Mr. Kafka: And Other Tales From the Time of the Cult by Bohumil Hrabal

Author:Bohumil Hrabal
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780811224819
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2015-10-26T21:00:00+00:00

A Betrayal of Mirrors

The summer this year was a hot one. Young boys bounced soccer balls off the walls and the screen-covered basement windows, practicing the Czech Wall Pass. The super’s wife told Mr. Mit’ánek in strictest confidence that she thought Mr. Valerián had either taken up acting or dancing, or he’d taken leave of his senses. He’d been down there in the basement since early morning with another man, and they were cavorting about, crashing into each other, drinking cheap red wine straight from the bottle, and yelling: “Can’t stop now! Must keep at it!” A month ago, she added, Mr. Valerián had brought in vats of ceramic clay, and then the day before yesterday, it was a mortar trough. She had seen him wandering about the basement half naked with nothing more to cover his torso than a piece of dog pelt that he used as a floor mat by his bed, and that other fellow was there with him, with the very same floor mat covering his naked torso. And every day, two women came to visit, both wearing cloche hats decorated with artificial cherries. And these two reprobates in dog skins were threatening each other with axes — old stone axes like the kind Robinson Crusoe made.

Mr. Mit’ánek slipped off his Auxiliary Police armband. In his free time he liked to catch citizens in the act of alighting illegally from streetcars and slap them with fines. “Let me look into it,” he said.

He knocked on the basement door.

By the wall of the Church of the Most Holy Trinity, a stonemason stood on a scaffold, repairing the statue of St. Jude Thaddeus, who had lost a knee and an eye to the ravages of the weather. Further down, the wall of the church was covered with plaques, and a sexton was attempting to pry loose the rusty screws holding them in place.

“Dear Lord Jesus in heaven,” said the sexton. “I’m sick and tired of these cults.”

“It’s paganism,” nodded the stonemason, removing a sandstone knee and eye from his satchel.

“I almost ripped out a fingernail,” the sexton said, shaking his hand.

“Do titles still count for anything in your heaven?” asked the stonemason. He pointed to the plaque the sexton was holding. The inscription read: To Saint Jude Thaddeus, in gratitude for your timely intercession during the storm. Engineer K. H. and Dr. J. “Enamel thank-you notes, and metal missives,” he laughed. “Who actually delivers those things up there?”

“Lord Jesus in heaven,” complained the sexton, “two hundred and ten of these tablets, each with four screws, that makes a total of eight hundred and forty screws, and I’m expected to winkle every one of them out of the wall with my bare hands. I’m sick and tired of these cults!”

“All it needs is a little common sense,” said the stonemason, and he positioned the eye in the graceful sandstone statue.

“But that’s not the end of it,” sighed the sexton. “Once I unscrew all these enamel love letters, I’m going

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