Selsky baroko (Rustic Baroque)

Excerpt

With my bag over my shoulder and another bottle of water, I set out for the fields. I left Tomašice and when I reached the hillside, I digressed toward the woods; I walked through that sparse grove and in the afternoon heat, with my shirt wrapped around my waist, I climbed up to Černá Hůrka, a tiny village with a triangular square surrounded by small houses. I was looking for the house number 12, the birthplace of Rozálie Zandlová. A few more steps, and I stood in front of it. It was an ordinary farmhouse with its facade quite ruthlessly damaged by modernisation: black tiles around small windows and a floorboard door with a stained glass pane overlaid with a self-styled artistic lattice welded out of steel poles. It had bee sold by an heir in the 1970s. That’s what I learnt beforehand. I rather decided to go on along the little square towards the beautiful homestead number 7, a seedy house, but the old stucco tree motifs in the gable were in good condition. It had a vaulted gate, with plaster fallen off here and there so that bricks were visible and a masonry garner with slit-like vents.

And so I reached the village’s edge. And old man in corduroy trousers and a shirt with a waistcoat over gave me a few yellow summer apples that he had just collected from his orchard. He handed them to me over the fence. Like a thin shadow, he detached himself from the shed in the garden. He was a feeble old man, thin as a razor blade, and was just crackling when he was walking to me. As we stood by the fence, we talked a bit about the local farmhouses and about the neighbours. I remembered the names linked to individual houses; I had studied them a little before. He knew Rozálie for sure. But would he remember her?
“Number twelve was Zandl’s”, I started.
He nodded, but he was already turning around to glance at the bench by the shed in deep shade. He must had been hot in that shirt and that waistcoat.
“Did you know Rozálie Zandlová?” I asked without hesitating any longer. He was already showing his back to me.
He nodded again. Then he turned away from me after all.
“We were classmates. Then she left school and went to Tomašice. But a friend of mine”, he lifted his bent forefinger, “Jůza, Šimon Jůza…”
He pointed his stick at the opposite farmhouse. I looked in the direction towards a house with coloured glass bricks and brizolit plaster, typical of the 1970s. I had better turn back. The original house obviously didn’t survive the modern times.
“What about him?”
“He was wooing her.”
“Really?”
“And when she left for Tomašice, he was still going after her, till he got punched in the jaw as a stranger…”
The old man burst out laughing, I also smiled, rather surprised by his mischievous chortle. Without telling me any more he blended again into the shade under the apple trees.
I got through all the yellow summer apples while I was walking across the fields to the hamlet of Smrčí. I was trudging over the stones and the tracks rutted by heavy tractors. Lost among the fields, I only came up in front of the houses. Some people were mowing the grass on the meadow, preparing afternoon feed for their livestock, I went past a dilapidated stable on my left, the gates open on both sides and sweet smell of cows and manure and mown grass.
There was stagnant green water in the square pond in Smrčí. A few simple houses with wing gables. House number 2 at the western side of the square was newly reconstructed, its facade was shining with freshness among the others. It had a simple gable with droopy volutes on both sides and was definitely a late-Baroque motif. A polished car with dark green metallic paint stood in front of the gate. I sat down into the grass by the chapel. For a moment, I was overcome by sleep. A light doze, just as I was, half sitting half lying. I awoke about half an hour later, my back white with plaster. While sleeping, I had leaned against that little brick wall chapel. I got stood up and looked upwards: A stage set-like little belfry, looking a picture. There was nobody around. The air was flickering with heat.
Somewhere by the stream after Smrčí, in the direction of Tomašice, there should have been a sawmill that they used to call “U Šilhavých”. Still sleepy, I walked around the little pond and jumped across the streamlet, it was dry. I got to the road and out of the village, towards Tomašice. The sawmill didn’t appear. I wasn’t willing to go back. About in the middle of the way, I sat down under an apple tree by that grey county road and tried to wash down the heavy apples in my stomach with water from the bottle. After wandering around the villages that were almost empty, I marched those five kilometers to Tomašice on the slushy asphalt of the road. Only one car and one motorbike passed by during the whole time.
I was coming to the village from the other side than when I had left after noon. The grocery shop was still open, but I headed directly to the graveyard. I walked around the church and the nearby graves. Then I sat down on a bench in front of the gate and noted that the door of the opposite pub was already open.
It was agreeably cool in the hall; I entered into a small taproom whose air was fouled with smoke. A fella in dungarees and a torn up T-shirt sitting in the corner was also veiled with blue-grey smoke. I had a beer. The innkeeper was a man in his forties, sparse blond hair, weary smile.
“I dropped by after lunch, but it was closed”, I said when our eyes met again, “you’d let me die of thirst…”
“Sir, this is a side job for me”, he said strongly and then smiled. “The pub’s been closed for five years. Might be happy about this.” He looked at those a few battered tables with new tablecloths provided by a well-known brewery, a corner bench, trampled pavement on the floor and grey curtains in the windows. The grizzled man in the corner by the window was staring into space, occasionally sipping from his pint or lighting another cigarette. And then I saw her, through the smoky grey curtains and the shabby window panes. She was walking slowly with a stick, a bunch of meadow flowers in her hand. I quickly finished my pint.
I pushed the slightly open metallic gate again; it creaked. The old woman with a headscarf was bending down in front of a grave and the flowers were already positioned in a jar on the stone border under the polished black gravestone. I greeted her and went by as far as the graveyard wall. I scanned through all the names of the Zandl’s family again: Josef, Alžběta, Barbora, Anežka. Then I turned towards the church. She was minding her own business, I had to come to her.
“Who’s been watering that grave?” I asked.
“They’re all dead now”, she said.
“Did you know them all?” I asked, feigning easiness and pointing at the Zandl’s grave. She stood still, leaning on her cane with both hands, clenched silence in her wrinkled face. A dark blue skirt and a bright worn off sweater made of thin wool.
“Yeah”, she said. She turned to me, I unwittingly stepped aside and she passed by and proceeded out of the graveyard. I remained still. In front of the gate she stopped for a moment, but didn’t look back. I set out after her. She went on towards the village and only stopped after about fifty meters. Then she turned to me. I caught up with her fast. I got the picture. She didn’t want to speak there.
“Why are you meddling in that?” she asked sternly.
“It’s my job”, I said, rather caught off guard by this direct question, though I had to anticipate it.
“Nobody will tell you anything. The people remember bullshit now”, she said and set out along the square, leaning the rubber end of her stick against the slushy asphalt. I still walked next to her.
“I’m interested in Rozálie Zandlová”, I pronounced the name and surname loud and slowly. She stopped. I stood still too. She was silent.
“She came from Hůrka”, she said at last, unwillingly.
“Did you know her?” I insisted. She was looking somewhere towards the graveyard, towards the flaked off walls covered with climbing vine. I didn’t know whether I should stay or go.
“That slut”, she said in a low voice, but firmly. I shivered. At that tone. We were standing there on the square. Alone, only some fifty year old hatred with us. I didn’t understand. The old lady went away. I hesitated for a moment and then I let her go.

(Translated by Marek Sečkař and Vivian Lee White Baravalle)

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