The Ice Cream Man (18 page)

“Where’s Stefan hiding away?”

“His plane landed an hour ago. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“Hope he’s not allergic to shellfish.”

Eva hears this and starts laughing hysterically. Maybe she’s actually planning to kill us all: Stefan, who cheated on Eva; Kerstin, who stole Stefan from Eva; and Jan, who wasn’t able to hang on to Kerstin.

I am leaning on the balcony railing when somebody claps his hand on my back.

“I can’t figure out why Kerstin puts you down all the time,” Stefan says in a mild voice, examining me with his veal calf’s eyes.

“Well, isn’t that the way it should be?”

“Kerstin says your Swedish is very good, and that your Slavic accent is barely noticeable.”

“Is that what she said?”

“Don’t get your hopes up. That’s a criticism as well—she misses the melody from the early days.” He is holding a bottle of vodka shaped like a lump of ice and pours some into my glass, anticipating greater openness. His lips are disturbingly full, and he has a stately bearing. He undoubtedly wears a tailored suit well, but now he is in his shirtsleeves. His tie dangles from Eva’s coat rack as if from old memories.

“Yeah, but all the time, do you see what I mean, it might mean she’s still serious about you, or too serious in relation to . . . shit, Jan . . . how can I put this . . .”

“In relation to what?”

“Well, in relation to the fact you’re no longer in a relationship.”

“Yes, but we were, for a relatively long time. On the other hand, Kerstin only ever says good things about you.”

“What do you mean, only ever? Do you two spend a lot of time together?”

“Exactly the same amount of time you spend flying around the world.”

He gives a loud guffaw and raises his glass in the air. “Bring it on, Jan.”

“Look, I don’t doubt for a minute you’re a really good guy.”

“In relation to what?”

“A good guy who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, born to be a salesman, a moneymaker. Clearly, in Sweden even stockbrokers are humanists.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Because for some reason, Kerstin has turned an ideological blind eye to you.”

“Ah, the worst parasites are poor people who’ve developed a taste for money; they can never have enough. But if a person was born into money, there’s nothing remarkable about it, and they don’t think about it any more than they think about breathing.”

He stops talking and frowns, thinking he has insulted me somehow.

“Look, don’t get me wrong. There have to be opportunities; I don’t mean . . . my sympathies have always been on the side of the Eastern Bloc; nobody gave you a chance! First the Nazis, then the Russians—maybe there were traumatic experiences and oppressors long before that too, but I’m no historian. We were absolutely caught up in the spirit of things here in ’68 . . .”

The music in the living room is cranked up so high that it drowns out Stefan’s outburst. When it quiets down again, Stefan has just asked me a question, but I catch only the question mark at the end.

“What?”

“So you knew him? Kerstin said you knew him.”

“Who?”

“That student who burned himself to death, protesting against the Soviet occupation. Remind me what his name was . . .”

I don’t know what it is that starts to repulse me: the fact that a stockbroker is searching for his name with positive stress caressing him right to the tip of his tongue, or the fact that his name has been forgotten, like that of some exotic black-winged butterfly.

“Kerstin told me you were studying in Prague at that time. You could tell me all about that stuff sometime, your experiences as an eyewitness . . . and how you fled to Sweden, not giving a shit about any of it . . .” There’s a note of embarrassment in his voice; it can only be because he knows everything about me already, better than I know myself. Kerstin has seen to that.

“Damn it, what was his name now?”

“Jan Palach,” we hear Kerstin’s voice say. She has crept out onto the balcony. She’s scrubbed her hands with soap, but the smell of prawns is still noticeable. She stands behind me, wraps her arms around me below my ribcage, and squeezes my diaphragm as if she wants to send a bone stuck in my throat hurtling toward Stefan.

“Jan what?”

“Palach.”

“Jan Palach! Of course. Jan Palach . . .”

I want to get away from the balcony, but Kerstin squeezes me even tighter. Stefan eyes us rather uneasily, but Kerstin’s expression clearly soothes him, then arouses him, then encourages him to stay on the topic.

“So you knew him?”

“Who’s claiming that? I certainly didn’t know him.”

“Kerstin said you knew him.”

