The Drowning Of A Goldfish by Lidmila; Sováková Page B

in slippers at home! In peace! Live our own lives!”
    We are sitting at the table in our slippers. Shoes wear out a carpet. The carpet is beautiful, a genuine Persian which triggers silky reflections of my childhood. It was exchanged for a piece of pork with an “enemy of the working class.”
    I chew. I swallow. I gag.
    A goldfish suffocates when removed from its crystal globe.
    I look towards the windows. The darkness is dense, the universe squeezed into this tight and sticky kitchen for the bourgeois’ use.
    He eats, therefore he is.
    I abhor, therefore I am.
    We are sitting at the table. It’s 10:00 and they are talking.
    One drinks a glass of slivowitz. They drink a glass of slivowitz.
    One clinks glasses. They clink glasses. To health. To success. To their success. To my defeat.
    One goes to bed. The bed is huge, spongy, suffocating. The eiderdown is as heavy as cast iron.
    At my side, Rudolf is starting to snore. The food was saturating, the booze was excellent. His day was well spent.
    Every quarter of an hour, a cuckoo comes out of the clock, filling my sleepless night with its mocking voice.
    Rudolf’s snoring is multiplied by the deafening rasp of his father and the hissing respiration of his stepmother.
    Country life has a thousand voices; none of them is mine.
    In solitary night vigil, I pierce the darkness with my sightless eyes. At the bottom of my throat, my heart throbs in alarm.
    Under the faded sky, mad dogs are howling at the moon.
    In the morning we go to pay a visit of respect to the grave of Rudolf’s mother. Every window squints at us with eager, suspicious eyes.
    Did Velenský’s son make a good catch? Did he marry according to his social standing? Has he got an heiress? Is she beautiful? The verdict is made in a second. If this ugly duckling has not got a fortune, the long years of Rudolf’s studies were wasted. They are dead sure to be right. Would an heiress walk around hatless, furless, skinny, ungroomed, without high heels? A rich woman is soft, white, plump, and dignified.
    I am treading along beside Rudolf, my head low, feeling miserable and lost.
    The cemetery is small and rural and surrounds a church of curvy baroque style. Not a peaceful place to rest, it reflects all the village’s rivalries, jealousies, and grudges. The rich keep their place in the sun, lying in dry, light sand. The poor rot amidst moistness and mildew. Rudolf’s mother is buried in an opulent marble tomb, her husband’s future dwelling.
    Velenský’s second wife, a widow herself, will retire, in all decency, to her former husband, under a modest stone sepulcher.
    The bourgeois mold is solid as a rock.
    Rudolf’s mother had the name and the virtues of the famous Virgin. Tender and obedient, she adapted to her husband’s will as quietly as leaves to wind. To encourage her sweet behavior, the cop whipped her with the crop used to chastise the children and the dog.
    The German shepherd revolted against it, destroyed the crop, buried the rod, and paid for it with his life. Being untamable, he was shot dead by the cop.
    Mary died of cancer.
    She had concealed her rotting cheek beneath a shawl, using the other to smile. The family should be spared her disgrace. She was scared that her disease would be known. Later on, who would marry a girl with a cancerous mother?!
    She worked right up to her last breath, cooking for the family, caring for the chickens and tending the garden.
    One day, she died in silence.
    The widower wailed, expressing his distress with long, drawn moans. The burial was an imposing drama. Four strong men were needed to prevent him from jumping into the open grave of his beloved wife.
    From then on, Velenský never stopped lamenting. The disloyalty of his deceased wife, who had retired herself from duty, was the eternal subject of his complaint.
    He was betrayed! His reputation had suffered! He had been tricked into marrying a disease-ridden