Devil's Workshop by Jáchym Topol

Author:Jáchym Topol [Topol, Jáchym]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781846275425
Publisher: Granta Publications
Published: 2013-06-05T20:00:00+00:00

8

We keep striding along these straight, seemingly endless streets. Some with cars zooming by, some without. They all merge into one for me. What time is it? We had breakfast, what about lunch? I don’t know and I’m not going to ask. I don’t know where we are, either, and I don’t care.

Her bag bangs against my hip, that’s how close we are. Her head by my shoulder. Hair slipping out from under her beret. I wish I could touch it.

We walk, we keep walking. I don’t know any city except for my native fortress town and a few glimpses of Prague. So why do I feel so on edge here? The palaces are amazing. Straight, long, solid walls. Now I know what’s bothering me. I can be seen from all sides, just like on Central Square. Right, but in Terezín there were passages through the walls, and catacombs underneath them, and in Prague you could just slip into the nearest winding lane.

Here I’m out in the open. Where would I hide?

Do these buildings lock their doors? I ask.

Depends on the caretaker. The dezhurnaya.

This city is starting to get on my nerves.

Hey, Maruška, what’s with all the right angles here, anyway?

It’s all rebuilt. What you had in Prague, pshaw, that was nothing! A couple of buildings bombed. Here whatever the Nazis didn’t bomb or shoot to pieces, the Soviets finished off. After the war we had to rebuild. No more dark little alleys where people lived scrunched up like rats in a cage. No: nice wide boulevards. So the sun can get in everywhere. Sorry to say, but it’s pretty dirty and smelly in Prague.

It is not! This place is weird.

This is Sun City. It was a project after the war for the happy people of the future. They built cities like this in lots of places. Wherever a town had been burned down. They weren’t for everyone, though.

Why not?

Every Sun City had a burial site on the outskirts.

I didn’t know that.

You should. That’s why you’re here.

It is?

Shit! There are no taxis. We’ll have to take the underpass, OK?

Whatever you say, Maruška! You know best.

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