The Man that No-one Saw

As dusk was falling over Prague, a shadow flickered in the dark streets of the Jewish quarter. A tall, thin man in a long coat hurried along, deftly avoiding passers-by. He skirted round two old women with covered heads and a tired stove fitter. He dashed past a hunchbacked rag-and-bone man who was sitting in front of a shop on a stool with one leg shorter than the others. He nimbly jumped over a hen which was happily pecking at some sewage spilled over the cold cobblestones. He dodged wheelbarrows filled with vegetables and a staggering drunk in a paint-spattered overall.

He ran through the narrow streets with their dark, musty houses. His echoing steps boomed as though they were harbingers of evil. He kept his face lowered so that it was impossible to see his eyes. However, if someone had looked into them, they would have seen a silently screaming terror within them. He was nervously clutching something in his clammy right hand.

He ran out of Rabín Street and along Hampejská. He stopped for a few seconds outside the pub U Denice, as though debating whether or not to enter. Or perhaps he only needed to catch his breath. He continued on at almost full pelt. At one critical moment the object he was tightly grasping glinted in the twilight. From the rich lustre it was clear that it was a bar of gold.

No-one had any inkling that he had left the house at number 255 Rabín Street that afternoon. And no-one was ever supposed to find out, because death had entered the house that day, and he was the one who had invited it in.

Mother was just clearing the table. Karel disappeared outside again; his friends were whistling for him from below the window. Kuba remained seated. He took out a piece of paper. There was still some space in the bottom right corner. He already knew what he would draw. He had been thinking about it all the time he had been eating. A horse. The kind that Váchal the carter had. A skewbald. Pawing the ground with his front leg.

Kuba was two years younger than Karel and completely different in character. He didn’t like to fight. He was too small in build and could be easily knocked about, although if it came down to it, little Kuba would slug it out stubbornly till his last breath. He never gave up.

Mother tidied up the kitchen. A quiet atmosphere of contentment filled the house. Father was at work and Karel was outside. Kuba tried to imagine the precise appearance of the horse’s leg, but he couldn’t do it. Lost in thought, he chewed away at his pencil. How come I don’t know when I see the horse every day? he said to himself rather crossly.

The leg he had sketched stood out unnaturally from the horse’s body. The drawing was going badly. Kuba frowned. Mother came up to him and leaned over the picture. She smiled and patted the boy on the head. He would completely fill each piece of paper with his drawings. She knew that his constant urge to draw was due to his talent – a talent which he most likely got from her late brother Toník. She never skimped on buying paper for little Kuba, even though it was expensive.

“You should probably bend the leg downwards, like this,” she advised her son, showing him with her finger the direction of the stroke. “But otherwise the horse looks very real.”

But Kuba just frowned even more. It made him angry when he wasn’t able to draw what he wanted. He pushed the chair sharply away from the table so that it scraped noisily along the wooden floor. He jumped up and had a good mind to scrunch up the paper and throw it away. However, the paper cost a lot of money and there was still some space on it.

“It’s all wrong!” he shouted.

“That doesn’t matter. The next one will turn out better!” Mother had a kind and gentle voice.

“I ruined the whole thing” said Kuba furiously.

Mother put the plates into the dresser and came back over to Kuba. She patted him on the head again.

“You have to be patient,” she said pleasantly.

But Kuba just frowned and said nothing. He wasn’t at all patient, and more than anything he couldn’t stand it when his drawings were going badly. He got very annoyed with himself.

“I’m going to run over to the carter’s to have a look,” he finally announced to his mother, because despite his best efforts he couldn’t recreate a living horse in his imagination.

“OK,” agreed Mother, “But don’t be long!” She handed Kuba his short jacket and his cap. “And be careful,” she added, as always.

Kuba rushed out of the door to his house on the corner of Dlouhá and Hradební Street. The Schikaneders were Catholics. Kuba had been christened by the priest in St Jakub’s church, which was very near the house where the family lived. It wasn’t at all unpleasant to live at the edge of the Jewish quarter in the Old Town. There the Catholic and Jewish worlds encountered each other in a peaceful, kind and conciliatory atmosphere. The neighbours knew each other and got along together without any problems. Everyone had their place here.

Kuba ran to the carter’s, but when he got there he discovered that Mr Váchal was away with his cart.

Fury smouldered within Kuba. How is it I can’t remember exactly what a horse’s leg looks like? he raged inwardly. He knew that he wouldn’t find peace until he had drawn the horse properly. And now he was to leave empty-handed? No way!

