Ease
People are places. Places with
heartbeats.
Part
1
First, it was Bratislava. It has
collapsed or has been liberated. It depends on the side you're watching from.
There are two sides, two truths. She used to believe in one, wholeheartedly. Then
she’s got used to live the other one. Now she's
walking along the knife-edge not judging anyone´s truth. Just waiting for it to
be over.
It happened to Vienna, too. Freedom.
Or the death of dream about perfect society. Whatever you choose. Or is it better
to say- whatever they choose? The boundaries have been so blurry, she just
wanted to close her eyes and disappear. It was too hard to be someone, to
believe in something, to have trust in anybody but capricious god.
Now, it’s time for Brno. Brno has
struggled since the 17th of April. The air in Ořechov is still
trembling. The particles of dust have been restless ever since that day. The
helmets of Red Army's and Romanian armies' soldiers against Hitler’s last remnants of power. All that during his
birthday. Happy Birthday Mr. Hitler. Your Brno was captured. Even the city
center.
As she recklessly looks out of the
window, watching first light-hearted, impatient people climbing the debris in
joy, her mind is wandering away from Brno. She is thinking about the birthday
cake. Was there any for Mr. Hitler this year? Did he think about losing Brno
when he blew out birthday candles? Did he wish not to lose another city, just
please, not Brno, too? Did he wish it as wholeheartedly as she used to wish for
her birthday - tons of love and happiness for her family and friends? And was
he so unpleasantly surprised by the result as she happened to be, when many of
her friends and her family members just vanished because of Mr. Hitler´s wish?
Or did some people wish the same as Mr. Hitler for their birthday? Did they?
There were times when even they didn’t know what was right and what was wrong. What could
she know? Which side should she join? Was it wrong to label Jews with the
yellow Jewish star stitched to their clothes? Her friends were so proud to be
Jews, so what's the fuss about stating it by their clothes? Back then, at her
alma mater, the German Technical University, it was all justifiable. Not wrong,
not right but justifiable. All those villas in the Masaryk Quarter- all Jewish.
So you, Jews, be proud…State it. But anyway, she just loved to hang out with
their star-labelled folks in Café Esplanade.
It happened there. The turnover. How
she started to live different truth. Just imagine, a heated exchange of
opinions on literature with young not only Jewish intellectuals in this
architecturally stunning café, drinking coffee. Imagine her leaving the table,
heading to rest rooms. Imagine her sitting on the toilet, trying to figure out
a bulletproof argument in favor of her cause. Carefree chatter in background.
Suddenly, an awful sound. The glass is breaking. Over and over again. And then,
a squeaky scream. A man is screaming in panic. Wait, said to her her brain. A man
is screaming? How come? It froze her blood. The truth was born. She was sitting
there, not peeing anymore, just sitting, automatically praying to god without
being sure if there is any at all. The sounds of her friends mixed in one. Her
Jewish friends screaming from horror, her university fellas beating them,
demolishing what she loved. Goodbye sweet Café Esplanade. She almost
unconsciously took a pen from her purse while still sitting on the toilet with
her pants down. She hastily wrote down on the door the only thought in her head,
pushing so hard on the pen that it almost carved the letters into wood:
Horses are
melting down to the concrete. It´s winter. Time to go to sleep.
It just happened like this. Truth
was born. It screamed so loud as it was pushed out of the hatred's belly. Then
transportations, executions, ghettos, empty villas turning into Gestapo´s
branches. She has had these rewinding dreams about Café Esplanade ever since.
But she's living in the present. Not
the past. The die was cast. Everybody now knows how it's going to end, who was
right and who was wrong, which side is the advantageous one. She decides all of
the sudden to have a look on Café Esplanade. She joins the mob in the streets
which is heading towards the city hall. Mr. President has just come back from
exile. He´s speaking from the balcony of the city hall to the vindictive mass
of people about his decrees. “…the German issue in the Czechoslovakian Republic
must be exterminated…” Her mind recorded that phrase from his speech. Another
Mister. Another truth. One is exhaling its/his last breath, forcing own
believers or even bystanders to die with it, to march towards expulsion. The
other one is cheering at the city square with the flock of people. Who the hell
are we? She is walking through the city of disfigured bricks and characters
carrying one last undecided bird in her pocket - her mind. As she is walking through the streets, the
angry mob trapped in its own vicious circle becomes small and quiet.
Here is the street. Here is the
Café. Except, it´s not here. Oh, it suffered so much. Debris, only debris all
around. As if the bricks were people. She sits, rests. Who am I? Who the fuck
am I? - the question won't let her go. It´s so unbelievably hard to state it,
even if only in her mind. How come that all those people shout it so clearly?
They could wear their own sign - not a star…whatever… - only to show how
determined they are. She incidentally smiles on the irony. Did they forget this
place? The envy? What´s there to do for her? She takes an edgy stone, walks
through the destroyed hall, sees a cup on the floor- unbroken. There used to be
a toilet. There, she used to sit and think, in this quiet place. She sits on
the broken toilet bowl. Only one wall is still standing. She is carving out in
the bricks, patiently, she takes her time:
Part 1:
Horses are melting down to the concrete. It´s winter. Time to go to sleep.
Part 2: But rats are flying hastily, easily. A bunny
runs around the rock and he doesn't give a shit.
