Ondřej Štindl

So Much Ash

Ondřej Štindl

Translated into English by Graeme and Suzanne Dibble

The boy stopped in mid-run and stared silently at Kryštof. He was breathing rapidly through his mouth and a line of snot dripped slowly from his nose. His mother was approaching along the path from the children’s playground, chatting with a friend. The two well-groomed ladies in their thirties, wearing pastel-coloured jackets and matching face masks, were maintaining the prescribed distance. Prague was managing the pandemic in style – at least here in the centre, on Petřín Hill, where the locals had turned out in large numbers to enjoy the sunny spring day. Their joy at being outdoors and being able to talk to someone they knew clashed with a lingering sense of caution. Not only because of the fear of contagion, but perhaps also a concern that any undisciplined behaviour on their part would threaten the reputation of a country where the citizens were resisting the pandemic in an exemplary fashion, in spite of their abhorrent government.

This bright, colourful scene was slightly marred by Kryštof, a man with a creased face, rumpled black clothes – he hadn’t washed them for a long time and clearly wasn’t using the right detergent – and sunken eyes. Just then those eyes were focused on the three-year-old child, who looked as if he was expecting something from Kryštof, though he had no idea what that could be. So he smiled at the boy, realizing at once that it wouldn’t be visible through his face covering. He tended to feel awkward in the presence of small children, unable to drop the grown-up mask and make infantile noises with unfeigned joy. He would smile at them, that was true, but it wasn’t the kind of reflexive smile that automatically appeared on other people’s faces every time one of the little creatures laid eyes on them. Kryštof’s smiles were deliberate and laboured; he had to organize them, send the relevant instruction through the nervous system for his mouth to stretch out in the appropriate way. And kids didn’t really buy these forced displays of friendliness. The boy kept staring and Martina, who was sitting on the bench next to Kryštof, had to intervene. She shot Kryštof a look and rolled her eyes sardonically. Another useless bloke. Then she leaned over to the child and said something to him, reaching into her pocket for a cereal bar, the healthy kind with the nuts – of course it would be. The next moment the boy was running back to his mum, calling out to her loudly and enthusiastically. Martina sized Kryštof up once more in amusement.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing. I fancy a cigarette. But I don’t want to take off my face mask with all these people around. There’s always something.”

Martina laughed, a little ruefully.

“You really haven’t changed.”

Kryštof liked hearing that – at a certain age, you’re glad to cling to an assurance like that. And he was also glad that Martina had come, that she hadn’t told him where to go when he’d blabbered incoherently to her on the phone after a sleepless night, and that they could sit next to each other on a bench on Petřín Hill like the ageing couple they hadn’t been for a long time but perhaps could have been. Two people who knew each other too well to put on a front but still got along anyway. The awareness that they hadn’t belonged to each other for a long time smoothed out all the rough edges. Signs of character traits or habits that would once have driven the other person to distraction had become a touching reminder of old and safely bygone times. They’d already been sitting there for over an hour and had told each other all sorts of things. A few snippets of gossip from Prague society, whose utter triviality seemed refreshing in these turbulent days, and they also discussed the health of mutual acquaintances and friends, a subject that grew in size and importance as time went on.

“Are you taking plenty of vitamins?”

“I’m guzzling them as if they were going out of fashion.”

She elbowed him, laughing.

“Hey, seriously. How are you holding up?”

“Yeah, all right. You know. Most of the time I’m cooped up in the flat, it’s getting to me a bit.”

