formal application through
the courts, I’m not really at liberty to…’
The man seemed to notice his visitor for the first time. His eyebrows
faintly twitched, before the eyes drifted back to his desk again, from time to time
darting at the bundle of shopping bag. He checked his watch, straightened some
papers, while Němec bored on. He’d learnt that with idiots in authority the only
way to make progress was to be as intransigent as they were & keep smiling. For
good effect he threw in a bit of legalese. “Pursuant of,” “the parties to the estate,”
“whereby,” “as deemed exigent,” “the express condition,” “until such time,”
“regarding the amendment,” “as duly executed…” Like the good old How many
lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb joke. From time to time Němec glanced
at Bareš to gauge the effect, but in the end the lawyer barely blinked. As the
Bugman would’ve said, never bullshit a bullshitter who does it for a living. It was
possible, too, that Bareš was no idiot, but who’d ever be sure?
Fumbling in his jacket pocket, Němec got out the xerox of the Devil &
the Carmelite, thrusting it across the lawyer’s desk. Had he ever seen such a
thing before? It must’ve been the last straw. Bareš stood up, indicating that their
brief consultation was over. No man should give up that easily, Němec tried
telling himself, but the advocate was talking into the intercom. The secretary
seemed to’ve been waiting for precisely this cue to hustle Němec out: barely had
Bareš taken his finger off the button than she was at the door, scowling. Němec
supposed he ought to’ve thanked the lawyer for something, but it would only
have sounded indecent under the circumstances. Besides, Bareš’s back was
already turned to retrieve a briefcase from beside the hatstand — he was about to
make a beeline for the exit when he must’ve had second thoughts. It wasn’t the
sort of thing he looked like he made a habit of.
‘You act as if there’s something mysterious about all this, but it’s really
very simple. The law stipulates a mandatory seven years to allow for claimants to
come forward, after which the estate becomes public property.’
He took one step forward & stopped again, as if considering how to
proceed —
‘If there are claimants, the papers remain under seal till a restitution order
has been issued. You might not be aware, but there are certain conditions
attached… in the event. Otherwise, for scholarly purposes — but for that, it
would have to be at the request of an institution,’ he shrugged his mottled blue
400
shoulders. ‘You see how it goes? You can check with the Interior Ministry, if you
like. There’s a public register nowadays. Otherwise, if you care to leave your
details with my, er, secretary,’ he gave her a pat on one of those prodigious
thighs as he slipped past, ‘I can let you know if or when any formal decisions are
reached.’
There was one last question Němec would like to’ve put to Bareš that’d
been nagging him all along, but he never got the chance. The man had already
hightailed it out into the corridor. The secretary ogled him, arms ineffectually
crossed. Well, can’t win ’em all, eh kiddo? Němec retrieved his bit of xerox paper,
his stick & his shopping bag, & let himself be led out. The question on his mind
followed him: Why, it asked, had the Prof’s papers been deposited at Strahov in
the first place, since — with all respect due to the dead — the man was, as far as
National Archives went, a complete non-entity?
Doppelgänger der Freiheit
After leaving Bareš’s office Němec drifted north through the tangled streets of
the Old Town, along Husova, past the Philosophy Institute. It wasn’t past four
in the afternoon but the Svoboda & Slovíčkář bookshop was already closed. A
tangle of streets brought him out at the Altstadtplatz. Dial-a-Piazza was what
the sign in the corner shop-window said, just before the street opened onto the
Square: a picture of the Good Soldier Švejk stuffing his face with a pepperoni
slice — ruddy-cheeked, button-nosed, forage-capped, the seams of his blue
uniform fit to burst — it didn’t look promising. From behind the counter a girl
in a matching Š.V.E.J.K. uniform — framed by stacks of Dial-a-Piazza pizza
boxes — stared morosely out at the scarecrow in bowler hat & black suit, not a
customer in sight. The same clownish slogan was repeated on a sandwich board
parked on the cobbles — this time the Good Soldier looked like he’d been run
over by a monster rolling pin & served up with mozzarella: telltale stains down
one side of the board suggested a dog or dogs had recently cocked a hind leg
there — including, possibly, the same dog of indeterminate breed that was now
yapping at its shadow, back & forth in the middle of the Square. How’d that
song go? Mad dogs and Eeenglishmen…? If possible, the day seemed only to be
getting hotter.