“I said Jan saw Jan—Palach, that is,” Kerstin clarifies. “Once.
Maybe
.”

Stefan is intrigued again, and self-immolation might give him a tasteless jolt of endorphins. “Where’d you see him? At some underground student meeting?”

“Jan is
fairly
sure he saw him once in front of the philosophy department. Of course, bearing in mind that Jan sort of only remembered after the funeral, or realized who it was—and also bearing in mind that the person was difficult to see, and there was an annoying amount of traffic there on Křižovnická even then, but Jan does recall a benign, almost simple smile, and even if Jan would like to think that smile was meant just for him, it’s more likely that it was a reflection of the way he, I mean Palach—how did it go again, Jan?—‘the way he had of looking even at total strangers like a brother, unknown companions in misfortune, for whom he decided to sacrifice everything.’”

“Thinking, he’s about to end it like this . . .”

“Everybody in Prague was at the funeral, but Jan didn’t make it,” Kerstin continues, speaking right into my ear. Stefan now seems completely unperturbed by our closeness; indeed, he seems to suspect that it is not directed against him.

“Why didn’t you go? It started a movement across the whole country—it was a historic event!”

“Jan was so devastated,” Kerstin hastens to explain. “Jan was more devastated than anyone else. Who could have been more devastated than the dead boy’s mother? Jan was.
He
was even more devastated. The ones who were less devastated managed to go to the funeral, but Jan wasn’t up to it, the devastation had utterly broken him. Everyone else’s devastation quickly faded into the same apathy it had arisen from, but Jan’s devastation only grew. It only got worse when, by rights, it ought to have eased a bit. In fact, Jan went out to buy a jerry can—”

Stefan sneaks a glance at our expressions. He is no longer entirely certain whether he wants to be part of this. In the grip of surprising nonchalance, I wait to see how far Kerstin is prepared to go, and how long Stefan’s feeling of gratification lasts before he notices that Kerstin’s poison was not administered precisely or accurately, but is instead spreading out like a gas for everyone to inhale.

“But then Jan’s mom came to visit and saw the jerry can in Jan’s room, and she asked, ‘What’s this? Don’t you even have a proper wastebasket here?’ So crap was sometimes used as fuel, but of course petrol burns much better . . . and his mother hadn’t even come to Prague because of Jan, but because there was some man there whose name was Aunt Elke. Nobody had ever seen Aunt Elke in the flesh, but Prague is a big enough city that one Aunt Elke can blend in there. It was very handy. And if his mother missed the last train back to Olomouc, this Aunt Elke always had a spare bed available, and if it was taken, his mother always made it to the train in time.”

“Kerstin . . .” Stefan whimpers.

“All right, all right. Then there was this and that and a few more things besides. So Jan became Torch Number Zero. Vorszda, that is. End of story.”

“Stop it, Kerstin.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, that’s where it ended.”

“Don’t joke about this.”

“About what? Don’t you have any sense of humor?”

“That’s a bit over the top.”

“In relation to what?”

“Well, the fact that Jan lived under that system and you didn’t.”

“Stefan, sweetie, should Jan get a medal just because he lived under a particular system? Was he born there out of choice? There wasn’t just a brain drain from Czechoslovakia to the West, a few cocks leaked out as well . . .”

“Look, Kerstin, you’re insulting him.”

“I don’t think I’m insulting him if I say he has the only cock that’s ever given me an orgasm.”

Stefan is still taking my side. “It goes against all scientific research that only one man could achieve that. Otherwise mankind would have become extinct long ago.”

“What the hell has it got to do with reproduction? And I’ve managed it with all the rest, including you, as long as I thought of Jan!”

When Stefan and Kerstin start shouting at each other, Eva rushes out to the balcony, not realizing that everything is going exactly as it should: Jan is keeping his mouth shut, Stefan is defending Jan as if he were a scrawny little brother, Kerstin is giving her men a piece of her mind, and everyone gets some foreplay. Eva attempts to make herself heard, waving her hands as if at a dangerous crossing, but Stefan and Kerstin just step on the gas and drive right past the emergency lights and warning triangles. Just as Stefan is starting to get hard, Eva shrieks, “Stop it!” and we all feel put out because we are more annoyed by a smudge on the windshield than by carcasses along the roadside.

