Devil's Workshop (5 page)

Sure. I nodded. Rolf didn’t care, he didn’t speak Czech.

Alex explained that he had learned Czech as a soldier in the Soviet army that occupied our country after 1968. I kept Bojek on a rope. He didn’t mind Rolf any more, but I’m sure he would’ve been happy to butt Alex or Maruška.

While Alex stood there talking, waving his arms around, Rolf took out his camera – he often sold stories about newcomers to magazines so the world could see how the Comenium was growing – but at the sound of the first click Alex shot out his hand and Maruška twitched wildly. The next thing I knew they had Rolf boxed in and Alex was holding the camera, saying things were different in Belarus than in the rest of Europe and they weren’t too keen on any publicity, got it?

Got it! Rolf squeaked. Alex handed his camera back. I noticed his long, nervous fingers, which would really come in handy working at the computer, say, or using a scalpel – he had said he was a medic, worked at the Biochemical Institute at the Soviet base in Milovice. I think he told us that so we wouldn’t think he’d driven one of those tanks that shot people here in ’68, or even worse, that he was KGB. Are you kidding? A lowly medic? We kept the chatter moving so we could get acquainted, and also, I’m sure, to clear our minds of Alex’s brief act of violence. You’re from Belarus? And it’s different there? OK, we respect that. We nodded at each other, smiling.

Maruška stood with her hands folded across her chest, the smell of her body rising from her sweaty T-shirt. Horseflies, houseflies, and midges, baffled with bliss after flying through the zone of her aroma, were never the same again, I’m sure. Golden-red hair down to her shoulders, barefoot – which was a little bit reckless! – standing in the red grass like she had been here all along.

It was obvious the two of them weren’t your ordinary deranged bunk seekers, but they were extremely interested in our work to save the fortress town.

Then Rolf rolled an enormous joint – he’d tested the effects of the rust-coloured grass a while back, mixing it with tobacco – he rolled a joint for our little group and handed it to Alex. Lots of our students had taken a liking to the red grass. Nobody knew why it had such an uplifting effect.

Alex hadn’t come to heal, though. He was interested in our revitalization project and what he enjoyed most was coming to our little office, partitioned off from the rest of the bunkroom by boards, and standing beside my computer, stunned at some of the names we were working with in our campaign to save Terezín. He was truly in awe of our work to save the town of death. We had long since ceased writing only to former prisoners and relatives of the massacred. We were supplementing our contacts from the press and the Internet daily, and we didn’t hesitate to lean on captains of industry, coal barons, prime ministers, do-gooder fashion models, hockey stars, and giants of international politics. Sara or Rolf, depending on who had time, lent their excellent English to our appeals. Lebo was famous now, and as the Guardian of Terezín he knocked on nearly every door. He didn’t spare anyone. Many were glad to contribute, since they wanted to set the world’s memory straight, and some didn’t give a damn, but when Lebo himself made the appeal, it was easier for them just to throw some change his way than to go on ignoring him. Rolf and his journalist friends went on filling the pages of the world’s newspapers with confessions of the youthful bunk seekers, who described how they had sought therapy for their wounds, their derangement, how they wanted to be the same as their cheerful and happy peers, but couldn’t because of all the ghastly stories trapped in their minds, so they’d made a pilgrimage to the East, where there were still ruins that they could touch with their own hands, and how with Lebo they had found peace. And these confessions of
second-and
third-generation Holocaust victims were intermingled with the story of Lebo, and according to Rolf it was a tale that shook the world’s conscience, touching the depths of horror while at the same time offering hope. And then Rolf coordinated a couple of TV reports from our town, in which Lebo, standing tall and straight in his black suit, spoke about the horror of the world and how to live with it, to a crowd of tourists in the Main Tent on Central Square. The TV barely showed our sittings, because after Lebo’s evening lectures, after his teaching on the horror of the world, came play time, when we danced. We were also often happy just to sit around the ramparts, sipping red wine, smoking grass, gazing up at the stars or into the fires, acquiring peace of mind. What the TV broadcast to the world, of course, was the story of the bunk seekers, who had come to the town of death in search of the world’s most horrible mystery, namely, absolute evil. Dancing in our healing collective, yes, these victims of their own tortured thoughts cleansed themselves through dance. The healing force flowed visibly from dancer to dancer, bound to each other by burning sheaves and braids of sparks. The dances at the foot of the town’s steep red walls were led by the girls who sold our souvenirs, and by Sara and Lea the Great of course, who, as founders of the Comenium, sat on either side of Lebo during the evening sittings.

Yes, Rolf really pulled it off: there was some fabulous footage. The money just kept rolling in after that … and rolling and rolling – piles of cash.

Not only that, but our students came up with lots of ideas for grants and loans and subsidies to cover the costs of the launch of our educational centre, the only one of its kind in the world.

Sara, being practical, coordinated the operation.

The students started looking for money on their own, so their
parents
and relatives often ended up on our list, along with an impressive constellation of companies, firms, businesses, and other establishments.

That was the situation when me and Rolf and Bojek met the two Belarusians.

And from that moment on Alex didn’t let me out of his sight. As for Maruška, well, I would’ve loved to talk to her, to stroll around town with her or something. But she was with Alex constantly, like his shadow.

And one evening, during the dancing, Alex pulled the same move he had used against the camera, only this time against a person. Feita, one of the bunk seekers who had come out of his depression and landed back on his feet with us, was dancing, feeling no pain, and, emboldened by the red grass, he asked Maruška to join him. She of course declined – she never danced – but the blissed-out Feita tried to lift her up, and all of a sudden Alex was there and Feita was knocked to the ground.