A couple of visitants in white gloves & white sanitation masks had
stopped on their way to the Astronomical Clock to take a photo of it. Here at
least some form of life stirred: the watchers under the Clock, waiting to see the
401
Skeleton do its dance, Fate beating its drum — a red-faced midget tottering
around, doing tricks for an audience squatting in the shade of Hus’ monument,
oblivious to former agonies — the larger-than-life statued figure standing bold
above them (patinaed shades of green, mighty brow pigeoncrap-besmeared,
unveiled to great controv in , mid-War — Flanders? Type of fish, right? —
pre-dawn of the Nation’s birth, one of many aborted, soon to be given the
imprimatur of unheard-of Versailles grandees once the last mutton-chopped
Habsburg’d fallen from grace, the Concert of Powers finally done for thanks to
Yankee Doodle & the Democratic Dollar, & all the future to look forward to),
man of the people & fanatic naysayer of celibacy among the ordained, burned at
the stake for his troubles — the mad dog wagging its ridiculous tail, ready if the
midget should drop his red juggling balls to make a grab at all three, tongue out
grinning like it was in on the biggest joke around.
Meanwhile, over by the hitching post where hourly sightseeing carriage
rides set off, the horses stamped, swatted at flies with their daggy tails, drivers
asleep on a nearby bench, hats tipped over eyes. On the opposite side of the
Square, under the medieval arcades with café tables, piped Mozart periodically
dissolving into radio static, a waiter was busy fiddling with an espresso machine,
venting jets of steam like some incendiary device about to fizzle. How far from
the scenes of great disaster & tumultuous destiny! The Eternal Tourist traipsing
along in this heat to stare in wonder, check his Baedeker for the pertinent facts,
or merely gloat. History, its trace everywhere apparent, still seemed as absent
here as God from His cathedral, nothing but an immense gallery of anecdote for
the charlatans of solemnity. Still it exerted a mysterious attraction, a psychic
magnetism of the mass mind — in this it retained the contours of a sacred burial
site, though of a civilisation long dead, whose pedantic corpses continued to
fascinate, whose reluctance to signify emboldened, whose proper mephitic stink
lent an air of wanted credulity to what must’ve seemed, on first apprehending it,
a piece of bad theatre.
Š.V.E.J.K.ISM
What method had brought Němec here precisely? Stranded out in the middle of
the Square, that narcotised living postcard, as lifelike as Hanuš’s mechanised
chronometer, in search of the unapparent, the missing, the absent — was he?
Shadows of people built into the edifices, phantom objects, the perils of the
City’s orphaned soul, all the alienations of a birthplace that can never belong to
402
you — here, in this most public, most officiated-over, most destitute of places —
the dead heart. And right in the middle of it, right where Němec was standing,
that monument to its own contradiction — quo olim tempus pragense — like a
detached skiagraph made weighty as a bronze obelisk, plinth, sundial, its missing
corpus, doppelgänger — the processus styloideus lodged in the backbrain the way
an idea’s lodged inside a penstroke — the deus ex machina inside the meridian,
the stones’ oraculation: for here formerly stood, resplendent in its unfettered
fetished kitsch, that monument of priapic adoration, the Marian Column —
Her Immaculate Virgin Self up there surveying Her temporal kingdom, keeping
watch over all Her congregation of schismatics & sinners, looking down on the
spot Mydlář poppylopped the presumptives of , casting Her long shadow,
noonday tending latitudinally in the direction of the Brandenburg Gate, the
Stettiner Haff & onwards, true north to the Eternal Kingdom whence Time
itself issued forth: History’s ghost, the Golem City Meridian, socalled, from
which, once upon, all the clocks in the City measured themselves — the
noonday gong, the eventide prayer, the clochecall & cock’s crow — even the Sun
in its wind-up fiery chariot obedient to instruction, cogging the seasons,
continuing on its way to complete its ordained course.
