The Combinations, page 82
--That night, at the Cabaret, what were you doing with Faktor?
--You mean Viktor? Viktor’s all bluff. He likes to come in &
big-note himself, drink champagne, invite the “girls” to his table. He
gives me attention, is all. Jealous?
--What about Volta?
--What about him?
--Are they connected?
--Not that I’m aware. Viktor might act like he’s a
Schwarzenberg, but he’s nothing but a peddler of fake antiques. He
runs a bazaar on Libeňský Island. Specialises in Habsburg kitsch &
War memorabilia. Some kids with a garage out in Kladno knock it up
for him by the truckload. You should pay him a visit.
--Maybe I will.
Alice laughed, but her eyes didn’t laugh:
--Why did you really come to see me?
--Does the Devil & the Carmelite mean anything to you?
--…?
--Your striptease act at the Green Fairy.
--That’s unfriendly.
He rubbed his eyes. Suddenly he felt very tired. To continue
talking in this vein made no sense. He struggled to explain the
frontispiece from the Black Book, if for no other reason than to
convince himself of the extent of his own stupidity. She laughed
genuinely this time.
--Mmm, antiquarian smut… A bit corny, though, don’t you think?
Priestesses, devils…
--Not a priestess. The Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary of
Mount Carmel…
--Whatever.
--Distinctions are important.
--That’s the kind of thing Viktor would say.
--Will he be there tonight?
--You’ll have to find that out for yourself.
--Will you be there tonight?
--I’m not making any promises.
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*APPENDIX 1:
THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF ALICE STEINEROVÁ
*APPENDIX 2:
REAL LIFE/TRUE STORY OF ALICE STEINEROVÁ (CONVERSION KEY)
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39
___________
REISE IN DIE NACHT
‘When I was eight there was this kid, Horst Wechsel, had the biggest shvanz on
the block. Used to flash it at all the shiksas. He’d go up to them & say, You
wanna see the Promised Land? then whip it out & they’d run squealin’ up the
street. Man, he was hung like one of them doorposts in Deuteronomy. But you
know, an act like that doesn’t have a real big future, ’cause pretty soon all the
shiksas catch on & maybe they tell their memas & one day while he’s flashing
his klobasa some old bird turns up & starts waving a cleaver at him. Maybe give
him some sort of trauma. You know, pass the rest of his days flat-out on a
headshrinker’s couch. What they call in the profession, Gentile Dysfunction
issues. I mean, what use’s a mezuzah with nothing inside, right?* Well pretty
soon Horst started having bigger ideas. Like when he got to hanging out at the
shule with all them kids who think one day they’re gonna be the Messiah, look
in the mirror each morning to see if the beard’s started to sprout yet. Wanna be
the right-hand man sitting at The Gate, you know, when The Day comes. With
their mitzvahs & their minhags. Pulling each other’s ears. Hear, O Babylon, the
Nin our god & all that. So one day Horst is, you know, diggin’ the scene &
whatever, when Reb Moravec comes up & says, Ain’t you that kid been shoving the
salami at Frau Schiklgruber’s pansy son?
‘Let me tell you something about racial hatred. Now, a lot of people say…
Well you know what they say, right? They say all sorts of unpleasant things
about the Nicest People on Earth. I mean, you know who I’m talking about.
Some of your best friends are the Nicest People on Earth, am I right? I think
what it comes down to, it’s some kind of envy. Here you’ve got this couple, man
& wife in holy matrimony, the whole eight inches, sitting at a table in one of
those swish joints downtown on Pařížská. You know, where they bulldozed the
Ghetto for so they could whack up a whole lotta swanky condos with that art
nouveau smeared all over them? Yeah, one of those joints. Now, she’s a blonde,
dig? Got the Versace backless number, the matching pearl earrings & necklace
* זוכ זסכומב וזוכ. (A Caesar cipher. Give unto & all that.) [:]
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combo. He’s sporting the moustache, got a silver cigar case in his breast pocket,
probably wears designer deodorant. They’re stirring some caviar around with bits
of expensive stale toast. How it is with these exclusive types, man. I mean,
they’ve got it tough. You think you’ve got it tough, but no-one forced your
grandma to sit around all day eating caviar on stale toast, did they? So while
these two are stuffing down the fish-eggs, right then some bigshot who runs a
chain of pig farms they’re acquainted with walks in. Can’t take a shit in this
town without there’s someone knows about it already. You dig? So there’s this
guy, name of Herrgott or Heimlich or whatever, walks in like he owns the joint.
And with him, see if you can guess this one. You got it yet? Right. One of those
Nicest People on Earth. Just like that, right past the doorman & everything. Dark
eyes, tight little skirt slit up to here, four-inch heels. I mean a real showstopper.
And the blonde in the Versace sees this & says to hubby, What’s that just came in
with whatsisname? Isn’t he supposed to be married to sonandso? And hubby says, Oh,
that’s whatsisname’s Nicest Person on Earth. Isn’t she something? So the blonde
sneers & tells hubby, Liebling, OUR Nicest Person on Earth is much nicer than his!
