"Where the devil is Lucy?"
I looked up in surprise. Professor Masaryk seemed agitated. His tie was askew and the buttons of his rumpled suit jacket were in the wrong holes. It was Monday morning and I didn't feel like telling him that his favourite secretary was probably carousing in the arms of an Amerikan embassy flack. "I'm afraid I don't know, sir," I lied sympathetically. "I saw her on Friday. Maybe she took a few days off."
"I don't know how I can work with you people!" the Director of the Prague college of the University of Truth and Justice said vehemently. He exasperatedly flipped through the papers on my desk with shaking hands and glared at the beer bottles and pizza boxes in my trashcan and at the bent butts in my ashtray. "How can we rely on you? You are untidy. You are irresponsible. You drink, smoke, and eat fattening foods. You take days off. You are young!"
"Don't worry, sir, we'll get older," I said, emptying the ashtray into the garbage in an effort to calm him.
"Yes, but it will be too late by then!" Masaryk replied heatedly. I bent to pick up the papers that he had sent flying all over the parquet. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled around on the floor looking at each piece of paper. "Where is it, oh, where is it? Otto will shout at me, I know it..." he mumbled tearfully.
"What exactly are you looking for, sir?"
"The agenda of this afternoon's meeting," Professor Masaryk replied, his cheeks waxen with worry. "Lucy typed it and sent copies to everyone, and now I've lost my copy. And she's not here. Oh, Lucy, where are you? Nobody has given me vitamins for days!"
I handed The Director a sheet of paper and a pill. His enormous sigh of relief made the papers on the floor fly like confetti all over the room and his large sunken eyes jumped back into place. He ran out of the room, whistling and skipping. I blinked a few times and picked up the remaining papers. I noticed a small crumpled piece of coarse toilet paper with a blotchy scrawled message on it. It was my turn to sigh. My boss, Otto Hell, had the unhygienic habit of scribbling his memoranda in the hours he spent closeted in the water closet. I tried to decipher his latest missive. It seemed to read `Gone fishing. Best wishes, Otto.' I looked out the window and pouted. It was a beautiful afternoon outside and I wished Hell had taken me fishing with him.
And as I sat in the dim conference room, panelled from ceiling to floor with somber walnut wood, reluctantly inhaling its musty odors of wood polish and stale air, I dreamed of the shady bank of a gurgling brook, of the drowsy drone of cicadas, of the dappled iridescence of leafy trees in bright sunlight, of pretty girls in white dresses and straw hats, of wicker picnic baskets and thick green bottles and thin stemmed glasses of champagne and bowls of strawberries, of blithe laughter and naive games, sweet dreams of an innocence I had never known... With a start, I realized that the meeting had already begun and that Professor Masaryk was impatiently asking me to take the minutes.
"As chairman, in the absence of our rector Lord Hades, I call this meeting to order," the Director began pompously. "As you know, we are gathered here to organize the activities of the Department of Culture. Novak is the chairman of the department but..." Masaryk turned to Professor Jiri Novak with an avuncular smile and palpitated his shoulder with a series of painful squeezes. "I hope he will let me give a few suggestions from time to time as an older colleague." Novak giggled, wriggled his neck from side to side, muttered something inaudible, and surreptitiously massaged his shoulder, making sure that nothing was broken. "We must introduce our students to the delights of culture!" the Director exclaimed excitedly, spreading his arms out wide. "To the delights of Central European culture! Welcome to Prague! This is what we must say to them. Welcome to the world of Schopenhauer, Schnitzler, Weininger, Freud, and Kafka! Welcome to the charms of Weltschmerz!"
A short balding man crossed his arms across his barrel chest and yawned ostentatiously. "Ah, yes, Piknik!" Masaryk exclaimed warmly. "You must give us the benefit of your advice." Everyone stared curiously at the famous ex-dissident. Cain Piknik cocked his head back on his thick neck and stared at the ceiling through closed eyes. A hush fell over the room, broken a few moments later by the sound of loud rhythmic snoring. "We will let him think," Masaryk said graciously. He turned again to Novak. "Now, Jiri. Introduce your staff to me. Tell me what they will teach our students."
"Well, Tomas..." Novak began hesitantly. "Shouldn't we begin with what we will teach?"
Masaryk seemed surprised. "Why, sociology, of course! I thought it had all been settled, my dear fellow."
"Well, Tomas, I don't think it has been settled..." A fierce red glint began to glow at the back of Novak's normally mild brown eyes as he rolled up the sleeves of his jacket in preparation for the usual brawl.