Who’d suspect the Column’s omnipotence extended post- hoc even beyond
the regulation of the hours & clocking wage-labour metaphysic, the counter-
symbolisms of servility & revolt, Habsburg triumphalism & Cheskoslovnik
independulence? The past mired in its changeless superstitions & the future
boldly marching into the unknown — to become the posthumous touchstone &
nerve centre of a struggle outside Time, eternal contraries & all that, unlikely as a
proto-Minuteman in a bishop’s mitre waiting for blastoff? For here, at the close
of the First World War, was the very tipping point, the fulcrum, threshold of
two incompatible orders as real to each other as they were unreal to the rest of
the world — the dialectic of the doomsday machine wired into a Zeitgeist still in
process of being born, conspired into existence by a cenacle of nutcases &
visionaries in equal measure: the secret Š.V.E.J.K. army, red-flagged anarchists,
lobbers of bombs through doorways, kidnappers, fakers of suicides, passive-
aggressive posturers in beerhalls papering the City with nonsense agitprop,
convocation of the unelect, upsetting the best laid plans of their arch-Patrician
rivals: crystal-gazing Teslaites, with their radio doodads & penchant for astral
projection, telepathy, E.S.P. — pre-Logie-Baird weirdoes of the art of far-sight,
adepts of Saint Clare, their fevered group-mind conjuring future visions of the
Ideal City, Space Travel, Life on Mars. Lunatics all, locked in mutual death-or-
403
life struggle ( Take no prisoners!), though in one thing united: the post-haste
abolition of the fledgling Cheskoslovnik democracy. The year: . The
toppling of the Marian Column neither the first nor last blow in this secret war
of the Commissars & the Cognoscenti — food for the entertainment-hungry
masses thronging the variety theatres for a bit of light distraction from the
serious task of nation building… And what about our midget with the painted
face over there, making a clown of himself? Like a ready allegory for the types of
minds that suffer from chronic dualism — the little homunculus of a man with
carmine grin ear-to-ear that conceals how his face constantly scowls at his
audience, who he naturally detests even as he passes his hat around for alms like
a beggar — one misfortune taking sour-mouthed delight in another. ( Those
human caterpillars, he thinks.) *
And so resumes our story…
Němec continued on, past the statue of Hus, & presently found himself at the
back of the Philosophy Faculty amidst the sightseers queuing outside the Old
Zhiddish Cemetery. What’d they come to see? An overgrown plot strewn with
* A little timewarp to the other side of the mirror, in which is revealed the chiaroscuro of an
elaborate v reviewing stand erected on the very spot from which Mary’s Minaret had so
unceremoniously been uprooted by the rabble. Here we see the restored World Order, mystic
Thuleans homing-in on the Altstadtplatz’s galvanic energies, ancient wells of tellurian forcefield
radiation ringing this place where once grand druids performed their blood offerings, now setting
the Nazi dowsing rods bolt upright in ceremonial drape cloth, redblackwhite — cathedral spires
looming behind, uplit, like gothic spectres of doom, shadows of the shadow of Time itself — with
Der Furore’s monumental mugshot hoist up there for all the crypto-mariolaters to venerate, on His
birthday, `mas of the Aryan Dawn. You can almost picture them, ranks of Totenkopf suicide
battalions destined for Stalingrad & extinction, marching in secondhand woollens — the dead
millions-in-waiting of the Lebensraum soon to be forever collectivised under the soil, blood &
iron: their deafening Sieg! Their God shouting back at them through loud hailers set up on poles
around the Square, a storm of diatribe & hyperbole — but how else does Man suppose the voice of
his God to be? A caressive whisper? Intimations of solicitude? A stuttering self-doubt, evidence of
the madness of humility? The adoring centipede raises its arms — Heil! — & the dumb visage
stares out above them into the night — a virtual sight-line running through the old blacked-out
Ghetto to where, high overlooking the City, His nemesis & mythomaniac counterpart ten years
hence will return that cold gaze (temporarily in effigie) across a blind gulf that’ll already have
swallowed them both, those men of the cross — lithe Hitler with his Chaplin moustache, Stalin
like an overstuffed, beatified anagram, draped in the cruciform of the eternal dialectic — ☭ —
were a couple of filing cabinets in two shades of beige next to a window with
venetians at half-mast that faced onto a courtyard. A dead fly with its feet
pointing up lay in the middle of the windowsill. Němec almost felt sorry for it.
