"So you're leaving? No skin off my nose," Fyodor declared, vigorously rubbing his small pink snub nose. He smiled, showing shiny steel fillings. I grinned back. Fyodor was probably my favorite student at the University of Truth and Justice, and certainly the most insane. I was bringing down my things when he accosted me in the elevator and forcibly took a couple of bags despite my protests.
"Unfortunately, I have to leave for now. But I wish you all the best, Fyodor. Don't stay up every night playing computer games, okay?"
Fyodor tugged at his scalp and made a face at the chunk of hair that came away in his hand. Fyodor didn't have much hair to spare. His father was Bulgarian and his mother Ukrainian and Fyodor had spent his childhood in a grimy village on the outskirts of Chernobyl, playing with stuff that glowed in the dark. An earlier bout with cancer had taken his spleen. He was far from unusual: most of our students seemed organ-deprived in one way or another. Sasha, the glowering Croat neo-conservative, had lost an eye (and his heart, according to the university wags) in the Balkan wars. Pretty little Natasha ate only kasha, oatmeal porridge, because of severe childhood malnutrition in Minsk. I was sitting opposite her one day at lunch when she ate some apple pie at the rash urging of her friend, Felicia. No one else noticed as Natasha held a napkin to her mouth and discreetly removed a bleeding portion of gum and tooth, still held in the delicious pie crust. Felicia was a plump jolly blonde from a provincial Romanian town, and unless you looked especially carefully past her carefree laughter, you would hardly notice that her left arm was paralysed and withered and that her laughter had a spluttering breathless edge to it from the black fumes that billowed from the giant aluminum smelter conveniently located near her town. I could attach poignant stories to familiar faces and as I left I knew that I would miss their old-fashioned courtesy and delight in conversation.
"Where are you going now?" Fyodor asked.
I checked my watch. "I'm meeting Immanuel and Divka for coffee, and then I have an appointment with some skinheads."
"Skinheads?" Fyodor seemed delighted. He ran his hand over the few remaining strands of red hair standing out in sharp contrast to his dead white scalp. "May I join you? I'm practically a skinhead myself."
As Fyodor and I took a tram down to the main train station, I looked back at the tall building that housed the University of Truth and Justice, its windows shining brightly in the orange blaze of a winter sunset. So much had happened in the few weeks since I had come to Prague. I felt a pang of nostalgia, tart and premature as unseasoned wine. I looked away and then looked back again. A green and white police car had turned the corner into the driveway of the university building, its lights casually flashing. And then another, and another. The tram pulled away and I lost sight. My nostalgia had disappeared in a hurry.
Fyodor was singing to himself softly, oblivious of police cars or of the heavy blank hostility of the other occupants of the crowded tram. He pulled out a mouth organ just as the tram lurched to a halt at the train station. I had a sudden idea.
"Fyodor," I hissed. "Have you ever been a busker?"
"A street musician?" Fyodor shrugged. "It's how I earned my train ticket to Prague this summer."
"Great. Let's find Immanuel and Divka and then do a little busking, okay?" We threaded our way through crowds of commuters and located Immanuel and Divka at the small café just inside the train station where we had arranged to meet. I greeted them and hurriedly explained my plan.
Predictably, Immanuel was flustered and confused, as philosophers tend to become at such moments. "Lemme get this straight," he blurted, contorting his thin face in an anxious grimace. "We should all try to hide in the crowd because the police are after the wrong person?"
"It's perfectly clear," Divka said impatiently. "The police want to use our poor friend here as a scapegoat. Since they are looking for him by himself, they will walk right by a group of street musicians. She turned to me, her face glowing. "And then you can get away!"
"I'm in." Fyodor took off his green corduroy cap and threw it onto the ground. He threw some change into the cap and pulled out his harmonica. "What shall we sing?"
"We'll make something up." Divka tugged at Immanuel's arm. "Come on, this is so much fun. I haven't done this since the last time the communists were looking for Wenceslas and we passed him on from one apartment to another by the fire-escape at the back of the building. They never figured out what was going on until he slipped and broke his ankle."
"You think the police will just walk by?" Immanuel sounded sceptical. "He's pretty distinctive, you know. Not that many Mongolians around here."