I gathered up my courage and decided to intervene. "Gentlemen, with all possible respect," I said firmly. "May I remind you of Lord Hades' solution to this issue? Neither Philosophy nor Sociology, the great man has said, but Culture." I sat back, satisfied, having said my piece.
Both men looked disconcerted and dissatisfied, like boxers who had been stopped from entering the ring at the very beginning of a championship fight and told that the prize money would be split between them and that there was no reason in the world for them to inflict brain damage on one another. "But what is culture?" Novak said rebelliously. Masaryk didn't seem to know the answer to that one either. Silence sat heavily in the room.
Piknik opened one eye briefly. "Half and half," he said enigmatically in a husky baritone and then closed his eye again. Satisfied snores again punctuated the baffled silence.
Immanuel meekly raised a hand at the end of the table. "I think I know what Mr. Piknik means. He wants us to split the spoils. We should hire one person from each related discipline. A sociologist." Masaryk nodded. "A philosopher." Novak nodded. "An architect." Masaryk nodded. "A philologist." Novak nodded. "An anthropologist." Both men shook their heads. "A historian." Both men burst out simultaneously in horrified disagreement.
"Coffee," the oracle murmured huskily. Eager hands filled a cup and raised it to Piknik's lips. He drank it down in a gulp, smacked his lips, shook himself, opened his eyes wide, and spoke in a pleasant tenor voice. "Are you a philosopher, my boy? I thought so. Only someone trained to decipher cryptic utterances pregnant with profound meaning can understand what I mean. This is the problem with the editorials I write for my newspaper. Novak and you can teach philosophy. Masaryk, I will persuade Flysenko, the famous Polish sociologist, to join you. And Hachek Katastrofski can be your architect. He is young and he still has some fascist leanings which proves that he is a bright lad with ambition. I know nothing about philology. I must go. I have a plane to catch. Be so kind as to give me ten thousand dollars immediately as my regular consultation fees. Thank you very much. I will mention your department and this university favorably in my next editorial. You will then have many Polish students. You will give me five thousand dollars per student. My fees for headhunting. The circulation of my newspaper is now over seven million since I decided to print soft pornography. Can you explain to me why men like to look at large uncovered breasts when they eat breakfast? I must run. Is the limousine downstairs? My private jet is waiting. Being a dissident was much more fun. Please give my best regards to Xox. Goodbye." Piknik walked rapidly around the conference table, shaking hands cordially with everyone except Divka, whose hand he raised to his lips with a fervent flourish and kissed with a self-satisfied smack, and then, slamming doors and whistling heartily, the oracle was gone.
"I know a philologist," Divka said uncertainly, breaking the thoughtful silence. "But I don't know if she will join the department."
"Why not?" Masaryk and Novak both looked offended. "We are both famous intellectuals. We have won prizes. Our weighty tomes are published in many languages. No conference is complete without our presence. Surely it would be an honor for any woman to work for us."
"I'm talking about Marya Madlenova," Divka said succinctly. Man whistled softly and both Masaryk and Novak looked alarmed. As well they might: Madlenova was not merely a world-famous intellectual who had won every single prize going, including the Goebbel for her nostalgic novel Before Calvary, and whose incredibly erudite academic writings were translated into every language, and whose presence at a conference would be reported on the front page of the New York Times; she was a legend. The only daughter of a Bulgarian diplomat of secretly noble extraction, Madlenova had been given a special scholarship at the age of sixteen to study philology in Paris. Within a year the Bulgarian sylph had become the last muse of the ageing Jean-Saul Fartre: in the renewed vigor of this senile infatuation, Fartre wrote his late masterpiece, the Critique of Heartless Reason, and died a year later, leaving his papers, library, and enormous fortune to Madlenova, who, catapulted to prominence by this inheritance and by the student revolt of 1968 in which she played a conspicuous role, published a series of immensely difficult books and became a full professor of the prestigious College des Hautes Etudes at the age of twenty-seven. Rumor had it that Madlenova's rise to fame and fortune was largely caused by her blinding beauty and by the utterly heartless calculation with which she chose her lovers, rumors which made Madlenova the role model of such aspiring feminist philosophers as my friend Lulu.
"Deride tells me that Madlenova is a very... difficult woman," Jiri Novak said nervously.
"It would be an incredible coup to have her," Man declared. His eyes shone with enthusiasm. Divka looked a little worried.
"We will have to ask Lord Hades." Professor Masaryk looked at me timorously. "Will you ask him?" I nodded. "Good," Masaryk said, brightening. "I think we have resolved everything, haven't we? Otto will be pleased with us. But where, oh, where is Lucy?"