Bareš didn’t bother to look up from whatever he was doing, which didn’t
seem to be much. The door closed on one of those wheezing automatic hinges
that like to play sillybuggers with you if you don’t get out of the way in time.
Němec dodged a hatstand & went mid-way across the floor & waited. The floor
was checkerboard linoleum, the kind that makes you dizzy just to look at it. No
doubt it produced an effect on the clientele. It’d had enough wear at least to tell
you something about the man sitting behind the desk, but not a hell of a lot.
Evidently the real work was done out front.
After he’d finished perusing whatever priceless document was spread out in
front of him Bareš glanced up & seemed almost surprised to find Němec standing
there. He must’ve made a queer sight for the lawyer, an overgrown scarecrow in a
bowler hat & undertaker’s suit, leaning on a stick, shopping bag under one arm.
Graciously Bareš indicated he should take a seat. Apart from the executive piece of
equipment the lawyer was sitting on, there was only one other chair in the room
— it was one of those stiff-backed affairs they sold at a discount from Sweden,
designed to make you as uncomfortable as an hourly rate permits.
Bareš wasn’t the sort of man who was ever immediately recognisable: grey,
shapeless, with a forehead that glistened under a permanent sheen of hair oil &
perspiration. But Němec recognised him anyway. He’d seen him before, at
Strašnice crematorium, six months previous. The Prof’s funeral, if you could call
being turned into potting ash a funeral. He was dressed in a duck-egg-blue
polyester suit that probably convinced his clients he wasn’t about to embezzle
their finances, at least not till he’d been invited to with a signed power of
attorney. A faint sprinkling of dandruff gave the shoulders a softness that’s
sometimes comforting in a man two sizes too big for his clothes. To the
unsuspecting he’d’ve looked no more threatening than an overstuffed pillow.
Němec set his bundle on the edge of the lawyer’s desk, one pendulous
boob staring up from it like a sloppy drunk’s eye, catching Bareš unawares. He
gazed back at it queerly while in as few words as possible Němec explained why
399
he’d come — requesting, in short, a letter of authorisation to view the Prof’s
papers consigned in the State Archive.
‘Oh? Well. Unless you’re a relative, or make a formal application through
the courts, I’m not really at liberty to…’
The man seemed to notice his visitor for the first time. His eyebrows
faintly twitched, before the eyes drifted back to his desk again, from time to time
darting at the bundle of shopping bag. He checked his watch, straightened some
papers, while Němec bored on. He’d learnt that with idiots in authority the only
way to make progress was to be as intransigent as they were & keep smiling. For
good effect he threw in a bit of legalese. “Pursuant of,” “the parties to the estate,”
“whereby,” “as deemed exigent,” “the express condition,” “until such time,”
“regarding the amendment,” “as duly executed…” Like the good old How many
lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb joke. From time to time Němec glanced
at Bareš to gauge the effect, but in the end the lawyer barely blinked. As the
Bugman would’ve said, never bullshit a bullshitter who does it for a living. It was
possible, too, that Bareš was no idiot, but who’d ever be sure?