Divka shrugged. "We'll disguise him somehow."
I had an idea. "Divka, are you wearing stockings?" Puzzled, she squinted at me and nodded. "Will you give them to me?"
"My stockings will disguise you?"
"If I put them on my head."
"They're my only pair without holes," Divka pouted but then she relented. We stood in front, whistling nonchalantly as we shielded her from the stares of passers-by, as she hiked up her skirt and pulled off her pantyhose. An old drunk buying cigarettes behind Divka made an appreciative face when she mooned him.
Divka winced as I ruthlessly ripped her hose into two and pulled one half over my head. "I need holes for my eyes and mouth," I said, my voice muffled. Divka pulled out nail scissors from her capacious bag and carefully cut through the nylon. With growing enthusiasm, she began painting in eyebrows and applying a little rouge.
"There," she said, happily applying a little last-minute lipstick. "What a pretty skinhead you make."
The police car sirens grew closer. We went outside and took up position discreetly beside the main doors of the railway station. Divka and Fyodor struck up an impromptu a capella number, taking turns with each line, while Immanuel and I clapped and sang along, just as fat Lieutenant Boruvka breathlessly rushed up with a contingent of his men:
O Mister Fat Man
Whom do you seek?
Huffing, puffing
Out of breath
Why hunt the meek?
Think of your heart
Lard clogging your veins
Pushing, shoving
Always wrong
Why take such pains?
Do you want a heart attack
Turning blue, a falling cop
Jerking, convulsing
Dead fat man
Why didn't you stop?
The police gathered around after their unsuccessful sortie and the drug dealers and pimps cautiously emerged from assorted crevices in the cavernous train station. Immanuel raised his quavering tenor in an old Bob Dylan song. Boruvka and his troops retreated, crestfallen, having found no sign of their quarry. Just when I thought we were safe and began peeling off my stocking mask, Boruvka cast a last glance back and shrieked triumphantly. Many shirll whistle blasts later, the police hordes came galloping back in tidy formation.
"Get going!" Fyodor urged, shaking me out of my paralysis.
I regretfully abandoned my precious ostrich-skin bags. "Take care of my stuff for me, will you?"
Divka kissed me on the cheek and then my friends shoved me back into the train station. I looked at my watch and began to run. I had an appointment that I couldn't afford to miss. Fifteen breathless minutes later, I was shaking liberal Bob's hand in a deserted square in a working-class district. Desperate for cash, I had made a deal with Bob, a ticket to Berlin in exchange for a few photographs with some skinheads who wanted to punish me for being involved in the death of a white woman. The skinheads just wanted to teach a lesson to the Vietnamese community and the growing Chinese Mafia in Prague, and I had after all been working in an institution of higher learning., The skinheads quickly warmed up to their task of beating me up under the manic choreography of Bob and a photographer from his newspaper for Amerikan expatriates, Prahahaha!, and the additional impetus of a growing crowd of interested onlookers who jeered, hissed, tried to join in the fun, and when prevented, contented themselves with throwing rotten vegetables at me as I lay prostrate and bleeding from the brass knuckles and steel-toed boots of the skinheads, who then turned their attention to the photographer when he belatedly realized that he had enough pictures and tried to dissuade them from kicking me to death, but once he too lay unconscious on the pavement and the police sirens became louder, the skinheads left, still shaking their fists at me. All smiles, Bob gave me my ticket to Berlin and two hundred extra dollars, swearing that I had been the making of his newspaper and promising similar jobs in the future.
I staggered back to the train station. An hour later, I was gingerly applying antiseptic to my wounds in a small stinking train toilet, wincing at each shuddering jerk as the train jolted its way out of Prague. I would probably need stitches but I had cleaned most of my cuts and bruises for now. I stuck my head out into the narrow corridor and jerked it back in again. Lieutenant Boruvka stood on the fast-receding platform , vainly trying to stop the train. Just to be safe, I pulled Divka's stocking mask on again and stepped out into the corridor. As I came back towards my seat, a skinhead in full regalia, all swastikas and safety pins, cried out in fear and ran away screaming in guttural German. I stood baffled for a moment and then saw my grotesque reflection in the train window. Divka's makeup had smeared and run and my eyes and lips looked like they had melted. I was something out of Dali, a skinhead's nightmare. I smiled at myself and slipped into dreamless sleep.