I looked up in surprise. Professor Masaryk seemed agitated. His tie was askew and the buttons of his rumpled suit jacket were in the wrong holes. It was Monday morning and I didn't feel like telling him that his favourite secretary was probably carousing in the arms of an Amerikan embassy flack. "I'm afraid I don't know, sir," I lied sympathetically. "I saw her on Friday. Maybe she took a few days off."
"I don't know how I can work with you people!" the Director of the Prague college of the University of Truth and Justice said vehemently. He exasperatedly flipped through the papers on my desk with shaking hands and glared at the beer bottles and pizza boxes in my trashcan and at the bent butts in my ashtray. "How can we rely on you? You are untidy. You are irresponsible. You drink, smoke, and eat fattening foods. You take days off. You are young!"
"Don't worry, sir, we'll get older," I said, emptying the ashtray into the garbage in an effort to calm him.
"Yes, but it will be too late by then!" Masaryk replied heatedly. I bent to pick up the papers that he had sent flying all over the parquet. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled around on the floor looking at each piece of paper. "Where is it, oh, where is it? Otto will shout at me, I know it..." he mumbled tearfully.
"What exactly are you looking for, sir?"
"The agenda of this afternoon's meeting," Professor Masaryk replied, his cheeks waxen with worry. "Lucy typed it and sent copies to everyone, and now I've lost my copy. And she's not here. Oh, Lucy, where are you? Nobody has given me vitamins for days!"
I handed The Director a sheet of paper and a pill. His enormous sigh of relief made the papers on the floor fly like confetti all over the room and his large sunken eyes jumped back into place. He ran out of the room, whistling and skipping. I blinked a few times and picked up the remaining papers. I noticed a small crumpled piece of coarse toilet paper with a blotchy scrawled message on it. It was my turn to sigh. My boss, Otto Hell, had the unhygienic habit of scribbling his memoranda in the hours he spent closeted in the water closet. I tried to decipher his latest missive. It seemed to read `Gone fishing. Best wishes, Otto.' I looked out the window and pouted. It was a beautiful afternoon outside and I wished Hell had taken me fishing with him.
And as I sat in the dim conference room, panelled from ceiling to floor with somber walnut wood, reluctantly inhaling its musty odors of wood polish and stale air, I dreamed of the shady bank of a gurgling brook, of the drowsy drone of cicadas, of the dappled iridescence of leafy trees in bright sunlight, of pretty girls in white dresses and straw hats, of wicker picnic baskets and thick green bottles and thin stemmed glasses of champagne and bowls of strawberries, of blithe laughter and naive games, sweet dreams of an innocence I had never known... With a start, I realized that the meeting had already begun and that Professor Masaryk was impatiently asking me to take the minutes.
"As chairman, in the absence of our rector Lord Hades, I call this meeting to order," the Director began pompously. "As you know, we are gathered here to organize the activities of the Department of Culture. Novak is the chairman of the department but..." Masaryk turned to Professor Jiri Novak with an avuncular smile and palpitated his shoulder with a series of painful squeezes. "I hope he will let me give a few suggestions from time to time as an older colleague." Novak giggled, wriggled his neck from side to side, muttered something inaudible, and surreptitiously massaged his shoulder, making sure that nothing was broken. "We must introduce our students to the delights of culture!" the Director exclaimed excitedly, spreading his arms out wide. "To the delights of Central European culture! Welcome to Prague! This is what we must say to them. Welcome to the world of Schopenhauer, Schnitzler, Weininger, Freud, and Kafka! Welcome to the charms of Weltschmerz!"
A short balding man crossed his arms across his barrel chest and yawned ostentatiously. "Ah, yes, Piknik!" Masaryk exclaimed warmly. "You must give us the benefit of your advice." Everyone stared curiously at the famous ex-dissident. Cain Piknik cocked his head back on his thick neck and stared at the ceiling through closed eyes. A hush fell over the room, broken a few moments later by the sound of loud rhythmic snoring. "We will let him think," Masaryk said graciously. He turned again to Novak. "Now, Jiri. Introduce your staff to me. Tell me what they will teach our students."
"Well, Tomas..." Novak began hesitantly. "Shouldn't we begin with what we will teach?"
Masaryk seemed surprised. "Why, sociology, of course! I thought it had all been settled, my dear fellow."
"Well, Tomas, I don't think it has been settled..." A fierce red glint began to glow at the back of Novak's normally mild brown eyes as he rolled up the sleeves of his jacket in preparation for the usual brawl.
