Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

When the air is smooth as milk and dew bejewels the lawn.

If you want to end it all, do it with good taste:

Find a sparkling waterfall, its spray spun and laced,

Scatter it with flowers whose fragrance lasts for hours,

Take something sweet to sustain you through the moment’s heat,

Breathe in and dive arrow-like, in your most graceful style

Straight as a die through the narrow gate, wearing a blissful smile.

‘Who wrote that?’

‘I did. I’ve written quite a pile of worthless verses. And so as not to fall into the temptation of reciting any more, let’s clink our glasses and drink to a good night and a forthcoming bright, sunny morning!’ said Arnoš Kozeny in high spirits.

And us? While life stumbles through thickets and briars, the tale is one of the constant high-fliers.

6.

The young man and the girl were sitting on a bench in the local park under a large chestnut tree whose luxuriant branches shrouded them like a green crown. The grass around them was moist and soft. It looked like a field prepared for an unusual ritual whose pagan signs no one was capable of deciphering. The local birds were changing their plumage and leaving their feathers everywhere. From a distance, it looked as though the young couple on the bench were protected by a feathery net, a large Indian ‘castle of dreams’. The birds hidden in the thick branches of the chestnut hushed their song to listen to the human chirruping.

‘You’re my pudding, my fruit pudding…’

The girl listened breathlessly, but her gaze was directed somewhere towards her feet, where from time to time she scratched one foot with the other.

‘You’re my peach melba, my cream alpine, my blueberry anglaise, my floating island, my chocolate éclair, my choux chantilly, my kirsch bûchette… you’re my kirsch puff.’

‘What?’ the girl laughed delightedly.

‘You’re my croque-en-bouche, my brioche, my brioche au sucre, my almond cookie, my rum baba, my biscuit, my biscuit de savoie, my profiterole,’ whispered Mevlo into the girl’s ear, which was pink as orange rind.

‘Ah, Mellow…’ whispered the girl, trembling from the intoxicating shivers running through her round body.

‘Mevlo…’ Mevlo corrected her.

‘Mellow…’ repeated the girl, looking at Mevlo with wide-open eyes.

‘My name is Mevlo…’ repeated Mevlo, plunging into those two green pools.

‘Mellow…’ said the girl sweetly.

‘OK, mala moja, vidim da mi to néceš naučit…’[8] Mevlo sighed resignedly.

Mevlo had taken a menu from the hotel confectioner’s and spent the whole night learning the names of cakes and sweets. That was the cleverest piece of advice that anyone could have given him. And it was advice given him by Arnoš Kozeny.

‘My dear young man,’ Arnoš Kozeny had said, when Mevlo complained in despair that he could not speak English and that he did not know how he could explain to the girl that he cared about her, ‘the fact that you don’t speak English is to your advantage. Because if you could, you might make a mistake. Whereas this way it’s quite immaterial what you say, chemical formulae or car parts. In any case in the first phase of being in love couples don’t talk. They chirrup…’

‘Like birds?’

‘Like birds, my boy…’ said Arnoš Kozeny, adding enigmatically: ‘Not only do they chirrup, but feathers fly in all directions.’

‘You’re my truffle, you’re my black forest gateau, you’re my gateau basque, my guadeloupe, my nian gao with one hundred fruits, my vassilopitta efkoli, my tremolat, my black devil, my gianduja ganache, my sachertorte, my caramel, my marzipan, my marquise, my mousse au chocolat, my passion fruit cream, my passion fruit, my fruit, my passion…’

‘Ah, Mellow…’

‘You’re my little strudel, my truffle, my fudge…’

‘I’m feeling mellow…’

‘Oh, Rosie, Ružice, my little rose, my rosebud…’

The young man and the girl were so deeply engrossed in their twitterings of love that they did not notice that a slight breeze had got up and lifted the feathers from the grass around them. The branches of the old chestnut rustled and feathers flew through the air.

Day Six, Epilogue

Even on this Saturday morning, the receptionist Pavel Zuna did not neglect his exercises in the warm hotel pool. Particularly as he was assisted by Jana, a young student at the Physiotherapy training school, who, thanks to her daddy’s connections, was doing her month’s placement in the best possible place, the Grand Hotel.

Under the command of the lovely Jana, Pavel Zuna was doing his exercises obediently. One-two-two-two-two-three… Zuna’s condition had markedly improved over the previous few days, and that nerve, taut as a bowstring until a little while ago, had relaxed. Immersed in warm water in the small pool, like an experienced hotel professional recognising a future professional, Pavel Zuna kept repeating:

‘Vy jeste velice talentovana, Jano, velice talentovana…’[9]