He carried on into the Jewish quarter. But, of course, they’ve got horses here too! In autumn Katz the coalman hired a whole team of them for delivering coal. Kuba was pleased that he had remembered this and quickened his pace.

He ran along Hampejská Street and down into Rabín to the courtyard of house number 255. However, there were no horses to be seen, although there was a large red admiral butterfly on the wall beside the gate. This was odd as it was autumn and butterflies no longer flew around the city. But before Kuba could get a better look at the multicoloured butterfly, something plummeted onto the stone cobbles beside him. There was the sound of a dull thud. It was all over in an instant.

Right in front of Kuba on the cobbles beside the gutter lay the body of a pretty young woman. Her arms stretched out limply. Bright red blood had begun to flow around her head. There was no doubting that she was dead. She must have fallen from the courtyard gallery.

Kuba froze. He was paralyzed with fear. He stared breathlessly at the girl’s gentle face stained with blood and at her thick hair, which had come undone from its ponytail and now spread around the girl’s head like a mysterious halo. It was quickly becoming matted with blood.

Then someone knocked into Kuba so forcefully that he fell to the ground. It was only when his head struck the cold cobblestones that he became aware of people in the courtyard. Until now no-one had spoken, but all of a sudden there was motion everywhere. Footsteps clattered on the cobbles.

“Muuurder!” screamed a woman.

And then another squeaky, equally high-pitched voice: “Muuurder! Heeeeelp!”

“Anežka!” roared a man’s deep voice.

“Police! Call the police!” added another woman.

“My dearest Anežka!” came the muffled voice of a younger woman, breaking into a desperate cry.

Voices shouted out at the same time, merging into one confused din.

Kuba got up. His head hurt from his fall and for a very brief moment he couldn’t see anything. When he regained his sight, he tottered out of the courtyard. In the growing confusion no-one noticed him. He hadn’t even made it to the next house when he started to be sick.

This gave him some relief, so he was able to continue on his way. He would have liked to run, but it was impossible. His body felt weary and strangely numb. He didn’t notice the piercing whistles of the policemen. He left 255 Rabín Street without even realizing that there was blood coming from his knee, his right forearm and his temple. He didn’t notice how much it hurt until he bumped into a tottering figure.

“What are you doing, getting in my way?!” shouted the man in the overcoat sternly. He abruptly raised his hand, which was holding a book.

Kuba didn’t answer.

“You almost made me drop this artistic gem!” he thundered. “This is Jules Verne!” he said, lecturing Kuba, and thrust the large novel in front of his face. “A great artist of the new age! Cinq semaines en ballon, you rapscallion!”

The man fell silent for a moment and frowned. Then he shook his head as though he were quarrelling with someone and waved his arm in a bitter gesture: “But no-one here knows anything about him! Of course not!”

Kuba stared breathlessly at him.

“No-one here appreciates real art. Prague is a European outpost, the less said about it the better,” said the man, continuing his lamentation. Then he looked at the boy, who was scared to death, and realized that the child couldn’t understand what he was saying. “Be off with you then, boy!” he finally shouted.

He turned round and continued walking to the Unionka Café to persuade the publisher Vilímek to bring out his book in Czech. He was fairly certain that he would have no luck. In fact, Neruda had got used to being shown the door…

Kuba shot off home. Suddenly he was able to run again.

Just as Mother was beginning to wonder whether to go and look for her son, Kuba finally returned. Terrified and exhausted, he embraced his mother tightly at the doorway. His trouser legs were torn and the blood had started to dry on his knees. His forehead was scraped, the right temple covered in blood, and he also had dried spots of blood on his arm.

“Good Lord, what happened to you?! Who were you fighting with?” asked Mother in alarm. She carried Kuba into the kitchen – even though he was already big and heavy.

“I wasn’t in a fight. Somebody bumped into me,” explained Kuba, confused. “I fell and hurt myself. I can’t remember. A strange man threatened me with a book.”

Mother didn’t waste time and immediately began to heat some water on the stove so that she could wash Kuba properly and clean out his wounds. That was important, even if it did hurt like the devil.

Kuba cried. He had a fever and was asleep before Mother had carried him to bed.

Even after a few days, when the fever had passed, Kuba was still unable to recall what had happened that day. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember. But despite that, he never forgot.

(Translated by Graeme Dibble)