"Unfortunately, I have to leave for now. But I wish you all the best, Fyodor. Don't stay up every night playing computer games, okay?"
Fyodor tugged at his scalp and made a face at the chunk of hair that came away in his hand. Fyodor didn't have much hair to spare. His father was Bulgarian and his mother Ukrainian and Fyodor had spent his childhood in a grimy village on the outskirts of Chernobyl, playing with stuff that glowed in the dark. An earlier bout with cancer had taken his spleen. He was far from unusual: most of our students seemed organ-deprived in one way or another. Sasha, the glowering Croat neo-conservative, had lost an eye (and his heart, according to the university wags) in the Balkan wars. Pretty little Natasha ate only kasha, oatmeal porridge, because of severe childhood malnutrition in Minsk. I was sitting opposite her one day at lunch when she ate some apple pie at the rash urging of her friend, Felicia. No one else noticed as Natasha held a napkin to her mouth and discreetly removed a bleeding portion of gum and tooth, still held in the delicious pie crust. Felicia was a plump jolly blonde from a provincial Romanian town, and unless you looked especially carefully past her carefree laughter, you would hardly notice that her left arm was paralysed and withered and that her laughter had a spluttering breathless edge to it from the black fumes that billowed from the giant aluminum smelter conveniently located near her town. I could attach poignant stories to familiar faces and as I left I knew that I would miss their old-fashioned courtesy and delight in conversation.
"Where are you going now?" Fyodor asked.
I checked my watch. "I'm meeting Immanuel and Divka for coffee, and then I have an appointment with some skinheads."
"Skinheads?" Fyodor seemed delighted. He ran his hand over the few remaining strands of red hair standing out in sharp contrast to his dead white scalp. "May I join you? I'm practically a skinhead myself."
As Fyodor and I took a tram down to the main train station, I looked back at the tall building that housed the University of Truth and Justice, its windows shining brightly in the orange blaze of a winter sunset. So much had happened in the few weeks since I had come to Prague. I felt a pang of nostalgia, tart and premature as unseasoned wine. I looked away and then looked back again. A green and white police car had turned the corner into the driveway of the university building, its lights casually flashing. And then another, and another. The tram pulled away and I lost sight. My nostalgia had disappeared in a hurry.
Fyodor was singing to himself softly, oblivious of police cars or of the heavy blank hostility of the other occupants of the crowded tram. He pulled out a mouth organ just as the tram lurched to a halt at the train station. I had a sudden idea.
"Fyodor," I hissed. "Have you ever been a busker?"
"A street musician?" Fyodor shrugged. "It's how I earned my train ticket to Prague this summer."
"Great. Let's find Immanuel and Divka and then do a little busking, okay?" We threaded our way through crowds of commuters and located Immanuel and Divka at the small café just inside the train station where we had arranged to meet. I greeted them and hurriedly explained my plan.
Predictably, Immanuel was flustered and confused, as philosophers tend to become at such moments. "Lemme get this straight," he blurted, contorting his thin face in an anxious grimace. "We should all try to hide in the crowd because the police are after the wrong person?"
"It's perfectly clear," Divka said impatiently. "The police want to use our poor friend here as a scapegoat. Since they are looking for him by himself, they will walk right by a group of street musicians. She turned to me, her face glowing. "And then you can get away!"
"I'm in." Fyodor took off his green corduroy cap and threw it onto the ground. He threw some change into the cap and pulled out his harmonica. "What shall we sing?"
"We'll make something up." Divka tugged at Immanuel's arm. "Come on, this is so much fun. I haven't done this since the last time the communists were looking for Wenceslas and we passed him on from one apartment to another by the fire-escape at the back of the building. They never figured out what was going on until he slipped and broke his ankle."
"You think the police will just walk by?" Immanuel sounded sceptical. "He's pretty distinctive, you know. Not that many Mongolians around here."
Divka shrugged. "We'll disguise him somehow."
I had an idea. "Divka, are you wearing stockings?" Puzzled, she squinted at me and nodded. "Will you give them to me?"