Fumbling in his jacket pocket, Němec got out the xerox of the Devil &
the Carmelite, thrusting it across the lawyer’s desk. Had he ever seen such a
thing before? It must’ve been the last straw. Bareš stood up, indicating that their
brief consultation was over. No man should give up that easily, Němec tried
telling himself, but the advocate was talking into the intercom. The secretary
seemed to’ve been waiting for precisely this cue to hustle Němec out: barely had
Bareš taken his finger off the button than she was at the door, scowling. Němec
supposed he ought to’ve thanked the lawyer for something, but it would only
have sounded indecent under the circumstances. Besides, Bareš’s back was
already turned to retrieve a briefcase from beside the hatstand — he was about to
make a beeline for the exit when he must’ve had second thoughts. It wasn’t the
sort of thing he looked like he made a habit of.
‘You act as if there’s something mysterious about all this, but it’s really
very simple. The law stipulates a mandatory seven years to allow for claimants to
come forward, after which the estate becomes public property.’
He took one step forward & stopped again, as if considering how to
proceed —
‘If there are claimants, the papers remain under seal till a restitution order
has been issued. You might not be aware, but there are certain conditions
attached… in the event. Otherwise, for scholarly purposes — but for that, it
would have to be at the request of an institution,’ he shrugged his mottled blue
400
shoulders. ‘You see how it goes? You can check with the Interior Ministry, if you
like. There’s a public register nowadays. Otherwise, if you care to leave your
details with my, er, secretary,’ he gave her a pat on one of those prodigious
thighs as he slipped past, ‘I can let you know if or when any formal decisions are
reached.’
There was one last question Němec would like to’ve put to Bareš that’d
been nagging him all along, but he never got the chance. The man had already
hightailed it out into the corridor. The secretary ogled him, arms ineffectually
crossed. Well, can’t win ’em all, eh kiddo? Němec retrieved his bit of xerox paper,
his stick & his shopping bag, & let himself be led out. The question on his mind
followed him: Why, it asked, had the Prof’s papers been deposited at Strahov in
the first place, since — with all respect due to the dead — the man was, as far as
National Archives went, a complete non-entity?
Doppelgänger der Freiheit
After leaving Bareš’s office Němec drifted north through the tangled streets of
the Old Town, along Husova, past the Philosophy Institute. It wasn’t past four
in the afternoon but the Svoboda & Slovíčkář bookshop was already closed. A
tangle of streets brought him out at the Altstadtplatz. Dial-a-Piazza was what
the sign in the corner shop-window said, just before the street opened onto the
Square: a picture of the Good Soldier Švejk stuffing his face with a pepperoni
slice — ruddy-cheeked, button-nosed, forage-capped, the seams of his blue
uniform fit to burst — it didn’t look promising. From behind the counter a girl
in a matching Š.V.E.J.K. uniform — framed by stacks of Dial-a-Piazza pizza
boxes — stared morosely out at the scarecrow in bowler hat & black suit, not a
customer in sight. The same clownish slogan was repeated on a sandwich board
parked on the cobbles — this time the Good Soldier looked like he’d been run
over by a monster rolling pin & served up with mozzarella: telltale stains down
one side of the board suggested a dog or dogs had recently cocked a hind leg
there — including, possibly, the same dog of indeterminate breed that was now
yapping at its shadow, back & forth in the middle of the Square. How’d that
song go? Mad dogs and Eeenglishmen…? If possible, the day seemed only to be
getting hotter.