He didn’t want to spoil the afternoon by talking about what was really on his mind. To disturb Martina with explanations about prophetic dreams, exorcisms and lost crutches, about a bloody streak on a white sleeve and graduates from Veselí nad Lužnicí. About the fact that he needed a bottle of booze to get to sleep, and sometimes even that wasn’t enough. That in the last few days he’d been scouring the internet for contact details for anyone in Prague by the name of Filipec, had found a few numbers and had been calling them one by one under a false pretext, trying to coax information out of strangers that they clearly didn’t know, finding the whole thing incredibly awkward but keeping at it anyway, useless though it was. That from time to time he would surreptitiously peek out of the window to check whether there was a car parked in the street that he hadn’t seen there before, and whether there were people sitting in it. He was grateful for the chance to spend some time in Martina’s unshakeably practical world, where purpose didn’t take the form of a rampaging, logic-defying force. Her version of purpose was something constantly and serenely present – instead of prophetic dreams, it manifested itself in ordinary concern. Concern for Evžen – he was on edge because he’d had to close the business due to the lockdown; at times all that sitting around put him in a foul mood and he started bossing the whole family about, just so he could feel he was in charge of something for a while. Concern for the children – their classes had been cancelled, but they were coping fine; their older daughter was no longer living with them anyway, she was renting a lovely flat with her friends on the embankment, can you imagine. And concern about her job – that was on hold, but Martina had her hands full as it was: she’d set up a neighbourhood group that distributed face masks to elderly people in the area and did their shopping for them so they didn’t have to go out. She was on call this afternoon; she had to keep her phone handy in case somebody needed something.

“And of course you sew face masks too – I don’t even have to ask.”

Kryštof’s sarcasm didn’t bother her in the slightest; he was never going to change. It would take more than that to shake her quiet confidence. This is a war for the girls, he thought. It allows them to put their skills to use and show off how good they are at organizing and caring when they want to be. But it’s more complicated for the men – they can’t patrol the streets with a rifle, feeling responsible for everyone at home and ready to die for them. What are they supposed to do in a war like this one? Especially if you aren’t a doctor and the main thing you can contribute to the general effort is your special talent for getting in the way. Then the only option you have left is to sit at home, tracking the numbers and concocting wild theories. Martina’s phone rang and she quickly answered, pulling a pen out of her handbag and writing down an address on the edge of the newspaper. She ended the call and smiled at Kryštof.

“I have to go.”

“Hold on a second.”

Martina smiled at him again, a little impatiently this time. She didn’t have time to shoot the breeze; other people were depending on her, and they were already waiting.

“I also wanted to see you because of what happened at Křemenáč’s funeral. We didn’t bump into each other again. And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking… Basically, you were right. I acted like a jerk back then. I dumped it all on you and washed my hands of it. I pushed you into taking the decision when my mind was already made up. I decided for you as well, I just didn’t have the guts to say it to your face. I’m sorry.”

Martina looked uncomfortable. Perhaps at a time like this, when she had everything nicely under control, she didn’t like being reminded of a moment when she had lost control.

“It’s water under the bridge, Kryštof. I’m not good with funerals and I shouldn’t have been drinking there and all of a sudden I just came out with it. I surprised myself too. Just forget it.”

Kryštof gazed at her blue-and-black face mask – it was strange not to see each other’s mouths when talking about a subject like this.

“So you’ve forgiven me?”

Martina got up from the bench and turned towards him, now visibly impatient and restless – she had work to do and he had to go and choose a moment like this to reopen old wounds.

“Forgiven you... I don’t know, Kryštof, if you can put it like that. It was a long time ago and a lot has happened since then. At the time I was really angry at you and now I’m not. Every once in a while something reminds me of it, that’s all. But most of the time – in fact, pretty much all of the time – I don’t even think about you or what happened between us. I don’t know if you can call that forgiveness. Time goes by and things get forgotten, they fade from my memory. Sometimes I regret that. And sometimes I don’t. I’m sorry, I really do have to go.”

They said a hasty goodbye and Martina set off down the hill to catch a tram. Kryštof watched her go, striding along with the brisk step of a woman who keeps herself in shape, a woman who urgently needs to be somewhere else, because despite the passage of time and the mercy of forgetting, there are moments when she needs to be as far away from Kryštof as possible. It was starting to turn cloudy and cool, and the park was slowly emptying. He could light up, it was safe now. He untied his face mask and pulled out a lighter and cigarettes, drawing in the smoke along with the crisp spring air. The light was fading and the cold was nipping at Kryštof, so he headed for home too. When he got near the tram stop, he checked to make sure Martina was no longer standing there. He wouldn’t have liked to have caught up with her, didn’t want to hang around her like an unfair living reproach from days long past that would only have haunted her on the journey home.