Alex stood over him. Waiting to see what the other students would do? What I would do? We’d never had anything like that happen here before. Feita’s friends dragged him away, gave him something to drink. And went on dancing. The Belarusians walked around in a bit of a bubble after that. Maruška doesn’t dance, OK, now everybody knows.

We worked without rest, building a new life for the town on the ruins of its past.

And one day Lea remembered that before she went crazy with pain and confusion she had been an outstanding student of architecture, so I started riding around in taxis with her, lugging easels and drawing boards, all sorts of tools and supplies that smelled like the first day of school. We also bought a set of special erasers and some other stuff over the Internet. Lea and I never slept overnight in Prague.

At Lea’s urging, and under her supervision, many of our students left their computer games and blogs, or however they spent their free time, and cleared away some of the rubble, carting away fallen beams and piles of bricks, creating a clean and welcoming space for her studio.

In winter we’ll take over the barracks, Lea said, looking ahead.

And together with her fellow architects, and other artistically gifted students, she set to work.

We’ll rebuild anything in Terezín that has fallen or is falling down, she said. It goes without saying that we won’t look for guidance to the unresponsive Monument or the unwilling government. We’ll go our own way!

And when, one evening, Lea the Great laid out for Lebo her latest idea – namely, to team up with the eminent architects of the world, through her alma mater naturally, and launch a competition for the renewal and general beautification of the town – ahem, how about it?

Lebo beamed.

It’s going to cost some money of course, quite a bit in fact, said the slightly red-faced Lea.

Lebo laughed.

He walked happily among the easels as the students drew new versions of the fallen walls, collapsed homes, and flood barriers, boldly sketching the new, proud towers of an expansive town that up until now had existed only in our minds.

Lebo was central and crucial and indispensable to all of us, talking to the crowds in the Main Tent during the day and to us at the evening sittings. I often pounded away on the computer alone now, following his instructions and our previous efforts.

I had our contacts, the whole database, stored safely away in the Spider, and also on the computer, and I added to it constantly.

Alex sat with me at the computer in the bunkroom.

He must have had the plan in his head for a long time.

He quickly realized the only one with a full list of our lucrative network, from whales to minnows, was me.

Not all of the Comenium’s activities were suitable for television and the eyes of the world: the evening sittings in our squat were just for us.

Every evening the newcomers, as well as the old hands, would sit in a circle around Lebo.

Anyone could enter the Main Tent for a fee, but the evening sittings were just for the core of our community, the Comenium. Evenings were for the bunk seekers – we could always pick them out among the ordinary tourists and prying types, Sara and Lea the Great without fail, and even Rolf by now. They were the ones who brought the bunk seekers to Lebo. It was only truly worth it for the unhappy and ill. Here in the house of Comenius, in our squat, it was all for real. Lebo would sit on the bunk where his mother had given birth illegally and he had acquired his name and talk about the long-ago horrors of the town of evil, the death of tens of thousands within the walls where we now breathe, and all those who walked out of these walls to the trains that carried them to their death. Then he would pass around the objects, so we all had a chance to touch them, bringing his tale of the past so vividly to life that images of what had happened flashed before our eyes. Some would cry out, yes, many shed tears, but Lebo had a way out for even the most hopeless: It happened and it’s impossible to grasp, but despite all the horror you can live on. Look at me! I was born here and I’m still alive! Lebo’s words pierced the black clouds in the heads of those hypersensitive youths like a red-hot iron, and Sara got the idea of lighting the night with candles, so Lebo’s ideas would make even more of an impression. Lebo’s talk was more powerful than all the displays and textbook pages put together. Yes, the students loved his teaching, and during those long evenings in our squat, stoned on rampart grass, they trembled in their bunks, inserting their minds into Lebo’s like fingers in a wound.

But then something changed.

As our fame advanced around the world, as our fame increased, it happened.

The footage of our games, the images of dancing girls, flew around the world. We were famous. But a lot of journalists weren’t writing the same thing as Rolf and his friends. Newspapers still ran front-page photos of Lebo, proud and upright in his black suit, but surrounded by a group of girls in flowing dresses and skirts, adorned with blades of grass. ‘Hippie Commune in Town of Death’, read one caption. ‘Old Jew Operates Harem’, said another. And then they really started to write about us a lot, and we were getting too many people, and some of them were calling us names. According to our enemies, we were shamelessly milking people’s misery to pay for our orgies. They sent detectives and a taxman and the financial guard to investigate.

Naturally, accounting wasn’t our organization’s strong point.

Our strong point was enthusiasm.

Several investigations were opened. Inspectors raided our stalls and confiscated our goods, saying they wanted to ascertain if they were legally acquired. Hygiene officials, disguised as tourists, purchased large quantities of ghetto pizza and sent samples to a lab. We were
forbidden
to sell any more till the results came back. And more charges followed. There were summonses to interrogations crumpled up in little balls and tossed all over the place.

It wasn’t a good time for me.

I knew I couldn’t go to jail.

But where would I go?

Then I got a package. With a letter and a return address.

I thought maybe someone had spotted the picture of me as Lebo’s right-hand man, the way Sara had. No one had ever written to me before, let alone from America. I walked through the grass, taking Bojek with me, and opened the letter.

It was signed Mr Mára. Bojek nuzzled the envelope. I pushed him away and grabbed it. A CD-ROM.
Hidden and Dangerous Deluxe 5
. Ha! That was the game the students at the Comenium played the most. Not me, I didn’t have time.

I didn’t read the letter again. I crumpled it into a little ball and threw it away. Let the wind take it, I thought.

I was sitting by the ramparts with Bojek, the only one left of my flock, blind and lame, poor thing, in his frayed collar.

All of a sudden Alex was standing there in front of me. With Maruška. She was smiling.