A couple of visitants in white gloves & white sanitation masks had
stopped on their way to the Astronomical Clock to take a photo of it. Here at
least some form of life stirred: the watchers under the Clock, waiting to see the
401
Skeleton do its dance, Fate beating its drum — a red-faced midget tottering
around, doing tricks for an audience squatting in the shade of Hus’ monument,
oblivious to former agonies — the larger-than-life statued figure standing bold
above them (patinaed shades of green, mighty brow pigeoncrap-besmeared,
unveiled to great controv in , mid-War — Flanders? Type of fish, right? —
pre-dawn of the Nation’s birth, one of many aborted, soon to be given the
imprimatur of unheard-of Versailles grandees once the last mutton-chopped
Habsburg’d fallen from grace, the Concert of Powers finally done for thanks to
Yankee Doodle & the Democratic Dollar, & all the future to look forward to),
man of the people & fanatic naysayer of celibacy among the ordained, burned at
the stake for his troubles — the mad dog wagging its ridiculous tail, ready if the
midget should drop his red juggling balls to make a grab at all three, tongue out
grinning like it was in on the biggest joke around.
Meanwhile, over by the hitching post where hourly sightseeing carriage
rides set off, the horses stamped, swatted at flies with their daggy tails, drivers
asleep on a nearby bench, hats tipped over eyes. On the opposite side of the
Square, under the medieval arcades with café tables, piped Mozart periodically
dissolving into radio static, a waiter was busy fiddling with an espresso machine,
venting jets of steam like some incendiary device about to fizzle. How far from
the scenes of great disaster & tumultuous destiny! The Eternal Tourist traipsing
along in this heat to stare in wonder, check his Baedeker for the pertinent facts,
or merely gloat. History, its trace everywhere apparent, still seemed as absent
here as God from His cathedral, nothing but an immense gallery of anecdote for
the charlatans of solemnity. Still it exerted a mysterious attraction, a psychic
magnetism of the mass mind — in this it retained the contours of a sacred burial
site, though of a civilisation long dead, whose pedantic corpses continued to
fascinate, whose reluctance to signify emboldened, whose proper mephitic stink
lent an air of wanted credulity to what must’ve seemed, on first apprehending it,
a piece of bad theatre.
Š.V.E.J.K.ISM
What method had brought Němec here precisely? Stranded out in the middle of
the Square, that narcotised living postcard, as lifelike as Hanuš’s mechanised
chronometer, in search of the unapparent, the missing, the absent — was he?
Shadows of people built into the edifices, phantom objects, the perils of the
City’s orphaned soul, all the alienations of a birthplace that can never belong to
402
you — here, in this most public, most officiated-over, most destitute of places —
the dead heart. And right in the middle of it, right where Němec was standing,
that monument to its own contradiction — quo olim tempus pragense — like a
detached skiagraph made weighty as a bronze obelisk, plinth, sundial, its missing
corpus, doppelgänger — the processus styloideus lodged in the backbrain the way
an idea’s lodged inside a penstroke — the deus ex machina inside the meridian,
the stones’ oraculation: for here formerly stood, resplendent in its unfettered
fetished kitsch, that monument of priapic adoration, the Marian Column —
Her Immaculate Virgin Self up there surveying Her temporal kingdom, keeping
watch over all Her congregation of schismatics & sinners, looking down on the
spot Mydlář poppylopped the presumptives of , casting Her long shadow,
noonday tending latitudinally in the direction of the Brandenburg Gate, the
Stettiner Haff & onwards, true north to the Eternal Kingdom whence Time
itself issued forth: History’s ghost, the Golem City Meridian, socalled, from
which, once upon, all the clocks in the City measured themselves — the
noonday gong, the eventide prayer, the clochecall & cock’s crow — even the Sun
in its wind-up fiery chariot obedient to instruction, cogging the seasons,
continuing on its way to complete its ordained course.