"My stockings will disguise you?"
"If I put them on my head."
"They're my only pair without holes," Divka pouted but then she relented. We stood in front, whistling nonchalantly as we shielded her from the stares of passers-by, as she hiked up her skirt and pulled off her pantyhose. An old drunk buying cigarettes behind Divka made an appreciative face when she mooned him.
Divka winced as I ruthlessly ripped her hose into two and pulled one half over my head. "I need holes for my eyes and mouth," I said, my voice muffled. Divka pulled out nail scissors from her capacious bag and carefully cut through the nylon. With growing enthusiasm, she began painting in eyebrows and applying a little rouge.
"There," she said, happily applying a little last-minute lipstick. "What a pretty skinhead you make."
The police car sirens grew closer. We went outside and took up position discreetly beside the main doors of the railway station. Divka and Fyodor struck up an impromptu a capella number, taking turns with each line, while Immanuel and I clapped and sang along, just as fat Lieutenant Boruvka breathlessly rushed up with a contingent of his men:
O Mister Fat Man
Whom do you seek?
Huffing, puffing
Out of breath
Why hunt the meek?
Think of your heart
Lard clogging your veins
Pushing, shoving
Always wrong
Why take such pains?
Do you want a heart attack
Turning blue, a falling cop
Jerking, convulsing
Dead fat man
Why didn't you stop?
The police gathered around after their unsuccessful sortie and the drug dealers and pimps cautiously emerged from assorted crevices in the cavernous train station. Immanuel raised his quavering tenor in an old Bob Dylan song. Boruvka and his troops retreated, crestfallen, having found no sign of their quarry. Just when I thought we were safe and began peeling off my stocking mask, Boruvka cast a last glance back and shrieked triumphantly. Many shirll whistle blasts later, the police hordes came galloping back in tidy formation.
"Get going!" Fyodor urged, shaking me out of my paralysis.
I regretfully abandoned my precious ostrich-skin bags. "Take care of my stuff for me, will you?"
Divka kissed me on the cheek and then my friends shoved me back into the train station. I looked at my watch and began to run. I had an appointment that I couldn't afford to miss. Fifteen breathless minutes later, I was shaking liberal Bob's hand in a deserted square in a working-class district. Desperate for cash, I had made a deal with Bob, a ticket to Berlin in exchange for a few photographs with some skinheads who wanted to punish me for being involved in the death of a white woman. The skinheads just wanted to teach a lesson to the Vietnamese community and the growing Chinese Mafia in Prague, and I had after all been working in an institution of higher learning., The skinheads quickly warmed up to their task of beating me up under the manic choreography of Bob and a photographer from his newspaper for Amerikan expatriates, Prahahaha!, and the additional impetus of a growing crowd of interested onlookers who jeered, hissed, tried to join in the fun, and when prevented, contented themselves with throwing rotten vegetables at me as I lay prostrate and bleeding from the brass knuckles and steel-toed boots of the skinheads, who then turned their attention to the photographer when he belatedly realized that he had enough pictures and tried to dissuade them from kicking me to death, but once he too lay unconscious on the pavement and the police sirens became louder, the skinheads left, still shaking their fists at me. All smiles, Bob gave me my ticket to Berlin and two hundred extra dollars, swearing that I had been the making of his newspaper and promising similar jobs in the future.
I staggered back to the train station. An hour later, I was gingerly applying antiseptic to my wounds in a small stinking train toilet, wincing at each shuddering jerk as the train jolted its way out of Prague. I would probably need stitches but I had cleaned most of my cuts and bruises for now. I stuck my head out into the narrow corridor and jerked it back in again. Lieutenant Boruvka stood on the fast-receding platform , vainly trying to stop the train. Just to be safe, I pulled Divka's stocking mask on again and stepped out into the corridor. As I came back towards my seat, a skinhead in full regalia, all swastikas and safety pins, cried out in fear and ran away screaming in guttural German. I stood baffled for a moment and then saw my grotesque reflection in the train window. Divka's makeup had smeared and run and my eyes and lips looked like they had melted. I was something out of Dali, a skinhead's nightmare. I smiled at myself and slipped into dreamless sleep.
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