‘Just the other day… You ever get the feeling you already know what’s
gonna happen, before it happens? Like you’re walking down the street & there’s
a cop & you just know this cop’s gonna call you over, ask a bunch of questions,
go through your I.D. Know what I mean? ’Cause the second they see you
coming, those beady little cop eyes zero right in. That’s right, I’m looking at you.
Like you’ve got kike written all over your forehead. Shit, man, ain’t that scene all
washed up? I mean, man, this’s the Free World. We got McDonalds and Kentucky
Chuck and NATO fer chrissakes. Woah! You wanna be careful there. These guys,
you know. These guys are unreformed. Anyone here ever been to a reformatory?
That’s what’s reserved for the losers. These guys, they all been to the Economics
University, trained in the protection of Free Market Interests. Now you might
think that means the Worldwide Zhiddish Conspiracy, but what it really
means… It’s like, if these people were any more rightwing they’d be mistaken
for an amputated albatross. A real cop nowadays gonna make even Joe Stalin
look like Commie trash. It’s like, is the Pope Catholic? So just the other day I’m
doing that, walking down the street, minding my own proverbial, when this cop
comes up to me & says, Goin’ somewhere, son? Now what would Jesus have done?
Well, I’d sure appreciate some directions, orificer. See, I’m looking for that Garden of
Gethsemane. I guess it’s round here some place… But you’ve gotta wonder, don’t
you, about the kind of people ask a cop for directions. I mean, you’d really wanna
be lost, like yer life depended on it. Orificer! Orificer! I’m lookin’ fer Jesus! I can’t 530
find him anywhere! Oh orificer, help me, help me pleeeeeez…
‘You know what this dude said to me this morning in the Metro? Suicide’s
just the poor man’s alternative to waging total war… That’s what he said. I’m not
kiddin’ you. I mean, he had a beard & everything, so he had to be right, right? I
said, Total war? But ain’t that sort of outdated? And he said, Whatya think I am,
some kind of Allen Ginsberg? But you’ve gotta love these guys. Total war. That
reminds me of my mother. She had a thing about all those pamphlet pushers,
always stuffing somethin’ in yer hand every time you go down the street. Always
on about some kinda cause. How the hell do those people eat? she’d say. It’s the war, I’d tell her. What war you mean? she’d say. It was like . Whadya tell a
woman like that? Mum, I just got my call-up papers. They want me for the army.
Well some army YOU’LL make, she’d say. Used to tell us how gramps was an
Admiral, back when they still had those great big man-o-wars goin’ up & down
the Vltava. Ain’t gonna make you wear that yella star or nothin’, are they? Hell, to
be fair to the old lady, she’d really done it hard, bringing us kids up. Oh no, you
think I’m gonna joke about that? Forget it. Now goin’ in the army, that was
definitely gonna be like suicide. All these peaceniks, you dig, were sneaking over
the border, ’cause you know life’s all wine & roses over there. Join the army? No
sir! Oh boy! You’ve gotta understand, it was different back then. Can’t ride a
theory home from work, they’d be sayin’ on the radio. A man’s gotta be pragmatic
about his future. The ol’ Proles’ Paradise not all it was cracked up to be? Stand
firm, son, a man’s gotta struggle to make anything right in this here world, see?
Breakin’ the earth with yer bare hands. Tryin’ to raise a crop with all them
Capitalist doomsayin’ crows stealin’ it out from right in front of yer face. No sir!
Well it weren’t like most of us ever had that problem, seeing as there was no
employment going round anyhow. But it gives that nice warm & fuzzy feeling
inside, doesn’t it, when some Old Hand credits you with high ideals? Shit. How
come I always get stuck with these holier-than, self-made autodidact types, with
All the Answers to Everything? Just the other day I was sitting in a bar. Some
one-armed thalidomide poet comes in spouting that shit about how the World’s
gonna end, brother, you dig? Just another one of those caftan-wearing self-haters
of the species, can’t bear to hear the sound of anything but their own croaking.
And you just wanna shout at these sonsofbitches, Revolution’s over, you arsehole!
’Cause you know what God had to say about these losers, don’t you? It’s like, did
Jesus Christ commit suicide or what? It had to be downright despair, that’s the
only reasonable explanation. Just thinkin’ it’s a sin, though, right? But there he
goes. Man, didn’t he have any shame? Getting’ crucified right out in front of
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everyone, some of those people knew his mother fer chrissakes! But maybe God
just got tired lookin’ after business, wipin’ out the ENEMY every other day of
the week, decided to do a deal, start a Franchise instead, subcontract the stuff to
the professionals, industrialise. Son, he said , time for you to go out ’n’ do some
killin’, pay yer own way, shouldn’t expect a free ride in this here world… And there’s
that Jesus with the long hair, he just ain’t gonna cut it with those number-
cruncher, button-pushin’, suit-&-tie jerks. That’s what the Franchise’s for. Let
the boys from I.B.M. handle the Soylent Green stuff so the kid can hang out on
the Dead Sea, smoke some of that weed, dip his sandals. You know they’ve got a
sign over there nowadays, NO WALKIN’ ON THE WATER! Just takes one
arsehole to spoil the fun for everyone else, isn’t that right? Well it’d serve the
precious little Mummy’s Love if his number really did come up like that. Can’t
you picture it? Just what kind of shit would they be givin’ this guy in the
barracks? Yo, JC, latrine duty ’n’ don’t go givin’ me none a that miracle crap… Oh,
but it’s true, there does indeed come a time in every man’s life when he’s gotta
do his duty. That’s what they say, right? You gonna expect the Son of God to
turn out a conscientious objector? Wasn’t that what the Ghetto was for? Well we
tried that one, God, & it didn’t work. Some flaws in the design. Like taking an
Egyptian holiday with that guy Ramses on the loose. Hey, Red Sea’s lookin’ kinda
nice this time of year, whadya say?