Who’d suspect the Column’s omnipotence extended post- hoc even beyond
the regulation of the hours & clocking wage-labour metaphysic, the counter-
symbolisms of servility & revolt, Habsburg triumphalism & Cheskoslovnik
independulence? The past mired in its changeless superstitions & the future
boldly marching into the unknown — to become the posthumous touchstone &
nerve centre of a struggle outside Time, eternal contraries & all that, unlikely as a
proto-Minuteman in a bishop’s mitre waiting for blastoff? For here, at the close
of the First World War, was the very tipping point, the fulcrum, threshold of
two incompatible orders as real to each other as they were unreal to the rest of
the world — the dialectic of the doomsday machine wired into a Zeitgeist still in
process of being born, conspired into existence by a cenacle of nutcases &
visionaries in equal measure: the secret Š.V.E.J.K. army, red-flagged anarchists,
lobbers of bombs through doorways, kidnappers, fakers of suicides, passive-
aggressive posturers in beerhalls papering the City with nonsense agitprop,
convocation of the unelect, upsetting the best laid plans of their arch-Patrician
rivals: crystal-gazing Teslaites, with their radio doodads & penchant for astral
projection, telepathy, E.S.P. — pre-Logie-Baird weirdoes of the art of far-sight,
adepts of Saint Clare, their fevered group-mind conjuring future visions of the
Ideal City, Space Travel, Life on Mars. Lunatics all, locked in mutual death-or-
403
life struggle ( Take no prisoners!), though in one thing united: the post-haste
abolition of the fledgling Cheskoslovnik democracy. The year: . The
toppling of the Marian Column neither the first nor last blow in this secret war
of the Commissars & the Cognoscenti — food for the entertainment-hungry
masses thronging the variety theatres for a bit of light distraction from the
serious task of nation building… And what about our midget with the painted
face over there, making a clown of himself? Like a ready allegory for the types of
minds that suffer from chronic dualism — the little homunculus of a man with
carmine grin ear-to-ear that conceals how his face constantly scowls at his
audience, who he naturally detests even as he passes his hat around for alms like
a beggar — one misfortune taking sour-mouthed delight in another. ( Those
human caterpillars, he thinks.) *
And so resumes our story…
Němec continued on, past the statue of Hus, & presently found himself at the
back of the Philosophy Faculty amidst the sightseers queuing outside the Old
Zhiddish Cemetery. What’d they come to see? An overgrown plot strewn with
* A little timewarp to the other side of the mirror, in which is revealed the chiaroscuro of an
elaborate v reviewing stand erected on the very spot from which Mary’s Minaret had so
unceremoniously been uprooted by the rabble. Here we see the restored World Order, mystic
Thuleans homing-in on the Altstadtplatz’s galvanic energies, ancient wells of tellurian forcefield
radiation ringing this place where once grand druids performed their blood offerings, now setting
the Nazi dowsing rods bolt upright in ceremonial drape cloth, redblackwhite — cathedral spires
looming behind, uplit, like gothic spectres of doom, shadows of the shadow of Time itself — with
Der Furore’s monumental mugshot hoist up there for all the crypto-mariolaters to venerate, on His
birthday, `mas of the Aryan Dawn. You can almost picture them, ranks of Totenkopf suicide
battalions destined for Stalingrad & extinction, marching in secondhand woollens — the dead
millions-in-waiting of the Lebensraum soon to be forever collectivised under the soil, blood &
iron: their deafening Sieg! Their God shouting back at them through loud hailers set up on poles
around the Square, a storm of diatribe & hyperbole — but how else does Man suppose the voice of
his God to be? A caressive whisper? Intimations of solicitude? A stuttering self-doubt, evidence of
the madness of humility? The adoring centipede raises its arms — Heil! — & the dumb visage
stares out above them into the night — a virtual sight-line running through the old blacked-out
Ghetto to where, high overlooking the City, His nemesis & mythomaniac counterpart ten years
hence will return that cold gaze (temporarily in effigie) across a blind gulf that’ll already have
swallowed them both, those men of the cross — lithe Hitler with his Chaplin moustache, Stalin
like an overstuffed, beatified anagram, draped in the cruciform of the eternal dialectic — ☭ —