And as the last words are resting on
the wall, she knows the answer. She knows who she is. She is the place. She is
not screaming the hatred out of her anxious ego. She is the place, they can't
steal her away. She is rooted in this space, in this city with all its birds.
In all these walls, in all these parks, in all these trees, there are people
hidden. People without truth. She is listening to their heartbeats, to the
heartbeat of the place, to her own heartbeat. A bird in her pocket is gone. Her
mind is a place. Not a trapped bird. She can easily be one of these bricks. She
is one of these bricks beating her heart out.
Interlude
There's a pub. It´s called “Naproti”
(Opposite) A stinky one. All the conversations drowned in all those beers and
tapped as so many cigarettes- that would leave a mark here. The almost
unreadable inscription on the toilet door says:
absinth
We will drink
the wine, until we´ll be fine.
IS THAT ALL THERE IS?
Part
2
Okay, let's not panic. Let´s not die
out of tangled thoughts. Let's think rationally. There are so many ideas in her
head, but she can't touch them, can't enunciate them. They're coming from
nowhere, heading to nowhere. She´s like a slave of them, only a transfer
station. It somehow feels like it all matters too much. The burden of decision.
She suddenly can´t state her own position. It seems that she was abandoning all
what she has known just for…who knows. Her heartbeat is racing her footsteps.
She´s got lost. Her plan failed. Because she decided so, but what now? She is
walking back and forth, back and forth along Komenského square, watching her
new faculty coming closer and then again straggling away from her. She is like
a restless wild beast trapped in a small cage except she made her cage herself-
her mind with its assumptions, expectations, fears and desires. The spectacular
red church captivated her gaze. “Oh you, you´ve got the easiest life
whatsoever!” she spitted indistinctively out.
“You know your past, your future, you know who you are and what you
believe in. Don't you?” She needs to sit. The envy is overwhelming her.
She walks into the K2 building known
also for its Computer Room. It allegedly used to be a nazi university. There's
a small garden between the two buildings she has been in once. If she believed
in magic, this would be the place where to practice it. It is April but in the
garden, it's already May. It´s warmer than outside. The trees there, they are
already blossoming with small pinkie-purple flowers and buds all over them. It's
quiet here, no clinking and rattling of trams although they're just two walls
away. As she walks in, an unexpected calmness and ease seduces her heart. Her
mind isn't there yet. Her mind is in a war. She has just torn all expectations
apart, to small pieces. Let´s face it. She has left Bratislava; three years of
her study was just a waste of time. So, she has changed her major. Like that.
Never mind. She has ended up here in Brno, abandoned by all of her friends. Or
has she abandoned them? The truth is somewhere in between. And the only one
thing that left her after all this haste, she could still count on, has just
lost its meaning. Okay, she was lying. It wasn't “just”, it has been months
maybe even years but who does really look so deep within oneself and who does
have the fucking courage needed to admit you are living a lie? So, what? She
left her town, left her friends, left her fiancé. She is sitting right there,
in this splendid garden and she is amused by this confession. She is damned by
many right now, judged. She´s a runaway. She was labelled as a naïve, dreamy
girl with a wish for an unconditional magic love and self-respect. This was
their truth. And she…she couldn't even assert her truth, couldn't argue with
anyone because actually, maybe they were right. But was it all wrong? She was
just repeating to herself: “I just want to feel alive. I just want to feel
alive. I just want to love.” Suddenly, her mind has joined her heart. There
they are. Together: Here in this paradise in the middle of the city, in the
middle of all her personal struggle. Pigeons are swooshing with their wings and
there is this strange sound, like a heartbeat, like a mechanical heartbeat
coming out of the building, like it was the heart of Brno. It accompanies her
own heartbeat until they become one, the calmer, steadier one.
She doesn't have a plan but at least
she has courage to say: “Yeah, damn it. I was wrong. I hurt. I´m really sorry.
I will try not to fall for it again, to be better, to be true.” How is it
possible to be true without own truth? But there is this place, this garden,
this city and it will be there no matter how she decides, no matter who she
disappoints, who she loves, who she loses. It is the calmest feeling she has
experienced in months. All these flaws, twisted thoughts and choices are not so
serious anymore. It is not a burden. It is only human to admit there is no
truth. “You don't have to live up to anybody´s expectations,” she whispers. And
if everybody disappears, even if she will stand by herself with her dream; this
place, this city, the birds will be there. She is the place. She is its
calmness, its steady flow. Not right, not wrong. She is an integral part of a
place like everybody else. And if we all vanish one day, we as a place will
stay there. We are its story and the story is the place.
She is heading to the pub “Naproti”.
There are so many pubs. That´s Brno. She drinks a lot. She laughs a lot
although some may judge her. She´s sick
of alcohol. She pukes. She rests against the door. She looks at the door.
There's this thought:
absinth
We
will drink the wine,
until we´ll be fine.
IS
THAT ALL THERE IS?
She finds somewhere a pen and adds
with a distant smile:
It
was beautiful, in the middle of that madman's laugh,
In
the middle of all that noise,
To
lose all the vanity, sadness, to stop be tough
And
to feel the madman´s relief.
She was once terrified of the time
wasted on bad choices. Many people were, are and will be. She was once a mortal
scared human being desperately looking for the truth. But time can't be really
measured by clock, because clock is only an objective referent to another
clock. But time… time is in heartbeats. If mine once stops, it will be hidden
in all the places I have touched.
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