‘Now, speaking of losers…’
A Waltz in a Valise
The camera crew were taking up most of the bar & half the tables around the
stage, doubling as extras in a sea of Wermacht feldgrau. Sound technicians,
gaffers, grips, wranglers, loaders. A script girl in black Schiaparelli. The make-up
department sporting Vionnet. In the midst of it all was Mistress Vicarious,
resplendent in knitwear Chanel & surrounded by a dozen Hugo Bosses rubbing
shoulderpads with the resident sorority in Pernod-green, appleblossom pink,
mimosa yellow & carnation blush. No sign of a director.
No-one paid the slightest attention to Němec’s arrival & why would they?
The doorman, the coatcheck girl, the spoonman, the anatomy dummy, the
schnorer, the cast of hundreds if not thousands, standing around like future
tape-recorded presences waiting to be played back against the archival footage,
for some remote-control voice on a wire to say Cut! & Action! Alice Steinerová
led the way into this den of iniquity. Whatever misgivings Němec may’ve had,
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dissipated into the fog that hung everywhere. It’d followed them all the way
along the riverfront, a wall of dreadnaught-grey that closed like a portcullis upon
Legion Bridge as upon some Bridge of Doom. Dead streetlights stood sentry.
Weird echoes across the water. The groaning of the locks. Flurry of batwing. A
distant frog-concert in the sough of the wind & bells tolling under silent
hammerstrokes from afar, afar, afar. It was after midnight when they descended
the steps to the island, the château enveloped like a sphinx in the darkness of its
own enigma. But as they crossed the threshold of the Kabaret Grünegast, time
seemed as once before to wind back up on itself, five decades in five precipitous
steps. The curtain parted & the last days of the War listed in the gloom that
closed in on al sides.
It was like a charade of a charade in which Němec, never one to miss a
trick, found himself once more playing the role of the interloper waiting to be
found out. A freak come to a freakshow. He followed Alice’s kimono gamely
through the crowd. From the middle of the room came the sound of the Great
Toad, Mistress Vicarious, laughing, if you could call it that: a high, flat, cracked
sound. For a moment the sea of grey parted & Němec beheld the enormous
creature’s heavily rouged lips & semi-disgorged yellow teeth. Everything about
her was in character: the slightly moist eye, the porcine face, the false eyelashes
clotted with mascara, the hands in a permanent state of gesticulation like a
Balinese dancer’s, fingers crusted with glasspaste rubies, diamonds, sapphires, a
gold tiara atop gaudily sculpted hair — there was nowhere for a description to
stop. Then just as suddenly the sea closed again. Němec found himself at the
edge of the stage. The Lenny Bruce impersonator was facing into the lights,
mouthing into the microphone. The crowd went through the motions. It was
like watching a rehearsal for a funeral. The man pointed a bicycle horn at the
side of his head. Honkhonk. All it needed was a bucketful of bad blood.
When the comedy act ended, some time-expired chanteuse in a girdle got
wheeled out onto the stage & started lip-syncing to a scratched vinyl that
must’ve been older even than she was. She looked vaguely familiar. If he let his
eyes go out of focus, Němec could almost call to mind the vaseline-misted
features of some UFA-era screen siren for rent. A vague approximation would
do. The stuff wet dreams used to be made of on the Eastern Front. That or a
bullet from a Tokarev SVT-.…
Vorbei, vorbei sind all die schönen Stunden
die wir verlebt am schönen Ostseestrand
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Wir hatten uns, ja uns so schön zusamm’n gefunden
es war für uns der allerschönste Ort…*
Well, Němec thought, sure sounds like everything’s schön. He peered across the
dancefloor to see Alice beckoning him towards a table on the far side. He arrived
just as the coatcheck “girl” he’d run into on his previous visit was snapping her
fingers & calling for martinis all-round. A waiter descended with a tray &
glasses. It all seemed part of the act. Besides the coatcheck girl, the table was
occupied by a scrawny-looking brunette with hair that was long & crimped &
parted in the middle. She wore one of those pearl chokers over her Adam’s apple
that were meant to’ve been popular with the demimonde back in the old days &
a tight satin shift reminiscent of period photographs of Edith la Sylphe, & like
the Sylphe she had no expression to speak of. Next to her was a Max Reinhardt