I gathered up my courage and decided to intervene. "Gentlemen, with all possible respect," I said firmly. "May I remind you of Lord Hades' solution to this issue? Neither Philosophy nor Sociology, the great man has said, but Culture." I sat back, satisfied, having said my piece.
Both men looked disconcerted and dissatisfied, like boxers who had been stopped from entering the ring at the very beginning of a championship fight and told that the prize money would be split between them and that there was no reason in the world for them to inflict brain damage on one another. "But what is culture?" Novak said rebelliously. Masaryk didn't seem to know the answer to that one either. Silence sat heavily in the room.
Piknik opened one eye briefly. "Half and half," he said enigmatically in a husky baritone and then closed his eye again. Satisfied snores again punctuated the baffled silence.
Immanuel meekly raised a hand at the end of the table. "I think I know what Mr. Piknik means. He wants us to split the spoils. We should hire one person from each related discipline. A sociologist." Masaryk nodded. "A philosopher." Novak nodded. "An architect." Masaryk nodded. "A philologist." Novak nodded. "An anthropologist." Both men shook their heads. "A historian." Both men burst out simultaneously in horrified disagreement.
"Coffee," the oracle murmured huskily. Eager hands filled a cup and raised it to Piknik's lips. He drank it down in a gulp, smacked his lips, shook himself, opened his eyes wide, and spoke in a pleasant tenor voice. "Are you a philosopher, my boy? I thought so. Only someone trained to decipher cryptic utterances pregnant with profound meaning can understand what I mean. This is the problem with the editorials I write for my newspaper. Novak and you can teach philosophy. Masaryk, I will persuade Flysenko, the famous Polish sociologist, to join you. And Hachek Katastrofski can be your architect. He is young and he still has some fascist leanings which proves that he is a bright lad with ambition. I know nothing about philology. I must go. I have a plane to catch. Be so kind as to give me ten thousand dollars immediately as my regular consultation fees. Thank you very much. I will mention your department and this university favorably in my next editorial. You will then have many Polish students. You will give me five thousand dollars per student. My fees for headhunting. The circulation of my newspaper is now over seven million since I decided to print soft pornography. Can you explain to me why men like to look at large uncovered breasts when they eat breakfast? I must run. Is the limousine downstairs? My private jet is waiting. Being a dissident was much more fun. Please give my best regards to Xox. Goodbye." Piknik walked rapidly around the conference table, shaking hands cordially with everyone except Divka, whose hand he raised to his lips with a fervent flourish and kissed with a self-satisfied smack, and then, slamming doors and whistling heartily, the oracle was gone.
"I know a philologist," Divka said uncertainly, breaking the thoughtful silence. "But I don't know if she will join the department."
"Why not?" Masaryk and Novak both looked offended. "We are both famous intellectuals. We have won prizes. Our weighty tomes are published in many languages. No conference is complete without our presence. Surely it would be an honor for any woman to work for us."
"I'm talking about Marya Madlenova," Divka said succinctly. Man whistled softly and both Masaryk and Novak looked alarmed. As well they might: Madlenova was not merely a world-famous intellectual who had won every single prize going, including the Goebbel for her nostalgic novel Before Calvary, and whose incredibly erudite academic writings were translated into every language, and whose presence at a conference would be reported on the front page of the New York Times; she was a legend. The only daughter of a Bulgarian diplomat of secretly noble extraction, Madlenova had been given a special scholarship at the age of sixteen to study philology in Paris. Within a year the Bulgarian sylph had become the last muse of the ageing Jean-Saul Fartre: in the renewed vigor of this senile infatuation, Fartre wrote his late masterpiece, the Critique of Heartless Reason, and died a year later, leaving his papers, library, and enormous fortune to Madlenova, who, catapulted to prominence by this inheritance and by the student revolt of 1968 in which she played a conspicuous role, published a series of immensely difficult books and became a full professor of the prestigious College des Hautes Etudes at the age of twenty-seven. Rumor had it that Madlenova's rise to fame and fortune was largely caused by her blinding beauty and by the utterly heartless calculation with which she chose her lovers, rumors which made Madlenova the role model of such aspiring feminist philosophers as my friend Lulu.
"Deride tells me that Madlenova is a very... difficult woman," Jiri Novak said nervously.
"It would be an incredible coup to have her," Man declared. His eyes shone with enthusiasm. Divka looked a little worried.
"We will have to ask Lord Hades." Professor Masaryk looked at me timorously. "Will you ask him?" I nodded. "Good," Masaryk said, brightening. "I think we have resolved everything, haven't we? Otto will be pleased with us. But where, oh, where is Lucy?"
