Fingers Pointing Somewhere Else by Daniela Fischerova, Neil Bermel Page B

provocatively so, it took effort (tulips were a lot of work) and, most of all, it was tasteful. And now it is time to shed light on the two words “Boarskin” and “taste.”

    Every day Mrs. P. — beige, calm, in practical low heels — walks through the “small salon” because there is no other way out of the house. I lie in bed in my tattered t-shirt, my dirty socks sticking out from under the pillow. I pretend to sleep and she quietly goes out.This moment completely saps my will to get up. The sixties are beginning and the word “taste” has a very special ring to it.
    It is heard everywhere, it is the staunch protector of my childhood. You can dress tastefully or tastelessly. You dine tastefully, and entertain and decorate your home tastefully. Even art is primarily a matter of taste. Van Gogh is no longer crazy, but tasteful: he hangs in offices and dentists’ waiting rooms, sanctified by the genial spirit of the times as an appropriate accessory. It is an era when my country has renounced religion and has adopted a notably nebulous moral codex. Taste is not a personal matter, it is a universal, a dogma, and certain forbidden combinations of colors (for example, “crazy to be seen in blue and green”) have the taint of sin. It is as fixed as a nation’s borders and as binding as grammar. There is taste and tastelessness: mixed states are rare, and decisions are quick as to whether the case in question (at this time, for example, the Beatles) belongs here, or there. There are people who are dependable in these matters, and Mrs. P. belongs among these elect few.
    She fascinates me, and I cannot stand her. I flee from her any way I can. I roam aimlessly through empty Sundays, while she vacuums up the crumbs under my bed. A few times we clash in a fruitless debate and then steer clear of each other. Occasionally, when she is out, I walk through the apartment in envious indignation: everything in it harmonizes, like the music of the spheres. I have no taste; I cannot hear the secret voices that draw one thing to another. What’s worse, I reject them. I proclaim chaos and nothingness, I say silly things, I bite my nails, even at the table, and loudly insist that taste is the jackboot of arrogant mediocrity. And beauty? No, I don’t believe in beauty at all.

    And now for the word “Boarskin.”
    A long time ago my school organized a children’s fashion show aimed at developing our taste. For our edification andamusement (even humor was — in a certain restrained form — tasteful) they also offered an example to avoid. I was chosen for this heretical role: through the hazy layers of time I can see myself in stiletto heels swaying down the tables pushed together like a runway. I am in jeans and have a lacy jabot on my blouse, embodying what must be lunacy itself: after all, it is an unthinkable blunder, merely a cautionary exaggeration. In a few years this outfit will be commonplace, but today my classmates howl gleefully with laughter. There is music playing. I hop mink-like along the tables to its cha-cha rhythm, a stupid, saucy expression plastered deliberately across my face to emphasize the danger of my heresy. I am utterly intoxicated with my success. I still belong to the community of mankind. I am clear in my understanding of good and evil; the dogma is straightforward and transparent. What a simple spell! I am eleven.

    A memory: I am six and the fairy tale about Boarskin is on the radio. Strangely uneasy, I bang my ruler against the table as I listen intently to the voice I am trying in vain to drown out. In that version she had a softer name: Mouse-Fur. I know her by other names, too: Donkey-Skin, Rag-Girl, Cap-o-Rushes, Leather-Dress, Catskin — but I usually think of her as Boarskin. Why? Of all the names, it is the nastiest.
    In all these fairy tales a young girl, a princess, is so frightened by impending courtship that she flees