Instead of granting us mercy, Eva starts to mumble—in between sobs and sniffles—how disappointed she is that adults can behave in this way, spoiling an evening and an idea, though they already have everything they’d hoped for, they have each other, everything, but Eva has nothing, and that’s why she’s trying to grow as a person and get over it all; that’s why she’s invited us into her home, and they try to get Jan to cough up something if Jan happens to have something left to take, however teeny-tiny, and so if anyone should brawl and shout, it should be Eva and Jan, if only they, too (people like Eva and Jan), could fucking care about those who fucking care about them!

Eva stops as abruptly as she started and falls silent, as if she has suddenly caught sight of her therapist’s horrified face. She dashes back into the living room with her face buried in her hands. Stefan rushes after her.

“Oops,” says Kerstin.

I start to leave, but Kerstin grabs my arm.

“Don’t go in there.”

“No, I’ve had enough. You can thank our hostess on my behalf.”

“Don’t leave, Jan. Do you want to insult her as well?”

“We just can’t win with you around.”

“Oh, don’t be so stupid. You just want to see people in a better light than they really are. Like that one: representative of the weaker sex who had to resort to twisting her ankle at the appropriate moment. She’s the most satisfied one of all right now. And you . . . don’t say you weren’t a bit flattered.”

I push her hand away. “You cannot be serious. Stefan and Eva are decent people. They’re the ones who should be together.”

“That may well be, but the two of us shouldn’t be together at all.”

“And Stefan doesn’t suspect anything?”

“He can only pity you now. And he knows I can’t feel sorry for anyone, at least not for long.”

Eva returns to the balcony, and I attempt to free myself from Kerstin and the paper lanterns whose hanging cords are dangling all over the place.

“Jan, are you all right?” Eva does not even glance at Kerstin, just hurries over to me, her smudged mascara on her cheeks. She untangles me from the cords and leads me into the bedroom.

“Let’s sit down here.”

“Why?”

“Are you all right?”

“Are you?”

“I’m so sorry I organized this event.”

“You only wanted the best for everyone.”

“It’s been a disaster.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“Kerstin was so insulting to you. Stefan said it had to do with your past in Czechoslovakia.”

“Where is Stefan?”

“He told me you were badly traumatized by the suicide of some young student.”

“It wasn’t suicide.” She looks at me with her face puffy from tears and alcohol, and I continue tentatively, “Maybe we should all leave you in peace now.”

“I can’t let you leave in that frame of mind.” She grasps my hand and breathes booze-scented vapor in my face. “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Just close your eyes . . . then just breathe. Are you breathing now?”

“Yes, I’m breathing.

“Draw the air in really deep. Some people claim that humans can even live without breathing—or is it breathing without air? Anyway, you know what I mean. Keep your eyes closed.”

She lets go of my hand, turns to fumble around for something, and I feel something touching the palm of my hand.

“What’s this?” Something feels heavy, smooth, round. “A stone?”

“It’s not just a stone. It’s a sorrow stone. Open your eyes.”

She proceeds to explain in a trembling voice that the stone is one of my troubles, worry, a cause of sorrow, injustice, hurt, and that I can hold it in my hand in the form of the stone and let go, be freed of its weight.

“You don’t believe it works,” she says, giving a weak smile now. “Try it.”

Kerstin opens the bedroom door.

“Are you coming, Jan?”

Eva snatches the stone out of my hand and holds it out to Kerstin.

“Do you want to hold the sorrow stone, Kerstin?”

“Why?”

“Maybe you’re feeling sorry for hurting Jan’s feelings. And Stefan’s.”

“And yours.”

“Yes. Mine, too.”

“That stone is a little too small for such a great sorrow, Eva, darling.”

“No, it isn’t. Just give it a try.”

“Look, Eva. I don’t believe in stones.”

“You don’t even need to believe. Come here, sit down between Jan and me and hold it in your hand.”

Kerstin gives me a look as if we were the last sane beings on the face of the earth, then she comes over to the bed, and Eva moves to make room for her.

“Well, what now?” Kerstin asks with the stone in her hand.

“Keep your eyes closed.”

“And then what?”